Latest / The Joint Venture Show / 25 Years Later: Remembering September 11th
Transcript
- [01:00:28] Craig Carton I'd welcome to a very special edition of the joint venture little Wayne Craig Carton. Obviously this week marks the 25th anniversary of the terrible attacks on New York city and America on nine 11. And you know, I of course was in New York City. I was on the radio during it. A lot of people don't know that you were in New york as well. And you were a kid really when this happened and I thought it'd be important as we look back amazingly 25 years later, if we kind of shared our stories about that day. When you think about that day, September 11th, 2001, how did you even find out that we had been attacked and where were you in New York City when it happened? [01:01:07] Wayne I was in my hotel room, the hotel phone is ringing. The hotel phone and I answer the phone and it's my mom. I mean, I'm like, what? And she didn't say hello or anything. She just said, Dwayne, what building are you in? I said, I literally was just waking up and I was like, I wasn't even woke yet. So I'm, like, What? And she, like what building on you in and I'm What building? And she said, Dwayne, there are airplanes flying into buildings in New York. What building are you in? And so that kind of woke me up. You know, I'm like, OK, huh? And she say, cut on the fucking news. When she said that, I looked at the TV. The news was on. So I said, the news is on. That woke me. Got it. Because I go to sleep to sports center at that time. And still, I go sleep to what I knew I went to sleep too. The news shouldn't be on. That's why it woke me up. So when I said that, when I say the news is on, you know, all that's hitting me, like why the hell is the news on ESPN? You know what I'm saying? I'm like, what is this? Must be that serious? And now I'm paying attention to what she's saying. My mom is not very emotional at all. You know, like she just nods, I guess she's seen too much. And so that was very unusual for her to react like that, even to such a thing. So I remember that caught me off guard. Now I'm paying attention to what I'm watching. And... I was, so I got, I started, when I'm watching it, there's a lady in a blue dress up, like a royal blue dress. And the news footage that I'm watchin' is the footage from a helicopter that's circling it. Just, you know, like, in the kind of- Like a newscopter. Yeah, and they're talkin' back and forth or whatever. But the camera guy on the news, he's focusin' on this lady with a royal blue dress on because she's making a, she came, like to the window or something, of, you know, like... To the edge of a window, but she's not looking this way. She's like busting this way, and she's busting. She's bustin' behind her, basically, but she like adamant of whoever she's talking to. It was compelling to just start watching that, you know, like even for that cameraman, and even for the analyst, it was like, you know they started commentin' on it, like, oh my god, we don't know who she's talkin' to, oh, it gotta be hard, it got to be, she must be, you know. They all just speculating. Little did they know, little did anybody know. That was, she kept, by the time she did like that it was like f***ing eight people came from that end. I mean, a lot of people come from that in and grabbed her f***in' hand and they jumped. And when they and like, you know, that's when the news cut off Like the news cutter they went straight to black. I'm I was just like still looking at TV at the black right, you not mean you just like just fake just like I Remember like what? Was and before I could let anything process you here That was the sound of every single hotel door open. I remember like peeking my head out into the hallway and seeing so many women with the hotel robe and their hairs in the, like kind of women with their hairs on their towel, like with the thing like that. I remember just seeing people crying that I know you don't know each other. You know, I couldn't literally see, there's too many doors open for anybody. Y'all don't know each other. We are all strangers to each other, maybe two people may be together or whatever, but I'm just watching them all cry, and you know, they're just bonding, you know they're like kind of questioning each other just like, sorry. You know I'm still peeking like, like this. And so as I'm doing that, the hotel phone rings. So you might hear it, close the door, go to the hotel for like. You know, that's the phone call from our, the person who's like always like in charge of the tour. In charge of getting people together when it's time to go downstairs, that type of thing. And he's like, baby say peck, I'll be going home. He's like yeah, peck up, we're going home, baby say we're gonna go home. Peck up. I'm like, all right. So I'll pack up my things and go downstairs. Now forget walking outside. I couldn't take two steps. Soon as I walked outside, took every single person grabbed me. [01:05:53] Wayne Oh my God, where are your parents? Oh my, I got him, I go him, where? You got him? You sure, you sure? I got it, okay, I'll take him. Oh my god, where's your, oh, oh. Nah, not even. [01:06:01] Wayne As they ask me questions, but not even like listening for the answer, because they're talking to each themselves and they're strangers. So they're just- And they're trying to do right by a random kid. They're thinking I'm a kid. Yeah, they're thinking, I'm real little kid. And I remember the man, a man had me at that point. He saw the tattoos in my damn baby's face and he clutched me tighter. You know what I mean? He clutched my tighter, like I ain't letting you go to him. You know, like he, and I remember he was like, sir, I, sir. And he looked, and remember he looked back at me I'm so sorry sir. It's like, you know, God bless you guys is treading and we all binded at that point And even those who those other people who was grabbing me and stuff But I said that to say it takes tragedy for people to be humane [01:06:45] Craig Carton Sadly. Yeah. It's true. How long did it take you to reconnect with your mom? [01:06:51] Wayne So yeah, so the phones, my homie Mario, my friend, he had a Nextel Chirp. Oh, the walkie talkie one? Yes, but he had chip one. Like, you know, like I guess today he called them burners or whatever. So his, so you know phones were an hour. So literally it was like watching The Matrix when you went downstairs. If you remember The Matrix, everybody was doing the same thing. Right. So everyone was just doing the same thing, yes. Everyone just walking doing this. [01:07:17] Craig Carton All right, signal, you got a signal, you got signal? [01:07:19] Wayne It was like a movie where everybody was doing the same gesture, everybody going... I'm just sitting there, just like, watching everything. Then, there was a, when you walk, you know how those certain hotels, you walk in, they got like a little air thing right here at the top, kind of like blows some air or some shit. So you'll see everybody coming in doing this, like, and they're walking back to that door, looking up at that, like what the **** is that blowing? And it's like 30, everybody's doing the same thing. So it's, like 30 people doing that, 30 people. So what happened was... When you walk outside, it looks just like this. Normal as hell. When you walked back inside a closed building, you look like you just went to dive your head first in snow. So that debris that you were seeing that was infamously famous on television, that debris, that you was used to seeing those people on, if you watched, you remember seeing all the people with the white running out of that shit, yeah. So that tragedy was so huge. That way ever. I was located at Manhattan. It was, I remember, you know, I'm looking up in the skies and not being able to see the smoke nowhere, you know? Cause I want to see them again. I'm young. [01:08:35] Craig Carton Yeah, having to be a beautiful day [01:08:37] Wayne Yeah, but also, you know, I'm young. I also I want to see though, now that I know what's going on. So when I go outside, the first thing I'm like, you know, like wear it. And I'm, like, well, we can't be that close because I can't see no smoke. But the people that's doing that, the reason why is once they get in the in the hotel and the clothes, they look like we look we because I was having to meet. So we look like, we look like we just ran up out of there. The soot was invisible. The debris was invisible That's how far it traveled. And it was not just a smudge on you. It was like you went, dived head first into some snow. So that's why everybody who was walking in there, clearly somebody would tell you, what the hell? And everybody running back to the door because you're feeling that little shh when you walk in there. So everybody not, people who, some people probably don't even know what the Hell's going on. So they're not putting two and two together. And also I didn't know debris and all that shit was at that point. I think we all learned about it there. And so they not, so everybody trying to figure out what the hell is this blowing on me? You know, everybody like, what is, yo, they calling hotel red people like, this is, but we not knowing this is invisible. [01:09:48] Craig Carton Debris so did you guys get trapped in New York City we did? [01:09:51] Wayne We did at the at the um, we get trapped at the jersey [01:09:56] Craig Carton The Lincoln Tunnel or the GW, one of the prisons? That's a toll. [01:10:01] Wayne You know, like the, because nobody in the state, nobody let out the state. And so we was on the high, we was there for about four hours. And then eventually they let the bus, they let out, they led everybody. It was traffic. We had to let people use the restroom and stuff. Like random people that were stuck on the street. Yeah, it was just traffic. It was just like, they made that decision, like stop. And then, you know, I can, everybody just had to just. [01:10:23] Craig Carton So when they finally let you guys get out of New York City, do you drive the bus all the way back to New Orleans? You did? What was it like when you got home and saw your mom? [01:10:36] Wayne She wasn't she was just more of what wanted details want to know like what y'all see like did you see it did you once you knew you [01:10:43] Craig Carton Once you knew you were safe, then it began. [01:10:45] Wayne Oh yeah, yeah, once she was, you know, she was just more of like, of course, beyond elated that we was nowhere nearer involved in it, but still just want to know, like, you know, did you see anybody? Did you see those people with that on them? Did you see this? Did just see that? And I was unfortunately able to tell her that I was able to see a few things that, you know, but also it was, it was a help mode, you pages. [01:11:11] Craig Carton You're right. Well, you said a few minutes ago, it actually brought us all together. [01:11:15] Wayne Yeah, it was kind of c- [01:11:15] Craig Carton The way tragedy does. [01:11:17] Wayne It's contagious. [01:11:17] Craig Carton It's what I always said. It's the single worst radio show I ever did. So I'm on the radio. The Denver Broncos had played the Giants the night before Monday night football. They were celebrating the Broncos ' Super Bowl brand new stadium. Um, and I'm the radio, and obviously the first plane hits, and my producer says to me, yeah, these distract though. What's going on? Cause I don't know. It looks like a plane might've hit one of the buildings. Now, growing up in New York city, there was always that threat, maybe a private plane. Because it's hard to navigate apparently, part of Manhattan. And then I'll never forget, and to this day, it bothers me, there are people who the last thing they ever did in their lives was call me on the radio. And that's, to this date, hard to reconcile. Like, dude, get out of the building. Why are you calling me up? And at the time, because there's so much misinformation, they were being told to stay in the first building, Yo, cuz no one knew. And there's half a dozen people who I know for a fact, sadly, the last thing they ever did was call me on the radio. [01:12:24] Wayne And so they would also call him to inform people. They're going to say. [01:12:28] Craig Carton They're going to say, Hey, this is what's going on. That's what they're telling us because they were fans of the show. So and they didn't know the seriousness of it. They were just told, stay put. We got to figure it out. FDNY is coming up. They'll help you. And it's I've done this for 35 years. The only show I'll never, ever listen to ever again. Yeah. Because how do you how do listen to that? Knowing that that's the last thing that person ever did. Right. Right? So as we mourn the loss of all those people, we appreciate you watching. Of the joint venture, and hopefully we don't need another tragedy to bring us all together again. Amen.