I spent yesterday in front of the television and reading the New York Times and NY post. I am going to drive back to Iowa for a week or so to spend some time with Sasha. She is out there while her whole family is dealing with the siutation in NYC.

It will be good for me to be back there for a while.. I have some things that I can take care of. This means that my Itineary will be a little out of wack.. When the trip resumes I will head to the northwest first and will circle around.. Hopefully I will make it back to the southeast where Iwas supposed to visit this week

I stayed at Maya's house last night after getting dinner with her at EAR Bar around the block. For some reason even after staying up to two or three writing a bunch of updates, I woke up at 6:50 am with out an alarm going off.

I got up, logged on to Temporama, posted my new updates and then decided to get a headstart on my way to Boston. I picked up a large coffee at the deli around her block on the corner of Greenwich and Spring and got myself into my car. At first I thought that I would cut across Canal and drive across the Manhattan Bridge to the BQE but I thought that rush-hour traffic would take forever, So I took the westside highway north to I-95 and headed east. It was a smart choice.

I never listen to radio stations above the low nineties, I'm an NPR junkie, except when I get 20 miles from NYC, then I start to listen to Hot 97 and Jammin' 105. I don't know why but they just seem to be the icons of NYC radio to me. This morning however I found WNYC on the AM dial and drank my coffee while sitting in bumper to bumper traffic on I-95 east in the Bronx.

That is when I heard that there was an explosion at the World Trade Center.. An explosion in one of the towers maybe. No not an explosion, there was an eyewitness from the WNYC office in lower Manhattan. The caller worked for WNYC and saw a commercial airliner fly into tower one. "That there was smoke coming out of the building. A fire on the 70th floor or so"

At this point I was just to the edge of the Bronx, the traffic started to move pretty well and while I listened to WNYC they cut back to regular NPR programming for a minute. NPR was running some human-interest commentary on dog walking or something. I couldnÕt believe that WNYC reverted back to the national feed.

I turned the Radio to 1010 WINS, the all AM News Station in NYC, and they were talking to an eyewitness tooÉ The guy was saying that the plane made a straight line for the building an took no evasive action. I thought he was a typical New York Nutso.. I was trying to figure out if there was some sort of problem at air traffic controlÉ

Sasha was supposed to be on a plane to NYC today so I immediately called her in Iowa and told her to turn on CNN and tell me what was happening. I turned the radio back to WNYC and now the national feed was running live coverage of the crash. I wished they would get the first eyewitness from the WNYC staff back on the line.. I told Sasha what I knew and realized that the last thing you should do when someone is supposed to get on a plane in a few hours is call them when you hear about a crash. But I knew that her dad's office was across the street from the WTC so I thought that she should know.

The traffic opened up.. I was now driving 75 MPH east on I-95 and talking to Sasha about her afternoon fight, when she dropped the phone and started sobbing. I could hear the "Oh my God's" of the CNN news anchors in the background of Sasha's house in Iowa City.. I was ten miles away and heard the explosion on a cell phone call to Iowa City.. Sasha picked up the phone crying and told me that a second plane just rammed into tower two.. A second plane, and commercial airliner? I started to feel sick.. I slowed down and looked out my window at other cars and trucks on the road, wondering if they knew what I knew. I was still being passed and then I saw the bumper to bumper inbound traffic beginning to make way for a few emergency vehicles.

I told Sasha that I would call her back. My cell phone minutes are way over the limit so I kept thinking that I should keep the conversation short,, I'm sure that Sprint PCS will be making a lot of money in the coming days.. I alone will be sending them a few hundred dollars for the phone calls that I made today.. $0.25 a minute, or any part there of.

I continued to listen to 1010 WINS and WNYC and started to hear reports of people jumping out of the buildings. Men in suits holding their briefcases. A couple holing hands, three, then four then something like ten total. The building that WNYC was in was being evacuated so, they cut once again to the national feed, their FM transmitter was on WTC tower one so the signal went dead but the AM was still broadcasting.

I was almost to Connecticut when I saw a giant Black Grey cloud in the crystal clear sky in my rear view mirror.. Driving along I wondered what was going on, I heard that four planes had been hi-jacked and that one of the planes was from Boston, where I was on my way too. I saw a rest area ahead and decided that I would stop for a minute and see if there was a TV in there. As I pulled into the rest area I head the eyewitnesses on the radio scream another round of "Oh my gods" and then the line went dead.. The radio host announced that the tower one had collapsed in on itself.

I slammed on my breaks and skidded to a stop from 50 mile an hour or so, and felt like I was going to vomit. I knew that there were at least 10 NYFD ladder crews hoofing it up to the stairs trying to help the people on the top floors much less that there were usually 50,000 people in those buildings. I was going to apply to an Art Residency Program, which provide studios to artists on the top floors of the WTC. With the gallery season just beginning in NYC I'm sure that there were artists working in their studios when the planes hit bellow.

I left my car running and my car unlocked and ran into the service plaza asking if they had a TV. There were people who didn't know what was happening.. Which is not surprising b/c as I scanned the channels looking for news in my car, the shock jocks were still doing bathroom humor jokes and Christian radio still had their pre-programmed soul saving and assorted advertisements running, Somehow the adds for Clearer Skin with a Special European cr�me was making me really angry.. Thousands of people were presumed dead and Clear Channel Communications didn't want to lose the ad revenues during their lucrative morning drive-time shows. How could anybody be listening to Bob Seger singing "Old Time Rock and Roll" when there were people falling to their death?

Inside I found a group of people huddled around a 4 inch black and white TV with only slight reception.. All I could see was figures running around in a cloud of ash, only I didn't know it was ash b/c I thought that it was the poor reception on the travel TV. I stood and watched for a while and talked to people who where similarly shaken. I left the building and decided that I should fill up my gas tank even though I had 1/2 a tank left. I guess I wanted to fill up before the prices went crazy. (I felt bad for thinking like that). I continued to drive and heard that the second tower fell.

I was ten blocks from there this morning and woke up without an alarm at 6:50. I couldn't help but think what I would have done if I heard the first crash. Knowing me I would have run down town to take photographs and see what the hell was going on. I passed into Rhode Island and started to hear that all flights in the US were being grounded and that the Pentagon may have been hit.. There was an NPR report from the Pentagon Correspondent asking the Military about their response to the Bombings and then in the background, I heard a faint recorded evacuation announcementÉ It was like hearing the television in Sasha's house in Iowa.. Quiet like a whisper but so clear and understandable.

As I continued east I started to hear reports about Boston and that two of the planes where Hi-jacked out of Logan airport. I was on my way to Boston to do an artist talk at the visual arts program at MIT. How the hell was I supposed to talk about this project when people where dying in NYC and DC? How could anybody sit and listen to me talk about my salt shaker in Portland, Maine? My project seemed so completely inconsequential.. Amanda is in a Nurse Midwifery program at Columbia. She is probably still on call at Columbia Hospital, helping the victims from this terrible attack. While I'm driving 80 miles an hour towards Boston so that I can visit the guy who bought my matchbook collection. How can I even think about continuing this project?

As I drove into Rhode Island I finally lost the signal of 1010 WINS, no more on the street live coverage, I started to scan the AM dial in search of New England's news radio. I encountered three or four Christian radio stations who still hadn't interrupted their pre- recorded soul saving preachers with the news of the attack. I thought of the born again Christian woman that I used to work with who would not listen to any radio that was not run by evangelical Christians. She was probably sitting somewhere listening to some pre recorded preacher and assorted Christian business advertisements oblivious to the fact the thousands of people could use her prayers.. Consolidation of the media markets mean that most radio station don't have a news room.. So canned god gets played while the world burns..

And if that wasn't enough I turned the dial to 990 AM which is a station out of Boston. I heard the commentator talk about exposure to this horrible disaster. I thought that he was on the line with someone who was trapped in his or her building near the WTC. But as he continued I started to feel nauseous for a third time. Al Scheneski the host of "Financial Times" on the Renaissance Radio network was not talking to an eyewitness, no he was talking about the exposure of your stock portfolio to this horrible disaster. He warned his now vomiting or hell bound listeners that they should "think before you make your move, before you jump" Think before they jump to any financial decisions. That hopefully his listeners had diversified portfolios, investments in Oil future could be extremely profitable when the markets re-opened. That there could be a surge I renewable energy product stocks and healthcare companies.

Thousands of human beings were trapped and presumed dead in the ruble of the WTC building and AL was talking about a way to maximize your stock portfolio.. This was at about 10:30 am.. 300 NYFD men where presumed dead.. And this fucking asshole was advising speculation on the market.. Think before you jump? Did he see the footage of fund managers jumping to their death with their briefcases in their hands?

I was wishing that I wasn't an atheist so that I could pray to god that this guy would burn in hell for his blatant disregard for human life.. In-between his broadcast a peppy voice came on to tell us about the exceptional sales and service of "Ferties Key-shop" "Did you lock you keys in your house?ÉÉ.."

Yeah well you wouldnÕt expect Renaissance Radio to forgo drive time ad revenues would you? Maybe you could put your money into Conglomerate Media Stocks. See, when companies don't take human lives into accout (Tobacco Stocks etc) it means that they could be a good financial risk because they put profits first.

Well I can only hope that when the market does re-open that the first victim of the impending sell off bankrupts the Fuckers at Renaissance Radio.. And as for Al Scheneski, if I do get some religion on this trip I will most certainly pray that you go where you belong. I hope too hope that your portfolio puts you into bankrupcy.. Then maybe you'd think abut the victims of this terrible disaster rather than you opportunity to profit.

I can't write anymore.. I made it to Boston.. Then decided that I should postpone my trip for a little whileÉ I'm going to drive back to Iowa to hangout with Sasha and see if I can resume my trip in a week or so.. I guess I will be heading to the Northwest if I go at all..