Sorry it's been a couple of days since I've written in this blog... I'm not sure anyone reads it as of yet, anyway. It doesn't help when the Nine 11: The Musical site isn't up yet.

However, the Nine 11 site is ahead of schedule, and looks pretty good... it's my hope that I can crank it out and finish it before I go home Wednesday... at least put up the main aspects of the site.

It's very helpful when you went to a prep school where a vast majority of people are interested in the pursuit of knowledge. Many people from Phillips Exeter Academy have emailed me and are trying to help me regarding getting a foot in some doors. I feel fortunate that they are out there.

Got together with a couple of '96ers... Anu Pohani and Caitlin Riley met me for dinner and we had a great time. It's so great to see both of them, especially in New York. Sometimes I need to talk about Nine 11 with people who haven't heard much about it because I need to get psyched about it again. I know what I'm doing is right, but writing is like a vaccuum when you do it alone. You suck in information and synthesize it. But every now and then you need to empty the dirt bag. Thanks Anu and Caitlin.

I'm off to see Caroline Or Change. Then it's back to working on the site.

I finally added the ability to post on my web logs... now if I can only fix the time issue...

I will be working on the second part of the 9/11 Commission Report this evening, along with the Flash web site for Nine 11 The Musical. If you wish to, you can read the first part of the report at http://www.nine-11-the-musical.com/nine11.pdf

Matty

Finally, the first part of the 9/11 Commission Public Hearing Critique is completed. You can read it at http://www.nine-11-the-musical.com/nine11.doc

Tonight, I sent out the report to the Family Steering Committee with the following email explanation:

Hello, folks. Allow me to introduce myself (as I've already done with the co-chairs of this organization). My name is Matthew Gregg and I'm writing a very large, very amazing memorial and tribute to the people (firefighters, civilians, non-civilians) lost during September 11th. Here it is, 4:22 in the morning, and I have put the finishing touches on the first part of a report that I hope you read and find useful in recommending to the 9/11 Commission.

My background is both in theatre (production/composition/directing work) and in political science (my Bachelor's Degree, obtained from College of the Holy Cross in 2000). My family has always been actively political (two former Governor positions held within my family and now, a current US Senator).

I am now in the process of constructing the largest memorial ever constructed for ANY disaster, let alone September 11th. In doing this, I have left my home and my job to come to New York City and talk with families who have lost their loved ones because it is my desire to know their loved ones so that I can create their likenesses onstage to be forever remembered. This project would include many of your loved ones so that the world can remember them as they should be remembered (who they really were).

I have always been of the firm belief that I can seperate politics from this project, even though I have an interest in both. I am finding that this is not the case due to the fact that because so many loved ones were lost, the survivors MUST make this a political issue. In light of this, I have constructed this report based upon my conclusions of the public hearings that took place Wednesday and yesterday. You can be sure that I will be sending a copy to anyone who will listen in Congress, along with copies to various media outlets.

This is a very important time, but what is most important is that we don't lose the memory of lost loved ones because we were too concerned with the manner of their death. This happened to me when I lost my father in a tragic car accident in 1987. I was too blinded by his death to preserve his memory. Permit me to preserve them for you by speaking with me for a few hours.

And I guarantee you that down the line, this memorial will serve as a very important tool for finding out the truth behind the different elements of 9/11.

------------------------
Matty Gregg
Composer/Lyricist - Nine 11: The Musical
Web: http://www.nine-11-the-musical.com
Email: mgregg@nh.com

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Hopefully, I'll be finished with my report regarding the 9/11 Commission's hearings by the end of tonight. I really want to get a couple points out. All in all, the 9/11 Commission succeeded in some respects and dramatically failed in others.

The part they succeeded in was to show the failure of the agencies to be completely integrated and in not being integrated, having communication breakdowns which hindered the rescue efforts of September 11th.

The parts they dramatically failed in was to offer any insight as to what public officials knew or didn't know about certain aspects of September 11th. Family members wanted answers to questions about failed radios and other more researched topics, such as which companies received the contracts for the radios, and they didn't get those answers. Plus, in my opinion, I think that any time the Commission expressed their opinions for the jobs done by public officials during September 11th, they jeopardized the volatile serenity that already existed in that auditorium.

I actually have a different opinion and I want to clear something up that was being reported and spun on different media channels. It's being reported that former Mayor Giuliani's testimony was "ended abruptly as relatives of the dead stood and shouted..." Mayor Giuliani's testimony was over at the point of major audience interruption, or at least, that was my understanding. It appeared to me that members of the crowd were getting antsy from all of the easy line of questioning that Mayor Giuliani was being given; the questions asked did not seem to match up with some of the more hard questions that were outlined on the Family Steering Committee’s web site. The panel didn’t seem too interested to press Giuliani for whatever reason, but that didn’t seem to me to be what completely angered the audience the most. What seemed to be the event that triggered their anger was when the Vice Chair was given the floor and said that he was not going to ask any questions in the interest of time, but rather give praise for Giuliani’s leadership and efforts. For whatever reason, he felt it more important to praise Giuliani, even though several members of the panel had already done so, rather than ask important questions regarding what he knew about September 11th. It seems to me to be counterproductive to allow the Commission to express their praise for the panels, when fact finding is the most important aspect of their agenda.

Personally, when I hear how the Commission states they wish to be fair to the panel (when I think that Lehman's use of the word "scandalous" was anything BUT fair to the FDNY/OEM/NYPD panel knowing the audience would applaud), I think they should be. This, by no means, should be a public grilling. But in cases like, for example, the mysterious disappearance of World Trade Center 7, when you have two conflicting facts out there (Silverstein testimony vs. the FEMA report), you want to question those people who might have known something that will give us a clear understanding of what happened. Why hasn't Larry Silverstein been subpoenaed during this trip to New York?

They decided not to ask some of the questions outlined by the FSC, which begs the question: why?

The truth is that this Commission is forward-looking, and not concerned with hindsight. It would be a lot easier for the public to understand that if the Commission kept copious amounts of praise for these already widely-revered public figures out of the session.

Almost got hit by a car tonight on my way to Crunch on 82nd. And I learned a little bit about ActionScript interactivity tonight with Flash MX Pro 2004. That's about all I can report tonight.

Tomorrow is a very important day in New York... I think it will shine some new light on what exactly happened on 9/11. I hope Giuliani Partners is ready (which I'm sure they will be... the questions are already public).

Good night, folks. I'm still feeling a little lonely in the Nine 11 project because I don't think there's a soul out there who believes in its virtue (other than my mom... which unfortunately doesn't help). Now I know how Galileo felt.

So I'm watching You've Got Mail, and let me tell you how freaky it is to watch that movie. Literally, all the places we go to in our lives are right there in the movie. It's my understanding that Fox Books actually opens on 72nd and Broadway and the Shop Around The Corner is very near that. But for some reason, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan actually seem to prefer to hang out in the 80s. Their Starbucks is on 81st Street (right where Kathy parks her car), and Zabars is actually on the corner of 80th and Broadway. We live on 80th and Amsterdam (the street over from Broadway).

And of course, there's Cafe Lalo where they'll meet... a few streets up from us (I believe it's 83rd and Amsterdam).

And that's all neat, but that's not what inspired me to write this weblog today. At the beginning of the movie, there is a computerized map of the entire island. Kathy tells me that in the original, the towers were a part of the computerized map. In this version, they're not there.

Maybe it's just me, but it really bothers me to see that. I really don't like the fact that they would take them out as if they didn't exist. If you made a movie in New York City prior to September 11th, you keep the towers IN the movie.

Take for instance Die Hard With A Vengeance. They made it prior to the towers coming down, and they kept them in the movie. They SHOULD be in the movie. Our pictures of those towers should be our memorial of them.

I understand the sight of those towers brings back bad memories of things that happened on September 11th for many people, but to cut them out is to cut out a piece of history... and in my opinion, that's just not acceptable.

Went running up the western waterfront of Manhattan... very close to the GW bridge and back... not bad considering I started at 79th street. It is absolutely beautiful this time of year... so beautiful that you don't even realize how many people are passing you. The crowd was drowned out by my imagination. It's sad that the US was attacked here... at the dreamer's capital of the world.

Manhattan's a funny place. When I showed up to the island, I was afraid that it was too cramped and that I couldn't get a thought in anywhere. Everyone is here for their reason... their purpose. But I'm finding that even with millions of people on this island, no path is the same.

I had forgotten about this song for awhile, and it just came back into my consciousness while shuffling through the songs on my iPod today:

"The sun is on my neck, the wind is in my face. The sea is incredibly blue.
And I'd rather be sailing. Yes, I'd wanna go sail, and then come home to you."

-A New Brain

I think I'm going to go walk around with Kathy around the city. They have a fair right outside our window up and down Amsterdam, so I have to get off my lazy ass.