Harmon Leon - Böcker

For some, the American Dream is a pre-fab house in the suburbs with 2.5 kids and a two-week vacation at the end of the year. To others, it is working a push fruit cart in Oakland in order to put food on the family's table in Oaxaca. In The American Dream Harmon Leon draws upon his experiences of adopting personas and disguises to infiltrate the various institutions of everyday life, living among a diverse range of subcultures and learning first hand how they see their vision and utopia. His incursions include working as a marijuana farmer in a hippie commune in Northern California becoming a carnie in rural Indiana visiting a tourist attraction in Mexico (that allows people to simulate illegally crossing the border) venturing to Hollywood while trying to climb the ranks in the star-making machine and working in the strawberries fields of California with newly arrived immigrants. The American Dream is a funny, satirical, and ultimately poignant take on what it means to be an American today.

A flaming liberal in real life, Leon has been called 'a cross between Michael Moore and South Park'. He shares with readers his hilarious misadventures as he dons the persona of a 'pissed-off convenience store clerk' at the Knob Creek Biannual Machine Gun Shoot in Bullit County, Kentucky. Next, he's working security in southern California at an 'Arnold for Governor' rally, where he has several memorable encounters with the Terminator himself - and finds himself constantly promoted! But this is only the beginning. Leon reports on his zany experience at a Christian wrestling extravaganza, where the scantily clad wrestlers toss opponents into the stands in the name of Jesus. Taking a different tack, he paints on temporary tattoos, wears a black T-shirt reading 'Kill 'em all. Let God sort 'em out!' and then entertainingly describes the reactions he gets when he tries to purchase a condominium in an exclusive gated community.

Called 'a cross between Michael Moore and South Park', gonzo journalist Harmon Leon shares his undercover exploits among fringe right-wingers in this riotously funny book where he exposes the harrowing and hilarious reality of living in red-state America. Follow Harmon in this twisted sampler of 'infiltration journalism' on each of his missions impossible as he dons various ingenious disguises, goes undercover, tries various ways to eke out a living, and then just barely escapes to report on the shocking and very funny truth about surviving in conservative America.