Random Afternoon Flashback: September 11, 2001

I’ve found during covid, I often have random thoughts on exceptionally random topics. I suppose it’s all the time alone. Sometimes, I’ll find myself in a zone of thought, plugging through work for an hour or so, suddenly to realize that I’ve been sitting in silence, which if you know me, is fairly unusual. I generally like to keep an air of motion and electricity around me.

Stillness and silence are synonyms for dead. I’m not dead yet.

And so it goes. However, today I am sitting in my local cafe, Robust, still plugging away at work. While working, I was listening to random Youtube videos, when I came across a video about the making of the System of a Down song, “Chop Suey.”

Man, the discussion on the song totally took me back. I remember when that song exploded. That was still when MTV and VH-1 played music, and if you listened to anything other than urban hip hop or country stations, it was only a matter of time before you heard that song.

It was hotter than hot.

And then I remember the first time I saw the video. I was entranced, and enthralled.

It had totally escaped my memory that the song dropped two weeks before September 11th. I remember “Bodies” by Drowning Pool being in heavy rotation about that time, but upon some research, Bodies dropped in May of 2001, but yes, it was still in heavy rotation.

A song about self-righteous suicide. Whew. I can only imagine execs were losing their minds.

I remember how dark those days were, obviously, for a variety of reasons. I was fresh out of basic training, and having attended basic with a large variety of trainees from New York, I was horrified to see what they were dealing with as those planes came in to the city, and as those buildings crumbled to the ground.

I can still remember my sister finally waking me up (my birthday is September 10th), I’d fallen asleep in my recliner. The phone had been ringing off the hook. Half of the calls were people asking if I was going to be deploying, the other half were calls from my National Guard unit, telling me to sit tight, and make sure I had my shit together, because shit had hit the fan, and you never know what the next step was.

So many specters in those days. Almost hard to conceive it all as reality. I remember being told not to wear my uniform in public; there were worries that suicide bombers or would-be assassins would be targeting military personnel.

Musically, it was dark times as well, as we saw censorship go into full effect with Clear Channel song memorandum, which effectively banned a large variety of songs for “questionable lyrics” following the attacks. It bears noting that Clear Channel never used the word ban, but heavily suggested those songs not be played on the radio, including Rage Against The Machine’s entire catalog. WTF.

What are your most vivid memories from September 11th, 2001? What most sticks out in your mind from those days?

I’d love to hear in the comments down below.

Photo by Sandra Grünewald on Unsplash