Jakarta City Blues

I’m back in Jakarta after a real vacation (meaning a couple of weeks in which one doesn't do any tangible work, but gets to feel uncharacteristically OK about it.) It amazes me how quickly one can adjust to a different environment. Being home and seeing family and friends seemed so natural, that I almost forgot I live in Southeast Asia.

One of the first nights back here I found myself at a jazz club with a few friends. The vocalist/saxophonist was Indra Aziz (a “John Doe-ish”, very Javanese name mixing Hindu and Muslim without any fanfare.) He did a wonderful, melancholic yet upbeat rendition of High and Dry, among many other things.

I’d actually seen a clip he did on Youtube before leaving the States, but I don’t think I truly appreciated it back then. It describes a typical morning in Jakarta: a "city bus", traffic-jams, rain, floods, pollution, veering traffic. It's titled "Jakarta City Blues".

---
And here’s PHD Comics on the “What do you do" question (as noted before, I've encountered this question once or twice myself.)

Hallelujah

There was only one television channel available when I grew up (we couldn't quite seem to get Jordan, for some reason), so there was very little NBA basketball available. Basically, we'd get some highlights during the year and digests of the finals. When I first started watching as a boy, I really only knew of two teams from two cities I wouldn't even visit for a couple of decades. It's not easy deciding who you're rooting for when your parents aren't quite sure what sport you're talking about and the biggest local aspiration is beating CSKA Moscow.

I remember asking my father who "we're" for, Los Angeles or Boston, and he said that he and my mother had met in Boston, so we must be for Boston. I've been a avid Celtics fan since, in the same way that people all over Asia are devout Manchester United or Juventus fans. It makes no sense, I've never been to the Garden, but I stuck through it for 21 years since their last finals appearance. This morning it paid off.

At about 11:00am Jakarta time, the Celtics finished demolishing the Lakers (!) in game 6 and took their first championship in 22 years. The most glorious NBA season I can recall ended in a perfectly scripted way. True, I would have preferred to do it over a beer in Menlo Park, with better viewing hours and expert analysis from a few Pistons, Jazz and Pacers fans, but I'll take Boston over L.A. by 38 points anywhere.