"I hope this wasn't one of those terrorist kamikaze attacks."
I've had this for a while, now - this is the Howard Stern show LIVE, which was being recorded within view of the World Trade Center, from September 11, 2001. It's a little over 2 and a half hours long, but I recommend it, because it's the rawest, most unfiltered version of those events you'll ever hear.
It begins with standard Howard Stern bullshit that I can't believe anyone listens to: Kid Rock, Pam Anderson, talking about sex and jerking off, stupid crap like that. There are no jokes. It's literally like listening to sophomores in high school talking in a locker room for roughly the first 16 minutes or so, and then they break in on talking about how one or more of the people in the studio could have fucked Pam Anderson for Howard to say that there's breaking news - a plane has hit the World Trade Center. They're on the phone with a guy who says he can see it too, and then - amazingly, in context - they make light of it. They talk about going back to the Pam story, and how this serious news reporting might be Howard's break into a real newsroom. It's exactly the reaction to the attack that you've heard from moron people for the last nine years. And then - they talk about fucking Pam Anderson some more. It's stunning, in retrospect. 9/11 wasn't 9/11 yet - this was a plane accident in New York being observed by shithead radio people.
And there's an explosion. The World Trade Center explodes. It changes everything, sort of. They can't believe it. They can't comprehend the scope of what's happening, and they go into denial pretty quickly. It later takes them seconds to go from "accident" to "terrorists." Finally, they begin broadcasting the CBS affiliate. Chaos ensues. Random New Yorkers start calling in. Howard makes a call to "bomb everyone." Racism, nationalism, fear and anger kick in. You know the rest. We're still there, at the point of the amazingly dumb shit these people say out loud: I read a bunch of it in Facebook comments this week. Any time I get amazed with people, any time I wonder why most people believe random things or seem not to care about actual facts when they react, I listen to this: the simple, real-time account of people's horrible, stupid reactions.
Some amazing things among the chaos & stupidity: Stern saying, "if we can't get bin Laden, there's something wrong with us." Joey, the Crazy Man on the Street correctly talking about "these people always go for multiple targets," among his ranting about 'towelheads.' They keep talking about "the World Trade Center bombing," and meaning this. There's lots of misinformation. There's some weird veneration of Ronald Reagan, and some blame thrown on Bush, Sr. The whole studio is talking about Saddam (then claims that they weren't) and the PLO. Inevitable comparisons to Pearl Harbor are made. It's very odd, the way that something like this can transport you to the event itself, if you let it.
Anyway, I share this piece of "history" with you today.