And yet we've managed to come this far.... How?!?
It has long been an article of faith with me that no matter where you go in the United States, you can find trailer trash there. Before I moved to New England, I perhaps thought that it was a mix of dour upright fishermen who say "ayuh," big time lawyers, and witty, urbane literate types who sit in Edwardian chairs discussing Updike over snifters.
Boy was I wrong. My downstairs neighbors in the first apartment I lived in when I moved to Massachusetts (for the second time) nearly burned the house down the week before we moved in; one of them "fell asleep" on the couch with a lit bowl of reefer. Our next door neighbors never conversed wittily about Updike, or even King. Their nightly 3 AM conversation went something like this:
Him: F*****CK YEEEW!
Her: AAAAH F*CK YISELF!
Him: I HATE YEEEEEEEEEEEW YOU MOTHER****AH!
Her: I'll F*KING KILL YOU YOU **** ******* *** ********* *** ****BAG!!
Spawn: EEEYAAAAAAH! EYYYAAAAH!!!! *STOMP* *STOMP* *STOMP* *STOMP*
Him: F*ck this, I'm leaving.
Spawn: EEEYAAAAAAH! EYYYAAAAH!!!! *STOMP* *STOMP* *STOMP* *STOMP*
Her: Fine! You can't get by without me, you lazy **** ******* *** ********* *** ****STAIN!!!
Him: Oh yeah? F********CK YEEEW!
Her: F********CK Y*******U! I HATE YOU! I F***ING HATE YOU YOU **** ******* *** ********* *** ****!
Spawn: EEEYAAAAAAH! EYYYAAAAH!!!! *STOMP* *STOMP* *STOMP* *STOMP*
The summers were even better, because they'd do this in the parking lot so everyone could hear, and since school was out they had no problem keeping the kid up past her customary 4AM bedtime.
The most dismaying part is that I left Ohio precisely because I wanted to get the hell away from people like this. Still more dismaying is that proof accrues daily that people are the same everywhere. Whether it's small potatoes like kids making lightsabers from flourescent bulbs and burning gasoline or world-historical statements of human fallibility like the various genocides that still continue, there's no getting away from the idiots.
More surprising yet is how people everywhere really are the same deep down. Some might see this as proof that some day all humankind will clasp hands and sing together in perfect harmony in a spirit of love. We at the Ministry tend to see this as proof that we're all screwed. Example: read the following and see if you can tell where the incident described took place. Answer below the fold.
A fatally injured man pulled a crossbow arrow out of his torso and taunted the man who shot him, saying: "Is that all you've f... got?"Soon afterwards, Anton Nauer collapsed and within hours he was dead from being shot by Dean Pender in a late-night confrontation at Pender's ----------------- home.
Hayden Keith McDougall, 19, unemployed, and Jared James Little, 20, a -------, of ----------, deny the charge.
. . . . . . .
During the previous evening there had been a series of incidents, including a window being smashed at the home of Pender's former girlfriend, leading to the trio allegedly arming themselves with num-chukkas and a knife.
"The allegation is that Nauer proceeded onto the property, bearing a set of num-chukkas, and there was an altercation with Pender, who obtained a crossbow and fired a fatal shot at Nauer," Beaton said.
"Nauer died in hospital some hours later and the allegation is that McDougall and Little went with Nauer and were armed when they went on to the property."
Pender's sister, Sarah Pender, told the court she arrived home shortly before the fatal shot. They were outside moving cars so they could close the gates on the property when "a ------- guy", who she now knows was Nauer, arrived with McDougall and Little.
"They said, `Do you know where Dean Pender is? Get him here'. They said he'd smashed Natasha's window," she said.
"By then (Dean Pender's friend) Shaun Lawrence had come down the driveway and was carrying a pole of some kind. He said, `What's wrong, what have you got against my boys?'
"Shaun's younger brother hopped out of the car and started walking over. The ------- guy said 'Get on your knees or I'll slit your throat.' Shaun started getting angry because of what the guy said to his younger brother.
"The guy pulled out num-chukkas and started swinging them around and started getting really aggressive. By this time Dean was down the driveway and they all saw him and started yelling, 'You're going to f... pay.'
"They started running towards Dean and the guy was swinging the num-chukkas. I got pushed to the ground by the ------- guy with (McDougall) right behind me.
"They were yelling 'You're going to f... pay, Pender. We're going to get you.' (Nauer) said `We're going to f... kill you.' McDougall had a knife in his hand. It was like a hunting knife.
"I was freaking out. It all happened so fast – they were running towards Dean and I got pushed to the ground. I was getting off the ground when it happened. Dean said 'Get back or I'll f... shoot. Get back. Get back.' That's the only time I heard him yelling.
"Then the ------- guy was pulling out the crossbow (arrow from his torso). As he was pulling it out, he said 'Is that all you've f... got?' He handed it to Shaun then he and the two [other] guys (McDougall and Little) started taking off up the driveway."
Crossbows? Frigging numchucks? Public knife fights at a girlfriend's house? Where, indeed?
Florida? Nope.
New Jersey? Nope.
Detroit? Gettin' colder.
The incident in question happened in the nicest country on earth, New Zealand.
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I can personally vouch for
I can personally vouch for the nature and volume of Johno's neighbor's "conversations." We might eliminate poverty, but the rednecks will always be with us.
"I can personally vouch for
and that fact will forever fill me with shame.
Once again proving the old
Once again proving the old Maori adage, "never bring num-chukkas to a crossbow fight...."
Lady Lethal and I had some
Lady Lethal and I had some pretty entertaining neighbors when we lived in a condo.
There was the googly-eyed crazy dude who looked like Jerry Garcia. And rarely wore a shirt. He shouted through his closed, ground level windows at me as I walked by one afternoon, the same windows he was pounding on as he shouted, that I was a dead man. A DEEEAAADDD MAAAAAAANNNNNNNN!!!!!!! I shrugged it off as him missing a dose, an opinion that was later confirmed.
There were the South Asians who lived there, a whole clan of them, who insisted on arguing loudly in their language and throwing water, small trash, and for all I know, night soil from their 3d floor porch.
The best ones though were the mom and two 40-ish sons who lived next door. Shopping day for her meant a case of Miller High Life and a couple cartons of GPCs. One son I never saw; the other was a laborer with early hours and looked it. THAT brother would fight with his girlfriend like...like...almost like it was for the whole building's amusement, in the hallway, out front, out back, wherever the fight took them:
Him: Barbara. I have to get up early. Go home.
Barbara: BUT I LOVE YOU! I WISH I COULD DIE RIGHT NOW SO I COULD GET TO HEAVEN AND KNOW THAT SOMEONE LOVED ME THAT MUCH...
Him: I'm drunk and need to go to sleep. I have to be up at 6. Please, Barbara, go home.
Barbara:I WISH YOU WOULD KILL ME NOW SO I WOULD NOW YOU LOVED ME SO MUCH!
Him: Uhhhnnng...go home...
The best part was when they were out front, because her antics were a hoot to watch- lots of biting herself, flailing, pulling her own hair, and the like.
I don't miss much from living there, but it was kinda tough to leave that.
I swear to dog, I got no
I swear to dog, I got no further than the third graf when I guessed "Australia," which to me is close enough to qualify for the booby prize. Anyone who's seen Chopper knows of the particular madness that envelops that whole quadrant of the globe.
When Leigh-Anne and I rented a place in Ohio City, we had an insane white trash upstairs neighbor who . . . oh, man, endless stories I could tell. Just endless. The best one is when, as we were living for a while as sophisticated urbanites without a car, he decided to help himself to the space in my garage to store his roofing business supplies, without my knowledge. When we finally bought a car, and I brought it home to find my garage full of someone else's shit, I parked it outside, only to be awakened by a drunken Mr. Trash at 3:00am threatening to kill me because the bumper of my new car -- which I couldn't park in my garage, mind you -- was overlapping his garage door by about three centimeters, so he couldn't pull his truck in. When I pointed out that, had he not annexed my garage, I could've parked in it, he yanked my screen door from its hinges and demanded I move my car. Leigh-Anne called our landlord and prepared to call 911 while I decided to go outside to continue the conversation with Mr. Trash and a friend of mine Mr. 8" Henkels chef's knife, which I tucked inside my jacket. I was fully prepared to stab the motherfucker right in the chest, too. Of course, being drunk and easily manipulated, he devolved into, "I'm sorry, man, I'm sorry, I'll pay you for the garage space, man, how much do you want, I'm really sorry." About two minutes later, our landlord showed up, and to his credit, he made the asshole stay out there all night removing his shit from our garage.
Good times, good times.
Phil,
Phil,
And that, in as succinct an explanation as I've ever read, is why I will never rent property to tenants.
And Phil, just think, if this
And Phil, just think, if this happened to you in England a couple years from now, all you'd have for back up would be Mr. round-pointed butter knife.
I've lived next to rednecks on many occasions. Usually, though not always, my redneck background stands me in good stead, and I can establish warm diplomatic relations.
But my worst neighbor was a mild mannered (seemingly) middle aged woman back in Hiram. She was nosy, had irritating cats, and loved nothing more than to make trouble for us. If Mrs. B and I had a couple friends over watching TV, she would call the cops. The fat cop (there were only three cops in Hiram) shows up, looks in our screen door, has a puzzled look on his face. I go up to the door and politely ask, "Is there a problem, officer?"
"We had a report there was a loud party?"
I looked over my shoulder, then back. "What you see, man."
"Well, I gotta tell you to keep it down?" All of his statements sounded like questions.
"Okay. Can we still talk?"
"Yeah? Well, have a good night?"
Bitch also told our landlord that we had seven huge black dogs that were threatening everyone, when in fact we have one big black dog that didn't threaten anyone. She called the police on the same complaint, and on our effing wedding day, the almost but not quite Mrs. B had to spend a half hour explaining to the skinny cop that no, we don't have seven rabid dogs, only one, and that the other two are her future father-in-law's, who is in town to see his son's wedding, which you are making me late for.
I often opined that the woman really, really needed to get laid. And then, a few months before we moved, she got a boyfriend. And all our troubles went away. I should have hired a gigolo months before.