Here Comes Trouble

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Table of Contents

Copyright Page

For

my mother

who taught me to read

and write

when I was four

Growing up it all seems so one-sided

Opinions all provided

The future pre-decided

Detached and subdivided

In the mass production zone

Nowhere is the dreamer

Or the misfit

So alone…

—
“Subdivisions”
Neil Peart/Rush

A Note from the Author

This is a book of short stories based on events that took place in the early years of my life. Many of the names and circumstances have been changed to protect the innocent, and sometimes the guilty. They say that memory can be a strange and twisted amusement park, full of roller coaster rides and funhouse mirrors, frightening freak shows and gentle contortionists. This is my first volume of such stories. I wanted to commit them to paper while paper (and bookstores and libraries) still existed.

S
ANDY
B
ATES
[W
OODY
A
LLEN
]: Shouldn’t I stop making movies and do something that counts, like helping blind people or becoming a missionary or something?

T
HE
A
LIEN:
Let me tell you, you’re not the missionary type. You’d never last. And incidentally, you’re also not Superman; you’re a comedian. You want to do mankind a real service? Tell funnier jokes.

—from
Stardust Memories
/Woody Allen

Epilogue

The Execution of Michael Moore

I’m thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I’m wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it… No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out [of him]. Is this wrong? I stopped wearing my “What Would Jesus Do?” band, and I’ve lost all sense of right and wrong now. I used to be able to say, “Yeah, I’d kill Michael Moore,” and then I’d see the little band: What Would Jesus Do? And then I’d realize, “Oh, you wouldn’t kill Michael Moore. Or at least you wouldn’t choke him to death.” And you know, well, I’m not sure.

Glenn Beck,
live on the
Glenn Beck
program,
May 17, 2005

Wishes for my early demise seemed to be everywhere. They were certainly on the mind of CNN’s Bill Hemmer one sunny July morning in 2004. He had heard something he wanted to run by me. And so, holding a microphone in front of my face on the floor of the 2004 Democratic National Convention, live on CNN, he asked me what I thought about how the American people were feeling about Michael Moore:

“I’ve heard people say they wish Michael Moore were dead.”

I tried to recall if I’d ever heard a journalist ask anyone that question before on live television. Dan Rather did not ask Saddam Hussein that question. I’m pretty sure Stone Phillips didn’t ask serial killer and cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer, either. Perhaps, maybe, Larry King asked Liza once—but I don’t think so.

For some reason, though, it was perfectly OK to pose that possibility to
me,
a guy whose main offense was to make documentaries. Hemmer said it like he was simply stating the obvious, like, “of course they want to kill you!” He just assumed his audience already understood this truism, as surely as they accept that the sun rises in the east and corn comes on a cob.

I didn’t know how to respond. I tried to make light of it. But as I stood there I couldn’t get over what he had just said live on a network that goes out to 120 countries and Utah. This “journalist” had possibly planted a sick idea into some deranged mind, some angry dittohead sitting at home microwaving his doughnut-and-bacon cheeseburger while his kitchen TV (one of five in the house) is accidentally on CNN:
“Well, more chilly weather today across the Ohio Valley, a cat in Philadelphia rolls its own sushi, and coming up, there are people who want Michael Moore dead!”

Hemmer wasn’t finished with his dose of derision. He wanted to know who gave me these credentials to be here. “The DNC [Democratic National Committee] did not invite you here, is that right?” Hemmer asked, as if he were some cop checking ID, something I’m sure he would ask no one else attending the convention that week.

“No,” I said, “the Congressional Black Caucus invited me here.” My anger was building, so I added, for effect, “Those
black
congressmen, you know.” The interview ended.

Over the next few minutes, off air, I just stood there and glared at him as other reporters asked me questions. Hemmer went over to be interviewed by some blogger. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I walked back up to him and said, with Dirty Harry calm,
“That is absolutely the most despicable thing ever said to me on live television.”

He told me not to interrupt him and to wait until he was done talking to the blogger.
Sure, punk, I can wait.

And then, when I wasn’t looking, he slipped away.
But there would be nowhere for him to hide!
He took refuge inside the Arkansas delegation—
the refuge of all scoundrels!
—but I found him, and I got right up in his face.

“You made my death seem
acceptable,
” I said. “You just told someone it was OK to kill me.”

He tried to back away, but I blocked him in. “I want you to think about your actions if anything ever happens to me. Don’t think my family won’t come after you, because they will.” He mumbled something about his right to ask me anything he wanted, and I decided it wasn’t worth breaking my lifelong record of never striking another human, certainly not some weasel from cable news (
Save it for
Meet the Press,
Mike!
). Hemmer broke loose and got away. Within the year he would leave CNN and move to Fox News, where he should have been in the first place.

To be fair to Mr. Hemmer, I was not unaware that my movies had made a lot of people mad. It was not unusual for fans to randomly come up and hug me and say, “I’m so happy you’re still
here!
” They didn’t mean in the building.

Why
was
I still alive? For over a year there had been threats, intimidation, harassment, and even assaults in broad daylight. It was the first year of the Iraq War, and I was told by a top security expert (who is often used by the federal government for assassination prevention) that “there is no one in America other than President Bush who is in more danger than you.”

How on earth did this happen? Had I brought this on myself? Of course I did. And I remember the moment it all began.

It was the night of March 23, 2003. Four nights earlier, George W. Bush had invaded Iraq, a sovereign country that not only had
not
attacked us, but was, in fact, the past recipient of military aid from the United States. This was an illegal, immoral, stupid invasion—but that was not how Americans saw it. Over 70 percent of the public backed the war, including liberals like Al Franken and the twenty-nine Democratic senators who voted for the war authorization act (among them Senators Chuck Schumer, Dianne Feinstein, and John Kerry). Other liberal war cheerleaders included
New York Times
columnist and editor Bill Keller and the editor of the liberal magazine the
New Yorker,
David Remnick. Even liberals like Nicholas Kristof of the
Times
hopped on the bandwagon pushing the lie that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Kristof praised Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell for “adroitly” proving that Iraq had WMDs. He wrote this after Powell presented phony evidence to the United Nations. The
Times
ran many bogus front-page stories about how Saddam Hussein had these weapons of mass destruction. They later apologized for their drumbeating this war into existence. But the damage had been done. The
New York Times
had given Bush the cover he needed
and
the ability to claim, heck, if a liberal paper like the
Times
says so, it must be true!