{An important programming note: The Seattle International Film Festival begins tomorrow evening and runs through June 12. During that time, the scope of Another Rainy Saturday will shift slightly to also covering film. There will still be music coverage when time and interest allow. There will be considerable overlapping with interest to music and pop culture topics. For more information on SIFF, please check back regularly and visit their website. Shut Up Little Man! plays at SIFF on Saturday, May 28 at the Neptune theater at 10pm and on Monday, May 30 at the Egyptian Theater at 9pm. Tickets available here.}
As a city-living apartment renter, few things could be as unpleasant as living next door to two drunken neighbors who scream at each other at odd hours of the night. Such begins the premise for the fascinating documentary Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure.
Mitchell D. and Eddie Lee Sausage, close to their real names, moved to San Francisco after college and moved into a run-down apartment building they dubbed the “Pepto-Bismol Palace”. Upon signing their lease, the landloard gives an ominous warning that their next door neighbors could sometimes be a bit loud. Those neighbors are Peter and Raymond. The former is gay and the latter, when drunk and prodded, is a raving homophobe. They make a bit of an odd couple and when they have too much to drink (which is often), they yell at each other constantly, with Peter frequently telling Raymond, “shut up little man.” The walls are thin and little is muted into Eddie at Mitchell’s apartment.
After being threatened by one of the loud neighbors, Mitchell and Eddie decide to record their neighbors threatening one another, to have some record of their volatility. Soon, they realize that Peter and Raymond fighting is actually quite funny. Friends are invited over to listen through the walls on days that rent is due (often a source of friction) and soon, recordings of Peter and Raymond fighting have spread across town and wider. Daniel Clowes, who is featured in the film, created comics based on the neighbors. This was in the 1980s, long before the Internet made viral sensations commonplace.
The movie gets most interesting when Mitchell and Eddie have to deal with its popularity and try to copyright the recordings long after they made them available to use freely. Several people try to make films based on the bickering pair and cashing in on what is largely an underground phenomenon prove difficult.
Sometimes you often wonder if Peter and Raymond are being exploited and if they are likely too drunk and oblivious to know and/or care how their arguments are the source of so much laughing at their expense. It is explored in the film, and only when it trys to ask “what is art?” does the film drag.
Were Peter and Raymond exploited? Possibly, but sometimes that seems a fair remedy when the easy solution is just being good neighbors in the first place.
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