Carnaval de Douchebags

Friday brought bad tidings: our landlords have sold the building and out we go. It sucks out loud. We have until about the end of September to pull off a miracle: find another place in this neighborhood that we can actually afford.

I haven't swung into the hunt full force yet, but I will shortly. For now I'm just lamenting the loss of a home I've really loved for over four years. And beholding the prospect of moving--with its uncertainty, expense, and fatigue--with immense dread.

One thing that is making me feel better about the whole situation is the conduct of our next door neighbors. As mentioned before, they are partial to having incredibly loud parties into the morning hours. In their backyard. Which, measured generously, is approximately seven feet from my window and from my roommate's.

Where their last get-together was more salsa in theme, this weekend's was largely a return to the reggaeton blast that put them on the map. I wondered if my hatred for that genre--with it rapidfire cheap Casio drumming and misogyny--played a part in how annoyed I was to have it blaring. Sure, I'd be annoyed no matter what was keeping me awake past 4 in the morning, but perhaps I'd be less annoyed if it were music I enjoyed?

Then, for a break, they played "Hypnotize", a song of such danceability that no matter how aware I am of how dumb it is, I still like it. And even with a song I liked, I found myself praying for lightning to hit their PA system.

That's not a typo or overstatement, by the way. They have a PA system. Microphones. Loudspeakers. Etc.

They also had an MC for the evening, who punctuated his set with shout-outs to every Latin American country and commonwealth except, notably, Mexico.

"REPUBLICA DOMINICAAAAAAAAAAANAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

"BORICUA REPRESEEEEEEEEENT!"

"COLOMBIANOOSSSSS!"

And so forth. I wonder: why do my neighbors hate Mexico?

There were also periodic checks to see if Brooklyn was, in fact, in the house. Or rather, in the stamp-sized yard. It was this combination of screaming into the mic and blasting music that caused me to dub them the Carnaval de Douchebags. And so shall they be forevermore.

At about one in the morning, we went over to ask them to turn the music down and to turn off the floodlight on the side of their house that illuminates our living room and my roommate's bedroom like the sun. A woman of 50-odd years answered the door and told us that it wasn't her party, it was her brother's--as though that somehow made it any less her yard. We persisted, politely, and made our request, and they did turn the light off.

But they turned the music up.

DOUCHEBAGS.

Our upstairs neighbors, as frustrated by this horse shit as we are, are developing a theory based on circumstancial evidence (an "Officer ___ Way" sign in their yard, a shout-out to somebody's boys in the ____ squad) that somebody over there is a cop or connected to one. Again, I don't know for certain. But it would sure as shit explain why calling the fuzz, by 311 or direct to the precinct, doesn't get us so much as a minute's silence.

So, new owners/tenants of our building, who will doubtless rip it up, refurbish it to a full brownstonian glory, and turn it into condos: I hope you like Daddy Yankee, assholes.

Posted by Adair at July 24, 2006 7:43 AM

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