The Shaking Knee

Michael Moore and Me

Last night I got a chance to talk to my old friend Michael Moore again. For those who don't know, I appeared in Michael Moore's last film, Fahrenheit 9/11. In filming those scenes, I went to New York and conducted a long interview with Mike's archivist, Carl Deal, as we waited for Mike to show up. He never did. But a few weeks before 9/11 came out, I came back to New York to record some voice overs. I sat for hours with Mike in the recording studio and watched clips of the movie.

People ask me all the time what he's like. In my limited experience, I would have to say that he is a very genuine, honest, unassuming guy. He's funny and likes to laugh. And he's no phony. But the real brilliance of Michael Moore is the very simple way he approaches an issue. There is no ambiguity, no complexity. War is bad. Universal health care is good. I really like the guy. 

There is a scene in his upcoming film, "Sicko," that we talked about last night that sums up Mike's clear-headed logic. He interviews a doctor in the U.K., which has a universal health care system (derogatorily known in this country as "socialized medicine,"....oh the horror!) He asks the doctor how he gets compensated, and the doctor tells him that he gets bonuses based on how healthy his patients are each year. If he gets someone to lower their cholesterol, or quit smoking, he gets paid more. It's that simple. Moore doesn't complicate the matter by asking "Well, what if..." or saying "Yeah, but...". Say what you want about him, he's no cynic.

Here's the Q&A I did with him for MSN.com.

What freaked me out about the U.K. doctor's pay was how foreign that concept was to me. We're so warped in this country that the concept of paying doctors for doing their job better never occurred to us. That's just wrong.

Sicko is a great film. Far more mature than Moore's previous efforts. The argument is tight. The logic is clear. And the narrative arc is very elegant. Even the humor is more sophisticated: it's funnier. It's classic Moore in that it combines laughter with pathos to make a devastating point: a country as great as this deserves to have better health care.

The only issue I take with the film is that it opens with this well-worn clip:

Opening up with a gratuitous Bush-bashing clip does create a seamless transition from Moore's last film, but it also sets the whole thing up as a political debate. And as Moore told me explicitly, this should not be a political film, or even a political issue. But I think it was the only flaw in a mostly non-partisan dissection of America's health care woes.

One last thing Mike told me before we parted ways. And this really struck me. He said "I don't ever want to hear that we (America) don't have enough money to do something. If this war in Iraq proved anything, it's that when we want to do something, there's money."

The war has cost us nearly half a trillion dollars. Go to this site to see how that compares to other things we could have spent that money on. Imagine.

Bird Man

New musical obsession appears to be imminent: Andrew Bird. A big-brained violinist and prolific whistler (I'll take him anywhere, anytime). The guy is smart, funny, and crazy musical. Check these lyrics from Masterfade, a track from Mysterious Production of Eggs.

To me the song is about the increasingly digital world we live in, how everything can be reduced to ones and zeros (binary code) and the solace one gets from having the final say of whether one lives or dies (having your finger resting on the masterfade, which is the main volume dial on a mixing board, is a metaphor for having the ability to end it whenever you want. Great stuff. And wrapping the song up with "I mean Christ, who knows?" is nothing short of hilarious.

I hear a lot of different stuff in Bird: There is a Sebadoh sound, a lyrical likeness to the erudite Shins, some Radiohead dissonance punctuated by short bursts of melody, and a Beck-like sense of humor. Good stuff. Highly recommended.

Dakar

After the safari, we headed all the way across the continent of Africa to Dakar, Senegal. It's a former French colony, right on the Atlantic Ocean, and while it has its charms (mainly being on the beach) it is not unlike every other African city. That is to say it is poorly run, overcrowded, and still stuck in a time warp. There are half-built building everywhere, many of which look like they were bombed out. It looks like the Beirut of West Africa (Beirut, of course, being the Paris of the Middle East.)

But if you keep your head facing due West, looking out over the ocean, you might just be able to convince yourself that you're in a tropical paradise.

The flight on South African Airways was outstanding. Great service. Lie flat business class seats. The only problem is the lung-searing bug killer they spray before takeoff. My guess is that they are under strict orders not to deliver any malarial mosquitoes back to the states, so passenger respiration is of secondary concern.

Upon returning I found this great column by my old editor at Red Herring, Jason Pontin. He's a fantastic writer and he hits the nail on the head with this piece. It's complex, Africa. And there is no single answer for how to spur its economic development (though many will tell you there is.) Apparently Jason was in Tanzania the same time I was in Kenya. And we witnessed many of the same things.

In other news, the Mets are KILLING me. They're like a different team since I left for Africa. Someone please make me feel better about this.

Safari Time

Can’t really remember where I left off last time. But here are the basics. After another deep dive on Thursday in Nairobi, during which I get an education on the “informal economy” of Africa (unregistered, untaxed businesses which make up between 40 percent to 90 percent of the GDP in many countries) and the damage that non-governmental organizations and charitable donations are doing to Africa (creating dependencies, we went to Carnivore. Pretty sure I mentioned this last entry.

Then I played golf at the Windsor Country Club early Friday morning. The course was not in good shape. The greens had course sand all over them, which made putting extremely slow and difficult. And the rough was disastrously thick and unplayable, a one stroke penalty at least. With rented clubs and no spikes, my game was predictably unpredictable. The best part was the monkeys, however. They roam the course freely, run over to look at your ball, and gather around the tee boxes looking for handouts. Amazing creatures, really. My playing partner almost took one out with a low-liner drive.

We then returned to the hotel, packed up, and headed to the local airport to go on our safari (Swahili for “journey”). We boarded a 14-seat prop plane and headed 45 minutes west to the Masai Mara game park. As the plane was landing, a Topi (some kind of goat-like plains creature) stood square in the middle of the pebble-bed runway. Our plane landed and nearly had to pull up again to avoid a collision. That was our first animal sighting.

 

Two 9-passenger open-top Range Rovers picked us up at the airport and took us on Safari straightaway. Not a quarter mile from the air strip we found some elephants. There were lots of zebras, topi, antelopes, gazelles, water buffaloes, hyenas, giraffes, and others. But the best part was the Cheetahs. We tracked three of them that were slowly stalking some prey. Magnificent animals. Beautiful in every way. The only drawback was that there were at least a dozen other safari trucks jockeying for position, trying to get close to the cheetahs. Makes you feel like just another tourist, which we were.

After night fell and the rain started to come down, we headed to our camp. That Masai Mare Sorova camp was nothing short of spectacular. Surrounded in its entirety by an electric fence, it is an oasis in the middle of the bush. Ebony bridges, swimming pool, huge buffet, and personal tents that include queen beds, electricity, hot and cold water, and front porches. It was very luxurious, almost too much so. But I would later be glad of it.

I cut out of the nighttime festivities early, due to overwhelming exhaustion, and went over the bridge and through the bush to my tent. I awoke at 1:53 AM with a fire in my belly, and spent the next five hours going to the bathroom every 20 minutes, humbled by my delicate constitution yet again. I had to skip the morning game drive, and finally started returning to normal by about noon. Hard to say what gave me the dreaded TD, but whatever it was, it came and went quickly.

We lounged around the camp until about 1:30 PM, when we left to go see a real Masai village. Now, I can’t vouch for the authenticity of the village we visited. I mean, we paid twenty bucks each for the privilege of walking around the cow-dung huts and interacting with the villagers. But, I’m convinced that even if we walked willingly into a tourist trap, there was a strong dose of reality to the village. The villagers did a traditional Masai warrior dance for us, celebrating the kill of a lion. The singing involves a lot of huffing and puffing, which makes up the rhythm. And a soloist runs around shouting out celebratory stuff. Then all the men demonstrate their jumping prowess (an attempt to impress the ladies, and, presumably, NBA scouts.)

Then they showed us their huts. Tiny, dark, smelly hovels that gave me the willies to be honest. I try to be adventurous, to understand different cultures, to embrace the diversity of life on this planet, but after seeing how these people live, it makes me want to shout, “God Bless America,” and get back to my three bedroom colonial in leafy Connecticut.

We flew back to Nairobi that night, and I’m right now on the flight to Dakar, Senegal. Unlike Kenya (a former British colony in which more-or-less everyone speaks English,) Senegal is a former French colony, so I’ll be communicating with the locals a lot less, which is a pity. The Kenyans are a wonderful people, incredibly welcoming, kind, and funny. They may not move as fast as Americans, but life has a pleasant pace down here, and most are eager to laugh, given the opportunity. I expect nothing different from the Senegalese.

In the mean time, I’m very eager to get home. I miss the wife and kids something fierce and haven’t made contact with the missus in several days.

Some pics: 

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Yebo Man

Pretty amazing day in Nairobi. Barely slept last night (second night jet lag) but powered through the day. The deep dive was incredibly interesting. Who wouldn't want to sit in a room full of African students from Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, South Africa and Tanzania and listen to what they think are the most important priorities for the continent? Very cool. Interesting how Africans think of both their own nation, and as Africa as a single entity. It doesn't seem like it from the popular press, but there is a unity among Africans. You cannot say the same thing about North Americans, Europeans, or Asians. And the African people are full of humor and candidness. But many are exceedingly quiet. Makes me feel like an obnoxious American. But they seem to like it.

By the way, I heard today that somebody ripped off my totally original theory that autistic people are actually more evolved than normal humans. My theory said that in an increasingly specialized and digital economy, autistics are better suited for success. Bill Gates is only the beginning. I think autistics are the next step in the evolutionary chain.

Way behind on the photo front. But here's a few snapshots of the hotel. I'm hoping to go for a jog tomorrow morning and snap some shots of the monkeys. The kids would love that. Here are the latest shots for now...

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Africa Hot

Funny thing about blogs: the more interesting your life becomes, the less inclined you are to stop what you're doing and type words into a computer. I guess that goes for all writing.

The reason I'm saying this is that I'm currently in Africa (Nairobi, Kenya, to be exact.) I'm working on the Global Innovation Outlook down here, and we're exploring ways to boost Africa's socio-economic condition by way of, well, boosting Africa's socio-economic condition. I have a lot of early thoughts on Nairobi (dusty, dirty, different), but I'll hold off because all I've done at this point is drive through town on my way from the airport to my swanky country club of a hotel (The Windsor Golf Hotel & Country Club.) It's definitely not as hot as I would have expected, this being the equator and all. But I did see a monkey today. So that's pretty cool.

Other than that I'm having a good time listening to the locals speak Swahili, and learning some South African slang. Yebo means yes. Sharp-sharp means good. And Jambo means hello. The pace of life is very different here. It's strange to hear so many stories of aggression and civil war and then meet so many kind and, frankly, passive Africans. There is a disconnect. But the Africans that I've met are deeply saddened by the things that happen in their home. They know how it is viewed elsewhere in the world. They are not the isolated, unworldly people we've read about in our papers and seen in documentaries. They understand their place in the world, and they desperately want it to change.

More on this trip later. We'll be in Nairobi until Friday, then a quick safari over the weekend to the Masai Mara game reserve in Kenya. We fly to Dakar, Senegal, on the west coast of Africa, on Sunday.