michael moore, it is may, 2011. you have a book coming out in september, 2011. it doesn't have a name. >> it does as of this morning. >> what is its name? >> it's called "here comes trouble." >> "here comes trouble." why did you come up with that title? >> these are stories, short stories, that i've written, but they are non-fiction short stories, so they are stories from my life. i've written a couple dozen stories. about the years before people knew who i was, before my first film, cities are from when i was a small child all the way through my twenties, and it's sort of shows how i ended up like this. [laughter]

and i believe the book cover is going to have -- i saw a picture of it here today. i don't know if they've got it, a picture of me as a shoe-year-old and across the top it says "here comes trouble." >> were you trouble as a 2-year-old, a tenure of? >> not trouble as in getting in trouble, but, you know, my parents did things to me that caused trouble, like my mom taught me to read and write when i was 4-years-old. that's a dangerous thing to learn how to read at an early age. so when i went to school, you know, first grade, what ever, i was already reading books. and i'm having to sit their singing along to ♪ adc es g. ♪ and you learn this early on as a child the other kids are not going to like you if you are too smart, so i had to like kind of fake like i was trying to remember the letters

♪ a, b, c, d ♪ said they would like me and i remember coming home board from school why did you teach me to read and write so early? and the nuns -- i went to catholic school -- the nuns decided to skip me. i was in first grade and they moved me at second agreed. i can, excited mom, mom, and in second grade! no, you're not. [laughter] she got on the phone and called, i want him with children his own age. don't move him up a great. and you know, i'd gotten moved back. and then i was just bored through most of school. so what does a child to when he is bored but, you know, cause trouble? >> who were or are your parents? >> my mother, her name was veronica moore. she passed away in 2002. a wonderful, great mother to

have. i write about her in the book. my dad is still with us. he is turning 90 this summer. his name is frank moore. gerlach on the east side of land, both my parents irish catholic families, and my mom's family actually was pioneers in the area. they came during the 1830's and michigan, which was all wilderness them. and my dad's family, you know, they all went to the factories of flint and all that, so they've both been great influence on me and i'm a very fortunate to have them. >> how often you get back to flint? >> i'm there every month. i live north of flint in northern michigan. my dad still lives and flint and i am down there once or twice a month spending in number of days with him. so he still drives and goes to mass every day, goes to the gym, you know, clearly i didn't obey

him on that level. [laughter] but no, nan flint quite a bit. of course all i friends are still there. >> politically active family? >> i wouldn't say politically active, politically aware. one of the first things i remember is my parents the dating kennedy and nixon, and my mom was for nixon and my dad was for kennedy. i can remember them out in the garage putting away some boxes or whatever and having this political debate. and my dad being appalled because we are catholic. how can not going to vote for -- this is going to be were first catholic president. my mom's family -- heard that was the head of the republican party in the area in the early part of the 20th century come and republicans back then, you know, they were -- when they said conservative, they meant don't spend money you don't have, not a bad idea. conserve the air, conserve water, the gifts god gave us, the earth today and of course there were the party of lincoln. they were very much against slavery and against

discrimination and all that. so, i had that kind of republican mother and father who was a hard core roosevelt democrat. >> what about active in thawing uaw politics? >> my dad was a uaw member, still is a retiree. he worked on the assembly line building spark plugs for ac spark plug for almost 35 years. and my uncle was in the sit-down strike in flint in the 1930's. >> and lilburn? >> lover, yes. did you know him? [laughter] >> yes he was in the sit-down strike which i think this year is going to be the 75th anniversary of that. this strike and flint created the uaw and got its first contract with general motors and ignited a labor movement in the 1930's across the country.

>> michael moore, at what point in your life do you remember your sense of political right and wrong come into play? >> that's a good question. you know, i had a cousin who lived in new york city and her dad was a state assemblyman, roosevelt democrat himself. she would come their -- we would alternate. she would come one summer to michigan and we would come to new york city. and she was a little onerous. her name was passed and she caught my sisters and i a lot about politics, even in very young age. i remember first, second grade she having me memorize john f. kennedy's inaugural address, and i was able to do it. by second grade, this is what was a little freaky about me, there's this little kid wandering around, you know, "asked not --" and i try to do the accent, i am a little taught "ask not what this country can do for you."

so there was a very -- i don't know, i think if you come out of an irish catholic tradition you can't help but not be engaged in what's going on around you. and also you can't help but not have a sense of humor about it, too, because it's the thing that protects you from, you know, all that is. and so, yeah. i don't know, i think growing up in flint, being part of that whole situation -- >> since you were about 9-years-old when jfk was assassinated; the remember that? >> i remember very well. >> you're right about that in "here comes trouble"? >> yes, we were actually watching educational television and they broke in and they must have switched over to the nbc coverage and chet was on and announced it and of course all of the nuns took us to church and we were praying said that he would lift.

two days later i am sitting on the carpet in the living room at home watching tv, and my mom is vacuuming and they bring all is called out, and here you are, you know, you are --9, 10-years-old watching someone being shot to death on television and i remember yelling mom déjà calls bald and i reach out and pulled the plug out of those wall and said look at this. and she was the kind of mom who the first thing it's like my god, not another, this weekend has already been darkened horrible. but it was also my childhood to witness this coming and how do i explain this. so strong memories of all of that. >> michael moore, richard nixon gets elected reed was your view at that point?

did you care? >> let chollet i read about this in the book. this is like -- this isn't a tell all type of book, but i do admit that i1 campaigning for richard nixon. i was in ninth grade, and i tell you what happened. i was just so, i was very much for robert kennedy. he was assassinated in eugene mccarthy didn't get the nomination and he and johnson were responsible for this war. and i just could not get behind hubert humphrey. i mean i'm in ninth grade, what do i know. but i thought nixon said he had a secret plan to end the war and he was going to in did in six months and that sounded good to me. i was going to the seminary at the time. i left home at 14 and my parents let me go to the seminary because i wanted to be priest and i remember the dish up one day asked me to come over and do some yard work and i think that

he heard i was out campaigning for nixon and he wanted to ask me about why are you doing that and he wanted to educate me about nixon's past and all this, and his name was bishop hecky and he went on to become the archbishop in washington, d.c. and in the 1980's a very outspoken advocate against the war in central america and all that. but it was like -- was one of their early encounters where somebody was trying to set me straight and dixon got elected and to all these things and continued the war and all that and obviously i've never looked back. but i never wanted to admit that either. >> what happened to the priesthood? >> in ninth grade somewhere

between 14 to 15 the hormones kicked in. i liked girls, and i read the rule book and i figured this isn't for me. because girls looked really good, and there's just something about that. i thought this is a good idea, girls, so i went in to tell the priest, the dean and says to me mr. moore, we've decided to ask you not to come back next year. what do you mean you decide -- i came here to quit. we are asking you not -- >> keys and we are in agreement. >> i said why would you want to kick me out? i'm a good student. >> because you ask too many questions. >> i said i did.

i was an inquisitive to rely wanted to know why women couldn't be priests. why is that? it didn't make any sense to me. you know, the whole thing about when life begins, human life and the concept of a fertilized egg being a human being and i was like well, sperm is life and an egg is life, sperm doesn't have a battery pack on it, that's living, that is living. why don't we protect that? why don't we stop women each month from losing these eggs? [laughter] that's not a human being. well on and over fertilized egg. it's life, but a stem is not a flower. you don't say you're birthday -- pull out your driver's license it's not nine months from before you were born it's when you were born. you know, you are a human. so i don't know, it was way too

advanced at that point and they probably thought i was trouble i guess. >> what did you study, michael moore grumet university of michigan flint? >> event the university of michigan flint for a year and a half and i had a double major of political science and theater. so, the year and a half i had there would serve me well. i dropped out there. i was, you know, again i had a problem of of being bored with school. i had just been elected to the board of education at 18-years-old. it was right after 18-years-old -- >> for the city of flint? >> was the davidson school district. and 18-year-olds were just given the right to vote. and i decided to run and became the youngest elected official in the state of michigan, and so i was learning more about political science than on was sitting in a classroom. so the first day of my second

semester in my sophomore year, i, being a commuter campus you to drive, never enough parking, i drove around and around the parking lot for about an hour looking for a parking spot, couldn't find one. after an hour i said this great, dropping out and i did. i've never been back to school since. went home and told my parents i dropped out of college. why? couldn't find a parking space. that's not a reason! i said yes it is, i'm sick of it. so. >> stay in school, kids, don't drop out. [laughter] >> what is your dad think of your work and what did your mom think of your work? >> they are very proud of me. my mom was very proud of me of course especially with writing, because it was something so important to her. when she was growing up my grandparents -- i can't tell you what color the walls were in their home or a ticket wallpaper because it was nothing but books. it was just every wall was bookshelves and books and books. and they read.

they read at night. david, you know, shakespeare comedy would read all the plays and they would read to each other. so a lot of that was passed on. it was really -- i tell the story in the book of my great, great grandfather coming from where they were in pennsylvania and new york, and then they took a boat down lake erie and came to michigan and had these big crates and where a lot of people had pots and pans they were bringing, they had some pots and pans but they had crete's of books, and it was education and being literate, being aware of the world around you was something bubbles important. >> will you be doing a book tour with "here comes trouble"? >> yes. i'm going to do a book tour this fall actually to kind of clear the decks for the fall, and i am going to travel the country, and do what i think will be an interesting book tour.

the last 1i did was a lot of larger readers, and we had -- it was an amazing tour. but people in i remember the university of florida there in gainesville like 14,000 people showed up to hear me speak, and it's very humbling on some level. but i -- i'm going to do a little bit of that but i want to go to some towns the normally don't get offers. i might just get a camper or something and some kind of a minibus a little bit off the beaten path i like going to places that are not the typical ann arbor, madison, berkeley where there is an eco chamber. i like going -- i like going

places down south to military towns. i like talking to people who may disagree with me or think they disagree with me, and it's good for me to listen to them and i want them to know that while we may have our political differences we are all americans, we all on the same boat and sing or swim together and we have all of us more in common with each other than not. if you get out a piece of paper and make a list of all the things we disagree with it is a much shorter the list and the things we agree on. we want good schools for our kids and drink water and breathe clean air. most of as i hope buy now women should be the same as men paid we could make a list of things we have this agreement on and the things we disagree on if i don't want to own a gun i won't buy one, you want one, by one. if you don't want to kiss another man, for god sake, don't. i don't think you will like it.

but if somebody else wants to and they want to get married, come on, right? >> what kind of reception do you get when you go to a conservative town or a military town? are you energized by the back-and-forth or does it get hostile? >> military towns never get hostile. some of my best fan mail or from soldiers and people in the navy marines and their spouses and their children. i've stood up from them even though i was from the beginning against the war i did not like how they were being treated or given vehicles that were telling them that when they come back where i live in northern michigan i have a movie house i run for the community, and i

institute and affirmative action policy at the theater that says first of all anybody in the military can come to the movies for free but we want to hire iraq and afghanistan veterans, and i said to the rest of the town we need to put a sign in the window that says that because they are coming back in our arms need to be open to them those from the vietnam era know the importance of what they are going through and what they are processing coming back from an unpopular war they need the love and support of their community so i've been active in things like that, and doing things to help the troops so i get a very good response. our troops are essentially from the working class, and their african-american and hispanic

and from groups of people that already are already know what the deal is. they don't come primarily from bel air, bel air california for the upper east side of new york. they come from where i come from, so i understand that. >> michael moore, was it tough to write this book because of the personal? >> was very hard. i put off for a long time to read i've been wanting to write this book for probably a couple of decades and then i started writing it down a couple of years ago, and i spent a lot of time on this book and i spent many nights i would be sitting on the chair the computer and i would be laughing one minute and the next i would break down and start crying. when you read this you will see some of the things i've been

through but it was very conferred in that way. personally i am proudest of this of anything i've written and i set out with that in mind even though these are non-fiction stories i said the nuns in my head said i must treat this as literature, and i'm going to reach deep into all i've been given from my parents and from the life i've lived to tell the stories. >> so, what would your editors say about working with you? >> what would my editors say about -- >> working with you? >> she would say here comes trouble. when i told her the title she was like yes. she told me the title was very popular at the publishing house.

i said yes, i can understand why. the problem they have with me as the publisher is that i don't want to do a six city book tour i want to do a 60 city tour. i will do more. a lot of times with authors if they are having to drag them out of the barn but with media to kind of cool my jets because i want to get out there and talk to people and share this with people in the country i live in. >> author michael moore, "here comes trouble" out in the fall of 2011. thank you. your book is titled ranchers. what inspired you to write this

book? >> when i began working for the historical study it was probably one of the topics that i got the most interest in and questions about and even still today i kind of tell what it meant to people and how important it was to people, and the timing worked out because it was undergoing a renovation that is pretty close to being done today so the interest was at a fever pitch. >> can you describe this shopping center as well as its importance to chicago and its suburbs beginning in the early 1960's? >> was definitely a big first. there was a lot of unique features and really you hadn't seen shopping centers built on such a scale with so much attention to the aesthetic detail and religious and posing kind of architecture. it was very important in the northwest suburbs that is a recognition of the fact that this area was just kind of a boom town growing so rapidly and

one of the more important areas of chicago at that time. the case i make in the book is a reason to the carter presented a first in the building is what we would know as malls today and it's meant to be the kind of case study to sort of talk about all shopping centers and malls and kind of how they've developed. the best analogy i use is randhurst didn't open the floodgate, randhurst was the floodgate architect victor groome and has been the father of the shopping mall. what features or design elements were considered unique to randhurst at the time of its construction? >> well, victor was an amazing story, and there's a wonderful biography about him where i obtain most of my information called a small maker. he was a holocaust refugee who came from vienna in 1939 to america, and it was said that one of the things that influenced him the most upon his

arrival was central park and broadway and was kind of a juxtaposition about things that one was used by the public free of charge and broadway was used by public definitely kind of a sense of capitalism paying admission that you will, so he kind of made these elements in the shopping center designs and ran hearst was arguably his greatest achievement and realization and a very unique feature was its triangular design. according to the company promotions was a house to minimize the walking distance between the stores and was the first time that there were more than two anchor stores and a center. and also just the amount of sculpture of artwork of kind of the aesthetic pieces she literally invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into the public art. it was definitely some' a public space in addition to the buying and selling them would be going on.

>> what made randhurst a local destination attraction in chicago during the 1960's and 70's? you mentioned public art, the size and scope of it, but anything in particular that really drew visitors to it? >> i would say kind of building on those things, just the sheer size of it, the 200-ton bohm, just kind of things we're now if you visit it it would not to appear to be very present place but in 1962 it was literally making headlines all over the country. and again, the public art was a big draw as well as just kind of the sheer size of it. >> to the political and establish the chicago support or promote the development of the shopping mall? >> it didn't really find much about the political establishment in chicago. i would say that it happened. if it happened at all they would have had to sum would give it their blessing but i can't tell

you that the political the establishment and the prospect was very supportive of it. they still are. i mean, it's by far the prospects biggest taxpayer and really allow the prospect in a timely construction to kind of rise ahead of all the other competing suburbs in this area to provide a lot of services to people to lower the property tax which was a big point for anybody looking to move to the suburb so you had your choice of a dozen of suburbs and the prospect was kind of able to stand out because of the presence. >> what impact if any did the mall have on a shopping center as well as the surrounding chicago communities beginning in 1971 and for the remainder of the 1970's into the 1980's as well? >> it kind of serves as the foil or leges it will go as far as to say the villain in the book to read it was built about 5 miles away from randhurst, and it

wasn't just what field that had the impact, it was the malls and shopping centers springing up everywhere in the 70's and 80's and what my research has led me to raise going back to when i said that it was the prospects biggest taxpayer and was able to provide services because of the additional tax revenues of their communities saw this and they were for lack of a better term for a jobless. so, their solution was to build their own shopping centers, build their own malls with their huge like what field or restrict development it was essentially a move to keep the sales tax revenue and their citizens shopping in their own communities. >> were there any efforts by the shopping center with the increased competition and the surrounding communities to reinvent itself with there being larger shopping centers or newer

shopping centers in the chicago area? >> definitely. you see almost that from day one it started changing. the retail has always been and always will be a business that thrives on change that you are appointed to change to be successful and you cannot sit idly so even before the huge competition came in, randhurst was trying to keep itself fresh and relevant and attractive to customers. there were the big developments before the one that's coming out today. the first occurred around 77 from 78 to commemorate the center's 15th anniversary and which you saw the kind of institutional remodel come a lot of kind of white tiles, white ceiling tiles kind of what we would now consider a model and then again in the 1980's, around 1984 when the rows corporation took over