Ask Mikey – Silence is Golden, but Duct Tape is Silver!

A lovely and talented reader in the D/FW metroplex asked me this brilliant question: “Hey Mikey, it seems to me that people have gotten louder lately… what’s up with that?”

I have to admit that my first impulse was to answer the question the way I would have a few years ago… something like “If the music’s too loud, you’re too old! It’s time for you to start yelling for the kids to get off your lawn!”

Back when I used to go to the library (before modern technology turned us all into insular agoraphobic pseudo-hermits), it always made me cackle evilly when people spent their energy hissing “shhhhhhhh” at everyone around them. My personal favorite was “Keep it down – I can’t concentrate!” I’d giggle in a maniacal fashion. Like it’s my fault you can’t concentrate? If you would learn to concentrate, then you wouldn’t have to be a whiny old person… ya see, it’s in the very definition of the word… if you were truly concentrating, it wouldn’t matter to you if I was having a conversation over here at my table. Maybe you just need some practice… here, I’ll keep talking, and you try to learn how to concentrate.

But then, at some point, it caught up with me. Somewhere in the 22 years between my junior year in high school, and my 5th wedding anniversary, I started to notice unnecessarily loud sounds.

I’m still able to deal with loud sounds that have a real purpose. Planes are pretty loud, but I have a hard time flying without them. The ones that drive me to insanity – the sounds that take me from mellow mild-mannered Mikey all the way to murderous malevolent Mikey – are the ones that are completely pointless and avoidable.

Here are three examples…

The first sound: car stereos. You’ve all seen it. You pull up to a red light, and everything’s fine. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, comes this fifth horseman of the apocalypse – and he
stops right beside you. He’s young – and usually alone (why do you think that is, Mr. Rocket Scientist?). His acne-enhanced visage is twisted into a permanent sneer that says either “I know that I weigh maybe 90 pounds fully dressed, but my snarly face and the stainless steel chain that connects my right nostril with my left eyebrow say that I’m really tough – in case you hadn’t already noticed it by the agonizing screeches of vocal-chord-shredding uber death metal thundering out of my 10,000 watt monster stereo system“… or “I realize that I’m not old enough yet to vote, but I’m sure that I’m offending your suburban sensibilities with my back window tinted to the point of complete opacity, my cap tilted at a completely arbitrary, and yet rebellious, angle, and the seismic thudding of a misogynistic hardcore hip hop song with lyrics that might offend you if you could hear anything other
than the fault-line threatening bass line.”

One theme here is overcompensation. What are they compensating for? So many things… Their increasingly poor hearing… their quesionable taste in both music and cars (really, does a sound system powerful enough to put a vehicle into space really make up for the fact that you’re in a 1989 Ford Escort?)… youth… intellect… lack of a girlfriend…

The other theme here is authenticity. The message that the sneer is supposed to communicate is “I don’t care what you think! If you don’t like the music or the volume or the car or my nasal accessories, then you can just bite me!”  The problem is, their necks don’t really believe that. When one of these Nobel Prize winners pulls up next to you at a red light, does he simply look forward, waiting for the light to change? No way… he spends an enormous amount of energy craning his neck around until he makes eye contact with everyone at the intersection, his carefully practiced snarl engineered to portray his disdain for you.

The problem is, where would he be without you? If there was no one around to piss off, what kind of fun would he have? He needs you – or his entire schtick is wasted. He absolutely
cares what you think!

I know some of you actually are gullible enough to believe that he genuinely likes the sound of his music at that volume. For those people, I’d like to schedule an appointment with you. I have a prime investment opportunity that I think would interest you… you can’t lose! I like loud music. There is truth to the old adage “music is meant to be felt”… but they didn’t mean in your spleen.

The next sound: overly loud motorcycles and pickups. You’re laying in bed, in that exquisite space between awake and asleep, loving the silence, preparing to take the dive into a
delta wave paradise. And then your peace is shattered by the ridiculous rattling roar of an oversized engine, tuned up intentionally to be as loud as an attack helicopter. Of course they don’t just go by. They stop right outside your window, and rev the engine for 11 or 12 hours. Once they’re satisfied that everyone in the county is awake and angry, they take off, with one last tremor-inducing rev.

What’s especially irritating to me is that they spend extra money just for the pleasure of wreaking this sonic havoc everywhere they go. They buy aftermarket exhaust systems or specially rigged mufflers, just so they can have that mind-numbing sound.

And why? You guessed it… just like the adolescent musical morons, it’s overcompensation. In this case, the thing that is being compensated for is most often treated by products
like Cialis (if your truck isn’t loud enough to fracture foundations for four hours, consult a doctor immediately).

Now I should say that I’m not talking about all motorcycles. Some bikes are just loud naturally… I am talking about the ones that have had extra work done on them specifically for
the purpose of being louder – so they can generate demolition-level volumes in quiet, residential neighborhoods. I make this qualification partly because it’s true – I admire some bikes – and partly because I don’t want to unnecessarily offend any biker gangs. (Those who do it to trucks, I don’t mind offending you… can you imagine anything sillier than a ‘trucker gang’? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!)

Again, I realize there are some folks out there who have bought into the myth that ‘louder pipes save lives’ – thinking that if the bike is loud enough, it will announce your presence to the other drivers around you, and protect against traffic accidents. We could talk about things like the Doppler Effect, the fact that police motorcycles and touring bikes don’t need it, and the fact that your WWI-era spiked helmet and Village People fringed jacket already anounced your presence to the drivers around you… but it would be more fun to just skip right to that investment opportunity!
The third sound is: people on mobile phones. There you are, with your loved one, about to enjoy the lovely spinach artichoke appetizer your waitress just brought, and suddenly your romantic date is shattered by “Yeah? Oh, hey Mark. No, it’s fine, I’m just having dinner. What? I said I’m just having dinner. Yeah. No. Yeah. Well what did they say? What? No, I said I’m just having dinner. Right. So what did they say? Really? They said that? Well I guess I could run that by legal. I said I’d have to run it by legal. No. Yes. No, I’m having dinner now. Oh, it’s ok. What did marketing have to say about it? What? No, I said marketing. Right. OK. Sure, but what about Europe? No, Europe. Right. I see. I could just go… blah blah blah blah blah…” And he’s not just speaking at a normal volume. The mobile phone triggered something in his head that forces his voice to nearly yelling levels.

So far, I have managed to resist the overwhelming urge to take their phone, firmly but gently say into it “I’m sorry, Mark, but he has to go now – he’s being committed to an asylum. He’ll have to call you back”, pour ketchup all over their phone, and then go back and sit back at my table. Some temptations are just more tempting than others!

Like the guys with the trucks, the most annoying part of this is that it’s completely avoidable and unnecessary. First of all, the noise around him from the other diners effects his hearing, not the hearing of the dork on the other end of the phone. Talking louder doesn’t help him hear better. And secondly, it hasn’t been the early 90s for a long time. Technology has improved. Hands-free sets sound good nowadays. I have a bluetooth device that’s so good, my wife can hear me when I mutter (Important safety tip, guys, be sure and find out whether or not your wife can hear you before you start muttering!). Not only is the mic sensitive, the earphone is clear as well. With today’s quality earpieces, you can actually have a conversation without quacking “What? What?” every few seconds.

Now what about the folks who are worried that they’ll look like a bozo if they wear one of those devices? Well, for starters, I’m not saying you have to wear it all the time… you just put it on when you’re going to talk on the phone. And let me tell ya, if it’s a choice between looking a little bit like the runt of a Borg litter in public, or having me pour ketchup all over your phone – which do you think would be the most embarrassing?

Thank you for your question, dear reader. I realize that I only scratched the surface of possibilities. I didn’t even broach any of the other potential meanings of loudness you could’ve meant: like pervasiveness (the ever-increasing social volume of the shrieks from Fox News and fans) or sartorial expressions (the seizure-inducing loudness of some of the outfits worn by today’s Gaga-oriented individuals) or personality descriptions (the boisterous, raucous behavior of your average frat-party attendee). But hopefully I at least covered a little of what you were asking.

Remember, if you have a question, and no one else can help – and if you can afford it, maybe you can get Mikey to answer it!