You get Moore for your money
Sep. 28th, 2004 12:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kleenexwomanGot a ride back from home yesterday with Zac Herman and his mom. The Hermans are friends of Dad. Zac spent a great deal of the trip yelling at his mom and singing along with Bette Midler CDs. In the words of Grandma Debbie, "I don't know if he's gay or straight or what, but he's such a nice boy." Except for the nice boy part.
Anyway, Zac, as it turns out, is a member of On The Fly productions, which books people to come to schools. He was very, very enthusiastic about Michael Moore and was pleased that I was too.
And thus my blog about The Michael Moore Speech.
Media class got out a little early, so I had time to grab a bite before I sauntered over to the SAC at 6:30.
I could see the protest from Washington. There were about 50 kids standing on the curb, holding homemade "We ♥ Bush" signs and "Honk if you like Bush" signs.
A kid in line behind me said, "I like bush, but not that kind."
"I like my girlfriend's bush," another kid added.
One kid had a sign saying "We'd rather have our money than Moore!" Not entirely sure what he meant by that; tickets were free to students. Maybe he meant that he didn't want the university spending money on getting Moore to speak. Hey, you get Moore for your money!
I was pretty excited--it was the first protest I'd ever seen on campus! Never mind that it wasn't hippies.
I mentioned this to a nice old lady professor behind me, who told me that if I wanted to see a real protest, I should have seen the one back in 2002 when the war started. "That," she said, "was a big protest."
People were going up and down the ticket line with stickers and newspapers. I got a "Vote W. Out!" sticker and a copy of the CMU alternative newspaper. I had vaguely resolved to go to a meeting, but the first meeting took place on a Poetry Circle night so I didn't. Oh well.
One of the big chants for the W side was "Four more years!" The chant for the anti-W side was "One more month!"
Some students had brought anti-Bush signs with the standard "When Clinton lied, nobody died" and "Lick Bush Now!" slogans. The two sides kind of drifted over, and then some kids got into a placard fight. It wasn't serious, I think.
There weren't just students, of course. There were many old hippies. I mean, old hippies, the kind that still wear macrame boots (seriously) and tribal necklaces.
A real dialogue I heard:
Boy with Bush sticker: "Bush Bush he's our man..."
Girl with Kerry sticker: "Tell that to the dying Iraqis!"
Boy: "Yeah, tell that to the Iraqis who Saddam killed!"
Girl: "Ok, what about the dying American soldiers, then?"
Boy: "You Democrats. Always thinking of yourselves."
I was kind of expecting them to start making out, but the line started to move.
There was a guy by the door with an orange sign, yelling. I thought for a second he was Preacher Rick--he sounded just like him--but, as it turned out, he was not.
Guy: "You think this is right?"
Students: "YES!"
Guy: "If CMU really believed in free speech, they would have let a Republican speak too!" Because I'm sure that so many famous Republican pundits are just breaking down the doors of the OTF office trying to get a speaking date.
There was also a lady giving out "Kerry/Edwards" placards a few feet away from the door. Signs were not allowed; 60 feet into the arena was a guy collecting the signs. I hope they got recycled.
I got tickets in section LL, in the bleachers. Serves me right for waiting until last week to get my free tickets.
The doors opened at 7:15, and the show was supposed to start at 8 PM. It did not. At 8 PM, the auditorium was maybe 2/3 full and people were still trickling in.
There were a surprising amount of Bush/Cheney stickers, but of course there were more Kerry/Edwards stickers. And of course many, many anti-W T-shirts. I did see one non-political T-shirt I liked: "Tough guys wear pink." And some guy had the cojones to wear a Ross Perot '92 T-shirt. Awesome.
At 8:15, the auditorium was fuller and I was craving sausage pizza, for some reason. The sound system kicked in suddenly and started playing Springsteen; I think it was a track from "The Rising."
The nice lady professor who I mentioned earlier sat next to me. She mentioned that some doctors believe that Bush is actually in the early stages of Alzheimer's; they concluded this from comparing his speeches from now and from when he was governor.
Huh.
Anyway, the new remix of "Give Peace a Chance" came on. I found myself singing along and headbopping. Quel geek yo soy.
8:30: An announcement came: We must start squishing ourselves into the bleachers. Nobody did.
Then, Mike came onstage! People were screaming. Mike started dancing like a goon, which was very very amusing. If you've never seen Michael Moore dance, I suggest you buy him a drink and watch him boogie.
Then he spoke. He actually has a weird speaking voice; it's got shades of Sylvester the Cat and Kermit the Frog.
I'm not going to resummarize his speech here. It was mostly information from his book and opinions from his website, www.michaelmoore.com.
So here are some highlights of the speech:
◊ He likes Central a lot. Some of his best friends went there because they couldn't get into U of M, and they had the best four years of their lives there.
◊ He compared the way Republicans react to the mention of his name to the way Holy Rollers try to cast out demons.
◊ He did give a shoutout and a big hug to all his Republican homies in the auditorium.
◊ Democrats=slackers. Which is good, because we like slackers. He would explain this later.
◊ He was impressed that his campaign managed to take Republicans away from their campaigning and their jobs to stand out on a side street and hold signs. I cross-referenced this to P.J. O'Rourke's reason of why whenever there's a protest, you see thousands of liberal hippies with huge signs and elaboate costumes, but only three Young Republicans in wing-tips with a Magic Marker sign. "We have jobs," he said. You're in trouble here, P.J.
◊ He used a slide whistle to illustrate Bush's flipfloppings.
At 9 PM, a few OTF aides brought out a couple of huge rotating floor fans. Which Mike needed; he was schvitzing like crazy and had to stop to mop his brow with his CMU hat (FIRE UP CHIPS!) a few times.
◊ He showed some footage that he cut from the 9/11 movie (it'll be on the DVD extras, and don't worry--he's given you permission to make as many copies as you like). It showed some footage of Iraqis prewar; they talked about how everything was normal and how they did not like the idea of an American invasion.
◊ He went off-topic, and I mean way off-topic, several times, mostly to insert bits from his books that he particularly liked. Like the bit about how white men are dying out because of aluminium stepladders. Ridiculous, yes--but also funny.
9:30 PM: Right after he showed the footage, a bunch of people left. I am not sure why. Maybe they had a frat meeting to go to.
◊ People kept yelling out topics that they wanted him to rant on. "What about the vacations?" some guy bellowed. So he mentioned the vacations. It was like being in a lecture hall with...er, me.
◊ "The Slacker Uprising Tour" is about getting slackers to vote. Very admirable. He called up 2 guys who had never voted; they were both in their late 20s. He bribed them to vote with ramen. The ramen got big cheers.
At about 9:45, I tried to move to a different section so that I could see him better. I got to ogle for about five minutes before a floor aide came over and asked me to get back to my seat. I must say that Michael Moore looks kind of like a big blob of flesh whether you're up close or 50 feet away.
◊ He showed some faux commercials for the Bush campaign. They were very funny. I think you can download them on the website.
◊ He then read a few pages of "My Pet Goat". It's actually a pretty good book. It's about a goat who saves the girl that owns him from a carjacking. I am not making this up.
◊ Soldiers in Iraq sent Mike lots of letters. He's putting them in a book, which will be out next week. The author in him wanted to tell everyone to buy fifty copies in hardback, I could tell.
Walking back, a guy on a bike singing a song about the speech passed me. "Kerry, yeah, he's our maaaaaaaan..." to the approximate tune of "God Save the Queen" (the Sex Pistols version). I also saw quite a few "OPRAH-HEAD for President" spraypaints; getting Oprah to run for President is a large part of one of Moore's books. I don't remember which, but it was funny.
On the way back to my dorm, I saw a girl sitting on the porch screaming into her cell phone. "Why didn't you ever tell me that Bush let Osama's family out of the country? No, Michael Moore just told me...I would have, like, expected you to know! You're the, like, political guy!" A pause. "For Bush? I'm so not going out with you anymore."
Political invective as relationship breaker.
Anyway, Zac, as it turns out, is a member of On The Fly productions, which books people to come to schools. He was very, very enthusiastic about Michael Moore and was pleased that I was too.
And thus my blog about The Michael Moore Speech.
Media class got out a little early, so I had time to grab a bite before I sauntered over to the SAC at 6:30.
I could see the protest from Washington. There were about 50 kids standing on the curb, holding homemade "We ♥ Bush" signs and "Honk if you like Bush" signs.
A kid in line behind me said, "I like bush, but not that kind."
"I like my girlfriend's bush," another kid added.
One kid had a sign saying "We'd rather have our money than Moore!" Not entirely sure what he meant by that; tickets were free to students. Maybe he meant that he didn't want the university spending money on getting Moore to speak. Hey, you get Moore for your money!
I was pretty excited--it was the first protest I'd ever seen on campus! Never mind that it wasn't hippies.
I mentioned this to a nice old lady professor behind me, who told me that if I wanted to see a real protest, I should have seen the one back in 2002 when the war started. "That," she said, "was a big protest."
People were going up and down the ticket line with stickers and newspapers. I got a "Vote W. Out!" sticker and a copy of the CMU alternative newspaper. I had vaguely resolved to go to a meeting, but the first meeting took place on a Poetry Circle night so I didn't. Oh well.
One of the big chants for the W side was "Four more years!" The chant for the anti-W side was "One more month!"
Some students had brought anti-Bush signs with the standard "When Clinton lied, nobody died" and "Lick Bush Now!" slogans. The two sides kind of drifted over, and then some kids got into a placard fight. It wasn't serious, I think.
There weren't just students, of course. There were many old hippies. I mean, old hippies, the kind that still wear macrame boots (seriously) and tribal necklaces.
A real dialogue I heard:
Boy with Bush sticker: "Bush Bush he's our man..."
Girl with Kerry sticker: "Tell that to the dying Iraqis!"
Boy: "Yeah, tell that to the Iraqis who Saddam killed!"
Girl: "Ok, what about the dying American soldiers, then?"
Boy: "You Democrats. Always thinking of yourselves."
I was kind of expecting them to start making out, but the line started to move.
There was a guy by the door with an orange sign, yelling. I thought for a second he was Preacher Rick--he sounded just like him--but, as it turned out, he was not.
Guy: "You think this is right?"
Students: "YES!"
Guy: "If CMU really believed in free speech, they would have let a Republican speak too!" Because I'm sure that so many famous Republican pundits are just breaking down the doors of the OTF office trying to get a speaking date.
There was also a lady giving out "Kerry/Edwards" placards a few feet away from the door. Signs were not allowed; 60 feet into the arena was a guy collecting the signs. I hope they got recycled.
I got tickets in section LL, in the bleachers. Serves me right for waiting until last week to get my free tickets.
The doors opened at 7:15, and the show was supposed to start at 8 PM. It did not. At 8 PM, the auditorium was maybe 2/3 full and people were still trickling in.
There were a surprising amount of Bush/Cheney stickers, but of course there were more Kerry/Edwards stickers. And of course many, many anti-W T-shirts. I did see one non-political T-shirt I liked: "Tough guys wear pink." And some guy had the cojones to wear a Ross Perot '92 T-shirt. Awesome.
At 8:15, the auditorium was fuller and I was craving sausage pizza, for some reason. The sound system kicked in suddenly and started playing Springsteen; I think it was a track from "The Rising."
The nice lady professor who I mentioned earlier sat next to me. She mentioned that some doctors believe that Bush is actually in the early stages of Alzheimer's; they concluded this from comparing his speeches from now and from when he was governor.
Huh.
Anyway, the new remix of "Give Peace a Chance" came on. I found myself singing along and headbopping. Quel geek yo soy.
8:30: An announcement came: We must start squishing ourselves into the bleachers. Nobody did.
Then, Mike came onstage! People were screaming. Mike started dancing like a goon, which was very very amusing. If you've never seen Michael Moore dance, I suggest you buy him a drink and watch him boogie.
Then he spoke. He actually has a weird speaking voice; it's got shades of Sylvester the Cat and Kermit the Frog.
I'm not going to resummarize his speech here. It was mostly information from his book and opinions from his website, www.michaelmoore.com.
So here are some highlights of the speech:
◊ He likes Central a lot. Some of his best friends went there because they couldn't get into U of M, and they had the best four years of their lives there.
◊ He compared the way Republicans react to the mention of his name to the way Holy Rollers try to cast out demons.
◊ He did give a shoutout and a big hug to all his Republican homies in the auditorium.
◊ Democrats=slackers. Which is good, because we like slackers. He would explain this later.
◊ He was impressed that his campaign managed to take Republicans away from their campaigning and their jobs to stand out on a side street and hold signs. I cross-referenced this to P.J. O'Rourke's reason of why whenever there's a protest, you see thousands of liberal hippies with huge signs and elaboate costumes, but only three Young Republicans in wing-tips with a Magic Marker sign. "We have jobs," he said. You're in trouble here, P.J.
◊ He used a slide whistle to illustrate Bush's flipfloppings.
At 9 PM, a few OTF aides brought out a couple of huge rotating floor fans. Which Mike needed; he was schvitzing like crazy and had to stop to mop his brow with his CMU hat (FIRE UP CHIPS!) a few times.
◊ He showed some footage that he cut from the 9/11 movie (it'll be on the DVD extras, and don't worry--he's given you permission to make as many copies as you like). It showed some footage of Iraqis prewar; they talked about how everything was normal and how they did not like the idea of an American invasion.
◊ He went off-topic, and I mean way off-topic, several times, mostly to insert bits from his books that he particularly liked. Like the bit about how white men are dying out because of aluminium stepladders. Ridiculous, yes--but also funny.
9:30 PM: Right after he showed the footage, a bunch of people left. I am not sure why. Maybe they had a frat meeting to go to.
◊ People kept yelling out topics that they wanted him to rant on. "What about the vacations?" some guy bellowed. So he mentioned the vacations. It was like being in a lecture hall with...er, me.
◊ "The Slacker Uprising Tour" is about getting slackers to vote. Very admirable. He called up 2 guys who had never voted; they were both in their late 20s. He bribed them to vote with ramen. The ramen got big cheers.
At about 9:45, I tried to move to a different section so that I could see him better. I got to ogle for about five minutes before a floor aide came over and asked me to get back to my seat. I must say that Michael Moore looks kind of like a big blob of flesh whether you're up close or 50 feet away.
◊ He showed some faux commercials for the Bush campaign. They were very funny. I think you can download them on the website.
◊ He then read a few pages of "My Pet Goat". It's actually a pretty good book. It's about a goat who saves the girl that owns him from a carjacking. I am not making this up.
◊ Soldiers in Iraq sent Mike lots of letters. He's putting them in a book, which will be out next week. The author in him wanted to tell everyone to buy fifty copies in hardback, I could tell.
Walking back, a guy on a bike singing a song about the speech passed me. "Kerry, yeah, he's our maaaaaaaan..." to the approximate tune of "God Save the Queen" (the Sex Pistols version). I also saw quite a few "OPRAH-HEAD for President" spraypaints; getting Oprah to run for President is a large part of one of Moore's books. I don't remember which, but it was funny.
On the way back to my dorm, I saw a girl sitting on the porch screaming into her cell phone. "Why didn't you ever tell me that Bush let Osama's family out of the country? No, Michael Moore just told me...I would have, like, expected you to know! You're the, like, political guy!" A pause. "For Bush? I'm so not going out with you anymore."
Political invective as relationship breaker.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-28 07:02 pm (UTC)""Why didn't you ever tell me that Bush let Osama's family out of the country? No, Michael Moore just told me...""
I love how she stops to verify facts - like that Clinton let Osama out of the U.S. 3 times - and then uses her political viewpoints as excuse to pressure her boyfriend into changing his vote with threatening their relationship.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-29 07:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-28 07:42 pm (UTC)that made me laugh. random...but funny.