does DRUPAL suck? or is it just this hard to control the layout of a date?

I have a CCK called "events" where i use the date module, i want to display this using a VIEW and have control over the layout.

In short, where would i put the code below to control my VIEW:

$myDate = // some data here for date

print "<div class="month">".date(M,$myDate)."</div>";

print "<div class="day">".date(d,$myDate)."</div>";

I've tried using the VIEWS THEME wizard and adding the above code, but i can't seem to figure out what variables i need, i've tried using print_r($node); which leads me to use $field_data_date; which does give me the date, but it give's me the date wrapped in drupal class tags, what i want is the RAW data with not HTML wrapped around it?

please any help!! i've been playing with this off and on for alittle over a month!!!