D’spatches from the front

A man with a mission

Rain and lethargy keep me at home this Friday evening - which is no bad thing in retrospect, as our intrepid correspondents in the Blok M Forums report to a man that it was a universally disastrous night down the Blok. Working on the principle that bad nights rarely come in twos (unlike the Sweet Young Things), I resolve to sally forth on Saturday to see what they’ve done to D’s Place.

Comment in the Forums about the relocated D’s Place has been a chorus of disapproval, with anguished outpourings from regulars of Old D’s. But one man’s meat is the proverbial other man’s poison, so I try to keep an open mind as I brave the northbound traffic to Blok M. Interestingly, the previously-mentioned ruts and runnels along my route have actually been filled in. That’s the good news: the bad, is that where there was a hollow there’s now a protruding pile of rough and jagged infill - so my car bounces and lurches from protuberance to protuberance. Yes, Jakarta wins again.

Inching carefully down a suspiciously empty street, I park right outside New D’s Place - which is directly opposite New Top Gun. An image of the trenches in World War I comes to mind, with Jalan Falatehan a stretch of no-man’s-land between heavily dug-in opposing armies. The image is all the more apt because of the ruts, holes and chasms for which the street is famous the world over.

The first thing I notice is the old D’s sign, forlornly swinging slightly lopsidedly above a nondescript wooden door. The sign is as shabby and worn as ever it was, and has obviously been left in that state to make the regulars feel at home. A nice shiny clean new one would have them reeling in horror.

“It’s D’s, Jim, but not as we know it”

Ushered inside by the grinning satpam, I pause to take in the scene. My first reaction? I’m stunned, rather than horrified. In the immortal words of that great comedian, Frankie Howard, “Flabbergasted? My flabber has never been so gasted!” The place is a breathtaking monument to bad taste, a shocker of the most awful design. In fact, it’s so dreadful that it exerts an almost hypnotic, morbid fascination. “What are they on, is it legal, and where can I get some?” is my first coherent thought after gawping round in jaw-dropping disbelief.

We all know the old adage that a camel is a horse designed by a committee, and this so obviously applies to New D’s Place. The committee in question is the group of investors who own the bar - each one of whom seems to have contributed his own unique creative genius to the bar concept.

But first things first. Let us get things in proportion. All the business units on the west side of the street are deep and narrow, a feature of the architecture - and so it is with New D’s. The layout is basically a triple division, the first two being separate bars and the third a long, corridor-like mirrored dancing area with the obligatory dancing poles. Now why the owners decided to put two physically separate bars adjacent to each other, I cannot really fathom. In Top Gun, it’s a structural necessity - the back bar is an entity in its own right with a pool table, and is separated from the front of house by the Twilight Zone. Is the D’s partition a wise move? Only time can tell.

“Look what they’ve done to my song, Ma!”

The design felony is compounded by the most garish lighting theme I can imagine. The front bar is a tasteful rosy pink: pink pool table felt, pink painted ceiling, and pink lighting. The middle bar is green. Not a tasteful hint of green, not a subtle green, but a loud, bilious, primary green. And the dancing area is unlit save for UV tube lights, which produce a sombre dark blue dungeonesque murk.

Another oddity is the bunker-like structure at the front entrance. This is faced, on the bar side, with mouldy-brick pattern plasticised wallpaper - something that was briefly fashionable in Britain back in the sixties, I seem to remember. Peering through what appears to be a serving hatch, I see a large metal construction that is presumably a cooking range. This might make functional sense - one thinks of My Bar, with its perennial and seemingly intractable smoke problem - as cooking fumes can be vented straight into the street outside. But it looks glaringly out of place next to the bar door.

The brick-wall theme is repeated between the two bars. I must say it was a masterstroke to combine decaying brick arches with snazzy mirrored square columns, an effect brilliantly enhanced by the addition of one of those scrolling light-dot announcement displays so beloved of banks and supermarkets. This one tersely announces forthcoming delights such as wet T-shirt and dancing displays. “Pass the sick-bag!” I quietly murmur.

Another design delight not immediately visible from the front bars is a set of large arched wall panels papered in a blotchy repeating pattern of camouflage colours. Imagine a patchwork quilt painted by Cézanne after an absinthe too many, and you’ll get some idea of what this looks like. It certainly adds to the dungeon effect, resembling from a distance a fungal-covered decaying stone wall.

Waste not, want not

The furnishings. Ah, the furnishings. It’s all the old stuff from D’s Mark One, plonked down willy-nilly in the new place. A torn-off bit of trellis work tastefully bisects one of the brick arches to half-screen the old dartboard, which is cunningly located with one of the mirrored columns in the throwing area. The trellis theme is repeated at the side of what appears to be a cash desk, and the podiums, mirrors and poles will be familiar to all those who braved the upstairs bar in old D’s Place. And in place of honour, high up on the side walls, that great innovation of the original D himself - plaques bearing the names of expats who’ve clocked up ten years or more of living in Jakarta.

I’ve left the best carry-over of the old place until last - the bar staff. As cheerful, attentive and alluring as ever, if anything can make the new place succeed it will be the barmaids. They take your mind off the decor with their charm and their smiles, so there’s hope yet for the relaunched D’s

“When we’re dancing cheek to cheek”

The fact that New D’s is smack opposite Top Gun could produce an interesting dynamism, a positive synergy. Those of us who remember the days of Pentagon have happy memories of staggering back and forth between that excellent establishment and Top Gun, its proximity preventing punters from getting lost. (This is no joke - I’ve known guys get lost between bars on Jalan Falatehan, and even between the Ambhara Hotel and the Club.)

I predict that the future nexus is going to be between Top Gun and D’s Place, for both the girls and the guys. My Bar and Highway to Elle will, I foresee, become supporting actors rather than stars on the Falatehan stage, with Everest and Sportsmans providing light relief for their dedicated regular customers. But the magnet that draws carousers into the Blok will, I feel, be the Top Gun/D’s Place axis.

Make ‘em laugh, make ‘em cry

Now if you ask me if I’ll be a regular visitor to New D’s, the surprising answer is, probably yes. Because when you sit at the bar, the many disparate design features are so incredibly eccentric that they produce an eclectic charm all of their own - a heady mix of clumsy folk-art and naive painting. Nobody sane, sober or sensible could ever have sat down and designed such an elegant monstrosity; it has an organic feel to it, a desperate if misplaced honesty about it.

So purely by accident, the D’s junta may have created a minor masterpiece of bad taste, a design chimera that will draw visitors just to see it for themselves. It’s like nothing else on (or possibly off) the Blok, and it certainly adds something new to the place. D’s is dead - long live D’s!

And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for - the Reveller’s piccies!

Do not adjust your monitor - these are the actual lighting colours

The view from the dancing dungeon towards the bar door

The green bar

The front bar, pool table and dart board

The brick bunker kitchenette

The corner of the pink bar

The view from the dancing dungeon

In the depths of the dancing dungeon

Top Gun topping

One for the road

Leaving D’s Place just after nine, I pop in to Top Gun to see if there’s anyone I know in there. And yes, my old friend David Jardine is sitting austerely at the bar. I haven’t seen him for a couple of months, our paths rarely crossing since I abandoned my previous regular early Friday evening sorties into Blok M. And in the distance I espy another mate who’s been knocking around the Blok for ever, so there’s more gossip to catch up on.

I’m most surprised to learn from my friend Mike that the new felting of the front bar pool table is to my credit. I protest that I have nothing to do with it, but he tells me that the manager said they’d read my comments about not putting money back into the bars, and were refurbishing things that needed urgent attention as a consequence. That makes me feel good, and puts Top Gun management a notch up in my estimation.

There’s a small selection of Sweet Young Things in the Gun tonight, but they’re way outnumbered by the older brigade of Indramayu beauties. I’m glad to see that the Twilight Zone is back in business, filling up nicely with couples and hopefuls as the evening draws on. But when the band strikes up at ten o’clock and all conversation stops dead in its tracks, I decide to up sticks and go home.

Epilogue

Top Gun has acquired solidity and is now a landmark presence. Beyond all doubt it’s the focal point of the street, and as I leave the bar to retrieve my car and head homewards I reflect that the Blok has yet again provided me with an enjoyable evening. Sad to say, the old days are well and truly over, though. The best we can hope for, I suppose, is that the place doesn’t become completely plastic with the growing rot of ‘entertainment’, and retains something of its old charm and character. And paradoxically, New D’s may actually contribute to the salvage of the character of the dear old place.