Saturday 19th May
Football frenzy
Saturday is a vintage night, and no mistake about it. The bar is packed full of guys, many of whom go back a long way - I count a dozen or so who hark back to the late nineties. Many of the girls from that era are also in the bar tonight, and very good they still look. Western women, I reflect, just don’t age as well as their Indonesian sisters.
So it’s smiles and greetings all round as we catch up on who’s living where and doing what, and reminisce about the last time we met. “I saw you last in Senayan, with your arm in a sling, must be a couple of years ago” chimes in Henky, whose job has taken him far away from the Jakarta scene. “Nah, three years - I broke the shoulder in ‘04″, I reply. As employment mobility is a feature common to all of us expats living in Indonesia, much of the conversation revolves around working out what jobs we’ve been doing since we last met.
Likewise in our small community relationships are made and broken with cruel regularity, so news is also swapped about partners past and present. For the most part these changes have been precipitated by the woman’s inability to keep her knickers on; in one sad case, a guy at the table tells how he discovered his better half was multitasking with the building security jaga. “So who shall guard the guardians?” I glumly add. Bittersweet memories are exchanged, but none of us has any regrets. We’ve learnt, the hard way, that hitching up with a Sweet Young Thing can be an emotional, physical and financial roller coaster ride.
Yes, the Monty Python team got it spot on in their sports programme sketch. Something there is that makes programme planners, news editors and sports writers go into a feeding frenzy at the merest mention of a premier sporting event, that gets the blue pencils slashing through every other news story. “World War Three declared? Right, bung that at the bottom of page two, next to the ‘Mayor opens new supermarket’ story. Half of San Francisco wiped out in a scale eight earthquake? OK, front page bottom, next to the TV guide. The Labour Government resigns en masse over a huge financial scandal? Let’s see, back page under the ‘missing pets’ section.”
Soccer, alas, is a global obsession that has always left me stone cold. What is it, I ask myself as I look around me at the ranks of eager faces gawping at the TV screens, that’s so fascinating about football? What’s so special about this sport that it can distract a perfectly normal red-blooded male from the attentions of some of the most ravishing creatures on the planet, to watch a bunch of grown men prancing about on a football pitch?
Even the music stops for the Grand Event (which upon enquiry I’m told is the British FA Cup final), and the sound commentary is ramped up to full volume. A few of the girls take a half-hearted interest in the game, but the great majority of the Sweet Young Things chat idly in small groups around the bar. They know, from long experience, that nothing can come between a man and his football.
I remark to the guys at my table that the Indramayu contingent is unfashionably late tonight, and we speculate on the possible causes. The consensus is that they’re biding their time, keeping their powder dry until the Big Match is over. But the Big Match seems to go on and on, and by the time it’s all over bar the shouting (and the interminable action replays) most of the missing Sweet Young Things have returned to the fold. Seeing Dumb and Dumber in the distance wrapping herself around a guy who’s obviously in the midst of a heated debate with his mate (almost certainly about the Big Match), I realise that all’s well with the world.
Happily, not all the guys are football fanatics. I’m sitting at the bar enjoying a mellowing ale and a pleasant chat with my old friend Dave Jardine on topics ranging from Michael Caine in Zulu to a Welsh miners’ eisteddfod, when up rush a couple of the Top Gun managers to haul me outside and have a look-see at the boss’s latest venture - a resto annex next door to the bar.
My first reaction is one of wonderment. It’s either a visionary initiative, or the daftest idea since 3-D cinema spectacles. They’ve got a budget version of the main menu, typically at half the price of the bar tariff, which puts their excellent sop buntut at about Rp 25,000 - a bargain, by any standards. But my overriding thought is, who are the target night-time customers? Not the girls for sure, as they prefer to squat on the pavement with a 5,000 rupe Indo snack from the street food stalls - and the guys? Well, maybe it’ll get the patronage of some of them, but most of us like to eat in the bar so that we can keep a weather-eye on the pool table and the Sweet Young Things.
Actually, I’ll probably be a sporadic patron of the place as it’ll make a cheap and cheerful fuelling station between bars. It could also be a good place to grab a bite for the afternoon and early evening shift, because eating your supper in an empty bar can be a rather melancholy experience. But where I think the place could really score is with the local lunch-time crowd who work in the banks, stores and offices around Blok M. With them, it could be a big hit in terms of quality, price and convenience.
And now to details. The place is sparse and spartan - it’s a minimalist and very functional eatery. But no expense has been spared on the finish, and I sum it up as unpretentious and understated quality. I must say that even empty the place has a good feel to it, and the large windows with their panoramic view of the street draw you into the Blok M atmosphere. And you can always be sure of an appreciative audience - it’s a magnet for the street beggars. As I gaze out of the window what do I see but four of these lovable little layabouts with their grubby faces pressed against the glass, like a scene from Oliver Twist.
I wish the management well with their latest venture, and applaud their initiative in trying something new on the street. And now for something completely different - a few snaps that I banged off with my natty little hand phone camera.
The resto frontage
Sparse and spartan
No-frills servery
Understated quality
An appreciative audience
This is the title of one of my favourite films by French director François Truffaut, and it neatly sums up my feelings about My Bar’s music. On Wednesday night I give the place the benefit of the doubt and sit through half an hour’s worth of music that just isn’t my cup of tea - and this in spite of a management pledge to play a greater variety of music and more pop classics. Alas, as I open the door on Saturday night at about eleven o’clock what do I hear but the same arrhythmic pounding that they were thumping out on Wednesday night. Plus ça change…
Music is a matter of taste, and there are those who like the My Bar style. Unfortunately I’m not one of them, so we must just agree to differ and go our different ways on this one. I wish the place well with the revamping and the renovations, but it’s no longer my scene - nor that of those of my friends who share my taste in music.