9/11

I don't think that there is ANY photo that sums up the shock, horror and genuine uselessness that I felt on the morning of September 11, 2001 like the image of Emmett Kelly running across the RBB&B lot with a bucket of water attempting to help put out the roaring Hartford Circus Fire of 1944.

You sat and watched it on TV, over and over and over... and were powerless. You had no idea when or where it was going to stop. No idea what to do.

No matter what you did, what you thought, no matter how hard you tried you couldn't stop it from happening again and again and again. The worst thing imaginable. Over and over and over. Planes, buildings, horror, crashes, death. Over and over and over.

And just when you believed that it couldn't get any worse, the Towers began to collapse.



It was a beautiful day. With the trail of smoke visible from my front window, it was STILL a beautiful day.

That's what really killed me. How could something so terrible happen on such an absolutely beautiful day?



I'd just driven past the towers a few days before. I was driving through the Holland Tunnel on my way to Steve Smith's birthday party, listening to the new Elvis Costello CD and I felt good. Really good. All seemed really right with the world.

It was a wonderful night. It was a wonderful party. People came from far and wide and I met and talked with people I've admired since childhood, all there to celebrate the birthday of a man who has been a good friend to us all.

On September 10th I spent the day at Newark Airport. I was there shooting a commercial for United Airlines and spent the whole day in their VIP lounge, looking out at the New York skyline, drinking it in.

I still felt good from the party. I felt good to be cast in another commercial. I'd done 5 in the last year. One was even running internationally. It felt like I was finally getting somewhere . It felt like things were finally coming together.

Then...