Remembering September 11Well, somebody had to post something...might as well be me. I will start by saying this: I generally think all this mourning is bullshit. I don't understand the point of it. But maybe that's my problem...I don't really understand the concept and never have. I certainly mean no disrespect for those who lost or gave their lives, but I don't see what good it does for everyone to put themselves through the pain all over again. My sister died many, many years ago...yet I have not once visited the cemetery where she is buried. Certainly not out of a lack of respect...I just don't get it.
So, I'm pretty open about it. I made people in my office turn off the TV coverage of the mourning. I didn't allow anyone 'personal time' to grieve (though certainly would have if there had been a close friend or family memeber lost), and didn't buy into the notion that today would basically be lost because everyone's mind would be elsewhere. Everyone wants a fucking snow day...I don't see how it helps anything.
So, here is my rallying cry to all Americans. LET'S ROLL in to work and keep doing our jobs, driving the economic machine that is this country's true source of power. If you don't like your job (or would rather not work), let's quit and do something artistic, altruistic, or otherwise valuable to someone other than yourself. If you have been laid off recently, let's roll on down to the unemployment office and stretch that check as far as it will go...use your time off to reflect and go back into the working world when you're good and ready. Let's create, take risks, start new ventures with reckless abandon, and compete with one another.
Let's not belittle the efforts of American military personnel...and let's not be made to feel small for not being in the military ourselves. Like I told my girlfriend, who is an upstanding officer in the U.S. Navy...if I thought it would make a positive difference, I would 'fight.' But I don't, so I don't. Somebody has to...if the folks in our military believe they are making great sacrifices for us and doing something positive for the world, let's encourage them...because I don't really care what they think as long as they're the ones stuck doing it and not me...in that sense they are making a sacrifice for me personally, and they deserve some amount of respect for that.
Let's kick the shit out of that guy you know when he crosses the line, BEFORE he crosses one too many times. If you can't kick the shit out of him, then find opportunities to hit him when and where he is most vulnerable, then hide. We know the latter can be effective...I have a hunch the former would as well.
Let's remember that all over the United States, people run into unthinkable hells of fire and destruction we can't even imagine to try and save the lives of people they don't know...many, like my uncle Dean, on a volunteer basis. Let's remember that those cops we hate so much do their jobs knowing they might be killed trying to protect us from ourselves.
Let's hold hands and hug only if it's going to lead to sex. If necessary, LET'S ROLL down to the Star Bar and get drunk enough that we won't be mourning that until tomorrow.
Of all the chilling images floating around from 9/11, this one moves me the most. I saw the same things on TV as everyone else. I remember watching the towers come down, thinking to myself "I just watched a couple of my best friends die." They turned out to be OK, though one did have some ash inhalation problems. The person who took this picture must have been one of the only people on the street in New York who wasn't watching the tower fall. I wonder which of these faces mine most resembled as I watched on television from a lonely villa on Mission Bay.
Scene.
