Music, music, music??

There is a type of very loud sound that passes for music in Puerto Rico these days. Boom boxes on the beach blast it from Isla Verde to San Juan Viejo. The hotel next door, where I used to stay, has it screaming from it's open rooftop cafe until 3:00 a.m.

I suppose it has a name.

It consists of four or five pitches that repeat over and over performed at quadruple fffff. There is an electronic bass machine that plays at a metronomic tempo without pause or variation. Someone seems to be trying to compete with the rest of the noise by screaming into a mike that is apparently held between their teeth so that words are unintelligible.

To my way of thinking, this kind of mindless noise has nothing to do with 'Music' but is a barrier wall between the person performing it and society in general. It is much too loud to talk over, so you must merely sit or move to the electronic bass beat without having to interact with your friends. They couldn't hear what you were saying if they tried. Perfect in an age when we text the person down the hall rather than walking twenty feet to speak to them.

A friend of mine describes this as 'Their Culture' whoever 'they' are. I have a less polite word for it.

I have been living in the peace and quiet of Rood Hill Farm too long to accept this cacophany, I guess. I'll be back there in a couple of weeks.

Yesterday, when the Ghetto Blaster was going full tilt on the beach outside my condo, two policemen on horseback came up the sand and told the perpetrators to turn it down. The cops stayed there, astride their steeds, for half an hour. Peace and almost quiet. Naturally, the minute they left, the purveyors of sound turned it back up to deafening levels. I literally could not hear the TV in my room, which is 200 feet from the beach.

Oh well, other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, Puerto Rico is warm and beautiful. Mr. Burtis is just too old to go with the flow!