Last weekend, in a move that can only be described as ‘trying to find material for a book’, I went to Amsterdam with my dad and two brothers. It was Father’s Day and he’s also due to get married in August so it was a joint stag/Father’s Day treat for him. The greatest joy was in the fact he had no idea what we were doing or where we were going.
Without his knowledge, I broke into his house and stole a series of polo shirts, his passport and a toothbrush. Then we arranged to pick him up at six in the morning and took him to the airport. Then I remembered that he hates flying and usually pops a couple of valium before take off.
We had a weekend. I can’t say if it was great or not but it was certainly a weekend. The bulletpoint highlights are the following:
Dad ordering a cappuccino in every coffee shop we went to
Getting turned away from the only cultural thing we had planned because we hadn’t booked tickets
Watching my dad’s horrified face when I showed him our AirBnB (he slept fully clothed with his passport in his pants)
Waiting forever for everyone to be ready to do anything
Learning where “the line” was in my relationship with my father
Spending some solid time with my dad and my brothers
We are all getting older. We are all doing our own things so it takes something special for the four of us to be together. It was great to see my old man out of his comfort zone and to treat him like the princess he is. Can’t wait for his second stag.
I didn’t know Anthony Bourdain.
I don’t claim to.
I can’t imagine what his friends and family have been going through in the last couple of weeks.
It just served as a reminder that despite having the life that a lot of us are striving towards, ithe black dog doesn’t stop barking at the door.
Bourdain was cool. A friend recently described him as a culinary Hunter Thompson. I don’t know how either would feel about the comparison aside from the obvious, that they were gifted and that they made the decision to take their own lives.
I’m not going to dwell on the man much because it’s not my place to but he had a heart and a spirit that I greatly admired. He traveled, he ate and he wrote. I looked up to him as someone who was closely linked to the life I most wanted to live. He celebrated what it was to live fully and to embrace other cultures. He made no attempt to pretend to understand anything he didn’t and listened and engaged with others. He seemed cool, punk as fuck and very kind.
I’ll be spending the next couple of weeks working my way through everything I can read or watch about him and remembering a man who broke the mold.
Last week I got to enjoy the intoxicating scent of a pre-show toilet freak out. For any of you who have followed my ridiculous antics for a while, you’ll know this is part of my process before I take to the stage. This time it was for my return to improvised comedy. I haven’t taken part in improv for almost four years after it became a SFZ in late 2014. I’ve got to say, it was great to be back.
I first got into it after I was tricked. My friend Danny convinced me it would be good for my confidence and that there was no obligation to do anything outside of my comfort zone. I’m sure he was entirely aware that existing is outside of my comfort zone, but I persisted. On our first night at the class we were told we would be doing ten weeks of the course before a showcase in Southend. I stared at Danny, hard. He smirked.
I have met some of the most incredible friends through improv. It takes a certain kind of person to wish that kind of panic-inducing fresh hell upon themselves and, as it turns out, they’re the kind of people I want to be around. There’s a wonderful supportive network of individuals waiting.
I’ve come a long way from that first show but it hasn’t changed the absolute terror that grips me in the half an hour before I am due onstage. I’ve been told that I appeared to be drinking desperately at the side of the stage, not just before, but during the show. I think I managed to fathom my way through it all. I made jokes about topics I would not usually touch with a bargepole, the whole time supported by Lee, John and four new improv friends.
It might make me more uncomfortable than when a friend’s mum hits on me but it is a great form of discomfort.
I’ll be shaking my little tush again this Saturday but Laughter Academy showcases are on from Wednesday to Sunday this week.
Last night I was lucky enough to see Young Frankenstein at the Garrick Theatre and I cannot recommend it highly enough.
I grew up on a steady diet of Mel Brooks films so was naturally drawn to the news that it was on in the west end. I have only just discovered that it has been around and on Broadway for more than a decade. We only received it in the UK in October, so I don’t feel quite as guilty.
It managed to perfectly balance everything about the 1974 film that I knew and loved with a host of new songs and gags thrown in. I came to Young Frankenstein via my grandparents, who told me that it was one of the best films of all time. They were not wrong. They were never wrong.
I think my favourite moment, even knowing exactly what to expect and how every beat of it would go, was Puttin’ On The Ritz. It’s a slice of brilliance that only Mel Brooks could ever pull off. It’s daft but so clever. It’s wise and beautifully orchestrated but ridiculous.
If you get the opportunity then I definitely recommend seeing it while you can. It’s the best thing I’ve seen since Springtime for Hitler.
I’m very much on a “new year, new me” hype. As part of this strange near wanderlust with life, my joie de vivre (yes, I had to look up the spelling), I have discovered the gym at which I have been a member for over a year, offers free classes. Realising that I had been missing out on a fantastic opportunity to get something for nothing, I signed up for a Pilates class.
I woke up this morning to discover I had booked the class for yesterday and am a fucking idiot. Seeing how I was already awake, I decided to go to the gym and join whatever class was going down. The reason I didn’t fancy my usual workout is that Sunday was leg day and it still hurts when I cross my legs like I’m in Basic Instinct.
There would be no alarm and no Pilates,
No alarm and no Pilates,
No alarm and no Pilates, please.
There are two “zones” of the gym in which I have never stepped. One is the closed off area for classes, the other is the “ladies only” zone. I went to a ladies night on a Philippines beach and ended up shouting at backpackers and vomiting Mai Tai. I assume the same would come of entering the ladies zone in the gym. I wouldn’t get in without a Some Like It Hot makeover.
I stepped into the class and waited for someone to stop me. Classes are available to book online. You have to snap them up real quick because everyone is trying to be a better version of themselves in 2018. If there were too many people in the room I would back out and do some other gym stuff. I sat on an exercise bike at the back and checked the class on my phone. It was called Indoor Cycling. I quickly booked myself in after finding there were only six of us taking the class. How difficult could Indoor Cycling be anyway? I’ve done Outdoor Cycling.
It turns out that Indoor Cycling is fucking Spin. Spin is just a brand name. I’m comfort eating a pack of Aldi’s Cookies ‘n’ Cream right now to get over it. They’re fucking Oreos. Oreos are just a brand name. The difference is that I like Oreos. Oreos are kind to me. Spin was not.
Five minutes in, I discovered that I wanted to vomit. Then the instructor said we weren’t done with the warm up and I fainted in a way that would make an actress in an infomercial blush.
I think the key lesson is that women are fucking tough. There was one other guy in the class. He was wheezing too. The women were hardcore as fuck. I was struggling to keep pace with the changes and so busy trying not to vomit that I couldn’t reach to turn up the resistance or to give it 100%. I don’t give anything 100%. I’m certainly not going to make that change for Spin.
As we stretched out and warmed down and I realised that I had survived the worst ordeal of my life since shitting myself on the Inca trail, I wondered why anyone would ever put themselves through such a traumatic ordeal. I went through all the stages of grief; denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance through that forty-five minute class. On the way home, I wondered if I was dead. Now, as I sit typing and stinking up the joint, I want to go again. Fuck you Spin.
Last week I was lucky enough to appear on Saint FM with Sarah Banham. We had a lovely chat, most of which we were able to air. I got lost on the way to the studio, which Sarah wasn’t going to let me forget. It’s also worth remembering that the last time I was on the radio, the hosts had to make a public apology after I made a comment about urinating on a lover.
I am pleased to announce that my fifth book, I’ve Got Sol, is available now.
Detailing the fine adventures I had whilst trekking the Inca trail to Machu Picchu, it’s a fun forest romp for the whole family, featuring themes of love, overcoming obstacles and poop.
Read an excerpt from the first chapter below:
Annie looked at me, her eyes already shrink-wrapped in tears by whoever had offered kind words into her tiny, elf-like ear, poking through her grown-out ginger hair. It had returned to its natural colour after years of peroxide abuse. As a result she looked like a completely different girl. I was drunk, but didn’t feel as far gone as she looked; a scale I used to justify my own binging.
We were in Agenda, one of the far-too-many trendy city-boy bars populating the golden mile of London. It was the kind of place where boys with smarmed over undercuts threw Ralph Lauren jumpers over their shoulders, thinking it was an acceptable look and not the uniform of the basic dick. I did not feel at home in Agenda, in my flapping flannel shirt, washed-out skinny jeans and cracked Converse. Give me personality and attitude, give me sticky carpets and the roar of the jukebox – not all those clean surfaces for coke, remixes of songs that shouldn’t ever be touched and overpriced cocktails.
‘I wish I could come with you’ I said, biting my lip in the hope it would prevent tears from accumulating.
‘You can come and visit me anytime, just book a flight and I’ll come and meet you.’ She seemed so much stronger than me, so much better too. She was really doing it. She was getting out.
It was no good. It was too much. I was going to cry.
Shortly after Annie and I returned from the Sahara she told me she planned to go travelling for a year. As a friend I supported her but reserved strong doubts it would come to anything. I know a league of people who said they would go travelling and see the world, shopping in the 9–5 in order to experience something. There were so many vague self-made promises and world maps littered with push pins hanging on the walls of rented bedrooms. I gave Annie my full support because I didn’t fully believe she would go through with it. I was naïve.
When we returned from our desert adventure I already had my next step booked. The same group who had organised the Sahara trek had announced the following year’s trek, traversing the Inca Trail in Peru to the ancient lost city, Machu Picchu. I booked my place. Annie didn’t have anything to look forward to. When I signed up, she told me she would love to go but had her own plans and needed to see them through. She promised me she would see South America, but that it came later, after her own plans. Annie’s wanderlust was admirable. I should have known I could only anchor her for so long before she made that next leap, like Sam Beckett.
As the months leading up to my Peru adventure shortened, her plans snowballed. Annie saved up; she started cutting nights out with friends from her regular agenda. She ordered travel guides that she read and highlighted during our lunch hours together. One payday she told me she had booked the first in her series of flights. A stone dropped into the well of my stomach. The ripples caught me. It was very real. She was going and without her, I wasn’t sure what I would do.
People we worked with asked if something was going on behind the scenes, a clichéd will-they-won’t-they romance. Annie and I were never Ross Gellar and Rachel Green. We’re not Harry and Sally. The truth is I was at a stage in my life when I was struggling with a number of things and she popped up. I’m a cynic at heart. I don’t believe in ghosts or Gods or fate, I struggle to understand exactly what, if anything, placed me on this planet. There was something about Annie and the way she came into my life I am thankful for. If a force of some kind brought her about then I owe it a humble respect. She’s the little sister to a boy only ever stuck with brothers.
There were no romantic intentions between the pair of us. Annie knows too much to ever consider me a worthy adversary. She always had that gun to my head.
Annie eventually handed in her notice, having kept quiet for so long about her plans. She sent out an invite to a leaving do. Far too many people asked what I was going to do without her. I’m still not entirely sure.
‘You can come and visit me anytime, just book a flight and I’ll come and meet you’ she said. Tears collected at the corners of my eyes. I failed to blink them away. One rolled down my cheek.
‘I’m really going to fucking miss you’ I said and I grabbed her in a hug. I was drunk I realised as the Woo Woo-infused tears disappeared into her hair. ‘I’m jealous of you and I’m going to miss you but I’ll come and see you, I’ll come and see you.’
I stayed clung to her until I could compose myself and then I sat back. Annie dabbed at her eyes with the back of her hand. I ground my teeth.
‘I don’t know what I’m going to do without you’ I said, while a voice in my head informed me I had said far too much and should hone it in a little. My damn sense of consciousness and self-awareness stepping in, knowing I had crossed a line.
‘I know, but I’ll be back’ she said. We hugged again.
Annie had booked her flight to Thailand before Bali and Indonesia. She planned to see how things went from there.
‘Don’t worry,’ said one of the women who worked on Annie’s team, ‘she’ll be back before you know it.’
‘That’s the problem,’ I said. ‘I don’t think she’ll come back at all.
This week in my bizarre little double life, I have been lucky enough to stay up through the night working on re-drafts of a script, drunk whiskey in Ving Rhames’ favourite London pub and talked about guns, opera and the most effective way to simulate brain matter with a university lecturer.
We are still hard at work on the Delectably Dead project which has its opening night in about three weeks. Scott and I sat up all night playing around with the script and doing silly voices. We then read it to George and were all happy with what we had. Then I slept for the longest time.
When I came round, I caught up with one of my best friends at the OKH in London Bridge before heading to GBK and eating my weight in sweet potato fries. I have since become addicted to abbreviations. Over the course of our catch up we talked about love, money and zombies, the key topics which had changed since we last spoke. There’s something daunting about the idea of turning 30 so it was good to try and hash out some kind of plan for that with one of my nearest and dearest.
On my night off I hit the gym and then spent an hour on the phone to my dad explaining what a zombie dinner show is. Despite the fact he gets scared when Zombie Pete comes out of the shower curtain in Shaun Of The Dead he has agreed to come and see the show. I am so excited about it that I could vomit. In fact, I did, just last night, but that was because I got a little overzealous with the tongue scraper.
Scott, George and I met with a special effects director, fight choreographer and all round awesome guy who works locally and agreed to give us some pointers for the show. Without seeming pious in any way, shape or form he provided a list of things we needed to work towards pulling off as well as pulling out some of the most incredible anecdotes for us to enjoy. He has even said he is interested in coming to see the show and giving us lessons in stage combat. I’m a lover, not a fighter, but that is not to be missed.
With enough juice down us to satisfy our five a day we headed back to the unit and prepped some of the additional work required for the play. We want the project to be as immersive as possible so there are all kinds of tricks and games going on behind the scenes. I don’t want to give anything away but at midnight I was running around a car park with a Nerf gun, pretending to be a girl from above the Watford gap.
As I have mentioned recently, I am really enjoying where I am at currently. It’s sometimes surreal, often tiring, but I would not give it up for anything. Scott says you have to throw enough shit at a wall for something to stick. I’m trying to throw enough Schiernecker.
Paul Schiernecker 