Paul Schiernecker

Category: Other

  • Mancrush Friday – Heath Ledger

    I recently rewatched The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus, the 2009 Terry Gilliam film which halted production due to the untimely death of its leading man Heath Ledger. They later decided to tweak the story and got Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell to play Tony in varying depths of other worlds. It’s an enjoyable yet somewhat disjointed film that gives a glimpse of what Ledger could have done had he completed the film.

    I’ve been a fan since 10 Things I Hate About You which at first I dismissed as nonsensical 90’s romantic comedy which seemed to be doing the rounds at the time. It was only when a close friend told me that I was really missing out that I watched it, and appreciated the work that had gone into twisting The Taming Of The Shrew and taking it to an American high school. After that I kept an eye on Heath Ledger through Monsters Ball, Ned Kelly and A Knights Tale.

    He seemed to come from the same school of acting as Johnny Depp, it was as though he had other objectives and acting was the means of getting to it. He was a rock and roll actor. It shone through in his performances in Lords of Dogtown, Casanova and I’m Not There. There was something rebellious and yet something wholesome and likeable about him at the same time.

    It’s just a shame that we have a finite collection of his work now, but what a body of work to call your own.

    20120706-080105.jpg

  • Just run.

    I managed to drag my skinny arse out of bed this morning and go for a three mile run. I can’t seem to get cool again. It did give me time to think though, and that’s why I do it.

    It’s so easy to get wrapped up in all of the little things that we think our lives consist of that it’s really good to just run them off. That’s my approach to it anyway. I do some of my best thinking whilst running (and also in the bath (yes, like Archimedes)). What I like to do is spend the first half mile just getting used to running, on the basis that twenty minutes before my body had been rolled up in a duvet dreaming of electric sheep, quicksand or forced marriages.

    After that first half a mile I open my mind and I think about what I’m working on, whether that be a novel, script, song, my actual job. I’ve written entire chapters in my head doing this, it helps to be away from being able to do it if that helps, it gives me a chance to think the whole thing through, not just to jump into it like I tend to.

    This morning I was thinking about a long-stalled project that I’ve been pondering on and off for over a year, I won’t say anymore than that because it may never evolve beyond being an idea I had whilst running. The important thing is that without a tool to hand I can just think, and it’s a nice break from everything else.

    Go and do it now, just do a mile, you’ll be amazed how you snap out of thinking about running. You let your body do what it does, and get on with some thinking.

  • Passion.

    Last night I had a wonderful evening with some of the best people around. My girlfriend served up duck and dauphinoise potatoes that would blow your mind.

    Over the course of a couple of glasses of wine I got into a lengthy discussion with her brother Joe who has set his sights on self recording, producing and releasing an album. It’s a goal I have thought and written about at length and it’s nice to be able to swap stories on technique and heartbreak. The joy of these conversations is that Joe has that fire to do it, it’s a rare quality to find in someone. We both work full time but are intent on trying to do what we love.

    We talk about the problems of just getting someone to listen to what it is that you are doing, and how isolated it is as a hobby. We have both literally spent entire days sat in the dark in front of a screen and emerged with little more than a basic drum track. It’s what I talk about so often though, you have to try. Talking to someone who has similar goals is the only anchor you can have when it’s entirely your own project, it’s our own private Musicians Anonymous meeting and I thank our girlfriends for being so understanding.

  • Are you gonna go my way?

    Feel a little conspired against at the moment. A lot of it I can’t go into which is obviously frustrating to anyone reading this. All I will say is that you can’t trust anyone’s word.

    What I want is for things to tip back the other way, it wouldn’t take a lot. I’m giving fate and chance and coincidence a lot of opportunity so I hope in the coming weeks I don’t feel quite so humdrum.

    Don’t get me wrong, I’m very lucky to be young, in love, have a job and an excellent jumper collection but I’m being greedy and that’s human nature so it’s fine.

  • Grindhouse.

    Back to standard every day work. It’s not that I don’t enjoy my job, it’s just that the last two weeks (at my leisure) have shown me the life I want. I can sit and write or make music for days on end, I can spend some quality time with my girlfriend, I can get things in motion.

    I miss Paris. I know that’s the point of a holiday but I don’t usually get this hung up on things. It is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen (if not the most) and I got to enjoy it all with the girl I love.

    I think what this two weeks has given me is an insight into how things could be if everything goes my way, if I get picked up by an agency or a publisher and catapulted. I know it’s unlikely but a boy has to dream, otherwise what is there?

  • Sunday on my mind.

    I should really be packing. I’m going to Paris tomorrow morning. Instead I’m on my bed watching Arrested Development and eating lunch.

    Packing is one of those horrible and thankless tasks. I like to leave it to the last possible moment. The closer I am to leaving the surer I am that the stuff I pack will be the stuff I need, not that I really require much. I should just got up and sort myself out. That knitwear won’t pack itself.

  • Saved.

    I would like to dedicate this post to the fine fellows who saved me from standing awkwardly in the corner of a nightclub last night and took me away to weed, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and talk of the future.

    It was one of those nights where no matter what I tried I just wasn’t going to get drunk, and dance about and have a whale of a time. It was good to see my friends, as it always is, but the dynamic of my favourite watering holes appears to be changing. There was a time when everyone in there looked so cool or mental that you felt you were really part of something, last night it was like a One Direction video. I guess it’s just further proof that I’m getting older, that things can’t stay the same and that we are doomed to repeat our mistakes.

    I’d been abandoned by my friends who were in the pursuit of girls with low self esteem when an old school friend spotted me, and said he was off if I wanted to walk back with him. I’m a firm believer in signs, and I took this as such. I wouldn’t say it was fate but when somebody offers a change in environment a lot of the time I will accept it (as long as it doesn’t involve leaving my beloved Essex). I think that comes from ‘accepting and building’ at Improv, that’s the basis of it all. You take whatever someone says, you accept it – ‘Yes, I will leave this disenchanted hole’ – and then you build – ‘Shall we get high?’ – incredible things can happen just on that basis.

    Got to bed at four after downing beans on toast, woke at ten and cracked on with some work.
    Accept and build.

  • Mancrush Friday – Bob Dylan.

    Oh hear this Robert Zimmerman I wrote a blog for you.
    First person to get that reference wins a prize.

    I should probably clarify this by saying that I am mostly talking ’60s Dylan when I say I fancy him a bit – puppy faced troubadour haired folk singer to wire haired purveyor of psychedelia, that was his golden time, and it shows in his music. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with Dylan’s recent outputs, I enjoyed Modern Times and Together Through Life but it’s a world away from the power and the wonder of Blonde On Blonde, Freewheelin’ or Highway 61.

    I think what I love most about Dylan is his ability to change when nobody else wanted him to, he wasn’t happy being labelled a protest singer, or as a revolutionary and he saw what The Beatles were doing having grown up listening to American rock n roll records and thought to himself ‘I’m bringing that back home’ – hence the album title.

    He worked with so many incredible talents over the years and has released an incredible amount of records (not even taking into account the live and bootleg albums) but he has full support and adoration and is respected for his art. That’s a very difficult thing to accomplish, to be revered.

    I know he is not to everyone’s liking, I’ve tried to get countless people into his work, starting with the most accessible hits but it just doesn’t stick. Once you’re on Dylan though, you’re stuck.

    20120622-095248.jpg

  • Done.

    So after a string of posts where I complained that I hadn’t got up and done something I finally managed to get up and do it yesterday. My first novel; Situation One, is now winging its way to the literary agency Darley Anderson for their perusal. I hope that they can spot something worthwhile in it, that someone there is on the same wavelength as me and that they can find it a market. It shouldn’t be hard, it’s the best book I’ve ever written.

    I don’t know where the push to actually send it off came from, I’ve been deliberating over minuscule changes to the dynamic of sentences for weeks now, and then worrying that my cover letter and synopsis didn’t come off right and in the end I just accepted that I’d written them, and there was a reason that I had written what I had and that was what should go off to the agents so that’s what has gone off. Once that envelope was sealed I was sure of what I was doing, I had the words ‘just do it already’ cycling round my head, those were my Grandma’s words of advice when months ago I griped to her that it was really hard work writing a book. I wish I could call her up and let her know that it’s done.

    The woman in the post office didn’t even congratulate me on my achievement, she just bunged a stamp on it and sent it off to the mystical world of the post office backroom where incredible things we could never even fathom occur. I asked for a proof of posting receipt just so she would know it was a big deal. Afterwards my girlfriend asked me how I felt.
    ‘I feel like it has taken a weight off, it’s out of my hands now’
    ‘That’s good’ she said, ‘are you crying?’
    Just for the record, I wasn’t crying. I had something in my eye, I think it was pride.

  • Further delays.

    Rather than getting everything wrapped up and sorted yesterday I decided to spend an awful lot of time working on my new music project. While this isn’t the worst use of my time, and it was on the agenda for this week sending off my novel was supposed to come first because the sooner it is off, the sooner I get published,write the screenplay, retain the merchandising rights, write the soundtrack, become a millionaire. See, I’m not as all over the place as I make it seem, there is a definite goal, good intentions.

     

    Today I am going shopping though. It’s payday, one of only twelve days a year when my account is in credit. Next week I’m off to Paris so I need to make sure I’ve got enough striped shirts and pencil thin moustaches to see me through. I’m kidding. Usually I’m one of those people who just gets by with what he’s got but holiday is something else. That’s a very British attitude isn’t it. People save all year for their holidays, and that is what this feels like, like I’ve earned it. So I’m going to get some Euros, and possibly some clothes and then take my beloved for lunch, because it’s payday, and I’m avoiding work.