Blok M diary, July 2003

The Mother of all bar crawls

It had to happen - the two giants of the Jakarta bar scene, the Reveller and Soppy, finally get together for a long-overdue bash on the Blok. The events of that memorable evening have been vividly recorded for posterity on pissedupasia.com, but there are a few extra touches that need to be added to Soppy’s magnum opus.

My first reaction on meeting the dear chap in the pseudo-civilised surroundings of the Stamford Arms is that he doesn’t look at all as I imagined he would. For starters, he is disturbingly younger than me, full of the brash enthusiasm of youth and easily able to outpace the Reveller in both the quantity and speed of his ale intake. In some awe, I realise that I am in the presence of a Master.

As we disappear off the radar into the sleazier depths of Blok M I reflect that his girth is probably about the same as my height, which must make us look an odd pair as we saunter down the middle of Jalan Pelatehan - I cannot but think that we must resemble some latter-day Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, or that he is the Oliver Hardy to my Stan Laurel.

Soppy’s newness to some of the flesh pots gives his commentary an unjaded freshness, a new perspective on the old haunts. His practiced eye soon picks out the salient points of each place, and we swap observations and memories as the jars go down in a mellow haze of reminiscence. Mark Twain once defined nostalgia as ‘moral and mental masturbation’, and I reckon he got it about right.

The evening ends on a rather surreal note, as our respective handphones go into overtime and Soppy is summoned to attend to matters of state elsewhere in his domain. The Reveller hangs around D’s Place for a while, thinking that his new boozing companion has done a runner. But it’s suddenly Open Season for the hapless Reveller as the sharks circle for the kill - he feels like a grouse on the twelfth of August. But remembering Admiral Horatio Nelson’s famous dictum, ‘England expects that every man will do his duty’, the Reveller answers the call with a stiff upper lip (and after what he’s downed in the drinks department, that’s about all that is stiff).

After a surprisingly uplifting hour’s canoodling the Reveller is heading homewards when his handphone rings - it’s no less than Soppy himself, enquiring as to the present whereabouts of the Reveller. The poor chap’s mission was clearly impossible, so he’s returning to the Blok to lick his wounds and seek solace in the upstairs bar at D’s Place. We agree to make contact when both of us are neither knackered nor pissed - and on this anticlimactic note, the bar crawl ends.

The new kid on the Blok and supply-side economics

Having missed the grand opening of Everest, the new bar on Jalan Pelatehan, the Reveller decides to slip in incognito and see what it’s like. Cavernous is the word that comes to mind; it’s big, and needs a lot of bodies to give it any atmosphere. Most disturbingly, there’s a distinct lack of the fairer sex. I’m rather afraid that if the management doesn’t encourage the girls to come in, it’s not going to reach critical mass because a lot of the guys won’t come in either. This is what killed off the old Pentagon (RIP), and damn’ near destroyed Oscars until they stopped their suicidal drinks charge for unaccompanied girls. As he settles into a seat at the bar and makes his formal introductions to the charming, attractive and attentive bar staff, the reveller reflects that the owners here (and in some of the other bars, too) have a lot to learn about supply-side economics.

Excited by the word that there’s a great pool table upstairs, the Reveller tears himself away from the bar and looks for the steps - which are well-hidden round a corner by the eating area. In my enthusiasm I forget to look out for the ceiling, and bang my head on a low beam half-way up the stairs. Rubbing the poor old bonce I emerge into the bar, and a gasp escapes me. The pool table is new, big, and shiny, so I rather incautiously rush to put my moniker on the board and await a game. The table is fast, mean and unforgiving. On the older, crappier tables in the other bars you can always blame the lack of nap, dead rails, curvature of the table etc. for piss-poor performance, but the new table in Everest leaves the duff player cruelly exposed at every fluffed shot.

Goodbye, and thanks for all the fish

I quote my literary hero Douglas Adams as I walk out of Oscars one fine evening after a solitary and very sad drink. The fish tank is clearly on its last legs (or whatever last thing fish tanks are on), as all the goldfish are swimming shakily right at the top of the aquarium in an obviously distressed state. Shaken (but not stirred) I take myself off to Lintas Melawai to try and expunge the memory of the poor little sods, but even a steady intake of Carlsberg fails to do the trick. And watching the girls on the dance floor is all too reminiscent of the tank in Oscars - the vacant stares, the twitchy wobbles, the swaying bodies, the gasping for air. I reflect rather inconsequentially that this is probably what the poet and literary critic T S Eliot meant by an ‘objective correlative’. LM is a non-event, so the Reveller mounts his trusty Honda and vrooms off into the early morning smog.