Our Crazy F-ing Neighbor Part 2 – with audio

after my last post, steph and i assumed this was over. that he was gone. one flew TO the cuckoo’s nest. or one dragged to the cuckoo’s nest.
nope. he returned two weeks ago with no word from the authorities about what had happen, or what they found going on in his head,
or if he was even properly analyzed. very frustrating.
since being back, he has already woken us up twice in the dead of sleep, screaming furiously out his front door again.
most recently, he shouted “I’LL NEVER STOP! I’LL NEVER STOP!”
comforting, i know.

tonight, starting around 9:15, he stood on the sidewalk in front of his house, having a conversation directed at us,
but without us actually being there. at first i thought he may have been on the phone or something.
didn’t take long to figure out he was literally talking to himself like the insane person he is. pay attention authorities.
we can only say this so many times.
his conversation more or less consisted of inquiring where his thing or object or food or something non-existant was.
eventually, losing patience with his imagination, he began actually shouting at us, occasionally referencing stephanie,
and how terrible of a person she was for making him wait.
around 10 he crossed the street and took his conversation to our front gate.
he began yelling more, saying things like “oh you’re going to finish eating first?? (angrily)” and “you’re such terrible people for making me wait.”

we called the cops again around this point. i then went into our bathroom which has the best view of his house,
and recorded this . . . it stops before the cops showed up unfortunately, but it will suffice.
remember, he’s standing on his sidewalk, talking to no one. we have never called him, or set up some sort of deal with him.
on a side note, he thinks my name is paul, and at one point says “oh he won’t fall,” referencing me possibly falling down the stairs?
he also keeps mentioning how he was going to help steph catch her break, but not anymore. you may not be able to hear it,
but he references RKO as the employer. RKO pictures? Citizen Kane time?

enjoy. i put some noise reduction and compression on the file to help with clarity, but in a strange way,
the recording is rather . . . dare i say . . . beautiful. the bathtub is dripping gently . . . lunacy captured on tape. whatever. an iphone.

http://www.meandthemcp.com/Media/audio/DinoTalkingToHimself.mp3

sam

Its one hell of a day in the neighborhood.

our neighbor, an 70 something dementia ridden old man, has been acting nuttier and nuttier by the week. last night began typically for him. opening his door and shouting, in a terrifyingly loud and aggressive tone, random and nonsensical phrases. normally we call the cops, but they usually arrive once he’s calmed down, and then look at us like, really? this is what we came out here for?
but after his little rant, he left his house and started banging on his neighbor’s fence, and the bashing her mailbox with his metal cane.
enough was enough. he’s been waking our family up in the morning by ringing our doorbell, expecting a ride to some unknown place. or screaming in the middle of the night, and then ringing our doorbell holding a bag of groceries. but he actually caused physical damage this time. so we called the cops.
once again, his house was dark when they arrived. steph and i met the officers in the street and while explaining what had happened, we started hearing banging from inside his house. the officers said we should head inside. that’s when it got very entertaining in sort of a shocking and scary way.
he came out and proceeded to yell profanities and more nonsensical diatribes at the cops, which was weirdly satisfying. after six years, finally the authorities got a taste of what we’ve been going through. things i over hear were along the lines of . . . “i know obama, and he’ll have your thrown in prison.” or “i won the nobel peace prize this year, what the hell have you two done?”
bad move. more cops came . . .
after hearing more crazy shouting, they came out from searching his home carrying a hatchet and a shotgun.
steph and i have no interest in putting this man in jail. all we’ve ever wanted was to get him to a mental hospital. but he has no family. no contacts. he’s just slowly losing his mind in this old crumbling house.
he was arrested last night, but taken by a “smart” team to be mentally evaluated. it seems that its finally been addressed. i can’t even tell you how well we slept last night.
hopefully he’s getting some extremely necessary help and comfort now.

side notes . . . a very large black widow crawled up the wall on our front porch, in between steph and i, while we were having a meeting with cops. probably the scariest moment of the evening.
and the lakers won the strangest basketball game while the whole thing was going down.

as i tweeted, just your average night in our neighborhood.

cheers

sam

Show day

Love the anticipation. Made some really cool artwork to sell with the EP. Had three really great rehearsals with some my best friends. Opening for one of the best voices in the world. Very excited. Already looking forward to playing more shows. I love making music with my favorite person in the world. I love being an uncool cheeseball.

Cheers

Sam

Back from London

slept 23 of 108 hours while i was there. that ain’t much.
anyone catch the insanity? 24 hours straight in a studio?

a couple of things . . .

- new gomez single is up at gomeztheband.com. please listen. we worked hard on it!

- steph and i have started rehearsing for our first show. definitely nervous. definitely excited. please come if you’re in LA. just an acoustic set, but in many ways, that’s harder. but we are up for the challenge. i think. ha.

i thought i had more thoughts. jetlag just zapped them. oh well.

cheers

sam

bubble and strife!

yep. doing our first show.
acoustic, opening for ben from gomez on april 2nd.
please come. info at bootlegtheater.com.

wow. its ugly outside right now.
flying to london in a couple hours.
vesper learned thank you and your welcome and its breaking everyone’s heart.
should i take a shower or just stand outside for five minutes?

cheers

sam

gomezzz

shit. i think the record is done. mastered. sequenced. b sides getting prepped.
very excited.

and i think bubble and strife may have our first live show coming up, opening for ben ottewell of the above mentioned gomez.
acoustic and personal, we hear. more to come about this . . .

in the meantime, write pop songs. hide them beneath layers of weird noise, crazy chord changes and stuttered beats. that’s why i’m trying to do.

sam

Last full day in Nashville.

heading home tomorrow.
Brendan just did three tracks of kazoo. Just one of the mornings i guess. wait. its being wiped. nevermind.
back to regular things like acoustics and percussion. may do a slide harrison guitar part in a sec.

13 hour days for 7 days in a row . . . red eyes, blisters on the fingers, a little lack of perspective, and having a blast . . .

cheerio. mm that sounds good actually. just one cheerio.

sam

Nashville.

its strange not having a 140 character limit.
way too much room. in fact, i’m not even sure why i have a blog.
in any case, nashville is awesome.
last night . . . melrose bar . . .
ran into chad from paper route. great band.
met doug from the clutters. great band name. (no idea what they sound like yet).
someone told me that i look like Mr. Big from sex and the city. umm.

heading to the studio now. first day of tracking.
tearing into a punk song right off the bat.
need coffee.

sam

Announcements

Went public with meandthemcp.com today. Very excited. Some fun hidden gems in the audio section if you look close.

Even more exciting is tomorrow … Bubble and Strife, a little project my wife and I have been working on for ages, is releasing its first EP. More info about it tomorrow!

Cheers. Side note. Winds at the top of Mammoth reached 100 mph. F that.

Sammy

SuperBowlSunday.

had a very quiet but entertaining superbowl sunday with a handful of friends and some serious queso. tough picking a side, but i had aaron rodgers as my fantasy football qb all year, and mendenhall as my RB, so i was rooting for both teams.
topped the night off with “Still Bill” a documentary by a friend about Bill Withers. best quote of the movie . . . “to get to Wonderfull, you have to pass through Alright.”
have a good week yall.

sam