Bring the Noise.

Dear Uncle Randy, 

Me and my flat mates all work as chefs or in hospo. We’re often up at 4 or 5am. But our neighbours like to play loud music, shout at each other and make a racket most weekends until late. We’ve nicely asked them to turn it down and even had to phone noise control once. They turn up the music and say everyone is entitled to party at the weekend. They say this loudly outside my window, rather than to my face. How can we get some sleep?

–

Dear Sleepless,

A delicate issue indeed! One which must be approached with the utmost of mutual respect and consideration for all parties. Namely, the actual party, you fucking fun sponging kill-joy!

Back in my younger days of orgiastic revelry, rowdy Randy and his carousing comrades ran the racket on having a straight up mind-bending, panty-dropping, heart-stopping good time. I was ripping atomic bongs with Albert Einstein, chowing down on lines of powdered plutonium with Ziggy Stardust, and popping pixel pingers with Pac-Man (before he settled down with the wife and kids). Some months were nothing but a brilliant blur of self-induced delirium; whole seasons became a hazy hue of high spirits and spangled souls. Wild women mad men and every hedonistic free spirit in between came together in an exhilarating kaleidoscope of unbridled celebration!

One particular party was so rampant, so totally riotous, so off the chain out of this worldly raucous, we received a noise complaint from another dimension! The two-storey sound system tore a hole right through the plasterboard of the spacetime continuum and woke up our interdimensional neighbours; the bodacious beats of DJ Shiznizz and MC Flimflam proved just too cosmically seismic. Before we could regain control over our own neurological circuitry, the bureaucrats of Profitable Inter-Galactic Security had vaporised each and every particle of the speaker system to an impound unit in a parallel universe. The party of the millennia had come to a premature and disappointing end.

Much like our disgruntled alien neighbours, you should either invest in some earplugs and sedative drugs, or simply chill out, bro. It’s not the noise that keeps you up at night, it’s your own embittered reaction to it. With every decibel that tickles your irritable ears, you compound your anger and frustration, amassing your very own caustic arsenal of vexation. You sit and you stew. You toss and you turn as you allow your agitation to boil over and scold only yourself. Your suffering is your own creation, so let it go! Relax. Better still, join the party! There’s always room for one more when it comes to communal merry making. Life is one big ruckus and it’s better enjoyed at full volume.

Randy.

Printed version available for viewing here.

Picture credit.