I like ‘oompa' music just as much as the next person. And in my neighborhood that seems to be just about everyone especially the neighbor that's been playing it for five days straight.
I grew up with ‘oompa' music. Some of my ancestors were Polish so there's a lot of tuba-trumpet-accordion playing music-loving people in my family that can blare a lively two-stepping song at a chicken barbecue and punctuate the night with lots of ‘yips' and ‘eeehaws.' It's not a foreign music to me.
But after five days straight I'm ready for some Bruce Springsteen or John Mellencamp or, gee, even Weird Al Yankovic played backward at top speed. Anything but BOOMP boomp BOOMP boomp BOOMP boomp boomp-boomp-boomp-boomp-boomp BOOMP boomp….
And he's out there playing it bright and early every morning all the way until supper time which tells me that the poor guy either got laid off or he's been hired to build an addition and it's going to be three more weeks of ‘oompa' music because I only heard one saw buzzing today. No hammers, no nothing. He's the only guy.
And apparently Spanish radio isn't immune to the advertisements that get played twenty decibels higher than the music. Boomp, boomp, boomp, boomp DAT! ES LA MAYOR VENTA DE ROPA EN TODO EL MUNDO!
Great! Thanks! I choked on my water because I thought the announcer had jumped right through my back door screaming about a great sale on clothes.
My husband has a shorter fuse than I do. One night I was peacefully sleeping, lulled into dreamland by the predictable ‘oompa' beat when all of a sudden I hear: IT'S TWO O'CLOCK IN THE BLOODY MORNING! It was a collision of Californian and Australian culture. Both cultures love a holiday and a barbecue, but my husband can't understand why a fifteen-year old girl's birthday needs to be celebrated with ‘oompa' music well into the wee hours of the morning.
I wonder if Spanish ‘oompa' music has lyrics that are as silly as Polish ‘oompa' music. I grew up with songs about a wife being too fat (sung by the husband), a wife beating up a husband (probably the fat wife getting back at her husband), rolling out the barrel of beer (definitely by the husband hoping to drink and escape his big mean wife) and someone stealing the kishka (a sausage – but we won't get into whose sausage and why anyone would want to steal it).
I admit I like ‘oompa' music. It's traditional. It unites the old with the new. It invokes memories of family get-togethers and celebrations of special moments in life. But I need a break…before I go out of my ‘oompa' lovin' mind.
