Within this pack pins, points, laces and gloves,
And divers toys fitting a country fair,
But in my heart, where duty serves and loves,
Turtles and twins, Court's brood, a heav'nly pair.
Happy the man that thinks of no removes.
~Fine Knack For Ladies, Jown Downland
The weekend was rather busy with all sorts of things. I realized too late that I was driving a $150,000 car with no insurance. I chose to leave late to avoid the traffic on the new highway me directly from Jakarta city center to downtown Bandung.
The S has the best lights and control I’ve ever tried on any large sedans. The lights were a big deal to me due my faulty retinas. The long distance sensors were gimmicky tho and weren’t too useful on long stretches of four lane highway. Still, it was very easy to drive once you grasped the actual size of the car. It weighs as much as a small truck with near perfect grip of the surface. My only complaint was for some reason, the gears often stalled on three and four but I tamed the beast and we made friends just before the last exit into the city.
Bandung was fun though I didn’t see much of anything. There were a bunch of people at the lobby, some I knew but most were complete strangers. The atmosphere was celebratory so they must’ve thought they already won. I didn’t mind much and proceeded for the lift after some courteous hellos and howreyous.
Vi was in the room, half way through a bottle of red and positively exuberant. She looked exhausted but wanted a few stops before heading back. A bunch of other people we knew were in town and finding directions was easy enough if not for half the city being rerouted for the convention. On her itinerary was a small club for quick drink, then an address on the hills to socialize with even more people I didn’t know.
It was however, declared a non-formal event and so i wasn’t too weird about it. Uncharacteristically, Vivian cleaned her makeup and wearing an oversized tee over very short black hot pants, looking more for the gym rather than a party. It’s not easy for a girl to make her ass look good in sneakers but she managed fine in a brand new pair of Nike jogging shoes. I complimented her ass and she smiled. Vivian’s very pretty, I don’t think I’ve told her that before.
The car was a bitch to park in the narrow steep lanes of Dago hills. I found a place for it well beyond the gate, just covered in the shade, shiny silhouettes on the very fine midnight black finish. Also that meant a long walk to the entrance and I could stare at her ass.
Vivian was rejuvenated by the loud music and I soon lost her in the crowd. Well, that’s not true. She was a stunning woman wearing large silver earrings and scandalously dressed in not much more than basic undergarments. I was not the only person admiring the view. from the distance she looked every bit a Fire Dragon Leo. I was introduced to her highschool friends and childhood friends and neighborhood friends and lost track of the names of the Bandung finest within the first five minutes.
I wasn’t drinking and already planning the trip back in my head. There was a guy at the party who does professional racing and I asked for tips, specifically for the silly shifts. He didn’t know what the problem was but gave me a number of his mechanic to check. The guy drove an M3 and I asked him to time it on the way down. I won’t really be able to clock it with the faulty gears but we could still have some fun. The mechanic was still up and he didn’t recommend switching anything off but assured me that i would most likely survive any horrible incident I was plotting for the weekend. The Mercedez S500 was a five star tank.
There was an old Jedi I haven’t met for a while in the party and picked his thoughts on a particular book. I’ve always a big fan of this particular story and was recently presented with the unique opportunity to actually do a feature with the material. I’m trying to acquire the material, if and when that happened, you would all know about it.
The Jedi knew the book and firstly concerned with the script. The original requires substantial work to turn it into a script and we need people who know the material to do it. He asked if I could turn it around but I honestly didn’t think I could so we need to find someone else. Cello Jedi knew someone he knew someone in the party that might know more about the rights. Introductions were made and my new acquaintance promised to look into it.
Vi thought I should probably have a go at the treatment since I knew it well. The story was essentially about two person in the middle of a very messy, very passionate, very complicated affair. She thought I was an expert the area. I took her suggestion personally and it was organized that everyone will reassemble at my pad back in Jakarta later in the weekend. We made a few calls to invite and I’ve a new project folder in my head.
We talked about casting it though nobody had any truly useful suggestion. I thought we needed to do more character development on it. Director Dude replied to my late night text and ask for a copy delivered before Saturday afternoon. 12 Hours later when I saw him, he seemed to have a good handle on the production side already. He’s always impressive.
I noted that his first suggestion was to do one particular scene all in one take. We both knew exactly which scene we wanted to do and he assumed that I had already worked the extra lines. I haven’t and he looked disappointed but we briefly sketched the outline. Chirpy, who was along for the booze helped clarify that we won’t be doing a teen flick. Everyone wondered if there’s a market for an adult drama. I thought Indonesians need to grow up at some point, and will. Director Dude wanted to have a sex scene. Vivian made me swear on two holy books that I wouldn’t be sleeping with anyone I wrote lines for. I couldn’t make this stuff up if I wanted to but we agreed on a lot of things.
We agreed that the leading roles would be problematic but somewhat manageable. We’re going to Jogja next month to check out the theatre scene. He knew people who knew people and so. Who knows what we might find. I haven’t been to Jogja for a while so that’s always good.
The rest of the night was more socializing and random encounters. Vivian stopped to gather food and conveniences for the two and a half hour trip. I stayed in the car creating playlists for the drive back. I made one for each third of the trip. I saw Vi running into four different groups of people that stopped her for hellos and hugs and whatnot, queued up for a ridiculous amount of time, stole a bubble gum, bought chocolates, cans of instant coffee, packs of cigarettes, mint bites and condoms. I watched and measured the sculptured curves of this particular being, beyond the glass door of the Circle K in the near of the morning in Bandung. Very fine indeed. I pushed the passenger seat all the way back to accommodate our groceries, Bono was singing something about no lines on the horizon. I live in Wonderland and the weather was nice.
We exited Bandung through Padalarang, which was basically an ugly series of interconnecting junctions, two crawling lanes of large trucks and buses. My car packed half the power of those monstrous machines but with one fifth of the bulky mass. I finally got it right and the problematic third gear resolved itself of the awkward timing problem with a lot of manual override. The rest of car performed admirably and beautifully. I spoke to the mechanic once again at four in the morning speeding through Padalarang at a hovering 100 and still couldn’t figure it out.
The drive thru in the daytime would have a better view, Padalarang had rows of vertical cliffs lining up one side of the road, the horizon often spiked up suddenly and unpredictably hundred of meters into the air. I’ve always wanted to climb those but never got around to doing it. At night, you could see nothing but the road. We ran out of U2 and agreed on the Portishead for this part and Vivian fed me plenty of a Mars bars and mint bites and gave me the comprehensive rumour briefing of the Jakarta Elite Underground. There was nothing too juicy but there could be something worth checking. I was mainly occupied with trying to tame the very beautiful car.
The Merc was big, bigger than the older S and bigger than any other sedans I’ve driven before. Tailing and eyeing the opening on between the trucks and buses, before unleashing the throttle quickly became an addictive game and I was getting better at it. It didn’t roar like a sport car – nothing like a 3 series or even a C – but I could feel the enormous power anxiously trapped under my feet, ready to leap at a moment notice. The shift worried me a little but the car never failed. Not once.
Snaking up to Puncak was the boring part from this side. We were so far ahead of the traffic I could properly redline the car. I was nostalgic for a Chemical Brothers album and played the old fashioned audio CD for the climb up. The S was immensely powerful, the huge lights compensated for my oversaturated eyes and handling was unlike anything I have ever driven at that speed before.
In fact, it felt so ridiculously easy, I was really tempted to switch the electronics off for the blast going down. Vivian reminded me of the non-insurance thing and I was convinced to do it with full safety features on. There must be some sort of speed hormones. It took you right the fuck out.
We were listening to the Songs of the Labyrinth on the way down, redlining on a blind corner with a 600 meters drop on one side, in an insured $150,000 car with no insurance and a barely clothed Bandung native heard almost nothing of the outside. Vi found the button for the seat massage and toyed with it.
I was sure it would’ve been the fastest I’ve ever done going down from the top of Puncak Pass to the Safari Park junction had it not for this idiot who took over the whole road for his driving pleasure. I also hit a pothole rather hard and it might’ve screwed something loose but it didn’t.
I pulled over at the house for a quick coffee stop, the flower bed by the pool was blooming egregiously in large buckets of red and yellow roses and Vi took a few of them to take home. A series of SMS streamed into my inbox in, in some kind of scrambled code the author was obviously at pain to explain something to me. Vi looked at the text and giggled, some offhand remark of the madness of little angels on little pins. They tend to tumble easily, those pins.
Vi wondered if I’d anyone in mind for the role. I hadn’t really given it that much thought. I’d some ideas of what she should be like but no one in particular. She thought Candice would an approximate look of the character. I actually thought that Candi could probably do it but it wasn’t an idea to entertain.
We stayed at her place in the city and went to the basketball game. The Indonesian team played well but there will be serious battles ahead. I wasn’t getting enough sleep and cranky and wanted to be back to my own couch with my dog before late. We lazed around the house and probably had sex a few times until most of the Council convened nearing the end of Saturday. Most of them knew the book and I had a few copies made, including a short English summary of it for the non Indonesian speaking visitors. I also write better in English. We agreed to work a little bit more on the book and committed on different errands. A smaller Council met again on Sunday and at the end of Sunday I’ve a much better picture in mind.
Now it’s time to put the work into it.
** to make sure credit goes where its due, the title of this post is from an album by Sting and Edin Karazamov, from music by John Downland, a 16C English compose. Phillip K. Dick sometimes writes using the name John Downland. The album is probably Sting's least known but to my humble opinion, really one of his best.I was listening to it during the whole weekend.
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