Quit your bitching, this country rules.

It was a little after 2pm.  I had been going to school for almost 12 years and that day was about as mind numbing as it gets.  The first part of the day was pretty normal, next thing I knew the teachers were turning on every T.V in the school and for the rest of the day, we were watching  three of the most recognizable buildings in the world burn to the ground.  What really sucked was that the buildings actually burned down in a pretty short amount of time, but there was the footage all fucking day, the same buildings, the same speculations, the same public reactions being played again and again by the whichever news coverage we were watching.  When school got out I even stopped at a friends house on the way home and kept watching more news coverage... I guess we all wanted to make sure it was really happening.  I was confused, shocked, sad and blown away all at the same time, and now that I had time to myself on the walk home from my friends house, I was starting to get really pissed off because I knew the Godsmack show I had tickets to that night would be cancelled.   

First of all, now that I'm older and have a broader music taste I MIGHT possibly go to a Godsmack concert if they were playing about a 5 minute walk from where ever I was living....and the show was free... plus I've already seen them like three times since then so now it doesn't even matter.  Mike - 1  Terrorist - 0  

Second of all, I feel like an asshole.  Over 2000 human beings lost their lives that day and yet here I am talking about how it effected me and me only.  All I can talk about is where I was when it happened and how pissy I was when I found out the concert was cancelled.  Godsmack is not even that good.  Just boring fucking radio rock.  Whatever though... I was 18 years old and unknowingly knew nothing about a lot of things.  It turns out one of them was "How the hell to react to something like this?"

When you live in America, you live in a country that hardly ever has stuff like that happen to it.  All the violence you usually see on the news is happening in other countries.  Now it was happening in America and it was getting shoved down our throats 24 hours a day by the news, friends, family and even teachers.  Nothing like talking about the biggest disaster in American history with the same assholes that assigned me homework on the weekends.  Who am I to complain though?  Part of being an 18 year old American in those days was being naive to everything that was happening outside of the country.  Stuff like what I was experiencing for the first time in my life was the norm for kids my age in a lot of other countries.  That and I can't even fathom what it was like for anyone who lost a close friend or family member and only in my craziest fucking nightmares could I imagine what it was like to be a passenger on any one of those planes.

Its been exactly 11 years since that day.  I think about how much has gone down in those 11 years  Recessions, everyone being unemployed, fucking Hurricanes taring up all kinds of shit, Oil Spills turning oceans into cesspool's.  Its easy to be pissed off and worried about what the next couple years hold.  I would be lying to you if I said I was not a little bit concerned. Now a days when I think about September 11th 2001 I think about a day that will forever shape the future of our country.  I think about the horror the victims went through and grief and sadness their loved ones felt.  But... I also think about where I was and what I was doing and how far I have come since then.  America may have taken a huge blow that day, but when the sun came up on September 12th 2001 and on, that same America let me experience  High School graduations, the thrill of becoming a stand up comic, doing two movies, losing a shit load of weight and of course starting a new life in Chicago.  Its pretty cool to know I live in a country like that.    

*Dedicated to all those who missed out on a chance to see Godsmack on September 11th 2001*