- Good Friday/Passover/Easter, 2002
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- Dear friends,
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- I've never quite figured out why they call it "Good
Friday." I mean, for Christ's sake, a guy got nailed to death on a
cross! Actually it was THREE guys on that hill in Jerusalem -- the other
two being petty thieves who apparently had run afoul of Rome's three-strikes-and-you're-out
policy. Maybe someone came up with the term "Good Friday" to
try and put a positive spin on things, realizing it's hard to attract converts
to your religion with such a downer image of its leader being executed.
I've often wondered why the Catholic Church doesn't use Jesus rolling back
the stone and rising from the dead as its chief icon, something we'd all
like to be able to do someday. Instead, we get his corpse hammered into
wood and hung above every altar. It's like the Democrats deciding to replace
the donkey as their symbol with JFK's brains being blown out the back of
his head. Who'd vote for the candidate with that image next to his or her
name on the ballot?
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- I am being evicted today, Good Friday, from my office.
I had just one week left to edit my film, but the landlord -- heartless
bastard! -- is having me tossed out for non-payment of rent. Back in October,
my publisher, HarperCollins, was supposed to pay me for the work I did
in writing "Stupid White Men." Citing "the tragic events
of 9-11" (a mantra that seems to have been repeated by every business
in America as they've shamelessly used the dead of that day to justify
their obscene layoffs and cutbacks) the publisher claimed they did not
have to pay me until the book was "published." I said, "What
do you call 50,000 copies of this very book that have already been printed
and are now sitting in your warehouse?" They said, "We call that
printing 50,000 copies of a book that's now sitting in a warehouse, but
not yet 'published.'"
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- Well, once you head down the road trying to fight that
kind of logic, you are lost in a vortex from which you may never return.
So, the book didn't really "exist" (and it sat in "nonexistence"
in that warehouse for another 4 months). Meanwhile, I had no paycheck.
Now, I don't want to bore you with my financial situation, and I certainly
don't want you feeling sorry for me. I have done better than I have ever
dreamed of with my high school education, and I'm sure most of you could
fill both my ears with what it takes for YOU just to make it through the
week. My current problems were compounded by the fact that I had decided
to spend the bulk of 2001 making the documentary film that I am now finishing.
I got my last paycheck for this film 12 months ago, so I was counting on
the fee for the book to get me through the rest of 2001.
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- When that didn't happen (as most of you know, the publisher
wanted me to "tone down" the stuff about Bush in the book, and
I wouldn't, so there was a standoff until they finally backed down), things
began to fall apart. After I had already gone a few months without being
able to pay the office rent where our edit room was located, the landlord
went to court and got an order -- to have the sheriff toss me out on the
curb! Suddenly, visions of Deputy Fred from "Roger & Me"
were dancing in my head! Well, I negotiated with the landlord to give me
a little more time, and the angels from Salter Street Films in Canada (who
have backed this documentary from the start) agreed to pay some of the
rent. But the landlord would only accept the money on the condition that
we leave the premises on Easter weekend.
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- And, thus, here I am, using the last computer still hooked
up to electricity, writing you this letter. I can't get past either the
irony or the yin/yang of this moment: I've got the number one bestselling
book in the country -- and the landlord has just cut my off my electricity
in the middle of this sentence! I don't even know if the computer has backed-up
this letter! Agggghhh!!...
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- Okay, I've returned from my encounter with the landlord
in the hallway and the lights are back on. How surreal is this? Now comes
a message from the publisher that the book goes on sale in the U.K. and
Ireland this week, and they've also just sold the rights for the book in
China, Japan, Korea, France, Germany, and... THE LINE JUST WENT DEAD! The
phone company has disconnected our phone lines. AARRRGGHH!!...
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- Okay, the phones are back up. And, lucky for me, just
in time, because the guy who does our taxes is calling to tell me that
our tax returns are all filled out... "But there's just one little
problem -- you have no money in the bank to pay your taxes!" he says.
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- "You know that home improvement loan you got to
fix up your apartment? We'll have to borrow that money from the bank instead
to pay your taxes!" Waahhhggggghhh!!!
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- What is next? Please, Supreme Being in Charge Up There
-- I GET IT!: "You wanna sell 400,000 books? A pound-and-a-half of
flesh, sonny boy!"
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- The credit card company has now called because they have
cut off our card. But, wait, we paid THAT bill! People in our building
have heard we are moving and are stopping by to see if they can pick over
our furniture and equipment at fire sale prices. I see my desk being hauled
away one minute... then I see someone trying to walk off with our Ficus
tree that we ran for Congress in 2000... and now some stranger is swiping
the third reel of our film! SOMEBODY STOP HIM!
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- The phones, though, are still working. I know this to
be a fact because on the phone is the lawyer helping us avoid yet another
court appearance. The British TV network, Channel Four (the people who
produced the first season of "The Awful Truth"), have not paid
one of their bills here in New York, and it is now way overdue. The guy
wants to be paid -- he should be! -- but he hasn't sued Channel Four for
the money. He has come after us! And why not? Why go 4,000 miles across
an ocean to try and collect when the Channel Four employee whose name is
on the bill -- mine! -- is just down the street from you?! So, just days
short of completing my documentary, I have now had to sell off half our
edit equipment to pay off the creditor whom Channel Four failed to pay.
MOMMMYYYY!!!
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- Does it get worse? Of course it does! And this time,
the news is tragic. My wife and I have had four deaths in our extended
family in the past four months -- and now word comes today, Good Friday,
that an in-law has had a horrible accident in Michigan and is in critical
condition. He was in Michigan to attend his mother's funeral, just four
days ago... she was a wonderful woman whose simple presence brought happiness
to all around her. I can still remember Maryann decorating the church for
us the night before our wedding, an inner-city church that had seen its
day and not many weddings of late. She had transformed it into a beautiful
place for my wife and I. Now her son lays unconscious in a hospital fighting
for his life.
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- The TV is on, blaring in the background... suicide bombers
strike again in all their horror and a former butcher-now-prime minister
appears ready to slaughter as many people as he can, their blood on their
doorsteps will not protect them, no angel will pass over to spare them...
and my wife is on the phone with her sister who is telling her this bad
news about the accident and it all just becomes too much to handle... my
petty problems are reduced to the significance they deserve, and I quietly
go into the other room and start to cry. After a few moments, I suck it
in and get back to work boxing up my belongings, listening to a producer
tell me why "10 minutes HAS to come out of the film" (it won't),
and talking to my daughter who, out of the blue, just wanted to thank me
for working so hard so she can go to college.
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- And that made it all worthwhile.
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- Yours from Inside His Own Private Golgotha,
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- Michael Moore
Author
Filmmaker
Dad
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- http://www.michaelmoore.com/StupidWhiteMen@aol.com
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