On November 19th, Ray Alavarez and myself ventured out to go and see Michael Moore live in Augsburg! He was on a tour to present his new book: dude, where is my country? A critical view on George W. Bush politics. Micheal Moore is also the producer/director of the Oscar winning documentary "Bowling for Columbine". Mike is one of George W. Bush most prominent critics (of course together with Paul Krugman and Noam Chomsky).
Why Augsburg of all places? After London, Manchester, Glasgow, Berlin, Hamburg and many other big european cities he chose to also stop by in Augsburg, a town about one hour drive from Munich. This makes it a a theoratical 3 hours drive from Zurich (according to michelin.com). Reality was more close to 4.5 hours.
Thinking of a small personal book presentation?
After having checked into our hotel we got a cab and drove to "Sporthalle Augsburg". Already the place/name of the venue should have prepared us for the masses of people waiting to enter the place. We were around 3'000 spectators waiting for Mike! Well,Mike arrived with a 45min delay (press conference with the local press) and was greeted like a popstar entering the stage in his old leather jacket and typical baseball cap.
Ray Alvarez and myself.
Great entertainment!
He is a gifted speaker. It was good fun to hear him speak live. The content was what everyone had expected "George bashing", lots of small stories and personal expirences from his tour arcross Europe. In addition to the normal US centric themes he also had some critical thoughts about Germany and its current reforms under Schröder.Signing the book
After his lecture of around 1.5hours Mike went backstage to take a break. The Sporthalle got empty. Except around 200 hardcore fans who wanted a copy of his book signed (included me). After his security guys had lined up everyone (see picture below) he came out and signed books for another hour. Everyone got a signature!The Result!
