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	Sari Club Obituary, Selamat Jalan (11-7-02) As everyone is surely aware by now, the surfing community has suffered a huge loss with the chickens**t bombing of two nightclubs in the 'soft' target of Bali. The human loss alone is staggering. For those who have been there, it could have easily been one or more of us. But beyond the human toll, we have lost an icon, a paradise, a place more peaceful, friendly and safer than home. I have been to what seems like more than my fair share of funerals in the last 15 years. The 'best' ones are the ones where people speak of the good times in the past so those are our final and lasting memories. So let's hit the town... For the first time visitor to Bali, a tour of duty in Kuta is a necessity, not a choice. Kuta is an orgy of instant gratification; there are girls, cheap food, cheap shops, cheap drinks, cheap internet, free movies, and pumping and throbbing bad music from the bowels of western pop. It is tough to keep up because the party never stops. Larium (anti-malarial) helps with the lack of sleep thing if you can fight off the hallucinations and psychotic outbursts. Kuta is a love/hate affair. When you are out in the bush pursuing surf, you miss the email with your friends. When you are in Kuta, you have to mentally prepare yourself for the madness. And the best cure is shock therapy. You go to the Sari Club. I think I read 'Sari' means 'flower' in Bahasa Indonesia. I am not quite sure why they named it that but nonetheless, it probably sounded like a good idea at the time. The normal drill is this. You are in Bali, having the time of your lives, meeting new people and doing all sorts of crazy stuff. You make plans to meet at the Sari club. But no rush- you have all night to get there. You go for a leisurely dinner and then head back to the hotel. I prefer the Masa Inn on Poppies I where they make me feel like a VIP. Maybe you forgot to shower so you go for a swim. How about a final surf check with a cool Bintang 22oz straight to the head, perhaps? Then you might take a nap after a double surf session earlier. About midnight feels right to begin the trek to the Sari Club. I would always grab my hiking boots for this part. You feel your way down the dark alleys and vacant lots as a short cut. I can do this with one eye closed (experience). You pop out at Poppies II, hang a right and pause to confront the madness that is Jalan Legian (road). Traffic is crawling if at all. The exhaust attempts to mask the smell of raw sewage seeping out from under the sidewalk. It fails. The warm steamy tentacles of filthy odor rise from the poorly covered sewer and wrap around your shins, tugging at you from between the huge cracks. With confidence you weave your way through the sex and narcotic buffet line of hawkers and approach the Sari Club. It is RAGING. I am standing there trying to get a beer. The competition is stiff. Six girls walk in and line up on the opposite side of the bar. The low hanging roof blocks their faces and all I can see is their tummies. The bartender serves up 6 'arak attacks', the local favorite, consisting of arak (80 proof) and some juice for color or something. The drinks are big and come in a big plastic cup with a rope to hang it around your neck. Now you have two hands free for flailing. Good stuff. The place has 2 dance floors and 2 bars but overall isn't that big. We always would find our way to the back and watch the pageantry. They used the same pirated music for their sound track every night. Standard pop dance garbage but with a belly full of cheap booze, you couldn't help but shake your booty. The Japanese girls that Mike dragged here from our hotel are in the zone. I am a big Slayer fan but for nostalgia purposes, I gotta get me an MP3 of "We like to Party" by the Venga Boys. Then they take the song "Staying Alive" by the Bee Gees and add some modern dance beat behind it to freshen it up. At about 1:30 AM, everyone is good and liquored. Without fail, the disco switches to Metallica and the Offspring and the place goes a different kind of nuts. I am finished with my beer and toss the bottle through the air and over towards the bar and join the action. Drinks are spilling, bottles are breaking, people are moshing but you can't help but have a great time. For all you crazy foreigners, here in California, they close the bars at 2AM and make you take a 4 hour break before hitting the sauce again. I use the 2AM closing time to pace myself. Here in Bali, all bets are off and I don't notice til about 3:30 that it is time to chill. Too late for my sobriety. We call it quits and stagger back to our fabulous hotel room. After a short nap due to the Larium narcosis, we are up and ready to rock for a new day. We sit around the pool with our feet dangling, count the injured and compare stories of conquest and denial. The news of this tragedy was more sobering than a bathtub full of ice cubes. The stream of photos brought tears to my eyes for days. For tourists like me, I can more easily get over this technical brush with death than can the Balinese who depend on my tourist dollars to live. To help out those who have made our trips so memorable in the land of Karma, we put together a relief fund for the family of the brothers who have carted our arses around the island for so many years. It is the least we can do before next summer when we return for the same perfect waves and friendly folks that will never go away. I hear they are already rebuilding the Sari Club... more stories >>