Saturday, September 01, 2012

Warning: Right thinking people will find this offensive. I sure did.

At 4:45 this morning, on Saturday of the Labour Day long weekend, Jenn and I were awoken by the sound of a group of the towering intellectual giants of our day piling out on their front porch to smoke cigarettes and other things, smash beer bottles on the driveway, and debate an important topic.  While Jenn called in the noise complaint to the police, I followed their conversation with some interest.  It was the kind of conversation that one ought not to have at high volume in a street populated by many young children.

The children's questions to their parents this morning will no doubt go something like this: "How can a cat be tight, and why would it be good for a cat to be wet?  When we gave kitty a bath, he got real mad!"

Yes, these thoughtful individuals were debating, at length and in some specific detail, the proposition "What is the greatest quality of a .... cat ... to be tight, or to be wet?", in upraised voices in the driveway at 4:45 in the morning.  The true tragedy of their situation is that they omitted to observe another great quality of their topic of conversation: relative silence.

But, unfortunately for the West Spruce Grove Debating Society, the level of discourse took a less intellectual but possibly more artistic turn after a few minutes, descending into seventeen repetitions of the following brief dialogue:

"Brother" # 1:  "CJ ...... What the F***?  We're your brothers!  What the F***?"

CJ:  "Galmdfwffkfmg....  F*** ....  hawlmnananaagggggghhhhhh"

"Brother" # 1:  "CJ ... What the F***?"

Chorus of the "Brothers":  "F***in'.... What the F***?"

The steady repetition of this theme reminded me of a modern theatre piece I walked out of while I was in University, where nonsensical phrases were oft repeated and layered until forming some apparent underlying meaning, much as the layers of a minimalist art music composition might be added, removed, embellished and varied to result in a complex motif derived from simple phrases. 

The similarities in this case extended to the fact that both examples annoyed me a great deal, neither example worked as drama, and it was only in subsequent deconstruction that I could even enjoy them as comedy.

As a brief summary, I can describe the evening as sounding like the teaser trailer for FUBAR3 was being filmed in my street. 

Well, in about two hours I figure it will look like the opening scenes of "The Hangover 3" being filmed in that house.  That's too bad.... 'Cause starting at 8:01 AM, I gots me a lot of hammering to catch up on.

The moral of the story for those buying a home:  Buy in the best neighborhood you can afford.  It may not be perfect, but it will have to be pretty bad to be worse than this.