comment #1

Wrecktem says ...

Low-rent New York Jews do the same thing. And so do low rent, greasy New Jersey Ei-Ties. And don't get me started on those colored folk up in Harlem.

comment #2

EdHavens says ...

It's not just New Yorkers and it's not just Latinos. Most people today just don't give a flying f*ck about anyone else.

comment #3

raygo says ...

How about a sound file to accompany the post, just to make it interesting?

comment #4

Mayor Quimby says ...

It's worse in New York than most places. People in New York City are inconsiderate, by and large.

comment #5

Jeffrey Wells says ...

One mark of a socially coarse person is someone who talks much more loudly in mixed company than he/she needs to. People of all nations & cultures understand this. I'd like to sound balanced & equitable while making this observation and say that all lower-middle-class New York ethnics are equally offensive, but my experience honestly tells me that Latinos are far and away the most obnoxious in this respect. I dare any New Yorker who gets around to write back and say, "No, you're wrong -- Hispanics are actually rather restrained and cultivated-sounding and soft-spoken in bars and cafes and other places of congregation." I double dare.

comment #6

Travis Crabtree says ...

Wells! Hook us up with some audio proof next time. If you don't have your audio recorder, put your camera on "video" mode and discreetly tape a few moments. (Just the audio, you don't have to actually point the lens at the offenders)

BTW Try sitting near somebody watching "Sabado Gigante".

Aye caramba!

comment #7

matt cousens says ...

I was in LA once, eating with my aunt, and this dude was very loud...

http://www.wwtdd.com/2010/06/fuck-you-sean-penn/

comment #8

gogocrank10 says ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkIGO2UA-u8

comment #9

VoiceOfReason says ...

Was their topic of conversation the World Cup?

comment #10

Floyd Thursby says ...

Agree completely with EdHavens. On the streets of Manhattan I'm constantly amazed by the number of people, regardless of sex, age, ethnicity, or socio-economic conditions, who clearly think they're the only people in the world and that if their behavior bothers anyone else, it's the other fucker's problem. This includes tourists, too.

comment #11

Holy Spokes says ...

For all the bragging New Yorkers do about New York they sure do quite a bit of complaining as well.

comment #12

Josh Massey says ...

It ain't just New York - I live in a Hispanic hub of Atlanta, and experience this every day. "It's loud in here" is a common code for "There are a lot of Hispanics (or black women) here."

comment #13

Deathtongue_Groupie says ...

A Jeff Wells rant about noise and Hispanics?

Is it summer already?

comment #14

Wrecktem says ...

By the way, here in L.A. I don't notice that Hispanics (mostly Mexican) are louder than anyone else. Black folk on the other hand. Man, take the train from Antelope Valley in the morning or the Blue Line. Your ears will be ringing by the end of your trip.

comment #15

Travis Crabtree says ...

And don't get me started on the damn lesbians.

comment #16

Homie Cat says ...

@Holy Spokes:

It's our way. ;)

comment #17

LexG says ...

As I type this, a unit across the courtyard in my apartment building is being remodeled by a work crew that is entirely Latino. Started a week back, and every morning said work begins promptly at 8am. Tellingly, it's not the hammering, drilling, band-sawing, and ladder-dragging 20 yards away that wakes me up every morning... but rather the CONVERSATIONS among the contractors, all of which are, yes, at ear-shattering decibels as the guys skulk in and out of their apartment back to their truck, usually the guys walking no further than five feet apart, yet SHOUTING in those lightning-paced, excited tones as if they're trying to hear each other over the screams of fourth quarter Super Bowl, or in a techno nightclub that's blasting Darude "Sandstorm" on an Ecstasy bender.

Like, this is the dudes' job, just hammering and painting side by side in a barren apartment building, and they're fucking SCREAMING and whooping and laughing with the vocal timber of a guy calling out to firemen... It'd be like you or me going into the office and SHOUTING to the dude in the next cubicle four feet away THE ENTIRE DAY. At some point, doesn't everyone get SICK of talking to each other this loudly and just focus on the work? How about a sheepish, internal L.A. handyman?

comment #18

actionman says ...

By and large, most people suck. This shouldn't surprise anyone. Hell is other people.

"Most people today just don't give a flying f*ck about anyone else." -- Exactly.

comment #19

Blue says ...

Were they fat? I'll bet they were fat.

comment #20

Hip Hop Homey says ...

Was this dude a "party elephant?"

comment #21

COCO says ...

I hear it happen all over Houston....mostly cell phone conversations.

comment #22

raygo says ...

Sounds like the beginning to an alien invasion movie ... it's happening EVERYWHERE!!

comment #23

Floyd Thursby says ...

"Sounds like the beginning to an alien invasion movie ... it's happening EVERYWHERE!!"

Maybe we can fight back by throwing gobs of oil at 'em: THE BLOB 2010: REVENGE OF THE QUIET AMERICANS.

comment #24

Smedley says ...

All races, all sexes, all the time in Saint Paul, MN too.

comment #25

Jonathan Spuij says ...

So you were annoyed all the time by any conversation held by any Italian while you were in Rome and Sicily last month?

comment #26

Science Adventure says ...

The ol' Google analytics that low this week, Jeff? You gotta whip out the dusty "loud mexicans" troll bait? Zzzzzz.

comment #27

great scott says ...

Guess Wells won't be moving to Arizona anytime soon.

comment #28

bcarter3 says ...

It's a class thing, not an ethnic thing. The further down the social scale you go, the louder the public conversations.

comment #29

George Prager says ...

The loudest people I ever came across was a table of young professional Frenchmen at a BYOB Vietnamese restaurant in Montreal. Bunch of boisterous bastards practically screaming at each other as they drank their Mouton Cadet. It was fucking deafening.

comment #30

chicagodad says ...

Look, for the most part, people in general have no sense of context whatsogoddamnedever. They treat movie theaters like their living rooms, have profanity-laced phone conversations on trains, etc.

Not to go all Luddite, but I really think the fact that people are constantly connected all the time, and can now be completely self-centered in just about any setting has done yeoman's work at destroying common courtesy.

People just don't understand the difference between "personal" and "important."

comment #31

Travis Crabtree says ...

"Sound" advice for all concerned.....

If you find yourself in Yellowknife don't sit next to a table full of Eskimos drunk on seal mead. A louder bunch you will not find.

comment #32

LexG says ...

Poor, under-educated people (of all stripes) are more likely to be:

1) Loud

2) Overly confident

3) Really into DANCING.

comment #33

bluefugue says ...

>2) Overly confident

BLUEFUGUE RULE. People who attribute to "poor, under-educated people" characteristics that they show excessively in themselves SHOULD HAVE ALL POSTING PRIVILEGES REMOVED NOW AND IN PERPETUITY.

BLUEFUGUE HAS SPOKEN.

GENUFLECT.

comment #34

John Robie says ...

"Poor, under-educated people (of all stripes) are more likely to be:

1) Loud

2) Overly confident

3) Really into DANCING."

In other words, MORE FUN.

Reading these threads makes me feel even whiter. I've lived in a couple Latin countries and also in Spain. Jeff, if you go in Buenos Aires beyond Palermo or La Recoleta, you'll see loud working class people. (And God protect you if you happen to be around La Bombonera when Boca Juniors loses a soccer match.) Same in Spain. Same, for that matter, in Berlin. It's a class issue, not ethnicity.

comment #35

Bob Hightower says ...

Jeff, your mother must never had sat you down as a child and explained about prejudice. Characterizing entire groups of people as all behaving the same (especially when you attribute negative traits to them) is called stereotyping. It's inaccurate on the face of it and foolish and just plain wrong (i.e., unfair as well as incorrect). If you want to criticize one particular person, do so without suggesting he or she is typical of an entire ethnic group. All ethnic groups contain loud or obnoxious people. But to say that one group has a monopoly on such behavior is just false. Prejudice is, at root, ignorant. This all may seem obvious to most readers here, but I don't think you learned it as a kid.

comment #36

Josh Massey says ...

I'm a big believer in the validity of stereotypes.

comment #37

caspermartinez says ...

hmmm Interesting. I'll be posting my remarks on this ignorant fuck on www.latinofilmchatter.com

comment #38

Gabe@ThePlaylist says ...

As an ACTUAL New York Latino

1) Fuck you?
2) An apology would be accepted at any future screening.

comment #39

Jenni who u know says ...

Oh Jeffrey really? I mean Yes there are Latinos that talk loud..but there are also "low-rent" white people who talk loud ...black...Chinese (have you been to Chinatown?) Anyway, if you don't like it..you can do the following:

1- You could of told the manager to tell them to lower their voices?
2- told them something yourself
3- Welcome to NYC now don't come back :-) IT IS VERY LOUD HERE HAVE YOU NOT WALKED AROUND MIDTOWN LATELY (sorry for the caps just in case you could not read or hear this; you know its very loud).

I find your comment a tad ignorant to put mostly all Latinos as low rent. Btw where is there low rent in NYC?

comment #40

John M says ...

Boy, if ever there was a guy who wasn't cut out for New York living...

I imagine the end of a Scooby Doo episode, when Wells pulls off his mask to reveal he was Don Imus the whole time.

I look forward to the publication of his 900-page treatise, "The Mark of a Real Animal." Perfect for Ornery Grandpa's Day!

comment #41

HoopersX says ...

I suppose if you are looking for it you can always find an example that fits your point of view.

Generally speaking, I attempt to live my life by the physicians creed "first, do no harm." Sometimes it is a lot easier to say it than live it. That being said, gross generalizations of sex, creed or ethinicity dont do much to advance one's point of view.

Truth be told, I hear just as many, self important rich assholes in LA talking loud on their bluetooth(trying to prove how rich and powerful they are) by talking loud than anyone else.

I think Wells has a real point about people neglecting common decency and talking so loud that they invade everyone elses space. It happens everywhere and all the time. But by no means is it limited to or dominated by any group. Shit Wells, you lived in LA long enough to have endured far worse by some douchebag, wannabe agent/director/producer...

I just figure all people who cant manage their volume in public settings are assholes and there are more than enough to go around.... Brown, White, Black or Red, White and Blue.

comment #42

Jeffrey Wells says ...

Wells to HoopersX: "You say you try to live by the physician's creed -- 'first, do no harm.' The reason I wrote that piece yesterday morning is that harm was done to me, or rather my eardrums and sense of decorum. Those three braying, boomy-voiced guys in the cafe drew first blood. I was just quietly sitting and reading and these three donkeys turned the cafe into a Latino AM talk-radio show with the volume level turned up to 8 or 9.

"I lived for a year [11.08 to 11.09] in a middle-class Hispanic community in North Bergen, New Jersey and know whereof I speak. New York-area Latinos tend to converse (not always but often enough) in a loud and grossly exuberant manner. They speak much more loudly than they need to because...I don't know why. Because they fucking feel like it? Because it's in their blood? And like I said yesterday, I've been among Latin people in other parts of the world and they really do seem to be classier people than their New York cousins.

"As BCarter3 said yesterday, 'It's a class thing, not an ethnic thing. The further down the social scale you go, the louder the public conversations.'

"And this doesn't make me Don Imus -- it makes me someone who's unafraid to say what he's heard and seen and felt out in the real world. It's not a rumor -- common, coarse people are out there in force.

"We're not living in a Henry James world or a John Reed-and-Louise Bryant world or an F. Scott Fitzgerald Egg Harbor world or an Ernest Hemingway-in-Paris world of the 1920s or even a Bob Dylan West Village world of the early 1960s. In many if not most of our 2010 social realms, refinement is out the window for the most part. The best seems to have come and gone in terms of culture. Things are cool in my realm -- I like my gig and love what I do -- but they do seem to be generally downswirling at the same time in an educational cultural Ms. Manners sense.

"As Jose Ferrer's Turkish Bey character said in Lawrence of Arabia, 'I am surrounded by cattle.'"

comment #43

Gabe@ThePlaylist says ...

I wish white people would just shut the hell up. Forever.

comment #44

Jeffrey Wells says ...

Whoa, Gabe...you shut me down there. You're right. The concept of coarse and crude behavior is a complete invention. There are no such things in our world as people who lack class and refinement. Speak to any New York-area Latino working-class guy and it's exactly like sitting at a large dining table and sipping fine wine and discussing philosophy with Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I made up all this coarse and loud stuff because I'm a racist dog. You got me.

comment #45

CitizenKanedForPostingThoughts says ...

What are you doing trying to read at a cafe, anyway? Go to a library, or better yet, go home. Jesus, it's not like you don't have any options.

Yes, in an ideal world we should be able to do these things, but this ain't Eden, baby. Once you leave the comfort of your home, you should be expecting the worst (or loudest, most annoying, etc.). In NYC, this is probably doubly true.

comment #46

LatinaGal says ...

Hmm. Very interesting. I was born in Spanish Harlem, NYC; a product of the "projects" (very low rent) and I don't remember my parents nor siblings, along with many of my acquaintances, speak loudly in social places and/or gatherings. We do, however, LOVE to dance Salsa.

So....

FUCK YOU, MR. WELLS (11 decibels).

Have a nice day (5 decibels).

comment #47

YoureANobodyLoser says ...

Your blog post is incredibly offensive. Not only did you liken New York Latinos to "animals", you wondered if it was just us "low-rent" Latinos who act in a way that offends your delicate sensibilities.

You mentioned that in your travels all the Latinos you've encountered have had great manners but then you ponder if it's because they have money.

You're a pig. I need no further evidence of such. You couldn't just say to yourself, "These three men are incredibly loud." No, not at all. You had to group all the New York Latinos together and stereotype us as "low-rent animals" who have terrible manners because of our lack of money.

You are a buffoon who makes asinine observations and decides to share them with other buffoons. I will be contacting everyone who has ever published your comments and inform them of your bigoted remarks. Good day.

comment #48

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comment #49

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comment #50

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comment #51

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comment #52

CHORWACJA says ...

I'm a big believer in the validity of stereotypes.

comment #53

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comment #54

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