A Somber Anniversary

Club Cherry

Here’s what I wrote on 9/12/01:

I was incredibly depressed last night when I got home. The constant image of the second plane hitting the building completely devestated me. I was in a constant loop of anger, depression and fear. All of this can be noted in yesterday’s entry, but I was feeling this with more intensity. I decided to go out jogging and overheard a group of walkers talking about it saying, “those protestors in Seattle are involved. They want nothing more than destruction.”

Wow. That threw out my concentration during my jog. How many more ignorant ideas must we all hear regarding this incident? I’m just flabberghasted at all the words being hurled yesterday and today.

For the 10th anniversary, I was completely away from the television. As the NFL, MLB and everything else had their pregame ceremonies, as every church did a whole thing, I was busy covering the Kings Fest at STAPLES Center to usher what would turn out to be a Stanley Cup Championship season.

But this year is different. No game to cover, so here I am.

Being 22 and in Los Angeles when all of this happened, I was detached from the mourning. I was well aware of the magnitude of the situation, but the sorrow wasn’t there. There was a lot of anger and a lot of fear of where this country could be headed with George W. Bush leading the way.

The rest of week was filled with tension, so I decided mid week that I wanted to go dance. Off to Club Cherry. For the uninitiated, Club Cherry was an omnisexual dance party that was very dirty, very sweaty and very boozy. A lot of people will think of A Club Called Rhonda, but Cherry was more glam than hipster. Less beards, more vinyl.

It was packed. It seemed like others also wanted to dance the pain away, and there was much dancing to be done. But it was different. The pall of what happened that Tuesday hung over the dance floor. Even the go-go boys and girls weren’t dancing with that full abandon that they usually did.

During their midnight stage show, all of the go-go girls and boys went on stage with a large American flag and Jimi Hendrix’s version of “The Star Spangled Banner” played. For a place that was always irreverent, the reverence was striking.

I knew at that point that everything changed.

Anyhow, that’s what I remember of 11 years ago.