On 9/11, I was in Paris, ostensibly to promote my latest album The Edge of Heaven: Gary Lucas Plays Mid-Century Pop on the French government-backed Label Bleu.
The album had been released that very same day as Bob Dylan's Love and Theft, and I had spent the morning doing interviews in the lounge of my then-favorite Parisian base of operations, the Terrass Hotel (now a hideously carved-up and disfigured budget hotel).
Coming back to the hotel from a hearty lunch around 3 pm, the phone at the front desk rang-- and the call was for me, from my friend Lou, a street gamine who worked for ex-pat American erotic photographer Roy Stuart.
"Garee, go turn on CNN!" she yelped. "Ze World Trade Center just fell down!!"
I took the lift up to my room and switched on the television — and sure enough, the second plane had just hit the other Tower, and the entire hideous story was playing out in real time.
I frantically called Caroline long-distance from my room to check that she was alright... and thank God I got through to her.
She was out on Hudson Street a block from where we live in the West Village with pretty much the entire neighborhood watching the smoke and debris from downtown rising and scattering over the city. But she was okay. Scared and bewildered, but okay.
That was the last I spoke to her on the phone for two weeks, as all international calls were shortly to be blocked both to and from the US. We stayed in touch through email for the rest of my time in Europe, which, due to circumstances beyond my control, extended for another couple of weeks.
The remainder of that afternoon was a haze of various French friends coming up to the room to sit shiva for NYC and bear witness, glued to the television as the grim proceedings on CNN unfolded. This included several female members of the cast of Les Dix Commandements, a music theater comedy that had played Les Palais des Sports Paris and then toured all over France. A big hit, the cast included Yael Naim (who became a huge international pop star, recall "I'm a New Soul"), Anne Warin, and Anath Benais, all of whom I knew from several years earlier when they were living together in NYC.
The next few days were like a hideous dream I could not wake from.
I did a few more interviews with the French music press and then traveled to Belgium and Holland to fulfill a few solo dates I had on my calendar. At this point, pretty much every European I met was in total sympathy and solidarity with the US. This outlook was to change radically in the next few months as the Empire prepared to strike back.
Two more weeks passed as I rode the trains to my solo shows in Belgium and Holland...and I played these concerts pretty much on autopilot. I couldn't really focus on the job at hand at that particular moment.
Finally, the US allowed international flights into the country once more, and I took a flight back from Amsterdam to New York at the end of September.
I will never forget being overwhelmed by the haze of particulates that hung like a shroud over the city as I walked down the gangway steps from the plane into the late afternoon of NYC. And the fetid stench of burnt plastic, toxic chemicals, and God knows what else; I shudder to think.
For weeks I expected a follow-up attack on the city. And when a plane exploded upon taking off from JFK a month later, I was sure it was a terrorist's bomb behind it.
But I just kept booking myself around the world. That's all I knew how to do, frankly.
A few months later, in November 2001, I was back on tour with Peter Stampfel in Belgium, Holland, and the UK. Followed by solo shows in Spain and Portugal to finish out the year.
I just kept keepin' on keepin' on...