NewOrleansCrazyCub (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} neworleanscub) wrote,@ 2003-08-14 14:25:00 |
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Close to Cracking
Yesterday I came closer to that border that prevents me from killing strangers than I ever have before. Seriously. Every day it's a battle not to get into a fist fight in the streets because people are such fucking idiots.
Yesterday I was walking in the French Quarter on a fairly empty side street, around 7PM. As usual I had my headphones on and I was singing along with my discman. Not extra-especially loudly; just in general. There's some old man in ugly polyester pants and a long sleeve shirt (in New Orleans summer) walking several feet in front of me.
I see his head tilt slightly to the side and his mouth move, and I realize he's talking to me. The overall demeanor looks unpleasant but I can't actually tell so I pull off a headphone. "I'm sorry?" I say to him. "What was that?"
"We don't all need to hear your music, you know" he says like the grumpy little moron piece of shit he is.
Look. It would be one thing if I was in an elevator, or on the bus, or somewhere confined wherein I was causing a disturbance or general commotion. Granted you rarely hear this old man's line said to someone actually singing in those circumstances; usually it's just that the volume is up too loud.
But I cannot stress enough how very OUTSIDE I was. In the middle of a wide open area. Traffic going by, music and noise coming from in and out of open bar doors. And this irritable yet irritating old croney is bitching at me because I'm singing?
With a very even temper that I am proud to say didn't involve any actual bodily quaking or ffever rushing to the head, I said "Yeah, you know what? We're in the middle of America and it's a free country and I'm going to sing whatever I want, whenever I want, and if you don't like to hear it, you shouldn't leave the house."
"Fine, if you want to look like an idiot."
Grrr. I came *THIS* close to jumping directly in front of him on the sidewalk and putting my face in his and starting a major violent moment. But I didn't. Just then Poe's cover of "Our Lips Are Sealed" started playing.
"Can you hear them? They talk about us, telling lies. (Well, that's no surprise.)
Can you see them? See right through them. They have no sheild, no secrets to reveal.
It doesn't matter what they say in the jealous games people play."
TRUE.
Yesterday I came closer to that border that prevents me from killing strangers than I ever have before. Seriously. Every day it's a battle not to get into a fist fight in the streets because people are such fucking idiots.
Yesterday I was walking in the French Quarter on a fairly empty side street, around 7PM. As usual I had my headphones on and I was singing along with my discman. Not extra-especially loudly; just in general. There's some old man in ugly polyester pants and a long sleeve shirt (in New Orleans summer) walking several feet in front of me.
I see his head tilt slightly to the side and his mouth move, and I realize he's talking to me. The overall demeanor looks unpleasant but I can't actually tell so I pull off a headphone. "I'm sorry?" I say to him. "What was that?"
"We don't all need to hear your music, you know" he says like the grumpy little moron piece of shit he is.
Look. It would be one thing if I was in an elevator, or on the bus, or somewhere confined wherein I was causing a disturbance or general commotion. Granted you rarely hear this old man's line said to someone actually singing in those circumstances; usually it's just that the volume is up too loud.
But I cannot stress enough how very OUTSIDE I was. In the middle of a wide open area. Traffic going by, music and noise coming from in and out of open bar doors. And this irritable yet irritating old croney is bitching at me because I'm singing?
With a very even temper that I am proud to say didn't involve any actual bodily quaking or ffever rushing to the head, I said "Yeah, you know what? We're in the middle of America and it's a free country and I'm going to sing whatever I want, whenever I want, and if you don't like to hear it, you shouldn't leave the house."
"Fine, if you want to look like an idiot."
Grrr. I came *THIS* close to jumping directly in front of him on the sidewalk and putting my face in his and starting a major violent moment. But I didn't. Just then Poe's cover of "Our Lips Are Sealed" started playing.
"Can you hear them? They talk about us, telling lies. (Well, that's no surprise.)
Can you see them? See right through them. They have no sheild, no secrets to reveal.
It doesn't matter what they say in the jealous games people play."
TRUE.
