Following the Footsteps

This past Sunday I participated in the 10^th annual Tunnel to Towers Run held in New York to commemorate the heroic service of Firefighter Stephen Siller on September 11, 2001, as well as everyone else who gave their lives that day. The run traces the route Siller took from Brooklyn to the World Trade Center.

A water taxi from Wall Street took us to the Ikea parking lot in Red Hook, Brooklyn and a staging area for the race. It’s several blocks away from the starting line, and we spent at least an hour or more standing on a crowded street waiting for the race to start.

Once it gets under way, there are a lot of ceremonial things happening before the race starts, with plenty of breaks in between to allow for television coverage and its commercials.

It’s a warm and crowded race, and you can’t help but elbow and be elbowed in the course of it. But it is the friendliest big city crowd you will ever be in. There’s a great feeling of camaraderie and patriotism. Chants of “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” broke out along the route, and the run is a tribute to the resilience of New York and America itself, but there were plenty of non-Americans there, including firefighters from Germany and the U.K. running in their full gear.

The Brooklyn Battery Tunnel gets pretty hot when thirty thousand people are running through it, but once you’re through the tunnel, it’s very pleasant. And when the Finish Line is in view, it motivates you to sprint to it.

On the Brooklyn side before you go into the tunnel, firefighters lined along the route shout encouragement from their trucks. On the Manhattan side, firefighters in dress uniforms line the route, holding banners representing each of the 343 firefighters lost in the September 11^th attacks. Another long line of firefighters hold 343 American flags. It’s a moving sight.

I did not personally know anyone who perished in the September 11 attacks. But I do know the punk rock band The Bullys and love their music. One of their founding members was Firefighter John Heffernan, a member of Ladder Company 11 and died in the South Tower of the Trade Center. I wore my Bully t-shirt as a tribute and when I came upon the Firefighter holding his memorial banner on the Manhattan side of the Tunnel, I high-fived him. Before the race, I was heartened to see a young woman with a Dead Kennedys tattoo getting ready to run. I hope to be back next year with a small army of Bullys fans, maybe some will have big Mohawks.

There are marching bands, cheerleaders from around the country, rock bands, tourists, yachtsman at the Battery Park Marina tooting their boats’ horns for you, and throngs of well wishers along the route applauding your efforts. It’s a great cross-section of New Yorkers, Americans, and people from all over the world.

The run encompasses all that is great about New York and drives home the point that no matter what horrors strike our city, New York will bounce back and we can’t be shaken.

I finished the run in 43 minutes and 52 seconds and came in 8,877^th place. Volunteers were handing out water and bananas after the finish line. I took some water and ate a banana; it was the most delicious banana I have ever eaten.

See you there next year.

A Better Way to Remember September 11

This was the first year I skipped going to Ground Zero on September 11 since I’ve had the chance to go. I was working out of town on Sept. 11 in 2001 and 2002, and that solidified my desire to go to the commemoration, which is usually easy to do since I have worked close to the site of the attacks since late 2002.

When I first began attending the moments of silence and reading of the names at Ground Zero, there were lots of regular citizens with no personal connection to anyone lost in the attacks who came to pay their respects.

Things took a turn in 2006 at the five-year anniversary of the attacks. Multitudes of conspiracy theorists showed up in obnoxious matching black t-shirts and banners; the somber memorial became more of a circus after that, and the authorities began allowing less room for the general public each year, and now the general public is thoroughly discouraged from attending the ceremonies. Victims’ families are allowed into a restricted area for the ceremony, but there is little space near the site for the general public.

Last year was pretty discouraging. There seemed to be few people there to pay their respects and lots of people there for other reasons. Mennonites handed out literature and had their choir singing while the names of victims were still being read. Tourists dumbly snapped photos. People handed out fliers opposing the Islamic center planned to open nearby or else prepared to rally for or against it.

This year I didn’t feel bad about skipping because it promised to be even more of a circus thanks to it being the 10^th anniversary and the attendance of President Obama and George W. Bush. The police locked down the city pretty tightly and let it be known that travel would be misery. I had no desire to give credence to any politicians in town to capitalize on the event or be a lost soul amid the circus that has become the commemoration of the Sept. 11 attacks.

But I will not let this anniversary pass unobserved. The September 11^th anniversary requires our attention, especially for New Yorkers. Hundreds of people sacrificed their lives that day in service to our city and country; hundreds more were victims of a horrific death.

Do not let the fact that the attacks have been exploited and abused discourage you from attending a memorial event. That our political leaders have done wrong by the September 11 attacks doesn’t absolve us from the responsibility to pay our respects to true heroes who gave their lives to save others.

You can visit the Ground Zero memorial, which is newly opened and in the footprints of the twin towers. Everything I’ve heard about it is good.

And if you haven’t heard of it before, I invite you to join me in the Tunnel to Towers Run. The Tunnel to Towers Run honors the memory of Firefighter Stephen Siller, who ran from Brooklyn through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel to the World Trade Center on September 11^th. He ran more than three miles with more than 60 pounds of equipment on his back.

Every year near the anniversary of the attacks, the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation holds a running race that traces the footsteps of its namesake hero. Many firefighters run in their full rescue gear, as Siller did. The foundation focuses on helping children who have lost parents. They hold other events during the year and running races in other places besides New York but the New York run is the cornerstone commemoration.

The Tunnel to Towers Run is a way to honor the heroes of September 11^th, 2001 in a way that is positive and free of political exploitation. It raises money for a worthwhile charity and it’s a way for ordinary New Yorkers to pay their respects to those we’ve lost.

This year the run is being held in New York this Sunday, September 25. You can register at the last minute. See you there.

40%

A few years ago, I went to Battery Park in lower Manhattan to attend a ceremony unveiling a flag that honored those who died in the September 11 attacks but whose remains were never recovered. There were no more than a few dozen people there, if that. It was fittingly held at the Korean War Memorial.

The organizer was a Marine Corps veteran who had been active in many veterans issues and other patriotic, flag-waving efforts. It was all good and fine, though it bothered me that no television news organizations, not even New York 1, bothered to show up.

But the part of the ceremony that hit me like a sock full of concrete was when the mother of a firefighter killed in the attacks spoke. She mentioned that 40% of those families who lost a loved one in the September 11 attacks had no remains to bury. No evidence of almost half of those lost that day exists.

Bone fragments from victims of the attacks were still being found years later in some of the buildings near the site. In the initial cleanup, debris from Ground Zero was taken to the Fresh Kills land fill on Staten Island and sorted for human remains. People are still working to identify small bone fragments found at the sites of the attacks.

“Our loves ones' remains were taken to a garbage dump,” said the grieving mother, her voice strained with simmering anger.

How we treat the bodies of our dead is important. It reflects the love and respect we had for them in life, and signifies the pledge we make to keep their memory alive. For nearly half of those who lost someone in the attacks, there is no gravesite to visit, no picturesque site where ashes were spread, nothing for them to point to say that this loved of theirs lived and is still with us in some tangible form today.

Survivors of the attacks have been given short shrift also. People who worked there and have since been stricken with cancer are still not covered under legislation specifically enacted to help them.

Tomorrow, as political officials flock to the site of the attacks and heap encomiums on the first responders— some of whom haven’t been invited to attend—please remember that as a city and a nation we have not done right by either the living or the dead.

Staten Island Yankees: Baseball Done Right

Discouraged from travel outside the five boroughs by various obligations and the fact that much of upstate New York and New England is still damaged by tropical storm Irene, my woman and I decided to remain in the city for the Labor Day weekend.

Friday we spent on Coney Island, where I accomplished all my goals, which included riding the Cyclone, eating at the original Nathan’s, and seeing the Coney Island Sideshow.

Last night was for baseball and a trip to Staten Island to see the Staten Island Yankees play.

The Staten Island Yankees, a minor league team for the New York Yankees, play right next door to the Staten Island Ferry, which is free. It is an easy walk from your poor-man’s cruise of New York Harbor.

The stands were filled with the kinds of working people who used to frequent the major league ballparks until attending them with regularity became prohibitively expensive. The family next to us was part of the special all-you-can-eat deal and arrived at their sets with a cardboard box filled with cans of soda, burgers and hot dogs and bags of potato chips. The concessions were overpriced but not to the extent they are at major league ballparks and it’s damn affordable.

Richmond County Bank Ballpark is not a fancy place, but it fulfills its basic function as a ball park and allows for attendees to see the entire game, which is more than anyone can say for the monstrosity now calling itself Yankee Stadium in The Bronx. There’s not a bad seat in the park. You also get a view of New York Harbor and the lower Manhattan skyline. There was even a fireworks show after the game.

Sadly, the SI Yankees did not do as well on the field that night. They lost to the Brooklyn Cyclones by a score of four to 11.

But get yourself to Staten Island for a good time and a taste of what going to a baseball game is supposed to be like.

Hurricane Blue Balls Thanks to Irene

Our soggy city is both frustrated and thankful after the recent passing through town of a storm named Irene.

New York City was not thrown into a panic, but we were braced for a huge hurricane and got only a tropical storm. Rapid-fire announcements on Friday of closures and cancellations in preparation of the hurricane ruined most everyone’s weekend plans.

The biggest horror most New Yorkers will face is tomorrow morning, when several million people attempt to go to work with limited or no public transportation. After the disastrously slow and inept response to the early snow blizzard this past winter, the Bloomberg administration was eager not to get caught being unprepared again. If anything, authorities overreacted in shutting down mass transit to the extent that they did. And it wouldn’t surprise me to find they had some kind of ulterior motive for it, perhaps doing a system-wide security scan in preparation for the tenth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

There were several things that New York City did right. It opened more shelters than it needed and helped the elderly and infirm get to them. It allowed drivers to use the bridges and tunnels that were open without paying tolls. Sandbags surrounded sensitive transit and power gratings in downtown Manhattan as early as Friday afternoon. The city identified and evacuated the most flood-prone areas quickly.

The Internet was alight with people’s criticism of Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s (dubbed “El Bloombergo”) speaking Spanish at his press conferences. I understand we have a large Spanish-speaking population here, but they have numerous media outlets where they can get information from people who speak the language fluently. And besides, he is the mayor of New York City, not Mexico City.

But New Yorkers are thankful that things were not worse. The storm claimed several lives on the East Coast. Friends of mine in New England are without power and may be without power for several days. And having an over-prepared mayor fumbling his way through pidgin Spanish is better than an unprepared city with a high death toll.

Graceland Too

I was the only sober being in a packed Chevy Suburban careening down the dark highway outside of Memphis, Tennessee. I maneuvered the Suburban through numerous highway construction sites to Holly Springs, Mississippi, where we stopped by a 24-hour service station before continuing on.

It was nearly two in the morning when we stopped by the service station for a much-needed restroom break. Several newspaper delivery workers were stuffing newspapers into plastic bags beside their cars, a few cops chatted in the snack area of the service station, and our rag-tag group made our way to the restroom before buying some snacks and leaving. It had rained recently, which had cooled everything off to where it was tolerable to stand outside for more than a few minutes.

Our group consisted of two punk rock bands—Blackout Shoppers (that’s mine) and Skum City—that had just played the Hi Tone Café in Memphis. Most of us had flown into Memphis from New York that morning. A sane group of people would have gone straight to bed, but Graceland Too was calling to us.

Graceland Too is an Elvis Presley museum that is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and is run by owner and Elvis fanatic Paul MacLeod. Everyone who had been described it to me as a very weird experience that words could not do justice, and they were right.

I first learned of a place called Graceland Too two years ago from The Beast, Blackout Shoppers’ drummer. He had been there twice and on this, his third visit, he would become a Lifetime Member, meaning he could visit Graceland Too any time without paying the $5 admittance fee. He was very much looking forward to attaining this membership.

With expert, smart-phone based navigation from guitar player Mike Moosehead, we got to Graceland Too at about 2 a.m. It is a two-story house pained blue with a blue fence surrounding the property, except for a higher chain-link fence that guards the driveway. In the driveway is a large pink Cadillac. Two lion statues, pained blue and ringed with barbed wire (also pained blue) stand guard before the stairs to the front door.

We banged on the front door and waited for quite a while. We paced outside the house looking for some signs of life or activity. Through a small window on the front door we could see that the foyer of the house was lighted, but no other activity was going on as far as we could see. We hoped we had not made our journey in vain.

All the windows of the house visible from the sidewalk have been either pained over or shuttered shut. When Skum City singer Marc Sucks jumped the fence along the side of the house, he saw proprietor Paul MacLeod through the one visible window. MacLeod was in his kitchen preparing for the tour he was about to give.

A few minutes later, MacLeod opened his front door and greeted us. He is an elderly man with white, slicked-back hair, loose dentures, and a wild-eyed demeanor. He was wearing a short-sleeve, button-up shirt, dark slacks and black sneakers. Since at least one of our party still held an open beer can in his hand, he reminded the group that no beverages were allowed inside. Our party quickly finished the last of their beers and we were welcomed inside.

The foyer of Graceland Too is a space completely covered in Elvis photos, cardboard cut-outs and press clippings. There are other cardboard cut-outs and photos as well, such as that of Marilyn Monroe, who MacLeod is quick to note had sex with Elvis. The staircase to the upstairs is unusable as all the stairs are covered with boxes of Christmas decorations and the top of the stairs are blocked off with a rack of clothes and more cardboard cut-outs and photos. A sign made from large, mailbox-type letters on the staircase reads “GRACELAND TOO - THIS IS ELVIS LAND.”

We all signed the guest book, paid our $5, and the tour began with MacLeod taking multiple key rings out of his pocket and claiming he had 35,000 keys as he searched for a key that would open a locked door there in the foyer. He also rattled off numerous media outlets that had come to visit his museum.

Each and every room is lined completely, floor and ceiling, with Elvis photos and memorabilia. There is no Elvis photo or mention too trivial to merit inclusion in Graceland Too. I learned, for example, that Elvis’ karate nickname was “Tiger” and that Elvis died while on the toilet reading about the Shroud of Turin.

While Graceland Too is a monument to Elvis Presley, it is more accurately a monument to Paul MacLeod’s obsession with Elvis and his own sacrifice. Various articles mention that his wife left him over his obsession with Elvis, and while MacLeod frequently mentioned his son as someone who helps him run Graceland Too, there seemed to be scant evidence of him around. A Salon article references the younger MacLeod helping give tours as recently as 1997. A USA Today article published last year said he moved to New York in the 1990s.

At one point he asked one of our group to pick up a three-ringed binder that sat nearby. Each laminated page in the binder documented a TV program’s mention of Elvis Presley, including the exact time and channel. He said he had several large storage containers filled with these binders that documented every mention of the King of Rock and Roll on television for more than a decade.

MacLeod’s mannerisms are bizarre and it often seems like his mouth can’t catch up with his mind. “Keep up with me now; I’ll drive you nuts,” he often said. He will frequently accentuate what he is about to say by pounding his fist on a nearby piece of furniture, tapping someone on the arm or shoulder three times or grabbing your arm in his strong grip. He made lots of claims involving large numbers. He claimed to have thousands of Elvis’ firearms and other items belonging to Elvis. He will go off on tangents with certain items, claiming to have received very large offers of money for them.

“I drink a lot of Coca-Cola, it makes me horny three times a day…”

“We were so poor growing up, we spelled ‘poor’ with 10 Os,” he said, showing the word ‘POOOOOOOOOOR’ spelled out on a large board that held other photos.

“You ask me how fast I was when I was younger,” he said, although I don’t think anyone had asked about how fast he was when he was younger. “I was faster than a black mamba snake, a rattle snake, a Colt .45 and Bruce Lee…”

We stopped by a large stereo and he sang some Elvis songs. He told us several times that he once found $10,000 in cash in a bag in the trunk of one of the cars in his driveway. He’s met with two U.S. presidents (or was it three) and three presidential daughters. He had photos of himself impersonating other celebrities. If he told you the story behind every photo and item in his place, you would never leave. He’s had tours that have lasted hours and hours.

He showed me a plastic zip-lock bag that contained tabs from at least two dozen soda cans. “This is what I drank just today before you got here,” he told me. It was nice to meet someone else who enjoyed drinking copious amounts of soft drinks. I thought about asking him his opinion of Andy Kaufman or eXtreme Elvis, but thought the better of it.

When The Beast was made a lifetime member, MacLeod photographed him in a black leather jacket, white belt and pink guitar that he had there. A hallway was lined with multiple photos not only of lifetime members but of groups that had visited. We posed for photos both on our own and with MacLeod, and were happy to know that at some point our photo would be on display for others to see.

“I shouldn’t tell you about all the crazy stuff they do out here. You better cover her ears,” he said, referring to the one female member of our group, Skum City bass player Xtene Moosehead. Since she’s written songs such as ‘Eat My Fuck’ and ‘Supercunt,’ no one covered her ears. “They’ve got cocksuckers, clit lickers and professional shit eaters, but that’s just Mickey Mouse shit!” exclaimed MacLeod, who went on to describe even more bizarre things that included someone drinking the contents of a sanitary napkin.

When we got to the final room of the tour, MacLeod unlocked the door he had tried to open at the start to reveal a room covered in records, mostly 45s, mostly Elvis. He asked me to lift a concrete statue of a frog using only my thumb; it was difficult. The frog is a reference to the Elvis song ‘Mississippi Bullfrog.’ He mentioned his collection of firearms again and pulled a two-shot Derringer out of his pocket. His finger wasn’t on the trigger but the business end of it was pointing at our friend Jon K, and it was quite unsettling. But the gun was quickly back in his pocket and we can’t blame him for carrying some protection, since he welcomes anyone who knocks on his door into his home at all hours of the day and night.

And no matter how strange or off color he was, MacLeod was genuinely grateful that people were there to visit and appreciate his work. You will not likely ever visit a museum or attraction that documents and celebrates your attendance as much as Graceland Too. MacLeod is sincerely happy to have you there and makes you feel welcome, even if it is in his own odd way. He thanked The Beast several times for bringing people to Graceland Too, and was very happy to receive a Blackout Shoppers t-shirt and CD from us.

We wished MacLeod all the best, vowed to return and went on our way back to Memphis and the rest of our tour, knowing that not much would be able to leave as big an impression on us as Graceland Too.