If You Were My Age

You would know:

who Lasmini is, or better yet, which mountain she hails from.

how to operate manual typewriter.

the name of Lupus' only sister.

the number of gold coins that Mario or Luigi needs to have an extra life.

the name of Pak Broto's inn.

who Hakeem Olajuwon is.

the name of TV program hosted by Nisrina Nur Ubay and Anton Hilman in turns

the preamble of 1945 Constitution by heart, and the whole line up of Kabinet Pembangunan V as well.

what Penataran P4 is all about because you've gone through it at least twice.

who Dian Pisesha is, courtesy of your father.

full well that there had been a time when the TV has only ONE channel. Yes, kids, you read that correctly. ONE CHANNEL.

and be able to name the members of the A-Team. Or the name of Lt. Hunter's partner.

Gombloh's two hit songs, at least.

who Ferry Fadli is. Or maybe Maria Oentoe.

why Pakdhe was sentenced for life.

what Slalom Test is all about.

what LKMD, NKKBS, and UDKP stands for. Well, if you had grown up in a small town, that is.

what Sapi Banpres is.

the song Madu dan Racun by heart.

what Aneka Ria Safari is.

the title of the song which launched Julius Sitanggang into stardom. Briefly.

the name of PSSI's goalkeepers in a time when we were still able to beat Thailand.

Stuck In Traffic At Maghrib

becak pating slangkrah
montor, gedhe-cilik, pating slempit
hondha parkir seenggon-enggon
dalane kebek, bek
apa maning nek ana sepur liwat

angkutan padha ngetem ora eling enggon
supire gurisan karo udud
ora jere kelingan nek kiye dudu dalane mbaeh
klakson moni ora mandeg-mandeg
ora teyeng temen padha ngalah

dalane mung sepethil
ora bisa dikapak-kapakena maning
sing bisa diambakena mung manah

Cilok, Lolly Ice, and The Commentary

My father used to take me out to watch football matches. Even when we were on a trip, he usually made it his business to pull over if there was a match in a road-side football pitch we happened to pass by. We simply lingered for a while, or longer—depending on the urgency of the trip, and the attractiveness of the match in question.

On more planned occasions, he would take us on his motorbike or hitching on a flatbed minivan to places like Srandil, Wangon, or Adipala to watch local competitions, especially when the team from his office, the Nusakambangan State Penitentiary, was playing. If I remember correctly, the team consisted of convicts as well as guards. They were kind of good, even without the psychological advantage of being affiliated with one of the most notorious prisons in the country.

You can always feel the excitement even before you get to the venue, courtesy of an army of cone-shaped loudspeakers. The far-from-stereo sound of Indonesian national songs can be heard from miles away. Most of the time, the ‘stadium’ took the form of local football pitch encircled by woven bamboo wall. It was a poor attempt at keeping the ticketless away. These resourceful people could easily craft a hole at strategic locations, or alternatively, climbed the nearest tree to get what I imagined as a much better view of the proceedings.

And it’s not just about the football. It’s all sort of things around it that makes these outings quite memorable.

There’s always the food. Old ladies with simple bamboo tray of boiled and roasted peanuts. With or without shells. Boiled soybeans. Hard-as-nail cassava rings and cassava crackers. And more often that not, there’s the lolly ice vendors. It’s basically shredded ice compacted into a circle and laced with syrup of various color and was held by a small bamboo stick. Voila, lolly ice. Yes, there was the question of whether the vendor wore gloves and the legality of the syrup’s coloring agent. But we were just kids, we couldn’t care less. In that sense, we were equally less hygiene-conscious in our appreciation of cilok. A chewy ball of steamed tapioka dumplings with fish flavor of highly questionable origin. Nevertheless, at Rp.25,- , cilok was very popular among kids at that time.

And of course, what would a local football be without the hardcore local fans and football enthusiasts? These guys had an unshakable belief that they know more about football than all players, coaches, and referees combined. They never hesitated to share their views regarding the players, officials—especially the referee, and the quality of the football they were watching. Loudly and, most of the times, not very politely. The milder of these guys usually commented on the the referee’s eyesight or, if the particular ref is card-happy, the quality of his sex-life.

An then there is the on-pitch commentary, our own local version of Max Sopacua or Andy Gray. His job description included sitting on the best seat of the ‘stadium’, usually a couple metres high, and presented a blow-by-blow account of the match. He delivered his account with an obvious sense of urgency, rhytmic emphasis, and loads of drama. “ANGkat bola ke depaaan, KUTak-kutik sebentaaar, TENDang ke gawaaang, SAYANG sekali Saudara-saudara…masih melenceng dua sentimeter di sisi kiri gawaaang...(lift the ball forward, twisting and turning, shoot on goal, WHAT A SHAME it missed the left post by 2 centimeters)”. He must have been sitting some 50 meters away from goal. But apparently all commentators are blessed with outstanding geometric abilities enabling them to determine precisely how much the ball missed the goal posts. And the crowd loved them for it.


Singing the national anthem along with some 80,000 fans in Indonesia's National Stadium is admittedly an experience beyond description. But really, basking in the afternoon sun with cilok in one hand and lolly ice in the other while watching two local teams slug it out in a pitch surrounded by bamboo walls is not that far off.

Pretty Dreadful

I don’t particularly enjoy waching horror movies. I mean, one watches movies for various reasons. Be it for the heartwarming story, stimulating theme, intriguing plot, witty dialogues, enthralling visual display, or simply the fact that one has two hours to kill. I’m not entirely sure, however, that getting scared the crap out of one’s wit is one of them.

The missus, on the other hand, actually takes pleasure in being scared the crap out of her wit. She would sit back and thoroughly enjoy the offering while I cover my ears and squint my eyes in anticipation of boo-moments. Wuss, she would mutter coyly under her breath. Boo-moments merely causes her to flinch a little. In my case, it means a struggle to prevent instant seizure.

Some horror movies are actually enjoyable. The Exorcist and The Blair Witch Project are two examples. But these gems are few and far between. The missus’ fare usually constitutes of whatever 8 in 1 horror flick DVDs I manage to bring home from Stasiun Bekasi. Most of which are murderously annoying.

Take Penny Dreadful for example. The title per se should give an inkling what to expect. The girl Penny has a carphobia, which means she’s afraid of cars. There’s a correct technical terms, but I can’t seem to remember what the word is. I pointed out to the missus that she has motherinlawphobia, only to receive a steely stare in return.

Anyway, to overcome this phobia, she and her therapist engaged in a roadtrip. In a quiet mountain road they hit a creepy hooded man and then, as a show of remorse, took him along. Question: would you let a creepy hooded man into your car? I thought so. But then again, common sense seems to be a concept lost to horror flick characters. Most of them ended up dead, remember?

They then drove him deep into the woods off the main road. Night-time plus woods plus creepy hooded man equals to certain death. Simple math. But the two women were not dead yet.

After they dropped off their would-be killer (oops, was that a spoiler?) at an abandoned camp, the two would-be corpses set off for the main road. Before long, they realized that the creepy hooded man had spiked the front tire. The spare tire was also flat. Not a exactly an example of good motoring practice.

Penny went out of the car and just could not bring herself to get in again. The annoyance-meter starts to climb up. The therapist bluffed by leaving and Penny chased her and sprained her ankle in the process. Okay, so now Penny sat tearfully in the car.

The therapist decided to get help on foot and told Penny to stay in the car. Did Penny stay on the car? Of course, not. She wandered around as you would normally do if you sprained your ankle and were lost in the woods. Predictably, the creepy hooded man showed up and everything went black.

Our carphobic girl woke up to find herself stuck in a car with her dead therapist on the driving seat. She couldn’t open the door because the car was wedged between two trees. How on earth the creepy hooded man find those two perfectly-fitting trees was beyond me. Perhaps he was helped by the crew.

Having said that, I had to admit that it’s kinda cool to put someone who’s afraid of cars in a car and then throw in a corpse for a bonus. That’s like an extra scoop of icecream on your cone. Add the fact that the poor girl had to prise the corpse’s clenched teeth open with a screwdriver to get the cleverly-hidden car keys. That, my friend, is the cherry on top.

The director, or whoever is in charge, should have done better with this material than taking shots, and close ups, from various angles of Penny’s rather unconvincing terrified look and her squirmy escape attempts for a full 15 minutes. I wished the killer would show up and finish her off. She started getting on my nerve and the missus reminded me that we had depleted our supply of anti-depressants when we watched The Eye the other day.

Hope came in the form of a couple to whom the concept of motels is alien. Actually, I’d rather watch these two make out in their car for a full 15 minutes. Now, because the couple showed up when the film still has 45 minutes to play, anyone with half a brain should be able to predict their fate. Instead of simply smashing the windshield, the idiot decided to lift the front part while Penny hit the pedal to the metal in reverse. The creepy hooded man emerged from under the car and effortlessly drag the idiot guy under, alien-like.

Anyway the rest of the movie, involved more close-ups of Penny’s scared face, the whole car painted in blood, and near-escape by way of bare-handedly ripping a hole the backseat, which is funny because I have always thought backseats has steel-wire frame. And Penny kicking the creepy hooded man in the jewels. Imagine that, a girl with sprained ankle kick a man who snatched his victims like they’re a bag of popcorn. And the obligatory chase-camera shot that capture Penny running from the creepy hooded man. Well, more or less. I made two trips to the bathroom, brew a pot of tea and fried half a dozen pieces of battered banana.