MAN ABOUT TOWN
TEXT
JACKSON BIKO
ART
MOVIN WERE
HAPPY
BUBBLES
Champagne is a
happy drink, not just
sometimes, but all the
time
Jackson Biko, is a lover of whisky and
people watching. He likes to walk the
shadows of the city at dusk, picking
conversations of a people spurred by the
night and by their drink.
T
hey must be celebrating
something. Hell, someone
is always celebrating
something somewhere.
That’s how precious life is.
The man – the one with a monstrous
timepiece the size of my one-year
old son’s skull – gleams as he holds
a bottle of champagne, squinting
at the label. The waiter stands at
a respectful distance, donning
a small polite smile below his
moustache. His audience of three
wait in such anticipation, I swear
I’m tempted to pound my table in
a drum-roll. Big Timepiece finally
nods appreciatively. The rest breathe
again. The room seems to sigh
with relief. There is a resounding
pop. The bottle froths. Bubbles are
poured into flutes. Glasses are raised
towards the fancy chandelier; “To
the god’s of good fortune!” There
is laughter all around. Everyone
seems so happy. Everyone seems so
affectionate and content.
That’s how people behave
around champagne. It’s almost like
champagne dictates that you must
be happy. Like a directive. Because I
spend a lot of time stalking humans
in bars and lounges, documenting
how they behave around (and with)
60.
alcohol, I’m always fascinated by
the distinct reaction and emotion
champagne evokes.
Wine is a drink that can be suited
for a variety of situations, happy, sad,
non-committal, it morphs according
to the mood at hand. I have seen
couples try to solve a problem over
wine; I have seen a group of stiff
suits (most likely lawyers or auditors)
stand in a corner at a company
function, cradling glasses of Merlot
and forcing chuckles to seem
sociable even when their brows say
something different; I have also seen
many a group of girls on a nightout sipping bottle after bottle of
pinotage.
The raison d’être of of spirits also
tends to mutate according to the
scenario. Men will sit alone in bars,
staring down into their glasses of
single-malt, in search of answers.
Brandies will be cracked open after
a long raucous dinner party. A secret
hip flask filled with your poison of
choice, might be the only thing that
gets you through the working day.
But not champagne. Nobody ever
pops a bottle during hard times.
When you turn up and see a bottle
sitting in a shivering ice bucket, you
always know good news isn’t far
away. You see it on the faces of the
drinkers. You hear it in the timbre of
their voices. You smell it off the air
around them. Champagne is a happy
drink, not just sometimes but all the
time.
But there are rules. First, unless
you are shooting a rap video, you
can’t pop the cork too loudly; it’s
crass. You unfoil it, you twist the
bottle, and you uncork it with a
thud. You don’t freeze champagne;
you place it in an ice bucket. If it
tastes like grape juice it most likely
isn’t champagne but sparkling wine.
In fact, if it isn’t from Champagne,
France then it’s not champagne. And
lastly, you can’t place ice-cubes in
your champagne. You just can’t.
Big Timepiece’s date – a moonfaced girl with a brittle-looking nose
– is giggling at something, while
leaning on the bar counter of The
Champagne Bar at the Sankara Hotel
where all this is unfolding. The girl’s
bubbles keeps rising relentlessly
in her flute. Laughter fills the room,
pushing out any other emotion apart
from happiness. I sit at the corner,
in one of those lounges and feel the
happiness slowly infect my whiskydrenched heart.