Blok M diary, August 2003

Pool fiasco

Getting a game of pool on a Friday night in D’s Place used to be as difficult as finding a taxi on a rainy day in Jakarta. You could hardly see the table for bodies, and the lengthy list of names scrawled up on the board read like a Who’s Who of the stars of the Jakarta pool world. Not any more. The Reveller rolls up at seven o’clock expecting to join the Friday queue, only to find the downstairs bar virtually empty and the pool table unoccupied - the place is like some latter-day Marie Celeste.

Even more disturbing, the pool table light has been changed. Gone is the old fluorescent strip, ugly but functional, to be replaced by three metallic excrescences resembling something that’s fallen off Flash Gordon’s rocket ship. These kludgy monstrosities produce uneven pools of bilious yellow light that make the green baize look like a lawn on steroids, and leave the corners of the table forlornly in shadow. The uneven dimness makes it impossible to judge angles and distances correctly.

Another endearing feature of the place is the ragbag collection of pool sticks it possesses, hand-me-downs of dubious pedigree. There are red ones, brown ones, a green one, and a handful of mongrels. None of them are any good: two aren’t even straight, one has a broken butt, another has the tip fixed on crookedly. The Reveller wanders away from the table after a few disappointing games, muttering darkly about ships and ha’porths of tar.

So where have all the pool-shooting regulars gone? To Everest, which has a brand-new, professional-size high quality table and a set of well-balanced pool sticks that have a bit of heft to them, unlike the matchwood jobs in D’s Place.

Serendipity

The Reveller’s favourite nights down the Blok are those which start out rather lifeless and a bit lacklustre, go steadily downhill as the evening drags on, but suddenly and unexpectedly burst into life when a bunch of really great girls float into the bar just as all hope has been abandoned. To the jaded reveller this is the proverbial manna from heaven, and the prospect of late night revelry beckons invitingly.

So it is in D’s Place one evening, when the Reveller and his cronies are mournfully nursing their drinks and adversely comparing the upstairs bar to the Oscar’s fish tank, or Madame Tussaud’s on a really bad day. Suddenly the music dies, and the whisper goes round that the Lucky Draw is imminent. In a trice gaggles of girls appear from nowhere and flit into the upstairs bar.

Two of the nicest girls home in on the Reveller and strike up a lively conversation, other charmers latch onto his companions, and voilà - everyone is cheerfully carousing, and flirting quite outrageously. My two companions and I spontaneously raise our glasses to each other as we silently thank those benign deities who watch over all revellers.

Lintas Melawai’s power cut

D’s Place upstairs bar being squeezed to the brim with well-primed revellers one night as midnight approaches, the Reveller decides to move on to Lintas Melawai in search of breathing space and a bit of down-market sleaze.

The lights are ablaze at LM’s entrance, and all bodes well - but inside, the bar is dark, the disco silent. When it’s pointed out to the LM staff that it’s perhaps a bit daft to make it appear as though the place is open and active by illuminating the entrance, whilst the inside is dark, empty and dead, all they can do is grin stupidly and shrug their shoulders.

The Reveller philosophically reflects that this is sadly typical of the non-management of a once-fine establishment, before abandoning the place in despair and firing up his bike for the ride home.