I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: GWAR on The Joan Rivers Show (1991).

Because this story is pretty, nay, really gross, I wanted to find a suitably gross song to attach to it. I considered Cannibal Corpse and Carcass, but I found that most of the lyrics were too hard to understand.  And then I hit upon Gwar.

I was trying to pick my favorite Gwar song (actually I only know their first two albums), and then YouTube pointed me to this absurd interview.

I always enjoyed the premise of Gwar, and I think that Scumdogs is a wonderfully hilarious album.  This interview (around the time of the release of Scumdogs) is really funny.  They actually make Joan Rivers speechless, and they play their act wonderfully straight.  I’d never watched a second of Joan’s show, and won’t watch any more than this clip, but seeing Oderus Urungus and Beefcake the Mighty on a talk show is pretty awesome.

Check it out here.  Sadly, there is no song played live.

[READ: November 5, 2010] “Guts”

My coworker suggested I read this story.  And I know from past experience that if he suggests something it will be slightly, shall we say, askew.  When a fellow coworker who had also read it overheard the suggestion she groaned in a way that confirmed my suspicions.

I’m not exactly sure what’s going on in Haunted.  My coworker said it was a short story collection and yet the book clearly says Haunted: A Novel.  I browsed the back and I get the sense that the book is a whole bunch of people writing /telling stories, but I didn’t investigate too thoroughly (I will likely read the whole book one of these days just to find out).

So, anyway, yeah, “Guts” is pretty disturbing.  It begins with a guy telling stories about the creepy/weird things people do to get off.  More specifically it talks about the injuries people sustain while trying to get off.The first example he gives is of a fetish in which guys insert things into their penises while erect.  And then it gives an example of a guy who tried this (with a sliver of wax) and how horribly, horribly wrong it went.  I assumed that the story was just going to continue in this mildly kinky/cringeworthy vein, and I was mildly grossed out by it.

Then, after a few other bits and pieces, the story ups the ante as the narrator relates what happened to him.

His own story falls into the “if you thought that was bad, just wait” camp.  He begins by explaining his predilection for masturbating in his swimming pool (and then fishing out the results after they congeal into gobs).  Then he discovered the pleasures that the pool pumps can generate.  And so he starts experimenting with the mechanisms.  The title does come into play (of course), and I realized it about two paragraphs before he explained how.

I was pretty freaked out by the story but it wasn’t until the middle of the night when I woke up to use the bathroom that I felt really freaked out by the story.

Not for the squeamish!  But if you’re not squeamish you can read the story on Palahnuik’s website.

So, it turns out that the pivotal scene in the story is also in the 2009 movie The Final Destination, and there is some kind of controversy/possible lawsuit in the works.  Hmm, I wonder what song THEY chose for the soundtrack.  For more info on the scandal, check here (although spoilers will certainly be there).