June Update
Blok M update, June 2004
Status report
The street is solid with cars most nights, and the pavements chock-a-block with motor bikes, cigarette and gum vendors, food stalls, bootleg video sellers, drivers and ojek riders playing cards, squatting groups of girls chatting , the resident beggars, and piles of rubbish and building rubble. Oh, and don’t forget the rats. Yes, this is the mess that we know and love so well.
The popular bars are doing roaring business. D’s Place is busy most evenings, but activity in the upstairs disco is being squeezed into a narrower time slot. There’s not much happening there until after ten or so, by comparison with a year ago when things were usually well alight between 9 and 9.30. The attraction of My Bar is definitely luring away a fair number of the late-night carousers, so after 12 or so the crowd is thinning out a bit.
There are murmurings from some of the D’s regulars - and many of the girls - that the irregularity of the early evening Ladies’ Lucky Draw has a lot to do with the late start. And the management should take heed that some of the guys, who like to sit and socialize in the disco bar while waiting for the evening’s frivolities to get under way, are complaining that even when the disco is completely empty there’s deafeningly loud (and not very palatable) music blaring into the void from about eight onwards.
One of the great unsolved mysteries of Blok M is how on earth places like Top Gun, Everest and Oscars manage to stay afloat, given the number of customers they get each night. The Reveller drops in once or twice a week to see what’s happening, but doesn’t stay very long as they’re more often than not pretty lifeless and forlorn.
From the colonies
The new D’s Place in Kemang is of course beyond the Blok M borders, but as it’s the progeny of D’s Palatehan we’re going to benignly regard it as a colony and treat it as an honorary Blok M establishment. D’s Kemang threw open its doors on Friday the 18th, and of course the Reveller was there to give it a whirl and report back.
It’s classy and spacious, yet despite its size has a comfortable feel to it. The internal layout is just right, with distinct areas nicely separated. There’s the mandatory long main bar on the left as you go in, and a natty little canopied side-bar on the wall facing the entrance that’s been designated as a non-smoking area. In the far corner is an open space with a dart board, and next to it a sort of mini-lounge with comfortable seating away from the crowd. The centrepiece is the pool table, which is sociably placed so that it’s accessible from all parts of the bar.
Navigation is easy as there are no steps or nasty corners to waylay the less than sober customer. The keyword has got to be comfort - there are traditional bar stools, but also a sprinkling of sofas, armchairs and nicely-padded bench seats.
And there’s a professional-size pool table, with plenty of space around it, set in a wooden floored area. The table is flat, and the roll is smooth but not very fast - the baize is what they call in the trade flat-weave, which means it hasn’t got that felt-like surface that’s a magnet for dirt, dust and all the junk that sticks to pool tables like glue. The one oddity the Reveller notes is that rail shots are weird - the ball doesn’t bounce off at the corresponding angle it strikes the rail. Whatever, it’s a far better table than the one in D’s Palatehan, and a joy to play on.
The Reveller is impressed with the place, and will no doubt gravitate to Kemang when he craves a respite from the hurly-burly of Blok M. There’s a little selection of photos of the new place on the site - click here to see the D’s Kemang gallery.
Blood sports
The Reveller has to confess that he has no interest whatsoever in rough, tough sports such as soccer or rugby. Even as a sprog at school he showed little interest in, and absolutely no aptitude for, these vicious and dangerous follies. “What position do you play, lad?” the new games teacher asks the young Reveller. “Offside, Sir” replies the callow youth, who honestly thinks that this is a soccer position because his schoolmates keep yelling at him, “Oy, you’re offside again!”. The games teacher glares at the hapless youth, clearly thinks that he’s taking the mickey, and marks him down as a dangerous subversive.
This little digression explains why, on nights when every red-blooded sports fanatic is hunched in his chair and clamped like a limpet to the telly and his pint, the Reveller sits in languid isolation sipping his Ricard and mulling over things in the monastic peace of a near-empty bar. But, like the calm before a lowering storm, it’s an ominous tranquility. As soon as the match is over the lads will be pouring into the hostelries in an onslaught that makes the D-Day landings look like a vicarage tea party.
As they stumble into the bar they divide into three distinct groups - the first lurch straight into the gents, clawing at their flies as they go in a desperate attempt to avoid premature micturation; the second make a wobbly beeline for the bar; the third stagger onto the disco dance floor and perform what looks like a cross between a primitive fertility rite and an attempt to stamp out a bush fire.
Fortunately, when in this state the lads are in migratory mood and don’t stay too long in any one place. Like locusts, they swarm and move on to the next unsuspecting pasture, inevitably gravitating to Lintas Melawai in the small hours. And the Reveller, having enjoyed the pageant from his corner of the bar, reflects that his healthy avoidance of such activity is probably very wise.
Whilst chatting amiably about this and that with a fellow reveller one evening in D’s Place, we nod sociably to a couple of sweet young things as they invitingly wave hello to us from the bar. “That new girl on the left is a smasher - just seventeen, my mates tell me” drools his smitten companion. “That’s interesting,” muses the Reveller, “she was seventeen six years ago when I first met her in Top Gun”. His illusion rudely shattered, the guy crumples - “Collapse of Stout Party”, as they say in the music hall jokes.
This amusing little episode sets the Reveller to thinking about the girls, not as individual types, but how they change over time - from their first bashful entrance as new girls, to their exit as raddled derelicts.
So inspired by two of his great heroes, Shakespeare and Hogarth, the Reveller ponders the girls. Shakespeare’s well-known monologue in As You Like It about the seven ages of man (click here to read it), and Hogarth’s famous set of etchings, A Harlot’s Progress (click here to see it), are the models for his observations.
Fresh from the kampong and still awestruck by the heaving metropolis of Jakarta, she hides away in a corner of the bar and watches timidly as her older friends and family perform their evening rituals.
She hasn’t got any make-up on, her hair is short and ’sensibly’ styled, and she wears a dowdy woollen top over a long skirt or blue jeans. She’s a fledgling, a sweet young thing ignorant of the ways of the world and as yet unspoilt.
She now wears a tee shirt and more stylish jeans, and flat-soled shoes or sandals. Her hair is longer and set in a more fashionable style, and there’s a hint of lipstick and eyebrow pencil on her face.
She’s got her little coterie of friends, youngsters like herself, and chats coyly with the guys as she sits next to the disco dance floor. She sips a soft drink, hasn’t yet discovered the terrors and delights of the Hard Stuff.
She’s now got poise, and radiates demure self-confidence. Her hair is shoulder-length and well groomed, sleek and glossy, and she’s learning the art of make-up - the lipstick has given way to lip-gloss, there’s a subtle hint of eye shadow and just a smidgen of mascara. Her nails are nicely manicured, and glossed with plain varnish.
She’s just got her first hand phone, one of the budget models, and is rapidly learning its power as she sifts through the SMS messages and giggles naughtily at the blandishments from her growing band of beaux. Her rising status is signalled by gold and jewellery - small glittering earrings, a few bangles on her arm, perhaps a necklace and pendant, and maybe even an ankle chain. This isn’t worn to impress the guys, but to establish her place in the girls’ pecking order.
She’s graduated from soft drinks, and her tipple of choice is whisky cola or gin and tonic. She’ll also jump at the more exotic (and expensive) mixtures - not because she likes them, but because the bar owners will be pleased with the trade she generates, and award her Most Favoured Girl status. Another fashion accessory is the cigarette, which she handles rather gauchely and inhales with frowning intensity.
Gone are the jeans and tee shirts, she now wears a designer dress - a slinky clinging model, a skimpy mini, perhaps a thigh-split long dress. She’s also learnt the importance of a nicely padded bra and elegant high-heeled shoes. The make-up is immaculate, and speaks of afternoons bowed in front of a mirror worshipping at the altar of beauty.
Her hand phone is the dernier cri, sleek and sexy - and of course, with integrated camera. Her jewellery is reassuringly heavy and chunky and she sports a designer watch. She has perfected the art of smoking, and every movement is beautifully choreographed. Just to watch her light up is a feast to the eyes.
She’s the centre of attraction, holding court at the best table in the bar, laughing and chattering with the older big spenders and the young bucks as they queue up to pay court and ply her with expensive drinks. She’ll dance with a favoured few, and flirt quite outrageously so as to make the other besotted guys ache with jealousy.
She’s now one of the grandes dames of the Blok, mature and confident and at the height of her powers. Her reputation goes before her, everybody know her. She has at least one of the guys in tow as her regular beau or boyfriend, and bestows her favours amongst a very select patronage.
But all is not quite as it seems. Age is slowly and subtly undermining her beauty, so more skill and care than ever is applied to the choice of clothes, and to the make-up ritual. She is now a creature of the night, and heavy drinking and smoking have taken their cruel and inevitable toll. As she watches a younger generation blossoming around her, she feels the first cold draught of competition.
To keep up the pace she needs some assistance - and if alcohol and nicotine don’t hit the spot, there’s narcotics. She enters the shadowy world of artificial stimulants, and starts popping Ecstasy - or worse.
The figure has filled out, the face is becoming taught and drawn, the hair has lost its lustre. She’s keenly aware that she’s no longer the svelte beauty of her youth, and sees the youngsters edging her out of the limelight. But she’s still attractive; and in the half-light of the bar, from the right angle, can still make heads turn.
The make-up is now artfully applied to hide the telltale signs of aging; coloured eye shadow, dark eyebrow liner, artificial eyelashes, are the order of the day. Her hair is now worn long, down to the waist even, and she wears glitzy short dresses that enhance the rounder figure.
But what she lacks in beauty, she makes up for in experience. She knows all the tricks (and most of the guys), so she adapts. After so long in the demi-monde of Blok M she speaks passable English, has a fund of knowledge and experience, and enjoys drinking and chatting with the guys who appreciate good company.
Like a mother hen, she takes some of the more vulnerable youngsters under her wing and guides them through their initiation into Blok life. She takes vicarious pleasure in their little joys and triumphs, and has saved many a fledgling from emotional disaster.
Last scene of all, she’s now a blown rose whose beauty has withered. The body and the features have a saggy coarseness that no sexy dress, no amount of make-up, can hide. She puts on a brave face and, like the old trooper that she is, still slips quietly into the bar and sits, unobtrusively, watching the pageant with graceful nostalgia. She’ll chat with the other old girls of her generation, nursing a drink and whiling away the hours in amiable conversation.
She has a bevy of youngsters under her tutelage, to whom she plays the role of surrogate mother and, very often, of mamasan. She’ll fix up the new or inexperienced guys with a partner, in return for a drink or a bit of taxi money.
Until one day she no longer appears in the bar, and after a few nights is no more than a fading memory.
Lame Ducks corner
Actually, “dead in the water” might be a more appropriate heading for this little annex, which is dedicated to all those second-division bars that just don’t seem able to get their act together.
Oscars takes this month’s “Lame Duck” award. One Wednesday evening at about 10.30 the Reveller is the only paying customer in the downstairs bar. There’s a good band playing, the fish are frisky and belting round their little tank with great élan, and there’s a handful of very nice girls chattering away in a corner - but no-one, alas, to enjoy it all.
Top Gun gets the “Basket Case of the Month” award. As he leans back on the bar and idly watches the play at the pool table one evening, the Reveller suddenly realises that they’ve put back the partition wall that used to separate the back bar from the front area. The partition is covered in tacky, nondescript pseudo-wood veneer that looks - and probably is - cheap and nasty. The bar has also been re-themed. Whilst previously it was decorated with fake Top Gun memorabilia, that’s now all gone - in its place are framed sets of rather crude and tasteless English seaside postcards.
Everest wins the “Wing and a Prayer” award, for keeping going against all the odds and putting an incredibly brave face on it all. Yes, reflects the Reveller, if ever there was a medal for total ignorance of the commercial facts of life, the Everest management would be first in line to get it.
Lintas Melawai romps home to take the “Lemming” award for unswerving dedication to self-destruction and auto-annihilation, and completely redefining the term ‘customer care’.
Epilogue
It’s been a busy month for the Reveller, now back in full harness after his biking accident and fighting fit again. Business is good down the Blok all right, but it takes its toll - the owners disappear for a few days every so often, burnt out from late nights, good company, and carousing with the customers. Yes, it’s a hard life, and they have to catch up on sleep every so often!
As the holiday season approaches, lots of the guys will be migrating homewards for a couple of months, so the Blok will be quieter for a while. But of course, what it lacks in quantity it gains in quality, and the Reveller and his Jakarta-locked mates look forward to a long, easy-going summer.