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  • Friends in plays on Leicester Square and how nothing pushes me on like seeing others do well

    Morning.
    What a great day for fuzzy heads.
    I’m a fuzzy head today. Are you a fuzzy head?
    Last night I went to see the final night of The Bastard Children Of Remington Steele. Written by brilliant comedienne Sadie Hasler, it’s a dark and twisted comedy about a group of orphans who take on the belief the fictional Remington Steele is their father to assist one girl’s trauma at the loss of her own parents. 
    It far exceeded my expectations, and really highlights what four people are capable of doing in the confines of a stage play. Everything flowed so incredibly swiftly, they dropped and picked up characters with natural ability, there were heartwarming moments, there were laughs.

    This morning I am left with the slight hangover of a man coaxed into a cavern to drink red wine, and a desire to work. I would love to write something like that. It was very inspirational, intentionally or not and I have woken with a million thoughts I want to pursue. 
    First, the book. Then the music. Then the play?

  • An unlimited supply (BFI).

    Last night I went to the London Comedy Film Festival showing of Wreck It Ralph. I managed to secure a plus one and took my little Mex for an evening out. It was so good. I won’t say too much about the film because that is what Screen Geek expect from me. It is visually incredible and very funny, and fits in nicely with the continuing legacy of Pixar films. That’s it though. That’s all I’m saying.

    The showing was followed by a Q&A with director Rich Moore and Sarah Silverman who stars in the film as Vanellope. It has really invigorated my desire to one day make my own film project. I’ve had so many things on the back burner for so long, and I would love to get behind the camera and really make something of them. I think when a director does a job well it shows, and listening to Moore talk last night you could tell he knew he had hit the jackpot and was indeed living the dream.

    It’s a shame directors aren’t given more time unless they’ve got all kinds of mega sass and a massive following behind them, because there’s a reason they get to be in charge of these projects, and there is a lot to be gained from them.

  • Commuter haiku #9.

    Knees kiss so awkward
    There must be an apology
    Before we get up

  • The worst decision I made all week.

    Hello, and welcome to another edition of ‘The worst decision I made this week’ and here’s your host, I am!
    The worst decision I made this week was considering cancelling plans with a friend. As you may have gathered I am no social butterfly. When I leave the house it is for work or Kate as a general rule. I realise this sounds like an awful way to conduct oneself. I also spend a lot of time in queues if that makes you feel better about it.

    Last night I just couldn’t be bothered. I had a full on day at work and I just wanted to go home and wallow. The ball wasn’t in my court though fortunately.
    The friend I had planned to meet up with is my longest serving friend, he top trumps the lot of you. I don’t know what I’m going to say about him so we will just initial this one. My friend S had tried calling me a couple of times during the day. I text him and had not received a response by the time I left work. I started towards the train station figuring it gave him another half hour to get his arse in gear while I either walked to our arranged meeting place or jumped on a train. I was very undecided.
    He called and there was just something in his voice. I realised we hadn’t seen each other in two years and there was too much unsaid we needed to catch up on.
    After a couple of beers in Soho I confessed to him I had thought about ducking out or cancelling or taking a rain check whatever the fuck that means. He understood completely. We both work in quite highly strung industries and he agreed there are days when you need to just lock yourself away and respect your own privacy.
    He’s right, as usual, but I sometimes go too far the other way.

    S has always been the outgoing powerhouse of the pair of us but seeing him last night I could tell something had changed. He still has the spirit and we talked about it at great length but he is being heavily oppressed and put upon by those above. I hate seeing him like that and the areas we are both working in are no what we should be doing at all but a man has gotta eat.
    So eat we did.

    After eight beers we wandered the confused side streets of east London until we found a Mexican cantina. This might be the booze talking but wow, that was some good Mexican. I’m pretty sure we were taken for being a couple but I could do an awful lot worse.
    It was nice to see the pressure of the day leave our shoulders, all of that stuff becomes nothing when you’re with a friend who shares the dream and shares the drive and just gets it.
    I’m very lucky we have managed to stay so connected when months tick by in the way they do.
    No matter where we get to and what we are doing there is something going back and forth and long may it continue.
    My parting words were “don’t let the bastards grind you down”.
    I hope you get to read this one S, and I’ll see you soon.

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  • Commuter haiku #8.

    I like your jumper
    Hope it keeps you warm now that
    Prices have gone up

  • Satori In Paris.

    I’m currently reading what I understand to be Kerouac’s last book. I’m struggling with it for the same reason I struggled with the documentary What Happened To Kerouac? which I reviewed for Screen Geek way back when.
    While the book offers an insight into how Kerouac sees himself and Paris, it just highlights what a shambling drunkard he became. That’s not to say it isn’t a good book or I don’t appreciate the kind folks who bought it for me, it’s just different from the beat poet stuff I love.
    He reminds me of a drunk Shatner, hitting on girls young enough to be his daughters, frightening locals and being kicked out of hotels.
    There was a time when I would have thought this kind of thing brilliant and rock n roll and whatever else but seeing how he died shortly after from an internal haemorrhage doesn’t make it all that rosy. He didn’t light up the sky like the Roman candles of On The Road, he just began a caricature drunk he could write about.

  • On gay marriage.

    Last night I got into a discussion on gay marriage. It’s incredible we still exist in a world where there is a discussion to be had on the subject. While I appreciate I am coming at this from the view of a straight mid-twenties male I am ready to be silenced by anyone who feels they have more of a right to air their views on the subject. I would classify this as any gay man or woman who wishes to get married.

    People talk an awful lot about the sanctity of marriage. I don’t see how who people choose to marry being against the sanctity of marriage, if anything it is purely sanctimonious. The sanctity of the church has been questioned in recent years. I don’t think given the advances in culture (questionably) and science (definitely) we can consider anything to be made of the bible as a verbatim piece. As Captain Barbossa would say, “think of it more as a guideline”.

    I don’t understand how we can put aside animal sacrifice (Lev 1:9), selling our children into slavery (Exodus 21:7) and murdering anyone who works on the Sabbath (Exodus 35:2) but somehow two people of the same sex aren’t allowed to be married in a church.

    I think it should be entirely down to personal choice. I would like to one day get married. I don’t necessarily want to do that in any kind of religious building because of the backwards and vindictive state of religion in the world today.
    The fact there are couples who are denied the option in the first place does not make sense to me.
    It seems fine for people of the cloth to finally come clean on their sexuality (that almost reads like a pun, sorry) but two people can’t get married in a church because “marriage should be between a man and a woman”? What has that got to do with anything.
    I thought sex should be between consenting adults but that hasn’t been the way of the church for centuries.

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  • Commuter haiku #7.

    Much more of the same
    Than you can ever explain
    Call a doctor now

  • The Bell Jar.

    Last night I finished Plath’s only novel. It was my first dalliance into her world aside from the poetry Kate sometimes frequents upon my ears. It was an incredible book, dark and terrifying in places but with an excellent sense of humour.
    Plath’s barely fictional Esther Greenwood is a surprisingly forward-thinking and empowering character considering the time she existed. The story follows her travelling from her home in Boston to take up a magazine apprenticeship one Summer. Completely separate from the world she is expected to enjoy Esther feels lost and disorientated at the prospect of just being a wife and a mother. Upon her return home she intends taking up a writing course but is instantly dismissed by letter. She attempts to write a novel herself but her fear of her lack of life experience prevents her from doing so.
    Esther’s depression begins to rise until she is institutionalised and then titters on the edge of what is real and what she wants.

    It’s a brave novel, and one I am very glad to have read.
    It’s hard to read completely objectively given Plath herself committed suicide a month after the book was published. There are so many warning signs she is truly suffering and yet it wasn’t a time when such states of depression could be readily identified and dealt with.
    All the same it’s an insight into how sometimes no offer can be good enough.

  • Near year.

    I started this blog at the end of February 2012, the 27th to be precise. Since then I have covered most things that have happened to me. It’s served to introduce me to a lot of people and ideas and things but like all good things it will eventually end. Stop crying.
    I wanted to write a years worth of blogs and I’ve nearly done it. I know what I’ll do with it all after but still have some stuff to sort out in that regard.
    The things writing every day has taught me are incredible, especially to someone who wants to be a writer. I can’t recommend it enough. It doesn’t matter how inane a thought or how dull a day, I write it down and there’s something to be gained from that.
    Just write and see where it goes.

Paul Schiernecker

I'm Paul Schiernecker, who the hell are you?

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