Getting To Know Your Neighbors...And Their Venereal Issues
You learn all sorts of things about people who don't care whether they're disturbing the next-door neighbors with loud phone calls they have out in their backyard.
A nice older woman whose living room abuts the backyard of a little snot of a network TV actress who moved in recently is kept up by the girl's late parties (with the girl's friends hooting and hollering and singing on guitar into the wee hours, and never mind if the neighbors want to go to bed).
The nice older woman is also forced to listen to the actress talking loudly into her phone in her backyard...and oh, the things she learns! Recently, she told me she heard the girl talking about how she'd slept with the boyfriend of one of her friends. Sunday, I ran into the nice older woman and got an update: Seems the guy she has staying at her place had a loud conversation the other day about how he has a bad case of the crabs!
The actress is damn lucky the nice older woman doesn't work for TMZ, and isn't the kind of person who'd call them and suggest they walk a dog through the alley behind her house in the afternoons. Nope, no listening device required -- other than a nice ordinary set of ears.
Rudeness can be costly!
I have no shame... please out the snotty actress!
DaveG at September 21, 2010 4:02 AM
PS With the obscene amount of money paid to (top-billed) TV actors, one generally imagines them perched above the PCH in Malibu. How many live in your neighborhood?
DaveG at September 21, 2010 4:13 AM
People live all over So Cal. Santa Monica and Venice, for example, are areas there's a real mix in certain areas, and mine is one of them...rich, poor, renters, and non. I don't think she lives here full-time...I suspect she lives somewhere in the Valley and comes in here just to make noise -- um, comes in here from time to time, when she's not shooting, to be closer to the beach.
Amy Alkon at September 21, 2010 5:12 AM
You want noisy? Try living in an apartment complex. Our particular apartment complex, a series of two-story buildings, has an apartment upstairs where the neighbors never seem to live there more than three months. They must be running some kind of gym up there, since we hear running feet and thunking noises at all hours of the day or night. We politely notify the rental office, and the noise stops...until the next batch of neighbors move in. The fun never ends! :-)
DorianTB at September 21, 2010 5:35 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2010/09/21/getting_to_know.html#comment-1756672">comment from DorianTBHouses where I live are four feet from each other. I'm very sensitive to that, and trained Lucy not to bark (unless there's danger). It's simple to do: bribe/scold with "no noise!" when a dog barks. She knows. As far as deciding to do this goes, it comes from the notion that your life shouldn't be disturbed because I choose to have a pet.
Amy Alkon at September 21, 2010 5:39 AM
Perhaps you SHOULD have her contact a reporter for TMZ and invite them to come over to her home and listen to that actress' conversations.
Tony at September 21, 2010 7:28 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2010/09/21/getting_to_know.html#comment-1756695">comment from TonyShe wouldn't, but she did find it amusing that the actress broadcasts what she's doing with her vagina to all the nearby neighbors.
Amy Alkon at September 21, 2010 7:31 AM
I caught crabs in Venice once too.
BOTU at September 21, 2010 10:15 AM
This woman needs to record this stuff and spread it to the tabloids. Imagine how embarrassed this little skank would be to see her dirty laundry aired in the supermarket checkout lines.
mpetrie98 at September 21, 2010 11:05 AM
I'm guessing, but in some circles I imagine there is no such thing as bad publicity.
MarkD at September 21, 2010 11:28 AM
I wish you'd just tell us who it is.
Husband had lunch yesterday at the Chick-fil-a in a richy-rich new money part of town (Lakeway, for you Austinites), and was treated to a conversation between two women fresh off the golf course about how often they've cheated on their husbands, and how they know that their husbands are fucking around on them but they don't care, because they don't have to work, and they're rich.
Some people really just don't care what people know. I assume that it's because they think that they're untouchable, and that person sitting three tables away isn't anyone important, anyway.
ahw at September 21, 2010 1:09 PM
EW! People still get crabs?
Megan at September 21, 2010 2:51 PM
lol ahw, I live in Austin. Sounds like things are more interesting in Lakeway than I thought. I live in an area where a lot of "artists" and "musicians" live. Our neighbor "plays piano" and by plays piano, I mean, he plays the same chords repetitively and chants, not sings, but chants along. He performs this way in public, too, which is fine. But it is NOT fine when he does this in the middle of the night and I hear it. I talked to him about it, and he emphasized his need to practice, and we compromised on him moving the piano away from the window. It's not working. I might be planning a Justin-Bieber-on-repeat counter-attack.
sofar at September 21, 2010 4:49 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2010/09/21/getting_to_know.html#comment-1756926">comment from sofarMy next door neighbor plays drums sometimes in the afternoon -- some kind of congo-ish type deal, and I find it annoying...but, well...it's really not THAT loud, and it doesn't last THAT long, and he's a sweet guy who closes his door and probably means to be considerate...so I just deal. Same thing with my neighbors' kids. The effort to be considerate counts for a whole lot with me. I might be annoyed at the noise in the moment, but I won't be angry at people who are basically considerate and good-hearted and who are sometimes loud and otherwise human.
Amy Alkon at September 21, 2010 4:58 PM
Many, many moons ago my sister lived in a condo. Catty-corner up and to the left of hers was a guy who was a concerto pianist with a grand piano and insomnia.
She has it on video tape -- his condo caught on fire. When the firemen pushed the piano out and off the balcony -- when it hit the ground the other residents cheered.
When she had her condo refurbed -- she paid the extra money to have it double insulated. No more sound problems.
Jim P. at September 21, 2010 9:36 PM
I use to live in an apartment just below a piano teacher. It was one of my first apartments. Every evening I'd hear the SAME tune at least once, sometimes over and over again...sometimes it sounded like it was suppose to. Sometimes it was slow, tentative and off key.
I use to love the song as a kid. Now, when I hear it I get twitchy...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbiYFA0-8mU
Pure HELL.
Feebie at September 21, 2010 10:29 PM
Why doesn't she record the debauchery as a nightly mission, and play back the most interesting ones during a lull in the party? Especially the crabs part.
siobhan at September 22, 2010 4:57 AM
Ok, so the neighbor won't call TMZ - but what's to stop you, Amy, from giving TMZ the address and letting them camp out for a couple days?
Melissa at September 22, 2010 7:57 AM
My next door neighbor plays drums sometimes in the afternoon...
My last building was made for this guy. Lots of artists and musicians (mostly students) lived there, so we had several insulated rooms downstairs in the basement where people could practice. And the students were great about not being loud at night. Except for the one next door who had really loud sex, but I guess it would have been inappropriate for her to move that to the basement.
MonicaP at September 22, 2010 10:22 AM
Getting To Know Your Neighbors...And Their Venereal Issues
"I caught crabs in Venice once too."
Italy or CA?
So people will be on alert.
siobhan at September 23, 2010 6:12 PM
From an early-1970s book, "Political PLays for Children," (Berlin's Grips Theatre), translated
by Jack Zipes:
"Bizzy, Dizzy, Daffy & Arthur" is about four kids who have no playground available to them and whose neighbors yell at them for making the slightest noise (from what I understand, it's no accident that this play was written in Germany, what with Kinderfeindlichkeit and all) so they break into an abandoned building to play and get
arrested by a pair of cops, Knick and Knock. Chaos ensues at the police station. What's interesting (SPOILER) is that as an adult
reader, you might assume that the cops are playing "good cop / bad cop" at one point, but it turns out that the good cop really is just
that! Songs include "Order Makes Up Half Your Life" - sung by the cops.
Also: "Mugnog" - easily the funniest and least
controversial was performed in the last 15 years at colleges in Iowa and Wisconsin.
"Mugnog.....appears to be a cardboard box. To young children Tom and Pam, Mugnog is their escape from the boring reality of rules imposed upon them by their parents, their aunt and uncle, and most of all, their aunt and uncle's crotchety downstairs neighbor Mr. Schmuck. Whenever the children have a rebellious instinct, it is attributed to Mugnog. Adults hilariously overreact, and soon the police, mayor and army are all trying to stop Mugnog."
Songs include "Why Are Grownups Scared of Other
Grownups?")
lenona at September 24, 2010 11:20 AM
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