Picking up on Armed Liberal's approach to an apparently menacing homeless man, I thought I'd share an incident that happened on my way home tonight.
Long muggy week. Found out today I have another task on my plate, which was already heaped full, so the whole way home I was going over my to-do list & trying to decide which things I could squeeze in and what I'd have to give up. Cancel that - they all need doing, it's just a question of when & how to fit them all in. Stopped at Home Depot on the way & picked up a 2×6 for one of those tasks & stuffed it into the Jeep with a couple feet hanging out the back window.
Got to a stoplight that has a really long cycle ... up pulls a car next to me. The car and the guy driving it didn't bother me, but the gansta rap he was blaring did. For over 3 minutes it was a constant litany of sh*t, F*ck, Ho, MuhF' ... and on and on. Couldn't put up all the windows to keep at least a little of the sound out because of the 2×6.
So I turned, caught the guy's eye and politely mimed that the music was loud. Mouthed, "Could you turn it down a little?" Guy smirks, turns away with a bored look and cranks it UP even louder.
Light turns but I end up just missing the green & amber. Too clearly red to drive through. Gansta guy is right there beside me, blasting a stream of angry foul rap at the world.
Something snapped.
I decided to take back my sonic space. Opened my side windows again, turned my volume up and blasted the sumb'tch with .....
Mozart. Mozart turned WAY up, a symphonic movement with trumpets, violins and kettledrums. Bah DA da da da DUM da DUM DUM DA DUM ....
Lady next to me applauds. Gansta guy puts up his windows, can still hear that horrible classical music pounding at his rhythmic soul: da da da DUM, da da DUM, da da DUM. A minuet played at full blast by a crazed middle-aged broad with silver hair and a wild gleam in her eye, revving an 8 cylinder Grand Cherokee and madder than hell.
A few seconds later his stereo got nice and quiet. After a few seconds, so did mine but I drove beside him for 1/2 a mile, volume knob at the ready, just in case...
There you have it, my field expedient response to roadside sonic attack: an Improvised Mozart Device.
PS: Not saying it should be standard tactical doctrine, but it worked this time.
Several years ago, Rayford (sp?) on the Johnboy and Billy Show did an editorial in which he called on people to bomb them (people like the one you describe) with Bach, blast them with Beethoven, etc. I have found that good bagpipe music or something more modern (7 Nations) works wonders.
The Highland war pipes will indeed do it, but they produce a lot of collateral casualties among those who have not yet acquired a taste for them. And the other people in that jam of slow traffic were as tired as I was on a muggy Friday commute home.
I like a wide range of music but the Mozart was all I had with me. I don't usually commute in that Jeep ... it's great in snow and ice (quad track transmission) but the gas mileage isn't. So I had to improvise from the limited materials at hand LOL.
Actually, it's SOP for stores that have become gang kid hangouts to start blasting classical...apparently it works really well.
You could have used country & western, but there's a Geneva Convention provision on that...
A.L.
I strongly recommend having this available in the glove compartment for occasions such as the one you describe. Everybody joins in a spirited Amazing Grace that will inspire some one to call 911 to report an accident.
You know have been at war for a while when civilians use military lingo to describe certain situations.
As was said on 9/11 - we are all warriors now.
It works around the house too. Every time it's tried. I use a old tape my parents had of Kate Smith singing "God Bless America" that I've looped with a Boston Pops version of "Stars and Stripes Forever." When the neighbors crank up their gansta' rap or mariachi band loud enough to shake the house, I stick a boom box in the window facing outward. Turn on, volume extra-loud. Close window. Close door to room. Wait.
It usually doesn't take more than five minutes before the offending music vanishes.
Repeat as necessary.
Robin: You kewl! :) My personal fave riposte is Garry Owen played at 120db (where sound turns into sensation)!
However the only music that will keep the skunks out of the barn at night is rap or metal. What a sad world it is when skunks have better taste than humans.
While I have used Baroque for the same reasons as mentioned above, I have to admit that nothing keeps me awake on the road after 24 straight hours then Pete Tosh's "I'm Dangerous"
Right on, Miss Ruth!
I have to admit, I'm not entirely comfortable with attacking back this way. I really did snap and was pretty pissed.
Still, it was better than passively enduring that obscene assault.
Richard, I would gladly have used the Bach D-minor organ Toccata and Fugue if I'd had it ... it's an awesome piece. Heard it played in the National Cathedral once, the sort of setting it was written for.
My husband suggested Wagner's Ride of the Valkyrie too.
And if I'm in the mood I can enjoy the "high and lonesome" sound of authentic bluegrass ... I have some recordings done back in the remote Appalachians 75 or so years ago that would probably sound really really scary to the gansta guy yesterday.
The trick, of course, is to get him to stop without assaulting everyone else around me with something they found just as annoying.
That is absolutely the most amazingly terrific news I have heard in a long, long time. And while of course....oh, the heck with quibbling. That is OUTSTANDING, and you are to be congratulated, hugged, and sincerely thanked.
Hey, jinnderella, sorry your skunks have no appreciation for good music.
It's possible to have Black Sabbath and Beethoven in the same musical collection, and enjoy them both equally. There's quality music in every genre, and each speaks to a different piece of the human heart.
The thing is, most stuff - in any genre - isn't quality. So it's easy to put down any genre if you want to. I'm sure there's even good disco music... or at least, that good disco music is theoretically possible. Somewhere. Maybe.
Anywa, all this is incidental to the HEMF (High Energy Mozart Frequencies) device retaliation incident, which illutrates a very non-musical truth: Some people are at a stage of development where only the turning of the tables will convince them to respect Hillel's Rule - and in this case, the "punishment" fit the crime.
When you think about this incident, though, it offers us lessons and advice at a societal level too. Anyone care to venture some thoughts?
My son was studying for finals two years ago at UC Santa Cruz's on-campus trailer park called "The Village" when an unannounced party opened up with generator-powered "party speakers".
Leo opened the windows of his trailer and played O Fortuna! from Orff's Carmina Burana (14th century German college student drinking song song in Latin and later turned into an opera).
Leo played it on his computer's Logitech Z-560 speaker system.
An epic duel ensued. Leo's trailer walls were shaking as he aimed the satellite speakers out the windown and cranked the volume up for the first time. The party's DJ cranked up the volume on his generator-driven speakers. Leo cranked up his Z-560's some more. The DJ cranked up his speakers. Etc.
Eventually the generator-driven speakers started to outpower Leo's $200 computer speakers. But the DJ wasn't satisfied. He wanted to utterly drown out the Latin chanting.
And blew out his amp.
O Fortuna! thundered alone into the afternoon.
WMD... Wagner and Mozart Destruction.