At this point, I'm free to go ahead with my criticisms. But notice how I pussyfoot into this question. Trust me, I feel like a tool.

I thought the part with surveillance footage of and the 911 tapes from the day of the Columbine killings was completely horrifying and ... moving. This is true; it is. And I was kind of blown away. And there are things that I really loved about the film. But then there was this part that I didn't like, and I just wanted to ask you directly, face to face ...

Yeah, what?

I just feel like some of it is really heavy-handed. The "It's a Wonderful World" sequence, in particular. To me, when I see something as graceful as the Columbine footage with the 911 calls, I have a hard time even figuring out how that's the same filmmaker. Can you tell me what you're trying to do?

Well, first of all, I'm a complex person. So there's a graceful side, and there's a heavy-handed side. I'm not just one way. That particular sequence? You know, the comedy in the film, and the comedy of what I do, the humor of what I do, is the flip side of anger, a lot of anger. And sometimes it's good to be angry, sometimes it's good to lay it all out there.

And I know that thing, maybe the cartoon history of the United States [sigh], may seem heavy-handed to some people. It may feel like a bitter pill to have to swallow. It may be too angry.

He gets all quiet here.

But wouldn't you rather get the authentic feeling from the artist, from the filmmaker, than me trying to mold it in a way that is more palatable to you or to the audience? Wouldn't you rather that I just laid it out there? And I'll take my hits for it.

What else did you feel was heavy-handed?

Notice that? It sounds like an apology, but it really isn't. And now he's interviewing me.

Well, as far as stacking the deck, I wonder about things like the Columbine footage that you used of the girl who said that they shot the one kid because he was black. And that was pretty much dismissed as the words of a young girl who was in a lot of trauma who was pulling things out of her head. It was pretty clear that Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris [the two Columbine shooters] had no anti-black agenda. They weren't hunting down black kids.

Well I've also read the depositions of her and the other people in the library there and there were other racial comments. And I do believe that that had something to do with it. It wasn't their motivation for doing it, but they were so off, so insane. We'll never know what the truth is because there were so many different reactions from the witnesses. But I thought that that should be in there, and it's what she said.

Yes, it's what she said, but it's also what she said when she was still in shock.

Yeah, but they said racial things. And they were insane. Everyone was saying stuff from whatever thing they were in. You know, it's a documentary, so it's what happened. And you can take it or leave it. And you're a viewer of this film, and you might have said to yourself, "She's in shock, it's not a racial thing." Others will think something else. I just leave it there and let people make up their own minds.

OK, Moore is opening himself up on a million different fronts here. This is so easy. I mean, he's saying that we won't ever know the truth -- that there are several different versions of the truth -- while pointing out how malleable the truth is to him (she said it, so it has some truth to it, even if she was wrong). And he's also pointing out the power of a documentary filmmaker: He left it in there. It was his decision. We're supposed to make up our minds? Come on. He's just told us that he's the one making these decisions. So, I'm getting ready to come back ...

What about ...

And at just this moment, the publicist opens the door across the room and makes the five-minute motion with her hand. I've just lost the train of thought. I was supposed to get Michael Moore in this interview, and now I only have five minutes left. Sheesh. What am I going to do? Well, I need to move on.

OK, she just said five minutes. Let's talk about the lessons of the film. Lesson 1 ...

You were going to say, "What about the whole ..." What about what?

Well, I have five minutes so I'm going to jump ahead to the end of my interview.

OK.

So, lessons of the film. No. 1: Move to Canada.

No, stay in America and make it better. Make America more Canadian-like.

No. 2: Blame the nightly news.

No. Either turn off the nightly news, or look at it with a much more skeptical and critical eye. Blame the corporations that own the nightly news for setting up an agenda of fear that keeps the public in such a state of tension that they will support conservative politicians because they will always offer to protect them more than the liberals.

What is Lesson No. 3?

Lesson 3 is that if we would guarantee full employment at a living wage to every American, we will see a climate of violence reduced to an incredible amount -- to a very low level. There's something about the guy next to you, if he's making $40,000 a year he generally doesn't break into your house and steal your TV. He generally doesn't mug you on the street.

My last question: "Clearly the only way to get true gun control in this country is for there to be more school shootings."

This is pretty good. That's a rather distasteful statement Moore made right after Columbine. Bravo canceled an episode of his show because it had a segment on school violence, and he bit back with that. I knew where he was coming from, but I was pretty appalled nonetheless.

It doesn't work that way, though, does it? The more of these shootings, we don't get any new legislation passed. The way for there to be more gun control -- well, I don't really believe that we need ... Well, here's what we need. See, we do need gun control now until we change that American ethic that I spoke of. When that changes, we can have the guns. Just like the Canadians get to have their guns. Just like Swiss. Clearly human beings have proven that they can have guns around and it doesn't have to lead to a lot of violence. So we have to correct something else here.

Time.

Great, that's it.

When is this going to appear?

Probably Thursday or Friday.

Is there anything else in the film that you saw that made you uncomfortable, or that you didn't quite buy? Is there anything that I can address in the next two seconds?

Um, no. I brought up ...

You brought up your concerns?

Yeah.

OK, OK, good.

Well, there you have it. The sad end. Did you read that last part? He beat me by treating me like an individual. By wanting my opinion. By wanting to fix it all. I walked out, smiled at the next reporter and left.

I never got to use my secret weapon.

Here it is: I graduated from Columbine High School. Yes, that one. In Littleton, Colo. Class of 1990.

I know, it's not much. That was a long time before the shootings happened in 1999, and I didn't know any of the kids involved. But I imagined that we would get into this heated argument and I would get to lean back, smile at him and say something like, "Trust me, Michael Moore. You don't know a thing about Columbine. I went to Columbine."

But you know what? I wrote a story about Columbine the same day that Harris and Klebold shot up the school. Looking back on it, it's a little overwrought, and I certainly didn't realize how profoundly fucked up those two boys were, but I'm essentially proud of the piece. One of my points, I think, was that it was really awful, and that awful things happen, and that you don't really know when or why.

Michael Moore's movie didn't change my mind one way or the other. I think that he basically would agree with me. What was my problem with him? With his movie?

That I didn't like his aesthetic? That I don't like his heavy hand? That I wish he wasn't so damn obnoxious?

So what? Did Moore the person change my mind about the movie? I'm not sure. I don't like his style, but I like it when people get shot even less. And I agree that you can be angry and sad and confused and laugh all at the same time. Sometimes you try to manipulate a story, and sometimes you fail. And sometimes you're just trying to figure out a way to make sense of the story yourself.

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