I know that we have not yet met, so allow me to introduce myself. My name is Jason Mulgrew, and I, too, am a resident of Ludlow Street. As a matter of fact, I live in the building right next to yours, and we share the same air shaft, that two foot space between buildings that gives some NYC apartments their distinct “view” (read: a brick wall that one can reach out of his or her window and touch).

And though we have yet to actually meet, we know each other. Or at least, we know of each other’s presence. I know you as the girl who sings at the top of her lungs several nights a week, at any time between 7pm and midnight, and really belts it out – very, very poorly. And you know me as the guy who opens his window, several nights a week, at any time between 7pm and midnight, and screams, “SHUT THE FUCK UP!” at you when you’re doing your singing (or what you believe is singing but what most people would call “making noises with your mouth and throat and lungs that sound really fucking awful and annoying”).

Now, I should be clear about something straight away: I am a patron of the arts. Not a “patron” in the literal sense that I pay for art or go to charity functions or auctions or whatever, but in the way that I support art in all forms. Sure, maybe I don’t “get” paintings, because I don’t understand how one painting that looks weird can be worth $10 million when another painting that looks the same kind of weird can be worth nothing. But I don’t dislike paintings or sculpture or whatnot, and I particularly enjoy those paintings and sculptures that have naked people from the past in them. I also quite enjoy literature – I am a soon-to-be author myself, with a book coming in less than a month – and I buy and read several books and articles a month, which I then discuss with my friends in serious conversations in coffeehouses or on couches over large cans of Budweiser while AC/DC plays in the background.

And speaking of, I love music. Though I am a writer by trade, music is my one true passion. One of the seminal moments of my life came in March of 1992, when I was in seventh grade. I went “up the mountains” (Philadelphia slang for going to the Poconos) one weekend with my buddy Brian and his family. And there, for the first time, I heard “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” I was aware of The Beatles prior to this weekend, but what I knew of them was limited mostly to their songs of the “Love Me Do” ilk. And while I realize it’s almost a cliché to write, as thousand of others have experienced similar epiphanies, the album blew my mind, and sent me into tailspin of obsession with The Beatles, and then with other artists (The Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Costello, AC/DC, etc), and deepened my appreciation for music generally. So I love, truly love, music.

Shortly after hearing “Sgt. Pepper,” I took up the guitar, and eventually wound up playing bass in a band in college called Royce. Even though we played mostly hate rock (Tool, Helmet, Rage Against the Machine, etc), these were my halcyon days: on stage in various bars in Boston that I otherwise was not old enough to get into, playing before my friends, drinking for free, and once, getting a blowjob in the woods after a show at Middlebury College. And perhaps even more fun were those practices in the basement of our singer Pat’s parents’ house, where we got together a few days week, drank bottled beer (a luxury in college, to be sure), and honed our craft. So I appreciate the need for practice in order to perfect your musical abilities.

But just as I have made clear my love for music and my understanding of the need for practice, allow me to make one other thing clear: You are truly, truly fucking terrible. You jump from key to key, your tone is all wrong, and you seemingly have very little control of the volume of your voice. Worse, you seem supremely confident in your abilities, not shying away from the big notes and employing something that (I’m assuming) is intended to be vibrato, but sounds like a drunk person singing karaoke during an earthquake. It’s disgusting – I am actually physically disgusted when I hear you sing. You are honestly so bad that at times I’ve wondered if you are part of some sort of “Candid Camera” experiment, perhaps a shitty MTV Show titled, “Let’s Make My Neighbors Kill Me,” in which various protagonists across NYC attempt to piss off their neighbors so much that actual attempts are made on their lives.

If this is the case, man, you will win that show. Hands down. I have only been living in my apartment since December, so I can’t say for sure how long your singing has been going on. But I imagine it hasn’t been much longer than that, because any sane neighbor of yours with full hearing faculties must surely be close to his or her breaking point by now (though I guess it is conceivable that you live around people who are either deaf or have been lying deceased in their apartments for months; you never can tell on the LES).

However, if this is not the case, and you think of yourself as a real, actual singer, I would suggest that you either soundproof your apartment or stop singing altogether. This is a suggestion, and here is a warning: if you refuse to do either of these things and continue with your loud, wretched singing, I am going to come down on you like a hawk from hell. I have had to put up with your awful mouth-noises (really, I can no longer bring myself to use the term “singing”) far too long, suffering through them several times a week, for HOURS at a time, and I have had enough. You need to shut the fuck up, and shut the fuck up now. Though I am not a violent man, I will be compelled to act, and act with extreme vengeance. I have a lot of pent-up sexual and emotional frustration, which I have been burying in pints of ice cream and shots of bourbon for years and years. I feel that if you continue if your mouth-noises, I will break; and if I fear that if I break, it will result in something quite unfortunate, something devastating, something that will written about and studied in FBI manuals for many years to come. So I ask you, one last time, shut. the. fuck. up.

I hope this letter finds you well, and good luck in all your life endeavors (outside of singing).