Oh, I know you think that’s probably about someone else. Nuh-uh. No way. Sometimes I can just level you with my honesty.

So my neighbors, who I affectionately refer to as the boys like to make noise for most parts of the day, dispersed into patches of screeching guitar-like sounds, and tantrums on drums with no rhythm…for hours at a time. I know they have instruments down there, but what they make is far from music, it’s just a loud groan to the universe for some talent, something to make it all somewhat tolerable. It is truly a miserable experience if you don’t have the capabilities to drown them all completely like I tend to exercise. I have worked in call centers for more years than any other position in my life besides bartending, and one of the talents you can develop further if you have any talent for silence is the talent for ignoring the sounds and specifics of the world around you. You can focus on one thing, or you can focus on many things, or you can do what I do, which is focus on me and my thoughts as I try to forget any other person or sound is near. This is how I can experience total solitude in the midst of chaos–it’s also the only way my kind could ever survive NY. I can definitely do that most of the time in the spaces I roam, but when I recognize that they are playing and then I recognize that I didn’t want to recognize that, well…then I start fixating on their complete lack of skill, their noise-making-as-not-an-art. Even acknowledging I do that seems somewhat dangerous because now you wonder if my mind will then let me out of the noise calvacade they like to unleash on me during my pristine quiet moments during the day.

So the oldest of the boys came over the other day, I think he was what, yeah, 24 years old. “24!” years old, man, cracking me up with his age defiance. But, he came over and I asked him if they “ever planned on being good?” I basically sat there suggesting that one or more of them needed to develop some talent, because it was becoming pretty bad for me to experience as well.

His answer was to suggest that the only one who I knew even had any talent, the only one to have played an instrument prior to their auditory rape sessions, was just difficult to work with–he did say that. It started cracking me up a little while ago when I heard them daintily experiment with actually trying to play, you know, a song with some melody and harmony in it, not the same aural nightmare they always seem to manifest down there. We share a wall, and though that’s about as much contact as my house needs with their house, sometimes it is a bit much to be asked to suffer through not-even-a-band’s experiments with auditory assault. I feel bad that I probably just destroyed their dreams of not-even-a-band playing anywhere where they played actual music, but sometimes you have to recognize what you are good at, and I am pretty terrible with music myself.

On that note, I did, however, just procure a microphone for some experiments I plan on attempting very soon…I won’t talk about this shit until after I do it, so let’s just say step 1, the actual getting of said microphone and microphone/usb cable? I did that. For all you know I am designing a fart symphony, so don’t get all ca-razy like I am going to do another “I hate you motherfucker” song filled with hate and anger…actually, most of you don’t even know about that. One day you might hear it, once I die and they release my portfolio of infinite talent…riiiiight. But on more serious notes, yes…I got a fucking microphone. I will refrain from pointing out the irony of this whole process right now, but let’s just say not having a voice at all for two years in NYC makes this whole next endeavor somewhat flashy…