The day before that day

Last night while eating chicken quesedillas and enjoying a margarita, I took control of the remote and freed the TV from another round of cartoons. I landed on the Sundance Channel (I think) and found a documentary on They Might Be Giants, the eccentric pop duo who came to the scene in the mid-80s.

It was pretty charming, and for a bunch of guys who were on the cutting edge of college radio, they seemed smart without being pretenisous. Even their wordy, opaque lyrics and stacatto rhythms seemed friendly and warm and even inviting although their songs usually came at you at a breakneck speed. I haven't heard Anna Ng or Birdcage In Your Heart in two decades and they still sound fresh.

In the doc, they came across as really normal guys, granted that they record phone greetings for extra dough. One John, the accordian player, is a quiet and thoughtful father of an adorable little boy while the other John, the guitar player, seems to be the kind of boss everyone would want to work for.

One thing stuck out during the documentary. The band was about to launch a new album and some scenes showed their appearances they taped for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Late Night with Conan O'Brien. The date was September 10, 2001. Jesus, it was so odd to see that time on a five year-old tape. It was September but people were still in a summer frame of mind: the weather was mild and th people in all of the clips just seemed lighter. They appeared to be floating with not a care in the world. Silly pop songs seemed like the perfect thing to record, listen to and promote. You get no sense that a horrific act was about to happen 15 hours later that would change the world. (Yes, I am one of those people who have a 9/10 and 9/12 mindset).

It reminds me of that day, the days before the attacks. I remember the MTV Music Video awards, which seemed over the top and pointless. I remember Jack Black promoting the new Tenacious D record -- it might have been their first and it felt like they were going to just explode. Bob Dylan had just released Time Out of Mind, or was it his follow-up, Love and Theft? I am too tired to check.

We were obsessed with Britney (was she growing up too fast), Jennifer Lopez (will Hollywood destroy her music career), Gary Condit (did he kill that poor intern?), and Bush's stem cell speech from his beloved -- and isolating -- ranch in Crawford, Texas. It seems so long ago, when the day finally arrived and the skies were clear but they would soon be overcast for a very long time.