Blok M update, August 2005

Status report

August has been a bittersweet month down the Blok. Everyone agrees that there’s been vintage action in the bars, hilarity in the discos, and some of the older regulars have resurfaced - having resorted to extreme measures to wangle a ticket back to Jakarta. The late-late startup in My Bar has niggled a few of the guys who can’t carouse the whole night away, but all agree that once the action starts it’s been worth the wait.

There’s been some addition to the ranks in My Bar. The regular Sweet Young Things are all present and correct, but there’s been a steady influx of strangers who are stayers rather than transients. Most of them are slightly older and a bit more showy than the in-house Indramayu lovelies, but there are some interesting characters among them and they do add a nice touch of novelty. Their presence makes the bar a bit more cosmopolitan and provides plenty of scope for creative revelling.

Top Gun has belatedly reacted to the guys’ complaints about the noise abomination, and most evenings now there’s just the right level of background music - and they’ve also got a better selection of songs than before. The pool table is as crock as ever, but there’s good and bad news about Top Gun pool. The good news is that they’ve finally re-tipped all the ancient cues - the bad news, the tips are as shiny as a polished doorknob. No problem for the Reveller, who surreptitiously gives his cue tip a good rubbing with fine-grade emery paper while the staff aren’t looking. Alas, this ploy has no noticeable effect on his game and he bows out ignominiously after potting the black and white simultaneously.

Things are on the change within the D’s empire, heralded by the putting up for sale of a major share in the The Beat down in Kemang. Regular readers will remember that the P’s Place initiative on Jalan Jaksa went arse over tit and had to be sold off some time ago. These events point to one thing - the centre of gravity for fun night life for expats in Jakarta lies firmly in Blok M. The Reveller and his fellow Blok M regulars are crossing their fingers that D’s Place stays on course now that the owners are back in hands-on control, and all the signs are that it’s doing well.

Having slagged off Oscar for its musical lapses last month, the Reveller is pleased to report feedback from some of the guys that the Friday night groups are pretty good, and there’s a fair crowd of punters to make a pleasant atmosphere. The Reveller will investigate further, and report back.

So all in all, a sweet month down the Blok for most of the bars. The party’s been spoilt, though, by a nasty turn of events at Sportsmans, about which more below.

Unsportsmanslike behaviour

Sportsmans is in deep trouble. This is no news for the current Blok M regulars, but all the guys who’ve lived and worked here have a soft spot for the place and will be gutted to hear what’s happened.

It’s no exaggeration to call the catastrophe that has befallen Sportsmans a tragedy. A personal tragedy for Paulus, the manager, and a communal tragedy for the dedicated regular customers. The first rumblings of discontent were heard from guys complaining about the staffing and the prices. Here’s a typical comment from the chat rooms:

I went down last Saturday to watch the Australian Vs New Zealand game and lo and behold there were no bar staff that I recognised. Apart from the new girls not knowing what they were doing, not smiling and not seeming to give a hoot about the punters the drinks were over priced as well. I bought a round 3 x double Jack Daniels and coke and the three drinks cost me Rupiah 329,000. I am lucky I didn’t keep on drinking and asked for my bill because it would have been bloody expensive and I wouldn’t have had any fun. Total time in the bar was 24 minutes.

Everyone who knows the Blok knows Paulus, who’s run Sportsmans for the last few years and made it a roaring success. He’s one of the nicest guys in Blok M and a personal friend of many of the regulars. What none of us knew, though, is that Paulus is not the owner of the place - he’s one of the directors of the company, and it’s his sister who has the controlling share. She had recently returned to Jakarta and took over the reins on her arrival.

There are reports of management changes that include reductions in the staff salaries, an end to concessions for high-rolling regulars, the scrapping of the happy hour, and drink prices rising sharply. Sadly, many of the staff resigned en masse in protest at the new low salaries.

Taking a tumble

There are average nights, there are good nights, and there are lively nights. And if we’re really lucky, there are totally wild nights. Like earthquakes, these rare events are unpredictable - they just happen. It seems to depend on the mix in the bar; just the right number of lively Sweet Young Thing’s, a good scattering of guys who are well primed and ready for anything, and of course the music and the lighting has to match the mood.

One night in My Bar it’s getting on for eleven and the place is sparsely populated by a dozen or so guys, a handful of older girls and some of the more derelict mamasans. "Reminds me of Jurassic Park", mutters the Reveller as, with sinking heart, he drains his beer and gives serious thought to cutting losses and going home. Ambling off to recycle the evening’s beer intake he feels low. It’s Friday, usually the best night of the week.

Emerging from the bog the Reveller is confronted by a completely transformed scene. During his leisurely micturition a whole gang of girls has poured in, and they’re obviously thirsty for drinks and for action. Pushing his way back to his seat he’s given the wink by a winsome threesome hovering round the end of the bar, salaciously jostled by a couple of sharks with curves in all the right places, and greeted like a long-lost friend by his favourite gang of Sweet Young Things. Captain Birdseye grins and remarks "Glad you didn’t go home early, eh?".

So it’s drinks all round for the gang, and we’re soon carousing merrily. As the pace picks up two of them clamber onto the bar and sit facing the Reveller, who is happily pinioned by four of the shapeliest legs in Blok M. More drinks are summoned, and things start to get really crazy. "Blimey, I’m getting a toe job!" gasps the Reveller to the Captain, who fails to react as he has his own problems with two stunningly gorgeous girls clinging one on each side of him and glaring at each other with vicious sweetness.

The dance floor action starts to swirl, and the two Sweet Young Things abandon the Reveller to stand up on the bar top where they proceed to gyrate lasciviously. Now this initiative coincides with another of the gang knocking a glass of beer over as she, too, clambers upwards.

One of the girls, a cute little thing absolutely stunning in her white mini and sequined backless top, slides in the pool of spilt beer and kicks the Reveller’s bottle over, tipping ice-cold beer down his trousers. She then looses her balance and falls on top of him, wrapping one leg round his neck as she goes down. As he grabs her round the waist to steady her fall, she flings her arms round him and bawls at the top of her voice, "I want you tonight!".

Now the White Mini is clearly far gone and in no fit condition for any kind of action, vertical or horizontal, so the Reveller slips her friends some taxi money and tells them to make sure she doesn’t drink any more and gets home safely. He then goes walkabout round the bar to dry out his sopping trousers and observe the rest of the action.

Keeping a breast of the times

One of the perennial topics of conversation in the bar and chat rooms is precisely how old a particular girl is. This inevitably invites rather cruel comments about using carbon dating for the Club girls and dendrology for the Top Gun sweeties, but eventually the discussion turns more serious.

We all agree that the KTP is absolutely no meaningful indicator of age, as years may be added on or taken off at the whim (and financial resources) of the girl. Likewise, the year of high school or college may be equally meaningless, as many girls have to drop out at various stages of their school career while the family scrapes together money for the fees, leading to significant age variance at the higher school grades.

The older pragmatists among us can make quite shrewd calculations using the earliest remembered sighting on the Blok as a starting point, and then adding the ensuing years (a bit like dating a tree by the rings in its bole). This method is far from infallible though, as girls change names, appearance and the bar they frequent over the years and it’s all too easy to mistake an identity through the mists of time.

After a particularly vexatious case has been mulled over with no clear resolution one night in My Bar, the Reveller has one of those rare flashes of illumination - like Archimedes slopping the water over the edge of his bath tub, Newton rubbing his bonce after being hit by the apocryphal apple, Descartes as he cogitates on consciousness - and with a brilliant dawning of comprehension, realises that the answer has been in his own hands many and many a time. Yes, it’s those wonderful sensuous appendages, the female breasts.

After a rigorous intellectual preparation in order to hone and refine his earth-shattering discovery - consisting of a copious intake of beer interspersed with slugs of tequila and an occasional Pernod - the Reveller triumphantly completes what he has since formally named his tit taxonomy ™. So here it is:

These observations are most accurate for girls in their teens and twenties, and of course only apply to those who haven’t yet given birth. If they have, then for the corresponding age the nipple is broader, darker and sometimes dimpled, whilst the aureole may be pocked, more prominent and invariably darker than the surrounding skin. The nipple/breast base angle is usually markedly lower than girls of the same age who haven’t given birth.

Of course, there will always be exceptions that prove the rule. But the Reveller’s long experience of these wonderful appendages suggests that his categories, in general, hold true. More field work is needed to validate the hypothesis - or perhaps that should be ‘feeled’ work? His collaborator in this ground-breaking research will be the ubiquitous Captain Birdseye, whose mobile phone camera is already being used to capture the raw data.

Epilogue

As the Reveller squeezes and folds himself into the passenger seat of his good old bajay he sings to himself his adaptation of that evergreen Bob Hope favourite, "Thanks for the mammaries". And as the little machine shuttles its erratic way between bus, car and motorbike in the southbound flow out of Blok M, he fondly remembers the many fondles of his revelling career.