Saturday 12th April
Special anniversary issue
Five years, half a decade, a twentieth of a century - whichever way you cut it, that’s a pretty solid slice of history. Back in early 2003 I’d scribbled down a simple guide to the Blok M bars and the Blok M girls at the request of a good friend whose boss and senior colleagues were flying into Jakarta the following month, and wanted to make the most of their fleeting visit. Like a sort of latter-day samizdat document this user’s guide to Blok M was passed round the Blok M regulars, some of whom urged me to publish it more widely. A month later, the Blok M web site was born.
A special mention must be made of the late, and greatly missed, Bill Guerin. I emailed him my notes with the tentative suggestion that they might be of interest to readers of his Jakarta Eye web site. Not only did he promptly publish them, but urged me to keep on writing - and to go for a site of my own.
I toyed with many pseudonyms on which to peg the persona of a typical Blok M roué, but none quite cut the mustard. I wanted something that caught the notion of a bon viveur, an enjoyer of wine, women and song, and encapsulated the gusto and verve of the Blok M bar scene. It also had to suggest something a bit naughty, something of the Saturnalia, something that hinted at enlightened debauchery. In a flash of inspiration, the word ‘reveller’ came to mind - and an alter ego was born.
What’s given me most satisfaction over these five years is that my local readership has grown into a global community, and the Reveller’s humble offerings are read not only by Blok M stalwarts old and new, but by folk who’ve never been to Jakarta, and simply enjoy reading about our little world. To everyone, everywhere, who’s supported the Blok M web site and the blog, my heartiest thanks.
It’s eight o’clock on a not unpleasant Saturday night. The rain has held off, but the sky has the colour and texture of an old floorcloth - and there’s a dampness in the heavy air that drains my energy. Needing something a bit more fortifying than a bottle of ale, I wander into One Tree and get stuck into a heartening glass of their nicely palatable house red.
I haven’t been in the place for quite a while, so after a chat with the bar staff I settle down to see what’s changed. The place is looking a lot more lived in, that’s for sure. But whereas the other bars’ cheapo wood substitute ages with scruffy patchiness and develops a blotchy pallor with wear, Bart’s investment in good, solid timber is now paying off. The floor looks like a real bar floor, worn and scuffed but with real character. A perfectly polished bar floor is an obscenity, a thing to be scorned and reviled. A worn and stained plain wooden bar floor is a document on which is written that bar’s story.
Turning round to view the back wall, blow me if I don’t see a tree. It’s a sort of miniature palm in a pot, a bonsai palm that looks far too young to have been taken from its mother. But at least, I reflect, it does give legitimacy to the place, allowing it to live up to its title at long last. The rear mirrors have been tastefully adorned with drink prices, in a round firm hand with just those little flourishes that give the place a distinctly European style.
But the facing wall has a sinister, almost macabre mien. The shelves are partitioned into dark nooks and shadowy alcoves, in front of which there are candles lazily flickering in dim cylindrical glass jars. The effect is to make the wall look like a niche in an ossuary, with a suggestion that the crumbling bones of long-dead Roman martyrs may be decaying within.
As I turn round, the man himself comes into the bar - Bart, exuding his hallmark bonhomie, and greeting everyone with his expansive warmth. One Tree has grown into its little niche in Jalan Falatehan, and is now a well-established watering hole.
At about nine forty I up sticks and stroll the few yards into Oscar.
There’s a very pleasant, welcoming atmosphere in Oscar tonight. The band is just having a breather, there’s good music at a very listenable volume coming from the speakers, and the staff are bustling about briskly.
There aren’t many customers - four, in addition to myself - but they’re all chatting and enjoying themselves. Being able to chat over a friendly drink has become something of a rarity on Jalan Falatehan, and I salute Oscar for having bucked the trend to a deafening deluge of discordant rubbish.
On the wall behind the bar I see one of my favourite cinema photographs, a portrait of the great Marlene Dietrich - and just beyond it, the fading but defiant banner with the words “Damai Itu Indah” (Peace is Beautiful) printed on it. The walls, beams and flooring are much as I remember them, but one striking change in the place is tablecloths, which sport a distinctive chessboard pattern. Only Oscar would put tablecloths on bar tables, I grin to myself. The band returns from its break, and strikes up with a tunefulness that raises the spirit.
One thing that is missing, alas, is Sweet Young Things. Now Oscar always had its unique flora and fauna, many of the girls being long-standing regulars who spoke the best English on the Blok and were real personalities. Where have they all gone? I wonder, poignantly reflecting that this is a truly sad mark of decline.
At ten I decide to move on, feeling rather depressed that a bar with so much going for it seems to be going nowhere. I decide on the spur of the moment to pop in to G String for a quick pint, but even across the road I can hear the blasting din of loud music - and keep on walking up the street towards Top Gun.
What on Earth, you may ask, is ‘tog gin’? A new high-octane mixed drink, perhaps? Nothing of the sort. In fact, the truth is a little gem of a Blok M story in itself. Chris, one of our Forum regulars, gets back home one night a little the worse for wear, and (perhaps unwisely) promptly logs on to record his binge for posterity. His post is full of magnificent typos, the most memorable of which is a completely botched rendering of Top Gun. The name has entered Blok M folklore, and will last as long as the bar in which it was accidentally conceived.
The first thing I notice on walking into the bar is a refreshing lack of OEMs, those bulky, joyless specimens who seemed to be taking over the place. There aren’t so many of the Indramayu regular contingent (many of whom are still apparently adding to the dazzling delights of downtown Singapore), but enough to give Top Gun its inimitable character.
There’s a fairly decent band performing, and the volume is still the right side of ear-shattering, so I line up a beer and look around to see who’s in tonight. One of my oldest friends is on a roll at the pool table, so a quick hearty handshake to say hi, and it’s off to the back bar to see what’s cooking. The Twilight Zone is filling up nicely, but it hasn’t got that louche sleaziness it had last year. A pity, but that’s life.
Returning to base camp at the front bar, I’m just in time to see the grand entrance of Dumb and Dumber and her supporting cast. She looks different tonight. Gone is the impasto make-up and the glitzy eye warpaint, in its place a light, even powder base with muted lipstick and what might just be her natural eyebrows. She’s wearing a simple purple plunging tank top over tight black jeans, and thin high heels that would be classified as lethal weapons in some countries.
She’s put on a coy, ’sweet little innocent girl’ face for the evening, but this doesn’t fool anybody - it’s a bit like a piranha pretending to be a goldfish. There aren’t many blokes in the bar tonight, so she begins to get restless and it looks as though she’s going to move out. But an old trooper like her knows that, tonight, it’s Top Gun or nothing, so she stays - a brooding presence, a hungry predator nursing her ire.
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Turning from D&D towards the door, in walks a guy who is an absolute dead ringer for one of my favourite cartoon characters - Professor Calculus of the Tintin stories. As he walks past, I see in the doorway behind him what must rank as the fashion faux-pas of the month. One of the girls is wearing what can best be described as a pale pea-green flouncy hoody outfit over a tight-fitting blue denim mini skirt - a breathtaking mismatch, if ever there was one. She affects a languorous stroll into the bar, and is soon mercifully swallowed up by the crowd at the back bar.
Glancing round, I espy in the distance a real relic of the Blok - one of the oldest mamasans (and a great character), who I once dubbed with the nickname of Mrs Creosote. Those of you familiar with the Monty Python’s Meaning of Life film will no doubt remember that appallingly tasteless sketch in which a mountainous glutton, Mr Creosote, eats until he explodes.
This old dear had a stroke some time ago, which saddened all of us (and in particular the girls). She eventually reappeared, clopping round the bars with cheerful fortitude on her walking frame, and I’m delighted to say that she’s made a complete recovery - and lost an enormous amount of weight.
Hovering anxiously round the doorway pillar is a rather forlorn gaggle of girls, those who haven’t yet earned their regular slot in the Top Gun pecking order. Like latter day Bedouin, they wander in and out, dispossessed nomads. On a good night they’ll latch on to a guy or two, but tonight the pickings are slim and they slowly fade away, like wraiths with the coming of dawn.
It’s approaching eleven o’clock, so I decide to pop in to Highway to Elle and see how the place is shaping up.
Clambering up the rather overpowering staircase and entering the bar, it’s clear that the place has mellowed well and attracted a congenial clientele. It seems I’ve arrived just in time to miss the Saturday night pole dancing routine - for which I’m very grateful.
A bevy of girls, wearing white plastic boots, white knickers and light tops, are standing around chatting to each other and some of the customers. One, an absolute stunner, starts to dance in front of the mirror - wet dream material, and more entertaining in its lithely erotic way than any amount of swinging round a metal pole in a manner akin to our simian ancestors.
One of the other girls joins in - a rather ill-advised move, as she is to her friend what a fully-loaded bulk carrier is to a sleek ocean racer. She’s plump and podgy, certainly too old for this lark, and has seriously overdone the make-up. But she’s got a lovely smile, she’s really enjoying herself, and I smile appreciatively at her.
I ask for a Pernod at the bar, but get a blank stare in reply - oh dear, a new one! I reflect - so I order a red Martini instead. Sipping this delicious Mediterranean nectar I watch the evening drawing to its close, and decide to move on.
Now I haven’t been to D’s Place for a very long time - the last two visits lasting all of thirty seconds each, before the sound blasted me out - and it’s very pleasant to walk into the place without the booming cacophony upstairs. The downstairs bar is full of guys, and there’s some serious drinking going on. But the bar top - oh dear, it’s been lobotomised, sawn off halfway down. The extra space does make more room by the pool table, which is just as well as the centre of the bar is now a pole dancing podium.
There can be nothing more incongruous on God’s good Earth than what used to be one of the best bars in the street now sporting a dance pole right in the middle of the floor. It’s ruined the bar, and confirms the wisdom of my decision to abandon the place for pastures new a couple of years ago.
The girls? Well, many of them I’ve known for almost ten years. They’ve weathered well, but lack freshness and vitality. The place reminds me in a somewhat subliminal way of the Club, whither many of these D’s girls will eventually gravitate. So this incarnation of D’s Place will soon be no more. A bar that, in its time, was my favourite haunt: and it’s with very mixed emotions that I pay my bill and leave the old place for the last time.
As I reverse my little car into a massive pot hole under the careful pilotage of a grinning parking assistant and set myself on a southern bearing, I reflect on what an enjoyable evening it’s been. Everything just seemed to fit together and to flow carelessly by, making for a memorable kaleidoscope of sounds and images.
This evening is, in its way, a pilgrimage - the cap on five years of writing about the Blok, and just over ten years of revelling. I feel that the Blok and I, through our ups and downs, our high points and our low points, are both faring pretty well tonight. But time passes, things change - mutatis mutandis.