Separation of church and shitty speakers

Bear with me here. If it comes to it, this may explain why I'm some drug lord's gringo boy toy in a remote Mexican prison.


Remember the camp loudspeakers in the TV series MASH? A laconic voice would announce the day's menu, movies of the week, the Colonel's latest dictates. Or 'My Blue Heaven' would blare throughout the camp. The sound from those speakers, while clear, had an annoying nasal quality to it. I suppose they were standard military issue at the time and not meant to reproduce concert hall fidelity.

Sea air works corrosive magic on metal. In a year, it can turn this:

to this:

no problem. What would it do to MASH style speakers? I'll tell you.

We live a block off the local church here in La Manzanilla. This house of God sports on its lid four speakers, strategically pointed in the cardinal directions.

For the first five years we lived here in peace and relative quiet. Yes, dogs barked at night, vendors with boom boxes in their pickups cruised the streets hawking beach furniture, watermelons, dish soap, nail polish. The tortilla guy stopped in the street, honked twice, and the neighbors came out and bought fresh tortillas for the day. Kids laughed and screamed at their games. The ice cream guy pushed his cart down our street in the afternoon and honked his Bozo the Clown horn. Workers whistled and sang along with their tuba-laden CDs. All part of the deal, we knew it coming in and accepted it as part of the local color. But the church speakers remained dormant.

This year, however, Evil came to town. A new Padre. He, like Victor Frankenstein, transformed dead, inanimate matter into a monster. He brought the salt-corroded speakers back to life.

That was only the first step. It seems his intention is to bring the entire village, natives and expats alike, to God. And the reanimated speakers are only part of his cunning device. Each Thursday morning (7:30! hearty partiers have barely gone to bed!) and evening, and at random times during the week, he inflicts music on the community. Music so hideous it would have the CIA's most hardened captive singing like Placido Domingo within minutes. These are his implements:

• Zombie speakers that produce sound like gravel dumped on a canoe.
• Volume that exceeds 11 so that everyone up and down the coast may hear. 
• Worn vinyl records with scratches both visible and invisible, featuring ...
• Saccharin Catholic pop, in Spanish, sung by a teary tenor backed by a children's group whose vocal range is at the upper end of human endurance.   
• An antique phonograph similar to this one:

 

• A worn phonograph needle encrusted with dust bunnies. 

Of course I am affected by all this:

But wait, there's more!

The Padre can also take his inquisition on the road!

Better sound at greater (if you can imagine) volume!

 I have several options here:

1. Shoot the Padre, which would ensure for me life as a drug lord's bitch. Not an option because I do not own a gun.
2. Snip the cable between phonograph and speakers which, if I were caught, would ensure for me a fine, several years as a drug lord's bitch, and probably a nasty letter from the pope. Not a viable option because I lack the necessary ninja skills. 
3. Spring for a new sound system, which would involve financial sacrifice and a seeming endorsement of these heinous tactics.
4. Talk to the Padre and urge him to tone it down a bit. You see how effective that was with the villagers vis a vis Victor Frankenstein. 
5. Once the racket starts, go to the deepest corner of the farthest bar and order one of each. We have a winner!