1.08.2005

Bone to Pick...Really Annoyed Today

I got a serious bone to pick with the people downtown. I refuse to call the World Trade Center anything but it's proper name. Ground Zero is bullshit, Ground Hero made me sick. It is the WTC. Calling it any other name diminishes and demeans it. Ground Zero, why do we call it that? Did we call Hiroshima "Ground Zero" after dropping what was then the most powerful bomb in history onto a vibrant city killing a hell of a lot more people than the supposedly cowardly terrorists did on 9/11. No, of course not. Because we did it in the name of freedom. Flip that coin around now if you will...the Muslims did what they did to us because they thought they were doing it in the name of their freedom. Fair enough. They just picked the wrong city in the wrong country to do it to. Now we will whoop the shit outta them. Good luck Osama...eventually you will be found. If we can find Saddam we can find you. Just kill yourself, do the world a favor, it will be much less painful than what we do to you once we find you. FUCKER. We are not the Spaniards, we will not cave to you like a dog with it's tail between it's legs after it got theshit kicked out of it too many times.

The new design for the WTC is beautiful. I love it. Anyone with half a brain does too. It is perfect for NY. We need some funky, new, modern looking buildings to add to the already beautiful museum of architecture we lay claim to in our skyline. Much applause to Danieal Liebskind. Anyone who thinks we should let one of the most valuable pieces of real estate lay barren because their relatives died on it is more right wing than Bill O'Reilly. We should remember, reflect, and honor those who fell...but we also must move on. Rebuilding is part of that process. Get over it, you can't change the fact they are dead. I know people who died too. It sucks, but time to rebuild.

Back to my original bone to pick. I go through the PATH station at the WTC every morning and evening now. I walk through it and since it is in "the pit" that formerly was the WTC you can see all the rebuildingstep by painful step. I think it is a great idea. THe only thing I don't like is the tourists. I understand people want to come and see what happened. I am cool with that, but that time has come and gone. There is nothing left to see. It is just a hole in the ground. You should have come when they had the viewing platforms and you could see the twisted wreckage that once was our mighty twin towers. Taking pictures of a giant hole is just plain stupid.

One thing I really dislike about Japanese people is that, upon learning I am from NY, they always need to know exactly where I was during 9/11. I was out on Long Island at Stony Brook University. It is a boring story. I was a solid hour away, without trafic, from any danger. I donot like reliving that day, the worst of any NY'ers life, so that Japanese people can hear a boring story. From now on I refuse to answer it.

Tourism is needed in NY. We rely on it for a substantial part of our city's budget. It is essential for the city to continue to grow at a healthy rate. It also, unfortunately, brings an element of people who will sell anything to make a buck, and people will buy it just to say they were part of 9/11. What is it in our human nature that makes us want to be part of horrific events like this? Why would anyone want to be able to say they took a picture of, or saw, or were anywhere within a 50 mile radius of the WTC that day. There are probably people who lie about running up Broadway as the first tower fell just so they can get off about having a cool story to tell people. Back to the tourism point, it is needed. There are things it attractsthat are completely unneccesary though.

One of them is the African guy, off the boat mind you, who walks up and down Church Street outside the Courtlandt Street subway station selling pictures of the planes slamming into the towers for 4 dollars each. These pictures are in a photo album and were obviously taken with a 35mm camera. He also has pictures of the towers falling, the smoke rising out of them before they fell, etc...WHAT THE FUCK DUDE?!?!?!?!?!?! You are lucky i don't slit your fucking throat!!!

He came up to me peddling these pics and showed them to me saying $4 each, only $4 each. So I had the following exchange with him...

Me:How could you sell that? You're sick!"
Him: "You are not from my country!! You don't know what it's like!!"
Me: "I don't give a shit where you are from. You don't sell pictures of the most horrific thing that has ever happened to the country you are most likely living illegally in to make money. Sell drugs, it is much better than this!"
Him: "You have no idea what you are talking about!!"
Me: "Ok sir, listen to me. Just like all of these tourists who have now realized what your are selling are listening to me, just listen. Let's say you are Nigerian. The biggest city in your country would be Lagos. Let's pretend the two biggest buildings in Lagos had planes flown into them resulting in them being bombed to shit and them falling, in the end killing over 3,000 people. How would you like it if tourists came from all over the world to take pictures of it. Putting huge smiles on their faces and taking pics in front of ground zero. Japanese girls with rins and peace signs in their pictures. If everywhere you went the first thing people ask you is where you were on that day, and finally...how would you like it if I was there selling what amounts to motion capture slides of the entire attack for four dollars each to these moronic tourists?? Would you not beat the living shit out of me??"
Him: "Fuck you man."
Me: "Get the fuck outta here before I tell those cops what you are doing and you are sent back to the third world so fast your head spins you dumb piece of shit."
Him: (running up Church Street)

He has not been back since. he better not come back or I will report his ass to the cops. What he is doing is illegal, he has no vending permit, and patently offensive. It could potentially insite a riot...which, coincidentally, is in violation of the well known "Clear & Present Danger" statute of our great constitution...he will be banished to the jungles again if I ever see him. Stupid bastard.

he has no clue. No fucking clue how open the wound of 9/11 still is to us here in NY. Fuck him and anyone else who has a a problem with me thinking this way...It is an opinion, not fact. My opinion also happens to be a hell of a lot less radical than most New Yorker's...you are lucky you ran into me bro...Hopefully one day you will run into someone who will show you how aggressive NY'ers really are...no police officer will ever put cuffs on a man in NY for beating the shit out of someone for selling what that guy was selling. They would turn their backs and let the guy really lay into the peddler. God willing, I will part of it.