My neighbor, apparently, can’t stop believin’ and loves Journey so much he needs to share it with the world. For two hours, he had to play his entire collection at full throttle decibels. I tried closing all my windows, but I couldn’t keep the sound out. For the first few songs, as each one ended, a little silence broke through as the track was changing. I kept opening my window and yelling, “Headphones, man! Use headphones!” but the pounding barrage of incoming soul poison kept pouring in to my house. When he ran out of his Journey, Bon Jovi came on and that was the straw that broke my camel’s back. This was too much punishment, and I broke down and called the police. I don’t mind confrontation and have had many face-offs or community building exchanges, but this particular neighbor has left me with a sense that he might be unstable – I am unfortunately privy to some of his life adventures, and know some things from his candid conversations with neighbors in the open air… and I know he owns a gun…

Within 7 minutes, the music stopped. I could hear the ocean again.

Later in the afternoon, my neighbor began tending his garden just outside my bedroom window. He started singing, as if it was to himself, but knowing my windows were wide open… “You should not have called the police, La la la” and “You should have come talked to me la la, f#$^%ing pussy, la la la.”

I’m not sure why he thought his message should be delivered in song, but more and more epithets spilled out of him in tuneless melodies… however, not tuneless enough to erase the damage that had been done. Some melodies take years and years to forget, and now I have to start all over with the recovery program.

I wanted to yell back at him that he was lucky he didn’t get hauled away in handcuffs for having bad taste or put away for violating me, a soul rape… he should get 10 years to life for that… there should be a Three Strikes law for playing bad music…