The hipsters progress
a few months ago there was an ordinary guy called christian who lived in the city of destruction, claremont. one day he meets brad armitage and @dylanmulenberg. dylan gives christian a copy of acne paper and a FANTASTIC MAN and they start talking to him about bree street. yes. bree street. the light. where the roads are paved with craft beer and 60% sourdough rye. brad says to christian, the wide road is called the M3. it leads to the southern suburbs, its easy and most people follow it into an early marriage and a bond for a 2 bedroom place in newlands with cupboard full of springbok rugby jerseys. but the narrow road is hard and only a few get there. christian is so inspired. he can almost hear the acoustic tunes of texxonfiretuesdays and taste the fried deliciousness of a clarkes burger. he suddenly feels weighed down by a great burden, probably from the magazines in his hand. but dylan says don’t stress. you can get there. its not that far even for capetonians. they point him to the distance towards the light. the inner-city.
christian decides that he has to get to bree street. but first he has to pass through the gate, hospital bend, and he doesn’t have a car or a fixie. he only has a mountain bike. he also has to leave his digs and his two digsmates who are doing their articles at deloitte. the boetjies aren’t gonna be happy about this. his girlfriend doesn’t want to come with either because she has plans for cubana that night and there’s a sale on at cavendish in the morning. he manages to convince some old mates from uct rugby to take him. they head off in their vw golf 5 with customised number plates. racing at the speed of light down de waal drive listening to locnville (i got a hole in my pocket and some mace in my face) but they end up at caprice instead with @lifeissavage and the guys who read 2oceansvibe. there’s a lot of tequila and peroxided blonds. christian doesn’t get out of there till 2 in the morning and he feels very disappointed by the whole experience.
luckily the next day christian stumbles on a post on the man of the cloth blog which gives him some fashion advice and the courage to try again. so he heads to the city via main road but gets distracted by a troop of american exchange students in observatory. they try and convince him obs is just as cool and after hooking up with one of them at cool runnings and sleeping in some old house with incense smelling sheets covering the lounge chairs (and is that a coke bottle bong!?) he realises he can’t wear a back pack everywhere and travel in flocks. he leaves in the morning without accepting her facebook friend request and stumbles back onto main road. after about 20 minutes of dodging taxis he discovers woodstock superette and the old biscuit mill. he can’t believe his eyes. he buys some vintage shoes and some skinny jeans. he also learns to say the secret pact at espresso lab… ‘flat white with skinny milk to go’. a baptism. he feels like a new man fuelled with fair trade. he’s so excited he wants to seed bomb or recycle something.
christian is almost in bree when he walks past a markhams in gardens center and he faces a huge battle to the death with his old fashion sense. fortunately he still has that copy of the acne paper and he reads in chapter two, verse 3. though shall only wear rope-dyed indigo 13.75oz. japanese selvedge left-hand twill denim weave that’s been woven on vintage shuttle looms. and be careful when matching them with a denim top, try get two different colours to avoid looking like a cowboy. he meets paul van der spuy at the new deluxe in roodehek street and they make plans for #realbeer in bree street that night. paul takes out his ipad 2 and says, ‘what’s your twitter name?’ and shows him a whole bunch of cafe racers which takes about an hour or two.
that afternoon, christian feels a huge amount of despair. will he be cool enough to hang out in bree. he suddenly gets an urge to go out to tiger tiger and drink jäger bombs with the boytjies and call his ex. but everyone on this twitter thing is talking about &union tonight, especially @bangersandnash and this crazy woman who always tweets her cats. he’s busy looking through foodie’s instagrams of jason bakery’s unicorn and crocodile themed sandwiches and he suddenly gets the courage to tweet his first few characters, a digital scribble,
‘so. I’ll be hanging out in bree street tonight. cape towns hippest street.’
…………………………………………………………………………….. this story was based loosely on the pilgrim’s progress. it was required reading for children who grew up in religious christian households like mine.