Blog M

Friday 27th June

Reveller — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 01:56:51 +0000

Boom time

Way to go

Preparing to leave the house on Friday evening I hear the growling roar and dull rumble of traffic in my street, and the thin shriek of distant whistles. This is a bad portent - it can only mean that south Jakarta is saturated with traffic, and the overspill is filling up the side streets like dry creek beds in a desert deluge.

The whistles are owned and blown by a gang of local youths that I’ve nicknamed the Traffic Vigilantes. Their technique is crude but effective - they march out into the main road in threes or fours and take up a station directly in front of the oncoming vehicles. Then, when the traffic behind them begins to crawl, they usher into the breech one of the poor sods who’s been wearily waiting to join the stream, collecting a couple of coins for their initiative.

Leaving my little car safely in its garage I weave my pedestrian way through the melee of cars, bajajs vans and ojeks that clog the street, and struggle through the fumes to the main road. Looking down the packed southward lanes, full of angry frustrated drivers revving their engines and parping their horns, I decide that it’s taxi time.

The journey northwards is a doddle, and I’m in the Blok by eight thirty after an uneventful ride. As the taxi weaves its way through the mass of parked cars in Jalan Falatehan, I’m thankful that I’m not trying to find a parking space tonight.

Scene but not herd

This Friday night is such a mix of encounters, observations, thoughts and reactions that it defies simple chronological relating. (The fact that I quietly and efficiently put away a lethal stack of beer, tequila and Pernod perhaps plays its part, as well.) So tonight’s account becomes a kaleidoscope of brilliant vignettes rather than a broad sweep of the crowd’s coming and goings.

Arrivals and departures

It’s an evening of oddities and the unexpected. The first thing I notice is that no fewer than seven of the Indramayu girls are in before nine o’clock, huddled and chatting animatedly at their regular staging post, the mirrored pillar at the end of the front bar. As I’m wondering why they’re here so early, in walks my old mate Frank, followed shortly after by one of our American friends who’s recently returned to Jakarta.

Just as we greet each other and get down to swapping news and gossip, in walk another couple of long-time buddies, one of whom is sadly leaving Jakarta and returning to the States the following day. They’ve come for a farewell game of pool in Top Gun before heading out for one of the kota flesh-pots. We recognise other guys of our generation dotted round the bar, and of course comment on the quality of the company.

Some time later a short, broad, tousle-haired grinning figure enters the bar and joins our group, but at first I don’t recognise him. It’s our old friend Ray, he of ratty T-shirt, shorts and flip-flop fame - but tonight he’s wearing a brilliant white brand-new T-shirt, which looks oddly out of place on his broad torso. Now Ray is a wanderer by nature, and he goes from bar to bar clutching a bottle and occasionally a girl or two - so he shuffles off after greeting each of us.

Looking round the bar, I see even more of the Club regulars hanging around the pool table than were in Top Gun last week. One of them cadges a drink from me, which I willingly buy for old time’s sake - but it does remind me of why I don’t go in the Club very often these days. As three of her friends realise she’s struck gold they quickly home in on me, but back off when I cast a magisterial frown in their general direction.

Dumb and Dumber is yet again noticeable by her absence, but she does put in a cameo appearance sometime after eleven with her support crew, looking rather jaded and a bit spaced out.

Going for bust

Last week I recorded the appearance of a Rubenesque girl in a tight white back-strapped dress. Well, she’s here again tonight - but in an outfit that has even the most hardened observers gasping in disbelief. Her top can best be described as a sort of loose overgrown bra made of turquoise netting, which reveals a pair of the most enormous knockers in full and pendulous clarity. This grotesque vision of loveliness stirs a distant memory of the Willendorf Venus, a 30,000 year old female figurine whose rotund figure is clearly related to fertility and plenty.

Stone Age fertility symbol, 28,000 BC - Top Gun sex symbol, 2008 AD

If there’d ever been a Stone Age Blok M, this beauty would’ve been the hottest thing in the bar, at the top of every Cro-Magnon reveller’s wet dream list. How things have changed, I reflect; today’s hot property is a twig-like slip of a girl in a white miniskirt. But this story has a happy ending. She’s snapped up by one of the pool players and is soon canoodling with him in the dark recess behind the pool table. “He’s got his hands full with that one”, I naughtily comment to the gang.

Your smileage may vary

The crowd is large, lively and bustling tonight. But it’s the girls who are most remarkable - they’re smiling, laughing and flitting round the bar rather than clomping up and down like zombies. One slightly older but nicely demure Young Thing edges up to me and stage-whispers, with a sultry smoulder in her eyes, “Are you alone tonight?” “I’m always alone” I reply, with mock pathos and a pretend wipe of tears from my cheeks. “You buy me long island tea?” she murmers in my ear. I decide to use the “I can’t hear you” technique rather than a direct dismissal, and after three repetitions she gets the message and lowers her expectation to a cola.

She goes into her ‘touchy feely’ repertoire, but soon realises that I’m not particularly interested. What she doesn’t know is that I know she’s a gold digger wilth a greatly inflated opinion of her commercial value and performance rating. She soon veers away towards a more likely victim, leaving me to gaze round the bar in peace.

Looking down the bar from the dark corner at the street end, I remark on the quanity and quality of Sweet Young Things tonight, and the quantity and variety of the guys. There are lots of younger blokes in full swing, groups of older chaps nattering loudly and carousing with their doxies, and loners enjoying the music and the atmosphere.

The band is really quite good, belting out lots of good stuff with tuneful efficiency. But as the night wears on they have a change of crew who are, to be charitable, best described as the ‘B’ Team. A beaming Pak Ahmad, the owner of Top Gun, walks by, and next thing I know a double Pernod is thrust into my hand by a smiling waitress. So a slightly sozzled Reveller quickly becomes a completely pickled Reveller, and decides to make tracks before this unexpected but very welcome glass of cheer hits his central nervous system.

Street life

Rather than describe in words the street life as one o’clock draws near, I present a few piccies that I snapped while waiting for my late-night snack, a shawarma from D’s Place. Everything is there; the jumble of cars, the line of motorbikes parked further along the pavement, the street stalls, the urchins and beggars, the girls wandering from bar to bar, the drivers sitting by their cars playing chess or just chatting.

D’s Place shawarma stall

The traditional shawarma grill

Looking northwards up the street

Sweet Young Things on the prowl

The view across the road towards Top Gun

Epilogue

As I walk up the street in search of a halfway trustworthy taxi, I pass the recently renovated old D’s Place building. It’s got a big “for sale” board outside, and has obviously been remodeled as a shop with two large windows and an extra doorway. Not the cleverest of commercial moves, I reckon - Jalan Falatehan isn’t exactly on the south Jakarta shopping map.

It’s been another great night, with that liveliness that used to be the hallmark of Jalan Falatehan until three or four years ago. Crossing my fingers, I hope that this time the revival will be more sustained, and not fizzle out as it has on so many other occasions.

Brushing off the optimistic calls from the drivers of the rust-bucket taxis with a world-weary smile, I turn the corner at the top of the street and flag down a Bluebird. Within ten minutes I’m home, heading for the fridge to get a glass of cold water with which to wash down the couple of aspirins that I hope will dull the incipient headache and mitigate the looming hangover. But my heart and my wallet are lighter than they were the previous afternoon - a fair bargain, I reflect, as I munch the remains of my shawarma and switch off the computer. And so to bed.

Friday 20th June

Reveller — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 03:39:43 +0000

Community spirit

Good neighbours

Most Jakartans have a love-hate relationship with rain - it may make travel difficult, but it does scour the air of its accumulated Nasties. The skies have cleared this week, so we’re now back to Jakarta’s regular cocktail of dust and exhaust fumes - and hoards of manic drivers who seem hell-bent on making up for lost time caused by the recent downpours.

Looking forward to a relaxing Friday night down the Blok I edge my little car out of its narrow gateway and trundle down the gentle incline at a leisurely pace. Now my street suffers from being a rat run when Jalan Fatmawati is full, and there are two cars coming towards me and one of my neighbours who’s driving the car in front. There’s an impasse, as neither of us has any intention of backing up for the invaders to push their way through.

Suddenly, it’s as though the circus has come to town. Crowds of grubby little wide-eyed street urchins, chattering mothers toting sleepy toddlers, half-dressed guys in vests and T-shirts idly scratching themselves, all gather round to watch the show. They’ve no sympathy with the selfish intruders, and gesticulate for them to back up.

Now one of the facts of life in our great city (and indeed, throughout Indonesia) is that a road is not a space reserved for vehicles, but an extension of one’s home and a freely available community resource. My street is furnished with worn wooden benches and threadbare hulks of old armchairs, trees, shrubs and flowers growing in assorted pots and cans, and little shops whose owners cheerfully extend their counters into the street. And of course, the ubiquitous ojeks. Whenever there’s a local wedding or a pesta the street is blocked off: gaudy awnings are strung up, rickety chairs set out, field kitchens fired up, and monstrous sound systems hauled up onto dangerously leaning telephone poles.

After much muttered discussion, peering and measuring, a couple of the more enterprising lads persuade the oncoming drivers to back up against a slightly recessed wall - but there’s still not enough room to pass. Then, like an orchestra striking up in unison, everyone starts to shift the benches, armchairs, pots and cans into doorways and snickets, hauling and tugging with smiles and nods.

After a couple of minutes the street looks forlornly bare and characterless, and we’re able to squeeze through with barely an inch to spare on either side. The oncoming drivers look thunderous and scowl as we nod our thanks to them - and I reflect that they probably won’t be using our little street as a rat run again.

So I’m on my way at last, grinning and thanking the neighbours for their help. This is one of the reasons I like living in Jakarta - the sense of community that’s a thing of the past in our Great and Glorious British cities.

Shuffling the pack

Jalan Falatehan is packed solid with cars when I eventually arrive, so I have to park down by G-String. Striding up the road towards Top Gun it’s noticeable how much life is going on around the little food shacks and the cigarette vendors’ stalls, with girls and their ojek-driving beaux chatting and munching as they squat on the pavement.

It’s eight fifteen, and Top Gun is pleasantly tranquil. There’s something about the hour before the place starts to fill up that I’ve always liked. The music is quiet, the staff natter and chatter together, the managers summon the troops and give them the evening’s marching orders, and there’s a rather comforting acoustic muffling. It reminds me of an empty theatre just before the doors open and the audience comes in.

A waitress with a welcoming smile that would charm the proverbial birds off a tree takes my order, echoing my “and sop buntut, please!” with a knowing nod. A quick (and traditionally disastrous) game of pool later, my food arrives - and it’s up to its best quality. The green chilli sauce is bitingly hotter than the last batch, and there’s nothing more satisfying than quenching the fires with a long draught of ice-cold beer.

By nine o’clock the place is filling up fast, and who should wander in but Bas - one of our Blok M Forum stalwarts, and a long-established reveller. He too promptly orders a sop buntut, and we spend a couple of minutes extolling the nutritious value, the excellent digestibility, and the exquisite flavour of our favourite bar dish.

The incoming customers behave in a rather odd way. They cluster along the bar or on the fringes of the tables by the Twilight Zone, leaving the central space and tables eerily empty. Many of them are South East Asian expats so maybe it’s a cultural thing, I reflect.

The music is a pleasant and tuneful selection, not your typical Top Gun fare, and I guffaw loudly when I suddenly recognize “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” from Monty Python’s Life of Brian. As I drain my double Pernod, I reflect that it’s moments like this that make Blok M such a memorable place.

This completely surreal musical event coincides with a completely surreal sartorial happening, as a girl resembling one of the Fat Slags waddles into the bar and commandeers the corner by the pool table waiting list. She’s wearing a revealing white outfit with cutaway straps across the back that make her look like an actress in a bondage video - but as to the frontal view, you just don’t want to know. Her hair seems to be modelled on one of the less pleasant female characters in a Harry Potter film, and her make-up may euphemistically be described as ’striking’.

Not to be upstaged, in comes a guy resembling a bit-part actor who’s just walked off the set of one of the weirder scenes in Pirates of the Caribbean. He’s a heavily-built bloke wearing a black T-shirt, long sloppy shorts, and a red bandanna tied round his head. But the show-stopper, the absolute pièce de résistance, is his belt - from which hangs a collection of neatly-tied plastic bags strung over his stomach. Clutching a mineral-water bottle in one hand, he strides through the bar and out of sight into the Twilight Zone.

“It looks as though tonight’s going to be a classic!” I confide to Bas, whose expression is priceless.

Full house

As we watch the pool players, I catch my breath and my heart beats faster. There’s a girl in a white miniskirt at the table - a bit full-figured for such an outfit, but a stunner for all that. My eyes are glued to the pool game. Eventually I tear myself away, and try to control my racing pulse by looking at some of the OEMs who have just come into the bar - ghastly passion-killers with all the allure and sex appeal of an overcooked suet pudding.

Glancing at the darker back corner of the bar, I see a group of girls sitting and chatting together. It must be a girls’ night out, I reckon - a gang of office workers who want to see the Naughty Side of south Jakarta. They trot out rather demurely after an hour or so, no doubt suitably scandalized

This little vignette gets me to comparing the rear bar of another place - the Club. It occurs to me that the great difference between that venerable institution and Top Gun is that there, the Dark Side is a dangerous and a very naughty place, whereas in Top Gun it’s a safe haven from the main action in the bar. And in that brief moment, I suddenly think of a new name for the Dark Side of the Club - Hoover Corner, because that legendary cleaner is renowned for its powers of beating and sucking.

As I’m chatting to Bas, in walk two - then three - of the Club girls. I ask them why they’re so far away from home, and they tell me that the Club is totally dead tonight so they’ve given up and come to see what’s happening on Falatehan. Now it’s interesting to compare the Club girls with the north Jakarta OEMs - and the Club girls win hands down on looks and liveliness.

Some of the girls tell me they’ve come into Top Gun because D’s Place is packed full, which means good takings for both bars tonight. This is how the Blok was always intended to be, I reflect - something for everyone, and no-one left out of the action.

Scooping the pot

Shortly after nine a lot of the guys leave the bar, making a lull in the evening’s festivities. But soon afterwards in comes a new contingent - not the regulars, but the ‘guys out for a night on the town’ brigade, young bucks with their characteristic swagger and bravado. That some of them are pretty well plastered is shown by the fact that they make a beeline for the OEM crones and start to chat them up. “Jeez, I’d hate to wake up next to that one” I say to Bas, as one awful specimen slips a brawny arm around the neck of a sozzled carouser and plants her lurid red lips full on his unsuspecting mouth.

But one thing that’s increasingly noticeable is, yet again, the absence of Indramayu girls. Even Dumb and Dumber isn’t here, and Bas is eager to see this legendary Sweet Youngish Thing for himself. Ten o’clock comes and goes, and eventually they do drift in - with a rather demurely dressed D&D who shows no interest at all in the male clientele. I point her out to Bas, who’s a bit disappointed that she’s not dressed to kill and vamping round the bar as usual. It must be her rest day, I speculate.

Soon, all but the youngest of the Indramayu girls are in the bar and latching on to the guys. Hunting in packs, it’s the Blok M equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel, and every few minutes another bemused looking guy is hauled bodily out of the bar by one or more Sweet Young Things.

One tall and very alluring slim young thing slinks past us at the bar, and within two minutes of striking up a conversation is on her way out with the guy she’s targetted. “That’ll pay the rent for next month”, I comment to Bas.

Epilogue

Top Gun is indeed a classic tonight. I’d got Highway to Elle and D’s Place lined up for a visit, but with so many friends and acquaintances to chat with the night just flows by - and before I know it, midnight is here. The band, which started fairly competently, is now going rapidly downhill and getting louder by the minute, so I decide to bid farewell and head for home.

The drive southwards is mercifully uneventful, and I’m soon tucking the car into its narrow little garage. Looking down my street as I open the front door, I reflect that Jakarta is still a place where community counts. It’s what makes Blok M the great place it is, and my small corner of south Jakarta a great place to live.

Saturday 14th June

Reveller — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 16:45:18 +0000

Chill factor

A week to forget

A lot of folk have complained about the week that’s just gone by - its capricious weather, agonizing traffic jams that are bad even by Jakarta standards, niggling minor ailments, and a general sense of sloth and lethargy. So it is that I head towards the Blok through the miserable evening murk with high hopes of physical and mental restoration.

My little street has turned in on itself against the rain. Shops and stalls are draped in plastic sheets of varying age and hue, making the roadside look like a glimmering patchwork strip. Ojek boys huddle in corners under awnings smoking kreteks, their bikes dripping in the rain, and parked cars cower under shrouds of dull gray fabric. The roads are quite empty because Jakarta taxis go into hiding as soon as there’s a spot of rain, and bikers hug the kerb as they hurry and scurry on their watery way.

The road into Blok M resembles an apocalyptic scene from a Bosch painting - darkness punctuated by splashes of orange light from the street lamps, flashes of white light from the traffic, and multicoloured bursts from the advertising hoardings.

The road into Blok M on a rainy night, by Hieronymus Bosch

When they’re full of water, the Jalan Falatehan potholes are even more treacherous than usual - so I advance gingerly towards my usual spot outside Top Gun. The parking guys are huddled against a wall across the road, and half-heartedly call out their regular patter - “terus, terus, kiri, terus, stop!” The street looks doubly forlorn as there are few cars parked by the bars, and even the urchins have taken refuge, a bedraggled group of them squatting by the side of a huge Toyota.

Now the best cure for the doldrums is a good drink and a tasty meal, and I rub my hands with pleasurable anticipation as I stroll hungrily into Top Gun.

A bit of tail

Girls may come and girls may go, but sop buntut is always there when you need it. So here’s my visual tribute to that Great Institution, the Top Gun sop buntut.

The full monty - a bowl of soup and a plate of boiled rice, chilli sauce and krupuk

Ready for action - oxtail fished out, chilli spread on rice, krupuk soaking in the soup

The end of a perfect meal!

It’s unusually quiet in the Blok tonight, I remark to one of the girls. She tells me that all the pool league players are at a big party in some hotel or other to mark the end of the pool competition, and of course there’s the football stuff going on as well. I take advantage of the absence of the Pool Nazis to have a relaxing game or two with the girls - just like old times before the Junta imposed their League Rules diktat, I reflect, as I cheerfully lose yet another game,

By nine thirty or so Top Gun is filling up nicely, but alas the Sweet Young Things are thin on the ground - and there’s no sign of Dumb and Dumber. I wonder if she’s joined the Shangri La contingent? Or maybe found a boyfriend? Her regular support crew are also absent, so I presume they’re all off hunting together. After another bottle of ale I decide to pop across the road and see what’s cooking in D’s Place, so it’s up and away from an increasingly busy Top Gun.

D’colletage

D’s Place continues to amuse and bemuse me. Having chalked up something of a Jakarta record by its accumulation of bad taste and tacky decor, I didn’t think there was any scope for further creative endeavour - but one look at the staff uniforms makes me realise just how wrong I can be.

The girls are wearing long white dresses that have a strap over one shoulder and a cut-out slit at the waist on the opposite side. Mistake number one, the material is quite awful - it’s thin, clingy and cheap looking. It cruelly hugs the figure in all the wrong places, making buttocks protrude and legs look like malformed tree trunks. Mistake number two, the tailoring is truly terrible. The fit is bad, the sewing all askew, and the most polite word for the hemming is amateurish. The visual effect, as the staff hustle and bustle round the bar, is that of a badly choreographed chorus in an ancient Greek tragedy.

Far from complaining, I heartily applaud the D’s Place style. It’s cheeky and cheerful, cranky and kitschy, and adds to the place’s quite unique character. The bar staff are absolute gems, the regulars a great crowd, and it’s a good place for an early evening jar.

I spend a pleasant half hour in D’s, chatting with a guy I haven’t seen for a couple of years (he stayed with Old D’s after I’d abandoned it) and bumping into one of the original Top Gun girls I’ve known since my first night on the Blok. As the music starts I up sticks and head for the door, deciding to wander down the street to visit One Tree.

Tree strikes and you’re out

I really like the One Tree Bar. It’s got a decor, a character, and an ambience that makes me feel immediately at home - this place is instant nostalgia, a throwback to the European bars and cafes of my carefree youth. This is a bar to relax in, let your mind drift back to days gone by, and put a stretch of clear water between you and the strife and stress of Jakarta’s workaday world.

Instant nostalgia!

One Tree’s regulars are a pleasant, sociable bunch. For the most part they’re guys with girlfriends who meet up there to chat and enjoy good company, or single guys who just enjoy a bit of badinage with the ever-cheerful bar staff. What more could a guy want?

The answer to this rhetorical question is, a bit of peace and quiet. It’s ten o’clock as I walk down the middle of the street towards One Tree, carefully pacing the puddles and potholes. The pavements these days are so full of ramshackle food stalls, ranked motorbikes and knots of pimply ojek riders that the peripatetic carouser is crowded out and forced to tread the open street.

Leaving behind the clammy drizzle of the grumbling Jakarta night as you go into the warmth and cheer of One Tree is a sweet experience. A friendly personal greeting from the staff, and I’m soon sat at the bar with a glass of the house red wine. Bart is rightly proud of his wines, and every smooth glass is a tribute to the care he takes. The only sounds you can hear are the hum and chatter of conversation, occasional laughter and cheering, the clink and clatter of glasses and bottles - homely sounds that give the place its atmosphere.

This idyllic scene is spoilt at a stroke when some selfish clown turns on the sound system and starts belting out loud music. As if to add insult to injury, they then chop and change the tracks before they’re finished, like some dyslexic jukebox. I politely ask if the sound can be turned down, and it is - but moments later, it’s blaring again. This is the cue for me to pay up and go.

As I walk out into the night I reflect that the street is losing another bit of its individuality, and One Tree is losing a customer. Taking such pains and going to such expense to create a great little pub, and then turning it into just another Jalan Falatehan drink and music hole, is a Blok M tragedy.

Epilogue

It’s been a mixed evening on the Blok. Top Gun was great as usual, D’s Place goes ever upwards on its Wonderland way, but One Tree is a big disappointment. If the only way to turn a profit is to play loud music, and that’s what the customers really want, then I bow to the will of the majority and we go our different ways.

As I mull over these thoughts I’m suddenly aware of a pair of bright headlights bearing down on me. There’s a narrow wedge of no man’s land near the bus station that’s skirted by a traffic lane barely wide enough for one vehicle, and no-one’s sure which direction is one way. After a good-natured impasse I back onto a scrap of waste land and the other car edges through the narrow gap. A cheerful wave, and I’m on my way into deepest Melawai - homeward bound, the batteries charged for another week’s toil.

Saturday 7th June

Reveller — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 04:01:54 +0000

Top Gun lite

Grounded

One of the best lessons I learnt when I started my Blokking career was, ‘don’t force it’. If you’re just not in the mood, or feel a bit below par, leave the Blok alone for a night - it won’t go away. I’ve known guys whose personal motto has been just the opposite - ‘the Blok or bust’. Guys who’ve hobbled into the bar on crutches, rolled through the door in wheelchairs, limped to their table with legs in bandage or plaster, or snuffled the night away through a haze of flu and antibiotic misery. To misquote those famous words of General Pierre Bosquet, “C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas le bar.”

So it is that on Friday night I reluctantly decide discretion is the better part of revelling, and languish at home soaking up the best that satellite TV has to offer. As I click from channel to channel in a desperate search for something that doesn’t assume I have a sub-95 IQ and the memory span of an amnesiac hamster, I drift into a shallow sleep with the TV still droning on, dreamily fantasizing that National Geographic is making a documentary about white miniskirts and thigh-length shiny plastic boots.

A quick dip

On Saturday night my batteries seem to be half charged, so I think maybe I’m OK for a go at the Blok. The thought of another night of mental atrophy convinces me that I’m more than ready, so I set off for an early night of R&R.

The world seems to sense that I’m below my best. Street urchins hop solicitously out of the way rather than throw themselves in death-defying bravado right under my wheels; old geezers step aside and gently wave me by instead of suddenly getting an urge to amble unsteadily across the road to greet another old geezer; bike riders pull into the side of the road and slow down as I approach them, and one of the local cats nips sharply out of the way rather than give me its usual arrogant stare and dare me to just go ahead and flatten it.

Even the main road traffic feels for me. A member of the Jakarta Constabulary gives me a weary nod as I absent-mindedly go through a red light, when - on true form - he’d have me hauled over and fishing out the old merokok before you can say ‘it’s a fair cop guv’. A battered old taxi slows down to let me swing left after the bus station; an archaic bajaj veers out of my way without my flashing and hooting at it - and a decrepit Metro Mini stops to pick up a passenger without blocking the slip road.

These are good omens. The Gods of Jakarta are beaming benignly on me tonight. I am protected, I can do no wrong. I even seem to miraculously miss the jagged pot holes in Jalan Felatehan, and find a parking slot right outside Top Gun.

The sop, the whole sop, and nothing but the sop

Top Gun is quiet. There’s a handful of guys playing a serious game of pool, a gaggle of older girls hanging around the door nattering away in Jawa, and the usual toing and froing of bar staff who don’t seem to have any obvious reason to be toing and froing.

Having been on short rations for a couple of days, I’m ready for the magical recuperative powers of a sop buntut. After stacking away the rice and chilies I glance round the bar, and spot a guy at a nearby table who’s also absorbed in a sop buntut. Now with only half a dozen customers in the bar, it’s quite a coincidence that two of us should be simultaneously enjoying the same collation. Is he a regular devotee of the dish, I idly wonder, or has he learnt about it from my enthusiastic reviews in the blog posts?

Sadly, the sop doesn’t quite have its usual savoury edge. It comes suspiciously quickly after I order it, and good though it is it lacks that little je ne sais quoi that made the previous two helpings something special.

The Great Escape

The bar is slow to fill up, which is about par for a Saturday night. More of the older Indramayu girls arrive as ten approaches, and upon asking a couple of them where the fledglings are tonight they tell me they’ve gone to the Shangri La because the pickings in Blok M have been pretty meagre over the last few weeks. “Well, with some Top Gun girls now aiming for the million mark, can you blame the guys for losing interest?” I ask. The girls shake their heads with an expression that says, “The younger generation; what can you expect?”

The older girls all seem to be dressed in black tonight, which adds to the overall lack of liveliness in the place. Even the OEM’s are drably decked out, making the bar look a bit like an Oxfam shop in the middle of a clearance sale. A flash of white boots with chrome heels catches my eye, and one of the girls sat near me remarks ’she must be a dangdut performer’.

The Mirror Cracked

Serious violence is rare in Blok M. An occasional cat fight, sporadic brawls between guys so pissed out of their skulls that nobody gets really hurt, are the usual fracas. But a couple of weeks back there was, I hear, a very ugly scene in D’s Place in which a bottle was smashed on someone’s head in a spat over a D’s girl between a regular and her boyfriend. Details are sketchy, but I gather it was a serious incident. This memory is triggered by something I notice in Top Gun. I don’t know the cause, but one of the pillar mirrors has received an almighty wallop that’s given it a massive and quite spectacular starburst crack.

Requiem for a reveller

‘Sway’ was the alias of one of our regular Blok M Forum contributors. I say ‘was’ with great sadness, because he is no longer with us. His death has left a great gap in our little online community. I never met him, never spoke to him, but he was a friend whose virtual company I greatly enjoyed and valued. He joined the forums in August 2007 and was an avid lurker until October, when he began to join in our discussions. In the time he was with us he was a prolific contributor, making no fewer than 348 posts in the forums.

Sway was a courteous, urbane, and witty contributor. He was both thoughtful and thought-provoking, gentle and generous in his response to others’ posts. His writing matured in style and confidence over his time as a regular contributor, and he had a wicked way with words. But most importantly, he wrote with an open heart. He epitomised the true spirit of a Blok M reveller - a lust for life, a hearty appetite for the best the Blok has to offer, and a deep appreciation of the dignity of all the Blok denizens, from the highest to the humblest.

I speak for all the Forum regulars when I say Sway old friend, thanks for your companionship and your contribution to our community. You came, you saw you conquered - the Blok became part of your life, and your life became part of the Blok’s. Revel In Peace.

Epilogue

By eleven I reckon that I’ve had the best that Top Gun has to offer, and decide to throw in my chips. It’s been a pleasantly restorative night on the Blok, just what the doctor ordered. Then I wonder how my old GP in Blighty, an urbane but rather straight-laced kind of chap, might have prescribed such a treatment. I can hear him, in my mind’s ear, saying “Well, you’re a bit run down, old chap - nothing that a little rest and relaxation won’t cure, so I advise you to go out and get totally rat-arsed in Blok M tonight.”

I wonder if, like many Brits, there might have been a bit of the reveller lurking behind that cool facade. The great difference between him and me is that I discovered it - and lived not only to tell the tale, but to write about it.

Saturday 31st May

Reveller — Sat, 31 May 2008 09:27:34 +0000

A night at the movies

Screen test

One of the great delights of living in this amazing city is the availability of an incredible and exuberantly eclectic supply of films both old and new. Where else in the world can you stumble across a copy of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis on the same stall as Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner? Where else can you find one of the earliest Tom and Jerry collections next to a copy of Fritz the Cat (the first X-rated cartoon)?

So it is that after a week of gorging myself on classic films I begin to think of our dear old Blok M bars in terms of movie titles. Let’s see if you can work out the name of the bar from the film title. (You’ll find the answers at the end of the blog, after the Epilogue.)

A Touch of Class
Dirty Dancing
Ghost Town
The Music Man
Where the Girls Are
The Land that Time Forgot
Reach for the Sky
Bad Company
The Lost Chord
Match Play

Batting on a sticky wicket

Swinging left into the Blok after successfully avoiding multiple collisions with the lethal assemblage of buses, bajajs and ojeks tearing past the Blok M terminus, I have a twinge of conscience about not having seen the Club for a very, very long time - so I pull into the curb and park outside the place, step out and stroll towards the entrance. Suddenly a chorus of siren voices rings out from further down the street, hailing me by name - "No, not there - wrong - the Club is here!"

Shamefaced, I slink towards the correct entrance. Has it been so long that I’ve forgotten where the Club is? I ponder sadly. The entrance is dingier and more nondescript than I remember it, and as I push through the creaky outside door I wonder what to expect. The inner door swings towards me, and an old friend I haven’t seen for ages staggers out. We exchange befuddled greetings, and he leaves me to venture into the unknown.

In fact, the place is exactly as it was the last time I was here. Indeed, the only deliberate improvement I recall over the last ten years was a lick of paint some years ago, and that’s now so faded into the rest of the decor as to be unnoticeable. The cracked mirror by the rear corridor is still there, the flag with the Welsh dragon still adorns the wall; the only change is a football club banner at the far end of the wall. The bar television, too, speaks of a bygone age - it’s a bulky CRT model, mottled and flyblown, hanging in lonely isolation at the corridor end of the bar.

The front bar is the same as ever. The mock stone flag floor, beige and russet square tiles, looks as it did the first time I went to the Club. The ancient pool tables are still there, and the old colonial-style whicker armchairs round the bar walls retain their sad, shabby patina of mournful neglect. The kitchen at the far end of the bar seems to be closed - mind you, the only clue that it ever did function at all was the half-empty sauce bottles and crumbling cruets that used to huddle in forlorn ranks on the long table.

The back bar, known to the Club cognoscenti as the Dark Side (or to my good friend David Jardine, the ’sticky side’), is dim and threatening. Half a dozen girls are sat there like spiders in a communal web, hoping that a victim will come their way. They beckon me to join them, but I resist the temptation with surprisingly little effort.

A couple of the old girls I’ve known for more than eight years mosey up and greet me warmly, one sitting down next to me and the other launching into the fabled Club shoulder rub. Three others join them, and all but one (the prettiest) of the group on the Dark Side. She smiles knowingly, showing that she’s a cut above the older lasses - and ready, willing and able should I indicate a more personal service.

I’m the only guy in the place, so I have the full and undivided attention of the Club ladies. I receive the mandatory offer of dalliance in one of the upstairs rooms, but gracefully decline with a ‘next time, maybe, OK?’ excuse.

After a very pleasant hour of chat and badinage I drink up and prepare to go. A dozen eager faces suddenly peer at me, mutely imploring the Reveller to leave them a little something. So I slip the senior girl a very handsome tip to distribute among the ones I was in conversation with, and bid them all farewell.

In the gunsights

The next stop is Top Gun, and a dish of their unsurpassable sop buntut. It’s only nine o’clock and the place is quite empty, a good time to just sit and reflect on life, the universe and everything.

I’m quietly musing on the day’s events, when in shuffles my old mate David Jardine. We haven’t seen each other for a long time, our paths being so unpredictable that we frequently miss each other by a matter of minutes. So we have a good chat about our latest experiences, swap puns and bon mots, and mellow into the evening. My sop buntut comes and goes, a delicious repast of textures and flavours that has become an immutable part of my Jakarta experience.

As ten o’clock draws near, the guys and girls start to drift in. It’s the usual suspects, with a fair number of OEM’s from up north. As they enter, each goes to his or her regular spot, greets their regular friends, says hello to their regular barmaid, and orders their regular drink. We are such creatures of habit, I reflect, building our own little universe of safety and certainty.

The keynote for the evening is vivacity, I decide. There’s a lot of movement - not the usual ebb and swell of the crowd, but an animated jostle, random spasms, individual bursts of brief activity that pepper the whole bar.

There doesn’t seem to be any particular fashion synchronicity tonight, but there are a few outlandish outfits that make me chuckle quietly to myself. One tall girl flounces in wearing what looks like a loose dress badly stitched together from bits of recycled parachute silk; the girl with her is wearing light hot pants and a matching top - but the middle section is made of what looks like coarse loose netting that’s been hacked from a deep-sea fishing net and sprayed with brilliant white gloss paint.

Ah, but wait - boots are back! Several of the Sweet Young Things are wearing mock-cowgirl tight short boots, which are completely at odds with their outfits. One girl is wearing futuristic short black tight shiny boots with sweeping chrome high heels - she looks as though she’s just stepped off the set of a particularly horrible science-fiction ‘B’ movie.

The Twilight Zone is quite full, so after saying farewell to Dave I wander into the murk to see what’s happening. The darkness has an almost tangible thickness to it, a hazy quality that matches the mood perfectly. There are the usual guys sitting at their tables surrounded by bevies of young hopefuls, the regular clusters of Sweet Young Things hanging out animatedly around the central pillar and flirting with any guy who passes by, and couples so engrossed in each other that they might as well be in the middle of the bus terminus as in a Blok M bar.

I sit and watch the pageant unfold, smiling and nodding at girls and guys I know, and greeting the bar staff as they flit by serving drinks. A good night for the regulars, a good night for the bar, and an excellent night for people-watching. Time flows by in a comforting tableau of happy chatter and jovial flirtation.

The Shagger redux

It’s nearing midnight and I’m ready to move across the road and see how the west-side hostelries are faring, so I haul myself out of my comfortable spot by the back of the band podium and edge my way through the now solidly packed Twilight Zone. Ignoring several carefully-arranged accidental body brushes from a couple of dangerously gorgeous Sweet Young Things, I ease through the limp crowd of Wallpaper Girls and head for the front bar.

Suddenly, silhouetted against the hazy light, a ponderous figure looms towards me. Good lord, it’s the Shagger himself - ready to carry out a sweep of the Twilight Zone and the rear bar. Joyful greetings and ribald comments about our expanding girths are exchanged, and I’m lured back into the gloom with the promise of a glass of Pernod.

Now my very good friend the Shagger possesses in profound abundance all the sterling qualities that make up the archetypal reveller - a robust build, a well-developed paunch, a cast-iron liver, a totally depraved sense of humour, a dirty guffaw you can hear across a crowded bar, a dedication to lust and fornication that knows no bounds, a homing instinct for the sleaziest girl in the place, the rutting instincts of a feral tomcat - but withal, a gentlemanly courteousness towards the girls and a generosity that is legendary.

His only regret in life is that his work takes him around the world and away from Blok M for long stretches of time - so when he passes through for a spot of R&R he’s got serious time to make up for. Every moment is precious, and he stalks the Blok with stealth and purpose.

We settle down next to the rear bar and catch up on each other’s gossip. Now the reason I like to sit here is that it’s the quietest place in the bar when the band is belting out its repertoire full blast, and as the drink flows we end up evaluating the bedability of some nearby beauties. The Shagger fondly fondles one of his old conquests who sidles up to him, beaming with pleasure at his return and clearly hoping for a more intimate renewal of acquaintance.

But a single glance from the Maestro lets her know, politely but firmly, "Not tonight, Josephine!" His practised eye has already marked out a lissome creature at the next table, a vision of innocence and coyness. Faster than you can say "what a cracker!" he’s at the table, an avuncular arm round her slim waist lest she fall off her stool in a swoon at being singled out by such an august figure as the Shagger.

After a little playful dalliance they separate, and it’s time for the Shagger to go. He’s presently based in deepest south Jakarta, so I offer him a lift and we prepare to depart. While he nips off smartly (I suspect to fill a gap in his already-crowded timetable), I stroll across the road to buy a shawarma at D’s Place. As I’m waiting for the chef to assemble the delicacy up walks my old buddy Raymond, who’s togged out in his pool team gear and going to join the rest of his gang in D’s. I take the food pack and glance through the kitchen hatch into the front bar, which is packed with laughing, carousing pool team players. D’s is going from strength to strength, I note approvingly.

Epilogue

Swinging left towards Melawai, we both remark on what a great night it’s been in Top Gun, an occasion to match the best the Blok has to offer. But we also share the feeling that such nights are increasingly rare, to be treasured as reminders of past greatness rather than as a harbinger of future quality. As the city lights recede and we slip down a quiet side road, a feeling of contentment and richness descends on us.

The Shagger drops into a philosophical mood, and recounts the story of a wealthy celebrity who, on his deathbed, is asked how come - for all his riches - he’s left almost nothing in his will. "I spent eighty percent of my fortune on drink and women", he confided "- and wasted the rest." Thus speaks a true reveller.

Now the answers to the bar movie title quiz:

A Touch of Class - One Tree Bar
Dirty Dancing - D’s Place
Ghost Town - Oscar
The Music Man - Highway to Elle
Where the Girls Are - Top Gun
The Land that Time Forgot - The Club
Reach for the Sky - Everest
Bad Company - My Bar
The Lost Chord - G-String
Match Play - Sportsmans

Friday 23rd May

Reveller — Sat, 24 May 2008 06:37:17 +0000

Food, glorious food

One down, seven million to go

Jakarta has an estimated seven million of them. They’re tough little buggers, impossible to get rid of, and breed faster than rabbits on Viagra. No, we’re not talking about that loveable little critter, your friendly neighbourhood cockroach - nor are we talking about your cute and cuddly domestic rat. Public Enemy Number One is the motorbike.

In my neck of the woods it’s not the ones tearing along the road that are the bane of my life, it’s the ones that are parked. As I set out for a Friday razzle down the Blok I see that Jalan Fatmawati is completely clogged up, and decide to risk going eastwards down my narrow little street. Navigating the food stalls, parked cars, gangs of kids and other sundry livestock is all part of the fun - and edging my way through a tabled and tented stretch of the road (a wedding is imminent) I reach the turning by the mosque unscathed.

But the junction is snarled by a dyslexic bajaj driver and a cohort of bikers who block my side completely - starring angrily at me for having the temerity to be going the other way, and preventing them from hogging the whole road. Squeezing my little car into the turning I hear a dull clunk followed by a painful clatter, having knocked over an ojek that was parked sticking out into the street. The angry owner gesticulates in a paroxysm of self-righteous fury, but the locals laugh heartily and tell him to shut up. They’re fed up with these motoring mavericks, and are delighted that one of them has at last got his comeuppance.

As I tack into the oncoming storm of traffic I think to myself I ought to stick a decal on the front wing of my car for each bike I hit, a bit like those World War Two bomber crews who displayed one for each mission they flew.

Taking a circuitous route through back streets and byways I miss the macets and get to the Blok in no time at all.

D’molished

As I turn into Jalan Falatehan I glance at the old D’s Place building and see that it’s already been gutted ready for development. There’s something sad, even tragic, about the scoured walls, the blankly starring empty window spaces, and the dismal shadow of a doorway. The ravaged shell of the building is a memento mori, a mute warning that the rest of the street will one day fall victim to commercial development.

Brushing aside this depressing thought I park outside D’s new home and breeze into the bar. As last week, the place is bustling with early evening Blokkers, and trade is thriving. Ah, they’ve already knocked through the wall into the middle bar! The wall has sprouted a new archway, the base of which is seating that’s already proving popular with the customers. A rather nice touch is that the mock-brick wallpaper is a different brick size, colour and texture from the middle arch. This adds to the kitschiness that is the glorious hallmark of new D’s.

Looking down through the Dungeon I see the promised small bar set up and ready for action. The lighting is a bit brighter, though not so much as to spoil the tenebrous gloom of the place. But my spirit slumps when I notice a TV strung up on the wall above the bar. What, I ask myself, is the point of a TV screen in a dark dancing area, where the guys will be going to ogle the performers? These redundant appendages, these ubiquitous digital distractions, are all too literally an eyesore.

Finishing my first beer of the evening I decide to pop across the road and get some food in Top Gun.

Souperlatives

It’s eight thirty, early for action in Top Gun, so I settle down to a beer and order a sop buntut. The pool table is fairly quiet, so I sign up for a game. A figure strides towards me out of the gloom - it’s my old friend Frank, and we agree to play our traditional variation of the game. This involves taking the craziest, most indirect shot on the table, and potting the white as often as possible.

The game goes well - so well, that we’re not sure who’s won. While we’re scratching our heads and mulling over the outcome the arrival of food decides the issue, and Frank plays on while I tuck into my meal.

Now I’ve praised the quality of Top Gun’s sop buntut many a time, but tonight’s serving is in a class of its own. The rice is perfection, the green chopped chili sauce is just the right strength - and there are five big juicy pieces of oxtail, the succulent meat so tender it falls off as you lift the bone. The potatoes and carrots are precisely the right texture, and the seasoning of the delicious soup is spot on.

As my plate is cleared, who do I see at the pool table but one of the old Blok M regulars who hasn’t been around for quite some time. He’s just flown in from Chicago, and thanks me profusely for keeping him informed of what’s been happening down the Blok. Fixing me with a mock-austere frown he raises an eyebrow and asks if he’s one of the Pool Nazis, but I reassure him that he most definitely is not.

The turnout of Sweet Young Things is disappointing tonight - half the Indramayu girls are throwbacks to my early Blokking days. They may be faring well and still turning the occasional head, but spring chickens they most certainly ain’t. Dumb and Dumber makes a rather low-key entry, pouts petulantly (as though the lack of guys is a personal insult to her bounteous pleasures), and goes out in a huff.

It’s a good evening to chat and gossip, as quite a few of my old friends are in the Gun tonight. But nemesis, in the form of the night’s band, strikes us for daring to enjoy the social pleasures of a good chinwag. By ten thirty I’ve had quite enough of the loud music, and bid farewell.

There goes the neighbourhood

Now one of the good things about One Tree Bar is that it’s a civilised corner of the Blok where you can sit, drink and chat in a convivial atmosphere. Or could. I order a glass of red wine and settle down to enjoy it, reflecting rather mournfully that 58,000 rupes is pushing the Reveller’s budget more than somewhat.

Then the sound goes up. Loud music. Too loud. Unpleasant and uncalled for, it ruins the ambience. Now I’ve stopped complaining about loud music in the bars, as my protests always fall on deaf ears. I vote with my feet, and the bar loses any further custom from me that night.

I wonder if this insensitivity to noise may be something to do with the new bar staff - I don’t recognise them from my recent visits. So I finish my wine and leave without ceremony, making a mental note to tell Bart that his team needs a gentle reminder to keep the sound at a reasonable background level.

Food for thought

Walking up the street to D’s I look forward with relish to buying a shawarma takeaway. I scratch my head as I read the outside menu board, and notice that the title of the outlet is “Kebab”. Oh dear, oh dear. A kebab, of course, is spiced bits of meat cooked on a skewer or a spit - the roasted stack of meat slices from which slivers are cut is, was, and always will be, a shawarma.

But semantics apart, it’s a goody and a perfect late-night snack. The price is just a tad under forty one thousand rupes when tax and service are added to the menu’s 35k, but the quality and quantity compensate for the outlay. Clutching my purchase I head for my car, and I’m soon weaving my way through the leftovers of the night traffic.

Epilogue

Home. Switch on the computer, unwrap the shawarma, and tuck into the tasty collation. It’s not been an outstanding night out, but a fairly enjoyable one. D’s has got it right, Top Gun is coasting along nicely, but One Tree has got to relate its background music to the character of the place and the expectations of its customers.

Friday 16th May

Reveller — Sun, 18 May 2008 10:39:16 +0000

Streets ahead

Late arrival

I have a work meeting on Friday evening, so when everything’s wrapped up I decide to head Blokwards for a quick drink and to catch up on the week’s gossip. The northbound traffic is the wrong side of diabolical tonight, and it takes ages to reach the hallowed halls of Jalan Falatehan. A man could die of thirst in this lot, I reflect. Then, at long last, the bright lights of Blok M can be seen shimmering seductively in the distance, and I give a profound sigh of relief.

Turning into the street isn’t easy as several cars have been ingeniously parked so as to make a vicious chicane, and the place is packed with cars, bajays, taxis and ojeks. Parking rather precariously next to one of the famous Falatehan mega pot holes, I decide to pop in to D’s Place and see how things are going.

And everything’s going very well - very well indeed. There’s a fair crowd of guys in the place, a healthy buzz of conversation, and the early shift of D’s camp followers. The most populous area is definitely the middle bar, though there’s a fair number in the front around the pool table.

As I sit down at the bar, something feels different from last week’s foray, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. Ah, the lighting! That’s it. The bright bilious pink is now a warm user-friendly tone, the ghastly green is now a cool hint of mint, but the dungeon is still a study in the darkest of blues - just as nature intended.

Sinking my first beer of the night I feel comfortable and relaxed, which confirms my earlier feeling that new D’s will make a good early evening watering hole for the weary Reveller. After recharging the old batteries I decide to cross the road and see what the tide’s brought in.

Gun sights

It’s good to see that Top Gun, too, is having a good evening. There are customers aplenty, a good attendance of girls young and old, and the staff are bustling around like bees in the proverbial hive.

Looking round the room, for one brief moment I think I’ve landed in a funeral, as most of the girls are wearing black, Now there’s nothing quite as alluring as one of the svelte Sweet Young Things in a nicely fitting black dress - except, of course, a white mini skirt. There’s a fair number of Indramayu girls clustered around the end of the bar, including a couple who’ve recently returned from Singapore. Back for a spot of R&R, they tell me - but if they’re in Top Gun dressed to kill and sporting full warpaint, it looks to me more like a busman’s holiday.

Suddenly my admiring gaze is rudely interrupted by a most amazing sight. A fulsome figure in a short black and white stripey-patterned dress is waddling at high speed towards the door, followed by a robustly stout guy who’s struggling to keep up with her. Good lord, it’s Dumb and Dumber! She’s obviously scored, and is making sure her prey doesn’t have any chance for second thoughts. Good for her! I think to myself - but I hope the guy’s been taking his vitamin pills.

A stroll round the territory is next on the agenda, so I up and wend my way to the back bar. The wallpaper girls are out in force, lounging by the mirrored wall. Blimey, I’ve seen more animation in Madame Tussaud’s, is my thought as I edge my way through this static group.

The Twilight Zone is fairly full, mostly with older girls doing their best to look seductive and mysterious in the dim half-light. I’m reminded of jungle spiders that spin their vast webs between the trees, then sit patiently waiting for a victim to become ensnared. By the time their potential mates have gravitated to the Zone from their fuelling station up at the front bar, they’ll be too plastered to notice niceties. Beer goggles are a wonderful thing.

After chatting with a couple of my old mates and catching up on their news, it’s time to move on to the next port of call. So it’s out of Tog Gin and across the road to Highway to Elle for a mid-evening respite.

In their Ellement

There aren’t so many guys in Elle tonight, but quite a lot of girls - many of them wearing white boots, knickers and bras. Ah, the dancers! There are a few stunners who’ve got it and are obviously flaunting it, but most of them look like moonlighting salesgirls from Pasaraya down by the Blok M bus terminal - which they probably are.

As I sit at the bar looking around, the dancers start doing their stuff. Oh dear. It’s a lifeless, mechanical set of poorly choreographed gyrations, with all the sex appeal of a limp lettuce. A few of the guys are idly watching the show with blank detachment, for want of anything better to do.

After a pleasant drink I bump into Daryl, the owner, on the way out, and ask him how things are going. Business is doing very well, he tells me, but comments that most nights there aren’t enough girls in the place - whereas tonight, when there aren’t many guys, there are lots of girls. That’s Blok M for you, I commiserate. All the guys I’ve spoken to like Elle, and many of them call in for a casual drink during the evening, while some have made it their regular watering hole.

D’velopments

I decide to drop in to D’s again and see what it’s like as a late-night joint. Not bad, I nod to myself as I walk in. A lively crowd, plenty of girls, many of whom seem to have regular blokes - it’s not so much a pick-up place as a place to take your pick-ups. As I’m pretty well tanked up by now I order a cola to quench the thirst, and sit down at the front bar.

After a couple of minutes up walks Carl, one of the owners. He tells me how the place is developing, admitting that the original lighting was a bit over the top and garish. We agree that the two bar areas are now well lit, and I beg him not to make any changes to the Dungeon as it’s just right the way it is. He says they plan to put a small bar at the far end of the Dungeon, which - given the cavernous depth of the place - might work quite well.

Carl twists my arm to have a Pernod, and as I stir in the ice and water he goes on to say that they’ll be knocking out the wall arch between the front and the middle bar, as there’s a dead space in the corner where no-one likes to sit. Now that’s a good idea, I reply, because it’ll retain the identity of each bar whilst making movement easier and add more seating.

We spend a long (and increasingly boozy) time mulling over menu items. We discuss the best way to make fish and chips, with the traditional crispy/moist batter and proper chips made from whole potatoes. But mushy peas, that’s the problem. How to get them really mushy and pasty is the thing to crack, and the man is working on it with the devotion of a cordon bleu chef. We range far and wide - from sausage and mash to shepherd’s pie, from rice to bread and butter pudding.

By this time I’ve worked up a healthy appetite and my mouth is watering, so Carl drags me into the kitchenette for a bit of grub. Blow me, but he’s got a couple of shawarma roasters going full belt, and a dozen little containers set into a chilled steel unit full of all the goodies that make a genuine shawarma - yogurt, onions, sauces, salads, and more. The front ‘window’ turns out to be a serving hatch into the street, and he plans to put a few chairs and tables outside. I reckon this enterprise could be a nice little earner - lots of guys are going to line up for a tasty takeaway shawarma, and I’ll be first in the queue.

All cars look black at night

Carl urges me to take a shawarma home with me, but as he hasn’t yet got the takeaway boxes he rustles up the full monty and dollops it onto a large plate, then waves me on my way with a cheery farewell. Now I’m so far gone that I forget where I parked my car, and end up walking, somewhat unsteadily, down the middle of Jalan Falatehan clutching the plate like a lost waiter. The grinning security guys put me out of my misery by ushering me to my car and guiding me safely into the road.

I edge my way gingerly southwards, with exaggerated caution - but the roads are completely empty save for the occasional lone biker, and I’m soon safely home, The only trouble is that my long-suffering stomach thinks it’s still in the Blok, and my slide into sleep is a roller-coaster of semi-delirium - in which white mini skirts pass hazily before my eyes.

Epilogue

What a night! A ‘quick drink’ becomes a marathon booze-up, a full-blown Blok M epic with a truly wacky ending in the crazy tradition that’s been the hallmark of my years on the Blok. A brilliant night, a night to savour, a night to remember. Once again, the street comes up trumps and defies commercial logic - so here’s to the next time!

Saturday 3rd May

Reveller — Sun, 04 May 2008 07:59:22 +0000

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.

Saturday 12th April

Reveller — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 12:52:53 +0000

Special anniversary issue

Five years on

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.

The Bugil call

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.

Lights, cameras, no action

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.

Tog Gin

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.

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.

Cellulite samba

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.

Lowering the bar

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.

Epilogue

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.

Friday 14th March

Reveller — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 12:20:46 +0000

Woe, woe and thrice woe!

Shock horror probe sensation

Aficionados of Private Eye - that great, and quintessentially English, satirical rag - will instantly recognize this spoof newspaper headline. And sadly, even allowing for the hyperbole, it applies to this Friday night in Top Gun.

It’s the tail end of a miserable and prolonged rainy season here in Jakarta, and Friday is a typical day - vicious little squalls punctuated by drenching downpours, and a louring sky that deadens the senses. Hardly an auspicious outlook for a trip down the Blok, but what the hell - so off I go, my little car pitching and yawing like a demented racing yacht as it plunges into and jars out of the myriad pot holes, ruts and gullies that years of benign neglect have reduced our streets to.

As all Blok M regulars can bear witness, Jalan Falatehan is a shining example of Jakartan road construction at its very best - a monument to the skills and dedication of the highways department, a beacon to inspire future generations of road builders. Those of a less poetic disposition, however, might be more inclined to describe it as a right bloody disgrace. After all the fine talk from our illustrious Bar Overlords about repaving the street and turning it into a pedestrian precinct with secure parking for all and a proper taxi rank, those fine gentlemen can’t even get their act together and just fill in the holes effectively.

After a slow-motion slalom down the street, carefully avoiding the kamikaze ojeks and bajays tearing towards me as they blithely ignore the one-way traffic system, I find a slot directly outside Top Gun - and with the navigational assistance of two official and one vigilante parking wallahs, ease myself onto the pavement ramp.

Tit for tat

Settling down in an empty Top Gun (it is only eight thirty), I order my usual ale and sop buntut and get in a game before the Pool Nazis march in. There’s some nicely tuneful music being played, and the barmaids are busily humming and tapping to it as they bustle about getting things ready for the night ahead.

As I survey the bar I can’t help but notice how tatty and shabby it looks without a busy crowd of guys and girls in it. The carpet around the pool table could have been used as a sump mat in an oil-change shop, and the plasti-wood flooring looks as though it’s got a nasty leprous skin-disease, blotched and pocked as it is with white scuff-marks and dents around the bar and the tables.

The bar edge itself is scuffed and chipped, and some of the mirrors are bloomed and dim. Old notices and bar promotions live on, curled and brittle with age. Yellow and curling tabs of Sellotape, leftovers from ancient announcements long-since ripped down, flutter in the chilly downdraught from the ceiling AC unit.

Casting around for a keyword to describe the overall effect, I come up with ‘weathered’. Actually, I quite like the weathering, which is so at odds with the smooth, sleek and glossy finish that the place had when it reopened. It’s not like a patina, which suggests a lustre on something rather precious, but the aging of a ruin that’s been exposed to the elements for a few years. All the bars are the same in this respect, with their mismatched bits of carpeting, holes and remnants of fittings on the walls where a sign or a shelf has been ripped down, and ambitious mirrored display units that are now dusty repositories for a few sad (and empty) bottles of semi-exotic liqueurs.

The paradigm is sad, and universal. The vision and ambition that drove the creation of the new wave of bars has faded, and along with it the will (and the money) to repair and renovate. For the truth is that Blok M has always been a cheap and cheerful place, and the old bars - Top Gun, Oscar, Pentagon and Lintas Melawai - were plain, unpretentious, and superbly functional watering holes. Low upkeep and maintenance costs enabled the owners to turn a fair profit while keeping prices significantly lower than more upmarket hostelries.

A tale of two cities

As I polish off my sop buntut, push away my empty dish and take a postprandial swig of beer, one of the older girls I’ve known for many years greets me and we have a pleasant chat about how things are going. “Look, there are a lot of new girls!” she says, with naive and misplaced enthusiasm. “Well, it depends what you mean by new” is my diplomatic reply. Looking around, I observe that many of them are indeed unfamiliar faces - but they’re all way past their best (if ever they had one). Dour, dumpy and depressing is my summing up of these would-be sirens. “Now tell me, how many of them look happy and are smiling?” I ask. She surveys the scene, and just shakes her head.

Now as it happens, I know exactly why our cheerful Sweet Young Things aren’t here tonight. More than forty of them are at present hawking their fannies in Singapore, and an unknown number propping up the Balinese economy. They’ve been driven hence by sheer desperation.

Let’s look at a case study. This particular Indramayu Sweet Young Thing hasn’t scored for two straight weeks in Blok M, and is frantic for money to pay the rent - so she does a three-week stint in Singapore, where she pulls in the equivalent of 14 million rupes. 12 of this is handed over to her ‘agent’, a Chinese gentleman from Jakarta who supplies air tickets, handles immigration, and provides dosshouse lodging with basic fodder. She arrives back in Jakarta with just two million in her purse. This will barely cover the rent and the purchase of a few urgently-needed domestic items - but it’s better than un bel niente.

So Blok M’s loss is Singapore’s gain. In my opinion, the problems facing the Sweet Young Things are largely of their own making. Most of them have hiked their prices and reduced the quality and quantity of their services unremittingly over the last year or so, and treat the bars with what may best be described as a crassly commercial attitude towards the guys. I used to enjoy the flirtation and the party atmosphere of the bars, but it’s in precious short supply these days.

It’s perhaps very telling that the Blok M Forum Off the Blok is rapidly becoming one of the busiest topics. Guys who’d never have dreamt of straying far from the Blok are now casting their nets further afield. If they want a girl, there are better pickings in any one of a dozen other places; if they want a social chat and a quiet drink with their mates, there are plenty of places without the raucous din that we suffer in Blok M; if they want good music, there are many places that offer professional-quality bands, not the talentless amateur-night wannabes hired by the Blok M owners.

The Blok M management has been measured, and it has been found wanting.

Musical chairs

The rumours have been flying thick and fast over the last month or so regarding the fate of D’s Place. Like a cat with the proverbial nine lives, it’s been slated to close several times since late last year, getting an eleventh-hour reprieve each time. One rumour - reported to be pukka gen from somebody supposedly in the loop - had My Bar closing down and the D’s ownership consortium snapping up the lease and establishing D’s in its old premises. Another rumour said that they’d not only be exhuming that ghastly institution, the VIP Lounge, but providing discrete cubbyholes for Quick Naughties on a “nudge-nudge” basis.

Now far-fetched though this rumour may appear, it does in fact contain a germ of historical truth. The provision of rooms for hire was in fact mooted twice over the last couple of years by one of the owners, but came to nothing - the word on the street was that the shadowy gentlemen at the top of the Blok M food chain didn’t want their investment jeopardized by one of the bars in effect becoming a brothel. Too tempting a target for the plods and the religious nutters, and it would besmirch their own reputations as well. Even a watered-down proposal to provide massage facilities is reported to have been given a most unequivocal thumbs-down.

The ‘official’ line is now that My Bar will not be closing down, and that the D’s mob has earmarked a property adjacent to My Bar as the home for their new sideshow. There’s also a rumour that the nearby street stalls expect to do a roaring trade in earplugs and aspirins.

With the Brothers back in force, perhaps the street should be renamed Jalan Felapatten.

Epilogue

My evening, pleasant enough though it has been, leaves a rather sour after-taste as I drive home through the dingy south Jakarta drizzle. Measured against the best of the Friday nights to be had on the Blok, this one just did not compare. But hope springs eternal, and it ain’t over until the fat lady sings - and tonight, in Top Gun, there were those aplenty.