Hulk Hogan Camera

I have always loved photographs – my parents took loads when we were babies and of us growing up, quite a lot of these were destroyed by my mum when she had an episode back in 2000, but many still remain in those old fashioned albums with adhesive and clear film over the top to display them… probably somewhere in dad’s basement. I need to take a week this year and scan them all in so that we have electronic copies – it would no doubt take a full week!

When I was about 8 or 9 my mum bought me a second-hand yellow Hulk Hogan camera. Now I wasn’t really a fan of wrestling, but I was a fan of yellow things, so it worked out. Hulk Hogan isn’t very girly but at least everyone knows who he is.

I remember taking this camera on holiday with us when we went to Wales – we always stayed at Presthaven Sands, near Rhyl. It’s a Haven holiday camp, which I always thought was a poor man’s Butlins. We didn’t go abroad, on a family holiday, until 1998 – and I was 13 by then. I assumed it was because we couldn’t afford to go abroad for a holiday, mum and dad always said it was because Ryan was too young. No doubt it was a mixture of having limited means and a young family both – regardless we always had a fairly awesome time at Haven anyway. The playgrounds are amazing at Haven- they’ve got a massive zipline, a virtually vertical million foot tall metal slide, which you had to go in an itchy sack to ride… and a concrete toboggan – I’m not even joking. I don’t know if they are still there or not… I’d definitely like to visit again.

I got a few rolls of film for my yellow (Hulk Hogan) camera, and snapped away. I remember making Melanie and Rachel jump as high as they could so that I could capture them in mid air. We went down to the beach one day and made little rockeries out of the fist-sized smooth pebbles in the sand, which I also documented with my camera. At night we put on our nicest outfits and went to the ‘tiger club’ (?) where we played games and got our faces painted, and bought extortionately expensive fibre optic light toys and other related knick-knackerie. All of this was subject for my camera.

When we got home, I had the film developed.

Lo and behold, Hulk Hogan had made his way into every photograph. In the right bottom corner. There he was, in semi-transparent glory, like a miniature ghost.

Mel and Rach on the beach – Hulk Hogan.

Phil and John on their bikes – Hulk Hogan.

Our caravan – Hulk Hogan.

Me in my best dress and lycra cycling shorts underneath – HULK HOGAN.

Well, from what I can remember, I wasn’t best pleased. I changed my mind when I took the photos in to school and showed my English teacher… who found it hilarious. I then found it hilarious, and Hulky was forgiven.

As I got into my teens, I started to buy disposable cameras from Boots. These had processing included, so it was a good deal. Also, if I drunkenly lost it on a night out, I wasn’t that bothered. For Christmas one year Curtis bought me a digital camera, and I haven’t really looked back, I love taking photos of things. Memories alone are all well and good, but I find that I tend to forget the smaller details. Photos are ace to remind you of stuff you thought you’d forgotten, and when we’re old and fat and worried, we can look back and see how gorgeous and firm and full of life we once were.

I think it’s about time I bought myself a new digital camera, my current one is nearing the end of it’s life now, but I’ve looked after it so it has lasted for years and years. Maybe I’ll get myself one for my birthday. I appreciate sophisticated photography but I think I lack the dedication to learn how to do it properly. Point and shoot suits me just fine.

It’s a gorgeous day today and it’s my last week with any time off before I go full time in my new job, so I think I’ll head into town and pester Emma T or something.

Adios!

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Moving on…

So I wasn’t sure what to name this blog entry, sometimes I write them and then think of an appropriate title afterwards, I might still do that. Since I haven’t updated since 16th of May, I’ll give you a quick run down of everything of note to date. On May 19th I went to see Derren Brown with Tom Brown - it was basically amazing. I am totally, completely in love with Derren, he’s so intelligent and witty and charismatic. Yes I am aware that he’s gay, and I love him all the more for it. Sometimes I wonder if he could put his abilities to a better use ( a la Paul McKenna), not only could he cure  phobias and make people more confident and just generally improve lives, I know he could do even more than that – but then again who am I to preach to people what they should and should not do with their talents. He’s also an amazing writer <3…

Anyway, later that week I went to Manchester to register with some employment agencies, takes hours of your time and then you sit around for weeks waiting for a job, but it’s got to be done. For the record it’s now 6 weeks later and I’m still waiting for any temp work…

That weekend I borrowed The Range and went to Alton Towers with the SHU Drama crew, which was a pretty awesome day all round, gorgeous weather, spent all day with Beckett (then Liam and Gav) and we had a very relaxed day.

Gav, Beckett, Gem (& Liam!)

The week after that I spent most of my time jobhunting to no avail, and moving stuff across to Manchester from Sheffield – I’ve got so much *stuff* it’s unreal. On the 3rd of June it was Rochelle’s birthday and we popped across to Leeds for some drinkies. We started early in the day so by tea time/early evening I was staggering around and we were all proper tired. By like 1am or something we gave up and went back to Rochelle’s to sleep it off. Jonny and I had to get up in the morning though because he had work and of course I am the taxi driver.

I carried on applying for jobs and also went for some evening/bar work too, which I got interviews for straight away. I went for interviews at Panacea (posh), Prohibition (underground), Loaf (young) and The Northern (cosy). Debi at the Northern offered me a trial shift on the Saturday night. She’s really lovely, and kind of reminds me of Kay, Curtis’ mum. So I worked the shift, and I can tell you it’s an absolute killer. Luckily I caught on really fast and they’ve kept me on, so I now officially work at The Northern!

On the 15th of June, Jordan hired a canal barge as a sort of continuation of Rochelle’s birthday celebrations. Everyone came; Nick & Katie, Pat & Flo, Harry & Jonny. I was totally gutted because I had to go to Uni for a meeting on the Tuesday so I didn’t get to be a part of the main adventures. However I met back up with them in Manchester city centre on the Tuesday night, and slept on the barge. On Wednesday it rained all day, it was quite miserable weather but there was something romantic about it I thought. Some people live on canal barges, and what a life it must be.

On the Wednesday Ryan my baby bro and his girlfriend Lizzy came to Manchester to see us and stay over. We went to the imperial war museum and ASDA, and that’s about it. It was nice having them to stay though

Lizzy & Ryan

Mel - Camp Smells

Jonny & I

 That weekend I did another two shifts at The Northern, which almost finished me. I am getting more used to it, but my poor feet! Think I am going to invest in some MBTs or something like that. As a result I missed Fisher’s 21st birthday (sorry Fish x) back in Sheffield.

Last week it was Nipa’s birthday, then I went to see Brand New with Jonny and his friends at the academy. It was quite hot and sticky, but was actually rather good and I got suitably drunk anyway. Met Mel afterwards and we stayed out even though everyone else bailed. Jonny did a little bit of sick on himself, perhaps in protest at abandonment, and we staggered down to this pub called big hands (or something). Carried on drinking and making dicks of ourselves, then we started chatting to these Americans behind us. Jonny and Tristan had disappeared somewhere. They were like, ‘oh yeah we just came to the UK for the show’, and I said ‘oh I was there too’. They asked what I thought of it, and (not realising who it was) I said ‘well it was OK. It’s impressive how many people come out to see them, and the songs I knew I really liked but the rest was kind of boring. Plus it was too hot’ which fortunately they all thought was hilarious. Then one of the guys told us he was the tour manager, and we were actually sitting with the bassist, drummer and crew, along with Kevin Devine who I’d been chatting complete shit to for the past half an hour. I was a little embarrassed to say the least. But what lovely guys they were!

Pat, Harry, Jonny, Jordan, Rochelle, Nick & Katie

 This week we also found out that Michael Jackson has died. Mel came and woke me up to tell me about it. We watched BBC News 24 for a while. We were all quite shocked. I’m not quite sure what to say about it here, I think everyone has said everything that needs to be said on the subject, his death seems to be just as much of a circus freak show in the media as his life was. My parents always played a lot of music to us whilst we were growing up, and we would listen to Michael Jackson a lot in the car on long journeys. As children we made up dances and routines to his songs and performed them in the front room for the sum of 10p per person. I remember when the tickets were released for the concerts he planned to do here in the UK, and everyone desperate to get them except me. To me, it wasn’t the Michael Jackson I grew up with, just his body like a shell and him not really in there anymore. It’s sad for his kids, and sadder to think that the next generation will never know him alive, but his songs will live on and that’s good enough for me.

This week I’m moving out of Peveril for good, still looking for a full time job, and doing more part time shifts at the bar. I’ve got to get Growler serviced/new tyres/brake pads this week, plus a few other little things.

My skin is bad and I keep falling out with Jonny, it’s stressing me out a bit, but if that’s all I have to worry about then I’m not too unfortunate am I really?

Got loads more to blog about but I’ve run out of time now – more tomorrow I think.

See thee soon.

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