Willie Geist

My dad is so unique in what he does. It's not like I'm taking a torch from him and doing his thing. I hope I've carried from him a little bit of a sense of irony, a little bit of a wink.

I do remember vividly sometime after puberty when I'd answer the phone at home and the callers began to say, 'Hi, Bill!' That's when I knew Dad and I had the same voice.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, the blue blazer's a bit of a loose cannon. A suit decided long ago what it wanted to be, and it doesn't want to hear your ideas, but a blue blazer only got around to half the job. So it leaves it up to you to find its bottoms. Gray slacks, blue jeans, patterns, white pants and different blue shades all work.

I think there's something about the homemade birthday cake, because my wife, on my daughter's first birthday, started the tradition where she takes a full cake and cuts the number birthday out of it.

I can't say for sure where I was headed the first time my mom put a blue blazer on me. Church, probably. West Side Presbyterian in Ridgewood, New Jersey, specifically, where my blazer was paired with a clip-on tie and a pair of khakis for a Sunday morning with my fellow congregants.

Landing on 'Morning Joe' wasn't a fluke. I was a poli sci major in college. I interned at the CBS political unit, covered conventions.

Like a lot of kids, I had a Superman cake or different theme cakes, but then I hit the age where I think my mom thought I was ready for the German chocolate cake that she makes for my dad. Just the sight of that, the taste of that frosting, just reminds me of being at home with my mom and my dad and my sister and my friends.

Watching 'CSI: Miami' is like watching 'Teen Jeopardy!' or doing the crossword puzzle in 'People' magazine. It makes you feel smart even when you're not.

It doesn't matter if you're famous or infamous. All that matters is you're a celebrity.