Paul Schiernecker

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  • Oh, Vienna! – a review

    If you prefer your writers to be prolific young go-getters, may I recommend the new book of short stories by Joe Gardner. Not only is it packed with the kind of stories that make you chuckle to yourself on an international flight to the extent your girlfriend tuts at you in disgust, it was also released within months of his first novel The Life and Loves of Jet Tea which I previously reviewed.
    There’s a lovely overlap of characters and content in Oh, Vienna! as well as the explanation of some outsiders, contemplations on the greatest detective series of all time and new stories altogether.

    The collection begins with Oh, Vienna! which sees Gardner’s title character from his novel and Hayden head for the Austrian capital to piss off travelling bands, locals and tourists in their quest to get drunk in another city. It culminates in a drunken fight any serious drinker should be envious of and disgusted by simultaneously.

    For Gillian, in La Rochelle is possibly my favourite story of the collection, and not just because it opens with a lyric by Beirut. It introduces the character of Walter Zane, who was absent from Jet Tea, but is part of the same group of friends. The story follows his chance encounter with a Canadian girl, in London for one night, who refuses to give him any of her personal details so once they pass (like the romantic ships in the night) he is left to wonder what happened to her, and where she got to, and if she ever downloaded his EP as she had promised to.

    The Regular Customer and The Exploding Detective are Gardner’s extensions of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes series. He begins by explaining the characters and the stories are now public property and his affection for the original stories comes across as Holmes and Watson venture into a pub to solve a mystery as quickly as downing a pint, and in a last outting old boy attempt to take down Moriarty. Once you’re into the stories, it’s hard to think of it as fan fiction which I suppose it would fall under the umbrella of. Gardner is a master of matching the temperament of the stories and ensuring his versions fit as a further puzzle piece you didn’t realise was even absent.

    My Holiday In Depravity displays what Gardner does best, exploring and explaining the drunken mind, the mysterious logic of it all, and the depths we can sink into in our twenties when it all seems like such a laugh. What’s On Your Mind? meanwhile is a satirical and poignant look at the way social networking has become the norm, and filters a lot of the real feeling from the world. It’s like reading a suicide note too late.

    Coppervid Dafield is Gardner’s abridged autobiography, explaining just what pushed him into the writing he now freely exhibits and the birth of it all. Remembrance feels like a grudge being beautifully exorcised. It touches upon a number of social and political points while maintaining what is becoming Gardner’s signature writing style. I was instantly reminded of Iggy Sutcliff, a character of my own creation I used to perform very much the same task.

    The collection finishes with From Nightmares, seven short stories intended for reading under the covers with held breath. It’s an incredible thing to be able to compartmentalise a book of short stories in such a fashion, and feels as though one has completely departed from the drunken antics in Embankment and headed somewhere far more sinister. The most compelling I found to be ‘When Can You Start?’ provided as the first chapter of what Gardner intends to be his next novel. It’s stark and clever and recognisable. I won’t say anymore. I don’t want to detract from the first reading.

    The impressive thing about the collection is it feels solid. It was a matter of months ago Joe Gardner dropped Jet Tea on the world, having spent four years writing and researching his friend’s drinking habits, for the good of the book you understand. As a result of our similar gun it to 88 attitude I feel I have found a kindred spirit in Joe, and I always look forward to reading more of what he has to offer. He’s driven, headed and destined.

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  • 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. 

  • Amsterdam.

    I’ve finally stopped moving. It’s the first time in a week I’ve been able to say that. I flew from Southend to Amsterdam, back again, and then on to Glastonbury. Today is the first time I’ve not had to go go go. It feels pretty sobering, and sort of awful with it. I’d like to continue this model of just disappearing off on jaunts, of having adventures, but that’s what my whole writing gig is about, it’s what I want to do. I need to fund these things by working and until someone pays me to write, I work for a living, rather than getting to live for my work. 

    Our trip to Amsterdam was rightfully magnificent though. I call it ours because I took Kate. It was her birthday present, and although I would never have thought of it as being her cup of tea, she mentioned how much she would like to go there at the start of the year and I made it so. The joy of Southend airport now flying to Amsterdam is just awesome. It didn’t feel as though we were up in the air long enough for us to have crossed any real kind of boundary and so we found ourselves dragging our confused selves onto a train at Schiphol airport and wondering why tannoy announcements were not in our mother tongue. Twenty minutes later we were in Amsterdam. Ten minutes later we were on the Overtoom apologising to the owner of our rented apartment for being quite so timely. We left her to clean and wandered around the Vondelpark, eating paprika crisps and taking photos. When we returned to our 70’s themed lodging, we just dropped everything and took off for Central, not really knowing what to do or where to go exactly. 

    The trick is to follow the trams. All the trams of Amsterdam appear to have a final destination of Amsterdam Centraal station and you don’t need to go far for the famous sights of prostitution, magic truffles and marijuana. Of course Kate wanted to do all three, simultaneously, whilst racking up lines of coke, kicking children with clogs and throwing brownies at swans. I kept her on the straight and narrow. We wandered lonely as a cloud, of hash pipe smoke, and eventually came across Baba, a cafe made famous by it’s appearance in my book of short stories Where Did All The Money Go?

    (I should point out it was famous before I wrote about it).

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    Now, I have been told the best coffee shops are to be found on the outskirts, away from the well-worn tourist traps of Amsterdam central and that may well be but I’m all for embracing my inner tourist, especially when on a city break. 
    Baba is just cool. It has everything you need, the staff have always been friendly and helpful, and their brownies are delicious if not somewhat paranoia-inducing. I treated Kate to a coffee and a brownie and then bought a couple of joints before we tried to walk back to our apartment. Somehow this proved to be a lot harder than finding Amsterdam Centraal had been. We walked alongside canals, over bridges, over more bridges, beside canals, over canals, beside bridges and eventually found our way to the Vondelpark, which we assumed was a small park set back from the city. By this point, I felt light. My eyes were a bit heavy but I was walking on the moon. I mentioned this to Kate. Being the man of the world I am, I wanted to make sure she was okay because she’s not one for sporadic drug use in any way, shape or form, and I have  something of a history of it, especially during my student days. Again, it’s all in the book. 
    Our conversation went something like this:
    Paul: I feel really light
    Kate: Do you?
    Paul: Yeah, do you?
    Kate: No. I’m wearing Doc Martens, it’s impossible to feel light in Doc Martens.
    Paul: Good point. 

    We started on our way through the park. It was picturesque and dusky. Everything was beautiful and at peace and suddenly a deranged homeless man in double denim started rambling towards us. Ordinarily, I would have used the powers of reasoning and deduction to deal with the situation. For some reason they seemed to abandon me and so instead I entered into a game of Chicken with this poor man who had been fucked over by life. He reached out for me, and for a split second the delusional state I was in meant my brain was screaming ‘HIT HIM! HIT THE HOMELESS MAN!’
    Luckily, another unfortunate sort on a bicycle came past and distracted him so we were free to go. For some reason the Vondelpark was constructed to meander all over the place like a snake playing jazz. We walked for what felt like three hours, trying to pretend everything was fine, and then it started raining and we ran back to the street to get our bearings. We were only about halfway back by this point, but being back on the main road made everything seem that much easier. 

    When we got in, we shook off the rain, made tea, sat on the balcony and had a joint together. As I’ve said before, there’s something beautiful and bonding about sharing a joint with someone, it’s like the peace pipe of the modern age. It was a really nice experience. Then we settled down to watch Kill Bill and freak our freaking noggins off. I can’t really remember what happened but Kill Bill is a very intense film to watch when high. The colours seemed sharper than blades. We didn’t say a word for over an hour and then my intense cotton mouth meant I had to head to the kitchen for some juice. Then, something like this happened.
    Paul: Here you go
    Kate: Thanks
    Paul: It’s tropical
    Kate drinks
    Kate: Goddamn, that’s some good juice. 
    Paul: I know! Do you want some crisps?
    Kate: Really badly
    Paul goes for crisps
    Kate: Bring the biscuits in as well
    Paul returns with both crisps and biscuits
    Paul: I need to shut the curtains, people can see in
    Kate: Don’t worry
    Paul: I’m not, I just need to shut them
    Paul gets up and shuts curtains
    Kate: Oh my god, it looks like the walls are closing in on me, open the curtains
    Paul: Kate, don’t be silly. It’s fine. 
    Kate: No, I don’t like it
    Paul: Oh wow, come and feel this fabric, these curtains are amazing. 
    Kate: I can’t! My legs don’t work!
    That seemed to settle the matter and I returned to the sofa. Everything became very funny, see.
    At some point, I put Kill Bill Vol. 2 on, but I couldn’t remember doing it, and we freaked out over the fact we had forgotten which parts of which films occurred in each. Then we went to bed. 

    The following morning we went to Anne Frank’s house. Kate had recently read her diary, and it was to be a key part of our trip. We arrived at about ten o’clock by which point there was a queue of about two hundred people already outside. The problem of being in a city for three days is you can really only do things if you aren’t going to spend upwards of four hours queuing for them. We decided to take a canal boat cruise around to the other side of Amsterdam and visit some museums. The boat ride was really nice, and we pulled stupid faces at each other to pass the time.

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    We went to the Van Gogh museum, made famous by it’s appearance in Doctor Who, or if you’re not a fan, then it is made famous by the fact it is a museum dedicated to Vincent Van Gogh. I’m still unsure how to pronounce Van Gogh. 
    Seeing his artwork was really inspirational. The famous pieces (Sunflowers, self portraits etc) are all there, and it’s nice to see such a memorable piece of art live up to it’s name and reputation (go fuck yourself Mona Lisa). 

    We also visited Amsterdam’s sex museum, which has some of the best unnecessary erotica I’ve ever seen. Regardez, a lice comb:
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    That evening we went to the Hard Rock Cafe, which boasts some marginally memorable pieces of memorabilia, like the thing someone wore once, or a guitar held by a guitarist etc. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a geek for that sort of thing, but when there are so many Hard Rock Cafes around the world, the genuinely impressive pieces can get a little sparse. That being said, their Alabama Slammer went down a treat.
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    After that we went back to the apartment, I had another joint and we watched Donnie Darko, until I fell asleep and missed the ending, and Kate had to carry me to bed. 

    Third and final day in Amsterdam, it’s a Tuesday lunchtime, we go and look at some girls in windows:
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    Note: This is not actually a part of the Red Light District, and is in fact a picture of the back of Kate’s head (excellent bob), beneath a sign in the sex museum. Kate is not a part of the sex industry. 

    It turns out that Amsterdam don’t really bring their A-game when it comes to girls in windows on a Tuesday afternoon. Don’t get me wrong, they were all charming, insightful and delightful creatures but they didn’t inspire lust in the way I guess it is expected for the whole thing to work. I’m not sure I could ever pay for sex. Not beyond the way I do currently, the way we all do currently in fact. You buy a girl a drink, technically you’ve paid for sex. Take her to see Frankenweenie at the cinema, technically paid for sex. It’s a tightrope and we’re all dressed in macs, pressed against windows, dribbling. 

    We also went for pancakes. One of our favourite films (500 Days Of Summer) has a brilliant scene in a pancake house which spells the end of the relationship between ZDC and JGL.
    Wow, I’ve just realised they have initials like airport abbreviations. Cool. 
    Where was I? Right. There’s a scene in 500 Days where Summer says “I love these pancakes”, and it’s something we say to each other a lot. If you aren’t us, which odds state you aren’t, then you might not get it, it’s fine. It’s just one of our things. 
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    So in summary. Go to Amsterdam. I described it once as “Disneyland for students”, but it’s also Center Parcs for drugs, Alton Towers for drink, and a donkey ride down Brighton beach for prostitution. 

    ImageI call this one: Cock beside a cock.

  • High tide mark.

    I just wanted to take the time to thank everyone who has bought or downloaded my first book, Where Did All The Money Go?
    I finally got my filthy little paws on some download stats this morning. There were over 170 downloads in the UK alone, a further 50+ in Amerikey, and then various pockets of sales across Europe. That’s on top of the 80 physical units sold.
    I’m not much of a businessman and I would never choose to be, however, I call that a rip-roaring success.
    You can tell I’m not much of a businessman because I’m making 6% of each physical sale.

    I have made very definite plans for the money though, and I wanted to take the time to tell you where all your money went.
    I’m in the process of redrafting my second novel (Visions Of Violet). Once completed, I plan to send it out to agents and publishers across the land in the hope of snaring the elusive deal my first novel didn’t quite manage to cop. I’m going to use your money to pay for the printing, packaging and posting of those copies to agents and publishers. Your purchase has become an investment and I thank you for it.
    Once I’m done redrafting Visions, I will be redrafting my first novel Situation One. I plan on self publishing that little guy as no agent would touch it. It’s essentially the novel WDATMG spawned from and it is very good. There are more adventures from Michael, Oliver, Eli and Ross, but in the redraft I am hoping to rope in all the new characters added to the short stories. I believe a number of you have a soft spot for Madcat now.
    I’ve checked up on him, he’s doing fine and Lucas has informed me there is another story to be gleaned from their relationship. So I guess it makes sense to follow the publication of S1 with another book of short stories, which I have already started drafting in my head while running.
    I’ve also re-opened the case file on my three-part fantasy series, Coppypock, and am planning on writing a Palin-on-acid type book on the Sahara later this year.
    Basically, I’m running myself into the ground between this, improv, gigs etc. so I’m going to take a week off.
    My week off will be a couple of days in Amsterdam with my favourite, followed by Glastonbury 2013. I’m stockpiling material right now, and I can’t wait to share it.

    Thanks again.
    Peace & love.
    Be safe.

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  • Free for 5.

    This week my book is free to download for Kindle. 

    I don’t care if you have a Kindle, you have some way of downloading it and reading it, whether it’s on your iPhone, iPad, generic smart phone that wants to be an iPhone, or just on a computer. Even if you just download it so I get off your back about it, download it now, here.

    At the moment it is sitting pretty in the Top 20 free Kindle books in the Humour category. 
    This is what I have been working towards for the last couple of years, or to be cliche about it all, what I’ve been working towards all my life. The blood and sweat and tears inherent in this book is something I am immensely proud of, and any success it gains is as a result of the incredible people who believe in me. I don’t know what I would do without each and every one of you. 
    Please keep pushing it. Keep spreading the word. Good things can happen if you work hard enough. 

     

  • Volunteer.

    This morning I am in pain. I noticed it when I tried to sit up in bed. It was as though there was something jarring the movement in the upper half of my body. The reason being I spent yesterday doing a hard day’s graft.

    If you know me at all, you’ll know I am not one for physical work, it not being my vocation nor something I was built towards. I have more physically in common with the tools themselves. This was different.
    I spent yesterday at Little Havens children’s hospice digging up their grounds and allotment patch. You may remember I did this last year. The sense of a job well done was so good I had to offer my services up again.

    Little Havens offer care and support for children with life limiting illnesses and their families. As far as charity beginning at home, this is probably as close as I can get as the complex is based just a ten minute drive away.

    I know there is no selfless good deed, and in taking time away from work I not only got to spend the day out of the office and away from the computer screen but am also filled with a sense of achievement so great it feels as if I was paid for my labours. What I have taken away from working at Little Havens is that there are a lot braver people than me, a lot more caring people than me and that there is always something anyone can do to help.

  • Nifty fifty.

    I just wanted to let you all know that I have checked the statistics page for my book this morning and discovered I have sold fifty copies. That’s fifty actual copies of something I wrote. I can’t get over how awesome this is. 

    I wanted to take the time to thank everyone who has bought it so far, and sent me pictures of their copies, and asked me how it’s going and everything else.

    I’m living some kind of surreal dream existence. I didn’t think I would ever get to a point where people were actually reading something I had written. I honestly appreciate every single one of you for taking the time and spending the money on something I have made. 

    I love you all.

  • What are the things people do when they aren’t writing a book?

    I’m one of those terrible people who just constantly goes on about the thing that they’re doing. I’m going to be wanky and call it ‘being an artist’.

    The problem is, everyone is doing something, and it’s very hard to get your voice heard. That’s why this morning I’ve conducted myself in a way I would usually hang, draw and quarter anyone else for by just spamming everything with links to my book’s page on Amazon. It’s here by the way. 
    Now I’ve told as many people as I think I can tell without getting really creepy about it I am left with the terrible lonely sensation of job completion. It’s an unusual thing, especially for me because I’m a sucker for never seeing anything through to a conclusion. There are so many things I leave up in the air that it feels strange to sit here knowing my product is complete and live and purchasable (for the very reasonable price of £4.99). 

    The thing is I’ve wanted to get Where Did All The Money Go finished so I could allow myself to get lost in another project, I think it’s just a bit too soon, like having my heart broken. I have so many other ideas, and I can’t wait to step away from the dick and fart jokes I imposed upon myself with WDATMG and Situation 1. The two most immediate projects are redrafting Visions Of Violet, the book I wrote for NaNoWriMo last November and finishing the comedy show I’m co-writing. Those are the top two, and then everything else falls in under that. 

    I can’t imagine a life where I don’t constantly have something to be getting on with, it’s how I choose to function and I’m very happy in that. 

  • Project 333 – one month in.

    So a month ago today I started on my own Project 333. 
    You’ll want to read that post first, it’s here. 
    Today I am allowing myself some adaptation to it all. 
    I will still keep 33 items of clothing in my wardrobe but the last month has taught me a little more about my wearing habits than I had expected. 

    I started with:
    7 t-shirts
    4 jumpers
    4 cardigans
    7 shirts
    2 pairs of jeans
    1 pair of shorts (because I’m hoping for a summer at some point this year)
    2 coats
    1 jacket
    1 blazer
    1 necklace
    1 earring
    2 pairs of shoes

    There are some of those items I am yet to wear, and I can put this down to any number of reasons. Despite limiting my wardrobe, I feel I have improved it. Each time I go to put something on, it’s something I want to wear, I don’t have to pile a bunch of stuff out of the way in order to get to ‘that’ t-shirt, or whatever else it may be.
    What I have learnt is that I do wear a t-shirt pretty much every day, with a combination of the other items I have allowed myself. This has left me with the dilemma of often running out of t-shirts (because if it is a running day I hadn’t set aside work out t-shirts). If the washing doesn’t get done for a week (as is often the case at Schiernecker Towers (we’ve got a lot going on)) then I am pretty stumped when it comes to choosing clothes. I have therefore given myself two extra t-shirts.
    Of course, under the rules of Project 333 I have to only wear 33 items. This means getting rid of something. Despite my clean looking cupboard there are still shirts and jumpers I favour above others so I have cut one shirt, and one jumper in favour of two t-shirts. I also fancy a change to the two pairs of shoes I allowed myself so I’m shopping in my long winter coat (which was a bit of an oversight for an April – July Project 333) and am getting my desert boots out. 

    When I am done with all this, I still don’t think I could go back to having as much stuff as I did. There are clear favourites, and on 12 July I am going to make a conscious effort to give as much away to charity as I can, and then make sure I have more of my uniform items. 

    Another issue I thought I would have is people noticing I am always in the same thing. That hasn’t happened once. I can go a week without repeating, two if I wear every t-shirt once, and every shirt once, but it hasn’t come to anyone’s attention, at least not to the point where they have commented on it. 

    If you’re thinking about doing this, joining in, then you should. It’s becoming a really interesting experience. It’s a very cathartic process and means you can shift focus to where it is needed.

  • 21.

    Today is my baby brother’s 21st birthday. 
    It’s really strange to think of him as an adult. I don’t know if I ever will truly be able to grasp it. He certainly doesn’t act like it a lot of the time. When I think about how we were when we were little, and how much I doted on him and how much he adored me in return, I’m saddened by the way things have to change but spending time with him, and my other brother, and their friends last night just shows that things changing is not necessarily a bad thing. We all have our own things going on, but when thrown together everything we have shared in the last two decades is inherent in it, it sits between us and it’s a fantastic thing to be a part of.

    I feel very lucky to get along with my siblings. I know far too many people who for a number of different reasons don’t have that same relationship. There really is nothing like a brother. 

     

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Paul Schiernecker

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