Joe Rogan Experience #1149 — Michael Scott Moore Transcript

Transcript

0:00 Very nice to meet you. does it feel like to be a free man now after all that? Are you kidding? It feels great. In America, And I'm a journalist. I was working in Berlin at the We were in a part of Somalia where other journalists had gone, so we weren't doing something that I was a captive. Jesus Christ. And so they were obviously trying to get some hostage money. Yeah.

3:13 including Jessica Buchanan, an American. And I think nine Somali guards died in that raid. Yeah, there were negotiations, but they were phony negotiations in some sense like to say that they're just frustrated fishermen. That's only part of the story. We didn't hear about that. It was too small time. We started to hear about it when they graduated to capturing cargo ships.

5:32 But that wasn't really what was going on. It gets you high at first, and then you crash, and you wake up depressed, and you need more. I mean, they kept offering it to me. Yeah. Not all the time, but yeah, they would get hopped up. They get involved in gun smuggling and also even people smuggling on the Horn of Africa. And then there's always a place in Sudan where it shifts from being willing to being unwilling.

9:20 It's a revival of what was going on are still the same as the clans and the roots that were used during the slave trade. Yeah, it's going in the direction of Somalia right now. And there are a couple of rival A bulwark. And he took us out from Gelkayo, which is a town in central Somalia, out to the coast to Hobyo, which is a pirate town you might have heard of.

12:01 I mean, when you say it's like a pirate town, You know, that wasn't a joke. this is going to be really hard on my family. How bad are your eyes? Yeah. But your physical state seems to shift when you discuss it. all my notes stolen, which means all my phone numbers too. and briefed her a little on what to say on the phone. Why did they wait a whole week?

15:50 see anymore yeah i was in a the first first they took me to a bush camp then they took me with a He was probably a livestock doctor, but the guy was, he was a very sympathetic older man, It's been reshaped. I didn't even bother. Why specifically 20 million? So they even mentioned that to me. And my mom could tell me very little on the phone about about the rescue but she

18:53 Did you almost become friends with them? Five months? They're moving me around. It's always better to have company when you're a captive. And so they developed their own pigeon, which is what sailors have done for centuries. It was a pigeon mixture of English and Chinese and a few other words. I knew I was living through interesting things and gathering good material.

21:37 did get out eventually? They did get out in 2016. Wow. And I was privileged enough to go to Nairobi There was nothing but very well-meaning but completely anonymous people around them. I think it's available. No explanation? Yeah. in your mind? How many bullets are in the gun? I can kill a few guys guys but it would be suicidal um but i went mean, did you, when you were around them for long periods of time and you're taking into consideration

25:36 But by the time I was captured, that didn't matter. And that's why they became pirates. I think they only illegalized it in Britain, for example, in 2014. people were fishing out there because they were dumping toxic waste also um yeah and that was So some of those big things that the Italians dumped over the side of their boats wound Great big leg?

28:46 you know they were being criminals too so yeah that's uh that's their business that's your Spielberg had already announced it or something like that. Wonder what that's like. And finally, I said, fuck me, that's Tom Hanks. He took the phone away before I did that. So what was inaccurate about it? So things like that. He had the right clan affiliation for that.

32:25 with them? Well, I separately, but sometimes in the same room, they, they made very bad food, Yeah, it really is because utensils just aren't that common, book, but I had a staph infection of my skin and some other kind of infection in my ear. And I was but it's possible they saw me sort of reaching my physical limit slowly. 2014 was— When you were released. when I was released and had the infection.

34:43 I think the day I was released, I was sort of – I felt better in stages, but it wasn't a sudden euphoria. Then I said, are you here because, you know, I might have PTSD? He said, we. Then I said, are you here because I might have PTSD? In other words, you don't want to create mentally another condition for you to recover from. I think PTSD can be so complicated.

36:59 I mean, I didn't get a checklist, but the psychologist would say, swelled up and they were really painful so it was like i just Wow. I mean, are there any strategies that people have to deal with coming out of long-term incarceration? How so? the FBI, which I did for three weeks. I couldn't always do it for an entire day. When you started talking about it, your shoulders, it seemed like started to almost visibly rise up.

40:46 I was also overwhelmed by too many friends, you know, too many people in the room because too many social cues to read. It was not complex. I wasn't sure how I was going to recover, but I knew to take it slow. Why not have a vegetarian diet? You need animal protein specifically. So now when it comes time to sleep, instead of tired, I get anxious. and sort of recapture these thoughts and transcribe them?

43:40 and that was the way to go. What were you like before this and what are you like now And if I ever start to feel ungrateful for something, And it was an internal debate for a really long time until one point where I actually heard a speech by the Pope could resonate so strongly with you while you're in captivity. wow man it's i mean i can't wait to read your book it is a crazy story

46:24 So that's the main thing. where you're shackled to a bed. She's the heroine of the story. So for my second book, Sweetness and Blood, I surfed in Gaza. So it's a group of Palestinians who like to surf but who don't have enough surfboards. It's been going on for years now. anything like that. Um, right now I'm writing a novel, so that should keep me seated for a while.

49:18 traveling for journalism again? Spanish or American law. There was a trial in Hamburg and I was going back and forth from Berlin. a safe place. For them? For them, even for them. And I think that's nuts. Once they were convicted, So the government in Somalia is focused around Mogadishu, and it just doesn't have that much power in the provinces. He's like, no, no, no problem.

52:49 Yes, it is. might get out again. So this guy, this guy who was a pirate boss in my case, wound up in jail bartering and payoffs They got a total of seven years, I think, or an average of seven years. But as it turned out, a few of them went back to Somalia anyway. I mean, in fact, I met hostages from all of those, you know, from the whole range. But it has a French name.

55:30 Yeah, whoever. Yeah. What is it, I mean, when you're dealing with all this, like what is it like on your psyche when you're getting two years in two and a half years in and you you have some sort of light at the end of the tunnel what what is it what does it feel like well i didn't Your spectrum expands. They obviously come from a completely different perspective in Somalia.

59:25 When I was there, I thought about it like in Berlin, I would imagine that as a writer, that spectrum, the expansion of the spectrum, although there's no way you would ever barter it off or bargain to have those experiences to broaden your spectrum, it has to have changed the way you put pen to paper and view the world and your ability to describe things.

1:00:59 that you were so deeply entrenched in because it still baffles me, that if you make more than $34,000 a year, you're in the 1% of the world. It's just not part of the reality. Yeah. But if you're, you know, if you're a very ordinary Somali, you're getting by on, you know, You know, he was wandering around in Galkayo African rap. Really? Oh yeah. Please do.

1:04:12 They want to keep this going. They're going to need more money. Yeah, absolutely. The thing about piracy and also terrorism. And even if the pirate bosses are no longer capturing ships on the water, I mean, I think they don't necessarily understand the rest of the world very well, Did you stay in touch with them? What was that like when you get a message on Facebook from someone who held a gun to

1:07:51 Did you express that to him? No, that wasn't our topic of conversation. But, you know, if he reads my book, he'll learn it. It really did. obviously behind what my guards were doing. So that was on my mind quite a lot. And that's where you realize that and then we came out to the deck in the morning and had instant coffee and something for breakfast.

1:11:26 That was one way to keep sane. They only write in their head. And so you sat down there and when you were Luckily when I got out, I got a list of the crewman's names from the FBI. What do you anticipate doing once the dust has settled and this is firmly established and you're done with the promos? But in the ways that they can't, and all their struggles and trials and tribulations,

1:15:25 David Rode, who was held hostage by the Taliban when he was working for the New York Times, Oh, by Somalis? and then a couple of Kenyans who I think were handed over to a pirate gang. fuck, I came here to write a story about pirates. Now it's not even a story. That's enough. And it should out a spatter of gunfire in the water can keep a skiff from coming on. That's enough.

1:17:57 And then, you know, pirates would come on with heavier weapons or whatever. And they just roll it over into something else if piracy becomes too difficult. it by becoming a country Well, listen, Michael, I didn't want to touch your book until I met you. Thank you, Joe.