Thursday, September 29, 2011
I Write The Blogs That Make The Young Girls Cry!
I was never athletic. I used to stutter and stammer when I talk-I still talk with a lisp ;also, my "s"'s sound like "z"'s, and my dipthongs are a little shaky. I even still have a little bit of that "Lawn Guyland ax-sent". Also, I always appeared "different" from the others. Therefore my strengths are limited growing up-hence the shyness, the nervousness and so forth when I was younger. I'm much better now, I am able to look at someone in the eyes and I get an occasional "what?" here and there, I'm okay. Still though, throughout all the chaos in my younger years, writing was a thing I was always good at. When I first heard the old Shakespearean cliche "The pen is mightier than the sword", I took it quite seriously and quite literally. There were times when I was actually asked to be a Cyrano DeBergerac and write stuff for guys to pick up girls with. Some were just not good with words and here I was saying or writing stuff to get girls that I will never get. I also doodled pretty well and I did underground comic books in junior high and in college. There were SO underground I only wrote (or in some cases co wrote and co-drew) only one comic. Actually, some of the group I hung out with in my undergraduate school (Stony Brook University, home of the Sea Wolves) consider me a legend- mainly because the comics weren't about them! Hence my love for dark comedy and satire.
I went through my thing in my younger years and my "thing" in my current years is quite different from what I wanted to be. I wanted to be writer, and at times I still do. I just never had time to write that "great American Novel"- I realized that my goal in life is to help others and try to be a pillar of the community. Writing took a back seat, a need to pay the bills and being part of the community (b/c "that's where the money is") took precedent over being "the next Norman Mailer". So instead of living as a writer in Chelsea, Manhattan in my luxury apartment smoking a pipe and being draped over with sexy hot young babes in various states of undress, I am sitting here as a Home Care/ Mental Health Worker in a trailer that I share in the small town of Hudson, North Carolina eating a brownie and incessantly typing as I'm being draped over by my hungry dog hoping I'll drop a piece of brownie. As chocolate is bad for dogs as living in a fantasy world is bad for humans, I try to stay realistic in my approach. I like what I do as a care worker and this part of N.C. is fairly nice. People need me down here, and I'm okay about that.
Yet, there is a part of me that STILL wants to be that writer! I still want to be that rock star that I wrote about in a previous blog. When I got into MySpace and realized that one can blog about ANYTHING, I ripped into it! For the past two and a half years, I've been chugging along and completed over 175 blogs on MySpace. I have over 5000 hits on my blog tallies (about 35 hits per blog on average) and I had some of my blogs ranked on Top Blogs, I even had a few top 10's in a few categories! Somewhere in those 35 hits, I probably average 25-30 readers since some repeat-read my blogs. There are those who think that my blogs (for lack of better terms) SUCK, but that's their opinion! Obviously there are those 25-30 readers who think otherwise. My blogs aren't for everyone- especially the Conservative and what I call the "Orthodox Literati" who pick and probe and dissect every word I would write. Then again, some Conservatives have agreed on me with some political blogs and those "Orthodox Literati" wouldn't DARE read a blog on MySpace since it insults their wannabe intelligence, so I say "HRRRRUMPH" to them and a good day, sir! I do it for those 25-30 people who obviously found a home in my blogs, and I thank them for it! Besides, 30 Brendan fans can't be wrong!
If I get a phone call or an E-Mail from The New Yorker , Harper's, National Lampoon, or The Huffington Post asking me for an interview to write for their magazine, I will jump at the opportunity! Yet, a part of me would dread that part since I will leave I job I know well-- helping others and people that benefit from my help. If there was an opportunity to write freelance as I still work as a Social Worker that will be great. Yet at 44 years of age, fame is fleeting for me. Again, I have to accept reality-- then again, the future is unknown. If anything, having the 25-30 people reading my blogs is my reward. Maybe there is a good looking single 30 something, 40 something year old female in the midst that is looking for a guy who likes to write stuff at random, heyyyyyy!!! Maybe I won't have an apartment in Chelsea and I don't smoke let alone a pipe, BUT it'll be fun if a chick would drape herself over me as I write my latest masterpiece! I am Brendan, and I write the blogs!
I went through my thing in my younger years and my "thing" in my current years is quite different from what I wanted to be. I wanted to be writer, and at times I still do. I just never had time to write that "great American Novel"- I realized that my goal in life is to help others and try to be a pillar of the community. Writing took a back seat, a need to pay the bills and being part of the community (b/c "that's where the money is") took precedent over being "the next Norman Mailer". So instead of living as a writer in Chelsea, Manhattan in my luxury apartment smoking a pipe and being draped over with sexy hot young babes in various states of undress, I am sitting here as a Home Care/ Mental Health Worker in a trailer that I share in the small town of Hudson, North Carolina eating a brownie and incessantly typing as I'm being draped over by my hungry dog hoping I'll drop a piece of brownie. As chocolate is bad for dogs as living in a fantasy world is bad for humans, I try to stay realistic in my approach. I like what I do as a care worker and this part of N.C. is fairly nice. People need me down here, and I'm okay about that.
Yet, there is a part of me that STILL wants to be that writer! I still want to be that rock star that I wrote about in a previous blog. When I got into MySpace and realized that one can blog about ANYTHING, I ripped into it! For the past two and a half years, I've been chugging along and completed over 175 blogs on MySpace. I have over 5000 hits on my blog tallies (about 35 hits per blog on average) and I had some of my blogs ranked on Top Blogs, I even had a few top 10's in a few categories! Somewhere in those 35 hits, I probably average 25-30 readers since some repeat-read my blogs. There are those who think that my blogs (for lack of better terms) SUCK, but that's their opinion! Obviously there are those 25-30 readers who think otherwise. My blogs aren't for everyone- especially the Conservative and what I call the "Orthodox Literati" who pick and probe and dissect every word I would write. Then again, some Conservatives have agreed on me with some political blogs and those "Orthodox Literati" wouldn't DARE read a blog on MySpace since it insults their wannabe intelligence, so I say "HRRRRUMPH" to them and a good day, sir! I do it for those 25-30 people who obviously found a home in my blogs, and I thank them for it! Besides, 30 Brendan fans can't be wrong!
If I get a phone call or an E-Mail from The New Yorker , Harper's, National Lampoon, or The Huffington Post asking me for an interview to write for their magazine, I will jump at the opportunity! Yet, a part of me would dread that part since I will leave I job I know well-- helping others and people that benefit from my help. If there was an opportunity to write freelance as I still work as a Social Worker that will be great. Yet at 44 years of age, fame is fleeting for me. Again, I have to accept reality-- then again, the future is unknown. If anything, having the 25-30 people reading my blogs is my reward. Maybe there is a good looking single 30 something, 40 something year old female in the midst that is looking for a guy who likes to write stuff at random, heyyyyyy!!! Maybe I won't have an apartment in Chelsea and I don't smoke let alone a pipe, BUT it'll be fun if a chick would drape herself over me as I write my latest masterpiece! I am Brendan, and I write the blogs!
Autumn, Nature's Cult Hero
The autumnal equinox came and went mainly without notice. Then again, is it the 22nd or 23rd? I can hardly tell. The hot weather down here past summer didn't help me either. I mean everybody knows when the first day of summer or spring is. Then there are those who are into winter and of course winter can be the most welcomed or most feared. Spring means falling in love and planting (and sometimes both at the same time! Summer means fun and cookouts and women wearing next to nothing and their boyfriends giving you the stink eye. Winter, of course, means snow and Christmas and New Years and snow and Valentines day and snow and groundhog day and snow and for the people in Buffalo,NY; MORE SNOW! Yeah, you can say that summertime is an exciting and sexy season where as winter brings a family orientated fun time with spring serving as a buffer with it's own share of surprises.
THEN YOU HAVE THE FALL. A lowly season by some-- as you might guess. People are starting to cover up. The weather gets colder and so does some peoples' attitudes. I mean, let's face it, it's the beginning of the fiscal year for some companies. New programs start in the field of academics and applied education. College midterms, people beginning to start to prepare for tax season: Hell, in Canada, it's ALREADY tax season! Work begins to suck and all that "summer fun" turns into another memory. So for most people we are in a dark period between the last cookout and when open our X-Mas gifts or get into that heart-shaped bathtub with the scalding hot water and ubiquitous white bubbles with that special ski-bunny on Valentine's Day- YAWN!!. People can call Autumn a season of "blah"- for me, it's a season of OPPORTUNITY!
If anyone can guess, I love to write. This is the most perfect time to write, at least for me, anyway. I begin to wear a light jacket once the temperature drops below 65, I always have. My jacket is like a suit of armor and the season is like a kingdom for me to protect. My car is like a noble steer as I plow it through the fallen leaves. You can say that the leaves are like rose petals thrown at the feet of the returning knight. Then the sweet smell of crushed maple and oak leaves fill the air as the scenery is blotched with a series of browns, oranges, yellows, and some off-greens. After I take it all in, I wash it all down with a nice hot cup of a Chai latte.
Then things start to race through my mind, fun things. Like the times I hung out with friends just for the sake of hanging out. Or driving in my car though an isolated forest just to see the foliage and listening to jazz fusion on the radio (because Dave Brubeck is perfect for watching the leaves fall). Walking in the park is literally like a "walk in the park". There's something about the Fall that just screams out my name. Maybe it's the call of my Irish/Celtic ancestors on Halloween or the saints just giving me a shout out on November 1st. Maybe I'll be in love by then, or maybe someone loves me, or maybe I just love myself! Now before you think I'm selfish or I'm a pervert; I think that Fall is the celebration of the self. You can look at this as philosophical, or self analyzing psychobabble, but I truly think there is a portal to one's own thoughts and it only exists in the Fall. Look at the artists and writers that come out of hiding and do their best work. Look at a Van Gogh or a Monet painting, most of their paintings use Autumnal colors. Maybe, I'm the only one that sees this. Then again, why is Autumn one of George Winston's best albums? Then again, childhood memories come out, like when I dressed up and bobbed for apples on those Halloween days. I also remember in 1976 when I was in fourth grade and on the day before Thanksgiving break, I wrote "TOMORROW IS THANKSGIVING" out of the dirt and dust that sat on peoples' parked cars as I waited for the school bus. I think the streets of Brentwood and Central Islip, NY was shuddering at the nine-year old Thanksgiving loving grafitti artist that day!
My advice to my Fall-fearing friends is to at least take in a day to see what the Fall has to offer. Maybe you'll meet a new friend or maybe you'll fall in love. Or even maybe you can realize that person that you see in the mirror everyday is pretty cool after all!
THEN YOU HAVE THE FALL. A lowly season by some-- as you might guess. People are starting to cover up. The weather gets colder and so does some peoples' attitudes. I mean, let's face it, it's the beginning of the fiscal year for some companies. New programs start in the field of academics and applied education. College midterms, people beginning to start to prepare for tax season: Hell, in Canada, it's ALREADY tax season! Work begins to suck and all that "summer fun" turns into another memory. So for most people we are in a dark period between the last cookout and when open our X-Mas gifts or get into that heart-shaped bathtub with the scalding hot water and ubiquitous white bubbles with that special ski-bunny on Valentine's Day- YAWN!!. People can call Autumn a season of "blah"- for me, it's a season of OPPORTUNITY!
If anyone can guess, I love to write. This is the most perfect time to write, at least for me, anyway. I begin to wear a light jacket once the temperature drops below 65, I always have. My jacket is like a suit of armor and the season is like a kingdom for me to protect. My car is like a noble steer as I plow it through the fallen leaves. You can say that the leaves are like rose petals thrown at the feet of the returning knight. Then the sweet smell of crushed maple and oak leaves fill the air as the scenery is blotched with a series of browns, oranges, yellows, and some off-greens. After I take it all in, I wash it all down with a nice hot cup of a Chai latte.
Then things start to race through my mind, fun things. Like the times I hung out with friends just for the sake of hanging out. Or driving in my car though an isolated forest just to see the foliage and listening to jazz fusion on the radio (because Dave Brubeck is perfect for watching the leaves fall). Walking in the park is literally like a "walk in the park". There's something about the Fall that just screams out my name. Maybe it's the call of my Irish/Celtic ancestors on Halloween or the saints just giving me a shout out on November 1st. Maybe I'll be in love by then, or maybe someone loves me, or maybe I just love myself! Now before you think I'm selfish or I'm a pervert; I think that Fall is the celebration of the self. You can look at this as philosophical, or self analyzing psychobabble, but I truly think there is a portal to one's own thoughts and it only exists in the Fall. Look at the artists and writers that come out of hiding and do their best work. Look at a Van Gogh or a Monet painting, most of their paintings use Autumnal colors. Maybe, I'm the only one that sees this. Then again, why is Autumn one of George Winston's best albums? Then again, childhood memories come out, like when I dressed up and bobbed for apples on those Halloween days. I also remember in 1976 when I was in fourth grade and on the day before Thanksgiving break, I wrote "TOMORROW IS THANKSGIVING" out of the dirt and dust that sat on peoples' parked cars as I waited for the school bus. I think the streets of Brentwood and Central Islip, NY was shuddering at the nine-year old Thanksgiving loving grafitti artist that day!
My advice to my Fall-fearing friends is to at least take in a day to see what the Fall has to offer. Maybe you'll meet a new friend or maybe you'll fall in love. Or even maybe you can realize that person that you see in the mirror everyday is pretty cool after all!
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Ten Years After (The Complete Series)
TEN YEARS AFTER
Part 1: "That Morning"
It was a Tuesday morning, I thought, I felt if it was like Monday. I just got settled in my new apartment in Buffalo, a run down two bedroom on the West Side-- I was laying on the futon in my spare bedroom with the fan blaring. It was pretty warm for a mid September morning. I was also too cheap to get A/C. It was somewhere around 9AM; more closer to 10 come to think of it-- I was sound asleep, in my humble abode with my morbidly obese cat and the numerous cockroaches to keep me company. I was dreading work. I worked at a supervised apartment (more of a group home) for adults who were dual diagnosed, mainly with a cognitive disablity and a psychological disorder. Clients gave me hell, mainly because I was not from Buffalo, but Long Island-- but to them I was from "Newyorkcity". And I got flak from the clients and even staff, even though I didn't wear a Bills shirt or rooted for the Sabres--crazy shit. And this one guy rode me like a bicycle because I was from "Newyorkcity", how "stupid" my "city" was, blah blah blah. I tried to explain to the guy, but he was a client-- so there was no explaining that I wasn't even from New York Proper but about an hour drive away, at least an hour from Manhattan. I had some friends that were also originally from the NYC suburbs area and it was the same deal. I had moved out of Long Island seven years earlier, and there were scant times I wanted to go back.
Occasionally, mainly around Christmas Time I would hop on a Greyhound to visit my mom who still lived on the Island at the time. I remember during office Christmas parties, I would sing "New York, New York" on the karaoke just to piss people off. I would usually take the Greyhound a few days before Xmas and look at the skyline as the Twin Towers would greet me as the bus popped out of the Lincoln Tunnel. I'd then take the "C" train from Port Authority to Penn Station and hop on the LIRR to Babylon. Hell, I remember on Xmas when a few of us started singing "New York, New York" on the Greyhound! Good times. When I did the song at the office parties, it was my way of saying "fuck off" to the assorted pricks at the party, even though there were a few people I liked there, but I was going home soon-- and the rest of the world can screw it, especially in Buffalo as far as I was concerned. Let the "experts" chase and dodge shit, I was going to eat some real pizza, and hang out with some old buds and talk about the good old days. And at around Christmas time, I would visualize the towers like it was my extra large welcome mat!
The morning of Sept. 11, 2001 was a far cry to Christmas and I had some z's to kill until 2PM which was about five hours away from then. But I was awakened by my friend Dianne, who lived next door in the crackhouse duplex we lived in. She walked in harried and out of breath, didn't even knocked when she came in. I could never get mad at Dianne, she was like an angel in a way.If she wasn't a lesbian I would've done anything to be her boyfriend-- but que sera sera, she was always my buddy and I was okay with that! She always had a positive personality and spoke in a sing song manner. The caedence was gone from her voice that morning, I honestly thought that the house was burning down from the crackheads living downstairs. But Dianne had a worried look on her face-- she needed to be worried; she was in the Army Reserves (remember, this was the peak of DADT at the time) and even though nothing was going on at the time, something happened to stir up Dianne! The only thing was big was Bush got elected early that year and wanted to start shit with Iraq and already was in dutch with China because of the spyplane thing. So I was just thinking: "Okay, who did Bush piss off this time?" But the look on Dianne's face said a lot more-- and all she said was "Something happened in Manhattan and the Pentagon!" I'm thinking okay, maybe a shootout or a small bomb in JFK and some remote bullshit in the Pentagon, I didn't put two and two together at the time.
We both went into my living room and turned on the TV. The first thing I seen was the Skyline engulfed in a cloud of smoke. What was even more shocking was that I had only seen one WTC towers standing and in flames. That's when I heard that a plane crashed in "one" of the towers, and I was thinking "Jesus, one plane did all that shit?" I'm thinking that it was just a plane crash, and the Pentagon thing was just a shootout. I thought that the two towers were still there and safe, and the firemen will get the fire out and save the day. Then the video and correspondence switched to Washington and the same eerie grey cloud hovered over the Pentagon. Everything switched back to New York in which Matt Lauer confirmed another plane crash near Pittsburgh. Then I'm hearing that there were "four plane crashes in all". Okay, one tower, the Pentagon, and Pittsburgh, so where the was the fourth one? And then Matt Lauer did his famous "If you just joined us..." line and said that Tower One was "down". What did he mean by down, is this why I only see one tower? Dianne was counting down to herself, waiting for her unit to get deployed.
I called my mother, right at the time, the second tower fell down. All I remember was her saying "just go to work, act like there's nothing going on". This was her way of telling me not to stir shit up--this was nothing that I could imagine. We were under attack, but who? Iraq would never do this, too sophisticated for a pissant country with an aging dictator. McVeigh was just executed earlier that year, maybe it was his people. Honestly, I was too overwhelmed by shock to figure it out.
I went to work that day, my manager asked me if I wanted to take the day off because of what happened. I took my mother's advice and just acted like nothing went on- I stayed even though the one client mocked me and said; "Dey blew up Newyorkcity! Ha! Dey blew up your stupid faggot city!" I bit my lip and went on even though the client threw a garbage can lid at me since I had not replied to his mocking. And that was all they knew, nothing really hit yet. When I saw Letterman that night bawling on TV and being serious on what happened instead of cracking a joke-- that shit REALLY hit me. I very rarely watch Letterman to this day, just because of how I'd seen him that night.
Al Queda was barely a blip on the radar back then and so was Bin Laden. We were shocked to the point we did not really "think" of what happened. The client later apologized of his actions, so did the others in the area I lived at. "Newyorkcity" was properly pronounced as "New York City" by the local yokels in Buffalo. My "stupid faggot city" was not the target, it was the United States. New Yorkers became part of a new cautious America. Roles were changed and the New York I knew was never the same-- even though I did not live in Long Island for the previous seven years, my true home was never the same. The playground that was shadowing my home was now a battleground. 10 years later, it is like a historical landmark to me. Two large pools replaced where the towers stood, it almost reminds me of DC now with the monuments and whatnot.
Two years later, in 2003, I moved North Carolina-- not for a clear reason other than the NYC and surrounding areas I knew were not the same. My mother moved in 2004 to Florida. Things and people near my hometown in Long Island just aren't there anymore. I was last in New York/Long Island in 2002 and it was like going to a funeral back then. My mom, remembers being at Ground Zero a month later giving out bottles of water and Crispy Cremes to the volunteers still digging out bodies. She still tells me of "that metallic smell" permeating through South Manhattan.I never asked her if that was the reason why she went to Florida and I probably never will. Dianne's unit was never deployed but she was still battling her personal dilemma of being gay in the military. I last heard from her in 2005, she had an honorable discharge I believe, and if she stuck around a few years later-- she would not look over her back anymore. As for me, I still hold close to the NYC I knew on Monday, September the 10th, 2001 when the Towers stood untouched for that last day, and for the 3000 plus souls that were still alive doing their blase thing. Back then we were innocent, we were INVINCIBLE...
Part 2: "When Patriotism Met Coca Cola"
Our sense of security died out on 9/11. Our overall senses were crushed like milk cartons by the school bully but everything was on a grander scale. Bin Laden added the salt in the wound by posting his propogandist videos to news agencies. I tasted his blood as much as anyone else did that day. When then President George W. Bush came to New York the next day and joined hands with Rudy Guiliani and the one fireman, the image of "everything's was going to be all right" eased my damaged mind and ruptured heart. Like any other American, I felt raped, wounded and left to die. I wanted revenge as much as everyone else. If anything, we all grew patriotic that day if not Conservative. Bush promised us that we were going to get Bin Laden very soon. When Bush said "I'm a loving man" and almost broke down, I had him all wrong-- at least I thought.
But I forgot about Bush's personal agenda against Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Y'know, "I'm gonna get this guy because Daddy couldn't and all that Clinton guy did was that 'economy' thing"; personal agenda. Instead of putting Iraq on the backburner and focusing on Afganistan and possibly Pakistan, the whole "Operation Enduring Freedom" thing took shape. Bush ignored Hans Blix and the U.N. and took matters in his hands over the "WMD" situation, and Iraq's "connection" with Al Queda and Bin Laden. We knew what happened, and in a way we are still paying for it.
I can go into the "Bush lied, soldiers died" rant, but in fact-- we really lied to ourselves! Remember "Freedom Fries"? We raised a big stink over France making the US by-pass planes towards Afghanistan. I wasn't too crazy about France's decision either, but THIS WAS FRANCE FOR CRISSAKES! The French were always known to be aloof towards the US and the UK. These people INVENTED SNOTTY FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!!! So, should we really get surprised by France's actions? So yeah, I still called French Fries "French Fries" back then, because THAT'S WHAT THEY ARE CALLED!
Between the "Freedom Fries" debacle, and the sudden burst of patriotism, we started to act like the "tough guy" when it came to foreign policy. I remember the whole country music crap that followed. I liked the Alan Jackson song, at least he did the "everyman" approach. But when I heard that stupid Toby Keith song, the "We'll put a boot to their ass, IT'S THE AMERICAN WAY!" song, and that condescending song "Have You Forgotten?", gave every idiot an excuse to act like an American asshole. Instead of heading into the 21st Century, we were back in Archie Bunker's World circa 1972 with the "America, Love it or LEAVE it!"mantra. Even the poster shop/ hippie hangout in Buffalo had a sign that read "AVENGE 9/11". I even had the picture of the Twin Towers hanging over my computer in the same room that my friend Dianne came to and woke me up on the morning of 9/11.
I was for avenging the actions of Bin Laden/ Al Qaeda but I was against and still against the involvement in Iraq. I was really upset that Bush's personal agenda got in the way. For safe haven, I attended a Peace Rally in the center of Buffalo thinking I would see some headway from the other side--MY side-- I THOUGHT! Instead of peaceful hippies talking about a solution and doing something that would help my conscience, I found the complete opposite. All there was were a bunch of angry 30 & 40 year old vegans pissed off at their parents harping and preaching over "Bush's Daddy" and "My mom made me eat liver". The speakers at the rally were focusing about Bush's personal agenda by GREIVING THEIR OWN PERSONAL AGENDAS! It went from "No More War" to "My parents liked my brother better than ME!" Instead of a "love fest" it was a bitch and whine fest!! One of the speakers even suggested, no friggin joke, that whenever President Bush spoke we were told to stick our fingers in our ears and yell out "LA LA LA LA LA--- I CAN'T HEAAAAR YOU!!! LA LA LA!" After the rally, I went to a nearby Burger King and ate a Whopper-- that evening, I called my mother and told her that I loved her (even though she's a pain in my ass sometimes!). I always had this fantasy that I was going to meet a hippie chick and made passionate love to her-- like in the protest movies of the 60's. But we know what's truly under a hippie chicks' clothes, hairy pits, unshaved legs and scars of self-abuse! It was kind of like James Joyce's "Araby" but dressed in paisley and reeking of patchouli-- yet the disappointment still remains!
9/11 made me less liberal than I was, but the events that day started a journey to the middle of the road. I tried to be a better American, but I also became more cautious. I learned not trust anybody anymore, even if their title is the President of the United States. I learned it with Bush 43 and it carries through with Obama. We got Bin Laden, but look how long it took to get him. I could jump on the bandwagon and say that Obama got Bin Laden, but I won't. Obama was just there. The Navy Seals and the CIA really got Bin Laden if anyone. It was all luck really. We can say it was proof that the Democrats aren't wimps after all-- but we can also say that it was a political campaign for Obama.Either way, things haven't been the same politically as well as fundamentally since 9/11 and there's no turning back.
For now, we are safe but we are not as cocky as we were...
Part 3: "Adagio For Strings"
I witnessed on my 13 inch color TV on that day in Buffalo, NY as I woke up from a stupor, thanks to my friend Dianne. It was not alcohol related, I was woke up from a dead sleep from my friend's concernation. As I seen the close up of the buildings cutting between the live footage (the South Tower already went down when I woke up). When I seen the people jumping out to their deaths, I knew this was nothing I have seen before or ever again. What was scary was it was happening at random. Years later, I was watching a documentary made by two French brothers who were "just there" when all this happened. The brothers were originally doing a "piece of life" type of documentary about a random fire department in South Manhattan. The one scene that stood out in my mind was the banging on the metal awnings and fixtures as the bodies crashed against the solid surface. Another thing that stood out was during NBC's short breaks of the live footage were the montages of what happened which was set to Samuel Barber's "Adagio For Strings".
The classical piece, for those who are not familiar with it, is extremely somber. The music cascades into this sad cacophony of mass dirges and sugarees. I remember the piece from "Platoon" in which Elias (played by Willem Dafoe) falls to his knees and spreads out his arms as the chopper helplessly flies by. Like Charlie Sheen's character who watches on and could not do anything, myself and countless others just stare. Emotion was not an option, the first thing to do was cry I guess, but me-- I was too shocked to do anything. Every emotion ran from my veins that day.
I had explained earlier about how the World Trade Center was the back drop to my former home in Babylon, NY-- if not the welcome mat. On a dead day or a late night, one can travel from Babylon to Midtown Manhattan about 45 minutes, possibly earlier. I remember growing up there, there was the Babylon Train Station which was and still is the main Southern hub of the Long Island Rail Road. We only lived a few blocks away from the Babylon LIRR Station, and it was across the street where I attended high school in my Junior and Senior years. I remember the people in suits and ties, some in construction gear, heading to the Express to Penn Station which was in Midtown. In turn, some would hit the subway from there or take the bus or cab to their selected locales in New York City-- including the Financial District: Wall Street, the various bank buildings in South Manhattan, and the World Trade Center.
The high school across the street, Babylon Junior and Senior High, was the place for the time I would rather forget back then. I was not alone, right after I graduated from there I bumped into others that also didn't like that "God damned high school". The preps had full reign of the school, and those who weren't were happy to get the hell away from there after graduation. Around the time before 9/11, I was trying to make peace with the relationship with the "God damned high school". Somehow, as I was looking at the burning towers and the eruption of dust, smoke, and debris taking over the streets of Lower Manhattan, I was caught in a whirlpool of unwarrented thought. I might have known these people, I could have known these people-- I even thought that maybe the kids from that "God damned high school" might have been involved or possibly even died. This was something that came in my mind that day.
The "if I could've been nicer to those people, maybe it would not be such a bad place" notion flooded my head soon after 9/11. This was not a typical terrorist attack or even a religious sect gone awry, it was an attack on mankind. 9/11 taught us that we are all humans no matter if we grieve or die. Whether anybody came from "the God damned high school" were one of the victims was not known to me. The train station was across the street from the school, both the station and the school are the center of town-- and the express train was a half hour commute to Manhattan.
Through the years, I have actually made steps to make peace with the place I called "that God damned high school". I credit 9/11 for opening myself up. My regret, one of my few regrets, was that I wish I was about as open back when I attended Babylon Junior and Senior High School. I wish I was the same way with my other venues, like the other high school I attended, the middle school I attended, the Wendy's I worked at for 8 years, and other places in Long Island that I prowled and haunted.
A couple of years ago, I spoke to a friend and fellow graduate of my high school. She told me that there was someone in our graduating class that did die in 9/11. Although he was one of the popular crowd, he was human like all of us. He was legendary in his day-- a class cut up. I really did not know much about him other than what he did in the boys' shower-- I'll leave that to the imagination. But his sense of humor was the catylyst to the graduating class and was well liked, whether if it was from a prep or a social outcast like me. I did not know this guy that well, since I was only there for a year and a half. From what I knew of him, he was a really cool guy. Plus he looked liked a very young Bill Murray, so humor was on his side. Other than him doing his antics, including the boys' shower and his middle name being "Valentino", I really didn't know this guy-- I wish I did. As I opened myself up, and talked to other former students of Babylon High School on Facebook, I started to know this guy. I spoke to people that I hardly ever spoke to in the high school-- whether these people were part of the "in crowd" or social maladroits such as myself.
There were others that I knew that also died in 9/11, but like the cool guy in high school, I hardly knew the others; like the neighbor's sister in law or the one person that I bumped into in college. The guy in high school was the least obscure of the people I knew who died or were involved in 9/11. I even remember my macho uncle who was a NYPD officer crying like a baby when his buddies in the force died during 9/11. Unless someone tells me about a person that I haven't seen in the past ten years who died in 9/11, I never really knew someone who was close who died during 9/11.But those who I died if I knew them or not, were known to others. Like my "macho" uncle, the living families and friends grieve. But yet, after grieving, there is rebuilding.
Like the ending of "Adagio For Strings", there's an eerie peaceful note at the end. If anyone listens to the closing notes, the strings speed up and slowly die down almost playing another melody. It ends as if there's a hope and resolution to this tragic song. Like the instruments that rendered the melancholic crescendo we slow down from the sad notes and search for hope-- and in the end we hope we find a happy note.
http://youtu.be/1dPDO3Tfab0
Epilogue
It was a little after 11PM that night. I was taking the bus home from work that night. I ditched my car right before the summer to save money. Parking in Buffalo was a pain in the ass and the traffic police were ticket happy when it came to parking cars. Also car insurance was high because I lived in a city-- so I bussed it and I bought home a little more scratch for me and my fat cat plus a little extra for some boric acid for the roaches. I worked on the border of the cities of Buffalo and Lackawanna, NY. Lackawanna was a quiet bedroom community. A mile to the South is Blasdell, and another mile past that is Orchard Park; where the Buffalo Bills play. All this is about 450 miles West of where I used to live. That night I was reminded where I came from sensing that where I came from was practically no more. I had other staff at the supervised apartment/group home apologize to me because I was from there. They wanted to know about the Twin Towers and how many times I've been there, as if it was in my backyard. I tried to tell people that it was never like that for me, in fact I've never been there. I might have passed it in my class field trips to NYC but my class trips went to other places like the UN building and the South Street area. I am sure they are people who live or have lived in Manhattan who never been to the World Trade Center. It's not like everybody in Buffalo went to see the Bills played every game or watch the Sabres play come hockey season. And for the record, I've seen the Bisons play AAA baseball and I've seen the Sabres play (but against MY team the New Jersey Devils and the Devils mainly won!).
But that night at the bus stop, September 11, 2001; Tuesday night, I was happy to leave work. I lost some of the "Lawn Guyland Ax-sent" but my voice still had that "Noo Yawk"-iness to it-- even now in North Cackalackey it still shows. But that night, I was still in the fog of the earlier morning. I was still in a state of mourning over the sight of the Twin Towers greeting me on the Greyhound on my way to Mom's in Long Island. The radio was on in the office of the group home-- I was listening to the radio as I was finishing up the paperwork. I heard that there was be a candlelight vigil that night and the next night in scattered places across the country. I was going home and light my candle in my apartment. I grabbed a sixer of beer at the supermarket in back of the bus stop and crack open a couple as I lit a candle.
So here I was at the bus stop on Abbott Road in Lackawanna (a few feet from Dorrance Street and the Buffalo City Line), just standing there. I thought that at least all that shit in the city, the city I really knew, was miles away and out of reach from where I lived and stood. Little did I knew that a few months later in the little pissant town I worked at, an Al Qaeda terrorist cell was found and six members of the cell were arrested by the FBI. "The Lackawanna Six" operated in a modest house about a mile away from the group home I worked at. I soon discovered that this "little pissant town"; Lackawanna, NY; had the third highest concentration of Arabic/Middle Eastern immigrants in the U.S. next to Toledo, Ohio and Detroit, Michigan!
The post 9/11 hype didn't stop there. Buffalo lays on the foot of the Niagara River into Lake Erie. Across that foot of Niagara is Canada. The Peace Bridge is a mile long cable bridge to Fort Erie, Ontario and the Queen Elizabeth Way. The QEW is a six lane mega expressway that starts in Fort Erie and plows through the Canadian side of Niagara Falls and works its way through Hamilton, Ontario, and up to Toronto. Before 9/11, the Canadian Dollar was about 50 cents to the US Dollar-- which meant that your money doubled there. Plus, you didn't need a passport to get there! The added bonus to all this was the drinking age is 19 AND there are numerous strip clubs in the much more liberal Canada. Strip clubs were advertised numerously on local TV and radio on both Canadian and American stations. In these adverts, there was a reminder of the "Canadian Law", by law-- a stripper must remove ALL her clothes! I mean ALL her clothes. The reason "why" was that it reduced the number of rapes and assaults by the patrons. But there was another rule--NO TOUCHING or a 300 lb. Canadian bouncer will grab you and do whatever the hell he wants to do-- like using some sorry American dude as a punching bag! Plus they had watered down drinks which was mandatory to buy in these clubs-- even the soda was watered down! But for half the money and the sake of seeing nekkid women--REALLY naked women: boobies, butts, va-jay-jays and everything! Plus, there was horse races and for half the money that you would spend at OTB would only be half-- and there were more winners at the Ft. Erie race track. And there were several restaurants-- some fast food others were these mom and pop buffets-- but the difference was, it was HALF the price AND there in another "Canadian Law" which was that all meat should not be treated with hormones or steroids, so the meat and most of the vegetables were organic and tasted BETTER! If anyone ends up going to Canada, go to a McDonald's up there-- any Canadian McDonald's and you'll understand my point!Last to mention are the Duty Free shops, and beer stores where you can buy beer over there with TWICE the alcohol content! It was like a Disneyland for shmoes and schlubs like myself! However, the fun shortly ended across the border. Free travel ended the following year because of possible terrorists crossing the Canadian/US border. Thus, one needs a passport now to cross the border. Also, the US dollar declined drastically worldwide after 9/11. This meant that it wasn't "cheap" to go to Canada anymore-- so the organic Big Mac would not be worth it anymore since now the US Dollar is now equal to the Canadian Dollar.
That night I went home was the beginning of the end of my salad days in Buffalo.Two years later, I moved to N.C. But back to that night as I was waiting for the bus, I saw a guy in a lowly lit distance. He was a kid in his late teens, early 20's walking towards me with a fluttering candle in his hand. He was wearing a Limp Bizkit/Korn/ICP T-shirt; it was whatever band was popular at the time 10 years ago. He walked towards me and said "wassup". I noticed his candle and asked him if it was for "...what happened this morning". He was in a daze; "Whaaa..?" he replied. Then he noticed my Noo Yawk-ish accent and then said "Are you from Newyorkcity?" I said "Yeah, pretty much, I lived about 45 minutes to an hour from where it happened." He then said,"Yeah it's a fuggin' shame what the Ayy-Rabs did to the Empire State Building!". My chin hit the floor-- I was paralyzed in this kid's ignorance. He added "You've been to the Empire State Building?" I said "No, but I passed the World Trade Center during a field trip". He looked at me like I was full of-- well, his brains. He looked at me and said "Oh." He then went off his merry way to Crystal Meth Land or wherever to further damage his gray fecal matter with his candle. The bus arrived shortly after, I grabbed my sixpack of Old Vienna and took a connecting bus to go home where I came home to hug my cat. I opened a can of OV and listened to the Police's "King Of Pain"(http://youtu.be/CGEJcizQEXk) over and over especially to hear "There's a little black spot in the sun today!" I would then reply "That's my soul up there!". It was the dawn to the "same old thing as yesterday" that remains prevelant ten years after. That night, I drank two cans of OV, played with my fat white cat and sang along to Sting and company. Needless to say, I did not light a candle that night.
For Paul R. and those whom we had lost on 9/11/01
Part 1: "That Morning"
It was a Tuesday morning, I thought, I felt if it was like Monday. I just got settled in my new apartment in Buffalo, a run down two bedroom on the West Side-- I was laying on the futon in my spare bedroom with the fan blaring. It was pretty warm for a mid September morning. I was also too cheap to get A/C. It was somewhere around 9AM; more closer to 10 come to think of it-- I was sound asleep, in my humble abode with my morbidly obese cat and the numerous cockroaches to keep me company. I was dreading work. I worked at a supervised apartment (more of a group home) for adults who were dual diagnosed, mainly with a cognitive disablity and a psychological disorder. Clients gave me hell, mainly because I was not from Buffalo, but Long Island-- but to them I was from "Newyorkcity". And I got flak from the clients and even staff, even though I didn't wear a Bills shirt or rooted for the Sabres--crazy shit. And this one guy rode me like a bicycle because I was from "Newyorkcity", how "stupid" my "city" was, blah blah blah. I tried to explain to the guy, but he was a client-- so there was no explaining that I wasn't even from New York Proper but about an hour drive away, at least an hour from Manhattan. I had some friends that were also originally from the NYC suburbs area and it was the same deal. I had moved out of Long Island seven years earlier, and there were scant times I wanted to go back.
Occasionally, mainly around Christmas Time I would hop on a Greyhound to visit my mom who still lived on the Island at the time. I remember during office Christmas parties, I would sing "New York, New York" on the karaoke just to piss people off. I would usually take the Greyhound a few days before Xmas and look at the skyline as the Twin Towers would greet me as the bus popped out of the Lincoln Tunnel. I'd then take the "C" train from Port Authority to Penn Station and hop on the LIRR to Babylon. Hell, I remember on Xmas when a few of us started singing "New York, New York" on the Greyhound! Good times. When I did the song at the office parties, it was my way of saying "fuck off" to the assorted pricks at the party, even though there were a few people I liked there, but I was going home soon-- and the rest of the world can screw it, especially in Buffalo as far as I was concerned. Let the "experts" chase and dodge shit, I was going to eat some real pizza, and hang out with some old buds and talk about the good old days. And at around Christmas time, I would visualize the towers like it was my extra large welcome mat!
The morning of Sept. 11, 2001 was a far cry to Christmas and I had some z's to kill until 2PM which was about five hours away from then. But I was awakened by my friend Dianne, who lived next door in the crackhouse duplex we lived in. She walked in harried and out of breath, didn't even knocked when she came in. I could never get mad at Dianne, she was like an angel in a way.If she wasn't a lesbian I would've done anything to be her boyfriend-- but que sera sera, she was always my buddy and I was okay with that! She always had a positive personality and spoke in a sing song manner. The caedence was gone from her voice that morning, I honestly thought that the house was burning down from the crackheads living downstairs. But Dianne had a worried look on her face-- she needed to be worried; she was in the Army Reserves (remember, this was the peak of DADT at the time) and even though nothing was going on at the time, something happened to stir up Dianne! The only thing was big was Bush got elected early that year and wanted to start shit with Iraq and already was in dutch with China because of the spyplane thing. So I was just thinking: "Okay, who did Bush piss off this time?" But the look on Dianne's face said a lot more-- and all she said was "Something happened in Manhattan and the Pentagon!" I'm thinking okay, maybe a shootout or a small bomb in JFK and some remote bullshit in the Pentagon, I didn't put two and two together at the time.
We both went into my living room and turned on the TV. The first thing I seen was the Skyline engulfed in a cloud of smoke. What was even more shocking was that I had only seen one WTC towers standing and in flames. That's when I heard that a plane crashed in "one" of the towers, and I was thinking "Jesus, one plane did all that shit?" I'm thinking that it was just a plane crash, and the Pentagon thing was just a shootout. I thought that the two towers were still there and safe, and the firemen will get the fire out and save the day. Then the video and correspondence switched to Washington and the same eerie grey cloud hovered over the Pentagon. Everything switched back to New York in which Matt Lauer confirmed another plane crash near Pittsburgh. Then I'm hearing that there were "four plane crashes in all". Okay, one tower, the Pentagon, and Pittsburgh, so where the was the fourth one? And then Matt Lauer did his famous "If you just joined us..." line and said that Tower One was "down". What did he mean by down, is this why I only see one tower? Dianne was counting down to herself, waiting for her unit to get deployed.
I called my mother, right at the time, the second tower fell down. All I remember was her saying "just go to work, act like there's nothing going on". This was her way of telling me not to stir shit up--this was nothing that I could imagine. We were under attack, but who? Iraq would never do this, too sophisticated for a pissant country with an aging dictator. McVeigh was just executed earlier that year, maybe it was his people. Honestly, I was too overwhelmed by shock to figure it out.
I went to work that day, my manager asked me if I wanted to take the day off because of what happened. I took my mother's advice and just acted like nothing went on- I stayed even though the one client mocked me and said; "Dey blew up Newyorkcity! Ha! Dey blew up your stupid faggot city!" I bit my lip and went on even though the client threw a garbage can lid at me since I had not replied to his mocking. And that was all they knew, nothing really hit yet. When I saw Letterman that night bawling on TV and being serious on what happened instead of cracking a joke-- that shit REALLY hit me. I very rarely watch Letterman to this day, just because of how I'd seen him that night.
Al Queda was barely a blip on the radar back then and so was Bin Laden. We were shocked to the point we did not really "think" of what happened. The client later apologized of his actions, so did the others in the area I lived at. "Newyorkcity" was properly pronounced as "New York City" by the local yokels in Buffalo. My "stupid faggot city" was not the target, it was the United States. New Yorkers became part of a new cautious America. Roles were changed and the New York I knew was never the same-- even though I did not live in Long Island for the previous seven years, my true home was never the same. The playground that was shadowing my home was now a battleground. 10 years later, it is like a historical landmark to me. Two large pools replaced where the towers stood, it almost reminds me of DC now with the monuments and whatnot.
Two years later, in 2003, I moved North Carolina-- not for a clear reason other than the NYC and surrounding areas I knew were not the same. My mother moved in 2004 to Florida. Things and people near my hometown in Long Island just aren't there anymore. I was last in New York/Long Island in 2002 and it was like going to a funeral back then. My mom, remembers being at Ground Zero a month later giving out bottles of water and Crispy Cremes to the volunteers still digging out bodies. She still tells me of "that metallic smell" permeating through South Manhattan.I never asked her if that was the reason why she went to Florida and I probably never will. Dianne's unit was never deployed but she was still battling her personal dilemma of being gay in the military. I last heard from her in 2005, she had an honorable discharge I believe, and if she stuck around a few years later-- she would not look over her back anymore. As for me, I still hold close to the NYC I knew on Monday, September the 10th, 2001 when the Towers stood untouched for that last day, and for the 3000 plus souls that were still alive doing their blase thing. Back then we were innocent, we were INVINCIBLE...
Part 2: "When Patriotism Met Coca Cola"
Our sense of security died out on 9/11. Our overall senses were crushed like milk cartons by the school bully but everything was on a grander scale. Bin Laden added the salt in the wound by posting his propogandist videos to news agencies. I tasted his blood as much as anyone else did that day. When then President George W. Bush came to New York the next day and joined hands with Rudy Guiliani and the one fireman, the image of "everything's was going to be all right" eased my damaged mind and ruptured heart. Like any other American, I felt raped, wounded and left to die. I wanted revenge as much as everyone else. If anything, we all grew patriotic that day if not Conservative. Bush promised us that we were going to get Bin Laden very soon. When Bush said "I'm a loving man" and almost broke down, I had him all wrong-- at least I thought.
But I forgot about Bush's personal agenda against Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Y'know, "I'm gonna get this guy because Daddy couldn't and all that Clinton guy did was that 'economy' thing"; personal agenda. Instead of putting Iraq on the backburner and focusing on Afganistan and possibly Pakistan, the whole "Operation Enduring Freedom" thing took shape. Bush ignored Hans Blix and the U.N. and took matters in his hands over the "WMD" situation, and Iraq's "connection" with Al Queda and Bin Laden. We knew what happened, and in a way we are still paying for it.
I can go into the "Bush lied, soldiers died" rant, but in fact-- we really lied to ourselves! Remember "Freedom Fries"? We raised a big stink over France making the US by-pass planes towards Afghanistan. I wasn't too crazy about France's decision either, but THIS WAS FRANCE FOR CRISSAKES! The French were always known to be aloof towards the US and the UK. These people INVENTED SNOTTY FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!!! So, should we really get surprised by France's actions? So yeah, I still called French Fries "French Fries" back then, because THAT'S WHAT THEY ARE CALLED!
Between the "Freedom Fries" debacle, and the sudden burst of patriotism, we started to act like the "tough guy" when it came to foreign policy. I remember the whole country music crap that followed. I liked the Alan Jackson song, at least he did the "everyman" approach. But when I heard that stupid Toby Keith song, the "We'll put a boot to their ass, IT'S THE AMERICAN WAY!" song, and that condescending song "Have You Forgotten?", gave every idiot an excuse to act like an American asshole. Instead of heading into the 21st Century, we were back in Archie Bunker's World circa 1972 with the "America, Love it or LEAVE it!"mantra. Even the poster shop/ hippie hangout in Buffalo had a sign that read "AVENGE 9/11". I even had the picture of the Twin Towers hanging over my computer in the same room that my friend Dianne came to and woke me up on the morning of 9/11.
I was for avenging the actions of Bin Laden/ Al Qaeda but I was against and still against the involvement in Iraq. I was really upset that Bush's personal agenda got in the way. For safe haven, I attended a Peace Rally in the center of Buffalo thinking I would see some headway from the other side--MY side-- I THOUGHT! Instead of peaceful hippies talking about a solution and doing something that would help my conscience, I found the complete opposite. All there was were a bunch of angry 30 & 40 year old vegans pissed off at their parents harping and preaching over "Bush's Daddy" and "My mom made me eat liver". The speakers at the rally were focusing about Bush's personal agenda by GREIVING THEIR OWN PERSONAL AGENDAS! It went from "No More War" to "My parents liked my brother better than ME!" Instead of a "love fest" it was a bitch and whine fest!! One of the speakers even suggested, no friggin joke, that whenever President Bush spoke we were told to stick our fingers in our ears and yell out "LA LA LA LA LA--- I CAN'T HEAAAAR YOU!!! LA LA LA!" After the rally, I went to a nearby Burger King and ate a Whopper-- that evening, I called my mother and told her that I loved her (even though she's a pain in my ass sometimes!). I always had this fantasy that I was going to meet a hippie chick and made passionate love to her-- like in the protest movies of the 60's. But we know what's truly under a hippie chicks' clothes, hairy pits, unshaved legs and scars of self-abuse! It was kind of like James Joyce's "Araby" but dressed in paisley and reeking of patchouli-- yet the disappointment still remains!
9/11 made me less liberal than I was, but the events that day started a journey to the middle of the road. I tried to be a better American, but I also became more cautious. I learned not trust anybody anymore, even if their title is the President of the United States. I learned it with Bush 43 and it carries through with Obama. We got Bin Laden, but look how long it took to get him. I could jump on the bandwagon and say that Obama got Bin Laden, but I won't. Obama was just there. The Navy Seals and the CIA really got Bin Laden if anyone. It was all luck really. We can say it was proof that the Democrats aren't wimps after all-- but we can also say that it was a political campaign for Obama.Either way, things haven't been the same politically as well as fundamentally since 9/11 and there's no turning back.
For now, we are safe but we are not as cocky as we were...
Part 3: "Adagio For Strings"
I witnessed on my 13 inch color TV on that day in Buffalo, NY as I woke up from a stupor, thanks to my friend Dianne. It was not alcohol related, I was woke up from a dead sleep from my friend's concernation. As I seen the close up of the buildings cutting between the live footage (the South Tower already went down when I woke up). When I seen the people jumping out to their deaths, I knew this was nothing I have seen before or ever again. What was scary was it was happening at random. Years later, I was watching a documentary made by two French brothers who were "just there" when all this happened. The brothers were originally doing a "piece of life" type of documentary about a random fire department in South Manhattan. The one scene that stood out in my mind was the banging on the metal awnings and fixtures as the bodies crashed against the solid surface. Another thing that stood out was during NBC's short breaks of the live footage were the montages of what happened which was set to Samuel Barber's "Adagio For Strings".
The classical piece, for those who are not familiar with it, is extremely somber. The music cascades into this sad cacophony of mass dirges and sugarees. I remember the piece from "Platoon" in which Elias (played by Willem Dafoe) falls to his knees and spreads out his arms as the chopper helplessly flies by. Like Charlie Sheen's character who watches on and could not do anything, myself and countless others just stare. Emotion was not an option, the first thing to do was cry I guess, but me-- I was too shocked to do anything. Every emotion ran from my veins that day.
I had explained earlier about how the World Trade Center was the back drop to my former home in Babylon, NY-- if not the welcome mat. On a dead day or a late night, one can travel from Babylon to Midtown Manhattan about 45 minutes, possibly earlier. I remember growing up there, there was the Babylon Train Station which was and still is the main Southern hub of the Long Island Rail Road. We only lived a few blocks away from the Babylon LIRR Station, and it was across the street where I attended high school in my Junior and Senior years. I remember the people in suits and ties, some in construction gear, heading to the Express to Penn Station which was in Midtown. In turn, some would hit the subway from there or take the bus or cab to their selected locales in New York City-- including the Financial District: Wall Street, the various bank buildings in South Manhattan, and the World Trade Center.
The high school across the street, Babylon Junior and Senior High, was the place for the time I would rather forget back then. I was not alone, right after I graduated from there I bumped into others that also didn't like that "God damned high school". The preps had full reign of the school, and those who weren't were happy to get the hell away from there after graduation. Around the time before 9/11, I was trying to make peace with the relationship with the "God damned high school". Somehow, as I was looking at the burning towers and the eruption of dust, smoke, and debris taking over the streets of Lower Manhattan, I was caught in a whirlpool of unwarrented thought. I might have known these people, I could have known these people-- I even thought that maybe the kids from that "God damned high school" might have been involved or possibly even died. This was something that came in my mind that day.
The "if I could've been nicer to those people, maybe it would not be such a bad place" notion flooded my head soon after 9/11. This was not a typical terrorist attack or even a religious sect gone awry, it was an attack on mankind. 9/11 taught us that we are all humans no matter if we grieve or die. Whether anybody came from "the God damned high school" were one of the victims was not known to me. The train station was across the street from the school, both the station and the school are the center of town-- and the express train was a half hour commute to Manhattan.
Through the years, I have actually made steps to make peace with the place I called "that God damned high school". I credit 9/11 for opening myself up. My regret, one of my few regrets, was that I wish I was about as open back when I attended Babylon Junior and Senior High School. I wish I was the same way with my other venues, like the other high school I attended, the middle school I attended, the Wendy's I worked at for 8 years, and other places in Long Island that I prowled and haunted.
A couple of years ago, I spoke to a friend and fellow graduate of my high school. She told me that there was someone in our graduating class that did die in 9/11. Although he was one of the popular crowd, he was human like all of us. He was legendary in his day-- a class cut up. I really did not know much about him other than what he did in the boys' shower-- I'll leave that to the imagination. But his sense of humor was the catylyst to the graduating class and was well liked, whether if it was from a prep or a social outcast like me. I did not know this guy that well, since I was only there for a year and a half. From what I knew of him, he was a really cool guy. Plus he looked liked a very young Bill Murray, so humor was on his side. Other than him doing his antics, including the boys' shower and his middle name being "Valentino", I really didn't know this guy-- I wish I did. As I opened myself up, and talked to other former students of Babylon High School on Facebook, I started to know this guy. I spoke to people that I hardly ever spoke to in the high school-- whether these people were part of the "in crowd" or social maladroits such as myself.
There were others that I knew that also died in 9/11, but like the cool guy in high school, I hardly knew the others; like the neighbor's sister in law or the one person that I bumped into in college. The guy in high school was the least obscure of the people I knew who died or were involved in 9/11. I even remember my macho uncle who was a NYPD officer crying like a baby when his buddies in the force died during 9/11. Unless someone tells me about a person that I haven't seen in the past ten years who died in 9/11, I never really knew someone who was close who died during 9/11.But those who I died if I knew them or not, were known to others. Like my "macho" uncle, the living families and friends grieve. But yet, after grieving, there is rebuilding.
Like the ending of "Adagio For Strings", there's an eerie peaceful note at the end. If anyone listens to the closing notes, the strings speed up and slowly die down almost playing another melody. It ends as if there's a hope and resolution to this tragic song. Like the instruments that rendered the melancholic crescendo we slow down from the sad notes and search for hope-- and in the end we hope we find a happy note.
http://youtu.be/1dPDO3Tfab0
Epilogue
It was a little after 11PM that night. I was taking the bus home from work that night. I ditched my car right before the summer to save money. Parking in Buffalo was a pain in the ass and the traffic police were ticket happy when it came to parking cars. Also car insurance was high because I lived in a city-- so I bussed it and I bought home a little more scratch for me and my fat cat plus a little extra for some boric acid for the roaches. I worked on the border of the cities of Buffalo and Lackawanna, NY. Lackawanna was a quiet bedroom community. A mile to the South is Blasdell, and another mile past that is Orchard Park; where the Buffalo Bills play. All this is about 450 miles West of where I used to live. That night I was reminded where I came from sensing that where I came from was practically no more. I had other staff at the supervised apartment/group home apologize to me because I was from there. They wanted to know about the Twin Towers and how many times I've been there, as if it was in my backyard. I tried to tell people that it was never like that for me, in fact I've never been there. I might have passed it in my class field trips to NYC but my class trips went to other places like the UN building and the South Street area. I am sure they are people who live or have lived in Manhattan who never been to the World Trade Center. It's not like everybody in Buffalo went to see the Bills played every game or watch the Sabres play come hockey season. And for the record, I've seen the Bisons play AAA baseball and I've seen the Sabres play (but against MY team the New Jersey Devils and the Devils mainly won!).
But that night at the bus stop, September 11, 2001; Tuesday night, I was happy to leave work. I lost some of the "Lawn Guyland Ax-sent" but my voice still had that "Noo Yawk"-iness to it-- even now in North Cackalackey it still shows. But that night, I was still in the fog of the earlier morning. I was still in a state of mourning over the sight of the Twin Towers greeting me on the Greyhound on my way to Mom's in Long Island. The radio was on in the office of the group home-- I was listening to the radio as I was finishing up the paperwork. I heard that there was be a candlelight vigil that night and the next night in scattered places across the country. I was going home and light my candle in my apartment. I grabbed a sixer of beer at the supermarket in back of the bus stop and crack open a couple as I lit a candle.
So here I was at the bus stop on Abbott Road in Lackawanna (a few feet from Dorrance Street and the Buffalo City Line), just standing there. I thought that at least all that shit in the city, the city I really knew, was miles away and out of reach from where I lived and stood. Little did I knew that a few months later in the little pissant town I worked at, an Al Qaeda terrorist cell was found and six members of the cell were arrested by the FBI. "The Lackawanna Six" operated in a modest house about a mile away from the group home I worked at. I soon discovered that this "little pissant town"; Lackawanna, NY; had the third highest concentration of Arabic/Middle Eastern immigrants in the U.S. next to Toledo, Ohio and Detroit, Michigan!
The post 9/11 hype didn't stop there. Buffalo lays on the foot of the Niagara River into Lake Erie. Across that foot of Niagara is Canada. The Peace Bridge is a mile long cable bridge to Fort Erie, Ontario and the Queen Elizabeth Way. The QEW is a six lane mega expressway that starts in Fort Erie and plows through the Canadian side of Niagara Falls and works its way through Hamilton, Ontario, and up to Toronto. Before 9/11, the Canadian Dollar was about 50 cents to the US Dollar-- which meant that your money doubled there. Plus, you didn't need a passport to get there! The added bonus to all this was the drinking age is 19 AND there are numerous strip clubs in the much more liberal Canada. Strip clubs were advertised numerously on local TV and radio on both Canadian and American stations. In these adverts, there was a reminder of the "Canadian Law", by law-- a stripper must remove ALL her clothes! I mean ALL her clothes. The reason "why" was that it reduced the number of rapes and assaults by the patrons. But there was another rule--NO TOUCHING or a 300 lb. Canadian bouncer will grab you and do whatever the hell he wants to do-- like using some sorry American dude as a punching bag! Plus they had watered down drinks which was mandatory to buy in these clubs-- even the soda was watered down! But for half the money and the sake of seeing nekkid women--REALLY naked women: boobies, butts, va-jay-jays and everything! Plus, there was horse races and for half the money that you would spend at OTB would only be half-- and there were more winners at the Ft. Erie race track. And there were several restaurants-- some fast food others were these mom and pop buffets-- but the difference was, it was HALF the price AND there in another "Canadian Law" which was that all meat should not be treated with hormones or steroids, so the meat and most of the vegetables were organic and tasted BETTER! If anyone ends up going to Canada, go to a McDonald's up there-- any Canadian McDonald's and you'll understand my point!Last to mention are the Duty Free shops, and beer stores where you can buy beer over there with TWICE the alcohol content! It was like a Disneyland for shmoes and schlubs like myself! However, the fun shortly ended across the border. Free travel ended the following year because of possible terrorists crossing the Canadian/US border. Thus, one needs a passport now to cross the border. Also, the US dollar declined drastically worldwide after 9/11. This meant that it wasn't "cheap" to go to Canada anymore-- so the organic Big Mac would not be worth it anymore since now the US Dollar is now equal to the Canadian Dollar.
That night I went home was the beginning of the end of my salad days in Buffalo.Two years later, I moved to N.C. But back to that night as I was waiting for the bus, I saw a guy in a lowly lit distance. He was a kid in his late teens, early 20's walking towards me with a fluttering candle in his hand. He was wearing a Limp Bizkit/Korn/ICP T-shirt; it was whatever band was popular at the time 10 years ago. He walked towards me and said "wassup". I noticed his candle and asked him if it was for "...what happened this morning". He was in a daze; "Whaaa..?" he replied. Then he noticed my Noo Yawk-ish accent and then said "Are you from Newyorkcity?" I said "Yeah, pretty much, I lived about 45 minutes to an hour from where it happened." He then said,"Yeah it's a fuggin' shame what the Ayy-Rabs did to the Empire State Building!". My chin hit the floor-- I was paralyzed in this kid's ignorance. He added "You've been to the Empire State Building?" I said "No, but I passed the World Trade Center during a field trip". He looked at me like I was full of-- well, his brains. He looked at me and said "Oh." He then went off his merry way to Crystal Meth Land or wherever to further damage his gray fecal matter with his candle. The bus arrived shortly after, I grabbed my sixpack of Old Vienna and took a connecting bus to go home where I came home to hug my cat. I opened a can of OV and listened to the Police's "King Of Pain"(http://youtu.be/CGEJcizQEXk) over and over especially to hear "There's a little black spot in the sun today!" I would then reply "That's my soul up there!". It was the dawn to the "same old thing as yesterday" that remains prevelant ten years after. That night, I drank two cans of OV, played with my fat white cat and sang along to Sting and company. Needless to say, I did not light a candle that night.
For Paul R. and those whom we had lost on 9/11/01
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