More money coming for Moore
Lee Benson
The author of the above, one Michael Moore of Davison, Mich., will add to his bankroll on Wednesday, Oct. 20, when he picks up a $40,000 check, not counting travel expenses, from the student body at Utah Valley State College.
Moore has agreed to speak in the 8,000-seat David O. McKay Center on the UVSC campus, and although he hasn't, as far as I know, delivered in advance the text of his speech, a good guess is that he will talk about what a bad man President Bush is.
Another reasonable guess: his warm-up act will not be the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
Moore is the documentary filmmaker who, in 2003, won an Academy Award for "Bowling for Columbine," a film about America's obsession with guns and violence, and used his acceptance speech to thank mom and dad and rip Bush. As a sequel to that, this past June he released "Fahrenheit 9/11," his documentary that criticizes the war with Iraq and Bush's handling of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and has already made nearly $120 million to become the highest-grossing documentary of all time.
The movie even drew a crowd in Crawford, Texas, just four miles from the front gate of Bush's ranch, where it was shown in late July in a parking lot, and 3,000 people, counting those who thought with a crowd that big it must be a George Strait concert, attended. Across town, several hundred of Bush's neighbors staged a pro-Bush rally by not attending, including one farmer with a truck full of manure.
Anyway, now it's Orem's turn. Not to see the film — which appeared and disappeared from Utah County movie houses faster than Gary Crowton's offense — but to see the man who made it.
Back to the $40,000.
$40,000!
For two hours' work!
And you thought Greg Ostertag had a sweet deal.
In two hours, Michael Moore will make more money than a UVSC student working 20 hours a week in the cafeteria will make in seven years.
And he didn't even graduate from college. According to his biography on the Internet, Moore dropped out shortly after enrolling at the University of Michigan-Flint "to focus on activism."
He did well enough with "Roger & Me," a 1989 documentary that blasted General Motors and, specifically, its chairman, Roger Smith, who refused to talk to Moore, and with the anti-gun "Bowling for Columbine."
But he really put the cash in controversy with this year's election-year release of "Fahrenheit 9/11," which has made $118 million even before its theatrical rerelease and video/DVD release scheduled in the next two weeks.
Some people are saying the activist capitalist doesn't belong in Utah, particularly not in Utah County, the epicenter of conservatism.
Little realizing that all that's doing is raising his fee.
Of course he belongs — anywhere in America he's invited.
And who knew freedom of speech could pay so well?
Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.
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