This journal documents the author's experiences as a television writer. To read the story from its inception, go to the beginning.

September 11, 2001

What makes a man
Outside my apartment window three young white males in their twenties are sitting on the stoop of my apartment building quite drunk and raucous. A fourth sits on a garbage shed just outside my ground floor window banging the wooden enclosure for emphasis every time his projectile barnyard laughter graces the burnt air that surrounds the city. He and his "doggs" harass the women who pass them as they no doubt subscribe to the theory that expressing anger towards those without a Y-chromosome is the best method of getting laid. I have every confidence that I will leave my apartment in the morning only to be greeted by a river of intestinal fluid.

Downtown of this jovial quartet, thousands of people are dying, buried in the rubbled remains of New York City's World Trade Towers. Less than 12 hours ago two planes kamikazied into the buildings, completely obliterating the workplaces of 50,000 and bringing the entire city to a standstill.

One of the major events cancelled by today's disaster was the city's Democrat and Republican primaries. The members of each party were to choose who their candidates would be in November's races for mayor, comptroller, and public advocate. As such, the previous week has been filled with primary combatants talking at length about "character." But when politicians talk about character it is an amorphous quality that is meant to connote whatever will get them elected. When a television writer talks about character, it is almost always in regard to those actions that reveal the moral fiber of a person. So if a tv writer says his protagonist is funny, that's a characterization. But if that same writer has his protagonist make a choice between being paralyzed by fear in a time of crisis or taking some action to make things better, the writer reveals character.

I do not know why the four white males are drinking and whooping it up on my stoop this evening. Perhaps it is the only way they can deal with today's horrors. Perhaps they are celebrating the fact they will not have to go work tomorrow. It matters not. The question of their characters has been answered.

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