Jakarta - Slipping away for a couple of days to the Big Durian
Tripping Out Alone
Jakarta
The best way to say goodbye is to leave without saying goodbye…the last school week was full of speeches, departing staff fare welled by those remaining and some innocuous speeches made by people in charge who represent not much in terms of lasting friendships or even supportive collegiality so it was better to get out, jump in a plane to the Big Durian and get some song writing lessons from Ed.
Jakarta doesn’t grow on me, although I visited it only last week it doesn’t have familiarity, only sudden moments of recognition amongst a vast spread of confusing landmarks. We made it to Lincoln’s apartment to drop my bags, add a few lyrics and then headed over to another area. How far away I have no idea, it took an hour to get there but it could have been round the corner. The taxi driver moaned and sighed like an old heifer as we encountered one gridlock after another, not a good job for a man who wore his intolerance on his sleeve.
From the hotel we went to the venue, a large outdoor stadium created for the Jakarta Fair. Navicula , now not with Ed, as the player he had been asked to replace had become available, were on stage shortly after our arrival , and in front of a pretty enthusiastic and large crowd played an energetic set. The sound was good and the space on stage huge, Jerinx joined them for one number and had there been a house to bring down, or raise a roof on it would have happened. A huge surge forward by all the Superman is Dead fans created a sea of darkness, undulating in rhythm to the music and Navicula and SID merged in a sound wall of Bali Grunge Rock.
Superman is Dead took the stage shortly after and while we hung a little in the backstage area the religious laws in Jakarta don’t make for a real rock’n’roll atmosphere and it was time for a beer before bed.
I shared a wild cab ride in a low slung vehicle that precariously snaked its way between precipitous railings and raging trucks giving us the option of at any moment a crushing fall, it was better to close my eyes and not look anywhere. We arrived at our destination, a lively Friday night booze bar in Kemang that could have been city centre Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham, anywhere that burly men like beer pool and tv sport….I drank a beer and exited to get a Bluebird cab. Propositioned on the sidewalk by four or five drunk men in suits, one after the other who asked me to go with them, offering me a lift . I was really off guard and could only say “Bluebird Taxi” as if from a phrase book as they swerved off into their evenings with out waiting for me to politely refuse, except for the one who had to be guided to his car by his driver ….
Lincoln and Gilang were home. Without Lincoln I would not be where I am today, that man pushed me into the largest paradigm shift of my life. He said “Look if I can, you can and if you don’t I’ll never speak to you again…” so I did.
Now in the final unit of my Masters thanks to him. He said “Don’t let other people dictate your intelligence to you…”
He was right, and while he assisted me in removing a lot of hurdles in my perception of my abilities I am still not sure how I am doing some of the things people now seem to think I am capable of…but I do know now that I can and I enjoy it.
I have had a long time fascination with what goes on in unknown places, an impulse that drives me to wander a little further. Not content with comfort, curiosity often gets the better of me. Jakarta is a city of unknowns, it feels like the sort of place you could disappear in..people have and do. There is a sharp and edgy glamour that sits on the surface of so much mire and mayhem, the shiny billboards showing devastatingly attractive people living materialistically successful lives shine brightly down on the layers of grime and grit that smother the streets and the people who live on them. Occasionally a barrier will indicate a quiet enclave, and the emergence of a luxury vehicle into the traffic prompts a reality check. Rich people, very rich people live here in grand houses and apartments, keeping themselves clean of the city in hermetically sealed cars and breathing only the refined air of luxury in shopping malls and hotel restaurants.
Saturday saw us at a café in Tjkini, near Menteng but maybe not as my taxi driver got lost, and who could blame him the city is vast..and he was very sweet about it, no teeth sucking or moaning like the Friday night guy. We shared in the adventure of finding our way, stopping to talk to helpful policemen smoking on duty, because that way they know what is going in their lungs, and to kids on the street. By the time we reached the cafe we were friends and shoock hands on departing.
Café Tjkini is new and a smallish open style café venue with acoustic music space and a pretty good menu. I wanted to eat but there was too much smoke in the air so after some ginger tea, I too smoked and drank beer.
Ed played with Made and Gumbul in their band Balian, the crowd was attentive and at the end demanded more which they did provide, and the song we wrote on the plane surfaced in a mutant version of not quite remembered lines but it sounded awesome. I experienced something similar to watching my children perform, a product of me, making its own way out there, proud of the words as they were sung into a room of people. Happiness.
After a speech by a Greenpeace representative Navicula launched their acoustic set and joined at times by Ed on guitar and piano. The atmosphere was intimate and buzzing with shared enjoyment and connection to familiar sounds that ranged from ballads to rock out polemics. They have gigs in Bandung next, and there was to be an early start, I needed to be at the airport to get back to a lunch in Bali so another Bluebird was summoned and I slid through the Jakarta night, pausing only to buy peanuts at an all night mini mart and a San Miguel nightcap, before arriving in Tower Block 14 for more conversation.
Superman is Dead took the stage shortly after and while we hung a little in the backstage area the religious laws in Jakarta don’t make for a real rock’n’roll atmosphere and it was time for a beer before bed.
I shared a wild cab ride in a low slung vehicle that precariously snaked its way between precipitous railings and raging trucks giving us the option of at any moment a crushing fall, it was better to close my eyes and not look anywhere. We arrived at our destination, a lively Friday night booze bar in Kemang that could have been city centre Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham, anywhere that burly men like beer pool and tv sport….I drank a beer and exited to get a Bluebird cab. Propositioned on the sidewalk by four or five drunk men in suits, one after the other who asked me to go with them, offering me a lift . I was really off guard and could only say “Bluebird Taxi” as if from a phrase book as they swerved off into their evenings with out waiting for me to politely refuse, except for the one who had to be guided to his car by his driver ….
Lincoln and Gilang were home. Without Lincoln I would not be where I am today, that man pushed me into the largest paradigm shift of my life. He said “Look if I can, you can and if you don’t I’ll never speak to you again…” so I did.
Now in the final unit of my Masters thanks to him. He said “Don’t let other people dictate your intelligence to you…”
He was right, and while he assisted me in removing a lot of hurdles in my perception of my abilities I am still not sure how I am doing some of the things people now seem to think I am capable of…but I do know now that I can and I enjoy it.
I have had a long time fascination with what goes on in unknown places, an impulse that drives me to wander a little further. Not content with comfort, curiosity often gets the better of me. Jakarta is a city of unknowns, it feels like the sort of place you could disappear in..people have and do. There is a sharp and edgy glamour that sits on the surface of so much mire and mayhem, the shiny billboards showing devastatingly attractive people living materialistically successful lives shine brightly down on the layers of grime and grit that smother the streets and the people who live on them. Occasionally a barrier will indicate a quiet enclave, and the emergence of a luxury vehicle into the traffic prompts a reality check. Rich people, very rich people live here in grand houses and apartments, keeping themselves clean of the city in hermetically sealed cars and breathing only the refined air of luxury in shopping malls and hotel restaurants.
Saturday saw us at a café in Tjkini, near Menteng but maybe not as my taxi driver got lost, and who could blame him the city is vast..and he was very sweet about it, no teeth sucking or moaning like the Friday night guy. We shared in the adventure of finding our way, stopping to talk to helpful policemen smoking on duty, because that way they know what is going in their lungs, and to kids on the street. By the time we reached the cafe we were friends and shoock hands on departing.
Café Tjkini is new and a smallish open style café venue with acoustic music space and a pretty good menu. I wanted to eat but there was too much smoke in the air so after some ginger tea, I too smoked and drank beer.
Ed played with Made and Gumbul in their band Balian, the crowd was attentive and at the end demanded more which they did provide, and the song we wrote on the plane surfaced in a mutant version of not quite remembered lines but it sounded awesome. I experienced something similar to watching my children perform, a product of me, making its own way out there, proud of the words as they were sung into a room of people. Happiness.
After a speech by a Greenpeace representative Navicula launched their acoustic set and joined at times by Ed on guitar and piano. The atmosphere was intimate and buzzing with shared enjoyment and connection to familiar sounds that ranged from ballads to rock out polemics. They have gigs in Bandung next, and there was to be an early start, I needed to be at the airport to get back to a lunch in Bali so another Bluebird was summoned and I slid through the Jakarta night, pausing only to buy peanuts at an all night mini mart and a San Miguel nightcap, before arriving in Tower Block 14 for more conversation.
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