Download or read book Self Amused written by Peter Funt and published by . This book was released on 2021-07-29 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on a lifetime doing TV's original reality show, "Candid Camera," as well as experiences from an insane number of odd jobs, Self-Amused offers laughs, loves and "Candid Camera" secrets, with zero universality. Peter Funt is surely the only person to ever be profiled in The New York Times while also writing for The Times, and at the same time selling copies of The Times on street corners. He was an award-winning journalist at ABC News, launched a national magazine that reached 1.5 million circulation-and also sold birthday cakes, dried flowers and restaurant placemats on which he printed news reports. Against the advice of lawyers, Peter argued a case on Court TV. He foolishly hit Cybill Shepherd with a four-layer cake, and sat next to Clint Eastwood on a private jet as Clint cuddled a baby pig. He spent a day with Mickey Mantle and painted a billboard on a highway outside Denver. Peter's bookkeeper stole $250,000 and his house was twice burglarized. He's rescued three cats and one crow, kidnapped a baby deer, and battled raccoons. Dad Allen Funt once painted Peter white from head to toe and had him pose as a Roman statue in an art gallery. He also ordered Peter to hang from a 10-foot ceiling so people might think they were in an "upside-down room." Peter says he's most proud of an award from a plumbing supply company, declaring the famous slogan "Smile, you're on Candid Camera" the most popular graffiti above restroom urinals. BONUS: Self-Amused comes with a free download of 15 "Candid Camera" sequences.

Download or read book So Here s the Thing written by Alyssa Mastromonaco and published by Twelve. This book was released on 2019-03-05 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the New York Times bestselling author of Who Thought This Was a Good Idea? comes a fun, frank book of reflections, essays, and interviews on topics important to young women, ranging from politics and career to motherhood, sisterhood, and making and sustaining relationships of all kinds in the age of social media. Alyssa Mastromonaco is back with a bold, no-nonsense, and no-holds-barred twenty-first-century girl's guide to life, tackling the highs and lows of bodies, politics, relationships, moms, education, life on the internet, and pop culture. Whether discussing Barbra Streisand or The Bachelor, working in the West Wing or working on finding a wing woman, Alyssa leaves no stone unturned...and no awkward situation unexamined. Like her bestseller Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?, SO HERE'S THE THING... brings a sharp eye and outsize sense of humor to the myriad issues facing women the world over, both in and out of the workplace. Along with Alyssa's personal experiences and hard-won life lessons, interviews with women like Monica Lewinsky, Susan Rice, and Chelsea Handler round out this modern woman's guide to, well, just about everything you can think of.

Download or read book Cue the Sun written by Emily Nussbaum and published by Random House. This book was released on 2024-06-25 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The rollicking saga of reality television—an ambitious cultural history of America’s most influential, most divisive artistic phenomenon, from the Pulitzer Prize–winning New Yorker writer “Written with a storyteller’s verve, a journalist’s skepticism, a critic’s astuteness, and a fan’s loving eye.”—Michael Chabon, author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay Who invented reality television, the world’s most dangerous pop-culture genre? And why can’t we look away? In this revelatory, deeply reported account of the rise of “dirty documentary”—from its contentious roots in radio to the ascent of Donald Trump—Emily Nussbaum unearths the origin story of the genre that ate the world, as told through the lively voices of the people who built it. At once gimlet-eyed and empathetic, Cue the Sun! explores the morally charged, funny, and sometimes tragic consequences of the hunt for something real inside something fake. In sharp, absorbing prose, Nussbaum traces the jagged fuses of experimentation that exploded with Survivor at the turn of the millennium. She introduces the genre’s trickster pioneers, from the icy Allen Funt to the shambolic Chuck Barris; Cops auteur John Langley; cynical Bachelor ringmaster Mike Fleiss; and Jon Murray and Mary-Ellis Bunim, the visionaries behind The Real World—along with dozens of stars from An American Family, The Real World, Big Brother, Survivor, and The Bachelor. We learn about the tools of the trade—like the Frankenbite, a deceptive editor’s best friend—and ugly tales of exploitation. But Cue the Sun! also celebrates reality’s peculiar power: a jolt of emotion that could never have come from a script. What happened to the first reality stars, the Louds—and why won’t they speak to the couple who filmed them? Which serial killer won on The Dating Game? Nussbaum explores reality TV as a strike-breaker, the queer roots of Bravo, the dark truth behind The Apprentice, and more. A shrewd observer who adores television, Nussbaum is the ideal voice for the first substantive history of the genre that, for better or worse, made America what it is today.

Download or read book Playing POTUS written by Peter Funt and published by . This book was released on 2023-06-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An entertaining and probing look at how comedic impressions of U.S. presidents evolved from Kennedy to Biden-and their impact on real-life politics.

Download or read book Proving Ground written by William David Tarver and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What would cause a young African American engineer to walk away from a promising career at the world's foremost electronics research and development company to start a business, from scratch, in his basement? David Tarver not only did that, he convinced two African American colleagues to join him in the improbable venture. Twelve years later, he negotiated the sale of that venture, Telecom Analysis Systems Inc., for $30 million. Tarver's business success was accomplished without the help of angel investors, venture capital, government grants, or minority business development programs. Overcoming obstacles related to race, technology, and business, Tarver and his colleagues conceived, designed, engineered, and manufactured sophisticated telecommunications instruments and sold them in more than twenty countries. David Tarver felt he had something important to prove to himself, to his colleagues, and to society. That is why he was willing to risk everything on a roll of the entrepreneuri

Download or read book Heads in Beds written by Jacob Tomsky and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2013-07-30 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the tradition of Kitchen Confidential and Waiter Rant, a rollicking, eye-opening, fantastically indiscreet memoir of a life spent (and misspent) in the hotel industry. “Highly amusing."—New York Times Jacob Tomsky never intended to go into the hotel business. As a new college graduate, armed only with a philosophy degree and a singular lack of career direction, he became a valet parker for a large luxury hotel in New Orleans. Yet, rising fast through the ranks, he ended up working in “hospitality” for more than a decade, doing everything from supervising the housekeeping department to manning the front desk at an upscale Manhattan hotel. He’s checked you in, checked you out, separated your white panties from the white bed sheets, parked your car, tasted your room-service meals, cleaned your toilet, denied you a late checkout, given you a wake-up call, eaten M&Ms out of your minibar, laughed at your jokes, and taken your money. In Heads in Beds he pulls back the curtain to expose the crazy and compelling reality of a multi-billion-dollar industry we think we know. Heads in Beds is a funny, authentic, and irreverent chronicle of the highs and lows of hotel life, told by a keenly observant insider who’s seen it all. Prepare to be amused, shocked, and amazed as he spills the unwritten code of the bellhops, the antics that go on in the valet parking garage, the housekeeping department’s dirty little secrets—not to mention the shameless activities of the guests, who are rarely on their best behavior. Prepare to be moved, too, by his candor about what it’s like to toil in a highly demanding service industry at the luxury level, where people expect to get what they pay for (and often a whole lot more). Employees are poorly paid and frequently abused by coworkers and guests alike, and maintaining a semblance of sanity is a daily challenge. Along his journey Tomsky also reveals the secrets of the industry, offering easy ways to get what you need from your hotel without any hassle. This book (and a timely proffered twenty-dollar bill) will help you score late checkouts and upgrades, get free stuff galore, and make that pay-per-view charge magically disappear. Thanks to him you’ll know how to get the very best service from any business that makes its money from putting heads in beds. Or, at the very least, you will keep the bellmen from taking your luggage into the camera-free back office and bashing it against the wall repeatedly.

Download or read book Inside the Third Reich written by Albert Speer and published by . This book was released on 1970 with total page 832 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'INSIDE THE THIRD REICH is not only the most significant personal German account to come out of the war but the most revealing document on the Hitler phenomenon yet written. It takes the reader inside Nazi Germany on four different levels: Hitler's inner circle, National Socialism as a whole, the area of wartime production and the inner struggle of Albert Speer. The author does not try to make excuses, even by implication, and is unrelenting toward himself and his associates... Speer's full-length portrait of Hitler has unnerving reality. The Fuhrer emerges as neither an incompetent nor a carpet-gnawing madman but as an evil genius of warped conceits endowed with an ineffable personal magic' NEW YORK TIMES

Download or read book So Me written by Graham Norton and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2011-12-08 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Graham Norton, whose impish charm and quick wit has earned him a place in our hearts, looks back at his life so far. In his own words, SO ME is 'a real romp through a journey from living in a cockroach-infested council flat in Hackney to buying Claudia Schiffer's townhouse in Manhattan, from my mother dragging me to school to me dragging her to Sharon Stone's house for New Year's brunch'. From a not-so miserable Irish childhood to dropping out of Cork University and joining a commune of hippies in San Francisco, from his disastrous attempts at becoming a serious actor to the rise of his comedy career in London, this is a hilarious, insightful and moving account of a colourful life.

Download or read book A Drinking Life written by Pete Hamill and published by Back Bay Books. This book was released on 2008-12-14 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This bestselling memoir from a seasoned New York City reporter is "a vivid report of a journey to the edge of self-destruction" (New York Times). !--StartFragment-- As a child during the Depression and World War II, Pete Hamill learned early that drinking was an essential part of being a man, inseparable from the rituals of celebration, mourning, friendship, romance, and religion. Only later did he discover its ability to destroy any writer's most valuable tools: clarity, consciousness, memory. In A Drinking Life, Hamill explains how alcohol slowly became a part of his life, and how he ultimately left it behind. Along the way, he summons the mood of an America that is gone forever, with the bittersweet fondness of a lifelong New Yorker. !--EndFragment--"Magnificent. A Drinking Life is about growing up and growing old, working and trying to work, within the culture of drink." --Boston Globe

Download or read book Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life written by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and published by Crown. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A memoir in bite-size chunks from the author of the viral Modern Love column “You May Want to Marry My Husband.” “[Rosenthal] shines her generous light of humanity on the seemingly humdrum moments of life and shows how delightfully precious they actually are.” —The Chicago Sun-Times How do you conjure a life? Give the truest account of what you saw, felt, learned, loved, strived for? For Amy Krouse Rosenthal, the surprising answer came in the form of an encyclopedia. In Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life she has ingeniously adapted this centuries-old format for conveying knowledge into a poignant, wise, often funny, fully realized memoir. Using mostly short entries organized from A to Z, many of which are cross-referenced, Rosenthal captures in wonderful and episodic detail the moments, observations, and emotions that comprise a contemporary life. Start anywhere—preferably at the beginning—and see how one young woman’s alphabetized existence can open up and define the world in new and unexpected ways. An ordinary life, perhaps, but an extraordinary book.

Download or read book Are You Somebody written by Nuala O'Faolain and published by Dufour Editions. This book was released on 1996 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Memoir followed by a selection of Nuala O'Faolain's columns on people, issues, and places from the Irish times over the past decade.

Download or read book Amusing Ourselves to Death written by Neil Postman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2005-12-27 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What happens when media and politics become forms of entertainment? As our world begins to look more and more like Orwell's 1984, Neil's Postman's essential guide to the modern media is more relevant than ever. "It's unlikely that Trump has ever read Amusing Ourselves to Death, but his ascent would not have surprised Postman.” -CNN Originally published in 1985, Neil Postman’s groundbreaking polemic about the corrosive effects of television on our politics and public discourse has been hailed as a twenty-first-century book published in the twentieth century. Now, with television joined by more sophisticated electronic media—from the Internet to cell phones to DVDs—it has taken on even greater significance. Amusing Ourselves to Death is a prophetic look at what happens when politics, journalism, education, and even religion become subject to the demands of entertainment. It is also a blueprint for regaining control of our media, so that they can serve our highest goals. “A brilliant, powerful, and important book. This is an indictment that Postman has laid down and, so far as I can see, an irrefutable one.” –Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post Book World

Download or read book Diary of an Oxygen Thief written by Anonymous and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-05-23 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hurt people hurt people. Say there was a novel in which Holden Caulfield was an alcoholic and Lolita was a photographer’s assistant and, somehow, they met in Bright Lights, Big City. He’s blinded by love. She by ambition. Diary of an Oxygen Thief is an honest, hilarious, and heartrending novel, but above all, a very realistic account of what we do to each other and what we allow to have done to us.

Download or read book HELP written by Oliver Burkeman and published by Canongate Books. This book was released on 2011-01-06 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do you solve the problem of human happiness? It’s a subject that has occupied some of the greatest philosophers of all time, from Aristotle to Paul McKenna – but how do we sort the good ideas from the terrible ones? Over the past few years, Oliver Burkeman has travelled to some of the strangest outposts of the ‘happiness industry’ in an attempt to find out. In Help!, the first collection of his popular Guardian columns, Burkeman presents his findings. It’s a witty and thought-provoking exploration that punctures many of self-help’s most common myths, while also offering clear-headed, practical and of ten counter-intuitive advice on a range of topics from stress, procrastination and insomnia to wealth, laughter, time management and creativity. It doesn’t claim to have solved the problem of human happiness. But it might just bring us one step closer.

Download or read book Yours Cruelly Elvira written by Cassandra Peterson and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2021-09-21 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The woman behind the icon known as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, the undisputed Queen of Halloween, reveals her full story filled with intimate bombshells—told by the bombshell herself. On Good Friday in 1953, at only 18 months old, 25 miles from the nearest hospital in Manhattan, Kansas, Cassandra Peterson reached for a pot on the stove and doused herself in boiling water. Third-degree burns covered 35% of her body, and the prognosis wasn't good. But she survived. Burned and scarred, the impact stayed with her and became an obstacle she was determined to overcome. Feeling like a misfit led to her love of horror. While her sisters played with Barbie dolls, Cassandra built model kits of Frankenstein and Dracula, and idolized Vincent Price. Due to a complicated relationship with her mother, Cassandra left home at 14, and by age 17 she was performing at the famed Dunes Hotel in Las Vegas. Run-ins with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., and Tom Jones helped her grow up fast. Then a chance encounter with her idol Elvis Presley, changed the course of her life forever, and led her to Europe where she worked in film and traveled Italy as lead singer of an Italian pop band. She eventually made her way to Los Angeles, where she joined the famed comedy improv group, The Groundlings, and worked alongside Phil Hartman and Paul "Pee-wee" Reubens, honing her comedic skills. Nearing age 30, a struggling actress considered past her prime, she auditioned at local LA channel KHJ as hostess for the late night vintage horror movies. Cassandra improvised, made the role her own, and got the job on the spot. Yours Cruelly, Elvira is an unforgettably wild memoir. Cassandra doesn't shy away from revealing exactly who she is and how she overcame seemingly insurmountable odds. Always original and sometimes outrageous, her story is loaded with twists, travails, revelry, and downright shocking experiences. It is the candid, often funny, and sometimes heart-breaking tale of a Midwest farm girl's long strange trip to become the world's sexiest, sassiest Halloween icon. Instant New York Times Bestseller, Los Angeles Times Bestseller, USA Today Bestseller, Publishers Weekly Bestseller A New York Times Best Books to Give This Season selection

Download or read book American Bloomsbury written by Susan Cheever and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2007-09-18 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A portrait of five Concord, Massachusetts, writers whose works were at the center of mid-nineteenth-century American thought and literature evaluates their interconnected relationships, influence on each other's works, and complex beliefs.

Download or read book The Truth about Stories written by Thomas King and published by House of Anansi. This book was released on 2003 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2003 Trillium Book Award "Stories are wondrous things," award-winning author and scholar Thomas King declares in his 2003 CBC Massey Lectures. "And they are dangerous." Beginning with a traditional Native oral story, King weaves his way through literature and history, religion and politics, popular culture and social protest, gracefully elucidating North America's relationship with its Native peoples. Native culture has deep ties to storytelling, and yet no other North American culture has been the subject of more erroneous stories. The Indian of fact, as King says, bears little resemblance to the literary Indian, the dying Indian, the construct so powerfully and often destructively projected by White North America. With keen perception and wit, King illustrates that stories are the key to, and only hope for, human understanding. He compels us to listen well.