Driving To 'Get The Story': Covering 9/11  
September 11, 2006

I planned to go with a friend to the Toronto Film Festival on the morning of Tuesday, September 11th, 2001. Instead, I awoke a bit late on the couch of my parents in their living room where I had decided to crash the night before. My mom came downstairs and told me to turn on the TV that some kind of plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center Building. I tuned into ABC and called my friend Joe to tell him to turn on the TV. For some reason, he is convinced tragedy takes place always around his birthday and he tends to be the breaking news go-to-guy for me.  

We talked about commuter planes and of a suicidal pilot and of the bombing in the Trade Center basement years past. I watched in horror with my mom while I remained on the phone with my friend as the second plane hit. I remember my shock and frustration trying to explain that there was another explosion in the other tower that no one had seen yet. Seeing the plane actually hit in a replay left us in silence. We eventually convinced ourselves that people would be rescued and safe, but the clean-up of the crash would be difficult. Then, the first tower collapsed and we yelled.  

It didn't take long before I started getting phone calls from my office. At the time, I worked in TV covering news for the Broadcast Networks, and I knew why they were calling. The second tower soon collapsed. The calls were now persistent. The Toronto Film Festival was also out of the question. I remember wanting to share the moment with friends and family, not with co-workers.

At sometime before 11am, I finally returned a call to my office. "We need you to go to New York right now, can you go?" I didn't know what the trip would entail, but I said  yes. I was to meet my co-worker John just off the exit of the freeway by my house in a half-hour and head east for CBS National News. I grabbed some clothes and quickly bought a radar detector from Best Buy where I learned the salesman helping me had an Uncle that was in the Trade Center working for the government.  

John and I started our trip East going faster than we should. The radar detector wasn't even needed, not today. The skies were clear blue and not a plane was in site. John had brought his portable TV and we watched the news as we drove. I honestly thought our country was being raided and more was to come. As we started talking more and more about what may lie ahead for us, we started to almost get excited that we were covering this news story. We wanted to go to NYC to ground zero. We wanted to be where the action is no matter what the risk might be.

Just arriving in Pennsylvania from Ohio's Turnpike, we get a call telling us to go to Skanksville, PA to go cover the plane crash there. The area was completely rural and buried behind forests and dirt roads. We were to go to the farm field where the other press was gathering. I can't remember if it were a corn field or not, but I do recall many network Satellite Trucks parking in some poor farmers field. We got there only to find out CBS really didn't have a job for us that we should wait. American Red Cross or Salvation Army set up drinks and food for everybody including the workers assessing the damage in the nearby woods.  

John and I were disappointed we were stuck in this location. We wanted to be at Ground Zero. As long as we were here, we wanted to SEE something! We wanted to see the site. Instead, all we saw was darkness fall on the area as reporters with their spotted lights on them gave news from the scene. Finally, we were let go and told to go to the motel to wait.  

That night, we stayed at a very cheap motel, perhaps the only motel around, waiting with other media folk. Soon it was morning and nothing happened for us. We reported back to the field in the early morning only to get the news we hoped for. CBS wanted us to head to New York.  

John insisted we pick up a local newspaper before leaving town, so after a brief search, we found the only two left in the town and drove on. We were relieved to know that no other attacks happened. I questioned whether it was a smart idea going to New York at this time.  

About eight years earlier I went to New York for the first time. The very first sight I had of the city was of the two giant World Trade Center towers that peaked over the horizon of the road ahead.  It was my Statue of Liberty welcoming to this enormous city. On this day though, smoke greeted us from the same horizon. A big void was now left in the city landscape. I remember taking black and white pictures of the city as we drove along side it on the way to the George Washington Bridge.  

We arrived at the CBS building on 37th or 57th Street amidst the chaos of a busy lobby. We were expected and greeted by somebody that I can't even picture anymore. Some sleepy-eyed zombie who had been working straight since the attacks happened the previous morning. We were told to take an hour or so to eat and to check in at the Holiday Inn down the street.  

Our job was to do live shots on the rooftop of the CBS building with the skyline in the background. We did this only for a few hours and again, told to go back to the hotel and wait. We counted on sleepless nights and all day work. So far, we found only the lack of duty despite most of the CBS staff being desperate for relief in the field.  No one there knew what to do. 

That night, John and I took our phones and went walking through the night. The city was desolate. There weren't cars bustling down the streets and no people. We literally walked down main streets to Times Square only to find a very small gathering of people and a few cars driving by. We kept walking. We heard a nearby police officer's radio report an urgent cry that a bomb had been found at the Empire State Building. We walked the short distance to the police barricades surrounding the building. Were we there to 'see' something? I'm not sure if we hoped to be there if that building fell or if we were there to show our support for it.  

This was the first time that I can really remember thinking and feeling like a stereo-typical media scum. We were excited to cover this story. We wanted to see the tragedy. It felt like greed. It felt like the scene in the movie Ten Commandments when Moses throws the tablets down from the mountain to his people down below who were taking part in scrupulous thought, action and temptation.

One moment and one interview changed me that day forward. The next morning we were to meet CBS reporter Russ Mitchell near the 'Armory' building where a couple years earlier I had covered the VH1 Fashion Awards. The Armory was the central hub for family members to find out information on their missing loved ones who were in the World Trade Center. Lines formed for people to drop off photos and anything with a DNA sample including toothbrushes and hair brushes. Every building, phone booth and pole had a missing person picture placed on it. John and I weren't at Ground Zero, we were stuck here.

The very first interview we did changed my life and made me re-evaluate why I was there and what an asshole I had been in my ambitions for this job assignment. An attractive girl looked lost holding a picture. Russ Mitchell walked up to her and asked for an interview. She agreed. I remember thinking, 'hey, she's cute'. The interview began and all of a sudden she was in tears asking if anybody has seen her cousin with two kids who walked out of the Trade Center but was thought to have gone back in to try to help people. I instantly felt her grief and realized how shallow I was. I remember wanting to help her and not do this superficial job. The photo she held was of her cousin who looked like a fun guy in a crazy straw hat. That stuck with me. She stuck with me. The tragedy was now personal.  Strangers were no longer missing, they were real people whose life I now learned about. 

From that moment on, I turned off the emotion in my head like a switch to help me prepare for the non-stop interviews that lay ahead. I only remember fragments of the other interviews. There were lots of missing Port Authority workers, Emergency workers, secretaries, bosses, military personel, fast food workers, maintenance workers. These were wealthy and poor alike that went missing. I heard just about every heartbreaking story of individuals who worked in the World Trade Center.  

CBS National News wasn't even airing in New York City as their local affiliate went live instead all day instead. Our coverage went out to the rest of the country. The TV news had one redeeming purpose outside of the Armory.  Families, who had pictures of their loved ones, were discovering information from people who saw the photos they held up to TV cameras and were getting in touch with them to report what they knew. Some fortunate survivors were being ID'd by seeing their pictures on the news helping to reunite them with their families. This created desperation for every family member with a loved one missing to beg repeatedly to  every member of the media to put their loved ones picture on TV in hope of finding them.  

We tried helping as many as we could, even if we knew the footage would never be seen in the local areas. People were pulling on my arm begging me to take a flier and put it on TV or interview them. They were crying and so very desperate and persistent. By the end of the night, Fliers were blanketed on everything in site of the Armory and more crowds still gathered.  

For the next four or five days, my days repeated with the same sadness and pressure to interview. I was no longer there mentally, I just zoned off into my own peaceful playground in my head for the rest of my time there… except for the image of the first girl and of her cousin… that kept sticking with me.

I have memories of other moments from the corner of the Armory. Interviews with the Governor of NY and Mayor Rudy Guiliani, seeing Bill Clinton and other politicians. I remember how everyone completely froze in their steps when a military jet flew overhead after days of hearing no planes. I remember John nearly getting arrested twice for trying to get a shot one too many times where he wasn't supposed to. I remember generosity. Store owners were constantly giving away their supplies to the media and other strangers. I remember people constantly asking others what they could do to help.  

As days moved on, the hopelessness was setting in… and so was the rain. One early morning, I stood soaked in a cold rain downpour. I was miserable and didn't want to be there. I was freezing cold, wet and tired of being in the media and being around so much sorrow. Eventually a thirty-dollar pack of rain coat and pants from a nearby hardware store kept me dry and a little bit warmer.  Then I thought of all the people still digging at Ground Zero and quickly stopped whining to myself.  

A phone call came earlier that morning from my work asking me to please come back and work a live trial for Court TV in Cincinnati, OH for a Cop Riot Trial. I was happy to have the chance to leave. Later that evening, the rain stopped and people lined the streets where we were with candles. Music from a second story apartment building above me put a radio out on the sill and began playing God Bless America. Soon, the crowd starting singing and crying with glowing candles lighting their faces. At that moment, I took a picture of a couple taping a US flag to a light pole. It was all quite moving to witness.

Late that night, after days with little sleep, my time was done. My replacement had drove across from Detroit and I was to drive his vehicle back home before going to Cincinnati. Since it was too late to keep driving, I called a beautiful Russian girl named Svetlana from New Jersey who I met the previous year and was still in contact with. After still not getting sleep, I drove the rest of the way home.

The next year, John and I were back in New York for the one year anniversary, this time for NBC News. In that year, I had met my then-girlfriend and learned her cousin had died in the World Trade Center. I had interviewed the parents of one of the heroes of Flight 93, the "Let's Roll" guy. I learned that all over the Detroit area, people were directly affected by the terror of the day.

Looking back now, I still feel ashamed of my adrenaline rush in initially covering the story. I have never forgotten my stupidity and haven't allowed it to affect me since. Being at the Armory was possibly the best and worst place to be positioned. Had I been at Ground Zero with co-workers, I would not have been moved to change like I was at the Armory because all I would have seen were the affects of tragedy through rubble and debris without getting the emotional heart-ache of very personal stories of the people that lived and worked and died on September 11th.  

I got a surprise at a movie theater when I watched Fahrenheit 9/11 when I saw that Michael Moore used our interview with the first girl we interviewed. She is the face I see when I think of 9/11 and now, I won't ever have to let that face fade away.

What Baghdad Is Really Like!

29 August 2006

Concrete walls as high as one-story buildings align every street in the Green Zone (International Zone) in Baghdad creating the fortress-like prison that either protects us or hides us.  Unlike Detroit though, the walls are bare and free of graffiti.  It is true that Baghdad was invaded by military representing many nations in order to provide relief to the citizens from their sectarian leader, Saddam Hussein.  Under Saddam, people lived under immense fear that they would be killed for a great number of crimes and as a result, the city was safe and the streets were clean and maintained out of fear of the consequences.   Back then, the only fear was an unsolicited visit from the Iraqi Army. 

Baghdad has a long history of being one of the most beautiful habitats in the world.  It is believed that Baghdad was home to the Garden of Eden where life began with Adam and Eve.  One of the Seven Ancient Wonders in the world is nearby with the legendary Hanging Gardens.  This area is also home to the Biblical town of Babel and the significant story of the Tower of Babel.  Baghdad, or the city of a thousand and one nights, is also home to the story of 'The Arabian Night's book with characters such as Sinbad and Alladin.  More importantly though, Baghdad is home to one of TV's sexiest characters, Jeannie from 'I Dream Of Jeannie.'

Baghdad is located on rich, lush riverbed land along the Tigris River.  It is not the desert life you'd expect.  Palm trees are everywhere.  The sand that does exist smells of cocoa and the non-potable water that showers me in the mornings tastes of lemon.  At one time, gardens were a thing of pride around the city with flowers blossoming in every direction.   Rainbows crossed the blue cloudless skies daily and choirs of small children sang songs of brotherhood and unity on every corner as they recited lyrics of the ever popular artist here, Lionel Ritchie.   Children who sang out of key were taken away by soldiers and either killed or forced to join the army. 

Today, life is completely different for citizens of Baghdad.   The streets are filthy and convoys of military parade the streets trying to drive quickly to prevent themselves from being a target.   People caught driving or walking too close to these or other official Peacekeeping vehicles will be shot at and/or killed.  There are no exceptions, even small children are killed because the enemy could be anywhere.  Women once walked around carefree in jeans and short sleeved shirts, but now, without order, they walk in fear of assault and must remain covered up.  The civil unrest between different religious groups trying to take over and force their way of life on their neighbors has created chaos and fear much greater than anything conceived by the Army under Saddam Hussein. 

The people of Baghdad live almost entirely without electricity since the US invasion of Baghdad.  Some neighborhoods have power for one hour a day while others have it for one hour every four or five hours for a total of four hours a day by paying a neighborhood fee for a generator.   Nights are spent without air conditioning… then again, so is most of their days.  The heat is usually 120 degrees daily and feels like an open oven on Thanksgiving.  It doesn't take much to create a sweat.  People here don't wear shorts, in fact they wear pants and sometimes long sleeve shirts.  An example of why this is a safety concern is the murder of members of the Iraqi Men's Tennis Team a couple months ago who were killed because one group didn't find it appropriate for them to wear such shorts.  In the same vein, it is said to be unsafe for men to have the wrong facial hair.  For instance, my interpreter friend told me he can be killed for having a gotee if the wrong group sees him.  He has since shaved.

Women must remain virgins until they are married.  They also find it unglamorous to have a tan and are very protective of being out in the sun exposed for long.  Strangely, my drivers (crazy gun-toters who are the only men here getting sex somewhere on a regular basis) say that in order to satisfy their man, yet keep in contact the virtue of their virginity, the women will take part in anal sex intercourse.   I understand that this gives American seventh grade girls and Iraqi women some thought processes in common!

After being here for five months or 18 weeks, I just now learned something that I thought to be rumor.  Some men, and probably women too, do use their left hand to wipe themselves after going to the bathroom.  I found this out a few days after many military men were going up to our floor to use the bathroom at the office because so many of the Iraqi men wipe with their hands and then spray it off with the hoses that are found near the toilet and fall down the drain on the floor.   This is true and now thinking back on every time I use the bathroom at the Palace and think I'm stepping around dirt! 

Living at the US Embassy is nice and comfortable.  The Palace here is huge and has a giant pool on the property that is fitting for a dictator.  I am surrounded by mostly military people.  Half of them are in full long-sleeved uniforms and others in their PT uniforms (shorts and t-shirts with their military branch logos).  Each one slings a machine gun over their backs on straps like backpacks.  They range in age from 18 or 19 on up to early 70s.  The men and women here in the armed forces are truly working hard and have made far more sacrifices than I ever have.  They are out in the Red Zone everyday in this heat in those uniforms plus helmets and protective armor risking their lives.  They are brave and tough. 

The other smaller group of people here are contractors working at the Embassy.  I fall into neither category.  I am not considered media either.  That is a good thing considering the media either lives on the border of the red zone or in the middle of the red zone.   The rest of the people here work for the Department of Defense, Department of Justice or the Department of Security, etc.   I have seen numerous senior citizens, both men and women, who are here working as contractors doing who knows what.  

Conversations I hear range from childish sex-capades to the nonchalant retelling of killing children during raids.   I hear people complain about coworkers and of pay.  I hear them saying farewell on their last day.  I hear them talking of loss of co-workers out in the field.  I hear complaints of food,  of heat, of boredom.  Some talk about how cool I am.  It's my story, and I get to tell it the way I want to!  People have vast opinions of the war, of politics and of purpose.  Some people I swear talk to themselves.  The stories all differ. 

Food is provided here either in the cafeteria (Dfac), the Palace or in the food court near the PX (store) providing Subway, Pizza Inn (doesn't count as pizza!), Burger King and some Gyro place I have never witnessed anyone order from.   The food is free except for the food court.  The food is always buffet style and is never serving local food.  Instead, we have everything from Burgers to Steak to fish to lobster and crab.  There are always deserts ranging from cake, pies and Baskin Robbins ice cream.   Cans of pop, juice boxes, Gatorade, non-alcoholic beer, water and energy drinks are available in the cafeteria.   This week Chef Wolfgang Puck is coming in to create his buffet gourmet soufflé.  The camp is really looking forward to his arrival.

Once a week, the Palace bar "The Lock and Load" opens up serving fairly priced alcohol to non-military and non-Halliburton employees.  This is where the ugliest girls and a few decent looking ones get mobbed by guys all too-willing to buy them drinks and fall all over them.  In the end, the girls have their picks of the men.  I have seen wrinkly women walk out with an early twenty-something and come back next week and do the same with a different guy.  Large women, old women… here every woman is a winner and, if they choose to, can take home most any guy.  I still remain here with standards! However, I hear at the six month-mark, you start to break down your standards.  (I'm very stubborn though!)  We also refer to certain women as Baghdad cute.  Is this mean, should I be writing this?

The living arrangements here are very similar to dorm life.  You have a roommate and the both of you share a bathroom with roommates on the other side.  We live in trailers.  Imagine looking down on the trailer as being shaped like an H.  On the long side of the H, the two vertical lines is the living quarters with 2 roommates on each side.  The horizontal line is the mini hallway that has a door on all four walls.   One door is to each of the living quarters and one door goes to the bathroom and other to the outside.  All of us in our H shaped trailer work together and get along.

Entertainment around here consists of a number of things.  There is a full size work out facility that I pretend in my mind everyday that I am going to.  There is a full basketball court.  There is a sand volleyball court that as of today finally has real sand instead of hard dead grass with lots of rocks.  There are horse shoes, ping pong, pool tables and a slip and slide.  There is a movie theater in the basement of the Palace that shows free movies which is probably the equivalent of the dollar show movies.   The strip club is now closed as is the Petting Zoo.

Once a week, there is "Salsa Night" at a nearby pool in another Embassy compound.  Here is the best place to find women in girly outfits.  Some of them are even attractive sometimes.  People here dance and sweat and bring in alcohol.  Like the Lock and Load bar, this is also a key place to "hooking up".  For the losers who go back to the Palace with their friends (yes, count me in!), they either go to sleep or go to 'Midnight Rats' also known as the cafeteria for late night food.  Sometimes there are parties at nearby compounds and there are always parties by the poolside.  I have also learned to wait a day or two before going swimming afterwards because the chlorine can only do so much.  I hear you can catch a venereal disease even by as late as noon the next day just for being in the water. 

I have learned that the best parties happen at the other compounds where many of the foreign military sleep.  For instance, the Italian Embassy throws the best parties because this group of 20 guys hand-make their own food and pick the lucky people who get the personal invites get to feast on good food and good drinks.  I am fortunate enough to finally be on the inside of this group and have been invited to their monthly party that  happens this week with plans for homemade pizza!   The Scottish or Irish throw the next best parties and even has live Opera performed in Karaoke style!  This exclusive party is the first time I witnessed real women all gathered in one place dancing and drinking.  These weren't the same caliber of women found at the Lock and Load, these were attractive women who didn't seem to want to sleep around.  Instead they left together.  Okay, that or they're lesbians!? 

I have joined a dodeball league that lasted about one month.  My team did surprisingly well against the thick-necked team called 'Semper Fi'.  Now, I have joined the sand volleyball league that takes place now until November.  It is nice to finally have time and the consistent schedule to enjoy such things.

Work is enjoyable and as you may see on TV, doesn't happen often.  The Saddam Hussein Trial is now into its second of eleven trials scheduled.   (edited content)  That's a story for another time! 

Some people ask if the US should still be here and I answer that now with 'yes'.  I used to believe that we should pull out prior to coming here.  Although I still believe our invasion was not appropriate under the government's justification of doing so, I do believe that as long as we're here, we have a responsibility to the people here who still need us.  Saddam Hussein and his army is rumored to have killed more than 7 million people in his own country.  It is rumored that he used chemical weapons on many of these people in the North country.  If this is accurate, he is a dictator equal to Adolf Hitler.

People of Iraq are split on their feelings of Saddam's removal from office.  While he was in power, people here didn't have cell phones or internet.  Now they do… however, now they live without the basic luxury of consistent electricity.  The pristine streets are now full of trash and dirt.  Bombs are exploding daily here due to the civil unrest of Sunnis and Shi'ites.  Bombs meant for Americans are also killing Iraqis.  Traffic jams and check points have made five minute commutes into hour or more commutes.  The deadliest road in the world is here and runs from the airport into the city.  It is known as Route Irish.  It is protected by the US military yet, it wasn't unsafe for Iraqis until we came here.  With corruption and a weak Iraqi government in power, the city is no longer safe.  It is so bad that people are remembering better days when Saddam Hussein was in power when the only thing they had to fear was him and his army.  Today, they fear each other, the government, the military, car bombs, IEDs, the US, global warming, etc. 

But as tested with time, Baghdad will survive and rise again.  This town has a long history of take-overs dating back long before Jesus Christ and certainly long before Saddam Hussein and his Baath Party.  The people here are patient and proud.  In general, they are extremely kind-hearted and giving.  Family is important.  Survival is important.  Also, I learned that Lionel Ritchie's music is important.  I'm serious.   Likewise, we should be patient and proud while whatever is meant to happen here, happens and life can get resolved for all sides of this mess.

In the days leading up to their Half-Time Super Bowl Performance in Detroit, the Rolling Stones played a fourteen year-old boy's birthday party in Wayne, MI.  The band had been driven around from the Townsend Hotel in Birmingham, MI all week by the uncle of the boy who joked with the band that they should come over to his nephew's birthday later that night.  Since nightlife in the Detroit area was somewhat limited, the band decided it might be fun and agreed to the appearance on the condition that a german chocolate-frosted marble cake await them with Skim Milk at the party.

Jeff Turner had no idea who the old men were that accompanied his uncle when they showed up to his eleventh birthday party.  "I thought my uncle was hanging out with the wrong crowd again when they first showed up" the boy later told a local news reporter.  Seven people in total were there for the party including the boys grandparents, mother and four cousins. 

The Rolling Stones proved to be quite the jolly group of fellas when they led the group in singing Happy Birthday.  Charlie Watts organized the game of Hide-N-Seek while Keith Richards brought out of the coat closet the game Twister... which no one wanted to play.  Mick and the "other member of the Rolling Stones" stood outside the house on cell phones seeming all too busy for the birthday party.  "Where are the girls?" Jagger was over heard complaining.

The boy's mother, Michelle, who listens to mostly hip-hop said she had heard of the group and looked forward to their appearance at the Super Bowl if she remembered to tune in. 

By later in the week of Super Bowl XL, the glamour and sensation of seeing celebrities began to wear off quickly for the de-sensitized media.  Seeing the same stars like Jessica Alba, Fergie, Josh Duhamel, Tommy Lee and Josh Lucas at event after event began to be as boring and annoying as being solicited by Detroit homeless in earlier weeks (before the city 'took care of them', of course) as they were almost begging to be on camera. 

The entertainment media has always had an obligation for keeping the stars happy even if that means stroking their ego a little bit.  In doing so, the media began having some fun... something of an inside joke.  "Don't roll on this" and "we'll never use them" became the latest of a long line of catch-phrases with the bigger entertainment network shows.  I am not at liberty to call out those shows, but I can say I was working for Entertainment Tonight and we, of course, would not take part in such a practice as pretending to do interviews with celebrities that we either already interviewed a bunch of times or that they were not big enough stars to care about, so why waste tape? 

Countless celebrity standing in place smiling and talking to a camera that was not recording thinking (hoping) they would make the show.  At the very least, they would feel important standing there with a microphone and mic flag labled with the tv show's logo in front of them held by a reporter or talent that knew the whole conversation was a sham.  In TV only a few names really matter in the entertainment world and sadly, not even Jerry Bruckheimer would make the cut to air on TV. 

My condolences go out to the poor celebrities that I witnessed wasting their breath time and time again this past week in Detroit that never made tape, much less air.  However, with this said, Jessica Alba can and will make air anytime, thank god!

After getting wind of this, United Secondary Actors Association (U2AA), a celebrity union group, has threatened legal action if mediocre stars don't get equal airtime claiming "without fame from your networks, these individuals will never move out of the shadows of more famous celebrities." 

The organizer of this group, actor Tony Danza was not present at the Super Bowl in Detroit but sent his deepest wishes for resolution while he was at work on a "Who's the Boss" TV reunion scheduled to air in May on ABC.  Family Tie's youngest daughter Tina Yothers will be filling in as Sam for a more famous Alyssa Milano on the special.

Tony Danza and his legion of U2AA demands America to stop watching TV until every actor is treated equally.  U2AA member Adrian Zmed is asking the country to "make a stand" for the sake of all of those poor celebrities who aren't important enough to 'them', but for those that get shafted like that guy who plays the friend on that one show, or people like Jim Belushi.

Well Mr. Danza and Zmed, I stand for you!  TV is bad... and so in support, I've unplugged my TV from the antenae and will watch only DVDs from now on.  (Sorry I won't be seeing either of you in my DVD selections)

After thinking all day about what was down in the secret room of my hotel room, I bought some bolt cutters from a nearby Menards.  Sadly, when I got to my room, my card wasn't working.  I couldn't get into room 202.  This always seems to happen when you're in a hotel room for longer than three days, so I went down to the front desk to have my room card reactivated.

Tara, the young girl behind the counter, told me that all of my things had been moved to a new room.  Apparently, because of a supposed broken heater found by the house keeper.  I told her that I had to go to that room to make sure that nothing was left behind.  Somebody gave her specific orders to not allow me or anybody else into that room under any circumstance. 

I couldn't accept this.  I demanded to be let into my room explaining the house keeper couldn't possibly have found that my heater wasn't working because I put a do not disturb sign on the door! I offered her to go back into the room with me.  She explained she had a boyfriend.  Damn.  So then I told her the story of how I found a secret room behind the ironing board that went down steep stairs below the first floor to a room that was dead bolted shut.  This peaked her interest!  So she made a key for that room and we went up to room 202.  For some reason her key wasn't working.

She tried several more times but each time she tried to activate a key to get into room 202 it failed.  Now more than ever, I was feeling a conspiracy!  Tara told me that she would ask her boss the next day why she couldn't get into the room and hopefully get us a key for tomorrow night.

Tomorrow night arrived.  I came back to the hotel after working all day, but Tara was not working the front desk.  The girl who was working instead was Kim.  I asked her where Tara went and she told me all she knew is that she doesn't work here anymore.  Hmm?

I went back to my room confused.  When I opened up the door I found a note from Tara.  It simply read 'stay away from room 202.  Don't persue the secret any further.'  What did she know?  Was she protecting me?  Then I remembered that Die Hard was on TV and put the note aside.

After the movie I realized I was in a whole new room with potential new treasures and secret rooms.  First I looked behind the ironing board only to find a solid wall.  On the plus side, I found five dollars in between pages of the Bible in the nightstand and a copy of Dakota Swingers Magazine from 1977 in between the mattresses. 

Sadly I may never know what was really down in the secret room, but perhaps its best that I never know. 

Today I wrapped up filling in for my co-worker covering a Court TV trial in Cleveland.  The case was about a guy who became disgruntled and disillusioned and disgruntled with Case Western University and went on a shooting rampage inside one of the buildings.  Tragedy as usual.

For lunch, I almost chose to eat at John Q's Steakhouse but due to the cold, we inside the Court House in the cafeteria.

I just got done talking about Cleveland celebrities when all of a sudden Drew Carrey taps me on my shoulder and introduces himself.  Obviously, since he knows Wayne Brady, I was in awe.  My co-workers, obviously not knowing who I was talking to, sat down at another table while Drew Carrey asked me to sit with him.  How can I refuse Drew Carrey, right?

After watching Drew Carrey eat all of his food consisting of cream corn and a pudding, he asked me if he could have my untouched food.  I forgot to eat it!  I told him no since my grilled cheese looked so good. 

I told him how different he looked in person compared to how he looks on TV.  He says its all in the lighting.  And this must be true since he looked considerably thinner.  He weighed, if I had to guess, about 150.  He was way thinner than me AND he didn't wear his trademark glasses.  He said it was thanks to lasik.  He told me a secret that his long hair and missing teeth were for a part in a new action movie he was to star in with Dolph Lungren.  That explained his tatoos I guess.  In thinking back on it, with his scruff and beard, he really did look tough. 

Soon it was time for Drew to make an appointment on the 22nd floor of the Court House and we parted ways.  But not before he asked me for some money for the bus.  Since it was Drew Carrey, I couldn't refuse him.  I felt privaleged.  He asked for my home address and said he'd personally stop by to pay me back in about 6 months to a year depending on how busy he was.

All-in-all, Drew Carrey was nothing like I thought he would be.  instead of telling me all about his many celebrity friends such as Colin Mochrie and Deider Bader, he seemed more interested in me and my home theater system and my expensive spending.  He talked a lot about home security, too.  I can't wait until he's freed up some time in about 6 months to a year to stop up in Downriver Detroit to visit me. 

Now, I'm back in Detroit and life is settling back down from the crazy two days I spent in Cleveland.  Till the next job...