Music to My Ears, If I Could Hear It
Chances are, if you have recently moved to Puerto Vallarta full or part-time, you are a baby boomer. There's that term again; I’m not real crazy about it, but it explains a few things.
For most boomers, music has been much more important than it had been for their parents. Mom and Dad had Frank Sinatra and Glenn Miller (or if you had really cool parents- Billy Holiday and Count Basie) but we had a revolving palette of idols that started early on with Elvis and Little Richard, steered north through Memphis & Motown, went overseas to Liverpool, headed back west to southern California beaches and got stoned during the summer of love in Haight Ashbury, crept back east to Woodstock and south to Nashville and somehow spent the last 40 years spewing out rehashes of all that had been gathered along the way.
Loud music was the event in the 60’s and the gatherings that accompanied the music were a social bonus thrown in. By the 70’s, clubs were back in vogue, but so was the stadium concert, and there it has remained, discotheques notwithstanding.
Most of us retain a special relationship with our music, whatever it may have become over the years. But as we have aged, we have slowly lowered the volume to the soundtrack of our lives, our personal music is now listened to at background volume, something that would have horrified us 40 years ago. Background music was MUZAK; elevator music! But now, of course, a civil level of music to "enhance one’s environmental ambience" is referred to in the audio/video home integration industry as “foreground” music so as not to remind us of the Muzak implication, and also to insinuate that music creates the mood. Of course, the mood was permanently shattered once we started hearing our favorite songs on the elevator speakers.
How ironic that we have come to this Mexican paradise to enjoy each of our personal versions of retirement, only to realize that this is the land of the elevated decibel?
Oh, how you wish you had a magic volume knob at the bedside when that unannounced Festival de San Ruido starts up at 10:00PM as your noggin is touching down on the pillow. Isn’t it remarkable how sound travels? That music (and by the way, if you were the DJ, the “party mix” would probably be a tad different…) three blocks away sounds like someone parked their car directly in front of your place, opened all their doors and turned the radio up full crank! Thank goodness for the subwoofer from hell so you can experience every decibel of bass!
The following evening, the Festival is over, so, needing a fix for the obscene silence, your neighbor parks his car in front of your place, opens all the doors and turns the radio up all the way! A spontaneous street party ensues. Please, louder, more bass! You decide to head to a little restaurante down the street. As you enter, there is silence. Golden silence. The waiter takes your order for three tacos al carbon and a cerveza and, being the customer service professional that he is, walks over to the boom box perched above your table and turns it on full blast to some Norteño tunes.
He knows what all local entrepreneurs know; that all Gringo baby boomers love loud music. Your first tip, in case you've forgotten, was on the party boat cruise you took the very first time you came down to PV. Who knew that speakers could not only be so loud, but more importantly; would not explode when distorting so badly?
Let's remember that the Mexican soundtrack of life was here before you got here and will be here long after you leave. The “when in Rome…” approach is definitely the high road here. Instead of running to a neighbor's house and complaining about the loud music and accomplishing nothing other than branding yourself as an uptight Gringo, you may want to consider joining the party and dancing in the street.
Oh yeah, and a modest investment in some earplugs might be in order. Then again, you could just turn off your hearing aid... Email to a friend
Landon Hollander
E-mail: landon@pvmirror.com
Feedback about this Article
• Landon Hollander consults, designs and sells audio and video systems (landoplan.com) and handles sales in the Riviera Nayarit for the PVMirror. He can be reached at: landon@pvmirror.com. Landon is currently working on a top secret project involving ways to deter his dogs from digging up the landscaping at his home in La Cruz.
Previous Articles
Puerto Vallarta Photo Gallery
Riviera Nayarit Photo Gallery |
Current
Weather Report
