GRRRRRHHHRRROROEOOHHHHHHRRRRRRRRGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGRHGHGHRHRHRHRRRRRRRRRR...........this is the noise 'kelly' my childhood dog used to make… and the noise i make when i'm anxious. like when i'm riding my bmx down a main road and one of sydney's homicidal buses nearly side swipes me. when i growl it makes me feel powerful and calms me down. i growl a lot. my ex gf would constantly refer to me as a dog and even gave me a dog tag with my name on it… 'schafty'. this is fine by me. i talk to dogs all the time and smile at them whenever we cross paths. i'm not so generous with people. grrrr.
i also make variations of this noise when i box, when i eat something that makes my eyes close (like delicious salted caramel white choc chip gelato from messina in darlinghurst), when i perform as 'the kill room' and unleash my inner rock geek… OWWW!
'Missy' music video - The Kill Room from Monique Schafter on Vimeo.
and, predictably, when i'm getting it on.
i love animal noises. i love that we all have them inside us. because so often things are beyond words and animal noises articulate your feelings perfectly. grrrrrrr. mmmm. hrrrrrmph. arrrghhggh. it's a universal language… that will get you nowhere in scrabble.
in case you're wondering about the salted caramel white choc chip gelato. this is pretty much me:
but sometimes animal noises give me the shits. like when some of the douchebags at boxing try to intimidate you and act all hardcore by making these really loud, super aggressive guttural groans when they're punching the bags. unnecessary. so annoying. only guys in my experience. wonder if it's a mating call? either way i want to punch them in the teeth to shut them up. in this context, you unleash the tiger when you really need to… but no one likes a dog barking in their ear the whole fucking time.
the other time animal noises annoy me is when you can hear neighbours shagging… at first it's a novelty and you listen closely to hear what they're up to… but then you get annoyed by the high pitched giggling or grunting and just want them to get it over and done with. like the other night my neighbours were shagging with their window open and all i could hear was… well basically just that… giggling and grunting… but worst of all was the horrible techno they were trying to cover it up with. and then her phone kept ringing so there was some other tinny crazy frog beat colliding with the bad tekkaz and prolonging their love wrestle (and my ability to fall sleep). urghghghg.
it makes me feel like this:
i've copped a fair bit of neighbourly love. in my old apartment in melbs i'm pretty sure i was living next door to either a nympho or a prozzie. this lady would go at it about every four hours throughout the day and night and because the walls were thin i had the surround sound experience… sub woofers and all. frustratingly… if you were going at it, and you could hear her going at it… it'd kill the vibe!
one of the interesting things about my neighbour's animal yelping was that she'd never "finish". there was always uh uh uh huh huh rahhh hruuhh (almost) rahhh uh huh uh uh uh uh but no finale. my gf and i would sometimes turn the tv down because she was interrupting our viewing… comment on what we thought she was up to this time… occasionally make uh ruh ruh raahhh noises back at her like we were cockatiels having a conversation and then turn the volume back up when there was shoosh.
the most awkward time was when i had my 50-year-old workmate over because she'd asked me to edit her daughter's 18th birthday video. sure enough, next door started up… and we were there editing home movies of family christmases while the cockatiel screeched. i guess in this context, if you're not a willing participant, animal noises suck.
and yeah… of course i've had loud sessions with partners but it's nothing a pillow over the face can't fix (not meant to sound creepy) or at least a 'peaches' album…
or missy higgins (I AM JOKING).
until next time… ROOOOOOAAARRRRR.
(sub)urban tomboy x
