The Luv Doc: Wump Wump Wump

Dear Luv Doc,
This really isn’t a question about love; it’s a question about hate. I hate my neighbor. Why? Because he plays his bass at all hours of the night and day (mostly at night) and it drives me crazy. I will be watching TV or reading a book or (God forbid) sleeping and all of a sudden I hear wump, wump, wump coming through the wall. I can’t even hear the music he’s playing along to, just the bass. Wump, wump, wump. He sounds like he is a decent bass player, but he is clearly a horrible neighbor. What should I do?
- Bassed out of my Mind

Based (or should I go with an acronym? Maybe BOOMM?), it appears that you’re collateral damage of what the City Council affectionately refers to as the live music capital of the world. We love our live music as long as it makes us lots of money and shuts the fuck up. Problem is, musicians, even on their best behavior, are really mouthy hookers. It’s understandable then, that Austin is a constantly annoyed pimp. Like Angela from The Office, we do want children, only we want “a pair of small, well-behaved boys.” Am I making any sense here BOOMM? Of course not. I am babbling like I‘m higher than a bat’s ass. By the way, did you know that the bat is Austin’s official flying rodent? Something like that. Austin is teeming with both musicians and Mexican Freetails. Most cities would call an exterminator if they were overrun with potentially diseased, primarily nocturnal mammals, but Austin called the marketing department and voila! Lemonade.

The unsavory result of all this civic puffery is that you, BOOMM – a normal, decent, well-behaved citizen, have a bass player living on the other side of your wall. You can’t just bang on the plaster with a broom, hoping to scare it away. It’s not a squirrel or a possum. Bass players are human beings. (I know. I said it. Now they’re going to get all uppity and demand things like health insurance and reasonable wages.) The deal with human beings is you have to talk to them and sometimes even take their needs into consideration. My suggestion is that you do just that. Politely knock on your neighbor’s door (when he isn’t playing bass) and ask if you can talk to him about a keeping a reliable practice schedule or perhaps a way (headphones?) that he can practice without crushing the wind out of your chest and driving you insane. If you want to really go down on him, ask him the date of his next show. The important thing is that instead of hatin’ you need to start communicatin'. Or at least so sayeth the Black Eyed Peas and they’re wrong less than I am.