George Rush and Joanna Molloy with Marcus Baram and K.C. Baker
November 25, 1998

Film maker Michael Moore is living on the edge. Determined to have the last laugh on Ira Rennert, Moore is respecting just barely a restraining order that demands he stay 150 feet away from the mogul who has accused him of harassment.

Rennert is the multi-millionaire businessman who wants to build the largest personal residence in America on the East End of Long Island. Rennert got a restraining order against Moore after charging that the documentary maker harassed his Park Ave. neighbors and intended to trespass on his Southampton estate.

"I'm standing here at 151 feet," Moore told us yesterday as he loitered outside Rennert's Rockefeller Center offices. "If I find myself inside the demarcation line, I'll be hauled off to jail."

Moore is milking the court order for all it's worth. He and the crew of his cable show, "The Awful Truth," recently showed his audience things the order bars him from doing. That includes "practicing my faith" at St. Patrick's Cathedral, skating in the Rockefeller ice rink and making a donation to a Salvation Army bell-ringer there.

Moore said his dream of dining at the Fashion Cafe was made possible thanks to "supermodels who are going to come out and feed me turkey burgers at 151 feet."

Conan O'Brien, whose studio is at 30 Rock, interviewed Moore by shouting questions from his ninth-floor window. "I was amazed that I could hear him," Moore said, explaining that all he wants to do is "spotlight" Rennert "as the No. 1 toxic polluter on Long Island, according to the EPA."

Rennert declined comment.