Should I Embarass a Celebrity?

[admiralkosmos]

I probably won't go through with this and perhaps it's because of the respect I have for Bruce and what it takes to be a successful musical artist.

I believe that the reason my former upstairs neighbor, who is a popular Blue Note, Grammy Nominated (last year - lost) jazz piano artist, was so cruel and rude to us for nearly two years (we lived below) was because he felt he was justified in walking and stomping around his apartment all hours of the night (insomniac or something else), dropping a murphy bed on the floor at 3 am after getting in from a gig at say the Village Vanguard and dragging his stuff in on casters over the hard wood floor, letting his two little girls (under 6) run around the place in spurts on and off for hours, while throwing things on the hard wooden floor and screaming, and, last but not least, playing not one but two baby grand pianos any time, at first, whenever he felt like. The pianos stopped toward the end of his Dark Reign.

There is no escape from a neighbor like this. You find yourself on his website to see tour dates, when it will be quiet. You get to know the days he has his daughters over like clockwork (although he routinely shoveled them off on the super for a few bucks, squandering the hours of visitation you would think a divorced father of two would treasure).

It began well enough when we were communicating but we soon learned that he could give two s's about us or our peace and quiet. His arrogance and temper were part of the package. It got as bad as I've ever had it with a neighbor.

SO he moved in April and it's been heaven since. But I have this burning sense of vengeance....of taking one last shot.

By sheer coincidence, we're both going to be in Montreal at the same time this 4th weekend.

My plan is to saunter to his "gig" about 3 blocks from my hotel in Montreal after I land, buy a ticket, go in and have a drink or 30, and yell out at inappropriate times (or as I'll be thinking of them in a haze of whisky, "appropriate") personal details - things his kids used to scream, the fact that he lost the Grammy, the fact that...well, just alot of stupid things - not anything horrible (like trumped criminal accusations - I'm not that crazy). But I hate to buy a ticket...

I also thought of just standing outside after the show and staring at him when he walks out but that's too easy - he'll just saunter out and blow it off.

He caused us hours and hours of misery, aggravation and stress. I know the mature route is to let bygones by bygones - really, it is. But this guy was a superhuman prick. I could provide details here but it will only get me more ---

So I'm asking, group, although it's off topic, for damn sure: what manner of vengeance would you reak? For those of you (likely the vast majority of you), I know the best course of action is to let it die. You're right. But for those of you out there with a sense of setting the scales right, any idea?

Here are some helping details. He's very introverted and embarrasses easily. He's also extremely full of himself and considers himself a god. Speaking of which, for the best work he's ever done, listen to "Godwacker" on "Everything Must Go" by Steely Dan - he does some minor interesting things based on the Goldberg Variations - they called him in for a day to do some fill in work. Aside from that? Both his records and his hours of mistake-laden practicing don't show me anything particularly interesting. He's no Bittan, not even a Hornsby, Lyle Mays, Horowitz (Vladimir not Adam). :scratch:

It would also be hilarious if one of you personally knew him - because I believe even his friends have a fairly "modest" opinion about this guy. No one ever visited him. But I'd like to in Montreal..... :hat:

[BruceNut]

Look.Im a pay back kinda guy so I understand where your coming from. So for me to say what Im about to say should tell you alot.
Let it go man. Your living in a happy home now.Everythings good in your world now.Why screw up a trip to Montreal? Enjoy the trip to Canada and forget the :)

[admiralkosmos]

That's what the Angels of My Better Nature, as Lincoln would say, tells me and you're a good man for saying it the way you said it. I'll admit I'm likely going to do just that. But ... remember the Hulk and when he says "Don't make me mad! You wouldn't like me when I'm angry!" - that's the way this guy got me more than many times and I never, not once, went up there. And they say "revenge is best served cold". Temptation.
Bruce has never written about revenge, has he? I'm trying to think "WWBD" - What Would Bruce Do? I guess the end of the "I'm On Fire" video is the answer - walk away knowing you're better....

What about showing up in a Halloween Outfit with a flamethrower?

[HeldUp]

Look on the bright side: He taught you how to be a better neighbor. What's wrong with that? That's what the world need now -- better neighbors.

[admiralkosmos]

Better neighbor - interesting thought and I agree. Although I've always been a good neighbor - I suppose what he actually did was teach me how to stifle the urge to choke the life out of someone that fully deserved it. lol But actually, the thing is, there is an equilibrium. The Brahmans call it karma, many cultures have names for it. Vengeance is a way of setting the scales right again. Although everyone has bad luck and disaster at some point, I am not content to wait until he has a bad kidney in his 90's to say "aha! NOW we're even." There is this very strong urge to teach him a lesson. A valuable lesson and I suppose it's the very lesson you say he taught me. Of course, I'm thinking I'd like to make him think twice before abusing another neighbor...see? There's the equity, right Terry? Terry, you are reading this?

[Boss MD]

Dude...Like Wheels, I believe in payback...even to the point of Pyrrhic victories. But in this case I would just walk away. Be glad he's outta yer life and be above him in terms of respectability and morals. It's hard. I just recently picked up the scent of someone I had been hounding for 2 years so they could pay me a 2K settlement. The guy vanished...best I got was a lien. I want like Hell to go after him again. But it just isn't worth it. (he was a mechanic and now I'm a SOB to every mechanic...I don't want to hear sob stories when I pick up my car now).

Be the better person.

[firerich7]

Look.Im a pay back kinda guy so I understand where your coming from. So for me to say what Im about to say should tell you alot.
Let it go man. Your living in a happy home now.Everythings good in your world now.Why screw up a trip to Montreal? Enjoy the trip to Canada and forget the :)

Are you quoting YOUR neighbors?

[BruceNut]

Are you quoting YOUR neighbors?


My neighbors hate me and think Im a ever since you started your drivebys yelling GO METS from a minivan window!

[jas & max]

I may be one of two or three people to have the Everything Must Go CD. Great music...But if dude's an , vengeance is yours...Looking at the sleeve now and I don't see anything resembling a piano on there for this track(Great track). Out him brother and ye shall be set free and stuff.

[admiralkosmos]

I may be one of two or three people to have the Everything Must Go CD. Great music...But if dude's an , vengeance is yours...Looking at the sleeve now and I don't see anything resembling a piano on there for this track(Great track). Out him brother and ye shall be set free and stuff.

Kurzweil I believe but keep the name to yourself. Strangely, I don't want to post his name here - crazy, eh? But do you mean "out him" by doing the Embarrass the Public Figure thing? or "out him" by "put him out of my mind"?

[Boss MD]

Your greviences with him aside, you could probably spoil the evening for numerous people who paid to see him and not heckle him.

Just one more facet.

Walk Tall AK or...

[admiralkosmos]

C'est vrai and I do respect others' rights at a performance (i.e., as evidenced by my prior posts about the Meadowlands incident, where I sided with those that thought you never scream during a quiet performance to purposely disrupt the evening)

But perhaps staring. Just staring. Sitting and staring. That can be very unnerving. The goal, if there is any, is to plant the seed that at any time, at any venue, I could appear to make things...difficult.

Still, the perfect idea has not come yet...must have a perfect idea with a minimum of trouble for me and a maximum effect on him....

[Atlantic City]

You surely can find something better to do in Montreal than lower yourself to the level of this POS. I'm sure that his Daughters will grow up with wonderfull memories of spending time with the super. What a wonderfull Father,one day his girls will become adults Y& he will not know a damm thing about them. Don't waste your time.

[HeldUp]

How about this: go to his show, have a good time, see him afterwards, tell him you enjoyed the show and, by the way, tell him you forgive you as he must have been going through a difficult time to cause others so much pain. Kill him with kindness.

[jas & max]

Let's see what Godwhacker says...

Be very very quiet
Clock everything you see
Little things might matter later
At the start of the end of history.

Yes we are the Godwhackers
Who rip and chop and slice
For crimes beyond imagining
It's time to pay the price
You better step back son
Give the man some whacking space."

Damn, I love this song. Alledgedly, around 4:42 into this song, from the right speaker, there is a sound that resembles a fart. When asked about the possibility of a fart joke on a steely dan record, the engineer said there are no fart jokes with these guys(Don and Walt). The accomplice(alledgedly) is the lowest note a Rhodes(guitar) produces.

[admiralkosmos]

Ah, wouldn't ya know it? He's on Pixeline too - that last "piano flourish". Here's what Der Keyboard Fuhrer had to say to an ardent fan on some website:


I had a chance to catch [Pianist Demon] over the weekend; he was playing solo piano at a festival I attended. He played beautifully and I spoke with him briefly before zipping off through the rain to the other side of the festival to catch the Bucky Pizzarelli Quartet; he was succinct when I asked him how the session(s) came off for "Godwhacker" and "Pixeleen": "great session; piece of cake."

Keep the great ideas coming! So far, though, no one's come up with an idea that will keep him waking up in the middle of the night with a freight train running through his head. (Had to bring it back to Bruce somewhere...)

[Bustedsister]

Interesting,, the urge to make another suffer.. I'm feeling it right now because a new McMansion went up next door to my 150 year old farmhouse, and the idiots mutilated a perfect, ancient maple tree that we were in love with,,,, along with all the other natural,old plants and trees.. total land rape. Man I want to poison their Kmart shrubs. But I can't.

I think your window of opportunity has passed, admiralk,, did you return the torment while he lived upstairs ?? Call the police, make lots of noise while you knew he was asleep ? Bang on his door and scream s.t.f.u ??? Because now it's the PAST, and although you are angry and feel like throttling the crap out of him for all your misery, it's too late. Other side of coin: you could buy the ticket, and make inappropriate noises throughout the show !! Bring a self- inflating whoopie cushion !! Nobody would dare say anything to you if they thought you forgot to take your Gas-X. :) But if he's as narcissistic as he sounds, he could somehow continue the Dark Reign on you, and he does know where you live.

Take some deep breaths and TRY TO LET IT GO.

Keep yourself peaceful.

Busted

[dukestreetking]

I don't get it. You lived in an apartment building and you are upset that your neighbors made noise? You could have moved. That's the same mentality that has someone yell at me during a Bruce show because I'm standing up during Youngstown. Your neighbor was allowed to live his life anyway he wanted to in his apartment that was legal. If you have a problem with it that's your tough noogies. You never know who's going to be living above your apartment or who's going to be sitting in front of you at a show. In both instances as long as the behavior that takes place is in the confines of the law than if you have a problem with said behavior, the problem is yours and the onus to solve it is with you.

DSK

[BruceNut]

Still, the perfect idea has not come yet...must have a perfect idea with a minimum of trouble for me and a maximum effect on him....


After saying this,I dont know why none of us are bothering.

well said Dukie.

[cobalt]

Doing anything like you have outlined in Montreal will not give you any benefit whatsoever. You will spend money on a ticket (a portion of which will go in his pocket), you will ruin the show for other paying customers, and you will possibly be thrown out of the venue.

He, on the other hand, will look like the "victim" of a drunken and get sympathy for it. You'll feel worse in the morning than he will.

Take the high road, put it down and back away slowly.

[admiralkosmos]

I don't get it. You lived in an apartment building and you are upset that your neighbors made noise? You could have moved. That's the same mentality that has someone yell at me during a Bruce show because I'm standing up during Youngstown. Your neighbor was allowed to live his life anyway he wanted to in his apartment that was legal. If you have a problem with it that's your tough noogies. You never know who's going to be living above your apartment or who's going to be sitting in front of you at a show. In both instances as long as the behavior that takes place is in the confines of the law than if you have a problem with said behavior, the problem is yours and the onus to solve it is with you.

DSK

It's people like you with responses like this (using the word "mentality") that made me question whether I would post this tongue-in-cheek string. You're obviously trying to get a rise out of me and, initially, I have to admit, it worked. Had you been standing in front of me and unloaded with this kind of ad hominum argument - unsolicited - I would have reacted - instantly.

But here we are in a friendly chat room with 99% of the people here about the nicest, most supportive, and just entertaining souls I've had the good fortune to come across. It's for them, really, that I'll try to get you to "get it".

To use your anal-ogy, his living above us was like someone refusing to sit down during "Youngstown" ...at a Joad show.

His noise was so bad and so incessant that not only was he nearly evicted, but OTHER NEIGHBORS hated this guy. Someone literally leaned out their window and hooted and hollered to me, pointing wildly at the moving van when we saw it pull up.

Next time you want to take a shot at some one, know what you're talking about.

I hope this ends here. :zzz:

[admiralkosmos]

:bulb: After saying this,I dont know why none of us are bothering.

well said Dukie.
__________________

Well Bruce Nut, you had some nice suggestions but alas, you apparantly had a short fuse with my inability to just drop it and shut up. I do apologize for "bothering" you - you put so much work into responding to this string and now, I'm just worth nothing to any of you. Glad I deserved a snotty slap in the face from someone like you.

Bye bye Dukie, and Nutty and Live Daily. Take care.

[HeldUp]

But here we are in a friendly chat room with 99% of the people here about the nicest, most supportive, and just entertaining souls I've had the good fortune to come across.
You're right about the folks, but this is NOT a chat room. It's a message board. I'd be unemployed and divorced if I spent this much time in a chat room...

[FULTONDAWGHOMIE]

i just totally got confused.

[ForYou]

I don't think you should go to his show Admiral. Not just because he would sell one more ticket but I think that seeing him one more time will infuriate you. That is the wonderful thing... you do not have to hear his devil noise or see him ever again. Seize this thought...it is your reason to believe..your light of day. He's gone he's really really gone....when you're alone your're alone and all that.... As a final parting sentiment you might want to have a box of dead flowers delivered to him at the venue with a card that says nothing more than break a leg..signed your fortunate ex-neighbors.