Glenn Beck is ready to roll. The Headline News host is hitting the road to promote his new title, “An Inconvenient Book.”
Over the next two days Beck will visit eight cities across Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana. Next weekend Beck begins another of his stage shows in cities including Orlando, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Tulsa and Des Moines. And it all comes just weeks after Beck reportedly signed a 5-year, $50 million contract extension for his radio show.
After the jump, a TVNewser Q & A with Beck who describes his slow rise, hard fall, and rise again…
TVN: What motivated you to write this book?
Beck: Just the idea that I could get some of this information across, some of the stuff I’ve been wrestling with. In this book, I don’t like some of the answers, but I find them truthful. I’m putting them in a different format, a funny format. I spent a year with an artist coming up with [graphic illustrations]. It’s for people who don’t know the show or don’t like the show, they’ll look at the book and start to laugh and say ‘I agree with that.’ It’s a way to break down the barrier of nonsense created between the left and right in this country.
TVN: The title, An Inconvenient Book, that’s original, where did it come from?
Beck: (laughs) It comes off the Al Gore thing, but also comes from this: the most inconvenient thing is fact. I thought ‘let me start laying out some of the facts.’ We’re not in a society driven by problem-solvers anymore. The country is run by special interest groups and politicians who just want money and power.
TVN: In this book, you approach issues ranging from radical Islam to child molesters, to illegal immigration by taking a humorous approach. Is that what sets you apart from people like Bill O’Reilly and Lou Dobbs who seem to take this stuff so much more seriously?
Beck: People have said that. Child molesters, and radical Islam, I know it doesn’t sound funny. I guess when you look at it through common sense, you either laugh or you cry and we laugh. [The radio and TV broadcasts] are comedy shows. And in the winter it’s a one-man stage show. And I think that’s what separates me. There is a performance level in everything. The truth is powerful but the truth has to be told in an entertaining way. We’re in an MTV world now and, not that the content has to be MTV, but if you’re not packaging it in an MTV way, you’re done.”
TVN: Are you ever worried about saying the wrong thing?
Beck: I worry about saying the wrong thing all the time. Not that I’m worried that someone is out to get me; someone is always out there from the left or the right to get everybody. Where I beat myself up the most is when it comes out the wrong way, or sounds hurtful. I don’t want to be that guy.
TVN: You’ve had your ups and downs, overcoming drug and alcohol abuse. What was your key to recovery?
Beck: Knowing what I believe. I, for most of my life, was afraid of myself. I was trapped in my own selfishness and greed and ego until I bottomed out and realized death is the next step. A doctor told me, ‘You keep treating your body like this you’ll be dead in six months.’ Eight months later I was still drinking and doing drugs. I was suicidal. My mom took her life when I was 13. I was one of the few that was able to change and restart.
Number 1: The only thing I own of value is my word. So I’ve got to say what I mean. Number 2: I’ve got to know what I believe and why I believe it. I’m still sketchy on a lot of stuff. If you are unafraid of the answers you’ll find, not a slave to an agenda or particular answer, you just want the truth, everything in life will turn around for you.
TVN: Which do you like the most: radio, TV, being an author, or doing the road show?
Beck: Being an author is the hardest, because it takes so long. Then you put it to bed and it’s done. Radio and TV are so vastly different. Radio is my first love, but TV is…if i could ever figure it out…I just hope I’m always evolving.