I can tell that I’m getting older. It’s not just my Jason
Statham hairline, (not his muscles or anything, just his hairline) or my gray
pubes or my intense dislike of current music trends. It’s the fact that I’m
easily grossed out these days.
I know you probably don’t believe me. Sure, you’ve read all
my blog entries,* and my seductive way with words does have the ability to
paint very realistic and graphic pictures. For example, when I say stuff like:
“I
look down and see three things: the hilt of the knife peeking through her
fingers, which are clenched in a fist so tight her knuckles are white; the
place in my chest where the handle protrudes, like a morbid after-factory
modification; and the blossoming pool of blood on my chest with lines of blood
going down my stomach, like red rivulets of rain on a window. But more gross.”
Or:
“Decades of
drunken college use had left a four-inch layer of puke and shit all over every
surface. Just walking into the bathroom was like dealing with a HAZMAT
environment. You have to hold your breath starting from ten feet away from the bathroom”
Or:
“His head was a
mass of cuts, shards of glass from the window were embedded in the skin of his
face. Parts of his scalp hung loosely from the top of his head in flaps. The
bone from his right arm jutted gruesomely from the soft pulpy flesh of his
forearm. His legs lay in unnatural positions, one behind his head, one in front
of his face. Had he the ability to move his body, he could have kissed his own
shin. By the way he was sitting I knew that most, if not all, of his ribs were
broken.”
Or even:
“With their
tongues entwined, the two hot, young teenage girls spent hours engaging in
every sexual act they could imagine. The Crippled Olympian, the 23 Skidoo, the
Whirling Dervish, the Interrupted Transmission; nothing was beyond their
burning desires. Giblets were strubbed, lymph nodes were whitewashed and
banders were snatched frumiously.”
You can clearly see all of these scenarios in your mind’s
eye, as if they are happening right in front of you. But of course, this is
just creative license. Just as Stephen King doesn’t know what it’s really like
to be a demonic creature from Hell, James Patterson doesn’t know what it’s like
to be a black man in Washington D.C. and E.L. James doesn’t know what the
consensual touch of a man feels like, I’m not actually into most of the over
the top stuff I write about.
Of course, things were different when I was younger. Like
most ill-behaving, wannabe cool boys in their pre-teen and teenaged years, I
was totally into viscerally gross stuff. Anything with special effects by Tom
Savini, anything by Troma Entertainment, Carrot Top. The grosser the better. If
I could handle it, that meant I was totes a manly adult and ready to start my
401(k).
As a kid, I could watch The
Toxic Avenger over the weekend and walk into school on Monday with my chest
out, humbling my peers with my knowledge of seeing a person’s hands deep-fried
at a fast food restaurant. Truly I was a god among boys.
I used to even be really into horror movie make up as a
youngster. One day in seventh grade, I gave myself and some of my friends bullet
wounds in our foreheads and we went around school that day doing our best
impressions of JFK.
But the older I got, the more squeamish I became. Seeing
videos and pics online of people after they jump out of windows, or blow their
brains out, get their throats slit, or hit by cars isn’t enticing anymore.**
It’s not cool or edgy, it’s all just gross and unnecessary. Any “torture porn”
movie is definitely right out. I got as far as halfway through Saw III, and just turned the movie off.
Maybe it’s because after being into all the fictional
grossness when I was younger, I got to see what it looked like in reality when
I was in Iraq and I just don’t have the stomach for that stuff anymore. I
dunno. All I know is when given the choice between Disembowelinator 2: The Disemboweling, or Spongebob Squarpants, I’ll choose the latter.
*You do read them all,
right? RIGHT?! Oh please God, say somebody
reads these nonsensical ramblings!
**2 Girls 1 Cup on the
other hand…
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