Yes, And Tommorrow is September 12

The Battery Tunnel appears about 10 miles longer and 50% more claustrophobic when you are parked in it, in bumper-to-bumper traffic on a Sunday night. 1010Wins informed us the Presidential Motorcade was preparing to drive several blocks in downtown Manhattan and "Freeze Zones" were necessary to ensure the President's security. Funny, I thought the idea was to honor the heroes of 9/11.

All of FDNY and NYPD lined the streets around ground zero, presumably so none of the protestors or (I wish) snipers could get at the President. All manner of politicians were also in town, to get some face time in an election year. Ick. I have a few ideas on how the Bush Administration can really honor the people who lost their lives on 9/11/01: How about funding for the rescuers who continue to live and who have developed severe medical problems? How about that whole Iraq thing? How about censuring Ann Coulter, and others with the temerity to exploit people's grief towards their own ends? How about not harnessing your resources in efforts to debunk conspiracy theories and not planting false "news" stories in the foreign press to support your botched and indefensible version of What Really Happened. Come on, Dummy: everyone knows you could pick up Osama bin Laden any time you felt like it, and that you'll feel like it when it gets closer to 2008.

I don't say these things out loud because doing so aggrieves my Superfly boyfriend.

So in the tunnel we sat. The kid in the car ahead of us got out and peed. The SUV on our right carried Paris Hilton-wannabes headed for Chelsea/Meatpacking District, surely. Someone would honk (frustration? time-passing whimsy?), and it would be repeated up and down the tunnel. If it wasn't for the Klieg lights and the camera-every-inch-of-the-tunnel, Superfly and I would've spent the time making out. Instead, we listened to the radio, mocked the people around us, and wondered if we'd make the concert at all.

At last, movement. Slow going the whole way through downtown and an unbelievable police and TV crew presence. Circus! I wondered where the Clown in Chief was staying and eventually decided I didn't really give a fuck. Onward and Uptown!

Keali'i Reichel is a well known and much-respected Hawaiian musician and ambassador to Hawaiian Culture. He puts on kick-ass show, too, complete with a slew of hula dancers. This is not your uncle's backyard luau, people. The only cheese in this event was some of the Aloha shirts in the audience--the music is beautiful and evocative, the dancing sublime. And sexy! I'm guessing many in the audience scurried back to their apartments and got their horizontal hula on. I'm just saying.

Our favorite Hawaiian musicians, the Aloha Boys, play Hunter College on September 23. Join us, won't you? Can't think of anything more enjoyable post-Rosh Hashanah shabbos, can you?