Alright folks, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fucksters?
What the fuck nicks? What's happening? I'm Mark Marin. This is WTF, my podcast.
Thank you for tuning in. If you're new here, welcome. If you're just hanging around, nice to see you again. Wherever you are, if you're digging snow, I hope I'm helping out.
Maybe perhaps, hopefully by the time that you hear this, maybe you'll have that all done or maybe some of it's melted away. But if I can be any assistance, if you're sitting at home alone, perhaps by candlelight, because you have to, I hope that I'm a comforting force in your life. I hope I'm distracting you. It's one of the things I actually miss.
I know it's probably hard for you to hear this, but I sort of miss that about the East Coast, that day where you wake up and there's this calm, there's this peace. There's this quiet, there's no way to get your car out, and there's just no way to see how it's ever going to thaw. And then you realize, well, this is all pretty right now, but pretty soon it's just going to turn into gross gray, icy mud, crusty garbage. The days of thawing are really kind of, they're relieving, but quite disgusting on the road.
But anyways, I hope you're okay and you made it through it. You know who I'm talking to. So, what's going on? Let's start, I will tell you this right now, right out of the gate.
Michael Moore is my guest today. This conversation was recorded in November, and we held it until we were closer to the release of Michael's new documentary, Where to Invade Next. So, I guess what I'm saying very plainly is you will not hear us talk about the current water crisis in Flint, Michigan. The true horror of that situation had not come to light at the time.
We recorded this conversation, and as you know, I'm sure Michael has plenty to say, if he hasn't already, about that. But this was done a little while back, but it's a good talk. Also, I want to mention here, because, you know, a lot of you didn't buy my book, that's fine. I mean, how much of me can you take?
But I want to mention that the e-book of Attempting Normal is on sale for a limited time for $1.99 everywhere e-books are sold. So, there's that. We've got to talk about some shit. All right?
Let me figure it out. Let me figure out how to talk about it. Now, the first time that I met, that I really sort of met or knew about Amy Schumer was probably 2011, and the situation was pretty, it was amazing, because I didn't know her, I did not know her comedy. I was doing a live WTF at the now-defunct Comics Comedy Club in New York, and we had broken up that night.
There were two shows. We had the Nerd Show, and then we had the Dirt Show. This was my concept. So, the second show was just going to be Filthy Comics.
And on that show, I had both Joe DeRosa, Kurt Metzger, Anthony Jeselnik, Robert Kelly, David Tell was closing. And that is just an avalanche of honest, raw filth. You know, just beautiful, expressive, dirty dudes. And at that time, Amy was dating Anthony Jeselnik, and she was backstage.
And I said to my producer, I'm like, you know, we should put her on. I mean, she wants to go on at the end of this thing. But part of me was like, you know, and she immediately said, yeah, I'll go on. So, you want to go on?
Yeah, I'll go on. And I was going to use her to close with. And that is a murderer's row there, buddy. Who's saying that?
I see that around the way. But it doesn't matter. And, you know, DeRosa Metzger, Jeselnik, Kelly, Tell. And Amy said she would close.
And I was astounded. Because there's part of me, I didn't know who she was. And I'm like, well, I mean, you know, can this shit handle this thing, you know, and, and, you know, I brought her out. And she just fucking killed.
And it was amazing. And that was 2011. You know, she's a real fucking deal. She's a real fucking comic.
No question. And then after the show, you know, I've been given a little bit of money to pay like 50 bucks, you know, to people to the comics, you know, from comics. And, you know, we had my producer, Brendan and I were, you know, he was giving out the money. And we went to give a tell is 50.
And he said, you know, give it to Amy. All right. So that obviously a kind gesture on behalf of a tell and, you know, respectful gesture. But the point being, Amy Schumer is a real fucking comic.
So here's the thing. All this fucking this, this onslaught of accusations, this momentum, this fucking, mob attack on Amy Schumer. It's fucking ridiculous. It's just fucking ridiculous.
So where's it come from? You know, what, you know, what is it? What is it really about? What is the real pattern here?
Right? What is it? What is the real pattern? Three examples on a video of, here's, here's why I'm talking about this.
Not because it's my responsibility. I am a comedian. And it does rile me, obviously. But I was dragged into it a bit.
Because, um, a few months ago, on the episode with Aaron Draplin, episode 649, you know, I watched Amy special, and she did a bit. And it was about, you know, about people coming about everyone coming. Now, this is not again, if you work dirty, you're talking about come is gonna be part of your repertoire. I mean, fucking Lenny did it, right?
Did you come good? Did you come? Did you come good? I didn't steal that.
I'm citing. I watched her bit, and I was like, oh, fuck. That's why I like my bit. It's almost like the female side of my bit.
Now, my immediate thought, and I'm just repeating myself, because this, the episode that I did it on, 649, Aaron Draplin, was, was taken out of context, edited. The conversation I had was edited by some fucking monkey to, to, to, to sound like I accused Amy of stealing. And then, yeah, Opie and Jim got duped by a troll. They played it on the air.
I didn't think that Amy stole my bit. I was mad that we had a similar bit. That was it. There was no way either of us could have taken each other's bit.
She was in a different city. We don't work together. We're both headliners. I knew all this.
I found out that we taped those specials a week apart. There was no way. But we don't live in the same world. Really?
We don't see each other. Now we both have a similar bit. So what? So what?
There's no stealing. Everybody does come. The point is that some fucking monkey to serve an agenda edited my words to support his agenda. His agenda to accuse Amy of stealing.
Now, there's a difference between, you know, justice and fucking annihilation. Attack. It's a difference. Now, I know some female comics, Wendy Leighman, Kathleen Madigan, Tammy Peskitelli, you know, got mad at her and tweeted things and whatever.
And they eventually, you know, I think all of them recanted or apologized because it's fucking ridiculous. But that gave a foundation to what's happening. And what is happening now? Is it about justice?
Who's really attacking Amy Schumer? I watch those fucking videos. Yeah, I'm a comic. If you're a comic and this meme has driven into your skull and you're actually sitting there going, I think she did it, then you're fucking amateur or you're bitter or you don't like her.
The tabloid media, I mean, they're complicit out of desperation and you can't expect them to have a moral compass. So they support the fucking meme. The video goes out. Where does it come from?
Who are those fucking people, right? So I watch a video. The first joke, the Wendy Leighman joke. Whatever.
It's a one-liner. Who gives a fuck? I mean, if someone's really hanging on to a 20-year-old one-liner as being a substantial part of her fucking oeuvre, that's crazy. One-liners are disposable.
They're disposable. Nightly. Writers who write monologues for fucking TV shows, they throw away 50 one-liners a day. A genius like Dave Attell has thrown away more one-liners than most of us have ever written.
Attell is hilarious. It becomes impossible to sort of vet this stuff, is my point. As a comic, that one-liner about, you know, I like when men pay, whatever. Anyone could have written that.
Any woman could have written that. Any comic could have written that. That's just the truth of it. If you're right, you're right, you're right.
You know, your point of view, you're right to your point of view. She's a woman, they're women, and that's, you know, it was easy. It's not theft. It's just a matter of time.
It's just a one-liner. It means nothing. It doesn't define Amy. It doesn't define Wendy.
It has nothing. That joke didn't exist with either of them. Who cares? They're still who they are.
They're entertainers or comics. Not theft The second bit. The Kathleen Madigan bit. A similar idea became a sketch on Amy's show.
Shows are written by committee. There's a group of writers in the room. Someone come up with an idea. That was the idea.
Even, I guarantee you, even if somebody said, yeah, I think I heard a similar joke about this, but it wasn't the same thing. It was about Oprah Winfrey paying somebody. Even if that came up, I don't know who the joke it was, there was a real good chance that they were like, it's different. You know why?
Because it is different. It's a sketch. It was executed. It was a piece of film.
It was orchestrated. It was a composed sketch with many beats. That idea is not owned for fuck's sake. Not theft.
Just stupid. I don't even know what that, what was that about? Women with an eyebrows? Who was making that joke in junior high school?
They're not anything. None of them are mystifying original observations, really. They're just nuts. Amy Schumer's a comedian.
You can't, it becomes impossible to vet mundane material based on observations. It becomes very difficult. There are thousands of fucking comics churning out jokes every fucking day, everywhere. The people that I've spoken to, the people that I've met in this business, that have been accused of joke theft, I truly believe that most of them have no idea that they're stealing them.
The amount, that doesn't, that's an apology for the ones that have certainly been guilty of stealing swaths of material. But in terms of one-liners or little ideas like that, I mean, are you fucking kidding me? Comedians absorb what's coming in, and they process it. We've all been in the rooms of stand-up comedy clubs for most of our lives, hours and hours.
And now, the thing is, is in order to vet a joke against the history of recorded comedy on album or on television, it's fucking impossible. And this is not an apologist position. This is just a reality. All you can do is, like, that sounds a little familiar.
Maybe I'll hold off on that. It just becomes impossible to vet everything, especially little ideas. I mean, it tells you, it tells you, it tells you, it tells you, it tells you, it tells you, it tells you, like, one of the most prolific joke writers in the world. And there are a few of us, you know, sometimes, you know, back in the day, I mean, I think I've talked about this here before, once or twice a year, maybe you'll get a call from Mattel, and he'd be like, uh, hey, do you do a bit about jerking off in the Bible?
I'm like, no. He's like, oh, I thought I, all right. Yeah, I mean, you know, wait, what are you going to do? You come up with an idea.
You know, that's an original idea. Jerking off in the Bible is pretty specific, and I'm flattered that he thought maybe I might have done a bit about jerking off in the Bible. But if you come up with a thing, an observational thing, or a bit about, you know, something that we all experience, how are you going to vet that? It's not even that it's hack, it's just we all share the same reality.
And if you're a comic and you're thinking funny, the possibilities of a lot of people doing similar jokes around things that we all fucking do, or things that are sort of our point of view related, is high. Have you watched fucking network sitcoms? Do you watch the monologues that happen every fucking night on nightly talk shows? Where's the outrage about the repetition of current event jokes, or the repetition of sitcom plots?
I mean, come on. This is fucking comedy, for fuck's sake. So, what is the pattern? What is the real pattern?
It's certainly not a pattern of Amy stealing jokes. It doesn't exist. So what is it? Well, I'll tell you.
I had a thing on my website, on wtfpod.com, and there used to be a comment board. Just an open comment board. Now, this is true shit. You know, and sometimes, you know, people say I don't have enough women on the show, but I have as many women as I can get.
The point is, I had an open comment section that I had to shut down. Now, it's changed now. Now, if you want to comment on wtfpod.com, you have to, you know, go through Facebook, so you have to identify yourself. It's a little harder to be anonymous when you have to post through Facebook.
But before we did that, without fucking fail, if we had a woman guest, doesn't matter who it was, or what she did, if there was a woman guest on this show, the comment section would blow up with fucking douchebags attacking that woman with just fucking garbage, slander, violence, just nasty shit, just a fucking string of anonymous fucking monsters swinging garbage at any woman guest. So what is that about? That was the pattern, you know what I mean? So then you start looking at this attack, you know, this fight for justice, this sort of righteous idea that you're going to police comedy and call out joke thieves.
So that means that there's some fucking dude, and they're all dudes. Look at it. They're all fucking dudes who champion this thing. So where's all this outrage coming from?
Look at it. Look at it. Poke around a little bit. They're all dudes.
They're all fucking dudes. And they're all saying the same fucking thing. It's got nothing to do with justice. This is about fucking annihilating a woman, annihilating a comedian, but it's about annihilation.
It's got nothing to do. Here's what happens is that they find this portal. It happened with the Gamergate thing too, but they find this portal. Amy was vulnerable, so they exploited that vulnerability by trying to make a case and putting a lot of work into it, into this case, to the point where they manipulated some of my words to suit their agenda and get that through, to try to make that meme happen.
So they push and they push and they push. So now this fucking video is out there. Now this meme is out there. So now the portal is open.
So who the fuck are these people? It's my belief that what's really happening is that there is this mob momentum. There's this consensus built. These guys, they have leaders.
They know who their leaders are. They all share the same ideology. They have leaders because they're too weak not to have leaders. And they all think the same.
What is happening with Amy has nothing to do with justice. It has nothing to do with comedy. What's happening is that this is the real pattern is that she through the internet and through video is literally being verbally career raped by an army of unfuckable hate nerds. They play video games all day.
Then they watch MMA and then they spend the evening jerking off to deep throat gag porn. And then they wake up and they put a few hours in to shaming Amy, to verbally fucking abusing. And you read the comments. This is not about justice.
It's about hate. Now look, you know, I, I'm no fucking, you know, saint, you know, all fucking dudes, you know, have their sexist moments. All of us, some of us are teachable. But we all have our sexist moments and hopefully we've all added that.
But misogyny requires commitment. And it requires, in this case, a mob mentality of like-minded people. So this isn't about justice. Not in this case.
This is about, it's about hate. It's about anger. It's about complete fucking woman bashing. And it's about this contingent of culture.
A lot of them, if you go look at their Twitter feeds, a lot of them are Trump supporters because they like an authoritarian leader because they service their hate and their fucking horrible fear and insecurity. In terms of, you know, Amy's just a fucking comic. She's an entertainer and she's the real deal, but you like her jokes or not. She's a real comic, but she's a woman.
And these fuckers are trying to destroy her. These are specific people. But this momentum culturally is insanely dangerous because what it does to creative people or to people that are trying to put themselves out there or to people that are trying to do new things and open up the minds and do that kind of stuff is that we become fucking self-censoring and paranoid and crazy. And it becomes sometimes it's sort of like, is it worth it?
So if you're just an average dude, this spreads throughout the culture, you know, where people are very quick to know what all it, you know, like you can't write a sentence without somebody going, oh, somebody said it, you know, so it's the same thing. It's a similar thing. So, you know, this need to one up, this need to call, you know, foul, to call theft or whatever. All it's going to do eventually is completely stifle creativity.
Now, obviously plagiarism is bad when it exists, when it happens. Obviously, people profiting over other people's, you know, work, it's horrible. It's been nice people living. But mostly, most of the time, it's just about stifling voices, shutting people down.
And if these guys The momentum that exists, the narrow-minded, hateful, frightened momentum of socially, emotionally, and psychologically, and morally compromised individuals wins, then it's fucking over. There's no progress. There's no creativity. There's no sort of moral compass.
It's a fucking cultural malignancy. But the bottom line is, it's like, hey, if you think Amy's funny, you don't, but whatever's going on right now is not about justice or joke theft or anything other than a fucking army of unfuckable hate nerds panicking because they feel like what they represent in the world is diminishing, and they can't adapt to progress. Like I said, even with my guest today, Michael Moore, I tweeted that I had him on, and immediately people were like, oh, no, fuck, I'm going to pass, pass. It's very odd.
Even as a liberal person, Michael can be a little much, but the bottom line is that there's a pursuit of truth. That is what he represents. He doesn't represent the left or the right. It has nothing to do with that.
At some point, either you want to make the reality what you think it should be, or you pursue the truth of what's happening. And if you support the garbage or untruth or systemic fucking problems because it fits your line of hate, then fine. You're free to have your opinion. But what Michael Moore really is as a documentarian, which is what he does, is somebody who is fighting for and looking for the truth and fighting for people to be able to earn a living properly, to live in a safe place, to have proper health coverage, to have an America that works for everybody.
Look, I had this conversation again. This was before the Flint water horror, so we can get into that. We can get into a lot of stuff, but I talked to him about who he is and about this new movie, which I liked a lot. The new movie is called Where to Invade Next.
It's a very different approach to documentary than he's done before. It's a very clever conceit in terms of structure, and it was very powerful. So let's go into my conversation with Michael Moore. What have you been doing?
I mean, what have you been doing all day? Michael Moore in Hollywood. What are you doing? I mean, you're running around?
Yeah. I've been running around. Ongoing narrative? Selling that movie?
No, the movie's sold. You know what I mean? Getting people. Oh, you get people to watch it?
Yeah. They're going to come anyways, aren't they? Yeah, of course. I don't need to do any of that.
Of course, there's people come because they love you and because they hate you both. You're one of these rare people. Yeah, yeah. The haters have seemed to have died off or something.
I don't know where they went. Well, I think they've got their own problems, Michael. I think they're focused on themselves. They're all hating each other.
They're imploding. Well, yeah. Well, God bless them. What have you done here?
What have you been doing? Last night, I came out here, and there was a screening of my new movie for... Where to Invade Next. I watched the screen.
I had a small screening right here in the garage. Oh, you did? Just myself. Just you?
Yeah. I enjoyed it. Oh, thank you. I don't want to ruin anything, but you seem to be softening a bit.
Oh. It seems like your heart is getting more open, and you're a little forgiving. That's actually just the subversive part of this. I'm actually more angry.
Is that true? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I thought, you know what?
I'm going to... I think the Wolf in Sheep's clothing method might be a little bit better here. That was deliberate? Yeah.
Yeah. I'm so upset at everything that's going on. Yeah. And I've tried for 25 years the hot poker and the eye effect.
Right. And while that has, I think, brought a lot of people along, and it's been good and all that in appropriate moments, I think this time around, I thought there's even a better way to try and reach an even wider audience. Oh, jeez. You got me so...
I thought, hey, Michael Moore's got a little hope. He's got a little patience. What's happening? This movie feels...
No, I have no patience. I sit back in my narcissism and just go, yeah, it's all fucked up. Oh, right. So there's a little room in your narcissism to have a little bit of optimism?
Yeah. There's like no... I need narcissism, actually. Of course.
I actually spent a little bit of each day thinking about myself. Oh, really? Yeah. I think I would have a better life, frankly.
You know. No, I'm very much... Look, I never expected to be doing this anyway, so this is all kind of a... In general, you mean...
In general? No. Well, I hated documentaries. I always hated them.
But it's interesting that you say you should spend a little more time thinking about yourself, because I think some people think that you... And I actually had a conversation with a woman last night about this. You know, I was watching the movie. I enjoyed it.
I said, I'm learning. I feel sad. But, you know, Michael's carrying me through it. You know, and she said that she's in the film business.
She said, well, he seems to make it about himself. And I said, well, he sort of has to. He has to run it through him. How is it?
You know, you become... Like, you're very careful and it seems on some level relatively image conscious about your role in these movies. Right, right. Yeah.
When she says I make it about myself, it's just because I'm in the movie. I mean, it's like saying, everybody yelling. It's always about him. Yeah.
Spike Lee, he's just always in his movies. Right. Yeah, some of us do that. It's a way of storytelling.
Yeah, of course. It's not because, in my case, that I... Come on, let's be... I mean, look, I'm not that self-loathing on one level, but on another level, it's like if you were me, you wouldn't want to see yourself blown up 50 feet on a screen.
No, I think there's a humility to it. And it's a way of... It's disarming. It's the way you approach the subject matter and also runs through you.
Like the fact that you're telling me you've tempered your rage to... I think, I guess, in looking at that film, you sort of had to because you had to act like a human. You weren't running around America. You were running around other people's countries and politely engaging them with stuff you wanted to learn.
Well, because I threw down a challenge to myself in the idea of this movie. The conceit of this movie is, how can I make a movie that goes at the heart of everything that's wrong in this country? Everything that's all messed up about America, but never shoot a single frame of film or video in this country. I make a movie about the United States and never go to the United States.
And how did you develop it? Was it like you woke up sweating and said, I got it? Or was it... I was 19.
I got a year rail pass and a youth hostel card and went to Europe with a backpack and wandered around for two months. You were there for two months? Yeah. What was your temperament then?
Well, I remember thinking I would be in a country and I would notice something. And I would go, how come we don't do that? That's such a good idea. Right.
Or I would hear about how college is entirely free. Or I remember I was hiking in Sweden and busted my foot and went to a hospital or clinic. Panicked. Right.
You were probably panicked. Panicked. Oh, my God. I'm going to have my blue cross card.
I'm going to be... What is going to happen to me here? And they're like, they fixed me up. And they go, okay.
Have a nice day. How are you going to say that? Just in a bill? No.
There's no bill. I was like, you've got to be kidding me. That's the first time I'd ever heard that. That you're like, I think I'll stay here.
Okay, I was free. I was like, wow. So over the years... But wait, before we go there, how politicized were you at that time?
When did he... Because you said that you never thought you'd be doing this. And I never thought I'd be making a documentary because I didn't like documentaries. In general, but you've made like a half dozen or a ton of them.
Yeah. Yeah, I've made nine films now. So where did it start? You grew up outside of Flint.
Yeah, Flint, Michigan, right. And your dad, what? My dad was not a worker. My mom was a secretary.
How old are you now? I'm now 61. Okay. So you're an honest-to-God baby boomer?
Yeah, I'm a baby boomer. You witnessed the 60s? Saw the 60s, 70s. You remember Nixon from junior high, maybe?
I remember Nixon. I remember campaigning for Nixon, actually. Really? Yeah.
With your dad? No, no, no. I was in 8th grade, 9th grade. And no, no, my dad would vote Democrats or Irish.
Always, right. But I was so against the war in Vietnam and Johnson and Humphrey and all of that with the war. I was 68. And I just thought, you know, I'm not going to do anything to help those guys.
And what can I do to help the other guy? And that's 8th grade. I didn't really know who Nixon was, you know. So who awakens you to the realities of the politics of the war in 8th grade?
I mean, how did you think? I think I just, I don't know. I just watched the news and I just started developing my own ideas. No older brothers?
No. Oh, no, no, no. No guy at the record store? No, no, no.
No priest in the record. No cool priest? A liberal priest? There was actually a hippie priest.
Yeah. That was pretty cool. And I think probably, yeah. Actually, I went to Catholic school, so there were those nuns and priests who were very much on the left side of things and they thought the war was wrong and they were very much on their favorite civil rights and things like that.
Those are important. I probably had a big influence. I had a cousin, too, who lived in New York City. And my mom's sister had moved to New York way, way back when she was young.
Married a man who was a state assemblyman, a Democrat, part of the Roosevelt machine. And she would come, our cousin would come every summer to visit us. Is it a woman or a man? A man.
No, no, the uncle was a man in the state assemblyman. Our cousin's a woman. Yeah. And then she would teach us all this stuff about the Kennedys and Democrats and all that.
Inside line. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then when we would go there to New York to visit, they lived on Staten Island. And so we would stay there for a month and take the ferry over and got to see, you know, and experience and know and learn about New York and that whole thing when we were starting and probably I was, I don't know, eight years old.
Was that in the late 60s? It was 1963. Oh, so it hadn't fallen yet. New York was still pretty gorgeous.
Oh, yeah, no, it was a great place. I mean, literally, and we would take, us kids would just take the ferry by ourselves. Oh, yeah. Over there and just wander around.
Sure, sure. Down the subway. Yeah, it was still like the Mad Men era. Yeah, exactly, right, yeah.
I remember standing outside the Ed Sullivan Theater, which wasn't called the Ed Sullivan Theater, it was just where the Ed Sullivan Show was. And with our little autograph books, you know, because we're from the Midwest. And I remember standing there waiting to get Roy Rogers an autograph. Roy Rogers.
Yeah, that was a big moment for me. Did you get it? Yeah, yeah, his and Dale, his wife, Dale Evans. How about the horse?
Trigger was not there. They could fit him in that theater. I'm surprised you didn't bring him. Yeah, he might have been dead by that time.
Trigger. Oh, that's too bad. All right, so you're growing up. Did you have any fun?
When I was growing up? Oh, yeah. Were you a fun guy? My sister and I were just talking about this the other night, how we used to stay out.
So that was back in the day when the parents would tell you to go play in the street. Sure. It's the opposite now. Go hang around the corner.
No, you hung out on the corner. You played baseball. On the East Coast, you played stickball. In the street.
It was a dirt street that we lived on. So we were just dirty all the time. And all the neighbors would come in when it got dark, which in Michigan, because we're so far to the West, but we're in the Eastern Time Zone. So it would get dark until 10 o'clock.
But then we would stay out for another hour or so and play Bloody Murder. And then you'd hear your mother yell. That's what I heard. All the mothers would yell.
11 o'clock, they all yell. Yeah. No, let's see. The Catholic version, the Irish version of that is, Michael Francis!
Michael Francis! I'm coming. 10 more minutes. Bloody Murder!
We played Bloody Murder. That was our favorite. Yeah, I remember that even in early 70s. 71.
I grew up in New Mexico. And I don't know that that neighborhood where I grew up is necessarily any different, but yours changed a lot. Yeah. Yes, of course.
Yeah, because back then everybody had a job. And they had a good job. They had a good factory job. They were all union guys.
And they made good money. How old were you when that fell apart? How old were you when you saw your father or your neighborhood or your city go through that heartbreak? It started when Reagan got elected.
Basically, it started around 1980. And so by that time, I was 26 years old, so I was a little beyond it. And I quit my first day at General Motors. How old were you?
I was right out of high school. And when, where your dad got you at the gig or what? No, my buddy, his dad, had a white-collar job there. So they were hiring, and he could get us applications.
Right. And we both got hired. And the first day, I got up, and I could smell the cigarettes from downstairs. My dad was already up getting ready to go to his job in the factory.
And I just laid there in bed, and I just thought, oh, God, I do not want a life of this. I just do not want to get up at 4.30 every morning and go build cars. But that first cigarette's great. I'll tell you that right now.
I miss those fuckers. Yeah, yeah. I never smoke, so I don't know that. That's so funny.
The kid of a smoker goes either way. You're going to do it, or you're never going to do it. Yeah, no, no, no. My dad and his parents, his dad, they smoked a lot.
So you just had that smell on you all the time. Yeah. It's weird. You're talking about it in sort of a slightly negative tone.
I'm thinking, like, what a great heart. Your sensory memory is like a perfume. Everything smelled like cigarettes for years. People forget that.
Every nightclub, everywhere you went. Then you smoked on a plane. Right. I don't know how fucking...
You smoked in a theater. I don't know how we ever lived with it. Yeah, no, it was everywhere. You're right.
I remember when I was in high school smoking on a plane. Right. In the back. Right.
The last four rows. As if that's not going to affect you. I know, you smelled it through the whole plane. Unbelievable.
So, all right, so what was your plan, then, when you decided that wasn't for you? I didn't have one, and I had enrolled in the local college, and I lasted about a year and a half, and I went for that. Studying what? I was studying political science and theater.
And you had some aspirations to act? Yeah, or write. Uh-huh. You know, write plays, something like that.
Did you write any? Yes, I did, actually. I wrote a play during that year and a half, and it won a prize at the University of Michigan. Yeah?
What was it about? It was about... It was sort of an avant-garde piece where... You have some chances.
Well, essentially, it ends up with this guy looking like Jesus on a cross made of aluminum foil, and Jesus is kind of upset at what all his followers are doing, and so he pulls the nails. You think it's just a cross with Jesus on it dead, but he pulls the nails out, and he comes off the cross and starts confronting the audience for their behavior. And then I had actors placed in the audience to stand up and start shouting, get back up there! Get back up there!
Wow. Damn you! Jesus! Set tire chops into place already.
And so... And then a guy runs out of the audience with a gun, leaps on the stage, and shoots Jesus, and then drags him back to the cross. Wow. And then there's people there, and they decided to help put the dead Jesus now back up on the cross.
Yeah, this was... I don't think your comedy chops were in place yet. It was funny at the beginning. I thought it was funny.
The idea of them trying to get back up on the cross, he took it all the way. Well, the play was trying to say that essentially some Christians like their Jesus dead and on a cross. Sure. I mean, that's what they've grown up with.
I mean, it's a hard thing to wrap your brain around. They actually had to live what he said to do, to love your neighbor, to do good to those who persecute you, to turn the other cheek, to the poor, get into heaven before anybody else. You know, they actually had to live that life. Where you can really process those things philosophically, which I thought was interesting about the film, is that people were speaking about the nature of brotherly love, of community, of pride in the people of your country in a way that was collaborative and respectful without talking about religion or Christianity at all.
It was second nature. That was a very fascinating thing, that when you were talking to people in, I think, Sweden and Norway, that there was not... In Norway, yeah. In Norway.
The type of vengeful justice and also the type of selfish, self-serving individualism that really drives this country and the greed, it doesn't even register today. That's fascinating. No, like they said, they organized themselves around the concept of we, and we organized ourselves around the concept of me. I'll take care of me, you take care of you.
But was that always the way? I mean, it seems to me that on some level, with what your sense of justice is and your sense of how things should be, do you remember a time where it was closer to that? Do you have some fond... Do you believe there was an America that functioned properly at a time in your life?
For white people. Well, yeah, I get that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, of course.
I think back when I was growing up, the sense of community that people had while they felt and treated each other, you know, in the community, in the neighborhood, you could take care. You could leave the house and the neighbor would look after the kids. Now you don't even know the neighbor's name two doors down from you, you know, it's that sort of thing. We do live in a different world like that.
There's a lot of weird detachment, Michael, and it's like, I don't know, it's sort of a benign evil in a way. I don't know that people even know they're doing it. It doesn't seem to be necessarily malice in it. But there seems to be sort of like, you see shit go down and people, like, in some of these videos you see of like those cops taking that kid out of that desk and throwing that kid to the ground.
The other students didn't even look up. Yeah. They just know. that's the normal that's the normal to them and so it wasn't unusual later we find out he was nicknamed Officer Slam and that's what they called him in school it's interesting that this movie you were able to really cover everything that you've been working towards and for your entire career on film that you were able to cover it all with this context that you created by going to other countries that's pretty true you were able to cover corporate crime corporate greed you were able to cover guns healthcare prison race education the banks yeah the banks and just a sense of human dignity and human rights and union rights and employee rights it was like oh this was like your master work and you chose to be I expect revolution to happen and I expect this film to play a role in that I believe that there's so many things percolating just below the surface right now that people are so pissed off about and it's just waiting to happen and someone's always hoping it happens in the right direction it will happen in the right direction it will happen this is the optimism yes this is well and I have historical backup there are examples of when the people have risen up it hasn't gone the right way you know we know that from the last century but I don't think that's what's going to happen now because I think especially the younger generation that we've raised a bunch of kids that are not haters I mean they don't it's going well yeah sure I think that a lot of the type of the republicans are essentially that noise you hear from that crazy campaign that's going on they sound like the dying dinosaurs you know this is sort of weird noises they're emitting because they know they're done they're over I mean statistically they're over right now the statistic that blows my mind 81.5% of the electorate in this country is either women people of color or young people between the ages of 18 and 35 that's 81.5% of the country 18.5% of the country are white guys over the age of 35 yet they hear the republicans talk they think whenever they say the word America that's the America that they're talking to that isn't America anymore the two months ago first day of kindergarten in September first time ever in our history where the majority of kindergartners were not white it has changed we live in a different America and there's also a contingent of that 18% that is very aware of that and very angry about us absolutely I mean did you go to college where did you go Boston University so you went to a private university even then it probably wasn't $70,000 a year look I was my parents had a little bread and I didn't ask questions Michael should I ask any now no I mean I did all right I mean I don't know what the exact cost of it was but you know I was afforded that luxury because my dad was a doctor you would have paid $0 Ann Arbor University of Michigan I think I went a year and a half to the University of Michigan in Flint I think I might have paid $500 a semester so there was a time in this country where public education through college was doable it was a value it was a value that young people should be able to go post-secondary education go to college and not end up in a debtor's prison at the age of 22 so at 22 when you had your education you could then take the time to decide what you wanted to do with your life maybe you didn't want to go to work right away no problem maybe you want to go backpacking around Europe no problem maybe you want to fall in love maybe any of a number of things now you've got to get to work right away to pay off these student loans and it's not even clear that what you took from the college experience can help you at all in any way everybody knows that when we were younger and even when I was in college there was a strong liberal arts education available the structure of the education was still to sort of broaden your horizons on a lot of different levels creativity and otherwise and you could choose those things yes you could take poetry classes you could take things that they would say now is how to get you a job it doesn't get you a job anyways that's the weird thing they're just shutting it all down to make these mills to create drones that are really incapable of much and by creating drones then we're not going to come up with the next invention the next great cure for something we need a cure for or the next piece of great art and let's think about that a lot of people don't think that's important another interesting thing in the movie that note where it was an aside but you're walking through the maximum security prison what is that, Norway?
in Norway and there's modern art on the walls it was mind blowing it was mind blowing so let's go back to you in modern art so you killed Jesus with a gun as a playwright won an award at the University of Michigan yeah it was gutsy what did your Catholic parents think of it? did they come to the show? they didn't come to the show but I explained it enough to them to where they understood that I was trying to show the good Jesus and that the haters would not like it if he was walking amongst us today they got that how Catholic did you grow up? very Catholic my parents went to Mass every single day of their lives seven days a week yes and I asked them at 14 years old if I could leave home and go to the seminary to be a priest and they did not want me to go but all you had to do was tell them that you had a calling I didn't believe in that but I wanted to remember the time we lived in the Berrigan brothers these were two Catholic priests Phil and Dan Berrigan I think Tom Berrigan is a writer or a member of KISS but they were the anti-war priests they were arrested for pouring their blood over draft records there was Cesar Chavez and the farm workers were very Catholic based and the priests that were involved in that movement so I was very much drawn to how being a priest could actually do good in this manner and so I convinced him to let me leave home at 14 and I went away to the seminary you did?
yes I did for how long? just one year the hormones kicked in I read the rule book at that time it just said no girls of course I actually meant no girls or boys but yeah no it's somewhere between the age of 14 and 15 I thought wow there's another gender and they look good yeah yeah you're late on that one no I remember I was in science class and the priest I was in science class and I remember saying to him so father so God created everything in six days and on the sixth day he created man you know like Adam that made Eve from Adam with a rib and I don't know about that father because it looks like to me God spent about 23 hours of that day on women and about an hour on us I mean you know look at the women they're like they score higher on the test they live three years longer you're thinking ahead we need the women to be ahead of the curve yeah they live longer they have two X chromosomes we're missing one piece of that second X chromosome which we call now a Y but it's missing that fourth quadrant right and that's also something that was in this film that conversation with those female CEOs in Norway you know about and that the former was she the president yeah the president of Iceland of Iceland that's right it was in Iceland the women CEOs about the first country to elect a woman president and also that the women salvaged the economy after the bankers destroyed it and that there's this interesting balance and respect and equality and it's very clear to the men there too it seems that women really should be running things well isn't it odd that we don't have more women running things or that we prevent them from running things because go back to when you were a child who ran the house well that's always been the sort of weird who took care of the checkbook the weird excuse of patriarchy is they're secretly running things we don't need to well in fact actually the women in Iceland I showed this in the film went on strike in 1975 and it shut the country down and not just the country in terms of nothing worked but they wouldn't work in the home either they went on this like women's strike and so nobody was making dinner nobody was doing the laundry and it flipped the men out and actually in a good way sensitized them to the fact of wow if it weren't for women things would be pretty bad and also you shot in Tunisia which had a similar situation I think after that yes the women there wanted an equal rights amendment to their constitution like the women in this country it's a Muslim country the Islamic party opposed it but the people of the country wanted it and they voted it in and now they have all these equal rights provisions in their constitution for women that we don't have in our constitution I found it fascinating because I'm guilty of what that Tunisian woman was talking in her appeal to the people of the United States that you gave a few people the opportunity if you have anything to say that's a tough position for someone to be in in a way but when she said we all know you why don't you get to know us and I'm guilty of that and it is sort of fascinating to me I don't even know much about England you know what I mean but there's a whole world you don't know something about the country next door to you we're in California we're a few miles from Mexico who's the president of Mexico? that guy exactly and you're an educated person you know who he is? no I don't know who he is I got it I know I'm not saying I'm smarter than you now we know Trudeau just got a name everybody knows in Canada but the reason I know it is because his wife fucked Nick Jagger exactly but who's been the Prime Minister of Canada for the last decade?
that fucking guy that was the bear of Toronto Steven Harper he ran Canada for the last decade yeah yeah yeah they all hated him I'm just saying we don't know anything about anybody in the world including the people next door to us in the last few years I've so thoroughly detached from the political circus I'm hard-bressed to know exactly what's going on now I don't know that I've gotten cynical I've just gotten more self-involved no way what do you mean by that? well I made a fairly clear decision to deal with my own kind of existential struggles emotionally and otherwise around my own rage and my own sort of perception of things and talk about that on a day-to-day basis I went in instead of out after Air America and a lot of people relate to it it was certainly because you've taken that path it's been so much more enlightening than when you were on Air America and you had to play a role on the liberal radio network no no no your podcast and now your show on TV this is very engaging it's like you can't stop listening you can't stop watching because you figured out in the way that you were saying about maybe I'm more angry than ever even though I look like I'm being diplomatic and nice but I've just found a way to channel that rage in a way where I want I want things to happen in my lifetime I want them to happen for me, my neighbors, you people who live across the pond whatever and I think you've done a similar thing and you may call it not political but it might actually be more political because humanizes and people start to appreciate each other yes and I think that that goes a long way to making the world a better place I know you're not doing this for that ultra-shade reason but Mark I mean let's just do we have a split screen here on the radio no but I'm just saying put old Mark up against current well that's why I thought I've started to soften a bit and be a little more I don't think it's softening but empathetic why is that softening that's in a good way no but being empathetic and going inward like that that is aggressive in a way because we're not supposed to do that we're supposed to keep up the armor and the shield and keep working and keep working and how come we don't go on a hundred dates on the road you know it's like no I don't think so I've been saying that a lot lately but I think that there's a positive effect to it but I think that's something you might have gotten before it became too filled with bile that being part of a Catholic upbringing if you frame it philosophically in the correct way it is an empathetic disposition like profoundly yes but also being brought up in a Catholic way I mean I mean you know anybody listening to this who was raised Catholic really super Catholic big C Catholic man there's a lot going on yeah there's a hell there's a hell and you know what happens there there's a lot of burning and horrible things and you believe it and you believe that the hell you're experiencing now somehow you deserve it you must have done something to bring this onto yourself and all of that it's just no I think it's but again it's funny when I have my TV show which one? Bubble Truth? actually this happened on both shows on TV Nation The Awful Truth and we were in the writers room one day myself and the writers and I don't know how we got into the topic of religion but it was kind of like you know you kind of knew who the Jewish writers were and you knew a couple of the Catholics so we just asked everybody like how were you raised and what religion there wasn't a single Protestant in the room they were all raised Catholic for Jewish so then when I did my second TV show we did the same thing there was one Protestant and the rest was all it was like Catholic was he the showrunner?
yes actually his name was Jay Martel and he went on to be the showrunner for Key and Peele he's a very very funny guy that's funny the self-flagellation necessary to become a writer only exist in Jews and Catholics yeah what is that? I think it's because I think we need to laugh I think it's the flip side of the coin the relief the relief because on the other side of the coin we're actually quite angry and also it's a way to sort of maneuver through the world and have a voice and you know humor can be very powerful and cutting it can be disarming and it can be revelatory I mean it's so powerful and it also helps to deal with the personal pain oh yeah absolutely oh yeah I mean you know too quiet for too long I think especially if you're Irish Catholic you know you have this choice of how do you because so much of the humor is dark humor you're really trying to alleviate a lot of the inner pain and that's what the alcohol is for so if you're not going to be a drunk now the humor button really better kick in but you saw these Catholic priests who were active and revolutionary so you did a year at seminary you did a year and a half at the University of Michigan it seems like you're good at taking about a year or so to figure shit out so when did I need to move on when did things start to lock in in terms of kind of manifesting your revolutionary ideals wow well I put out my own newspaper for about 10 years in Flint it was called the Flint Voice based on the New York paper yeah kind of like the the old Village Voice the weekly politics culture that sort of thing like James Ridgway stuff the people that own Mother Jones Magazine in San Francisco saw my paper and asked me to come out and interview to be the editor of Mother Jones and so I went out there and they offered me the job and I had to decide whether or not to close up my life in Flint and move to San Francisco did you ever do any radio? and I have my own radio show in Flint it was Radio Free Flint what was that? it was a weekly one hour show something like this where anybody had humor but there were interviews and on the week of Christmas we had drunk Santa come in and little kids would actually call up live thinking they're talking to Santa was it a late night show?
no it was not it was on Sunday morning oh on a rock station you know that rock block rock before noon on Sundays where they would have community programming oh right right that was you? that was me oh how long did you do that for? I did that for almost 10 years really? yeah yeah it was a lot of fun is that where you met James?
no I met him because he called me up and he said I'm going to make a documentary film with this buddy of mine his name is Kevin Rafferty in Michigan because the Ku Klux Klan and the neo-Nazis were kind of coming back oh was that Blood in the Face? Blood in the Face oh that fucking movie fucked me up yeah and he said do you know anything about these guys here in Michigan? I said oh yeah I know all about them would you help us and so yeah sure so I got them into some Klan rallies and some neo-Nazis stuff how do you know that? I had had them on my radio show so you engage these guys?
oh of course they're scary guys no I go on Bill O'Reilly yeah right I mean I go on Hannity not that they're Nazis or Klan don't take that the wrong way but I'm just saying yes I'm not afraid of the so-called enemy or somebody has a different opinion than I have but these guys are really crazy and so we got there to the big Klan weekend it was like a convention of Klan and Rafferty and Ridgeway they did not want to be on camera they thought after the phone comes out we're dead and they said to me we're dead and I called up Rafferty Kevin Rafferty in Ridgeway and I said hey can you guys help me out and teach me how to make a movie and Kevin Rafferty said he made a film called The Atomic Cafe I remember that movie there was all the old clips in the duck and cover he said I'll come back to Flint and I'll spend a week and I'll shoot for you and I'll teach you how to use the camera and the machine and the sound this is for Roger and me for Roger and me and I knew nothing and he was my film school and the most amazing guy taught me how to edit down in the village show when I was done shooting the film and then I ended up in Washington D.C. because I had to go get a job and I'm cutting my movie Roger and me and it's inauguration day for the first Bush in January of 89 and I said to the editors have you ever seen an inauguration you want to go down yeah it's cold usually it's very cold we went down there's nobody there though back in those days at the inauguration that's true yeah I mean it was like the mall was empty it was crowded up by the Capitol steps but it didn't go back like Obama's day for like three months so we got kind of close and there were TV screens there were big screens that were up and I said to the editors oh my god there's Kevin Rafferty he's up there and we thought he was shooting a documentary of the inauguration I called him a couple days later another drag my uncle is the president of the United States oh my what I've known this guy for like now two or three years I said you've got to be kidding me he goes no my mother and Barbara Bush are sisters I said I cannot how come you never said this how come you ever mentioned this he goes that's the very way you're reacting right now oh my god it was so I couldn't believe that my film school was a member of the Bush family like a close member yeah a close member so when I get the film done and Bush George I wants their head of a family reunion at Camp David orders a print from Warner Brothers to be sent of Roger and me to Camp David the show because Kevin helped he shot the film so it's like our nephew Kev our nephew so I tried to go but I couldn't oh that would make a good screening I said to him so what happened in there in the projection he was like well it was pretty quiet during the movie except for one except for one of his cousins laughed hysterically throughout the whole movie I said oh that's good good good good no no no he's got a little problem it's his cousin named George oh he got a kick out of it that's the first time I heard of George W. Bush was from whatever high he was on laughing hysterically throughout my movie at Camp David that is a great story is that wild it's crazy it's crazy yeah that guy who was laughing in your first movie would become one of your mortal enemies how small is the world small world no no if I wasn't for the Bush I might not even be a filmmaker that's why I've always spoken well of them so they're not my mortal enemies so you took the job of Mother Jones after Roger and me no no that's how I ended up making the film because I went out there and four months later I'm fired in political disagreements with the owner of the magazine like what he wanted to run this story by this guy about the Sandinistas in Nicaragua weren't all that they were cracked up to be and I didn't feel that way and he didn't provide the evidence that I required I didn't like that I put an autowork around the cover and gave the guy a monthly column Mother Jones like a lot of stuff on the left was not for working class people and I was trying to change the magazine more into a working class left liberal magazine and that's not the direction I wanted to go how do you feel about the left in general you're fired but how do you feel about the left in general along those lines along class lines and along what activism really means and what is it going to take for the money left to sort of integrate and activate and be part of an actual left is that something you think about I think about it all the time because I'm out here in LA right now and so I'm going around and I'm showing my movie to people and we're talking about it but it's in home theaters in home theaters and in other theaters here and it's very interesting I always notice especially coming from New York I can spend two or three days here and never encounter especially in this business African Americans the only African Americans I will encounter in LA will be either picking me up at the airport or serving me something you know at a restaurant you can go to Tyler Perry's house no I've been there no but it's very you can't have that experience in New York every day is with everybody that's true that's a beautiful thing about New York you know I live on a street that have multi-million dollar apartments and there's in the building next to mine there's rent control apartments in New York 800 or 900 a month a few that are left but even that there's still I don't want to say it's affordable but if you know how to work it you can live there I've noticed that New York the tone of the actual island of Manhattan has definitely changed that has really changed it used to really feel like everybody's on the same page here no it doesn't feel like that anymore no it doesn't I mean I live in a nice apartment building but when I moved in there when I first moved in there there were two or three guys from Saturday Night Live that lived there the playwright that wrote M Butterfly lived there Harvey Fierstein lived there two New York Rangers lived there I mean in terms of the people that had some money and could afford to live on the West Side but they were still creative people my building now is a lot mostly I would say majority Wall Street or foreign owners or investors and I'm like I sit out like such a sore thumb there and I'm you're like living in the enemy camp I know but I bought this place like 25 years ago so I got the mortgage paid off I mean it's like I don't want to leave because to get something now would be outrageous how do you stifle yourself walking past your neighbors I actually have that thought in my head stifle, stifle, stifle now they're probably listening to this and I try to treat everybody the same but actually it sounds like I pity them because they're bankers but actually I guess I do in some ways because they're not doing good for the world they've made the world they've made this country a worse place and I just often think if I had like an hour with them I can talk them out of some of it maybe maybe you should have a little media put some posters up hey who wants to talk about the truth I have tried and I try I'll tell you something I've done recently I did this a while back I was walking out of a movie theater and this was in Florida and I walked by a guy and he just goes asshole to you yeah to me and I stopped and I turned around and said hey you can't call me back come back here and the friend I'm with you is like oh god what are you doing I said no no it's okay it's okay and that comes back and we don't get into a fight and he goes because I think you're an asshole I said you don't even know me how can you even say something like that I mean maybe I am but when you want to at least know something I know everything about you I said you haven't seen a single one of my movies and he had an honest moment and he said you're god damn right I haven't I said how can you make up your mind like this without I said listen go home seriously go on Netflix go on iTunes rent one of them I don't get any more money from these films I don't have a back end so you're not giving me any money but for $2.99 watch any of them and I swear to god at the end of the movie you may not agree with me politically but you will come to I think three conclusions number one I love this country number two I have a heart I care about what's going on and I care about other people number three I swear to god you're going to laugh a half a dozen times in the movie some of it is a comedy and what did he say and he said well I already know what you're going to say I said no you don't you honestly don't you've been told this by Fox News or by Rush Limbaugh or whatever and they're in trouble once you watch one of my movies because you're going to go they lied to me I mean I don't agree with Mike politically but he clearly loves this country and he's funny well he gives a shit how has that burden for you been to sort of be he shook my hand he did he said I'll do it well you treated him with respect because I do respect him even calling me an asshole I think I'm not mad I just think he's been misled and if he really knew me he wouldn't think that but how do you shoulder that burden of knowing that that's true because those guys a lot of those guys you can actually blow at least part of their mind and you can actually teach them things they didn't know at all show them some facts and some truths that elude them because they get their anger buzz from the severely narrow ideology of people that aren't even thinking in their interest but how do you live with that I mean how do I handle that well I guess handle it but I mean you handle the hate there's a hate but just being a demigod being characterized as this evil demigod of the left because I think this new movie appeals to a broader spectrum I don't think about the 20% that are over on the far far right they're lost souls I feel bad about that they're my fellow Americans I care about them and what I always say to them is that I'm going to keep fighting for the things I believe in and when we succeed at getting true universal health care when we succeed at having a bullet train that can get from LA to New York in nine hours I'm going to let you ride that train too and I'm going to let you have the free health care too because I want you to participate in all these things I'm working on this for everybody not just myself and my other liberal little do-gooder friends I'm working on these things for all of us and I've actually thought about either making a film or writing a book just for those guys and also for those bankers that live in my building and say to them I want to explain to you why these things that I talk about in this current film in terms of the 36 hour work week the universal health care a better justice system not imprisoning people who use marijuana and other drugs I want to show you the great education system of a good education I want to show you the conservative why this is good for you I want you to agree with this not because of again I don't want you to become a bleeding heart liberal stay the way you are but I want to show you how you will live in a safer neighborhood if we change how we do things that you will have better employees smarter employees if we make our education system different that you will have healthier employees and it will be more productive if they have a paid vacation if they have a paid maternity leave I think that there is a way to explain this if I make it about them again go to the me that they so believe in how does this benefit me how can I make a bigger profit with my business actually you can make a great profit there is a reason the French are more productive than we are I mean that is a crazy thought that the French are more productive work less hours produce more how can that be I would like to show them how that if we were more like the French they would be even richer than they are now what I always found fascinating when I was doing more political talk was just the power of the hypnotic repetition machine not just the echo chamber but the amount of money that goes in to sort of mining and exploiting a diminished working class's anger and directing it to really the wrong direction and against their personal economic interests it's sort of fascinating to me that there are people that hang on to a sense of pride that is it's sort of shallow and uninformed at this point but I think that's changing too I think you're right we've had Barack Obama elected twice and I mean that's an incredible thing a man whose middle name is Hussein gets elected by a majority of Americans twice and I mean we still have so much racism in this country I think millions of people actually were able to set aside their personal prejudices to vote for him because they knew that was a better way to go than the last eight years when I talked to him in here he talked about any incremental progress within democracy is good that's correct and a lot of times it's very incremental but that's the nature of it and I was talking to Chris Hayes just about stuff like gay marriage all the people that had old ideas about those type of relationships who fought tooth and nail in their living rooms give them a couple years and be like that's just the way it is now I guess the hate will be gone and the acceptance of the reality of democracy working will take hold that's right that's the way it works here that's the way it works and that's because I think human beings at their core not everyone but most are good I do too they know good and they know right from wrong and it doesn't become about democrat versus republican or whatever it's about what's the common sense thing to do here what's the fair way to treat people and I believe most Americans eventually get to that place there's a lot of things that are keeping a lot of Americans off balance on a day to day basis yes fear what's the percentage of the country that lives from paycheck to paycheck I mean it's high it's really the middle class is less and less people aren't able to do the things they want to do they don't know you take your student loan paid off until you're in your 40s I mean it's yes people live I know people my age that all of a sudden can't get a job and can't get a job and they can't get a job I mean I have people in my family who have jobs and then something goes wrong and they struggle and these guys are in their 40s and 50s and they're able and they're ready can't fucking get work it's heartbreaking because there's nothing to fall back on for so many people there's just nothing to fall back on and so that will do a number on you oh yeah man someone's got to pay and it's hard not to think that way and so who has to pay for their situation not the system or the people that put them in that situation but the family the neighbor the old boss the Mexican the whatever I'm going to build a wall it's like Trump really appeals to that kind of place it's quite a show and it's quite a show in a lot of levels from where I'm sitting that show is really showing not so much what leadership is in any way but this sort of like just deep anger and frustration and sadness and just fear of all of it that whoever is energized by that is experiencing right but again remember 81.5% I'm not freaking out how women they're not the angry white guy they're women they're people of color and they're young people and that's what's going to save us well from when looking at the whole oeuvre of your work if that's the word going from all the movies all the way from Roger and me and Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9-11 now can you cite outside what we're talking about now and the electorate changes and some of the stuff outside it seems to me that around social issues we made some progress healthcare a little progress education not so much race not so much a little but corporate occupation of the government and corporate apologists and corporate malfeasance runs rampant still and that seems to be the toughest one and that's the toughest one and that is what if we are destroyed it'll be because of that because the democracy will no longer be about one person one vote you and I and everybody else have an equal say on what's going on because we all know now that the corporations the rich the 1% now the .1% it's not the 1% anymore it's the .1% they call all the shots they call all the shots with the money they have they buy the laws they buy the law bankers and if we don't get a handle on that that will be our doom what do you think it will take I know that when Occupy Wall Street happened that you were obviously in support of that and it was exciting and it might have made some metaphorical difference I don't know that oh absolutely it changed the thinking it created the idea of the 99% don't have the power the 1% have the power that Occupy Wall Street Obama was talking he took the language of Occupy Wall Street when he ran for in 2012 Mitt Romney lost in part because of that take that the bartender made of him talking about the 47% of the takers a couple weeks ago they asked Democrats your view of capitalism your view of socialism which one do you feel 46% said they had a favorable view of socialism these are just Democrats mainstream Democrats 46% so they had a positive view of socialism, 37%, so they had a positive view of capitalism. That's a transitional moment where even mainstream regular people realize that the so-called capitalist system that has been operating is not in their message.
One thing I could never understand in having conversations about that when I did have conversations about that was this idea of a free market and things finding its level through privatization. This great vision of a free market and privatization will provide the best possible education, product, whatever it is. What no one ever accounted for was fucking pathological greed. There's no way a free market can work because of the fucking greed.
They're going to undercut whatever they can undercut to save fucking money and make more money. So I just... And part of that is human nature. I mean, it's like, we do need regulation.
Of course. We are told we have to put clothes on when we leave the office. Good not to masturbate in public. Yes.
But Michael, so let's talk about this, you're more angry than ever, yet you were conscious and you had an agenda in approaching this movie, which I tend to think, I'm going to support my own intuition about it, was that you were dealing with people in other countries and you were excited about it and you were respectful about it. But before we do that real quick, I thought one of the best messages of the movie was this focus on the idea of human dignity. Like that really fucking hit home for me for some reason. Just the montage where you were able to cover prisons and those treatments, the treatment of women, the treatment of children, and the lack of education, school lunches, that the fundamental message of the movie was, did you feel that?