Paul Schiernecker

Category: Essays

General ramblings on anything

My first stand up.

For two days I had chest pains every time someone mentioned it to me, or asked how I was feeling. My legs would change from a solid to a liquid and I would need the support of a good sturdy surface. This was how my body chose to tell me I was heading for my first ever stand up performance.

I’m a bit of a show off at times, but under conditions. I can also be an introvert, I cross that line like a Morris dancer, often and off beat. I’ve wanted to try stand up for a long time because it is something I admire other people for doing, today even more so. That isn’t to say I want to do everything I admire others for doing, although I’ve tried chopping wood and tightrope walking and I’m shit at both.

Last night I performed ten minutes of stand up at The Alex in Southend as part of a new monthly open mic night hosted by Little Smash Presents. It was without a doubt one of the best experiences of my life. It was also one of the most terrifying. I hate that hybrid but it draws me right in.

I spent yesterday afternoon in a pub, watching people watching football, and trying not to think about what I was going to have to do. I don’t even know what to compare it to. Maybe being in the queue for a rollercoaster? You’ve committed to it but you can see a sobbing nine-year-old avec mother pushing their way back through the crowd as the child realises this isn’t for him and has the benefit of being able to cry to get what they want still. I wanted to be that kid, to just backtrack through the crowd and run away, maybe have a go on the teacups. When I thought on it I realised I sort of crave that disgusting nausea, and the way my stomach curdles, it’s what lets me know I truly care about something.

I had faith in my material. Even when I was living it I believed it could one day be harnessed and shaped, like the ghost of Swayze over Moore’s dungaree-clad body, smoothing that pot up like a mighty clay cock. I knew it would make people laugh because life is funny, as long as you think of it in the correct terms. As ‘first world problems’ as my material is, it’s still a matter of tragedy + time = comedy. I observed and I reported.

Before the audience filed in I met the other acts, people working the circuit, people who have honed their craft and paid their dues and their own travel costs evidently.
They all had brilliant advice for me, told me to take my time, to move the mic stand out of my way, and to take a sip of drink when I was in need of a moment’s respite. I still felt like an observer though. When everyone started pouring into the room and taking seats I started to get really concerned. There was no getting out now. They had the overhead bars pulled down on me tight. We were starting our ascent.

Ross, Luke and Liam all completely blasted their way through, Ross as compere for his night and the others throwing in brilliant gags about knife crime in McDonalds ads and being turned down by prostitutes. Then I realised I had to go onstage. I was leaning against the side wall and didn’t feel I could leave it. I tried to will my limbs into action but I just remained slumped, my heart beating abnormally fast and my forehead, pits and hands sweating as though I were on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Ross announced my name and I walked onstage and the applause was so warm and receptive that I forgot every word I had ever known. I picked the microphone off the stand and swore, forgetting the important rule of moving it to the side in the process… and then I was off, or on, or in.
I got my first laugh where I had assumed it would be and believe I held my own from there.
It was so different to anything I had done before. A completely different temperament and atmosphere to drama or improv or gigs.
I had so many people there in support that I felt stronger for it. Once I got that first laugh I realised the whole thing wasn’t in my head, and that I could possibly be funny if I really put my mind to it. The performances in front of a mirror with a hairbrush over the course of a month had served me well.

As I returned the microphone to the stand and walked offstage I felt like I was going to collapse, but as a result of the fear and adrenaline coexisting in me. People shook my hand and hugged me but I was just in a daze. It’s just dawning on me now, the following morning, what happened and what I have done. It was amazing.

After the interval which followed my set there were four more performers; John, Sam, Sean and Chris. John, who I know from improv seemed so natural onstage, as though the whole thing were just something he had walked in on. His observations on the kind of people who do stand up were spot on.
When Sam got up I was as nervous and excited as I had been for my own set. Sam and I met through our friend Danny when he coaxed us into starting to attend an improv group. That’s why it was really good that we both made our first tentative steps into stand up at the same time. His routine was just what I expected; brilliant, dark and charmingly shambolic. I also really enjoyed Sean’s set, a comedian I had seen at the recent Southend Comedy Festival. The last act Chris Ashton knocked it out of the park. From across the room I could see my friends flailing about laughing and I can guarantee we will be poaching some of his puns for our everyday conversations.

It was such an incredible and terrifying thing to do but something I’m so glad I got to be a part of. I want to thank all of the other acts for their kind words and excellent performances, to Ross for having me, to Sam for stepping up to stand up alongside me, to Antony and Lucy for making such a ridiculous journey just to see me, and to each and every person who showed up, or text or tweeted me good luck. Mostly, thank you to my incredible girlfriend for loving me and believing in me and to my family for giving me such versatile material.
You’re all golden.

Pre-show toilet freak out.

Handful of set.

September 2, 2013
Unearthed heroes.

There comes a time in the life of any young fanatic when you think you know it all. You’ve read their individual and collected works. You’ve trawled libraries and search engines for everything there is to find on them and then they go and pull the incredible feat of surprising you, from beyond the grave.
I’m talking about the emergence of new material, namely Jack Kerouac’s Upper Peninsula Diary which was found in a used bookstore in Michigan and photographs of J D Salinger in army fatigues amongst his buddies during the Second World War.
As someone who grew up ravishing every written word the pair of them wrote it’s a strange sensation to know there is still more, that I’m obviously not quite the fan I thought because I’m not prowling bookshops in small-town America and I’ve not spent the best part of a decade researching an elusive writer who would hate the thought of any kind of interest in him still existing. The thought of Salinger’s alleged trove of unreleased material found following his death is more than I as a fan can stand.

It’s nice to have a little reminder that those whose words taught you so much can still surprise you in the way they did when you first fell for them. That there may be a limit to the amount one person can produce in a lifetime but for someone else to accumulate and obtain that knowledge is almost as limiting.
I don’t want to be precious about them but there’s a reason the UPD and unreleased Salinger manuscripts never saw the sight of day during their lifetimes, and it’s just possible they could stay that way.

Read about Salinger here.
Read about Kerouac here.

August 19, 2013
Yo, we’re up to date bitch!

This week represents the return of Breaking Bad for the latter half of its fifth and final series. Breaking Bad is the brainchild of Vince Gilligan and follows the story of high school chemistry teacher Walter White (Brian Cranston) as he discovers he has months to live and reconnects with one of his lost flock to start cooking methamphetamine to build a nest egg for his family.

I first got into Breaking Bad because the concept seemed so incredibly bizarre it had to be good. I knew of Cranston as the hapless father in Malcolm In The Middle and the idea of him ‘breaking bad’ was just as ridiculous to me as it was to Jesse Pinkman. What happened is that I discovered one of the most intense and brilliant television shows of the last decade. After getting the first season on DVD I borrowed the second and watched the third and forth on LoveFilm and Netflix at the time the fifth series was being aired. It was exciting to know there was so much content to get through, so many places it could go, so many drug lords to be toppled and misadventures for Walt and Jesse. What happens to Walt and what happens to the series as a whole is that it continues to draw darker, like an approaching dusk. The deaths in the first series, particularly the acid bath have a near humour to them, like a Laurel & Hardy sketch, with corpses but as Walt bumbles his way into things you can’t help but be drawn to what he does, after all it is essentially good. Is it wrong to steal a loaf of bread to feed your starving family? Is it wrong to cook meth to cover your family in the event of your death?

Walt does break bad and he just gets badder. He is the one who knocks. He is the danger.
What is executed so well is how believable this change in his character is, after all this is a development we have seen over four and a half series. The shy and retiring Walter White, high school teacher and cancer patient is not the same as the W.W. who gets things done. He seems so calculated and malicious and yet we are all still there for him, on his side and waiting to see how it played out after the incredible cliffhanger of Walt’s DEA agent brother-in-law Hank having a eureka moment on the toilet and realising the great Heisenberg he had been chasing was sat outside eating BBQ.

The new episode did not disappoint. There are already clues to what could happen to Walt and his family as the sun sets on one of the most stunning and fantastically written series I’ve ever seen. At one point Walt even muttered the immortal line ‘to be continued’, practically to camera and we know where it’s going and can’t wait to see that showdown. The flashforwards continue to drip information like a crack in a dam but we will get there.
The only disappointing thing at this stage is we are sat waiting for Sunday, for the next episode. There is no backlog for the majority of people anymore. Much like the product of the desert-bound RV, we are hooked.

August 15, 2013
On Feminism

“Why does Kate keep posting all that stuff about feminism?”
What an excellent question, and one I have been asked far too many times of late. The answer of course is that there has been a resurgence in the campaign as a result of more and more men thinking it is acceptable to treat women as secondary citizens.

I feel very fortunate in that I have never really felt vilified because of my gender, my ethnicity, my religion or any other recognisable trait. I’m a white male who has never truly struggled for anything or suffered for my beliefs. That’s why it is so important for me to speak out about it. I know a lot of the problem with any kind of discrimination is down to people who fall into the same brackets as me, but I understand why. I was never expressly told that women are equal to me, or that because someone has a different skin colour to me they shouldn’t be treated differently. I don’t recall being instructed it was not acceptable to slap women on the arse as a form of endearment or to wolf-whistle at them if I found them attractive. I was never told these things and yet I know them. The idea of acting in such a degrading manner towards anyone makes me feel a bit nauseous. It seems such a tired cliche to shout “look at the tits on that”, and yet there are men my age who think it is still acceptable. I would like to think that we are growing better, generation by generation.
When you consider that a generation before us had segregation of races and considered this acceptable, and a generation prior to that had seven million Jews and other minorities killed, we seem to be getting better, but the improvement is far too slow.
My generation represent the first time being gay has been accepted, and rightly so. Our view is that you love who you love and whose business is it other than your own (as long as it’s not with children or animals). It’s parts of the generation prior that still hold that archaic view there is something inherently wrong in being gay, and that’s where the real fear of “coming out” grows.

Women’s rights seems to be a much slower burn. In 1918 women were allowed to vote for the first time however three or four generations later they still don’t earn the same as men for working the same jobs, they’re not respected in the same way as men for their opinions, and they have put up with it for far too long. That’s why Kate posts “all that stuff about feminism” and regardless of any opinion on the matter, I am proud of her.

August 10, 2013
Happiness is a rejected manuscript.

Last night I got home a little worse for wear to find the first of the manuscripts I sent out last week back in my house. It wouldn’t have riled me up if I hadn’t spent so damn long in the post office explaining why I needed so many stamps (you’re expected to include a fully paid self addressed envelope with all submissions for their safe return). Feeling a little deflated but also a little gassy, the latter as a result of Heineken (you can take the boy out of Holland but yea yeah etc.), I ripped open the envelope to find the following message:

This might just look like an ordinary rejection to the untrained eye but it outright thrilled me, and while I wasn’t able to take it all in at that moment, I found myself thinking it over in the shower this morning as I tried to wash the fur from my tongue and the beer sweat from my brow.
This rejection letter represents the first handwritten response from an agency I have received (excluding the submission of Situation One which took a year to be returned to me). I have read in the Writer’s & Artists Handbook that if you get a handwritten response you’re onto a good thing. Last year each of my submissions was returned with a combination of either a template rejection letter, a photocopy of a rejection letter where someone had crudely scrawled my name in the gap beside ‘Dear’, or worse still, a letter which nobody had bothered to fill the blanks in on.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand that running a literary agency is incredibly hard work. They receive so many submissions and any kind of response is taken on board and appreciated. The letter I received yesterday is from Darley Anderson, the actual genuine man himself, proprietor and all-seeing eye of the literary world. While I am ready to admit this may have been as a result of me sending it addressed to someone no longer employed at the agency, I am taking this as a victory. The fact it got as far as Mr Anderson is a small triumph. Having studied the roster of staff in depth there are any number of people who could have written that response to me, or printed the Word document: Rejection Letter To Twerp.doc. Instead he took the time to respond himself, and within a week of receiving my manuscript.

This means, at least to my mind, that I escaped the slush pile. It must have been reviewed before it was passed through to him, and I may just be romancing it all but surely those who read it beforehand identified something in it. My cover letter had been seen and under the words ‘50,000 words’ and ‘love story’ a line had been placed, possibly indicating who would be best to field a response. Am I getting too Sherlock here?
All I am saying is it’s good to know I am not just throwing my efforts, time, energy, money into a void. There is something on the other end, and it’s hurling stuff back.

August 8, 2013
The dangers of ear candles.

Last weekend I got hold of a pack of ear candles. I had been told they were the best thing ever, but had also been told they were pseudoscience bullshit. I decided to put them to the test.
If you don’t know what ear candles are, and what they claim to do then I suggest you read this.
As it turns out there are any number of tales on the Internet about why they don’t work, and the whole thing is a bigger fraud than religion. Alright, it’s not that big. I haven’t seen anyone killed over ear candling.
The important thing to remember is that I was getting involved in a bit of ear candling and thought it would be a nice relaxing thing to do with my bob-cutted, proprietor of panic, Kate. This is important to remember for the duration of the tale. Kate isn’t good when the shit hits the fan, and I say that with all the love I can muster. She’s a very interesting guy.

So I said I would ear candle Kate first because I’m handy with a flame. The instructions specifically said you should cut the ash when it got to about three inches. We put the most relaxing album she had on, Lucy Rose’s debut, and I lit the candle and jammed it right in her lughole. She said it felt nice but that she wasn’t sure it was doing anything. I told her to shut up and enjoy the ambience. The problem with cutting the ash off is that you’re balanced on a bed above your better half with a pair of scissors and a naked flame. It’s dangerous territory. I’d still love her if she were horrifically scarred, and I’m sure people would congratulate me on being so humble as to stay by her side while her face peeled off, but I didn’t want that future.
Luckily, I’m not just handy with a flame, I’m also handy with a blade and I snipped that burning candle ash like a samurai and let it fall into the bowl of water I had waiting in the other hand. I repeated this action twice, and then let Kate roll over, and then rammed another burning candle in the other ear. This time she didn’t seem quite as concerned as I hovered over her, talking to her in my soft caring tones whilst snipping that candle up real horrorshow as young Alex would say.
Then it was my go. I thought about putting some really relaxing music on, like whale noises, but even I have my limits when it comes to new age jiggery pokery. We flipped the Lucy Rose record over, and Kate snuck a candle in my third most sensitive hole. It felt good. I had been told the result of using ear candles was like hearing for the first time. I remembered when I heard The Beatles for the first time, and times’d that by a hundred-thousand to equate how much joy I was going to feel in ten to fifteen minutes.

I shut my eyes, and felt relaxing vibes and waves of zen washing over me like I was the corpse of a whale on a beach. It was glorious. Then Kate informed me she was going to make the first incision. I assumed the procedure would be a complete success, and lay still as she brought the scissors down and around the upper quarter of the candle. The snip shot loud and clear down the tube and into my drum. I let out a sigh and then the burning loop of candle and paper fell onto my anatomical snuff box.
For some reason I assumed Kate would spot the error and quickly correct it, and so lying as still as possible on the bed so as not to upset the progress the candle had made on my brain access panels, I waited. What Kate did was sort of panic a bit and assume that burning candle coils had no impact on skin. After about fifteen seconds I had to admit I was being burnt and jump up. By this point I had a nice burn, the bed was blackened and the towel collected around my skull to stop candle damage was scolded.

If trying ear candles has taught me anything, it’s that they’re painful, and possibly a massive fraud.

August 2, 2013
The Cornetto Trilogy.

The works of Messrs Pegg, Frost and Wright will always hold a special place in my heart. The first time I saw Spaced properly was at university. After a night out I was offered the first series by a friend who had suitably brilliant taste in all the things that mattered. I got back to my flat at around three, and was still up watching the adventures of Tim, Daisy, Mike, Twist, Marsha, Brian and Colin when the sun came up. I quickly and completely fell in love with it. I still rate it as one of the finest sitcoms I have ever laid my eyes upon. The way they drew upon references was achieved with such tenderness and affection for the material was infectious and I have lost count of the amount of films I have watched as a result of them being referenced in Spaced.

From there I branched out to anything else they had touched; Big Train, Black Books, Danger! 50,000 Volts, and then the films they had begun to make. It was during this time I made my first leap into attempted sitcom writing, and penned the brilliant cult classic Six with my best friend. To this day nobody has seen Six, but it is still very much our love child and an endless source of our amusement. Maybe that’s part of the reason I think of Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz as being so precious to me, because I cherished the leap from the small to the big screen. It felt like it was a big deal for British comedy actors to do, and it didn’t fall flat like so many others attempts have before and since.

Tonight I got to experience the big three in one sitting, or three sittings depending on how picky you want to be on your definition of sitting. I did go outside for air, Cornettos and coffee in the twenty minute gaps between the films but other than that I was true, and stuck to the screen. The fact is six hours sat in the dark watching the japes and gore of the Cornetto Trilogy is six hours very well spent, especially when the company is so fine.
They key difference is I rarely make it through any film in the outside world without something distracting me from the task, be it food, company or Twitter so watching Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz was whole and more absorbing than I could ever remember it being. Nothing plagues the brain like the surround-sound effects of a zombie invasion on North London, nothing fills the ears like the amplified screech of tyre tracks and gunshots. It was an experience.

This of course brings me on to the final in the trilogy, the finish line, Jerry’s Final Thought. To say anything about the film’s content would essentially ruin it for a would be audience. I can confirm it made me laugh and it didn’t go where I expected it to. All parties onscreen were well cast and the cameos and appearances were as always a geeky highlight. I will say this though, how many other British writing and directing partnerships could pull me to spend over six hours in the concentration camp that is Lakeside? Not many, if any at all.

July 19, 2013
What Project 333 gave me.

For the last three months I have worn the same 33 items of clothing. Did you notice? I know nobody called me out over it. That was one of the things that worried me most about it.
If you don’t know what Project 333 is, then I suggest you head over here.
I wanted to give Project 333 a try because I think we put far too much effort into the power of things. The last three months have shown me that being practical is more suitable and fitting to my personality than anything else. Some of the items I chose initially were switched out after a month, when I realised I had chosen them for completely the wrong reasons.

I have:
9 t-shirts
3 jumpers
4 cardigans
6 shirts
2 pairs of jeans
1 pair of shorts
1 coat
1 jacket
1 blazer
1 necklace
1 earring
3 pairs of shoes

Time
Time is precious, especially when you like to roll out of bed with the least amount of time possible before you have to leave for any kind of appointment or meeting. I like to do just that. The joy of only wearing 33 items of clothing is that for the majority of the time you don’t have to make a choice as to what you are going to wear, you have to wear what is in the drawer or wardrobe. There are no options. Options can often be more limiting than you realise. Before, I would spend far too long searching all over for a certain item, now all of the items are a certain item. I picked them because I like wearing them.

Money
On far too many occasions I was tempted to buy clothes, because I am a victim of consumerism, like we all are. What stopping yourself from buying clothes does, is makes you realise is that it is the easy option. I won’t buy anything because I don’t need it. This rule goes beyond clothes now. I am still on a learning curve with it all, but I take my time before I buy anything. I think it through. This has obviously saved me money. I may buy some more things now I have proven to myself that I don’t need to, but I will do so keeping in mind that it has to be better than something I already own and am willing to replace.

Style
Project 333 has taught me I have a series of looks I like to go for. I favour plain v-neck t-shirts over anything else. This may well change in another three months, and I may swap the lot over for something else, but if I could wear a white v-neck t-shirt, and a pair of jeans every day I would. It’s what I feel comfortable in, and I think I look alright in it. It might not be the height of fashion, there are no SuperDry logos, there are no triangle designs, there are no scoop-neck chest hair abominations on display, but it works for me, and I will continue with it. I can then swap in cardigans, shirts and jackets over the top. Project 333 has an excellent article on men who dress with less here.

Space
As I had reduced the amount of clothes in my life, it made me look at the other things I surround myself with. There are so many touches doing this has had on my life, and I am sure I will miss some off even now. I don’t like having a pile of things on my desk. I don’t like clutter. I don’t like items on my desktop background. I don’t like stacks of paperwork sitting idle. I don’t like things overfilling shelves. I don’t like things being out of place. Maybe some of this is OCD. I am slightly obsessive compulsive and I’m the first person to admit that, but, having cleared out a lot of things on a simple two question test, I feel much better in myself. I honestly feel clearer, and more productive as a result of not being so surrounded by things.
The two question test is composed of:
Does it serve a purpose?
Do I get enjoyment out of it?
Anything else can go.

The clothes I have serve a purpose, in that I’m not allowed to wander around naked. I get enjoyment from the neat shelves of books and films I own. My laptop gets two ticks. My guitars get two ticks.
It’s amazing how much you can clear out. I still have a number of items which mean something to me, have some sentimental value. I’m not going to start burning my photo albums or throwing family heirlooms down the stairs but I found as the days ticked by I started to wonder why I hold onto all these things. They sit on shelves, and get moved if they are in the way of something worthwhile. They need dusting at some point. They don’t mean anything. They’re gone.
I don’t think I have minimised as much as most people do. Some people really go for it. I can’t do that yet. I have my own ways of doing things, and that is what I am happy with.

Under the rules of Project 333 I am allowed to unpack everything I put away three months ago. I know exactly where it is, in a huge suitcase in the loft, but I won’t be putting everything back where it was. I don’t need to. I may substitute a few bits, but there are people who could do with those clothes a lot more than my suitcase in the loft or I could, so this weekend I will be taking a trip to a local charity shop or drop off point to get rid of more things I own that I don’t really need.

If there is any part of you that is curious about this, then I recommend it. Choose things you enjoy wearing, things that are comfortable and versatile and just do it. You will be surprised how long you can make 33 items last. I could go for a fortnight without wearing the same top twice if I wanted to. I believe that’s how I started out with the project in fact, just to get everything into the cycle. There’s nothing to say you have to be a particular age or gender to give it a try, and the benefits are beyond those I have written about and are personal to me.
Start today, and don’t look back.

July 12, 2013
Murakami logic.

I have just finished reading Kafka On The Shore by Haruki Murakami. Rather than just give a straight review of the book, which was excellent, I thought I would explain what it is about his work I find so compelling.
I first picked up Norwegian Wood as the result of a recommendation by someone with an excellent opinion on things that matter. She told me it reminded her of me or at least that she imagined it to be the kind of book I would enjoy. This was almost a decade ago. Since then I have also found comfort in Hard Boiled Wonderland, Sputnik Sweetheart, Dance, Dance, Dance and his most recent work 1Q84. Each and every time I take the move to get lost in his world for four or five hundred pages I find myself falling in love with the power of the written word all over again.

The incredible thing about Murakami’s work lies in his ability to force you to accept. In order to enjoy the beautifully-crafted worlds he describes you need to leave your logic at the door. There’s something joyous and childlike about doing so. To read Murakami’s work is to accept things for the simple reasons and explanations provided in the way children when running through the phase of asking why everything and anything happens will be given the briefest of insights. That’s what his writing brings back.
Without this acceptance there is nothing to be gained.
It teaches you to fill in the blanks. My understanding of what took place between Kafka Tamura, Nakata and the others is my own. There is no trite explanation, no big reveal, it’s all open to insight, philosophy and spin.

His work is some of the most beautiful and poetic I have seen, and given, I imagine some of this is lost in translation from the original Japanese manuscript, it is a real feat. His understanding of characters, of consciousness, of kindness and selfishness, of sex and longing, is so close to a revealing diary entry it makes for pages that turn themselves.

Each time I invest in Haruki Murakami, I know I am in.

July 10, 2013
In defence of… senior musicians.

At the weekend I was fortunate enough to be at Glastonbury. I’m not going to deliver a blow by blow account of my time on Worthy Farm because:
a) other people covered it better already
b) I think I have a book on the subject in the pipeline (my head).
The working title is Triange: My Spiral Into Decadence. It might not come to anything but I’m going to hold stuff back for it just in case.

I am blogging today to talk about the more advanced (as in years spent on Earth) of those performers I saw, and the unnecessary comments I heard about them.
The obvious one is the Stones. It seems easy to pick on the Stones, but you watch Mick Jagger flail, gyrate, sweat, gurn, grimace and grin for two hours on the Pyramid Stage before you call them past it. There is nothing wrong with being in your seventies and still making great music, and performing it live. These people are due our respect. If it wasn’t for them, the majority of music we enjoy now would not have that edge. They set the whole bad boy mould, and it shouldn’t be forgotten.
Their live show, as headliners on Saturday night, was hands down one of the best I have ever seen. They absolutely destroyed it, and they pulled in the largest collected crowd at Glastonbury to date. That is not the work of old codgers. It’s the blood, sweat and tears of a band of rhythm and blues musicians who have been going for fifty years. In his book Life, Keith Richards said he saw no difference between what they were doing and the old blues musicians who inspired them, who would play until they dropped. John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters did just that, and they got the respect they deserved for it. Music and performance are not things that abandon you when you jowl, wrinkle and don’t fit the aesthetic anymore. If the Stones want to carry on, let them carry on. I think the 200k plus people bouncing to Satisfaction on Saturday night would agree with me.

Earlier on the same day I was fortunate enough to see (Sixto) Rodriguez, a folk/blues musician from Detroit who was the central focus of the documentary Searching For Sugar Man. If you haven’t seen it then stop reading here and go and see it, it’s incredible. It’s the kind of story Hollywood wishes it could come up with. Rodriguez disappeared after making just two studio albums including the seminal Cold Fact which unbeknownst to him became one of the defining albums of the 1960’s, particularly in South Africa where it was viewed as a call to arms against apartheid.
Following the documentary Rodriguez came out of retirement and is now back doing what he does best and what he loves, aged 70. Seeing him perform songs like Establishment Blues and I Wonder live was incredible. Despite needing assistance to get out onto the stage, once he was there he completely owned it. Dressed entirely in black, and backed by a band a third of his age Sixto Rodriguez received the much awaited applause he deserved and yet I still overheard the greying, desperate horndog in front of me in the crowd refer to his arms as being “bingo wings”.
Do people not realise we all age? Those same traits you point out in others, are just the passing of time. Those wrinkles are stories to tell, knowledge gained and respect earned and I think that is far too easily forgotten.

July 4, 2013