Noise Pollution in the City (or 'Where's my Rifle? The Garbage Men are Here!')

February 15, 2008

I'm officially getting old.

It's a typical night here at GBHQ (all my friends and ex-Ghettobillies members still call it that, even though our band has all but mostly split up due to burn out). My girl is by my side fast asleep breathing quietly.

Now I'm not sure at what point, exactly, that I became "old", but I'm pretty sure it happened during a massive hangover a couple years ago, when I awoke to all manner of sounds coming from my alleyway at all hours of the morning and night. Let me know if any of this sounds familiar:

First there is the ever present sounds of my younger neighbors coming and going and often STAYING just below my window outside drunkenly professing their love or hate for their significant other at far above regulatory conversation volumes. Sometimes it involves two young males competing to be the alpha dog in front of the watchful eye of a young female secretly hoping it doesn't turn into a fist fight, lest HER man be left in the dirt with a severely bruised ego (this I don't mind much, as it can often be entertaining and I sometimes fantasize of selling tickets with my roommates to gamble on who will throw the first punch and who will throw the last, still standing). 

It's ironic that the only sport I have any interest in is boxing. Especially considering that my reasoning is that I find sports dull and archaic, but I digress. Moving on...

Next there are the latino's across the street. Now before you jump to any conclusions and assume that the following paragraph is going to be racist, which I'm ashamed to admit I sometimes stupidly spout off like a redneck mating call, let's just say that 1/4 of my family is Mexican and I'm proud of it. However, this particular family across the alley of Padre, Madre, Granpa and a million and one good catholic children seem to practically dominate our alleyway as if it was their livingroom. Whether it's 6 o'clock in the morning or 12 o'clock at night, Louis (as I've learned his name by hearing it being yelled repeatedly over and over again for 30 minute increments before pausing just long enough to fool you into thinking it might be over only to resume again shortly thereafter) and his withering elderly father who somehow enjoys shoveling and plowing the 1 inch high snow at 2:30 in the morning seem to think that the alleyway is their 24 hour personal garage. If they're not revving the engine of their "supped up" volkswagen jetta with Indy 500 raceway spoilers and bright red brake pads nestled in 20' inch rims or trying to figure out how to shut off the car alarm horn they've set off for the 15th time that evening, they're pulling up to the dumpster with a pickup truck full to the brim with all manner of scrap metal they've acquired along the bi-ways of alleyway interstates during their busy day of scavenging. Throwing one goddamn glass bottle after another for HOURS at a time. I believe there is no greater thrill to those men than the sound of glass breaking....for hours. One. Bottle. At. A. Time.

Last, but definitely not least, are the wonderful melodies of the countless (actually they're not countless, I can count them very easily...the number is 3) different garbage companies, all with sharply different shades of the refuse rainbow colored trucks and matching dumpsters who seem to take great pleasure in, not only backing up repeatedly so as to set off that awful 'BEEP....BEEEP....BEEP' sound as many times as possible, but to try and smash the dumpster against the trucks (presumably to empty them thoroughly and shake out all the homeless people they can) in an almost rhythmic hip hop like beat that can split a human eardrum within any 2 block radius, that visit our fine "quiet neighborhood". Hearing them slowly approaching down the alley is much akin to Hitler's marching Gestapo.

I firmly believe the sounds of these trucks emptying the garbage should be SETI's new plan for alerting aliens in nearby galaxies of our maddening tactics for waste disposal and was probably our early model for The Emergency Broadcast System.

I am absolutely positive that the garbage men of this city know a very sophisticated quasi-urban morse code that involves their trucks backup-beeping, dumpster-smashing, hydraulic-crushing equipment. It's a message they are sending to everyone who is peacefully asleep, slumbering in their beds trying to squeeze out the last bits of heaven they might have before drudging off again to their horrible commutes, terrible jobs, and unendurable bosses and it goes a little something like this:

"GET THE FUCK UP!! BEEEEEEP!!! GET THE FUCK UP!!! BEEEEEEP!!! I'M BACKING THE FUCK UP!!! BEEEP!!! CRAAAASSSHHH!!! WAKE UP ASSSHOOLE!! I'M TALKING TO YOU!! IF I HAVE TO BE UP THIS GODDAMN EARLY, YOU SURE AS SHIT ARE GOING TO BE TOO!! WRRRRRRRVVVVVVVRRRRRR!!! SMAAAAAAASH!!! CRASH!!! ARE YOU UP FUCKER!!!!??? NO? WELL THEN LET ME DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN 3 MORE TIMES UNTIL YOU GET THE PICTURE OF HOW SHITTY MY LIFE IS AND IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!! BEEEEEP!!! BEEEPP!! NOW I'M GONNA BREAK A BUNCH OF GLASS!!!! YES!!!! SMASH!!!!! I'M GOING TO LINGER HERE A BIT LONGER AND DO THE WHOLE PROCESS TWO MORE TIMES, JUST TO MAKE SURE THERE IS NO WAY ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH THAT ANYONE WITHIN A QUARTER MILE RADIUS IS ASLEEP ANYMORE!! THAT WILL SHOW ALL YOU PRICKS!! I'M BACKING THE FUCK UP!!! BEEEEP!! BACK THE FUCK UP!!"

or something like that.

Now the really dick whipped brained part of this persecuting play that happens once a week, is that it doesnt. It happens every other morning. Every. Other. MORNING.

I'm seriously considering buying a B.B. gun so that I can take out these inconsiderate half breed chaos architects on a nightly and daily basis. Sitting in my castle on high in the city and picking off shit heads one by one, then quietly and silently slowly pulling my rifle back into the softly blowing cream silk curtains of my dimly lit edifice, like Lee Harvey Big Balls.

I am officially getting old.

Labels: alleyways, city life, comedy, garbage trucks, gripes, hangover, insomnia, Noise, noise pollution., racism