Me, about a month after somehow surviving my American adventure
8243/21162
Richard and Marina mentioned Fort Bragg in one of their recent podcasts, a city in Northern California with a military base in it and I was transported back to 1986 when I worked on a summer camp in the Redwood forests. Fort Bragg was the nearest place to go to on our rare days off. We'd hop on the train that ran through the camp and that would take us there.
I don't remember loads about it, but one very specific memory (or rather lack of one) popped into my head at the mention of the place. A few of us would take the day off together and then stay overnight in a motel, drinking and eating pizza and (for me at least) failing to snog anyone. I don't know if we all stayed in one room, but maybe- we had no money. I was a very naive 18 year old (I turned 19 whilst I was working there) and whilst the others smoked substances that might have been marijuana, I was too scared and uncool so made some lame excuse about not liking smoking. But I drank beer and I certainly got drunk - the trick we'd learned from the Americans was to cut an opening at the bottom of the can and then open the ring pull and the whole beer would slide down your throat in one.
I don't remember much about the experience. There was some joke about a vaginal douche being given to one of the English lad as a present. He didn't know what it was and everyone laughed at him. Including me. Even though I didn't know what it was either.
This summer was full of incident and adventure - including there being a huge fire in the camp on the final day (I wrote about that recently) and more excitingly me getting a blow job (though I still left America with my virginity firmly in tact and I'd hold on to it for another 7 or 8 months. Because it was my special gift). Literally one blow job. In 3 months.
I don't remember any exciting incidents from the Fort Bragg overnights. I just remember the douche. It's good to learn a new word.
My experience at the camp was a rollercoaster. I had always been a pretty good boy and in the first session I won best cabin leader and the activity I was in charge of, the Jungle Gym won best activity and I was promoted to tribe chief and put in charge of four cabins of 6 year olds. But the kids in the later sessions were more challenging and I was not qualified in any way to be in charge and things went badly and I got into hot water for satirising the camp leaders at the gang show and I was quickly demoted again and then got into trouble (rightly) for lightly slapping a kid who was trying to push in in the lunch queue (he was being a dick to be fair) and I also went on a overnight sleepout in the woods and a few of the kids I was looking after fell down what was essentially a cliff (no fatalities. I nearly got sent home, but saw the whole thing through, though now being a bit of a camp bad boy. Or at least a camp idiot.
At the end of the whole thing I had asked for a reference from the guy in charge of the camp, but I didn't get one. I had made a couple of mistakes, but it was at least partly his fault for putting someone so inexperienced in a difficult position (it was unusually for America a camp that was for kids from the inner city, not privileged kids from rich backgrounds and I was not equipped to deal with the challenges). Anyway one of my fellow Europeans told me that one of the reasons that the management had turned against me so much was because when I'd been on an overnight in Fort Bragg I had caused a bit of trouble by dressing up in a sheet and running round the motel car park pretending to be a ghost.
You might think that sounds like the kind of thing that I would do and you might also think that that isn't too bad a thing to do. But I had absolutely no memory of doing anything like that and am 99% certain that I didn't leave the pizza, beer and douche room. Was it just a story that got added to my legend of incompetence and stupidity or did it actually happen and I was so drunk that I had no memory of it?
I am pretty sure that this wasn't me. I was actually by far one of the least wild camp counsellors in the place. But now when I hear the words Fort Bragg I think about the time that I possibly ran around a motel dressed up like a ghost and was annoying enough for a complaint to get back to camp management.
Hey, I am 99% certain it wasn't me and that I've been confused with someone who was brave enough to take some drugs, but it makes me sound like I wasn't a totally boring virgin who was too scared to smoke something that probably wasn't even marijuana, so I'll take it.
I am like an Animal House legend.
I should probably write about that summer in more detail at some point. It's incredible how so much adventure was packed into a few short months and how that small portion of my life feels like a much bigger chunk of my time than it actually was.
8244/21163
Why do they keep doing this?
What have they done to Michael Caine? Leave poor Bruce Willis alone. No wonder he looks so sad.
Why do they want us to believe that big celebs are obsessed with holding birthday cakes that reveal their age?
Catie and me haven't been on a date for ages (though we're doing two this week), but we had another bit of afternoon delight today, going to Wagamamas for lunch and then to see 28 Years Later at Cineworld. Who says Stevenage doesn't have it all?
It's actually quite hard to tell the 28 Years Later world apart from Stevenage and the entertainment of the town was full of lumbering, dead-eyed people on a Monday afternoon. We were sat at the top of the stairs (top Cineworld hack - you get more leg room there) but every time someone walked up in the dark I did a little jump and feared I was about to be eaten by a zombie (or have to interact with someone from Stevenage).
I enjoyed the film. We'd watched 28 Days Later last night, which I had enjoyed when it came out, but now seemed a bit light - and though it owes a lot to Day of the Triffids, there have been many similar and higher budget films since and so some of my memories of 28 Days are actually from the Walking Dead. I would say the soldiers turn into feral rape monsters rather quickly. They're only been without female company for a month. I think if they'd just been patient and nice they'd have got better results. Mainly by being still alive.
There's some top actors in 28 Years and the lad who it centres around is excellent. It's a bit of fun. It's weird. It's scary. It's disturbing. It's like Stevenage, but there's no Wagamamas.
And if becoming a zombie makes your dick that big, then bring it on.
The last scene has attracted some attention, but I was too excited by the fact that it was filmed in Cheddar Gorge to really notice anything else. And to be fair, Cheddar is also full of zombies or people in dodgy track suits, so again true to life.
I am glad Cheddar Gorge is a film location, just sad that none of my Gorge filmed ideas have ever made it to screen.
I did not fall asleep during it, which is the best I can hope for for a cinema trip these days. I just wish cinemas were open all night and then I might finally got a proper night's sleep.
Another retro RHLSTP video is now on youtube FOR FREE. This one from 2022 with Armando.
Zainab Johnson will be my guest on 31st July at 2pm at Stand 3 in Edinburgh. BOOK HERE.
News of the guest of the Sheffield RHLSTP is below the paywall (and in the badger secret area). Will be announcing to the world very soon. Not many tickets left. BOOK NOW.