Paul Schiernecker

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  • What improv gave me.

    For the best part of a year I’ve been attending an improvised comedy workshop. Tonight is our second show and to put it in the words of the little girl in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation I am ‘shitting rocks’. I wouldn’t want it any other way. Five minutes before I ‘perform’, be that in a band, playing acoustic, giving a speech, improv, whatever, I take myself away for five minutes to make sure the Fear isn’t going to rise. This stems from a gig I did for a friend where I ended up puking before we were due onstage. Since then it’s become a ritual to go and hide for five minutes in the toilet. Earlier today it was best described by my partner in crime Jocasta as my ‘Eminem bit’.

    That aside though, improv has done a lot for me. I’m not quite so overwhelmed or scared by groups of people or looking like a dick because every week for two hours I do my best to make people laugh by looking like a dick. It’s only when you manage to knock that self-conscious feeling aside that you can happily act like a dick and I think people appreciate that.

    I’ve also met some awesome people, it’s a strange mix that turn up for the workshop but it feels like we are all going somewhere (but this is a topic I’ve spoken about before). The important thing to remember is that I trust these guys now, they sort of get me (as much as human beings can ever begin to understand each other) and we have a laugh (often at each others expense).

    Improv will also forever be associated with my friend Danny, who I lost in November of last year. He dragged me to that first session without telling me anything about it, including the fact we had ten weeks before our first show, I will never forgive him for that, but that’s the reason I still turn up week after week, to show that there was more to it than just wanting to spend time with him, I was learning a lot more about what I was capable of, what I was comfortable with and it’s made me all the better for the experience.

    I think every once in a while it’s good to throw yourself into a metaphorical ice bath like that.

  • I’ve lost today’s blog

    I’m really annoyed. I started a post this morning about why we should legalise weed and it’s decided to delete itself before I could finish it. Curses.

  • Crying (sad) wolf

    I’d like to begin this post with a disclaimer, I am not pointing a finger at anyone in particular. If you’re annoyed by what I’ve said then you need to think about why and maybe reconsider the way you conduct yourself.

    In the four years that I have been working I have noticed a very casual attitude to the concepts of stress and depression. It seems perfectly acceptable to threaten to get signed off by a doctor if you don’t get your way and I have issues with that.

    I’ve suffered with bouts of depression for over a decade and know it is not a subject to be taken lightly. I am therefore disgusted that anyone would have the audacity to cry wolf on such grounds. Getting signed off from work with stress or depression is not a get out of jail free card, it is not an extra holiday, it is a serious matter that people clearly aren’t educated about properly. The idea of someone threatening to get signed off seriously upsets me, because it makes the very poison that curdles inside me when i trough seem like it is a joke.

    The fact of the matter is that it’s something that I am working through, and will continue to work through. I was offered to be signed off and didn’t take the bait because that just means what I’m fighting has won an extra bit of ground, it’s interrupted my flow. Although when it is bad I can spend days in bed I try to hold these off to weekends if necessary, the thought of being off work due to my problems is not an idea I would entertain. I have also been offered (and refused) anti-depressants. My reason for never doping myself up in this way is exactly the same, it means you can’t handle it on your own, and want all of your senses closed off. From what I know of anti-d’s they can be more dangerous than the depression itself. I’d much rather slowly face my demons than hide from them.

    Thank you for reading.

  • Why I refuse to live for the weekend

    I’ve noticed a trend on my Facebook news feed of people complaining about it being Monday, like they didn’t see this coming. I can only assume they are not aware of Mufasa’s Circle of Life speech. Surely this is the most immediate example of wishing your life away.

    I love a weekend as much as the next guy but there is a lot more to enjoy, it isn’t just a link between the weekends, it isn’t the DLR, it’s the majority of your time. If you’re living your life for the weekend you’re reducing your life to 28.5% of what it should be, that’s depressing right. I decided a while ago that the best thing to do was to find wonder in the little things you enjoy during the week, I like Mondays because I secretly crave structure and heading to work is plenty of structure. I like Tuesdays because it’s usually the night I cook for my girlfriend and I chuffing love cooking. The week continues like that basically, you find some little thing to enjoy, because that’s what counts, it’s the little things.

    It just seems a terrible shame to only think of your weekends as a time to ‘get messy’. Maybe it’s another example of me heading for being a cranky old man but I don’t see the joys in that anymore. It ruins my brain completely, I don’t feel right with a hangover, I’ve lost faith in going out on the lash, I don’t have the time for it, there are better things to do, it’s just a shame nobody agrees with me.

  • Now that’s what I call a first novel (an almost review of Less Than Zero)

    It’s hard to review a book you’ve read at least ten times because you’re instantly hung up on it all when you start. A friend (the same one who couldn’t work out why he didn’t have an Aston Martin) asked me how I could possibly read the same book more than once. Friend is a strong term actually, especially considering he said that.

    The wonder of Less Than Zero is just how stark it is, all of the characters may as well be Clay [the protagonist], everyone is blonde, tan, thin, high. The things he sees and experiences don’t seem to register and it’s hard to like someone who is so non committal to an opinion (I know that’s ended relationships for me in the past). What makes it work is that everyone is so rich and thin and tan and young but they’re all complete fuck ups. That’s the real joy of it. I done know much about Easton Ellis’ approach to research for the novel but it feels personal and I can only assume he knows these kids, or knew these kids, and they’re a similar breed to what pop up in his other work (even American Psycho has a crossover with Camden).

    I’d tell you to go and pick up a copy, but assume everyone has read it. It makes me think of the Beatles lyric: ‘I don’t care too much for money, money can’t buy me love’. The characters carry on in their eighties vision of ownership and material worth and it’s so empty, they might as well be fucking a crack in the wall.

    Read it though, it’s very interesting.

  • Why being a quarter of a century didn’t destroy me

    I turned 25 last month, an age I previously would have referred to as being adult. At eighteen I assumed that by twenty-five I’d be set in my ways, have my own place, maybe even be married, silly little eighteen year old me.

    The state of play as I see it id that I’m twenty five, living at home, in love but with no intentions on getting married any time soon and just beginning to lay those first tentative steps on the way towards my chosen vocation. There are a number of reasons that I’m behind on the assumed goals, some are/were outside of my control but I was blocking myself for quite some time.

    A lot of the problem was that I was obsessed with the 27 Club, a group of artists and musicians who died at that age, I’m sure you’re aware of that stigma. That obsession turned into me believing I would expire at twenty seven as well, and that I needed to get everything done before then. It turns out that there is nothing that inhibits me quite like a mortal deadline. Once I got over that, and started thinking about the outrageous range of jumpers with elbow patches I could enjoy well into old age it lifted that blockade and made writing a lot simpler, because I was doing it for me, not to be idolised and thought of as a tortured genius, but in the hope that my love of writing could provide for me. It has been deeply refreshing.

    This means that I am only a third of the way through my life, everything I have done so far I could do again twice. That’s not something to balk at, it’s something to embrace, that’s a long time to get things done, and something that I can’t help but cherish.

    I was recently talking to one of my friends about the pair of us ‘getting old’ and both agreeing that it only felt like it had happened recently, the truth is I know I will never grow up, especially with friends like him around. I hope I am still laughing at felt tipped custard creams at fifty, sixty, seventy….

  • You’ve got to try.

    I was on a bus this morning (because I’m a sucker for sharing my travel time with twisted broke fuckers) and spotted an old school friend who I haven’t seen in a while. We had a bit of a catch up on the way to our mutual destination and he asked what I had been up to.
    ‘I finished my novel’ I said. It still fills me with pride to be able to say that, despite the fact I know the hard part comes next.

    I told my friend that I had been in touch with a girl from our school year who had her first novel published last year to ask if she had any advice, she did; she was very helpful. It’s annoying because I am jealous of her, as we should be because she’s done it, she’s got to the goal that I can’t get out of my head, she tried and she got there and a lot of the time that is all it takes, a point proven by our continuing conversation on the bus this morning.

    My friend said to me ‘did you know [boy we were at school with] just bought an Aston Martin?’
    ‘Oh wow’, I replied, ‘that’s awesome. I’d love to be in that position one day’.
    ‘Yeah’ my friend replied, ‘it makes you wonder what you’ve done in your life to not have deserved an Aston Martin’.
    I couldn’t help but dwell on that statement. Firstly there is nothing to say that our fortunate school friend deserves that, he may be excellent within his field (which I’m sure is the case) but he could be killing people for money, or worse still, be working in banking. What matters is that he tried, and this may be a point that some of you disagree with me on because it’s quite a new concept to myself. I wonder if my friend (the first friend mentioned, the one on the bus) has tried to be in a position where he could own an Aston Martin, if he has given it his all, because as humans that’s all we can do really, just give it a shot. I know that’s what I am doing, there’s no guarantee that anyone beyond my close friends will ever read my novel but I’m going to try and make that happen and maintain that nobody deserves anything.

  • Gigs AKA How to tell if you’re becoming a cranky old bastard.

    In the last week I have been to three gigs, namely Civil Wars, The Shins and Noah & The Whale. I’ve got a few observations I would like to share with you, but heads up now, this isn’t a triple review.

    The first is the issue of cameras and smartphones being used to capture the action. I don’t remember things being this bad before, maybe I’m just not going to gigs where people get chucked about so much they wouldn’t dare venture into their pockets for their camera/phone. I really don’t want to watch the gig I’ve paid £20+ for through the smeared screen you’re holding above your head. Do these people not realise that the pictures from anywhere other than the barrier are just going to be a sea of blinding lights and the backs of heads. Maybe for each of them this is their first gig and they want to capture it by taking blurred distant shots of the band, I don’t know. I really can’t understand why someone would try and record it, there is no pocket sized device in the world that can cope with the light and sound of live music, I don’t see what purpose it serves, people know what those songs sound like, you could just tell them you were there, show them your ticket, tell them the set list if you must but why would they want to watch and listen to the chino-clad morons you surround yourself with chanting along to L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N? It reminded me of when I was in Paris in 2005. I was really snap happy at the time and one of my travelling companions and very dear friends stopped me from taking a photo of a man fixing a photo booth in an underground station telling me it would be much better as a memory than as a picture. I didn’t understand what he meant at the time but now I do, it feels better in my head than it ever could look in a single frame, it’s everything that happened before and after, it’s all part of the trip, that’s what a memory is.

    My second problem is people who now like the bands I like, I read somewhere recently that nothing will put you off a band like meeting other people who like that band, it’s painfully true. Last night I watched as everyone stood stock still through the wonders of Rocks & Daggers and Blue Skies but then erupted when Charlie introduced Tonight’s The Kind Of Night in a way that made me cringe for about four minutes. If I discover a band I will always delve into any back catalogue to see how they got to the conclusion that is the current album, it’s ignorant to act otherwise, nothing will develop your love of a band like working out what got them there. Shout ‘Charlie, I love you’ all you want, it doesn’t change the fact that I was listening to this band before you even started getting periods.

    And that’s how I know I’m becoming a cranky old man…

  • ‘Just finish it already’.

    That was the best piece of advice I got for my novel, and this weekend I managed to finish it and now I’m bummed out that I won’t be able to feed that back to the person who provided me with such a sound turn of phrase.

    I don’t know if you read my blog often but you may have noticed that I don’t write at weekends, the reason for this is that for the last nine months I have spent my weekends writing my first novel. I’ve always had massive issues with finishing anything off, I’ll make all these grand plans and schemes but when it comes down to it I can never reach a conclusion, and it was only ever down to me. There was nobody stopping me but myself. I’ve cleared that aside in the last year and started work on a story about one of the highlights of my 25 years, University. It dawned on me that all I’ve ever wanted to do was write, it’s been in me since I learnt to read and got wrapped up in Lewis, Tolkein and Blyton as a child, I’m not comparing myself in any way, just outlining the kinds of brilliance that initially coaxed me into what I now call my chosen vocation. I’ve had dalliances with other bits and pieces but the core of it has always been a love of writing and completing my first novel feels like the longest first step ever, I want to continue with this for as long as I can. It’s the reason I don’t want to go ice skating – for fear of losing my fingers under some sucker’s blades. I just wanted to share my joy at having finally finished it already.

  • Why we can see it in others

    Last night I was sat in the pub with some friends from the improvised comedy workshop I attend. We were all lovingly stroking each others egos and I got to thinking: ‘why can’t people see how good they are?’

    Example: one of the guys at improv is also a talented guitarist and songwriter but he has never played live. I couldn’t understand why until I thought about my first gig, at an open mic night at University, and the dread that I’d put into it. My advice to him was that you really shouldn’t worry about it, the best part of performing your own stuff is that nobody knows if you’ve messed it up, and nobody is obliged to say anything about it. When people give you compliments they are just that, there was no requirement for them to do so, they weren’t forced, they’re saying it because that’s how they feel, and you’ve got them, unprovoked.

    I went on to say I deeply admired one of the girls who is an actress. I can’t imagine the kind of determination it takes to put yourself through auditions and although she comes off as bright and bubbly and wonderful to me she told me that she still has to act from the moment she walks in the door, and that it’s a terribly disheartening spirit.

    What I like about these relatively new friends is that they’re trying things, and I hope they think the same of me, because I can see that in myself.

Paul Schiernecker

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