Thursday, August 5th: Campus in the morning to attend Dipo's presentation, where he was more or less slaughtered by the examiners. Another reason to be grateful that I had it easy on mine, moreso because we took on similar topics and got asked the same questions.
From there it was on to a celebratory lunch at Sop Konro Karebosi way up in Kelapa Gading, in which me and Jamal ended up partially footing the bill with Dipo as part of our initial arrangement (Ardian backed out, citing "lack of funds"). Then it was all the way to Depok again - ah, the responsibilities of being a guy with a ride. But oh well, what goes around comes around: after nine years or so of always being dependent of others for transportation, I guess it's my turn to drive everyone around.
Friday, August 6th: Was going to attend Septi's presentation in the morning, but I got up late and wasn't keen on dealing with the traffic. Several hours later, I got a call from Avie, asking if I was going to head to Depok because Septi was going to treat us to pizza. I said, "Yeah, I'll be on my way soon. Why?" She said they needed an extra ride. D'oh! But eventually they went there ahead because they were too hungry to wait for me to get to campus first.
After lunch, went back to campus and hung out with Avie, Ardian and Jamal. We talked about vacation plans for our class and the possibility (futility?) of realising them, bearing in mind our historically low collective success ratio of actually getting something off the ground. And then talk shifted to that old standby topic, namely love and all of its little complications. A topic that never gets old, especially when you're young, single and insecure.
Our talk eventually revolved around a rather unusual sight: two girls sitting closely next to each other, and a guy sitting about two feet to their right. The guy and the girl nearest to him faced straight ahead, and took turns in talking to some imaginary conversation partner right in from of them. Then it dawned on us: the guy and girl were actually talking to
each other. In ordinary circumstances, I'd consider this a freak show, but they were dressed in pious Muslim attire. Presumably, this was their way of getting past that pesky "no interacting with unrelated members of the opposite sex" rule. I've lived in Saudi Arabia, where they divide restaurant seating into "Men" and "Family" sections, but even I found this taking it a wee bit over the edge. Oh well, we all do what we can to avoid what we consider to be wrong.
Also stopped by Aquarius Pondok Indah to peruse (and write down - even when I'm relaxing I'm working) the latest releases. Went upstairs to the DVD section, and holy crap! Tons of new music DVDs had just arrived, a good deal of which were quite desirable. Normally whenever this happens, I just make note of what I want, wait until my next paycheck, and hope that no one's snatched it up before I get there again. But in this case, I just couldn't resist. After much deliberation, I went with
Later...with Jools Holland: Cool Britannia. FYI,
Later... is a long-running British music show hosted by the afore-mentioned former Squeeze keyboardist, in which an eclectic bunch of acts from various eras and genres are gathered together per episode. A typical line-up could run something like The Darkness, Moloko, The Thrills, Simply Red, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and Sam Brown.
Anyway, as the title suggests, this particular DVD collects performances by a number of cool British acts who've appeared on the show over the years. Previously I'd already bought the first installment of the
Later... DVD series (
10 Years of...), but this one was way more appealing, because: a. it consisted almost entirely of no-brainer bands that I like (Ash, Blur, Coldplay, Doves, Embrace, Franz Ferdinand, Keane, Manic Street Preachers, Oasis, Pulp, Radiohead, Starsailor, Suede, Super Furry Animals, Supergrass, The Darkness, The Libertines, The Verve, Travis); b. I'm not really interested in old fogeys and world music. There are several other DVDs in the series, but if it comes down to it, I think I'll only go for
Louder, because it supposedly rocks.
So that's my big non-comics purchase of the month then. Hopefully the next time I get there with a decent amount of dough, what I want (and that's a lot) will still be available.
Saturday, August 7th: I hate Saturdays. To be more precise, I hate Saturday morning/afternoons when I have to get out of the house. It's a weekend, so theoretically it's supposed to be more relaxing than weekdays, right? On the contrary, I find that they're even more stressful than weekdays. From Monday to Friday, you expect traffic to be lousy and for it to take you ages to get anywhere. Saturdays are supposed to be easier to navigate through, but they're not.
Case in point: today I had to drive the parents to a wedding. I am very reluctant to leave the house between 9 and 12 o'clock, because all I have to do is look out the window at the gridlock and go straight back to bed. As it so happens, today's wedding was at one, so at least traffic would have eased up slightly by the time we left home. And ease up it did...for about a quarter of the way through. Then it was the type of traffic that induces road rage, compounded by Dad's insistence on telling me that I had to keep the turn signal on at all times if I wanted to change lanes. And then Mum 2 forgot the exact way to the venue, and I was just about ready to flip out.
But then we got there, after about an hour and a half on the road. After exchanging pleasantries with the happy couple, I stepped outside and returned to the car because I couldn't stand the obnoxiously loud volume of the dangdut wedding band. Then Dad and Mum 2 promptly followed, also due to that damn band. Total amount of time spent there? About 20 minutes. And then it was straight off home. The lengths people go to in order to honour invitations...
So there's this girl I just got to know via the internet. After reading her posts on the Malesbanget.com forum, her
website and her Friendster profile and thinking she'd be someone I'd like to be acquainted with, I figured I might as well send a message and say hi. Which I did, and we eventually ended up chatting on YM. Of course it's not a given that one who's entertaining via writing would be as interesting in real-time communication, but thankfully I had a nice chat, which I hope will be the first of many. In case you're wondering, no, I'm not expecting anything more - that avenue's closed off, and God knows I'm too emotionally retarded at the moment for it if it weren't - but it's nice to have a new friend to talk to.
Been away from the blog for the past two days because I've been out of the house too long and too tired to write after getting back. So here's a recap:
Sunday, August 1st: Went to cover GALA (
Gawenya Anak Lapan), a high school music festival held by SMA 8. As of the past few years I've avoided these high school things like the plague for a number of reasons, chief among them being I've been to enough of them to know that they're all the same: you have to stand for hours in an outdoor venue of dubious groundskeeping quality, waiting for oodles for crap high school bands and tuneless underground nobodies before getting to the main attractions, and even then they just go through the motions via a truncated set. And then there's the simple fact that I'm just too old for this shit, and being surrounded by several thousand people half my age (OK, maybe I'm not that old and they're not that young) doesn't do wonders for my ego.
But GALA was different for a number of reasons: it was held at the Jakarta Convention Centre, which is usually reserved for occasions of a more high-brow persuasion; the show format was acoustic (well actually more "Unplugged") performances by an eclectic bunch of acts; plus I was asked to go there anyway. So I showed up for free with help from Rija and his band, Triqua. Hung around backstage with the band, got a feel for pre-show jitters, no doubt amplified by being the first ones scheduled to perform. But they did alright, got the crowd going in spite of only getting a two-song set. Eventually Citra and Halief arrived at the venue, so I had viweing company.
Highlights of the night:
- Lain's art rock performance was absolutely mesmerising. Mostly went over the heads of the high school crowd, but this is one of those rare times when I've felt a band's performance can be truly moving (in this case, very depressing, but in a good way) even though I don't know what the hell they're singing, something I hold important in terms of a song's emotional content. Which is why I've been resistant to getting into English-language Indonesian indie, because the pretentious yet utterly shite lyrics put me off significantly. But I think I just might check Lain's album out...
- Buckjava, yet another "over-their-heads" case. To be honest, even I was about to write them off the moment they came onstage, "they" being two guys who were the physical embodiment of "badly-dressed struggling artist". The bespectacled nerd sang about chickens and played blues riffs on his steel guitar, while the dreadlocked dude did just about everything else, including harmonica and a metal sheet as percussion. Sort of like an Indonesian White Stripes, but less prettier - which would be a given as they're all male, but even Jack White alone would be prettier than these two. But of course, it's not all about the looks. The centrepiece of their set was this song where Dreadlock Dude was on xylophone, playing that little tune you hear whenever a train pulls into the station. Then Bespectacled Nerd played his blues riffs, and Dreadlock Dude switched to shaking the above-mentioned metal sheet, before finally getting back to the xylophone. The idea of the whole song was to convey the experience of a busker hopping on a train, doing his thing, and getting off at the next station. Very impressive.
- Padi, the headliners. During soundcheck I could tell it was going to be a special show from them. Apart from the acoustic guitars, they also brought out a choir and two guys on flutes to replicate the guitar solos. And then there was the weird-looking bass (more like a stick with strings) and the funky theremin-like gizmo which made spooky sounds whenever someone waved their hand over it. Pulling out all the stops, you see. No wonder I thought it'd be special.
Come showtime, I didn't realise how special it'd be. After a bemusing start in which they reduced three of their best and most popular songs into a medley without even bothering to get to the good parts, things promptly went bizarre the moment Fadly suddenly broke into a rap over the rhythm of 'Ice Ice Baby'. He's never been the most entertaining of between-song frontmen, and I assumed the rap was just a one-off occurance. Boy, was I wrong: he commenced to make surreal commentary more suitable for dangdut, got up and did a brief dangdut dance in the middle of a solo, hawked an energy drink. Like I said, bizarre. People I subsequently met who were at the show all think he was drunk, and I wouldn't be surprised if he was. And if he wasn't, then he did a damn good impression of it.
All in all, it was a great show, and it set a pretty high bar for all future high school shows. I doubt I'll be going to another one any time soon, unless it's a kick-ass line-up. But I would pay good money if Fadly went all wacko again.
Monday, August 2nd: Halief's last day in town, and so we did our best to make it memorable. Went to Dakken for a little meet-up with the MBDC gang, and I gotta say, there's no way I'd ever imagine I could make as many cool friends as I have via the internet.
And then it was on to Parc for the weekly Monday Mayhem shindig. Halief went there the week before and said I ought to check it out, and check it out I did: a club where they play music thatI could enjoy without having to be shitfaced. Reminds me of a quote I read somewhere, by Jet's Chris Cester, if I'm not mistaken: if you have to take ecstacy to enjoy a certain type of music (in this case, techno), then it's probably shit in the first place. Though that's not to say there wasn't a large amount of people getting off their tits at Parc. In fact, I'd say about 75 percent. I was in the 25 percent, of course. All I was interested in was pulling out CDs from the DJ's carrying case and getting him to play stuff. I even got my Supergrass
Best Of CD from the car. (If you're wondering how on earth I could do that even though it was my first time there, well let's just say that it pays to hang out at Aksara Kemang.) It was really cool to see people dancing along to songs I had picked, and it's got me thinking about what songs I'd play if I had control of the deck. I'll get back to you on that...
And now on to today: got home at around 2:30, got a few hours of sleep before waking up and preparing the Beach Boys compilation Halief had requested. Got another hour of sleep before departing for the airport, taking about an hour and a half to get there because a truck had fallen over on its side somewhere along the way, and the inevitable rubbernecking held things up in both directions of the road. Luckily we were headed in the opposite direction of the accident, because the traffic on that side of the road ended up being something like two kilometres long.
After Halief boarded, the way home was trickier, as I suddenly felt really, really sleepy. For some reason, heavy traffic and accidents were the order of the day, and being caught up and travelling at a snail's pace does not increase one's desire to stay awake if one is desperate for shut-eye. Ended up pulling over at a highway resting point to get an hour of sleep, and then it was smooth sailing the rest of the way. Then I fell asleep again. It's 2:40 as I write this, which means I'll have woken up and fallen asleep again. Sleep is good.
