What was he singing?
What Larry Mudd said.
Martin is playing the “I’m not touching you” game with his singing, and he knows damn well he’s doing this.
I’m a big, scary guy. Can I sit across from him and clean my Glock, or shapen my foot long bowie knife, or lick my lips and grunt “Mmm…Mmm…Umm” while I stare at him hungrily.
Hey, I’m just being me!
Its probably pretty safe to say that “littlle old ladies” may frighten more easily than others. Taking glee in causing that fear is just wrong. If someone gets fearfull because of what you are wearing or your skin color I would say its their problem. If its because of your actions and you are in public I would say its probably your problem. there is such a thing as good manners. If this was the Pit I would say how much I hate people who do things just to say “Hey look at me!”
Remember you are not aloud to yell “movie” in a crowded firehouse. Or something.
I love you eve, SDMB smartass Queen.
I would say its mainly the old ladies problem. She wasn’t annoyed, she was afraid. People who are afraid of non-threatening situations have themselves to blame. If I thought the CIA was trying to kill me and i tried to sue the CIA nobody would take me seriously because I invented a threat where none existed.
Public decorum is nice, but singing to yourself barely registers on the weird-o-meter.
So you’re saying a punk-rocker with a mohawk and studded leather clothing is not deliberately scaring, but a guy singing a song by the Cure is ? I’m just trying to draw the line here.
I disagree. If you are in an enclosed space, in failry close proximity to another person (ie a train car), and you decide to start singing show tunes at normal singing volumes, it shows you really don’t give a rat’s ass about annoying or intimidating other people. Solitary little old ladies don’t really have the luxury or parsing out whether you are a mental case or horse’s ass. The bottom line is that you are obviously a perosn they should probably get away from.
How do you know? “Vas you dere, Charlie?”
Based on my talk with Martin, I think he was right, the old lady was afraid, not annoyed.
Well, interesting point. I think Martin feels entitled to his own weirdness. precisely because he would not only tolerate, but even welcome a fellow weirdo singing or dancing or talking nonsense on the train.
Astro’s example would, IMO be a better illustration of a “taste of his own medicine” for Martin. I could ask Martin how he would feel about Astro doing the bowie-knife act, but there is really no need, because I can already tell you what he’d say: “But…that’s not the same at all! I was just singing!”
Preach it, Eve!
Besides, heck, she was just being her easily-frightened self! And he’s judging her for it! Should she pretend not to be scared just to please his free-spirited self? To me, the logic of “being yourself” doesn’t hold up to real examination.
Anyway, to a certain degree, I’ve had the experience of being the scary one. I’m not big and scary, but I’m just barely big enough that I don’t have to worry about walking alone at night. And I have multiple facial piercings, and at times I have vividly unnatural-looking hair. It’s self-expression. But if people stare at me in public (little kids tend to do it a lot, and adults do it too on occasion) or start conversations about it, well, I realize I brought it on myself. You can’t change everyone in the world. So, if being yourself has consequences, you have to put up with them or be yourself a little less. And whether it’s scaring someone, or invoking hostility from them, or any other response, you’re not gonna convince everyone to have a thicker skin.
In the end, you have to make decisions. You can look scary in public, or behave oddly, but when people respond by being scared, even if their fears are irrational, you have to recognize that it’s the inevitable result of your action.
And scaring old ladies is mean. If she’s scared of black people, it’s her own problem, because you can’t stop being black when you’re around racist old ladies with delicate sensibilities. And if you wear a mohawk, you can’t exactly turn it into a normal hairstyle whenever a more ‘refined’ personage walks by. But you can control how you act in front of others, and if your actions are scaring them, you do have some responsibility to make a reasonable effort to stop. To do otherwise is just plain being a jerk.
Anyone who walks through certain sections of certain major cities on a regular basis can be regularly confronted with people who sing to themselves, talk to themselves, argue with themselves, etc.
A lot of those people are pretty damn scary, and it takes no leap of imagination to see a little old lady being scared when she’s riding public transportation and the only other passenger starts singing. And if he was truly “about 20 seats away” he probably was singing loudger than “to himself.”
Did it ever occur to Martin to say “I hope I didn’t scare you. I just felt like singing.”
That does give us the opportunity to glare through our lorgnette and go, “well, really!”
Well, the answers so far seem really divided.
**lieu, LMM, Munch, astro ** and **Excalibre ** hold Martin responsible for the old lady’s fear, just like I did.
Antigen, Tikki, zephyrine, and **Kunilou ** say that Martin’s singing is likely to cause people to think “I’m not afraid, but just to be on the safe side, I’'ll move”.
**Larry Mudd, Khadaji, twickster, Eve ** and **Loach ** think the behaviour was very rude, but just annoying, not frightening.
**Jeff Olsen, Parental Advisory, TellMeI’mNotCrazy ** and Wesly Clark feel that in Martin’s case, the old lady was overreacting.
I asked where do you draw the line? The general conclusion seems to be: “I can dress any way I want, and anybody who gets afraid of my looks has themself to blame for their fear. But my behaviour should be impeccable.”
Is that about right?
Well, the answers so far seem really divided.
**lieu, LMM, Munch, astro ** and **Excalibre ** hold Martin responsible for the old lady’s fear, just like I did.
Antigen, Tikki, zephyrine, and **Kunilou ** say that Martin’s singing is likely to cause people to think “I’m not afraid, but just to be on the safe side, I’'ll move”.
**Larry Mudd, Khadaji, twickster, Eve ** and **Loach ** think the behaviour was very rude, but just annoying, not frightening.
**Jeff Olsen, Parental Advisory, TellMeI’mNotCrazy ** and Wesly Clark feel that in Martin’s case, the old lady was overreacting.
I asked where do you draw the line? The general conclusion seems to be: “I can dress any way I want, and anybody who gets afraid of my looks has themself to blame for their fear. But my behaviour should be impeccable.”
Is that about right?
Is it possible the woman didn’t notice Martin until he started singing, thereby announcing himself?
It’s not uncommon for a young, healthy man to be parsed as a potential threat under situations like this.
I’ve done it myself - Late one night, I was out for a walk. I and a woman in her late-twenties or early-thirties both entered a (unlit) road at about the same time. Me about half a minute behind her. When she notices me, she picks up her pace, occasionally glancing back at me. I realise what’s going on, slow down, and turn down a side-street at the earliest opportunity.
I don’t think I’m responsible for scaring her, or that Martin’s really responsible for scaring the lady in question, but it wasn’t unreasonable for them to be scared (they had no real way of knowing I or Martin were completely harmless), and it may just have been Martin’s presence, rather than his actions that prompted it.
Here’s my theory…if the other person on the train was, say, a 20-something, burly football player, he would’ve thought Martin was an oddball and blown him off. But honestly, we women and the elderly can be seen as easy marks by people who are criminal or crazy and I bet the woman on the train knew this as well. To her, this oddball could potentially be a threat to her. To be honest, weird behavior from others is scarrier to me when I’m walking alone at night than when I’m walking with a group in the daytime. The former pricks up my ears and my “situational awarenss,” the latter can be laughed off because of the comparative safety of the situation.
Does Martin honestly NOT realize how a young (compared to her), tall male in any circumstance can be seen as threatening to a little old lady? If he doesn’t, maybe he ought to consider putting himself in other people’s shoes for a moment.
My two cents. YMMV.
Patty
I’d tend to agree. If he was sitting there and singing to himself and not intentionally bothering anyone, then he should not be held responsible if some strange woman got scared and ran off.
If, on the other hand, she had asked him to stop singing and he had told her to “Bugger off” then he would be an ass.
In my opinion the old lady freaked out of her own accord.
Yes, putting himself in other peoples’ shoes. Or at least realizing that each of us has a different pair of shoes. It seems he’s being a little “closed-minded” (ooh, he would hate me right now, wouldn’t he?) in assuming that he knows what scares everyone else, what prompts another person to do something like change seats or look at him all scared-like. An old woman and a 30-something weird guy… There’s something going through her head. Who’s he to know her life story? Maybe the song had a particular significance in her life? (I’m stretching here)
His free-spirited-ness isn’t getting any exercise through an attitude like his.
Hm… that was a weird sentence.
And while I don’t think he should be held responsible for her feelings, I do think that he could afford to be a little more decent and respectful about her reaction. “…uptight, narrow-minded and afraid-to-live” – these are adjectives he used to describe an old lady that he’d never even met or spoken to?? Yeah… an ass.
I am still voting for “old lady wasn’t necessarily terrified,” but old lady took a look at the loudly braying hippie, thought, “asshole,” and decided to remove herself hence. As I would have done, too.
I’m a little late to the party, but I have to support the singer. Where do you draw the line? Is it OK to whistle? What about hum? What if you hum and then throw in some words?
I’d say he was being a jerk if he deliberately did something that a reasonable person could construe as being scary, but just singing to himself does not meet that level. Feeling smug about it afterwards would be jerky, but the later clarification makes it sound that he was not smug about it but perhaps trying to justify his actions in the light of the bad feeling he got from scaring her.
Singing growling monkey death metals songs while staring at the old lady - reasonably expect to be scary.
Singing Echo and the Bunnymen while looking out the window- acceptable public behavior.
Where inner child vs inner adult comes in is after he noticed that his behavior was annoying/scaring someone else. At the point he realized he was being a problem, then stopping would be appropriate. Didn’t sound like he had that choice this time.