Friends, Roamers and County Persons: Lend Him an Ear Because His Are Sore

You’ve got your helicopters, jet planes, Code-A-Phones and saxophones and jackhammers poundin’ on the concrete city streets,

Gigolos and stereos and televised scenarios of fire alarms, burglar alarms, ...

Who’s gonna understand? ... the whispering man.

--”Whispering Man” by Steve Goodman

What word would you use to describe the world we live in? Hectic? Wondrous? Scary? Crowded? Mysterious? Confusing? Absurd?

Whatever word comes to mind, one adjective that applies all too often is noisy . We reside in a noisy world. Or, at least, in one particularly raucous corner of it.

Whether it’s those who suffer under the flight path of John Wayne Airport, live below TV junkies who crank up Cal Worthington at midnight, or merely work next to high-volume ad salesmen, most of us have to contend daily with the quest for quiet.

But people seem to get particularly upset when the offending decibels come in the form of sharps and flats. Music. And especially rock ‘n’ roll music.

A lawsuit has been bouncing around Orange County Superior Court for years, chock-full of Costa Mesa residents’ complaints about the sound levels emanating from rock concerts at the Pacific Amphitheatre. Although there are only two plaintiffs to the suit, an individual and Concerned Citizens of Costa Mesa Inc., the litigation beat goes on.

Down in San Juan Capistrano, a petition is circulating trying to get more action from the Sheriff’s Department in citing drivers whose car stereos seem in danger of triggering the Newport-Inglewood Fault line.

Maybe it’s a sign of incipient middle-age, but I’m feeling more sympathetic these days toward the folks who are doing the complaining, notwithstanding my biases toward rock ‘n’ roll and against excessive governmental regulation (and the curmudgeons who spur legislators on).

The turning point came one Sunday, while I was working in my cozy, tomb-like office (somebody’s gotta put the Monday paper out), when a mini-truck drove by with the stereo cranked up so loud it shook the windows.

My desk, for the record, is in a room that is set back at least 200 feet from the street. On the second floor. I would say someone had his or her music up a tad loud. It gave me the shudders to imagine that when all the data is in, scientists will find that the steadily increasing number of whales that have beached themselves in recent years were only attempting to come face to face with the source of these subterranean shock waves and tell them--in whale--to “Can it, Bub.”

These kids--mostly male teens--cruise down the street in vans equipped with speakers the size of Oldsmobiles, enough wattage to energize a moon probe and volume knob cranked up high enough to melt quartz. The tape hiss from these systems, some of which cost up to $50,000, produces more volume than our piddling little 50- or 100-watt car units playing Led Zeppelin or whatever did back in the ‘70s.

It’s a mystery, or a miracle, that their ears, much less their brains, haven’t been reduced to cornmeal.

Or maybe they have, which is precisely the problem. After a couple of times around the block with the dB meter riding somewhere between “elephant gun” and “active volcano,” their pummeled eardrums may not register anything short of the Apocalypse.

So what’s to do? Is it an infringement on First Amendment guarantees to limit how loudly individuals may exercise their right of free speech?

Ever since a new California Vehicle Code law went into effect last January, police have the authority to ticket vehicles playing amplified music at excessive levels. “Most agencies in central Orange County are issuing citations,” said Lt. Robert Helton, press information officer for the Santa Ana Police Department.

In Santa Ana, booming cart and mini-truck stereos is part of “a cruising problem we have been trying to address. . . . We get complaints not only from people who are just driving their cars, but from commercial business owners and residents.” So officers have been writing lots of tickets, at about $60 a pop. (“I don’t have exact numbers of citations issued,” Helton said.)

The problem I have in raising my voice against the noise polluters is that so much of the enforcement generally is directed at sources that involve rock music, whether from cars and mini-trucks to concert clubs and open-air events.

It’s hard not to get the impression that outrage ends where commerce begins.

Take my neighborhood. I live near downtown Santa Ana, and I frequently find myself driving next to cars whose stereos overpower my own. So I can empathize with anyone whose house might face a popular cruising boulevard.

But for the last month, I’ve been awakened every morning at 7 a.m. (except Sundays, thank Heavens) by the BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! of pile drivers slamming concrete posts into what used to be the parking lot at Santa Ana Stadium. It’s gone on eight to 10 hours a day, all in the creation of what, presumably, will be a bigger and even splashier parking lot.

Where were all the protesters then?

This irritant is no less offensive than blaring rap music from a Toyota mini-truck or the dull thud of a nearby concert.

Indeed, concerts are periodically held in the stadium and, given a choice, I would take the sound of amplified mariachis or marching bands over the mechanical thudding of the construction crews.

I’m sure if someone went out testing sound-pressure levels, the construction work would exceed local noise limits at well more than 50 feet. (The first day the pounding began, I thought someone had set up a drilling derrick on my front lawn, not, as it turned out, several hundred yards down the road and across the street.)

Effective Jan. 1, an addendum to the California Vehicle Code will make the laws governing car stereo abusers even more specific, spelling out exactly how loud and how far away from the vehicle the music can be heard. In the best of all possible worlds, I’d like to see basic courtesy win out over yet another piece of legislation to remind us what’s right and what’s wrong.

The sad fact, however, is that with about 2.2 million people (and counting) in Orange County, I expect that our little corner of Paradise will get louder before it gets quieter.

All of which will eventually boil down to this chilling choice: earplugs or Montana.

DR, Steve Lopez