NASHVILLE – Sporting anti-war, anti-Bush or pro-Kerry propaganda, Tennesseans as well as people from surrounding states flocked to hear filmmaker and activist Michael Moore in his “Slacker Uprising” tour at the Gaylord Entertainment Center in Nashville on Oct. 9.
The 60-city tour began on Sept. 26; Nashville was the 20th city the tour has gone to in order to get people to vote. The proceeds from the event went to Music Road Democrats. While Moore had an abundance of support inside outside the building a small group of Bush supporters made a stance holding their signs proudly.
With a standing ovation Moore took the stage where he touched base on a number of different topics from Ralph Nader to the war to the media, but always taking shots at Bush. Moore showed the audience some ads he made to help the Republicans, which are available online, and Bush’s press conference after he went in front of the 9/11 Commission.
Moore had people in the audience who did not vote in the 2000 election who were able to stand up. If they promised to vote, he gave them “the sustenance of slackers everywhere”: Ramen Noodles or clean underwear.
When talking about the war, Moore mentioned his latest book, “Will They Ever Trust Us Again?,” a collection of letters that troops from Iraq and Afghanistan have sent him.
“I think it was great,” Kerry supporter Joshua J. Hamilton said.
“I’ve been reading his (Moore’s) blog online so I felt like he was recapping what I’ve been reading. What was most surprising to me was the large turnout.”
To the audience’s delight, Moore said he was thinking about focusing on HMOs and the pharmaceutical companies in his next film. Pfizer has already released a memo informing its employees that Moore was making a movie and that they should think twice about talking to him if approached. The company even went as far as setting up a hotline for employees to call if they had been approached.
Gleefully, Moore, who was mailed the memo by a few Pfizer employees, gave out the hotline number telling people to call it on Monday saying, “Let’s have a little fun with Pfizer.”
Along with the debut of Honky Tonks for Truth’s “Takin’ My Country Back,” which can be heard on http://takinmycountryback.com, there were two other musical guests. Bob Something, inspired by his kid’s garage band, began dabbling into music and performed two songs including “Al Gore” and “Stupid Man Things.”
The song “Al Gore” received a big response from the crowd at the chorus “even with the popular vote Al Gore lives on the street, right down the street from me.”
The other musician who performed was Steve Earle, singing “Copperhead Road,” “The Mountain” and “Rich Man’s War” which got a particularly large reaction from the audience.
Not all in attendance, however, were liberals.
“I have children and I don’t want them worrying about it (their freedom),” construction business owner Adrian Smith explained. He came to the event from Murray County, Ga., in an attempt to change people’s opinions.
“If we elect John Kerry, a lying liberal, we would have a messed up economy,” Smith said.
