Wednesday, October 25th, 2002
Yes, It Was a Bushmaster.

Dear friends,

Yesterday, Larry Bennett, a 16-year old, was shot in the head after he was involved in a minor traffic accident. You probably didn't hear about it because, well, how could he be dead if he wasn't shot by The Sniper?

Yesterday, an unidentified woman was shot to death in her car in Fenton, MI. You probably didn't hear about it because she had the misfortune of not being shot by The Sniper.

Two nights ago, Charles D. Bennett, 48, an apartment security guard, was shot to death after confronting two teenagers in his parking lot in Memphis, TN. You probably didn't hear about it because the sniper was too busy sleeping in his car that night, and thus, poor Charles was not shot by The Sniper.

Yes, The Sniper has apparently been caught, so we can go back now to NOT reporting the DOZENS of gun deaths that occur every day, the ones that just aren't newsworthy because they happen in all those old boring ways -- unlike the ways of The Sniper, who was interesting and creative and exciting and scary! He played so much better on the news.

Of course, had Congress not caved in to the NRA we would have known after the first HOUR of the first day of the killings three weeks ago that those bullets were coming out of a rifle that belonged to John Williams/Mohammad. How would we know this? It's right there in the state records in New Jersey: this gun was purchased this past July, under the name of John Mohammad!

Many more people died needlessly in the days and weeks after that first hour of the shootings, and every one of their deaths could have probably been prevented had we had a national ballistics fingerprinting data base.

Thank you, Mr. Heston for this unnecessary carnage. Thank you, Mr. Bush, for supporting Mr. Heston and his group's agenda -- which protects only the criminals.

And thank you, Bushmaster Firearms, Inc., for providing the gun used to shoot the 13 people in the DC area. Bushmaster's president, Richard E. Dyke, was the Maine finance chairman of George W. Bush's 2000 Presidential campaign. According to Business Week, Dyke had to step down as Bush's finance chair "after reporters began quizzing him about his business dealings. Bushmaster Firearms Inc., is notorious for using loopholes to sidestep a 1994 federal ban on assault rifles." Bush and Bushmaster. Too tragically perfect.

If everyone reading this letter (and you now number in the millions) would share this fact with just one person who is thinking of skipping going to the polls on Nov. 5th, I believe that on Nov. 6th, Mr. Bush will have neither the Senate nor the House doing his or Heston's bidding. Americans don't like people who assist serial killers in being able to ratchet up their kills because The Sniper knows that his bullets are prohibited by law from being traced to his gun.

That, in a nutshell, is what the NRA is all about -- and I implore all responsible gun owners and hunters to join with me in putting an end to the NRA agenda once and for all. Don't give Bush his majority on November 5th. He's already seen to it that his cronies in big business have wiped out your 401 (K), and they are doing their best to see that you are left with no pension at all. That alone should be reason enough to NOT pull a single lever for a Republican on Nov. 5th. Send a message. Do something brave.

Yours,

Michael Moore mike@michaelmoore.com www.michaelmoore.com

PS. "Bowling for Columbine" opens in a few dozen new cities this weekend, including Portland, Minneapolis, Sacramento, South Florida, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Baltimore, St. Louis, Kansas City, Cleveland, a bunch of towns in New Jersey, that village in Connecticut where we liberated the beaches, a theatre in Times Square, Detroit (Royal Oak), and Denver. Click here to see the full list of theatres where it opens today.

PPS. Don't forget to show up in DC or SF tomorrow to voice your opposition to the War on Iraq. Many other cities are holding rallies. Check out my mission from the Office of Homeland Security for details.

PPPS. You can find out more about the candidates to beat and the ones to support in the upcoming election here.


http://michaelmoore.com/message/index.php

well godammit. i was so excited about my math exam grade, almost certain i got above a 90, which would definitely help my chances of passing this class, and i get online this afternoon finally to find that i got an 82. what an ugly number. though i suppose it is a step towards passing.. i just have to make a 60 or above on the next two tests and then i make a D. if Ds count, i'm not sure.. but she had a range of numbers that would equal a D on the syllabus so i'm guessing they count. college is dumb.

i love dave grohl. is it any wonder the only three good songs on the radio are all involving him? new nirvana, new foo, new queens of the stoneage. rock n roll. he is the king midas of rock. the foo fighters album is good but not as good as i thought i'd think it would be.. maybe it'll grow on me like coldplay has - what is with the best song on albums being the single? that used to not be so. the colour and the shape is still my favorite, and the one after that is probably better than this one a little.. i need to buy that, i have it on tape somewhere. and i'd like to get whatever came before the colour and the shape. that was heavier, i remember it from beavis and butthead. ;)

i'm going to start volunteering tuesday and thursday afternoons at that jazz station. i'm excited. the production manager is a buddhist who loves irish setters. the rest of the gang are a little weird, but it could be a good thing. they all are a little spacy - it's all the jazz.

speaking of spacey, kevin is starring in a new movie with kate winslet about a guy on death row for something he didn't do b/c the man is trying to take him down for being one of the lead opponents of the death penalty. woo. nick cage did some producing i think.. he does that a lot now. he's going to get an oscar for playing charlie kaufman in Adaption, which looks tremendous. i love the song in the preview, it gives that right feeling.

my english prof is so great and let me sit on the side of the classroom while he did my james dean presentation for me, having me answer a few questions the kids and he had, which was so excellent because i knew i couldn't handle the presentation but i also wanted to forcefeed the kiddies some scandalous james dean information for fun, and a few lapped it up like good little puppies - so i got the best of both worlds, it was a lovely experience, if not a little frightening and embarrassing. most often-asked question on questionnaires - why did he do your presentation for you? heh now to make a sexy collage of james pictures to put on handout i have to give them late.

everyone says i love you and annie hall are the best woody allen films. the first is so damn happy it's hilarious. his veil of pessimism was lifted for a time i guess.

song clips for the day:
"under pressure..."
"uh like a sex machine-a..." gotta love james brown

GO RENT italian for beginners (just came on rent tuesday) it's so very lovely.

i just now discovered WUCF 89.9, and it's amazing, all old jazz stuff. it's so great.

i got to go to lunch today at broadway.. i forget about all that stuff in that shopping center and just go straight to panera all the time, but that place is kinda good. it's cheap, too.. and they have tvs to watch comedy central on. it's lovely. they're pizza's ok, crust is bland, and their garlic bread is not very tantalizing, but i'm sure they've got a sub or something that i can dig and make it there for on a regular friday afternoon basis. how nice.

i hate how loud my typing seems on quiet fourth floor of libraire. libraire is actually french for book store, but i can never remember the french word for library. i'm wondering if they have libraries. i learned today in humanities about AD and BC and how it actually is all centered around the supposed birth of jesus and time is completely different according to different groups - jews, chinese, romans.. that's funny. and creepy, how much of our world is all about christianity. Xmas isn't actually a way to get rid of "christ" for a new secular society, but "X" is a greek symbol for "chi" so it's really just an abbreviation of "christ". shiver shiver shiver.
i'm jonesin for coldplay a lot lately.. i want to keep trying..it's a nice mood cd.
so rules of attraction.. 6/7 out of 10. when something is really iffy you need to gage it w/ 10 instead of 4 stars. kristin of course bailed at the last minute and then bonnie and mike cancelled too so in the end was the beginning, me and jordan, and we went to outback beforehand cuz we were bored with money so it was like a date. good times. alice springs chicken is to die. .........ok this movie.. it hangs over you for a while. great music, i went right out and bought the soundtrack..which actually only has like two great songs on it, one by the cure, one by the rapture, who i'm going to have to get into. "shakeshakeshakeshakeshakeshake.." ok it was a little embarrassing being with my brother at first. the beginning is tres dirty.. the whole thing is much dirtier than i thought. i didn't understand "from the depraved minds who brought you american psycho and pulp fiction".. but i know what kind of writing american psycho is and the guy who wrote it wrote this and some other similar stuff about beautiful rich people having empty sex, doing a lot of blow, drinking too much, and maybe getting bloody. so that aspect of the movie was unsettling, right. i have this thing where i'm obviously not against sex, and i'm not that against drugs, but i have this feeling that if i fall into the worlds of either it'll end up being really dirty and repulsive like what's seen here. most of dawson's makeout scene was close up and might not have been him.. grr. still, though, axel, you really (really) need to see this movie.. it'll give us some topics of discussion.. this ellis guy has an odd way of representing the gay community.. in american psycho the gay guy was this snivelling little obnoxious snob that you wanted patrick bateman to kill.. in rules of attraction one of the three main characters is gay, but he's always falling down and getting beaten up and is generally pathetic.. even if he is maybe smarter than everyone. and the other gay characters are really effiminate and clumsy and dorky.. this is a little distressing. note that with the exception of Jack, there are no effiminate gay male heros in hollywood.. will, rupert everett, brian from qaf, and the legions of gay male leads in mainstream movies could all be confused as straight for many audiences. we're changing slowly.
the thing that gets this movie such high marks, relatively, is that when it's bad, it's obnoxious, but tolerable (except for the end monologue which is just cheesy and ruined a great deal of the story) but when it's good.. it's real fuckin good. the humor is the key. this movie has one of the funniest scenes i've ever seen in a film.. gay boys dancing on a bed and a subsequent restaurant scene that i nearly died during.. this other gay guy (also straight seeming) comes in for just five minutes or so, but he steals the whole movie.. i can't explain.. he's my hero.. please go see this movie just for his part. Dick.
there were so many unprepared people in the theatre with us.. these shock jock guys, who just saw teen sex comedy commercials with pretty girls on their backs and assumed.. oh how wrong they were. they would not stop talking.. nervously making jokes at every sight of the gay lead.. ugh. he was so funny, like a jungle cat.. pouncing on unsuspecting boys.. you should've heard these morons when that happened the first time.
i love how on loveline they've changed ridiculous to ricockulous. lol. i've started saying it.
axel, seriously, go see this movie so we can discuss. i miss brian.. bring him to me. i can't wait for horrible video distribution delays.
alan and axel - when are you coming down next?
next week, Secretary comes out.. a kinky sex movie with maggie gyllenhaal, jake's sister (i keep wondering what he thinks of that) and sexy james spader of sex, lies and videotape.. looks good. everyone on imdb.com seems to like it a lot..
i can't believe 171 people were killed in Bali. the news started with 5 people killed. this could be a scary start to something. or, rather, a continuation.

lovemelo

anybody tired? on iraq, if you didn't already know:

Tuesday, October 1st, 2002
"YOU ARE EITHER WITH US, OR YOU ARE FIRED!"

Dear Friends,

I was going to write you a letter about what a pathetic liar George W, Bush is -- but then I figured, hey, why waste your time telling you something you already know!

You already know that his planned invasion of Iraq is a ruse meant to distract the public from the real issues, those issues being the following:

1. The number of people unemployed since he "took" office has risen by 35%.

2. We had a federal SURPLUS of $281 billion when he was inaugurated; today we have a DEFICIT of $157 billion.

3. TWO MILLION jobs have been eliminated since Bush began his occupation of the Oval Office.

4. The stock market is down 34% since January of 2001.

5. Another 1.4 million people now have NO health insurance, making it a total of over 41 million Americans who can't afford to get sick.

6. Only 13 corporate crooks out of HUNDREDS have been indicted, and none of them have been the close personal friends of Mr. Bush.

THOSE are the real issues facing us, not some phony excuse for a war.

But, like I said, you already know that. You know that Bush is lying through his smirk when he says Iraq has "weapons of mass destruction." He has not offered one shred of evidence to prove this. Not one! You know he is lying when he says that there is a "connection" between Saddam and bin Laden. Even members of his own administration have admitted that is not true. It's just one lie after another, and I applaud those three congressmen who went to Iraq this week and told it like it is -- and demanded that the sanctions which have already killed a half-million Iraqi children be ended. Sen. Trent Lott said "they should come home and keep their mouths shut." I say, we need more damn Democrats with that kind of courage and with mouths like that!

Which brings me to the real point of this letter. The Democrats.

I have never seen a more lame bunch of cowards and appeasers in my life. They are ready to bow down before Bush and give him what he wants to wage war against Iraq. This pathetic excuse of a party is an embarrassment to us all. The fact that they let Robert Torricelli run for re-election in New Jersey, knowing how dirty he was, shows just how capable they are of handing the Senate over to Bush and the Republicans come November. They have blown it over and over again, and lots of good people I know who keep putting their faith in the Democrats are just giving up -- and that is the worst thing to happen in a free society.

What are we going to do? Left to their own devices, the Democrats will not only hand both the House and the Senate to the Republicans in November, they will guarantee that Bush gets his second undeserved term in 2004. We must not let that happen. This year's election was theirs for the taking. Just look at the state of the union Bush gave us: Bush cronies caught stealing from the corporate till, Bush and Cheney caught breaking the law in the '90s, the economy in the toilet, and Bush failing to do the only real job he had to do since 9/11: Get bin Laden! What a disgrace! Yet the Democrats could not even find enough candidates to offer a REAL challenge to the Republicans in nearly 200 House districts for the November 5th elections. What an appalling excuse of a party.

OK, I know, there is not much we can do about this now. But we all need to get busy and ensure that this whole rotten system is rocked by the disgruntled millions come election day 2004. Otherwise, we have no right to complain.

In the meantime, we must stop the Bush attack on Iraq. We must find out now, as W says, "who is wid us and who is agin us." I am asking each of you to please sign the petition I have posted here and on my website informing the Democrats that whoever amongst them votes for this war, we pledge NEVER to vote for them again. I will personally see that your on-line signatures are delivered to every member of Congress. I guarantee your voice will be heard loud and clear.

Go to http://www.michaelmoore.com/petitions/peacepledge/index.php and sign the petition to the Democrats: "You're Either With Us Or You're Fired."

Then let's figure out together what we can do to turn things around by 2004.

Thanks for taking the time to do this. We have no other choice.

Yours,

Michael Moore

P.S. The wonderful, heartfelt letters sent to me regarding my mom's passing continue to fill my mailbox from so many of you. Thank you very much -- you don't know what it has meant to me. I am sorry I have not been able to be very active or public in the past couple of months, so please accept my apologies and my thanks for your understanding. Next week, I have to get back to work -- it is time for my film to bust its way into theaters across America. I will tell you all about it next Monday...


the film is called Bowling For Columbine, about guns and their devastating effect on this country.. and you should all go see it when it comes to florida sometime in a month or so. it's very important. here's roger ebert's early thoughts:


Taking a shot at firearms

September 2, 2002

BY ROGER EBERT

TELLURIDE, Colo.--At some point early in his life, Michael Moore must have found himself wearing a baseball cap, a windbreaker, and a shirt hanging outside his jeans, and decided he liked the look. That's what he was wearing when I met him at the Telluride Film Festival in 1989, and that's what he was wearing here Saturday. It is also what he wears in "Bowling for Columbine," his new documentary film, when he goes calling on K-Mart executives and Charlton Heston, the spokesman for the National Rifle Association. He is not necessarily wearing the same shirt and jeans, you understand. His closet must look a lot like Archie's and Jughead's, with rows of identical uniforms. The clothes send a message: Here is a man of the people, working-class. He may be on television but he is not of television. In his films, he is a huge hulking presence at the edge of the screen, doggedly firing questions at people who desperately wish they were elsewhere. His face is usually in shadow because of the baseball cap.

"Bowling for Columbine," which had its U.S. premiere here over the weekend, as funny and abrasive as his hit "Roger & Me," and much more sorrowful, is about the American love affair with guns. And not just with guns, but with shooting: A higher percentage of Canadians than Americans own guns, we learn, but they hardly ever shoot anyone with them. Gunshot deaths in the United States are 10 to 20 times higher than in other developed nations.

For once Moore does not seem to have the answers to all the questions he asks, and there is a certain humility at moments in this film.

He talks to gun owners who say they feel safer with guns in the house, and then he meditates on whether media coverage of violence may be making them feel threatened. One of his many eye-opening statistics is that in recent years violent death has been down 20 percent, but coverage of it on TV has been up 600 percent.

In the most astonishing sequence in the film, he takes two survivors of the Columbine massacre on a trip to K-Mart corporate headquarters. Both teens still have bullets in their bodies that were purchased at K-Mart, and in a Moore brainstorm they want to see if they can return them for a refund. One of the boys actually shows a K-Mart spokesperson the bullet scars on his back. K-Mart sends the usual series of P.R.-types to deal with Moore's delegation, and we're reminded of the General Motors spokesmen in "Roger & Me."

But then a totally unexpected thing happens. K-Mart tells Moore and the boys it will stop selling ammunition in its stores. Moore is stunned: No one has ever agreed with one of his demands before. He has the K-Mart spokesperson repeat her promise. It's true. K-Mart won't sell bullets.

That may help a little, but comedian Chris Rock may be on to something in the film when he observes how cheap bullets are (the Columbine bullets were 17 cents apiece). Why not price them at $5,000, he suggests:

"And then you wouldn't have any innocent bystanders."

I'll review the movie at length when it opens, including Moore's interview with Charlton Heston and the way he links Michigan's "work for welfare" laws to the death of a 6-year-old. After the Telluride screening, Ian Waldron-Mantgani, a teenage film critic from Liverpool, England, was shaking, literally shaking, as he left the theater. He was not alone.

computers are taking over the world and ants are taking over my kitchen.. and i don't know how to be nonviolent with ants. it's not like you can feasibly catch each one of them and put them outside. they live in the walls and there's a colony of them and they evade our pretty poison traps and i don't know what to do.. they're getting in the microwave even! i mean spiders terrify me, but at least they come in ones or twos so i can grit my teeth and catch them and let them go. which makes me happy. i let a cockroach go the other day. it was lovely. he was very grateful. or she. i love the voice of al pacino in scarface saying "cockaroach".. You cockaroach! i saw the very end of that movie on USA weeks ago and it is terribly bad and almost hilariously bloody. i couldn't believe it. this is what everyone's crowing about?

ok coldplay is.. trying to be radiohead. Politik is my favorite song on the album, it's very good, it's a lovely starter that gets you excited. but there's a faint radiohead feel to it.. and track 9 is very new radiohead. and now they're getting into politics, as said in the liner notes.. so.. the similarities can not be ignored. the rest of the album, i fear, is a little forgettable.. it's good, but it doesn't stand out. i like tracks 1, 2, 9, and 10 right now.

so kristin is in town and she and my brother and i may get to see the rules of attraction saturday afternoon.. woohoo. she's going to fall in love with my brother. the reviews are mixed for this movie.. roger moore, who is a very smart man, gives it two stars and says it's exploitative, which i can understand.. but orlando weekly gives it four stars and says it's a hilarious movie fun house.. which i can also understand. i'm not expecting great things, just fun and humor and james van der beek making out with pretty boy of the year Ian Somerhalder (which actually happens!). can you imagine.. look at the world and how it's changing... mr. creek is making out with boys.. i wonder if he had to get paid extra for that.. or if he's just a naturally open guy with a committment to the art of acting.. or if he's all sexually ambiguous anyway in real life.. i could see that, once you get over the presumed innocence. it doesn't exist, baby. it doesn't exist.

i am now Rizzo. my hair is short and burgandy. i am slightly 70's rock star. "look at me, i'm sandra dee..." is what i sing now. i like it a lot. and it's about damn time.

speaking of attraction.. that's something i like a whole lot about the ladies, we are not so ruled by visuals. our primary criteria seems to be how smart a guy is, how funny a guy is, how kind a guy is. and looks come afterwards.. i mean look at some of our sex symbols - woody allen, for chrissake. that's awesome. that makes me happy.
there are so many hot ladies with mediocre-to-not-good looking guys. take a lesson from us.

be right back with important messages from michael moore.. go check new links, it's very important. more important than masturbating for peace.

wrote jessica an email just now for the first time in possibly four months or more, haven't heard from her, want to start correspondence again. axel, do you ever hear from her?

am mildly in love with bradley whitford who plays josh on the west wing.. he is Smart. big forehead, crazy hair, very einstein. and he is married in reality to jane kazmerek, however you spell that, the mom from malcolm in the middle, who is not this drop dead gorgeous lady, so i have further tender feelings for him in my little heart. two children, one on the way. aw.

it IS etta james, not jones.. borders is retarded. i found her at walmart of all places. so i have "at last", and it's lovely. and she's very freaky looking. her real name was jamesetta something, so that's just a lovely name switched around and thrown into her first name.. so my pop diva name could be ody mel. woo.

and finally bought O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, which is great. that is such an excellent movie. the cohen brothers are very smart, and they'll be hard pressed to beat that one. it may be their opus. it's so very funny and great.

must run to english.. get to rewatch west wing w/ dad and jordan tonight since its his weekly day off, woohoo. value time spent with family, kids.

OHMYGOD DAWSON AND JOEY SLEPT TOGETHER...finally.

that show is so ridiculous.

axel i wanted to talk to you SO BAD wed night.. oh man. my hand was clapped over my mouth. damn long distance.

today is gandhi's birthday.. he would've been 133. = ) two days ago, i forgot, was not only the anniversary of james' death, but gandhi's too. isn't that interesting? only 7 years apart. gandhi was 79 years old when an angry hindu shot him on his way to evening prayer. i don't really know why. something about politics probably. great people are almost always killed by their own. jesus by the jews. malcolm X by a muslim. there you go.

there are these silly silly girls in my book club in english.. i did not want to be in their group, but i was anyway, and it's led by a sorority girl, who i could've liked..she started talking about 1984 and how much she liked it.. but no, she and the other girls do this: this book we read about the future and ethnography and the main girl sutty and her past girlfriend pao and current lover-type-thing (some other woman) - the girls i figure would be cool about it, even if it is initially shocking - it's one thing to go "wait.." and reread to make sure you have it right, but they actually discussed: "and she's gay! i was like..wait a minute.. she's gay! omigosh. that's so crazy". what year is it? and later when she has casual sex with the second girl they were like "and then it's like.. suddenly they're having sex! lol! and it's with a girl!" wtf people are so stupid. see i guess i've been blind to this because i'm so used to people who see clearly thru this stuff and i surround myself with those types of people, and when i step out into the real world i awake to find that oh, there are mostly stupid people like this. i really Really wanted to say something, like "cmon girls, get over it, it's 2002, not that big of a deal", but i couldn't.. i just sunk down, smiled grimly. ugh it's so disgusting out there.

ok i'm being a little hard.. these girls expose themselves to different things than i do.. or should i say do not expose. i've watched Real Sex a thousand times and all these other sexually explicit shows/movies and listen to certain kinds of talk radio and read certain kinds of books.. ok, i am fully exposed. i am used to all things sex.. i'm fine and open minded and think it's a lovely way of expressing ourselves without hurting other people (usually). not everyone has been properly exposed. i should not pass judgement.


monsoon wedding is now available for rent and i want you all to go rent it, i've rented it now and i'm so looking forward to watching it again. i wanted to see it again when it was in the theatres.. it has the greatest music and dancing, i got the soundtrack. indian culture is really interesting. it's about an arranged marriage, but it's a different take on the topic because the two kids end up in love and it's like someone finally saying, just because it's tradition, doesn't mean we need to throw it out the window, doesn't mean it's bad, doesn't mean it doesn't work. it works for some people just fine. it's sad when people are forced into arranged marriages, but at the same time, there are so many good intentions floating around, it's hard to place blame. so it's a wonderfully rich happy exciting movie with lovely people, lovely love, lovely music/dancing. go rent it.