More 80 Raves
“Around the world in 80 Raves” Chapter One – The proposal
“Around the world in 80 Raves” Chapter Two – Ready for the off!
“Around the world in 80 Raves” Chapter Three – Miami
“Around the world in 80 Raves” Chapter Four – Daytona Beach
“Around the world in 80 Raves” Chapter Five – Myrtle Beach
Before you read on, here is a Youtube promo produced by Mike Christie. Watch this to get a vague idea about what I am writing about.
Like most, I’d always said, “when I’m older I fancy being famous” but I never really believed it would even come close to ever happening. As I grow up, I realised that life has many traps. You gladly leave college with some qualifications behind you truly believe that the world is your oyster but slowly you get drawn into the system. I was determined not to have a conventional job and get stuck in the city I was born, so after saving for a few months after A-levels, I decided to train to become a watersports instructor, a profession I’d often thought about many times after going on school trips as a child. That would be my ticket to see the world and get an experience of life. I must say it was a good decision; I probably had the best time of my life, living away from home, doing what I’m into. And making some of the best mates I’ll ever have. It was like being at school again only no rubbish lessons and not as many girls, but women, which made things more interesting. oh and out on the piss every night. Plus, here’s the biggy! spending six weeks living in Barbados, windsurfing everyday and again, plenty of the other at night.
I was living, seeing the world and loving it. But as they say, all good things come to an end. After six months of living it fairly easy, I found myself back in Leicester and back to the job I had left at the beginning of that year. At this point I think I had a chance to stop and think… I had done what I’d set out to do, the qualifications I now had could get me a job pretty much anywhere in the world. But wait there, I now have a three and a half grand career development loan, two thousand pound credit card bills and I owed my Nanna one thousand eight hundred cos I was going to sell my motorbike to pay for my course fee’s but good old Nan knew how much I loved it and offered me the money as long as I paid her back when I did finally sell it. But I digress, the point is I now can’t go anywhere in the world cos I’ve got too many bills to pay. Realising that my cunning plan to avoid getting tied down had gone tits up, I went back to stacking shelves, the job that when I was doing it part time after college I didn’t mind cos it was paying for me to go out and that was pretty much all I cared about at the time. Only now I am doing it because I have to, because I need to, to pay back what I’d borrowed, a different concept all together. I couldn’t grumble though at this point, I still had my bike, some spendo and had just had the best six months of my life, or had I?
Before I lose everyone’s total interest, that’s the only moaning I’m going to do (the bills) and I’ve got it out of my system now. It’s only relevant cos it made me think about life. I wasn’t going to fall into that trap again. But now things must come for free. I know I have always been the fluky bastard that gets out of most situations, but that was at school or college, you know the type of thing, getting out of detentions, reading GCSE notes the night before the exam but still managing to pass, being threatened to be thrown out of the sixth form but painting a lovely mural on the common room wall so the head of sixth form praises me for a few weeks. This though was on a bigger scale though I was in the big wide world and people are a little harder to manipulate than your peers and teachers.
So this is what I came up with. In between having fun at the supermarket, I was obviously watching a lot of TV, as you do during the winter and outdoor activity doesn’t look inviting. I started to make a few mental notes of all the things I liked on TV. Stuff that other’s my age would be interested in to. Then I incorporated the fact that I want nothing more than to travel, and become worldly wise. It began to take shape on its own, I was coming up with a travel show / documentary with a bit of docu-soap, though this was before Big Brother. I was getting my inspiration from shipwrecked. It was all easier than I thought, inventing a revolutionary TV show that was basically what I wanted to do, using tele as a means of doing it. Who then would honestly listen to a nineteen-year-old watersports instructor that thinks he’s got a good idea. I went down to my life long friend’s house to offer my scam. Usually we come up with idea’s laugh about them then never pay them a second thought, but surprisingly this idea began putting further thoughts into Joel and his girlfriend Rebecca’s head. We spent the next two weeks putting together a proposal, knowing nothing about whether there was a proper way of doing it or if there were certain people we should contact. But our content and writing style kicked ass. But sod it, it was passing the time and giving us something to do. Still not sure whether it was worth our while sending it to anyone, Rebecca went on the net found five addresses and sent it. Last we would hear of it we thought.
