Everyone. This is Rumble with Michael
Moore. I'm Michael Moore.
Have you ever had just one of those weeks?
It's not the big things. It's sometimes just a hundred
little things that don't go right, I'm sure.
I'm not telling you something you haven't already experienced
many times maybe during the last couple in the half years but Oh,
you just reach a point where you want to watch cartoons or
something. And I don't know this last week
has been, it's been one of those weeks.
The first thing that happened was that, you know, I've
actually taken fairly good care of myself during the pandemic.
I've lost 52 pounds but the reason why I'm not necessarily
happy about that, is that I'm pretty sure.
Half of that has to be muscle. I've lost muscle.
Probably a lot of us have lost muscle because we haven't used
our muscles in the normal ways that we did back in normal
times. And so, it was bothering me.
And I thought, you know, we really got to start.
Now, getting back to the gym and lifting some weights plus, I've
promised everybody on on my podcast that trumps not coming
back. So I've got to be in fighting
shape here so. So I went to the gym for the
first time in couple years, some, you know, lifting some
weights and I'm doing some, you know, leg lifts and different
things and I don't know what happened.
I slipped. I tripped.
I don't know. I don't know what happened.
All I know is I started to go down.
This is a this is an old-school kind of Jim.
This is not a frou-frou type place, it's got a cement floor.
It's got you know those big truck tires that you got to lift
and flip over that kind of place and I started to go down, I
could not believe it. I went straight down on my knee
caps, man, I don't know. I've ever had that happen to
you, but it looks the most pain. And my brain is going fall, the
rest of the way, don't stay on your knees like that because
they've just gone on to a very hard cement Type surface floor.
And so, I just decided to tip over the rest rest of the way
and Bam. My head crashed right on the
cement floor. I should, I did it did have sort
of a like a little thin rubber. Thing on the cement, but
basically it was you know it was hard enough.
So when my head hit the floor, you could hear the crack of my
head across the gym and people ran over.
I'm going on. I'm okay, I'm okay.
Step away from the fall and Guy. Wow, I just couldn't believe it.
I was okay. I just do like the next day, I
was going to be a lot of pain, which I was my forehead was kind
of cut up. You know, I legs were pretty
mangled from landing on my knees like that but I didn't break
anything. Didn't have a concussion. but I
also, you know, I thought Maybe I wasn't paying attention,
getting up from the bench, doing whatever it was, I don't
whatever it was, I did. And part of that is because my
mind is elsewhere. and, before this happened in the in this
last week, before that I was kind of down and sad over the
fact that I lost a good friend and mentor and somebody who has
stood with me for over 25 years. I'm going to take a minute to
thank our Underwriters for this podcast of mine.
I'm very grateful and then I'm going to come back.
I'm happy to share with you that this podcast is being sponsored
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That our help for supporting my voice and supporting this
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grateful for them. For being part of our whole
thing here, with running, our little store online, with our
hats and t-shirts, and other things for you to purchase for
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own business. To help your school and
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Now with Shopify today, go to Shopify.com / 1 Bowl right now.
Shopify.com / Rommel. I'll 12 days ago, a good friend
of mine passed away. His name was Mort janklow and he
was also my literary agent or book agent.
And it was his job to try to get what I wrote out to as many
millions of people as possible and that he did, but he was also
kind of a zen master Guru person that could talk to about things
going on in the world and in his role as my book agent, he has
stood by me during times when those who would try to get in
the way of me saying what I wanted to say.
He would stand up for me. He was 91, he passed away here
just before Memorial Day. So he'd had a long and good life
and wonderful, wife and kids and just kind of quietly told his
wife, he was going to lay down, go to sleep.
And, and that he did Back in nam 2001, he'd got me in a book deal
to write a book about the first year of George w--, Bush.
And my thoughts about that, and a whole bunch of other things.
It was called stupid, white men turned out, not to be that much
about Bush. Although he was in it, it was
about a whole bunch of things over Decades of me living life
on this planet as a white guy. And what I have seen my my
gender and my people of my race do.
And so I just let it all out but the deal was with harpercollins
which unfortunately I portray we should put some thought into
this ahead of time. Was a publishing company is a
publishing company owned by Rupert Murdoch and they said the
publishing date publishing date. Meaning the day, it's in book
stores and they printed the first 50,000 copies and sent it
to you know, hundreds thousands of bookstores.
Around the country. And it was to go on sale on
September 11th, 2001 and of course, we know what happened on
that day and by noon Harper Collins had called, or sent
messages or whatever, to all these bookstores around the
country, telling them to pull my book off the shelves.
And they called me and they let me know they were doing that.
And they just thought, you know, why do you know why why why have
this be the publishing date? You know, let's just pull it
till we find out what's going on in the world things calm down.
It made sense to me, you know? I mean, obviously, I was in no
mood to go out on a book tour that day or Any of the other
things they had planned. So week went by, and two weeks,
and by that a month went by, and it's like what's going to happen
with the book when you put it in back in the bookstores and they
called me and Mort into their headquarters in New York.
And Madison Avenue to tell us that they felt like, they could
not put out a book attacking the president of the United States
during a time like this. And they would like me to
rewrite about a third of the book and tone it down.
Those are the keywords tone it down.
And then the Humana me, a copy of the book with all the parts
marked, it read that they want to take it out.
I mean, it was just page after page, after page of let's say a
third of the page, some pages, completed the whole page just
gone. I remember saying to them using
the line that the bush in the others and Empower like to use,
if you give in to the terrorists, done it, that means
the terrorists win. So you're asking me in a free
country to censor myself and take this out and take that out
and put something that's not so harsh against George w--.
Bush. And as I was saying to them
across the table, that that's not going to happen.
Mort pipes in it just says, he's not, he's not change it a
goddamn thing. Because nothing has changed
except Everything Has Changed making his point.
Why we need changing this kind of, he just went on, it was so
eloquent and I'm making I'm using this Gruff voice.
I do, I still do after all these years, I don't have a very good
New Yorker voice. But so we left there at kind of
a stalemate because they are not going to put the 50,000 copies
that they had already printed it to the book stores, they had
pulled it back from the bookstores and now they were in
a warehouse or whatever. This is like a month after 9/11.
It's a while, you should think about it because we're not
putting this book out. So there wasn't much to think
about, I just didn't know what to do for the next month.
I was like, for this point, we're in November and I'm
putting the book out more, you know, it's threatening them, I
have a contract with them, etc, etc.
And on a November 30th, 2001, my editor there, nice guy.
Called me up and said well the people here the corporate
honchos have decided that not only are they not going to put
the book out. Now they're going to pulp pulp,
I never heard that word in that way before are going to pull,
Paul 50,000 copies, they printed meaning, they were going to
recycle them into I guess, new paper.
For new books. And I was like, I was
speechless, I didn't know what to say.
I called Mort they told him alone.
What are we going to do? And he says, we'll have a plan,
don't worry. Just I said, I know I'm supposed
to go out and speak at Rutgers tomorrow, they're having a
Labour conference. They want me to come out and
give a talk and I don't want to do that.
No, no. You should go do it, go do it.
So I did the next day. It was a Saturday December
first. Remember thinking a day always
think on December 1st. That's the De Rosa Parks.
Refused to give up her seat on the Montgomery Bus and I went
out to Rutgers and I took a copy.
I had an advance copy of the book and I said, you know, I was
supposed to talk about something here today but I'm I'm so
distraught because harpercollins is going to pulp every copy of
my book that they've printed just going to turn it into
waste. And then recycle it.
So you may be the only people that get to hear anything from
this book. If you don't mind instead of
giving a talk, I'd rather. If I could read a chapter 22 and
they applauded in, and I did that and I didn't know that in
the back of the room, there was a librarian.
Why would I know there's a librarian at the back of the
room. There's a librarian and she
heard this whole thing and she went home and went online and
got into a librarian, chat room and told all these other
Librarians, that harpercollins is Is going to destroy literally
destroy my book. And a few days later, I get a
call from some executive at Harper Collins.
I can't remember now who it was have, put so much of this out of
my head screaming at me. What'd you tell the Librarians?
What, what did you say to the Librarians?
I said, I don't know any Librarians, I don't know what
you're talking about. Well, there's like a hundred of
them outside the are building here.
Pick it in us saying that we've banned your.
How do they know we've banned your?
We didn't ban your book. You refuse to rewrite it.
I said, look, you made your decision.
Why are you bothering me? I don't know anything about any
Librarians. Well, their picket got in
Publishers Weekly than the New York Times.
And all of a sudden, everybody knew that harpercollins was
going to pulp, destroy my book and learn.
And not let the American people or anybody around the world,
read it and the editorials began against harpercollins and more
protests and finally, they called Morton and me back over
to the building and and said, Okay, on the oath.
There was the Mordecai was at the head of the table.
You knew him because he had the Australian accent.
It's okay, you win. They said, to me, you win.
Here's the deal. We're going to put the book back
in the bookstores, but we're not putting any more copies that
50,000, that's it. And there's there will be no
book tour will not spend one dime on Advertising, will put
them in the store. That's it.
That's, we're done. We're done with you.
We're done with the book. Good riddance one of them said
to me, what kind of book career? Do you think you're going to
have after this who's gonna want to publish you?
You're such trouble who would want this trouble?
So maybe you should have thought of that, you know more you're
going to have a difficult time trying to get him a another book
deal. So we laughed and they set the
publication date and I think it was the first first or second
Tuesday of February of 2002. So the book came out on that day
on the Tuesday and by Friday They were already in their ninth
printing of the book. It was selling out so fast every
day in bookstores across the country, they couldn't keep up
with it. It eventually had geez.
Something like 60, some printings.
It was on the New York Times, bestseller list.
Well, it was number 14, geez. I don't know. 30 weeks, 25 30
weeks and then it stayed on there for 69 weeks as the
hardcover that when the paperback came out I mean it
just it sold millions and millions of copies sold a
million copies just in Germany it's sold a million copies just
in the UK. I mean it's literally millions
around the world. Got to read stupid white men.
This book that they said, they'd never print another copy.
Of course, I don't need to explain to you.
One of the beauties of capitalism is the What's the old
line that the capitalists will sell you the rope to hang
himself with if they believe they can make a buck off it?
They don't really care what you're saying.
You can attack, Bush all you want, if they're selling
millions of copies of a book, just the irony often sometimes
works in our favor because ultimately, any business.
That's, that's what they care about, right?
The do re me man, but if I hadn't had more janklow, I don't
know. I don't know if I would have
gotten through this. This he's considered was
considered the probably the top book agent in the country.
Certainly. In New York, most of his clients
were all these people that were not like me.
They were, you know, Danielle Steel, and Judith crayons and
Anne Rice, and he was also the book agent for Jimmy Carter, The
Pope. And then he had a few of us
Renegades and Gore Vidal, myself and others.
But all through the pandemic, he checked in with me at least
every other month I heard from. How's the new book coming?
Are you doing semi chapters? You know, it's just never
stopped his support and even though he had sort of semi
retired from his own company, he made it clear that he was still,
he was still my literary agent. Just a couple weeks before he
died. He sent me an e-mail.
Just checking in. How you doing?
I holding up and And I remember being really busy that day that
week and, you know, I put it in the queue to respond to them and
of course I didn't in time and he died.
And I think we've all had that feeling right?
With people, we've lost you want that last conversation?
You want. You want that last?
I don't know, whatever that is. It's, this is not an unusual
thing but Mighty good to have that last go around that last
talk. That You know, his take on,
what's going on in the world. So always so fascinating to me.
And, and you know, when you, when you do the things I do, you
need people in your corner that are going to fight for you
because the system is set up to make sure my voice isn't heard.
Just like for many of you it would be they don't want to hear
from us. Of course they don't they should
they, you know, we're out we're not here to put a bandaid on
things. We want real change and we want
it now. And and I've had a few of these
individuals like more, janklow who would stand with me, no
matter what, no matter what I have the same thing to with my,
my agent. They're in for my films and TV
Hollywood stuff. You know, are a manual Is that
kind of person he just Fahrenheit 9/11.
There would have saw the light of day and he not been willing
to go on the record with the New York Times to tell them how
Disney which owned Miramax at that time refused to release my
film because they didn't want to upset the governor of Florida
because they were going to expand Disney World down there
and they want to get tax breaks and all that.
And so, they were going to kill my film about Bush, because Jeb
Bush was the governor Thinking about that last month with the
Santos going after Disney. It's like like how many things
have just kind of flipped on their head during this time
we're in right now? But if you are able to see a
movie of mine or read a book or somehow I'm on television, trust
me. It wasn't easy.
There was a lot of rigmarole that I and others went through
just so that you could hear my voice.
I've written a little bit about it in my in my books.
And I've talked a little bit about it on this podcast, but I
think someday here, I'm going to share Some of these stories that
are just wood, I don't think it'll make your head spin
because you would probably go of course.
You know, they why are they even letting him say anything?
Hmm. My best to Mort's, wife Linda,
she's, they've been married since I think the 1950s, 1908
50s, early 60s, wonderful, people, Linda's.
Father was Mervyn Leroy, who was the producer of The Wizard of Oz
and a director of number of films back in the 30s and 40s.
And her grandfather is Harry Warner.
One of the five Warner Brothers and the story's just having a
lunch or dinner with them. And just those the stories of
old Hollywood and just incredible information and
inspiration for this great art form known as the cinema.
But more, it was in my life to help me get my books out there.
Give me the right publisher and So, I've had what is, I've had
82. I think eight books, I've
written, and in some part, thanks to his encouragement and
to his battling for getting what I needed to get in the stores,
to get out to the people, all eight of those books ended up on
the New York Times. Bestseller list.
I'm grateful to him for that, but I'm more grateful for just
the the company that I got to keep with him and what I got to
learn. Learn about this world, the
other parts of the world. The peek behind the curtain that
growing up in a factory. Family in Flint Michigan would
never give you And to be able to learn that and deal with it.
And they have somebody Stand By Your Side.
It's a very powerful thing. so, my condolences and my love my
best, to Linda, his widow, his two kids who are not kids
anymore. It's, I don't know.
There are other people that I've known other friends that have
died during the pandemic because of the pandemic.
And that's been difficult. We lost a lot of creative
people. A lot of people in the Arts and
so whoever we are coming out of this pandemic, they won't be
forgotten and they will live on in US.
In the work we do. And we move forward.
I feel today tonight that I've lost, I don't know how to put
this. I'm a little less protected.
I don't mean to make this about myself, but, you know more, he
was only five days away from his 92nd birthday anyway.
He was still working. He has his assistant told me
that he had before. I went to bed that night and he
passed away. He watched two documentaries.
He was just such a, he was so smart and he could outsmart all
the bad people. And now, what do I do?
Hmm. Well, you know, I'm over the age
now where I've seen enough and I've learned enough and I know
how to how to fight the good fight, how not to give up.
And to look for people where I can help them, I could help
protect them. I could help get their movies
made or their books published or whatever.
So all good will come of this. But I'm just a personal level.
I think as I wrap this up, I'm just sitting here thinking, you
know, of this loss, I guess and And So It Goes.
All right. My friends.
Thanks for letting me share all that with you.
I'm okay, I hope you're okay. I really hope you're okay
because we don't have another Choice here.
Terms of what we have to do. So be well.
Treat yourself well. Thanks to my producer and
editor, Angela bar goes and thanks to all of you.
Thanks to my producer and editor, Angela bar goes and
thanks to all of you.