Wednesday 27 April 2011

Pertanyaan sore hari: are you my friend?

Jadi ceritanya hari ini di kelas statistik ada kejadian yang cukup goblok, temen saya sebut saja si R dan si W hampir mau berantem gede gara2 hal yang sebenernya ga penting: parfum.
si R ini masuk kelas dengan bau parfum yang cukup menyengat, terus si W spontan bercanda, "dude, gile lu bau parfumnya mantep abis, are you hitting someone here?". Si R juga bales dengan bercanda, "iye, gw lagi ngincer lu berdua (ngomong sama gw sama si W)". Oke sampe disini masih asik2 aja, kita bales juga dengan ketawa2 bego. Nah setelah kelas dimulai sekitar setengah jam, si W ini tau2 protes lagi, "anjeeeng R, bau parfum lo, hahaha". Nah disini si R mulai agak males diprotes mulu, "ah bacot lo!". Si W juga bales, "lo orang negara mana sih, sensitif amat!". Situasi mulai agak memanas setelah 2 orang ini saling sahut2an cuma gara2 parfum. Saya yg udah mulai males akhirnya slap some senses back to their mind, "are you guys fucking pussies?? We all men here, calm down, it's just a fucking perfume!". Akhirnya mereka diem dan suasana agak kembali adem.
Diakhir kelas si R ngomong sama gw, "dude, sori yg tadi, bukan maksud gw sensitif gitu, cuma gw ga nganggep si W itu temen gw, okelah lo temen gw ga masalah kalo lo becanda2 gitu. Gw mulai gini juga gara2 dulu gw sering sok2an becanda sama temen Thai, tapi respon mereka malah gini "ngapain lo ngomong kayak gitu, lo kan bukan temen gw" jadi gw mulai bersikap gini sekarang"

nah paragraf diatas ini cuma intro doang benernya, dari pembicaraan dengan si R ini saya jadi memikirkan banyak hal. Emang apa sih yg jadi kriteria seseorang bisa dikategorikan teman atau bukan?

buat saya sih simple, begitu saya mulai berkenalan dengan seseorang, terlibat pembicaraan, maka saya menganggap dia teman. Disini status seseorang yg nobody berubah menjadi teman. Saya pribadi lebih suka menyebut teman disini adalah status ground zero, neutral, dan saya ga mau atau lebih tepatnya ga gitu suka membuat strata di dalam status tersebut.

But aren't we all just human? We love to make caste system even in smallest simplest thing in our life. Dari status "teman" we made many subtypes: sahabat, drink buddy, pray buddy, TTM, fuck buddy, sworn brother, sworn sister, temen makan, temen yg nongol kalo butuh doang, parasit, partner-in-crime, dll. Dan bagai sebuah sistem kasta, status spesial diberikan sesuai tingkat kedekatan kita dengan seseorang, ain't all lover starts as friends? Lalu ga dikit juga teman yang turun kasta menjadi musuh. Oh we are all so simple, humankind.

so, if sometimes later I suddenly love you, are you still my friend?
so, if sometimes later I hurt you and you stop talking to me, are we still friends?
like Ted Mosby said, "so look at we, we are just two people who pretend to be friend just because it would be inconvenience not to"
if sometimes later I change your beer into milk, are we still friends?
if sometimes later I rarely give you some satyrical jokes and give you sweet words and praise instead, are we...still friends?
so if sometimes later I throw you a grenade...err jost joking, who the fuck gonna throw people some grenades, are you a moron?

oh iya, perlu diingat juga bahwa teman itu berbeda dengan keluarga. Meskipun itu sohib kamu yg paling deket, tetep ada batasan yg membedakan dia dengan keluarga. Personally, ini lebih kearah attitude,
bagaimana kamu respect terhadap keluarga, ada value tersendiri yang tak tergantikan oleh siapapun, dan untuk memasukkan seseorang sebagai anggota keluarga itu bukan
hal yang sepele, seperti misal, pipis di semak belukar. #ganyambung #biarin

keterangan gambar disamping: bukti belum ditemukannya KB. Beyond salvation!
ada kejadian beberapa minggu yang lalu ketika saya main FB, secara mendadak ada yg memberi family request kepada saya. Padahal saya serius ga kenal bocah itu. Mana status yg dia requestkan kepada saya adalah: son. Ini masih bocah bisa2nya nganggep gw son, sungguh delusional.

Jadi postingan sore hari ini sih saya cuma pengen bertanya sama pembaca sekalian, apa sih yg mengkategorikan seseorang menjadi teman atau bukan? perlukah strata dalam pertemanan? perlukah kita bersandiwara, wouwoooo...

udah ah saya mau makan sate sama durian monthong dulu, selamat sore!

Tuesday 19 April 2011

Treasures are Found Just Around The Corner

Another Tuesday, another free day! kenapa bisa begitu? karena semester pendek ini saya masuk kelas cuma 3 hari, maka setiap hari selasa dan kamis saya libur deh, mehehehe.
Hari ini seharian saya dedikasikan buat beres2 kamar, sungguh niat yang mulia, niat yang ga akan jalan kalau misal kamar gue ga diserang semut2 laknat dari neraka! Jadi ceritanya tadi malem gue kelaperan, terus bikin indomi deh. Nah waktu bikin indomie ada yg nyecer beberapa, eeeeh paginya tuh ceceran udah diperkosa aja sama segerombolan semut.

singkat cerita, akhirnya kamar saya sekarang udah layak huni lagi. Selain melakukan genosida terhadap semut, tadi gue juga bersihin rak buku. Handout2 semester kemaren yg udah ga kepake dibuangin, kertas2 ga penting juga dibuangin, dan sembari saya membersihkan rak buku, saya juga menemukan harta karun!
ini dia harta karunnya:

kumpulan buku-buku lama yg gue punya!

ini nostalgik banget! buku-buku ini adalah saksi bisu sejarah yg gue kumpulin semenjak dateng ke Thailand sampe sekarang, ga gitu banyak sih, beberapa ada yg bawa dari indo, beberapa ada yg beli disini, mari kita lihat apa aja bukunya.


Nah ini kumpulan majalah tentang film dan juga musik. Dulu semasa masih kerja jadi penyiar tiap bulan baca Rolling Stone gratis di radio, ditumpukan itu juga ada Trax magazine, tapi kalo soal muatan isi sih jelas lebih menang Rolling Stone. Itu ada juga Ripple sama Across magazine, majalah tentang subculture lupa belinya di mana. Dan beberapa majalah sisanya adalah majalah tentang film. Buat Cinemags gue udah ngikutin majalah ini dari dulu, di jaman internet belom masuk desa majalah ini adalah pemuas dahaga tentang info-info film baru yang bakal nongol. Dibanding dengan majalah2 film selevelnya, majalah ini cukup oke kok.


nah kalo ini adalah kumpulan majalah tentang sneakers. Sebenernya lebih banyak lagi tapi beberapa kemaren gue bawa pulang ke indo. Soal konten sih masih lebih bagus Sneakerfreaker Magazine, tapi kenapa saya doyan koleksi ini? soalnya majalah ini gratis! bisa didapatkan secara cuma-cuma di tempat2 nongkrong semacem True Coffee dan warung2 yang jualan sneakers. Kekurangan dari majalah ini adalah, mereka nulis pake bahasa Thai, ya mana gue mudeng mereka ngomongin apa. Tapi majalah ini lumayan berguna karena mereka ngasih lihat model2 sneaker baru, harganya berapa, dan dimana kamu bisa dapetin sneaker itu di Thailand. If you see this kind of magazine in Thailand, don't hesitate to grab one.


nah kalo yg ini sih kumpulan majalah dan buku random yg gue punya. Itu yg judulnya Snuff belakangan lagi gue baca, salah satu novel bikinannya Chuck Palahniuk, author favorit gue. Ceritanya ada 1 bintang bokep yg mau mecahin rekor dunia dengan ML sama 600 orang, diantara 600 orang itu ada yg mau bunuh doi. Diceritain dari sudut pandang 4 karakter, satir, gelap, dan nggapleki khas Chuck Palahniuk, hahahaha. Itu ada juga majalah National Geographic versi Thailand, dapet gratisan sih. Freakonomics ini juga keren lho, ngomongin tentang perekonomian dari sudut pandang yg ga biasa, contohnya nih: apa yg menyebabkan bertambahnya kriminalitas? jawaban yg cukup nyeleneh dari buku ini adalah, karena banyak bayi lahir di lingkungan yang penuh dengan kemiskinan dan kekerasan. Jadi kesimpulannya: aborsi itu membantu menekan jumlah kriminalitas dan kemiskinan. Cara yg cukup cutting-edge, daripada ntar bayi itu tumbuh gede jadi kriminal, mending ga usah dilahirin sekalian di lingkungan yang salah. Btw, denger2 Freakonomics ini nanti mau dibikin versi filmnya lho, jadi penasaran kayak gimana filmnya.
Ada juga Benny and Mice beli jaman dulu waktu pulang indo. Dan ternyata.... gue punya juga lho majalah FRONT! Front magazine ini keluaran UK, err...majalah stensilan sih, gatau juga kenapa dulu gue beli kayak ginian, penasaran doang kayaknya, tapi lumayan bagus kok, serius deh, hahahahaha :P

seiring dengan makin canggihnya teknologi dan juga cepetnya akses internet, maka saya mulai jarang beli buku lagi. Kebanyakan bisa baca online atau tinggal download versi e-book, atau pdf filenya sih. Semacem komik2 Marvel kayak Civil War, What-If, Runaways, gitu saya ada lho di laptop. Komik2 jepang gitu juga tinggal download gampang pake domdomsoft. Tapi tetep aja feeling baca buku dan aroma kertas itu ga tergantikan oleh versi digital yang ada. Jadi pesan saya: kalo ga tertarik2 banget tentang konten suatu buku, download aja sih gpp. Tapi buat buku yang kamu beneran pengen, buat koleksi, memiliki value lebih, ga ada salahnya kalo kamu beli versi originalnya, harga yang kamu keluarkan setara kok dengan kepuasan yang kamu dapet. After all, satisfaction is not measured by how much money you spent, it measured by how much happiness you get.

Monday 18 April 2011

La Horde & The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

this post were originally made on Sunday, September 26, 2010 at 3:34pm

Final exam period! Definitely a good time to watch another good movies.


Belakangan gw nonton beberapa film, bukan film baru sih tapi cukup oke buat hiburan semasa ujian. Pertama gw mau nulis short review tentang La Horde, french gangster-zombie movie, tentang polisi lagi konflik sama gangster terus waktu lagi asyik2nya berantem tau2 ada wabah zombie, akhirnya 2 kubu yg berseteru ini harus kerjasama demi bertahan hidup. Lumayan oke sih, di film ini dihadirkan cara baru buat melawan zombie yg jarang ada di film2 lain: bare hands fight! Serius, survivor disini beneran berantem gitu sama zombie, pukul2an, dijedukin tembok, sampe dijatuhin kulkas. Some scene are fishy though, kayak zombie pertama yg nongol disini adalah pria yg ditembakin sama para gangster, ga tau kenapa eh tau2 doi jadi zombie gitu aja, kapan kegigitnya? Terus zombie2 disini juga habis nggigit mati korbannya ga cuma dihambur2in isi perutnya doang, tapi mayatnya dibawa ke suatu tempat, buat apa? buat dikumpulin bikin persediaan makanan! Cuman gw heran, para zombie disini masih idiot kayak teman2 sejenisnya di film lain, selain mereka bisa lari, bisa lihat dan denger korbannya, tapi buat bikin ransum makanan, wow, gw jadi mengira di film ini belum dilihatin ada Zombie Queen yg mengontrol para zombie, atau General Zombie di Dead Snow, atau half-zombie-overlord tipikal Kerrigan di StarCraft, hahaha.


Personally, kalo soal tension, film ini masih dibawah REC2 sih (REC2 emang bukan zombie, something much more evil than that, tapi gw suka panic effect yg dibangun di film ini, one of handheld-based-view horror movie that you MUST watch), buat soal zombie yg lari, 28 Weeks Later still creep you out, itung2 buat referensi film zombie boleh deh kalian tonton kalo lagi ga ada kerjaan, atau mungkin kebanyakan kerjaan tapi ga tau mau ngapain

emang sih di film ini Zombienya buanyaaaak


if you ever eat somebody put your hands uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup!


and yes, zombie doesn't mess with a Nigerian

fuck yea :)



review kedua: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Swedish: Män som hatar kvinnor)


film pertama dari Millenium Trilogy based on novel yg ditulis oleh Stieg Larsson. Jagoan di film ini ada 2, Mikael Blomkvist, seorang jurnalis yg kerja di majalah Millenium, dia terkena kasus pencemaran nama baik gara2 nulis tentang Wennerström, seorang corrupt Swedish industrialist. Disaat masa2 terpuruknya, tau2 aja dia dapet kerjaan dari milyuner bernama Henrik Vanger, menyelidiki tentang kasus ponakannya, Harriet, yg hilang mendadak 40 tahun yg lalu. Vanger family ini terdiri dari banyak orang serakah yg dicurigai oleh Henrik membunuh ponakannya yg paling di sayangi biar si Henrik crumble down. Si Mikael diberi kerjaan ini soalnya waktu kecil dia pernah main sama si Harriet, reputasi dia sebagai jurnalis juga udah mumpuni. Jagoan kedua di film ini adalah Lisbeth Salander, cewek bergaya eksentrik campuran goth-punk dengan tindik dimana2 dan tato naga gede di punggungnya. Dibalik gayanya yg nyleneh, dia ini sebenernya hacker dan researcher jenius yg punya ingatan fotografis! Pertama2, si Lisbeth menyelidiki Mikael gara2 dapet kerjaan dari bironya, tapi lama kemudian dia jadi tertarik sama kasus yg lagi ditangani Mikael dan akhirnya mereka berdua jadi partner.

Film ini ga cuma nyeritain tentang nyari keponakan Vanger yang hilang doang, tapi ternyata kasus hilangnya si Harriet itu nyrempet ke kasus2 pembunuhan yang lain juga sejarah gelap Vanger family. Isu sadistic ritual Nazi murders dan kekerasan seksual terhadap wanita juga diangkat disini.

Durasi film ini panjang juga sih, 2 jam 32 menit, tapi ini bukan tipikal film yang kalo kamu tonton lama2 bikin ngantuk dan plotnya ga jelas, alur disini dibangun dengan smooth, pengembangan karakter dan visual diperhatikan dengan bagus, contohnya waktu adegan peluru nyrempet kepala Mikael, disitu dilihatin rambut Mikael kepotong mbentuk alur peluru terus darah mengucur dari kepala, fresh blood! Karakter Lisbeth yg bermasalah juga digambarkan dengan sempurna, nih cewek ya, kalo digambar di kartun bakal kayak gini:

hampir sepanjang film dia ga pernah senyum!

padahal aslinya (Noomi Rapace) lumayan banget lhoooo


Lisbeth Salander ini tercipta gara2 sang penulis novel pernah mengalami trauma, sewaktu dia berumur 15 tahun dia pernah lihat seorang cewek di gang-rape tapi dia ga bisa nolong apa2, and yes, nama cewek itu adalah Lisbeth.

First movie of the trilogy cukup membuat gw terkesan, film kedua The Girl who Played with Fire sedang dalam proses download, dan film ketiga The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest sudah ada di dalem eksternal HD, another good movies to watch in another time.

notes: read the books, kayaknya sih di novel diceritain lebih detail daripada di filmnya :D

KICK-ASS

this post were originally made on Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 3:17am

dan pernah dimuat di Trailer-Magz juga lhoooo


pernah merasa kecewa dengan sebuah film tapi naluri hewani di dalam dirimu merasakan getaran orgasmik yang sangat memuaskan berulang kali? First, no, I'm not talking about watching a movie as "guilty pleasure", I'm talking about watching a damn good movie (paling nggak menurut selera gw). Second, yes, I'm talking about KICK-ASS.

buat gw yg mengikuti komiknya dari chapter 1-8 book one (book two belom keluar kayaknya, cmiiw), ada beberapa alesan yg membuat gw agak kecewa:

mengharapkan scene seperti ini di film?

hell noooo! it's not Quentin Tarantino movie!

KICK-ASS' pathetic life?

well, he's not that pathetic actually..

dan yg ketiga gw ga tau mau masukin ke kategori mengecewakan atau malah memuaskan adalah...
jalan cerita yg beda dari komik.
good point soalnya gara2 ini gw jadi nggak sotoy udah tau kejadian berikutnya gara2 udah baca di komik, bad point..well..ya paham lah perasaan orang yg udah baca cerita aslinya di komik dan lihat ada perombakan di filmnya. Less gore emang, tapi tetep renyah dan lezat untuk dinikmati.

Buat storyline gw ga mau banyak komen deh, baca aja komiknya, atau kalo kamu lagi males gampangnya gw ceritain deh, ceritanya ada pemuda ordinary yg hidup cuma exist doang, autis dengan komputer dan imajinasi hormon remaja labil namanya Dave Lizewski. Dia superhero comic freak dan pada akhirnya memutuskan buat menjadi superhero wannabe dengan nama KICK ASS padahal dia ga punya skill berantem apa2, senjatanya aja cuma pentungan. His life mulai screwed up setelah dia ketemu sama superhero lain yg ternyata adalah the real vigilante bernama HIT GIRL dan BIG DADDY yg bertindak bagaikan Frank Castle a.k.a The Punisher yg hobi bunuhin mafia, and they love blood so freaking much. Singkat ceritanya gitu sih, cuman cerita di movienya ini udah diramahkan dengan kamu yg belom baca komiknya kok.

Oke, gw udah bahas tentang bad points film ini, sekarang tentang good points:
- Musik yang tepat di saat yang tepat adalah salah satu poin kuat yang bikin film ini adegan berantem semi-gorenya sangat nikmat buat dinikmati bahkan buat penonton yang ga gitu doyan lihat darah. Contoh simple, Omen - The Prodigy dipake buat adegan Kick-Ass berantem, Per Qualche Dollaro In Piu - Ennio Morricone dipake buat scene berantem Hit-Girl, bahkan An American Trilogy - Elvis Presley dipake buat adegan eksplosif yang sangat epic!

- Chloë Grace Moretz sebagai Hit Girl bener2 fascinating! Di satu sisi dia bagaikan reinkarnasi The Bride versi anak2, kejam, kalem, mematikan. Tapi di satu sisi dia bener2 lucu menggemaskan bagaikan Kirsten Dunst di Jumanji :P Pokoknya dia ini karakter favorit gw di film ini deh, see

tuh kan, cuma killer kaya gini ini nih yg bisa bikin kamu menyanyikan lagunya the smith "to die by your side, well the pleasure the privilige is mine" sebelum akhirnya kepalamu diledakkan.
sekarang aslinya dia masih 13 tahun, let's see 5 tahun lagi dia bakal jadi seranum apa, mehehehe

from cutey

to deadly


overall KICK-ASS bener2 film yang sangat menyenangkan ditonton sendirian atau bersama teman2 asal tidak bersama adik kecil yang mengharapkan cerita superhero jagoan kita semua (menilik kasus Watchmen) atau bersama kak Seto dari dinas perlindungan anak, karena Hit Girl memang nggak merokok dari balita tapi dia bisa membuat otak musuhnya berhamburan dengan tetap tersenyum manis :)

Dawn of The Dead

lupakan zombieland, shaun of the dead, atau film yg berusaha melucu-lucukan zombie. This is the real deal!
Banyak hal yang bikin saya ketawa2 sendiri sewaktu nonton film ini. Bukan ketawa gara2 filmnya norak, zombienya goblok, atau akting pemain yang dibuat lucu, tapi gara2 film ini asli keren banget.

Dimana lagi coba km bisa lihat zombie loncat kodok

zombie cina buntung, see the face? priceless

eh si doi ketembak deh

ada juga zombie hamil

sampai yang paling keren, ada cameo dari star wars

JABBA THE HUTT!

tuh kan rame, hahaha
eh tapi serius, ini film zombie yang asik buat ditonton. Thrillernya dapet, karakternya juga nggak berlebihan, alurnya enak buat dicerna, pokoknya porsinya pas deh.
Cerita film ini berpusat kepada sekumpulan orang yg selamat dari wabah zombie dan membuat benteng di dalem mall. Terus nanti jumlah survivor makin bertambah dan bergabung di gerombolan mereka. Cuman bantuan ga kunjung dateng dan mereka punya masalah2 yg harus mereka tangani sendiri sekaligus memikirkan gimana caranya menyelamatkan diri mereka dari wabah zombie.

Seperti kebanyakan karya George A. Romero yg lain, ga pernah diceritain kenapa tau2 ada wabah zombie, pokoknya asik aja ngelihat gimana para survivor itu bertahan hidup dengan pengeksekusian cerita yang berkelas dan tetap seru buat ditonton sampai akhir.
Oh iya, ending sebenernya dari film ini ada di sepanjang credit title terakhir lhoooo, jadi jangan buru2 dimatiin kalo udah kelar nonton :)

Best quotes: "When there is no more room in hell, the death will walk the earth"
Best actor: Chips!

reason? it's cute. enough said, hahaha

GUTS, a short story from Chuck Palahniuk

Ok, this is a repost from Chuck Palahniuk's official website so don't complain me. It's pretty hard to find Chuck Palahniuk's books here in Indonesia, that's why we need internet. For what? To find it's pdf file or it's audiobooks, hahahaha. Never mind that, I still want to buy his original books :P

If you don't know who the hell is Chuck Palahniuk, go googling or open wikipedia right now, its worth your time. A simple thing to say, he's my favorite novelist.

Anyway, I will just repost his short story titled GUTS here, advices before you read this: First, if you are a conservative underage teenager, close this page. Second, maybe you will feel kinda sick after read this, that just normal, I feel it too. Third, enjoy the story :)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

GUTS

by Chuck Palahniuk

Printed in Playboy magazine

March 2004

Inhale.

Take in as much air as you can.

This story should last about as long as you can hold your breath, and then just a little bit longer. So listen as fast as you can.

A friend of mine, when he was thirteen years old he heard about "pegging." This is when a guy gets banged up the butt with a dildo. Stimulate the prostate gland hard enough, and the rumor is you can have explosive hands-free orgasms. At that age, this friend's a little sex maniac. He's always jonesing for a better way to get his rocks off. He goes out to buy a carrot and some petroleum jelly. To conduct a little private research. Then he pictures how it's going to look at the supermarket checkstand, the lonely carrot and petroleum jelly rolling down the conveyer belt toward the grocery store cashier. All the shoppers waiting in line, watching. Everyone seeing the big evening he has planned.

So, my friend, he buys milk and eggs and sugar and a carrot, all the ingredients for a carrot cake. And Vaseline.

Like he's going home to stick a carrot cake up his butt.

At home, he whittles the carrot into a blunt tool. He slathers it with grease and grinds his ass down on it. Then, nothing. No orgasm. Nothing happens except it hurts.

Then, this kid, his mom yells it's suppertime. She says to come down, right now.

He works the carrot out and stashes the slippery, filthy thing in the dirty clothes under his bed.

After dinner, he goes to find the carrot and it's gone. All his dirty clothes, while he ate dinner, his mom grabbed them all to do laundry. No way could she not find the carrot, carefully shaped with a paring knife from her kitchen, still shiny with lube and stinky.

This friend of mine, he waits months under a black cloud, waiting for his folks to confront him. And they never do. Ever. Even now he's grown up, that invisible carrot hangs over every Christmas dinner, every birthday party. Every Easter egg hunt with his kids, his parents' grandkids, that ghost carrot is hovering over all of them.

That something too awful to name.

People in France have a phrase: "Spirit of the Stairway." In French: Esprit de l'escalier. It means that moment when you find the answer, but it's too late. Say you're at a party and someone insults you. You have to say something. So under pressure, with everybody watching, you say something lame. But the moment you leave the party…

As you start down the stairway, then -- magic. You come up with the perfect thing you should've said. The perfect crippling put-down.

That's the Spirit of the Stairway.

The trouble is even the French don't have a phrase for the stupid things you actually do say under pressure. Those stupid, desperate things you actually think or do.

Some deeds are too low to even get a name. Too low to even get talked about.

Looking back, kid-psych experts, school counselors now say that most of the last peak in teen suicide was kids trying to choke while they beat off. Their folks would find them, a towel twisted around the kid's neck, the towel tied to the rod in their bedroom closet, the kid dead. Dead sperm everywhere. Of course the folks cleaned up. They put some pants on their kid. They made it look… better. Intentional at least. The regular kind of sad, teen suicide.

Another friend of mine, a kid from school, his older brother in the Navy said how guys in the Middle East jack off different than we do here. This brother was stationed in some camel country where the public market sells what could be fancy letter openers. Each fancy tool is just a thin rod of polished brass or silver, maybe as long as your hand, with a big tip at one end, either a big metal ball or the kind of fancy carved handle you'd see on a sword. This Navy brother says how Arab guys get their dick hard and then insert this metal rod inside the whole length of their boner. They jack off with the rod inside, and it makes getting off so much better. More intense.

It's this big brother who travels around the world, sending back French phrases. Russian phrases. Helpful jack-off tips.

After this, the little brother, one day he doesn't show up at school. That night, he calls to ask if I'll pick up his homework for the next couple weeks. Because he's in the hospital.

He's got to share a room with old people getting their guts worked on. He says how they all have to share the same television. All he's got for privacy is a curtain. His folks don't come and visit. On the phone, he says how right now his folks could just kill his big brother in the Navy.

On the phone, the kid says how -- the day before -- he was just a little stoned. At home in his bedroom, he was flopped on the bed. He was lighting a candle and flipping through some old porno magazines, getting ready to beat off. This is after he's heard from his Navy brother. That helpful hint about how Arabs beat off. The kid looks around for something that might do the job. A ball-point pen's too big. A pencil's too big and rough. But dripped down the side of the candle, there's a thin, smooth ridge of wax that just might work. With just the tip of one finger, this kid snaps the long ridge of wax off the candle. He rolls it smooth between the palms of his hands. Long and smooth and thin.

Stoned and horny, he slips it down inside, deeper and deeper into the piss slit of his boner. With a good hank of the wax still poking out the top, he gets to work.

Even now, he says those Arab guys are pretty damn smart. They've totally re-invented jacking off. Flat on his back in bed, things are getting so good, this kid can't keep track of the wax. He's one good squeeze from shooting his wad when the wax isn't sticking out anymore.

The thin wax rod, it's slipped inside. All the way inside. So deep inside he can't even feel the lump of it inside his piss tube.

From downstairs, his mom shouts it's suppertime. She says to come down, right now. This wax kid and the carrot kid are different people, but we all live pretty much the same life.

It's after dinner when the kid's guts start to hurt. It's wax so he figured it would just melt inside him and he'd pee it out. Now his back hurts. His kidneys. He can't stand straight.

This kid talking on the phone from his hospital bed, in the background you can hear bells ding, people screaming. Game shows.

The X-rays show the truth, something long and thin, bent double inside his bladder. This long, thin V inside him, it's collecting all the minerals in his piss. It's getting bigger and more rough, coated with crystals of calcium, it's bumping around, ripping up the soft lining of his bladder, blocking his piss from getting out. His kidneys are backed up. What little that leaks out his dick is red with blood.

This kid and his folks, his whole family, them looking at the black X-ray with the doctor and the nurses standing there, the big V of wax glowing white for everybody to see, he has to tell the truth. The way Arabs get off. What his big brother wrote him from the Navy.

On the phone, right now, he starts to cry.

They paid for the bladder operation with his college fund. One stupid mistake, and now he'll never be a lawyer.

Sticking stuff inside yourself. Sticking yourself inside stuff. A candle in your dick or your head in a noose, we knew it was going to be big trouble.

What got me in trouble, I called it Pearl Diving. This meant whacking off underwater, sitting on the bottom at the deep end of my parents' swimming pool. With one deep breath, I'd kick my way to the bottom and slip off my swim trucks. I'd sit down there for two, three, four minutes.

Just from jacking off, I had huge lung capacity. If I had the house to myself, I'd do this all afternoon. After I'd finally pump out my stuff, my sperm, it would hang there in big, fat, milky gobs.

After that was more diving, to catch it all. To collect it and wipe each handful in a towel. That's why it was called Pearl Diving. Even with chlorine, there was my sister to worry about. Or, Christ almighty, my Mom.

That used to be my worst fear in the world: my teenage virgin sister, thinking she's just getting fat, then giving birth to a two-headed retard baby. Both heads looking just like me. Me, the father AND the uncle.

In the end, it's never what you worry about that gets you.

The best part of Pearl Diving was the inlet port for the swimming pool filter and the circulation pump. The best part was getting naked and sitting on it.

As the French would say: Who doesn't like getting their butt sucked?

Still, one minute you're just a kid getting off, and the next minute you'll never be a lawyer.

One minute, I'm settling on the pool bottom, and the sky is wavy, light blue through eight feet of water above my head. The world is silent except for the heartbeat in my ears. My yellow-striped swim trunks are looped around my neck for safe keeping, just in case a friend, a neighbor, anybody shows up to ask why I skipped football practice. The steady suck of the pool inlet hole is lapping at me and I'm grinding my skinny white ass around on that feeling.

One minute, I've got enough air, and my dick's in my hand. My folks are gone at their work and my sister's got ballet. Nobody's supposed to be home for hours.

My hand brings me right to getting off, and I stop. I swim up to catch another big breath. I dive down and settle on the bottom.

I do this again and again.

This must be why girls want to sit on your face. The suction is like taking a dump that never ends. My dick hard and getting my butt eaten out, I do not need air. My heartbeat in my ears, I stay under until bright stars of light start worming around in my eyes. My legs straight out, the back of each knee rubbed raw against the concrete bottom. My toes are turning blue, my toes and fingers wrinkled from being so long in the water.

And then I let it happen. The big white gobs start spouting. The pearls.

It's then I need some air. But when I go to kick off against the bottom, I can't. I can't get my feet under me. My ass is stuck.

Emergency paramedics will tell you that every year about 150 people get stuck this way, sucked by a circulation pump. Get your long hair caught, or your ass, and you're going to drown. Every year, tons of people do. Most of them in Florida.

People just don't talk about it. Not even French people talk about EVERYTHING.

Getting one knee up, getting one foot tucked under me, I get to half standing when I feel the tug against my butt. Getting my other foot under me, I kick off against the bottom. I'm kicking free, not touching the concrete, but not getting to the air, either.

Still kicking water, thrashing with both arms, I'm maybe halfway to the surface but not going higher. The heartbeat inside my head getting loud and fast.

The bright sparks of light crossing and criss-crossing my eyes, I turn and look back… but it doesn't make sense. This thick rope, some kind of snake, blue-white and braided with veins has come up out of the pool drain and it's holding onto my butt. Some of the veins are leaking blood, red blood that looks black underwater and drifts away from little rips in the pale skin of the snake. The blood trails away, disappearing in the water, and inside the snake's thin, blue-white skin you can see lumps of some half-digested meal.

That's the only way this makes sense. Some horrible sea monster, a sea serpent, something that's never seen the light of day, it's been hiding in the dark bottom of the pool drain, waiting to eat me.

So… I kick at it, at the slippery, rubbery knotted skin and veins of it, and more of it seems to pull out of the pool drain. It's maybe as long as my leg now, but still holding tight around my butthole. With another kick, I'm an inch closer to getting another breath. Still feeling the snake tug at my ass, I'm an inch closer to my escape.

Knotted inside the snake, you can see corn and peanuts. You can see a long bright-orange ball. It's the kind of horse-pill vitamin my Dad makes me take, to help put on weight. To get a football scholarship. With extra iron and omega-three fatty acids.

It's seeing that vitamin pill that saves my life.

It's not a snake. It's my large intestine, my colon pulled out of me. What doctors call, prolapsed. It's my guts sucked into the drain.

Paramedics will tell you a swimming pool pump pulls 80 gallons of water every minute. That's about 400 pounds of pressure. The big problem is we're all connected together inside. Your ass is just the far end of your mouth. If I let go, the pump keeps working - unraveling my insides -- until it's got my tongue. Imagine taking a 400-pound shit, and you can see how this might turn you inside out.

What I can tell you is your guts don't feel much pain. Not the way your skin feels pain. The stuff you're digesting, doctor's call it fecal matter. Higher up is chyme, pockets of a thin runny mess studded with corn and peanuts and round green peas.

That's all this soup of blood and corn, shit and sperm and peanuts floating around me. Even with my guts unraveling out my ass, me holding onto what's left, even then my first want is to somehow get my swimsuit back on.

God forbid my folks see my dick.

My one hand holding a fist around my ass, my other hand snags my yellow-striped swim trunks and pulls them from around my neck. Still, getting into them is impossible.

You want to feel your intestines, go buy a pack of those lamb-skin condoms. Take one out and unroll it. Pack it with peanut butter. Smear it with petroleum jelly and hold it under water. Then, try to tear it. Try to pull it in half. It's too tough and rubbery. It's so slimy you can't hold on.

A lamb-skin condom, that's just plain old intestine.

You can see what I'm up against.

You let go for a second, and you're gutted.

You swim for the surface, for a breath, and you're gutted.

You don't swim, and you drown.

It's a choice between being dead right now or a minute from right now.

What my folks will find after work is a big naked fetus, curled in on itself. Floating in the cloudy water of their backyard pool. Tethered to the bottom by a thick rope of veins and twisted guts. The opposite of a kid hanging himself to death while he jacks off. This is the baby they brought home from the hospital thirteen years ago. Here's the kid they hoped would snag a football scholarship and get an MBA. Who'd care for them in their old age. Here's all their hopes and dreams. Floating here, naked and dead. All around him, big milky pearls of wasted sperm.

Either that or my folks will find me wrapped in a bloody towel, collapsed halfway from the pool to the kitchen telephone, the ragged, torn scrap of my guts still hanging out the leg of my yellow-striped swim trunks.

What even the French won't talk about.

That big brother in the Navy, he taught us one other good phrase. A Russian phrase. The way we say: "I need that like I need a hole in my head…" Russian people say: "I need that like I need teeth in my asshole…"

Mne eto nado kak zuby v zadnitse

Those stories about how animals caught in a trap will chew off their leg, well, any coyote would tell you a couple bites beats the hell out of being dead.

Hell… even if you're Russian, some day you just might want those teeth.

Otherwise, what you have to do is -- you have to twist around. You hook one elbow behind your knee and pull that leg up into your face. You bite and snap at your own ass. You run out of air, and you will chew through anything to get that next breath.

It's not something you want to tell a girl on the first date. Not if you expect a kiss good night.

If I told you how it tasted, you would never, ever again eat calamari.

It's hard to say what my parents were more disgusted by: how I'd got in trouble or how I'd saved myself. After the hospital, my Mom said, "You didn't know what you were doing, honey. You were in shock." And she learned how to cook poached eggs.

All those people grossed out or feeling sorry for me…

I need that like I need teeth in my asshole.

Nowadays, people always tell me I look too skinny. People at dinner parties get all quiet and pissed off when I don't eat the pot roast they cooked. Pot roast kills me. Baked ham. Anything that hangs around inside my guts for longer than a couple hours, it comes out still food. Home-cooked lima beans or chunk light tuna fish, I'll stand up and find it still sitting there in the toilet.

After you have a radical bowel resectioning, you don't digest meat so great. Most people, you have five feet of large intestine. I'm lucky to have my six inches. So I never got a football scholarship. Never got an MBA. Both my friends, the wax kid and the carrot kid, they grew up, got big, but I've never weighed a pound more than I did that day when I was thirteen.

Another big problem was my folks paid a lot of good money for that swimming pool. In the end my Dad just told the pool guy it was a dog. The family dog fell in and drowned. The dead body got pulled into the pump. Even when the pool guy cracked open the filter casing and fished out a rubbery tube, a watery hank of intestine with a big orange vitamin pill still inside, even then, my Dad just said, "That dog was fucking nuts."

Even from my upstairs bedroom window, you could hear my Dad say, "We couldn't trust that dog alone for a second…"

Then my sister missed her period.

Even after they changed the pool water, after they sold the house and we moved to another state, after my sister's abortion, even then my folks never mentioned it again.

Ever.

That is our invisible carrot.

You. Now you can take a good, deep breath.

I still have not.

End

http://chuckpalahniuk.net/features/shorts/guts