Paul Schiernecker

Blog

Mancrush Friday – George Harrison.

I’m a massive Beatles fan, I have been since I was seven years old and the first proper song I learnt at my piano lessons was With A Little Help From My Friends. The thing I always had wrong about them, well for the majority of my adoration, was that it was all about Lennon and McCartney. It was only when I was at University and was sat down one night with a few joints and a copy of A Concert For George that I started to realise how wrong I had been.

George Harrison or ‘the quiet one’ as he was often known was by far the best guitarist of the Beatles, and was ahead of the curve in terms of form. He could also throw together a brilliant song, an element that the Beatles only seemed to accept later in their career (See: Here Comes The Sun, Something, Sun King). As further evidence his Let It Roll has more plays on my iTunes than Lennon’s solo efforts. I had to delete McCartney’s because it was so twee it made my gums hurt.

What makes Harrison a crush for me is the fact that he was just in it for the music, he would not put it down. He wrote with Clapton, Orbison, Dylan and Petty, he just wanted to make great music and that’s what his legacy will always be, as a musician, and a songwriter and a good old boy.

June 1, 2012
General ignorance.

There seems to be a trend for people to act stupid. I base this on the people I come into contact with on a day to day basis, my work colleagues. It amazes me some of the basic points of spelling & grammar, history, science and geography that people I work with have absolutely no comprehension of. The worrying thing is that they were at school at the same time as me, they studied the curriculum I did and it annoys me that I worked hard, learnt something and ended up in a job with people who couldn’t tell me who the Prime Minister is, or the difference between ‘their’ and ‘there’.

It goes beyond playing up to it though, it’s very worrying that my generation will one day have children and will answer questions for them when they reach that delightfully inquisitive age and the majority won’t have an answer because they’re just as confused as their toddler. We have bastardised the English language enough, where will that end? Maybe there’s something wrong with me, maybe it’s only because I’m aware, because I’m not so fucking bubbly and ignorant that these things jar me, they certainly don’t seem bothered about it. When I explain something to them I’ll get cries of ‘shuuuut uuuuup!’ which apparently doesn’t mean shut up at all, it means ‘I’m amazed by your teachings, please elaborate’.

I guess it boils down to the question; do people think they get something out of being lost? Of not understanding the world around them? Or do they think it’s cute?

May 31, 2012
Trains – a flash fiction piece.

He lifted his knees and rolled through ninety degrees in the chair to let the woman by. Why she insisted on taking the window seat he would never understand. It would be a much better system if everyone sat in the order they were due to depart from the train he concluded to himself. He returned to his normal position and readjusted the book he had been reading before she awkwardly passed by. He couldn’t switch off from it though. He’d suffered for forty five minutes with people bashing his knees as they passed, and swinging bags in his face but it should have all been her fate. If his system were in operation she would have suffered at the hands of the commuters.

He realised then that he was deviating, and what really mattered was that he hated his job.

May 30, 2012
I am not a lizard.

This post is going to be in keeping with the English attitude to obsessively talk about the weather, the reason for this? I can’t stand the heat.

I know it’s a terrible thing to harp on about but I definitely prefer it when it is cold, you can always warm up if you’re cold, it’s a lot harder to cool down.

My bedroom is easily the hottest room in the house, a matter made somewhat worse since the installation of cavity wall insulation in the last couple of years. I can’t even think in there, it’s ruining my precious sleep and all of my stringed instruments keep slipping out of tune.

I also never feel particularly comfortable in summer clothes, it feels fake, like I’m trying to pretend I’m a part of it.

I’m being silly I know, but I just don’t operate well in this level of humidity.

May 29, 2012
Written.

Finally managed to get my redraft done. I’m fairly set on not changing too much now. I’ve emailed the 174 page document to a few friends who have kindly agreed to read it before I start sending it off to publishers and literary agents but I think it’s finished. I’m already well on the way with the follow up, the plan being that I won’t struggle with ‘the difficult second novel’ if I’ve already written it when the first one is published.

It’s nice to know that I’m through with something that I’ve been working on for just under a year, that I have actually managed it, achieved a goal etc. Now it’s on others to see the next step along, I have very little power, just got to hope that someone sees the potential in the story, it’s going to take a lot but I want it most of all.

May 28, 2012
Tattoo No. 4.

Woke up this morning glued to my bed by the tattoo I’ve now got along the back of my rib cage, it’s the outline of a puzzle piece, based on the Biffy Clyro album cover and Simon Neil’s tattoo. It’s my forth tattoo and getting inked is never a decision I take to lightly. I give myself at least a year on an idea before I would ever get it adorned. My reasons for this are pretty obvious, I don’t want to be stuck with a passing fancy for the rest of my days.

My tattoos are very personal to me. The first one I got was the lyrics to Led Zeppelin’s Stairway To Heaven across the right hand side of my chest – To be a rock and not to roll. To me it symbolises keeping up your own reasoning, finding your own path, it’s something that I have always felt, that I couldn’t just fit in, that I wanted to do things on my own terms and I was twenty before I got that one done. I remember the tattooist (at Woody’s, High Wycombe) advising me against getting it on my chest because it would hurt but it’s the least painful one I’ve had.

The second tattoo I got was a bit of a rebel move. My mum decided that she wanted to move out, and I’ve since come to terms with that but I wanted some way of depicting the fact that it was going to just be me, my dad and my brothers so got The Cure lyric ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ on a scroll over a heart. I think of it as being a note for us to stick together, and I am very lucky that we are all in it together.

In the last year I lost both grandparents on my mothers side and a very close friend and I wanted to get a tattoo that made me feel that there was a reason for it. I have ‘My body is a cage’ tattooed on my right arm for that. All three of them died because their bodies were plagued by something and I like the idea that they are free of that now, that being in this life was holding them back, and that they are better and happier wherever they are now.

The most recent one to me symbolises the way I think about myself, that I am always looking for that last piece, and improving myself to try and get it, to be complete, to achieve everything I ever dreamed of. Maybe when i get there I’ll mark that as well.

May 27, 2012
Chopped.

Finally made it to the barbers chair. Nine months of no maintenance had done terrible things to my hair but now it’s all gone. I feel better, lighter, more air dynamic. I think I look dreamy.

May 26, 2012
Mancrush Friday – Jeff Buckley

I’m currently reading Dream Brother and as such I feel I need to make it clear that my mancrush on Jeff has very little to do with his physical appearance, because the book states in no uncertain terms that he hated being viewed as a pin up or a sex symbol. What I love about him is his absolute passion for music, his sense of humour and his gift.

I first got into Jeff Buckley because a girl I fancied was really into Jeff Buckley and to my lesser mind I felt the best way of ensuring she thought I was worthy of her was to just like all of the things that she liked. As is often the way my love for the artist has stayed whereas the girl has drifted off into the ether, I thank her wherever she is for introducing me to Jeff’s work.

I suppose most people know Jeff for his cover of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah which was thrown into the spotlight in December 2008 as real music fans campaigned for it to be Christmas number one over that years X-Factor winner whose name has long since disappeared into the mists of time. What you should know about Buckley is that his version of Hallelujah is just the tip of the iceberg. I’ve spent the last seven years collecting bootlegs and live albums and he really has something for everyone. At points some it gets awkward or self indulgent (particularly live vocal solos) but there’s something quaint in that, nobody else has/had the audacity or the voice to try it. The way he composed his songs, the haunting melodies, the soaring vocals, it’s just really something to behold and embrace.

Jeff was prominent when the world was just turning away from grunge and looking for the new thing and as much as he thought it was what he wanted he became a victim of his own success, being hounded by the press and fans of his father (cult folk singer Tim Buckley) to the point that when he could have made an incredible second album he felt put upon by everyone at his record company who were demanding hits from him when all he wanted to do was thrash about and make noise with his friends. Throughout his brief career and indeed brief life he stuck to his guns, held his integrity high and did what he wanted and that’s a beautiful character trait.

May 25, 2012
Daddy Cool

Today is my Dad’s birthday. I won’t divulge his age, I don’t think he would want that. What I will say is that I have a couple of brilliant presents for him and that he doesn’t look a day over fifty.

I have a strange relationship with ‘my old man’ by which I don’t mean that we struggle to get along, or that he wasn’t much of a presence when I was growing up but quite the opposite. I have very fond memories of him reading to me at night, of running across fields with a kite, of nights in watching television I probably was too young for.

He was the one who introduced me to music. When people are impressed by my eclectic taste and knowledge it’s down to him. I remember listening to a lot of glam and rock when I was growing up, and I’ve never strayed too far from that, his LP of Physical Graffiti is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen or heard in my life.

Dad recently said that when I start recording songs again he wants to play bass on them, and I love that idea. He’ll have to fight my little brother for it but whatever.

I guess all that matters is this, happy birthday you lovely older me.

May 24, 2012
Charity begins very close to home.

I am in the bath.

This is the first blog I’ve written in the bath but it probably won’t be the last. The reason I am in the bath is thusly. Today I spent six hours digging. Those of you who know me will know this is highly unusual behaviour for me, manual labour is not my forte. The fact that I describe it as not being my ‘forte’ should give you a fairly good depiction of where my allegiances lie when it comes to work. The reason I spent six hours digging is that I was invited to help out on a gardening project at Little Havens hospice. Little Havens is a charity very close to me (not just geographically) and I’ve attended fundraisers and the like for them in the past, my friend Luke did a skydive for them at the weekend. Today was the first occasion I ever felt like I was properly involved and got my hands dirty in every sense of the word.

It wasn’t until we were sat being given an introduction that I really began to think about what it is that they do there. Every year Little Havens needs 2.4 million pounds to serve as a respite centre for children and teenagers with terminal illnesses. They also cover a multitude of other areas of expertise and I recommend you look them up.

We were split into teams and given different jobs depending on our abilities. For some reason I was put to work with the men. They didn’t approve of me saying that the top layer of soil we were turning over was like the surface of a Creme Brûlée, and from that point I kept my dessert romanticising similes to myself.

Laying here now I can’t think of when I physically worked myself that hard and I feel a lot more fulfilled as a result of it than I would have doing pretty much anything else.

May 23, 2012