Yeah, you with the car stereo that exceeds the EPA’s noise pollution guidelines for major airports. What makes you think that the rest of the world WANTS to listen to Puff Daddy at 250 decibels, moron? What is it with rap music, that it has to be broadcast to the entire galaxy via your car stereo? I never have some NPR/classical music type in a Volvo pull up next to me at a stoplight, with Mozart or “All Things Considered” blasting out of the car, frightening the birds out of the trees. I never sit there next to a '62 Ford pickup with NRA bumper stickers all over the back, and have to listen to Shania Twain belting it out loud enough to set off car alarms a block away. Hard rock, pop rock, jazz, folk, they all seem content to turn the volume up to only 3. But not you–oh, no, you’ve gotta have it all the way up to 11, huh? Gotta “get DOWN”, gotta “feel the music”, gotta share it with every living creature within a 50 mile radius, all of whom are holding their ears and cursing you, Sparky, even the ones like protozoa that don’t have any ears, even the protozoans are sitting there in the weeds next to the stoplight, wishing they had the proper vertebrate appendages to load, aim, and fire a 12-gauge shotgun straight into the heart of your expensive car stereo, and then give each other high-fives afterwards.
Is it maybe a physical thing, like the way they say that when you eat hot peppers, it causes naturally-produced endorphins to flood your bloodstream, giving you a kind of “pain/anti-pain” high?
I want you to look in your rearview mirror for a minute, Sparky. Can you see one of your ears in it? Good. Now, look real close. Is there blood coming out of the earhole? Then the MUSIC’S TOO FUCKING LOUD, GENIUS!! Here’s a hint–if the stereo’s so loud that the car next to you at the stoplight is vibrating, then the music’s too loud. And if not only the car next to you, but the light pole next to it is vibrating, then the music’s too loud. And if not only the light pole, but the tree next to the light pole is vibrating, then the MUSIC’S TOO LOUD.
And if not only the car next to you, and the light pole, and the tree next to the light pole are all vibrating, but also the squirrel up in the tree has blood coming out of HIS ears, then THE MUSIC’S TOO FUCKING LOUD!!
Oh, wait, there’s no point in shouting at you, is there, because you’ve got 90% hearing loss (and at such a young age too! What a shame.) You’re gonna look real good down at the singles bar in about 5 years, Sparky, trying to pick up girls with that Miracle Ear stuck in there. That flesh-colored plastic really turns the babes on, you know what I mean?
And then it’s not bad enough I have to listen to you at the stoplight. Then you have to come pick up your bimbo girlfriend who lives across the street from me, and I get to sit there for about 20 minutes and listen to Puff Daddy at 250 decibels, from your car stereo parked in the driveway across the street, while it vibrates the WHOLE FRONT END OF MY HOUSE, UPSTAIRS WINDOWS INCLUDED!! Window glass buzzing, storm windows rattling in their frames, bric-a-brac dancing off the coffee table. ***BOOMP-DADA BOOMP-DADA BOOMP-DADA BOOMP-DADA BOOMP-DADA BOOMP-DADA BOOMP-DADA BOOMP-DADA. *** Geeeeeez.
And what is she DOING in there anyway, shaving her legs, spraying deodorant on her crotch, what is it that ALWAYS takes her an extra 20 minutes? Did her momma tell her, “You gotta make 'em beg for it”, or what?
I’ll tell you what I sit there thinking, Sparky, while your girlfriend’s in there polishing her bellybutton ring with Comet cleanser or something. I sit there praying, "Lord, please make this the night she gets her period. And let him then suggest alternate activities. Let her respond to the first suggestion with complete disgust (“eww, you’re kidding, that is so gross!”), and let her sit and giggle helplessly for about 5 minutes at the second suggestion (“You want me to do what? I’m sorry, it just sounds so silly”). Let her, once they begin the second suggested activity, stop every 30 seconds or so, first, because she can’t help giggling (“like this, you mean?”) and second, because her arm is getting tired (“how much longer is this gonna take, anyway?”). Let them also be interrupted by a group of small boys on mountain bikes, who will bang on the side of the car and shout obscenities.
When she finally sees how it comes out, let her be so revolted (“eww, it’s all over my hand!”) that she scoots way over in the seat and sits there sulking (“don’t ever ask me to do that again”) and demands to be taken home.
On the way home, let them be stopped by a cop who notices that a taillight cover is broken, courtesy of the gang of small boys. Let the cop be a K-9 officer whose dog goes berserk in the back seat of the cop car, and when allowed to search, turns up a one-centimeter-long fragment of a roach, under the front seat, left over from last summer’s Fourth of July beach party. Let a further search of the car turn up, in the trunk, the box of 100 gross of tiny plastic widgets from the Oriental Trading Company that he was going to sell to people to use as roach clips, except that when you opened them up, they just broke, so he left the box there and forgot all about it. Let him live in a conservative state that’s in the middle of an anti-drug dealer crusade, and let those particular plastic widgets be considered “drug paraphernalia”.
Let his car be confiscated, please God, stereo and all.
Let him receive a 2-year sentence at a minimum security state prison, and let him have as his cell-mate a classical music geek, who’s doing 2-to-5 for hacking his employer’s financial records, who plays the bass clarinet and who thinks that Arnold Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder is the greatest single piece of classical music in the western world today, and who plays it over and over and over again on his CD player, when he isn’t practicing the bass clarinet part to it. After 2 weeks of this, let Mr. Car Stereo request, no, BEG FOR a transfer to a different prison, saying, “Please, even gang rape in the showers would be better than this.”
And let his request be TURNED DOWN." Hah!
This, then, is my prayer.
You Dopers who are classical music lovers may think I am being too harsh, (“no, no, not the Gurrelieder!”) but I do not agree. Someone who plays Puff Daddy on a car stereo at 250 decibels deserves the most severe punishment that Western Civilization can devise. Hanging’s too good for him. Only Schoenberg will suffice.
And now, having vented my spleen, I will excuse myself–thank you for listening. I am going to go scour the Internet for references that prove that sustained loud noise causes impotence in lab rats.