Sensitive to sound, inventor jams to a different drummer
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   By HIRAN RATNAYAKE - The News Journal
   April 15, 2007

   Whether it's the booming stereo radiating from the
   next car, a dog barking incessantly, or the neighbor
   blasting Bon Jovi, noise has enraged most everyone.
   Towns have passed laws to deal with it and
   numerous gadgets have been developed to protect
   from it. But few have taken their hatred for noise as
   far as Houston's Barney Vincelette.

   A case of mild autism has made him extremely
   sensitive to noise. Vincelette, who lives in a
   spaceship-style house, thinks music, especially top
   40, rap and rock 'n' roll, "sounds the same way feces
   smells."

   Vincelette used his genius-level IQ and parts of
   household microwave ovens to develop a makeshift
   device that uses electromagnetic waves to
   temporarily jam the circuitry of his neighbors'
   stereos.

   "Many people just assume that you should be able
   to have this music in your backyard. But it is such
   an ugly music that it takes over one's life," he said.
   "That's why I fight back against it."

   Vincelette is so sensitive to noise that he's gone as
   far as shooting and killing a dog that barked
   nonstop outside his apartment. He paid a $100 fine
   and was evicted.

   "I'm not terribly proud to have done that but I was at
   the end of my rope," he said. "The way the law was,
   there was nothing I could do about it and there was
   no place I could live that didn't have dogs barking
   all night and all day."

   That sensitivity to noise ignites a rage within
   Vincelette that has turned neighbors into enemies.
   Elizabeth Ramirez, who lives in a mobile home next
   door, said Vincelette likes to "control" her family
   with his sound-stopping inventions.

   Andy and Shirley Snead also have had a dispute. In
   August 2002, Vincelette, annoyed by the thumping
   bass from their stereo, rigged truck horns to an air
   compressor and blared it.

   Police issued a disorderly-conduct citation, which
   carried a hefty fine.

   "A policeman told me he heard it a mile away,"
   Vincelette said.

   But instead of paying the ticket, he recorded the
   noise and sent it to a professional musician and
   personal friend in the Netherlands.

   His friend wrote a letter declaring "Sonata for
   Calliope of Truck Horns About to be Transcribed for
   Locomotive Horns Opus No. 1" as music.

   Armed with the letter, Vincelette contested the fine in
   court, arguing it amounted to "selective
   enforcement."

   The charges were dropped. His relationship with the
   Sneads now is civil.

   "I'm not going to say anything good about him and
   I'm not going to say anything bad about him," Andy
   Snead said.

   For Vincelette, it was a victory of sorts.
   "If they can play their music, then I can play mine,"
   he said.