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Did 9/11 Kill Rollerblading? (Yes.)

There’s a David Cross bit from 2002 in which he describes being in a forever-changed New York on Sept. 12, 2001.

He talks about how fragile people’s psyches were, and he describes walking down a cordoned-off, eerily empty Houston Street.

“There’s no traffic, no nothing,” Cross says. “And coming down the street is this guy dressed in super-tight black spandex shorts and a tight muscle tee, and he’s fucking rollerblading, with purpose, with conviction.”

Cross then imagines the rollerblader’s inner-thought process: “If Gabriel wants to rollerblade, Gabriel rollerblades,” Cross says with a lisp. “Because if Gabriel doesn’t rollerblade to the Chelsea Piers, then the terrorists have won.