新年快了！

The year of the Fire Dog!
It'd be a better economy (optimist), disaster remains around (the pesimist), it'll be beautifully foolish, or foolishly beautiful (the twisted optimist: moi!).

Just when I kow-towed some friends, I heard someone celebrated it at Stadium (tired of being in Aceh, mon ami? pissed off being recently accused of 'running around naked' whilst according to your version, it's only a short trip from bedroom to fridge, in boxers! ouch), and got his pocket stolen. (Lucky, it's only a pocket).

It's that 'half-full' of glass-year.

China in three months, including Beijing in amorem...

the World wide open, in the months after...............

oink oink

The BIG T: For the Tanamur Guy!

You commented anonymously to my Stadium review:

wow...really brings back memories of Jak night life. I preferred Tanamur myself- more intimate in a way, and the girls there could actually pretend they had been dragged there by 'evil companions' (and perhaps some of them were; who can say?)

Stadium, to me, has two strikes against it- first, it's owned by Tommy. second, with the fishbowl on lantai? with the tiny rooms for assignnations and that dingy-ass karaoke room: it's too blunt about wanting to be all things to all reprobates. Tanamur said, 'look, I'm a dodgy den for hiding your desires- take it or leave it, ya bastard' and most of us took it, yes we did. I am looking forward to a lot more posts about Jak nightlife! Please don't wander away! If you want more, perhaps a guest post and some Tanamur pictures, mention the Big T (Tanamur) in a post in the future.

This really tickles me. Tanamur versus Stadium: which has more attitude?

Although now few years closed, Tanamur will remain special for the city's contemporary history - I hope someone is writing a book about it, once such a egalitarian space for Jakartans. For me, its attraction lies on the fact that it used to draw people from all walks of life. The gold triangle men in business suit, young professionals (the middle-upper class kids) just entering the corporate culture, expats from all kinds (including the old, fat fart-big beer belly with eyes always on the prey), backpackers from Jaksa, students, local professionals and what have you.

They could be straight, gay, bi perhaps or self-acclaimed perverts. Even the whores came in such variety: young and old, nymph and witch, cherished and pitied. All mingled in the same pool. Dance united them (not so much the music). The kitsch - represented by the tacky interior atmosphere (slouching couch in sleazy corner?) until the go-go dancers in their skimpy hot-pants, 'trying' so hopelessly to be sexy, but could not really wiggle their hips to start with.

Tanamur had more 'lights', faces; more 'colours', in contrast to Stadium's dungeon-feeling with people wearing shades in almost complete darkness. Whilst Stadium sticks with the sweet, slim girls clad in dark hues, with their Mamas (now) in striking red with their 'selling' spell. Once I sat down with a male friend, right at the bar at the entrance where the girls and the Mamas preying. It's part of being voyeuristic, part coziness. Coming as a 'couple'-like, we didn't think we would be bothered. But sooner, one Mama neared, and offered some service to my 'date'. And just when he replied, casually, '..no thanks, can you see I'm not alone' - she said in equally casual tone, '...we could get someone for her too'. Hah. Is this what you resent about Stadium?

Tanamur was outrageously cheeky where cheap, fleeting desire went around, ever rotating, never dwelling. On the other hand, Stadium is a such obnoxious dent, where the real vultures venture, either for the girls, the e-substance, or their own vanity. If you're a Tanamur regular, great chance is (depends who you are) people identified you as crazy or sleazy or simply fun-seeker, whilst if you're Stadium's, people tend to 'stigmatise' you (esp. if you're a gal).

But above these adjective description, Stadium represents something else. It very much reflects the state of this country/nation. The bare fact some place as Stadium can exist and practically can do whatever they want to do says a lot what a country/city it is situated. Just look at the facts: owned by the notorious TW for a start; selling the e-substance openly, with every waiter/waitress a so trained salesmen; the open flesh-market, sophisticated concept of integration marketing, the so-called 'non-stop entertainment' a space; the 'untouchable' status on most days, even the occasional raids we all know are fake. Its existence is a kind of parameter for me. If such place is let to exist on the ground (not under), then draw your own conclusion of how 'gotham' the city is (what? corruption index? forget it).

So, where have you been Tanamur guy post-Tanamur? Apart from few lines here on your place, I guess, the best way to describe your once fave place-space is to have you guest-writing in my blog.

For old time sake? What about it?

We are also what we have lost*)

But then they danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirious of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the starts and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awwww.....!"

*) alejandro gonzalez innaritu

These lines have been a way for me to start a new (western) year. I emailed it to someone three years ago, as a 'whose lines?' riddle. His every timely, eloquent response:
Well I hope I didn't put you too much on the spot with that surprise phone call the other night. Hehe........guess I just wanted to show off as soon as I recognized the passage from "On the Road"? Maybe more than just showing off........once that passage, and others, meant a lot to me. That was half a liftime ago..........and jolting to read it again out of nowhere.Perhaps I read Kerouac earlier than many other people. My father bought me "On the Road" in Paris 5 December 1987 - the day of my fifteenth birthday. I started reading it that night too. At that age, the book was full of promise - making me dream of the places that I would go, things I would experience and people that I would meet in my own life. There were things in there that I could connect with already too - I was already interested in Buddhism (after the first trip to Japan at the age of 10) and I was already crazy about punk rock, so ready to learn about the counter-culture of an earlier era (though it would be years more before I really came to understand the counter-culture of that book - jazz - properly). Half a life-time later, maybe it's unpleasent to think about how the promise of that book came true and how it didn't. I have been on some long journeys, physically and mentally. And I have been lucky to meet all kinds of people. But in some ways I haven't travelled very far from the world that I wanted to escape when I was fifteen. At the time the year in paris was just a brief interlude - interlude from the world of middle class Melbourne. World of private schools and anglo-saxon ignorance. And despite all the things I've done since then, it seems like I've not really escaped. After years of immersing myself in so many different counter-cultures, how did my life end up at "Australia's pre-eminent law firm" (hahahahahaha)? Surrounded by so many people who went to the same kind of private schools, who have the same kind of arrogance. I am in this world, but not of it I hope. And funny how what to most people would seem like "success" only seems to me like the deepest failure [sic!]. But finally it is only myself to blame - why the hell did I continue to study law and have some small succeess at it, when I was decorating my life with so many other things. (10/11/02).