President Al Gore (I Wish)

Last night I was watching an episode of "Late Night with Conan O'Brien", and his guests were former US Vice-President Al Gore, Paul Giamatti, and the Beastie Boys (as musical guest). That episode was one of the most enjoyable and insightful shows that Conan delivered. I had to watch it for comic relief because earlier in the day, it was the State of the Nation Address of GMA. It was pathetic; she presented Manny Pacquiao, the Mt. Everest climbers, etc. and acted like their accomplishments were her accomplishments. This country is so f%$*ing depressing.

On to last night's Conan: It probably wasn't obvious what Al Gore was doing on the show, at least not for someone watching from the Philippines; he was plugging his new documentary "An Inconvenient Truth". Of course, I was hoping he would make side comments about the current US administration - which he did. It has yet to be shown here in the country, so watching him talk about his documentary and the consequences facing our environment was very informative. I thought the movie "The Day After Tomorrow" was fictional, but here is a former second-man to the US President telling the world that the danger is real if we do not act now (imagine the Philippines being underwater!). Al Gore is telling us all that there are more serious problems posing the world today, and he is doing what he can to alleviate our conditions at the grassroots level. He even goes to houses, mostly leaders of countries (other than the USA, for clear reasons), to present his powerpoint presentation on the environment which the documentary/movie is based on. He also said that the US government had reacted to warnings from scientists positively before: during Reagan's term, Gore said that the Republicans and Democrats worked hand in hand in fighting against the depletion of the Ozone Layer. He was implying that acting on Global Warming can be done and should be done.

I have since found Mr. Gore boring most especially during his term and even during his campaign for president, but last night's talk with Conan showed his humorous side; and entertaining side at that. When asked if he thought George Dubya had watched the documentary, he replied by saying that just to be sure, he had written a book based on the movie because he knows that the President likes to read (this was received with a roar of laughter from the audience and Conan, himself). He even described a time that at an airport, he was praised by an airline employee for having an extreme likeness to Al Gore, if only he had dyed his hair black. Before, I took Zach De La Rocha's view that electing Gore & Bush was the same thing, but now I think Mr. De La Rocha was wrong. Now, I believe that the world would have been a lot less violent if Mr. Gore was in the White House. He was always known to be concerned about the environment, and although he admitted during the interview that the US President cannot devote entirely his focus on the environment, I think he probably would have given Global Warming more attention than seeking out weapons of mass destruction in places where they are non-existent. At present, the US is giving loads of weaponry to Israel to bomb Lebanon because one Israeli soldier was abducted by Hezbollah. I don't see the logic in that. (Israel and my views on George Bush Senior & Junior deserves its own blog).

What was weird for me was, this show was censored; a lot of scenes jumped or was cut. I think Mr. Gore made some undesirable statements or cracks at Mr. Bush, and maybe it wasn't in their best interest to provide them to the international audience. For the record, that was the first time I saw that happen really, and I usually watch Conan or Letterman every night. Later on on the news, I found out that they really do censor these talk shows because on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Colin Farrell's guesting was not televised due to an incident with a stalker who came out from the audience.

After Al Gore, Paul Giammati followed suit, and he was good for a couple of laughs (he plugged "Lady in the Water" which my friend Joy said was not nice). Then the Beastie Boys performed, and they can still do it better than most rappers today in spite of their age (they had white hair already!). It was cool seeing middle-aged (?) men rap better than Eminem (well, I think a lot of rappers out there can rap better than Eminem, but these guys are ancient, man). True pioneers of their genre, I would give them that.

In closing, I do believe that Gore should have been President for the sake of world peace and the global environment. I think he was quite sincere in saying that he has no plans to run for office again (he went so far as saying that the US political system was "toxic"). But if he were the US President today, I think it is quite possible that September 11 might have been averted, and I think it is quite possible that Iraq was not invaded. Mr. Gore is right: Mr. Bush should be listening to these scientists who are concerned about the environment and not the polluters (oil companies & weapon manufacturers). But as long as the US President is still a Texan with oil interests (and someone who can't pronounce the word "nuclear"), I think that Global Warming will take a back seat to the War on Terrorism (which ironically is adding up to more pollution in the air).