The Mystery of the Lingering Guitar Hero

As the previous post was, so shall this one be, too. As in, I first posted this on my Facebook page on May 1st, 2008, and it got such a strong reaction that any hope that I'd had of fending off the suggestions of posting my writing for the entire world to see was pretty much crushed. Which, to be honest, wasn't very high to begin with, since I was already lobbing the idea around in my cranium. Anyway, I had finally found a new place that was bigger, quieter and far less sketchy than my previous abode, and during the move I managed to solve the mystery of why my horrible neighbours had managed to stay in that apartment for so long. Beware...what has been read, cannot be unread. You have been warned.

Okay, I know there are a lot of people out there who are terribly curious about the recent development of my dealings with the Guitar Hero. First, I want to give you all a little background story...

(Please note: I'm assuming that you're reading this after you've read my rant about the Guitar Hero. If you haven't read it, I highly suggest you do so now so that you're not any more confused than you soon will be...)

A few months ago, I came home from work to find a home-made poster on the downstairs wall. At first, I thought it was a joke, but then there was another one on the upstairs wall...right by my door. It read in it's entirety, and I quote:

"LOST - Budge (sic, I think they meant budgie), yellow with green head - missing since Friday nite (again, sic) - answers to Darling or Monkeyman - if found, please notify Apt. 3"

It's okay, you can read it again, I'll wait.

All done? Dumbfounded? Good. Now you know how I felt. "Answers to Darling or Monkeyman". Remember what I called those people in my other note? It still applies.

So anyway, I'm thinking this is a joke, but quickly realize that, not only is it real, but that the Guitar Hero and his girlfriend, Sandy, are actually subjecting some poor, defenseless budgie to his Zeppelin-ish wailings. And now this poor, defenseless (and, no doubt, DEAF) budgie was somewhere out in the cold Victoria spring weather. A little piece of me died that day...

The same night I saw the posters, I was catching up on my email when I heard the dulcet tones of the Looneybird downstairs...
"Daaaarrrrrling...Daaaaarrrrrrling...Daaaaarrrrrling..."
This went on for about half an hour. Just to shut him up, I was tempted to go to my window and whistle a few notes, but he finally gave up and went back to smoking his pot or tuning his guitar or smacking Abba Lover or whatever it is Guitar Heroes like to do in the evenings.

I brought my camera out a couple of days later to take a picture of the note, rightly assuming that no one would truly believe me unless I did, but the notes were all taken down. I figured that that meant that:
a) They'd been forced to take them down by management.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAh

aaaa! "sniff" hoohoo, haha "sniff" Okay, no, seriously...

a) They'd found Darling or Monkeyman or whatever the hell his name was, or
b) They'd given up on ever finding him...after an extensive 3-day search, no doubt centred around the liquor store up on the corner. I wouldn't put it past them...

However, I discovered on Wednesday night that it was option a), which leads me, in turn, to segue into my present topic...

For those not up on these things, I have just moved. It was hellish, as all moves are, but that's a subject for another note, so we'll move on. For the purposes of this note, I shall stress that I have way more shit than I thought I had, and therefore, took an extra day and a half to move everything to my new place. Thank god in all his grace that my new place is way bigger and has five times more storage or I wouldn't be able to find my way to the front door, lost in a sea of boxes, mired in my own bric-a-bracs, never to be seen or heard from again. Tragic, innit? Anyhoo...

Because this move took so long, I didn't get to start cleaning my old place until late Wednesday night. I'd left my computer there so that I could check my email (and Facebook! You know I love you people!) and play my tunes while I cleaned. Picture this...it's about 11pm, I'm in my dungaroos, bopping to awesome vibes, cleaning and sanding and painting my little heart out. Quite unexpectedly, there's a knock on the door. When I answer it, guess who it is? Go on, guess...come on and guess, you lazy bastard! If you answered "Guitar Hero?", give yourself a cookie. If you didn't, go to your room and hang your head in shame while I go and console your poor mother.

Guitar Hero (or GH, as I shall rechristen him for the nonce) is weaving all around, reeking of rye, and has a budgie on his shoulder that I'm assuming is Darling (or Monkeyman, as he's known in the village). All in all, he looks like a much more realistic portrayal of a pirate than Johnny Depp's version (don't get me wrong, I love JD to bits, but let's face it - pirates were undoubtedly much more grubby and far less charming than the movies would have you believe...but I digress). All GH needs to complete the pirate image is an eyepatch, and if he's come up to bother me about my noise level at this hour of night, he's gonna need one very shortly. But no, he's not up here to complain...in fact, he's as surprised to see me as I am to see him.

"Sorry," GH slurs, "I thought it was Dave up here, doing stuff." Dave is the building manager, the one I wrote all of those letters to, the one who said that he'd kick Robert, a.k.a. Guitar Hero, out when he found out that GH was smoking pot in the apartment. And, despite the fact that GH *still* smokes pot in his apartment and has somehow managed to maneuver his amp back to his rye-soaked bosom (TWICE!), Dave has still not kicked GH out. Why, you may well ask? Good question. Read on, gentle listener, the truth is out there...

"No, it's just me," I say, trying very hard not to breathe in through my nose, "I'm just cleaning up the place so I can get out."

"Oh, okay," says GH, "well, I thought it was Dave, so I thought I'd come up and see him. He's borrowing our bird for a magic show, did you know?"

I assure him I did not know. Funny how chummy he makes it all sound... Dave was the fellow who told me in no uncertain terms that he wasn't there to be my friend when I asked for his full name on the day I signed the lease. No, really. I just wanted to know the building manager's name, in case there was a problem (little did I know...), and was promptly informed that he wasn't there to be my friend. Broke my heart, it did...I'd had visions of having him over for tea, going to the movies together, attending the symphony...all shattered. It was devastating. Luckily, I'm strong and I got over it. Oh, but I'm being rude, GH is still talking...

"Oh, well, he's borrowing our bird for a magic show, he's gonna perform a magic show next week at the rec centre, and...and he's gonna pull her outta a hat."

So Darling, a.k.a. Monkeyman, is a she. Somehow I wasn't expecting that. But if that kind of took me aback, was I ever in for a shock...

GH leans in and asks, "You know about Dave, right?"

I'm tired and cranky and just want to finish my cleaning. "In what way?"

"Well, you know about him, right?" I shake my head, wishing I could just slam the door in his face...but I might hurt the bird, and after all it's been through, it probably doesn't need to lose any more feathers.

"Well," GH whispers conspiratorially, "he buys women's dresses...offa Sandy...y'know, to wear 'em...he likes to wear 'em..."

Umm...

What do you say to that? Seriously. If there's anything written in any etiquette books or Dear Abby that tells you how to respond to something like that, I've never read it. What could I say, honestly? Nothing...so I just shrug.

GH starts waving his hands all over the place, like he just farted and is trying to disperse the smell. "Oh, but whatever, man, you know, I don't care, don't matter to me, whatever...but anyway, if you need any paint or nails or anything, you just lemme know, I got lots a' nails and stuff downstairs, okay?"

I thank him and say good night and close the door and dissolve into a fit of hysterical giggles. The hell??? Christ, I wish I was making this up, but I'm just not that good! And suddenly, all of the pieces of this deranged puzzle that's been building over the past year click into their respective places...

Why the Guitar Hero keeps getting his amp back...

Why he still smokes pot in his apartment and never gets evicted...

Why I can call the cops twice a month and nothing is ever truly done about it...

Guitar Hero has "information" on the building manager.

Y'know, I used to joke about maybe GH having snapshots of Dave with a goat or maybe he was Dave's weed supplier, but I can honestly say, as demented as I am, that I never, ever once thought of the possibility of Dave buying dresses off of GH's girlfriend. I don't know why, I'm sure it's a common practice in apartment buildings, especially in that neighbourhood...guess I just have no imagination.

So there you are...your friendly neighbourhood Scooby gang has managed to ferret out the Mystery of the Lingering Guitar Hero, and it wasn't Old Man Withers this time...go figure.

The Note Heard Round the World

The following is a note that I posted on my Facebook page on December 13, 2007. It started the wave of peer pressure that has been pushing me to write a blog for the last year, so I figured it was only fitting I post it here for all the world to see. After my marriage broke down, I found myself a little apartment that I figured would just be a temporary space while I decided what to do. Unfortunately, the people living in the same building were intolerable to live with and I moved out the second my lease expired. However, the aftereffects of that Address from Hell linger on...oh, the humanity...

Anyone who's spoken to me in the last few months knows how very much I detest my downstairs neighbours. These people are white trash. I say this with no snobbery, just a statement of fact, to whit:

1) They have a trailer home parked in their parking space that's being used to house a huge amount of old furniture that they've, apparently, been hauling around just, y'know, 'cuz...

2) They have no concept of the phrase "indoor voice" -- in their world, it's not worth saying unless everyone on their floor, and the poor saps living above them (a.k.a. me), can hear what's being said. What they have to say is just that damn important.

3) Not only is it important, but it contains some of the foulest language I've heard outside of an Al Pacino movie or a group of drunk navy guys. These people have used forms of the c-word, the f-word, and the n-word (yes, *that* word) that have never before been used by man. It's almost awe-inspiring, until it finally gets so annoying you wanna chuck some skunk juice through their window.

4) They don't drink anything if it doesn't contain some form of alcohol. No, I'm not peeping -- their garbage is full of empty bottles of Vodka, rum, and rye...and no mix. How do I know it's their garbage? They like to let it collect over a few days in a box outside their door before going to the trouble of disposing it. Why make twenty trips when you can just make one big one, right? And I know it's all theirs because, despite the amount of noise coming from their place, they don't have parties. They don't have to, because...

5) They have an Eric Clapton-wannabe living with them. His name is Robert. I met him at a Building Safety meeting the other night. He's 44, smokes pot for his bad back (he actually announced this in the middle of the meeting, with half of his neighbours, two cops and the building manager. Right. There. I've forgotten now, what was the term I used to describe them? It was right on the tip of my tongue...), and his proudest achievement seems to be that he got Jerry Garcia to sign his guitar a long time ago. He also weaved a lot and reeked of rye. See number 4 above.

So...I've been living with the Guitar Hero (as I dubbed him) in the apartment below me for the last few months. How many months, I can't be sure of exactly...I'm afraid the last few months are kind of a blurry haze, seeing as how I haven't been able to get more than 5 hours sleep at a time. You see, the Guitar Hero likes to play his guitar loud. Like really loud. Like cranked-up-to-eleven loud. So loud that my windows vibrate, and I can hear the crystal wine glasses in my china cabinet make that high-pitched singing sound that I thought was only in movies. You know the whining sound that they foley in for crystal to make, just before it shatters everywhere in a dramatic display of power? Yeah, that sound. It's a pretty wicked sound in a movie. It's fucking terrifying when you're standing two feet away from it, feeding your pet rabbits while, at the same time, evaluating just how shrapnel-resistant your sofa may possibly be in case you have to leap behind should they finally decide to blow.

And not only does pot-smoking, rye-drinking, Deadhead Robert like to play his guitar, the other guy that lives with him and his girlfriend likes Abba. Now, this in and of itself is not a crime. I, myself, enjoy much of Abba's music, and have been known to cut a rug to one or two of their songs at one time or another. However, Abba Lover loves his Abba so much, he likes to share. Isn't that sweet? So they have wars. The Guitar Hero will crank up his amp and start playing "Satisfaction", and, in retaliation, Abba Lover will crank up "Take a Chance on Me". These are not styles of music that go together, in any way, shape or form. This would be, by itself, a bad situation. What makes this bad situation intolerable is that these fine, upstanding models of society like to do this Dueling-Banjos style of battle at 3 o'clock in the morning. Roughly. Very roughly.

I gently informed the building manager of this, just in case he hadn't been able to hear the dulcet tones of the Looneybirds in the next building over. He was well aware of the problem, but needed enough written complaints to actually do something. So I wrote. And I wrote. I wrote a goddamn novel, people! And I'm pleased, ever so pleased, to finally announce...there is peace in the valley once more. At the same meeting wherein I met Robert the Deadhead, I was also informed that he had had his guitar amp confiscated. Also, because he was so outstandingly brilliant about announcing his medical use of cannabis in front of the building manager after signing an addendum on his rental notice stating that he would never, ever, not in a million years, even *think* of doing such a thing as smoking pot in the apartment, oh heavens no, it would never happen -- he's been threatened with eviction.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahhuc

hhackhac... "cough, cough" Sorry about that, I just had this strange coughing fit come over me, give me a moment, will you?

Thanks. I'm good now. Not sure where that came from...

So, there is finally, after many months of suffering and long sleepless hours, no more guitar-induced migraines. Abba Lover still likes to crank up his music, but it doesn't last long before someone else turns it down. The only problem that I can see from this entire situation is that now the Guitar Hero and the Abba Lover don't seem to have a musical outlet for their aggression anymore, so they've taken to shouting at each other (and the girlfriend, if she tries to intervene), and beating each other's brains in on a semi-nightly basis. I can hear a great deal of thudding and banging downstairs, but they seem to beat each other into comas by around 9pm-ish or so, and all is silent. I can still get a good night's sleep in by then, so it's all good.

The Guitar Hero is no more. Long live the Abba Lover...at least until the Guitar Hero kills him.