True Madness

It’s been a year since that day in February. Perhaps a week after the valentine day, I left one class in that beginning of my 2nd semester. It didn’t matter at all, ‘cause I’d joined on of the biggest and most ridiculous searching talent show: Indonesian Idol! At the first glance, I thought ‘Yea, that gonna be cool and gokiltoo. I haven’t tried that kind o’ thing!’. But inviting some friends to come along with me only gave me annoyance. They just said ‘You and your plan, useless, bro! Go on by yourself… I’ll bring you a cup of prayer only.’ Whutta shame! My friends and their pessimistic thoughts! If only they had more ‘gokilness’ inside their mind. Knowing it, I was still okay.

‘Just do it! And have fun, it’s not absolutely useless as they said. That’s an experience and I can get new friends there,’

So I keep ma mind on it, and got prepare. Wanna know what I did?

-Choosing the song. Firstly, I thought Guy Sebastian’s Angels Brought Me Here would be nice to sing. But, recognizing that I had no angelic voice as he has, I chose Andre Hehanusa’s Kuta Bali. No specific reason, just comfortable to blow it out.

-Practicing the right breath management, like what Mr. Mahe taught on my initiation (gotta say thanks for him!).

-Drinking a lot o’ water.

-Making an online registration. (o’ course!)

That’s it. Then I went to JEC, place where it was held, with trembled nerves, but more excitement.

Gotta say ‘no thank goodness!’ cause that was few minutes to eight, but there had been people like a rush of ants. I should stop having my yea-I’m-walking-on-law personality, cause instead of choosing to put myself on the front lines rudely, I went to the last queue. Exhausting mind! But sometimes I thought it was proud to do. I won’t be an ordinary Indonesian who often breaks the rule!

Waiting on queue, I killed the time by talking to some of the people there. One o’ them was Risto, fat guy whom firstly I thought as a college student. But, in fact, he was a student of the first grade in a senior hiskool with his major size of body! Time went by, but I was still stuck on the other side of the building, a hundred meters from the gate. That excitement gently turned into boredome. Few times, the queue moved forward and people ran in any direction. The line was suddenly messy (the way of Indonesian), and the bodyguards wearing black shirt and black glasses plus a handy talky (right as the ones you saw on tv) would snap ‘em.

Can you imagine it? At 12 I didn’t even get into the gate! I started to regret and say how stupid I was in doing it.

‘Wudda hell wit’ the queue and those snaily crews?!’

But, that taught me patience a lot.

I tried to cheer my self by looking at the people. It’s like a band of super-large-in-the-number-of member circus. There’s a man like Guy Sebastian whom that foolish crew resembled to Giring. On the back, young man wit’ his hip hop costume rapping in Javanese, on the ridiculous beatbox by his friend, in order to be recorded. In front of me, appeared boy who’s confident enough by only wearing a ‘sandal jepit’ and Sindo nuspapa which later he shared for some of us.

One of my surprises, I saw a boy whom I really recognize as B2c’s member named Tulus.

Tulus!

Hearning that name made me remember that morning when my third grade class had a volleyball game against one of the first grade’s. for this game, both teams agreed that each of us must have a ‘tumbal’. So, my class won and he was the poor boy to be the tumbal. He didn’t play at all, but I thought even his friends assumed him as fag or sumthin, or in the simple sentence, they deserted him in class cause of his personality.

So, my friends ran over him, even some of his classmates, too… We should relief cause the teacher didn’t see it, when we did the ‘RITUAL’.

He was caught, and we did our ‘sinful’ ritual.

Hmm… gotta say sorry for explaining this disgusting one.

This ritual named ‘kocokz’. So, in this case, the ‘suspects’ took the victim off and they put his groin over a mast (in this case, a mast holding the net), then they pushed him in, and out. In, and out…

Such a terrible sin we made, cause we gave ‘extra service’ to that poor Tulus, by taking his short and ‘underwear’off, then left him wasted on dusty ground, reaching up in shame for the short which had been thrown away. We laughed loudly, such a pride of idiots, but he had fun! Hahaha…

I didn’t remember the details after that, only the time when we prepared for the next class, friends of Tulus said that he was crying. I could remember he was crying in the corner of the class, burying his face in his crossed arms, moaning ‘aku kan malu…’.

So… leave it away! Back to the main setting. I knew him as the only boy in my hiskool joined the choir so, finding him with his colored hair (such a pop fucking idol) and his friends… little nostalgia.

So, the story continues. I should relief cause by the time sun burnt the people out there, I’ve got in the gate, looking at VJ Daniel and Dewi Sandra who are two meters before my eyes. People tried to shake their hands or took photos. I just stood there in silence, too much exhaustion for that. By the time, some acquaintances disappeared somewhere. There’re only left Risto and a girl named JJ, a student from outer province. That was her 2nd time to contribute the show. The first was failed cause when the first line of the song was sung, the judges had stopped her and said ‘thank you’. And I hadn’t known yet that I would be no much better.

From our talk when we shared some chocolates and sat down a while, I knew Risto had had experiences in singin in church and another singin talent show. And JJ was a charm girl who studies physics and electronics, even at the queue, cause she’d have an exam few days later. We reached the second floor, in a room less with air, and sat on the same group of hot seats, where a thousand eyes or more could see us waiting to be called by the crew. Ten people was taken to a room. And that’s not even a bit of what I imagined before!