It's time for me to come out of the closet. I'm a wrestling fan. That isn't news to most of my friends, but is to new people I meet, which I find amusing. I've given up trying to explain it, it's just in my DNA. My wrestling DVD collection is obscene, the whole basis for my first trip to New York was a wrestling show and I've spent more hours than I'd care to admit talking about it.
There's a stigma attached to being a female wrestling fan. When the UK indie scene was stronger and I was running around going to shows, I lost count of the amount of times I'd have to politely, or not so politely, point out I wasn't there to fuck the wrestlers. It gets boring, fast. Since then my position on such things, as with much else in my life, has been that if people want to talk shit, then let them. It's nice to bring a little excitement into what must be very dreary lives if that's all they have to talk about. Besides, my friends get it way worse than I do. Benefits of living across the ocean!
Anyway. For my 26th birthday I was bought tickets and travel to the UK Pro Wrestling NOAH shows in Broxbourne and Nottingham. The shows themselves were excellent and I highly recommend ordering the DVDs of the shows, but one of the things that stuck with me were the two little kids at the Broxbourne show. They were fully clad in John Cena gear and I doubt they really knew much about the wrestlers they were watching, but they cheered, they booed, they had a fantastic time and I'm betting they came away from that show bigger fans of wrestling than they had been.
Kids like that are why I never really see the point in hating John Cena. Aside from the inhuman amount of charity work he does (seriously, the man is a machine) one of the most important things he does is get kids interested in this crazy sport-entertainment hybrid we all love. Didn't we all start out like those kids? Cheering our favourites even if they weren't the best workers? And look at how long we've stuck with it since then. If we want this business to carry on, we need people like Cena who kids adore. They go to a show to see him, sure, but they'll also end up seeing Daniel Bryan, CM Punk, Evan Bourne and Alberto Del Rio. They'll get exposed to a whole bunch of other wrestlers and, as they grow up, they'll start branching out, finding other promotions they enjoy, places they can see wrestling in person more than the once or twice a year WWE comes to their area.
Do I enjoy Cena? Eh, not so much. I respect the amount of work he puts in, but I cannot take a man who wrestles in trainers seriously. That's alright though, he's not aimed at me. I have other wrestlers on that show I can watch. I also have Ring of Honor, Evolve, PWG, Dragon Gate and various other promotions that I can watch when I want some actual wrestling. Those kids at WWE shows in Cena gear don't have that yet. I have faith that one day they will, and if their love of Cena gets them there, I'm good with that.
Don't ask me to explain the grown men who cheer him, though. On that, I got nothing.
xo
Tuesday, 31 May 2011
Thursday, 24 March 2011
005.
Snobbery annoys me. It especially annoys me when it comes to reading. I love to read, all the time, almost anything. I've read books walking down the street, while travelling, on the beach, in the bath, sitting on the pavement, at a gig in between bands, once even during a band, but I think that says more about the band than it does about my love of reading. When I was in Primary School, my reading age was advanced I was allowed to bring my own books in. Yes, I was the geeky 8/9 year old reading Nelson Mandela's autobiography while other kids read, well, I don't know what they read because I wasn't reading it. What do normal 8/9 year olds read? Remember, this was pre-Harry Potter!
Reading is one of my favourite things in the world to do. It allows you to escape into another world, it lets you learn about people's lives, different experiences, other countries, pretty much everything in the world can be learnt about from a book. Even how to fight zombies, which is obviously a necessary skill to have. I encourage everyone to read, whatever you're interested in, find a book about it and get stuck in. It's so much fun. Join your local library before the Tories close it and discover shelves and shelves of free books! Why, yes, my perfect gift would go something like this clip:
Look at all the books! Beauty And The Beast was released when I was about 7 years old and it was such a great movie to me because Belle read and didn't take crap from anyone. Even studying media and the evil Disney machine didn't put me off loving that movie. Books! Reading! Yay!
Anyway, my lack of snobbery when it comes to books means I have no shame in saying I own a large collection of Sweet Valley University, Nancy Drew and CSI books. I have biographies and autobiographies about people from the aforementioned Mr Mandela to Tommy Lee to Robbie Williams to Jeffrey Dahmer to Pamela Des Barres to Bret Hart. I read Camus' The Stranger when I was 13, but I also enjoy trashy chick lit. Chuck Palahniuk rests next to Kevin Smith who rests next to Mick Foley on my bookshelf. Heck, I've even read a couple of Katie Price's fiction books. Which does make me wonder if I'm the only person to have read Camus and Katie Price. Anyone else out there?
This year I decided to keep an ongoing tally of the books I read, just so I can look back and see both what, and how much, I actually read because I've never paid attention before. So, here's the list. Re-reads are indicated by an asterisk and if I read the book again during the year, I simply list it again. It's been an interesting experiment so far, we'll see how it progresses.
xo
Reading is one of my favourite things in the world to do. It allows you to escape into another world, it lets you learn about people's lives, different experiences, other countries, pretty much everything in the world can be learnt about from a book. Even how to fight zombies, which is obviously a necessary skill to have. I encourage everyone to read, whatever you're interested in, find a book about it and get stuck in. It's so much fun. Join your local library before the Tories close it and discover shelves and shelves of free books! Why, yes, my perfect gift would go something like this clip:
Look at all the books! Beauty And The Beast was released when I was about 7 years old and it was such a great movie to me because Belle read and didn't take crap from anyone. Even studying media and the evil Disney machine didn't put me off loving that movie. Books! Reading! Yay!
Anyway, my lack of snobbery when it comes to books means I have no shame in saying I own a large collection of Sweet Valley University, Nancy Drew and CSI books. I have biographies and autobiographies about people from the aforementioned Mr Mandela to Tommy Lee to Robbie Williams to Jeffrey Dahmer to Pamela Des Barres to Bret Hart. I read Camus' The Stranger when I was 13, but I also enjoy trashy chick lit. Chuck Palahniuk rests next to Kevin Smith who rests next to Mick Foley on my bookshelf. Heck, I've even read a couple of Katie Price's fiction books. Which does make me wonder if I'm the only person to have read Camus and Katie Price. Anyone else out there?
This year I decided to keep an ongoing tally of the books I read, just so I can look back and see both what, and how much, I actually read because I've never paid attention before. So, here's the list. Re-reads are indicated by an asterisk and if I read the book again during the year, I simply list it again. It's been an interesting experiment so far, we'll see how it progresses.
- My Appetite For Destruction - Steven Adler
- Assholes Finish First - Tucker Max*
- Notting Hell - Rachael Johnson
- Strip City - Lily Burana*
- Kill Your Friends - John Niven
- Bye Bye Baby - Caroline Sullivan*
- Tattoos and Tequila - Vince Neil
- No Angel - Jay Dobyns
- Assholes Finish First - Tucker Max*
- Rachel's Holiday - Marian Keyes*
- Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married - Marian Keyes*
- Dirty Cash - David Southwell
- A Lion's Tale - Chris Jericho*
- Undisputed - Chris Jericho
- Got Fight? - Forrest Griffin*
- CSI: Skin Deep - Jerome Presler*
- CSI: Brass In Pocket - Jeff Marriotte*
- Can You Keep A Secret? - Sophie Kinsella*
- CSI: Blood Quantum - Jeff Marriotte*
- The Godfather - Mario Puzo*
- Glamorama - Bret Easton Ellis
- Palo Alto - James Franco
- CSI NY: Four Walls - Keith R A DeCandido
xo
Tuesday, 8 March 2011
004.
There are many things that irritate me about job hunting. These are the top ones:
xo
- Lack of proof reading Recently I looked at a job advert that stated hours were "12am-8pm". Now, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that they meant midday, which, as most semi-intelligent people know, is 12pm. This begs the question, if you can't tell time properly, why are you in charge of hiring people? Then there's the little things, like 'teh' and 'wto'. Really, people, if you don't start proof reading your adverts, I will. Your in-boxes will be full of me correcting your mistakes and asking if your three year old typed it up for you.
- Internships I have no problem with internships as a concept, for some professions they're the only way you can get your foot in the door, but when I see companies advertising for interns every 3 months, to do the same work, I can only assume they're bastards who don't want to hire someone to do the job. They'd rather use unpaid labour in the form of a bunch of people who hope this will lead to a job, but never does. The worst one I saw was someone asking for an intern to, essentially, run their business. Stop being cheap. Hire people.
- Degrees being essential Now, I admit I might be a little sensitive about this because I left Uni halfway through and, now, even if I wanted to go back, I wouldn't be able to afford it. There are some jobs where you need a degree in a subject that relates to that particular profession, and that's fine. It's the rest that bothers me. I'd love to know what use a degree is for being a secretary, or a receptionist. Or, in fact, a sales assistant. What exactly does having a degree bring to those jobs that would be missing if someone without a degree was hired? Not many people want to hear this, but having a degree doesn't make you smarter than everyone else. Doesn't make you better than everyone else. It just means you have a piece of paper that shows you studied a subject for three years.
- Inability to spot interchangeable skills I used to work at a club in Camden. I've also done a lot of voluntary work that involved dealing with a wide range of people in a very professional manner. Between the two, I've probably dealt with any sort of customer you could care to throw at me, but for most employers this doesn't translate as experience. Personally, I think the fact that I worked at a club in Camden and was never arrested for punching someone shows just how excellent my customer service skills are, but when they look at my CV and see that I worked at a club, all they think is 'Hostess'. And I don't want to be a hostess forever, it's tiring, your hours are funky, you spend 80% of your time being hit on and then you have to get nightbuses home. Besides, I'm almost 26, there's a whole new group of hotesses coming up the ranks, I'm over it!
xo
Friday, 4 March 2011
003.
It's not often you get to travel back in time and assess a certain period of your life. This year, with the announcement that Special Needs were reforming, myself and many other people got to do just that. They were to play a show at Proud, Camden on the 15th of February. Sadly, since that night happened, news surfaced that a young girl many of us knew died at the age of 21. I saw her at the gig, but didn't get a chance to say hi. I wish I had. Rest In Peace, Louise.
It's strange to look back at that period of time. I've spent a lot of time running around the city within many different scenes, with several bands, but this scene and these bands were different. While I was once a teenage companion to rockstars, with car service and 5* hotels amongst the luxuries that brought, this was a world away from that. Last minute gigs, nightbuses and house parties were the order of the day. It was a democratic scene, you'd trip over someone at a party one day, and the next week NME would be hailing them as the future of indie.
As with all scenes, the bubble burst not long after the record companies got seriously involved. Ridiculous demands being put on bands who had never built a significant fanbase outside of London. Demands to sell 40,000 records at a time when physical sales were already dropping and no one had yet worked out how to capitalise on music being available online. Demands to give sensible interviews, devoid of crack psychosis (there was only room for one crack addict in the press and Peter Doherty had that sewn up). Demands for these kids to treat what they were doing as a business when they mostly just wanted to play music with their friends. Bands were dropped, bands split up. Members went back to the home counties, nursed the drug habits they'd picked up. Some stuck around in the city, managing to carve out a life for themselves. Many left the music business altogether, preferring to take their chances in the 'real world'. The rest of us picked up the pieces of the music we'd loved, attempted to stay friends with the people we'd actually liked and carried on with life.
February 15th was a very strange night. Of all the bands who had been involved in that scene, Special Needs were the ones most people thought should've Made It. They weren't like so many bands around at that time, hashing together imitated Libertines riffs with a frontman putting on a phoney London accent. Special Needs were 60s pop meshed with gang vocal choruses, guitars with a nostalgic feel and an Irish singer. They were bright, vibrant colours who stood out against the crack smoke haze most of the other bands were spewing. Their reunion made people happy in a way that I don't think any other bands from that time could've accomplished.
It was like 2004 again, right down to having to yell at a Jarman brother to get out of my way. The Cribs may well be selling out venues like Brixton Academy now, but to me they'll always be idiot boys with stupid haircuts managing to get in my way. There were plenty of people I wasn't too keen on seeing, the feeling was probably mutual, and thankfully any awkward moments were avoided. The people I wanted to see were around, though some I missed, and while the surreal feeling never really dissipated, it was really quite lovely to see that people I'd spent a lot of time with years before were doing well.
When Special Needs hit the stage I, and many other people, were hit with a reminder of a time when we were never at home because there was always a band like this playing some corner of London. When you could go out by yourself to see a band, safe in the knowledge that you'd know half the crowd once you got there. There were cliques, fights, grudges and problems, but it was still a community. At that time, bands were still working out how to use the internet to market themselves and to build a fanbase. It was still in it's infancy, being tweaked and played with. You could log onto a message board, get cheaplist for a show that night, go and see a line up featuring bands playing songs they'd given away for free on YouSendIt. That's what Arctic Monkeys did. It was the internet that made that band big, not the music press.
Special Needs were the catalyst for a lot of people to come back together and relive that period of their lives, but their reformation shouldn't be looked upon as nostalgia. They have new songs, they have damn good songs that deserve to be heard by a wider audience than before.
It's strange to look back at that period of time. I've spent a lot of time running around the city within many different scenes, with several bands, but this scene and these bands were different. While I was once a teenage companion to rockstars, with car service and 5* hotels amongst the luxuries that brought, this was a world away from that. Last minute gigs, nightbuses and house parties were the order of the day. It was a democratic scene, you'd trip over someone at a party one day, and the next week NME would be hailing them as the future of indie.
As with all scenes, the bubble burst not long after the record companies got seriously involved. Ridiculous demands being put on bands who had never built a significant fanbase outside of London. Demands to sell 40,000 records at a time when physical sales were already dropping and no one had yet worked out how to capitalise on music being available online. Demands to give sensible interviews, devoid of crack psychosis (there was only room for one crack addict in the press and Peter Doherty had that sewn up). Demands for these kids to treat what they were doing as a business when they mostly just wanted to play music with their friends. Bands were dropped, bands split up. Members went back to the home counties, nursed the drug habits they'd picked up. Some stuck around in the city, managing to carve out a life for themselves. Many left the music business altogether, preferring to take their chances in the 'real world'. The rest of us picked up the pieces of the music we'd loved, attempted to stay friends with the people we'd actually liked and carried on with life.
February 15th was a very strange night. Of all the bands who had been involved in that scene, Special Needs were the ones most people thought should've Made It. They weren't like so many bands around at that time, hashing together imitated Libertines riffs with a frontman putting on a phoney London accent. Special Needs were 60s pop meshed with gang vocal choruses, guitars with a nostalgic feel and an Irish singer. They were bright, vibrant colours who stood out against the crack smoke haze most of the other bands were spewing. Their reunion made people happy in a way that I don't think any other bands from that time could've accomplished.
Special Needs - Sylvia (live at Proud)
When Special Needs hit the stage I, and many other people, were hit with a reminder of a time when we were never at home because there was always a band like this playing some corner of London. When you could go out by yourself to see a band, safe in the knowledge that you'd know half the crowd once you got there. There were cliques, fights, grudges and problems, but it was still a community. At that time, bands were still working out how to use the internet to market themselves and to build a fanbase. It was still in it's infancy, being tweaked and played with. You could log onto a message board, get cheaplist for a show that night, go and see a line up featuring bands playing songs they'd given away for free on YouSendIt. That's what Arctic Monkeys did. It was the internet that made that band big, not the music press.
Special Needs were the catalyst for a lot of people to come back together and relive that period of their lives, but their reformation shouldn't be looked upon as nostalgia. They have new songs, they have damn good songs that deserve to be heard by a wider audience than before.
Special Needs - Nobody's Darling (live at Proud)
The old songs deserve to be heard as well, who wouldn't want to hear a large crowd of people singing along to Blue Skies, Sylvia and Convince Me? If one thing can come out of this Tardis trip to 2004, let it be that Special Needs get their chance to shine. Let them have a happy ending. They're a band who were better than that scene. They should have the chance to finally prove it.
As for me? I look back at who I was in 2004/5 and am glad I'm not that person anymore. I had a hell of a lot of fun with some fairweather friends and made some long term friends, but I'm not one to live in the past. Life moves on. Being able to look back and see how much I've grown and changes is something I'm thankful for. Nothing but Blue Skies ahead...
Special Needs - Blue Skies (live at Proud)
xo
Saturday, 29 January 2011
002.
I had a whole other post planned out, which will be coming soon, but something happened last Saturday night that I feel I have to talk about, despite me not wanting to.
That night I went out with some friends to Brixton Academy to see Manic Street Preachers. We all had a great time and I jumped on the tube home. My house is roughly a 10 minute walk from my local tube station. I've been doing that walk alone, at night, for a little over 10 years now. I can honestly say I've never, ever had an experience like I did that night. Heck, I haven't had an experience like that when I've walked home at 4am, alone and sometimes damn drunk.
My route is pretty simple, it's basically a straight line. Over the years, a lot of new bars have sprung up along that route, but due to the amount of people around, I still consider it the safest way home. Now, I'm not so sure.
As I walked home Saturday night, I got a few comments, which is nothing unusual when you're a young woman walking past bars, especially since the smoking ban came in. Usually, I just ignore them and that's the end of it. I did the same that night, but it wasn't the end. As I carried on past the bars and onto the residential street, I heard a couple of voices behind me, making comments about me. They caught up to me and one grabbed my arm. I've been told I can be fairly violent in certain situations and it's very much an instinctual thing. As he pulled me, I used my free arm to reach and punch him. I made contact with some part of him because he let go. His friend then draped his arm over my shoulder and attempted to touch my breast. I shoved him, hard, and he was so drunk he went careening into the road and fell. I sincerely hope he got run over.
The sad thing about all this is that I almost feel lucky because nothing worse happened. How fucked up is that? I was put in the position of having to physically fight off two men and I feel lucky.
I really wasn't going to post about this for many reasons, but partly because I've seen what happens with stories like this. Some idiot will want to know what I was wearing, or what I said, as if anything like that would excuse what they did. I decided to talk about it because I think silence is worse. I decided to talk about it because the little girl I used to babysit is almost a teenager and the idea that she might have to deal with this, or worse, makes me see red.
The simple facts of the night are this:
-I was walking home
-I wasn't engaging with anyone
-I was being cat called as I walked past every single bar on my route home
I have to walk past the bar I suspect they were in every day. Each time I go out, each time I come home. The lighting on the street is so bad, and it happened so quickly, I have severe doubts as to whether I would recognise them again. The fact that most drunk white men round here all look and dress the same doesn't really help with that either.
There's all sorts of talk that goes around telling women how to prevent assaults and attacks from men. I did everything right. There was absolutely nothing else I could've done to prevent what happened. So fuck those lessons. Fuck all the responsibility being put on women to make sure we don't get attacked.
How about teaching men that it's not ok to grab women on the street? How about teaching men that thinking a woman is attractive doesn't give you the right to touch them? How about teaching men respect? How about putting the responsibility on the people who commit the acts and not on the people who suffer because of them?
Like I said, I didn't want to write about this, but silence is worse than what happened. Silence means what those men did to me goes off in to the ether without any consequences. If, by writing this, I can make one man correct his behaviour, or one woman realise she's not responsible for a similar experience, then it's done some good.
This won't stop me going out, and it won't change my behaviour on my walks home. I don't need to change my behaviour. I did nothing wrong. The men who grabbed and touched me are the ones who need to change their behaviour. These streets are mine. I won't give them up without a fight.
xo
That night I went out with some friends to Brixton Academy to see Manic Street Preachers. We all had a great time and I jumped on the tube home. My house is roughly a 10 minute walk from my local tube station. I've been doing that walk alone, at night, for a little over 10 years now. I can honestly say I've never, ever had an experience like I did that night. Heck, I haven't had an experience like that when I've walked home at 4am, alone and sometimes damn drunk.
My route is pretty simple, it's basically a straight line. Over the years, a lot of new bars have sprung up along that route, but due to the amount of people around, I still consider it the safest way home. Now, I'm not so sure.
As I walked home Saturday night, I got a few comments, which is nothing unusual when you're a young woman walking past bars, especially since the smoking ban came in. Usually, I just ignore them and that's the end of it. I did the same that night, but it wasn't the end. As I carried on past the bars and onto the residential street, I heard a couple of voices behind me, making comments about me. They caught up to me and one grabbed my arm. I've been told I can be fairly violent in certain situations and it's very much an instinctual thing. As he pulled me, I used my free arm to reach and punch him. I made contact with some part of him because he let go. His friend then draped his arm over my shoulder and attempted to touch my breast. I shoved him, hard, and he was so drunk he went careening into the road and fell. I sincerely hope he got run over.
The sad thing about all this is that I almost feel lucky because nothing worse happened. How fucked up is that? I was put in the position of having to physically fight off two men and I feel lucky.
I really wasn't going to post about this for many reasons, but partly because I've seen what happens with stories like this. Some idiot will want to know what I was wearing, or what I said, as if anything like that would excuse what they did. I decided to talk about it because I think silence is worse. I decided to talk about it because the little girl I used to babysit is almost a teenager and the idea that she might have to deal with this, or worse, makes me see red.
The simple facts of the night are this:
-I was walking home
-I wasn't engaging with anyone
-I was being cat called as I walked past every single bar on my route home
I have to walk past the bar I suspect they were in every day. Each time I go out, each time I come home. The lighting on the street is so bad, and it happened so quickly, I have severe doubts as to whether I would recognise them again. The fact that most drunk white men round here all look and dress the same doesn't really help with that either.
There's all sorts of talk that goes around telling women how to prevent assaults and attacks from men. I did everything right. There was absolutely nothing else I could've done to prevent what happened. So fuck those lessons. Fuck all the responsibility being put on women to make sure we don't get attacked.
How about teaching men that it's not ok to grab women on the street? How about teaching men that thinking a woman is attractive doesn't give you the right to touch them? How about teaching men respect? How about putting the responsibility on the people who commit the acts and not on the people who suffer because of them?
Like I said, I didn't want to write about this, but silence is worse than what happened. Silence means what those men did to me goes off in to the ether without any consequences. If, by writing this, I can make one man correct his behaviour, or one woman realise she's not responsible for a similar experience, then it's done some good.
This won't stop me going out, and it won't change my behaviour on my walks home. I don't need to change my behaviour. I did nothing wrong. The men who grabbed and touched me are the ones who need to change their behaviour. These streets are mine. I won't give them up without a fight.
xo
Wednesday, 19 January 2011
001.
Another space on the internet for me to type about things is just what the world needs, right? I'm guessing some of the people reading this already know me, but I'm hoping some of you don't. Quick bio: South London born & bred, I go out a lot to see bands, I write, I take photos and I do a bunch of other things. I used to do merch for bands, DJ and various other things in the music industry without ever actually working in the industry. I still have one foot in and one foot out of that industry, but I'm seeing what else is out there. I'm also constantly saving money for new tattoos and have a very large River Island problem.
We'll see what this new space brings as we go. At the moment I envision photos of cupcakes I've baked, talk about bands I love, the occasional political rant and whatever else crosses my path.
This time last year I wasn't sure what the year would bring, but I travelled to the USA twice, broke off a few friendships dragging me down, met a whole bunch of new friends and got a new tattoo. If this year is anything like that, bring it on.
xo
We'll see what this new space brings as we go. At the moment I envision photos of cupcakes I've baked, talk about bands I love, the occasional political rant and whatever else crosses my path.
This time last year I wasn't sure what the year would bring, but I travelled to the USA twice, broke off a few friendships dragging me down, met a whole bunch of new friends and got a new tattoo. If this year is anything like that, bring it on.
xo
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