The Cars that Go Boom

I was watching a show I had on Tivo about barbarians last night. They used to beat drums and scream to try to intimidate larger occupying forces.

I stepped outside last night after it was over to smoke in the autumn wind and a car with bass blasting rolled down my street.

I couldn't help but wonder if there was some correlation.

Am I witnessing a modern version of something we have done since the beginning of our time?

A noise that had be heard because the alternative was to silently let yourself become erased from existence.

Are car stereos an act of rebellion or did I just drink to much wine?

Who's side am I on in that rebellion?

I have always found the noise irritating but maybe I have just been missing the point.

Maybe in my quest to not be bothered with anything I have silenced the noise of life. The noise that says we were here....We mattered....We didn't go quietly to the slaughter...

For the guy with the Harley muffler, the G- with the speakers, the teenager with angry noise pouring from your speakers Thank-you. Not cause your cool. Not cause you are right....but because you reminded me to listen to the sounds of the forgotten.

The sounds of possibility, hopelessness, pain, ostracism, alienation, rebellion..of change.

The kind of sounds we don't talk about. The vulgar ones we shush. That we punish.

Tonight I listened and heard.