Paul Schiernecker

Photo Credit: Tony Winter Photography

Blog

  • Fake it until you forsake it.

    I like to think I have a pretty good bullshit detector built up through years of people dropping out on promises or trial and error or however else you learn these things. That’s why I have very little time for the fake and bake attitudes I see around me. I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with it, because this is personal preference but if a girl seems fake in her appearance then in general guys can spot it a mile off.

    I was having a conversation yesterday about attraction and how there’s no joy in dating a girl just because she looks good on your arm, you need a lot more substance than that, I believe one of my friends described it as being ‘like going out with a vegetable’. If you have opinions then you should announce them, don’t worry about offending because that’s the wonder of the land of free press and freedom of expression, you can say what you want as long as you can back it up, so just stick to your guns, it’s right, it’s all right.

    Now onto the issue of fake tans and sunbeds, there is nothing ‘healthy’ about that look, if you want to look healthy go for a run or eat some raw vegetables. We live in England, we have just come through Winter, you’re supposed to look pale, it’s your body doing that, trust your body, it’s right, it’s all right. The idea of a girl getting skin cancer in the name of vanity is also highly off putting.

    So just be yourself, even if you don’t know who that is on a grand scale because I don’t think any of us do, just be the you of today, and we can have a rethink tomorrow.

  • The Only Way Is Anything But Essex.

    While I appreciate the fact that The Only Way In Essex (or TOWIE as people insist on calling it) has brought a lot of people out of the gutter of wearing sportswear and taught them how to slick their hair over with the soaked appeal of the ‘wet look’ I can’t help but wonder where it’s heading.

    I tried watching The Only Way Is Essex last night to see what all the fuss is about and once I’d come round from the estuary English coma it knocked me into I realised that the whole thing is about lifestyle, it completely echoes efforts across the pond like The Hills (I think that’s what it was called, it was on T4 on a Sunday when I was too hungover to change channel). The whole thing is very corporate and idealised and it’s just not how the majority of people are able to live their lives. It reminded me of the credit card yuppies of the eighties and nineties who just charged everything to their card to make them seem like a big shot when really they were serving as a clerk or assistant somewhere.

    I think what people need to recognise is two fold; if you are from Essex you want to avoid this stereotype as much as possible, the characters are single dimensioned jokes and it’s all quite embarrassing, you are your own person, not Arj (or is it Arge?). If you aren’t from Essex then you need to appreciate that the majority (as in anyone who isn’t funded by ITV) doesn’t live like that in Essex, or even in Billericay, or Brentwood, there are good honest hardworking intelligent people trying to do what they can and be who they can be and not got caught up in this latest parade.

    Saying that I do enjoy the disgusting bastardisation of the English language, it gets me totes emosh.

  • Take the power back.

    I have massive issues with feeling powerless, I’m not sure if it is something that everyone suffers with but I’m sure it’s more than just me. I think the problem stems from being a child, it wasn’t adults who made me feel that way though, it was other children. Adults quickly cottoned on to the fact that I was a reasonably bright child and could be talked to as such, I’m sure there were the usual levels of condescension but I was too young to recognise or acknowledge those. The problem I had as a child was that I was physically weak, which is something that matters a lot when you’re a child, I’m not physically strong now by any means but I’m better than I was, and I’m mentally prepared for things I couldn’t comprehend or block as a child. I was always picked last for teams, or ridiculed for being thin but I didn’t classify it as bullying because it wasn’t about me being a different gender, race or creed which is all I knew of bullying. The power that is taken away from a child by being told that they are weak is pretty brutal, and a complex that I still deal with on a day to day basis. If I don’t get my way I consider that to be as the result of me not being seen as a man, or for seeming weak and that people can take from me without any reaction. Now it makes me angry, that’s the difference.

    I’m currently in a position where a big decision could be made for me and I’m fuming about it because it’s not on my terms, I can’t even state what it is because it’s just a heavily circulated rumour at the moment but it could effectively fuck me over quite a bit.

    So the important thing to remember is that when I get bent out of shape about things, it’s because they aren’t on my terms. Keep on that straight and narrow and we’ll be fine.

  • Hair (Let the sun shine)

    I’ve been battling my hair for a decade now, I grow it and them I cut it and them I grow it again. It never gets really long, it just gets big. I inherited the Jewish curl on my mothers side and boy does it show.

    The fact of the matter is that I always debate the idea of cutting it again as though it is the end of the world, as if it will never come back which as long as nothing terrible happens isn’t likely. I think I’ve got to a point where it isn’t necessarily cool to grow your hair, but I’ve never been one for being cool. I don’t know what it is, I guess it’s become a part of my personality, but previously smoking was considered to be part of my personality and I cut that out. I think the problem is that I associate having short hair as being caught out by ‘the man’, it’s quite a seventies view, I believe it was Dylan who said that the more hair you have the less there is on the inside to muddle up your brain, I like that idea.

    I keep threatening to shave it, which would be quite the event, I believe I should try and raise some money for charity if I were to do that, and I’d probably end up single (my girlfriend wasn’t a massive fan of the idea). I don’t know, I’m babbling.

    Basically this is a conversation I’ll probably have in another six months when I get tired of sweeping fringe out of my face, circle of life and all that.

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  • Less often, but better.

    So I went out on Saturday night, for the third time this year at a guess, the other two I remember were birthdays (a friends and then my own). It still hasn’t completely won me back. I was worried that it was just me who thought the place was mostly populated by wankers but my girlfriend commented yesterday that she thought that was just the way she saw it because she wasn’t that drunk (whereas I was away on the wings of Jagermeister). I don’t know what it is that’s changed, and can therefore settle that it must be me, it isn’t what I want anymore, it just doesn’t really appeal and getting up early and heading out was like being murdered, I had a head full of broken bottles, I felt like I was falling apart and althought I had a wonderful day it was marred by the fact I couldn’t actually think straight which means as I write this on a Monday morning I feel like I’ve lost my valuable weekend time.

    I was out for lunch on Saturday when a friend said to me that as you get older your attitude to going out changes; you go out less often but to nicer places and I for one cannot wait for that stage of things to start, I’m not saying I want to be said in the first class dining room on the Titanic (I’m sorry, I watched Titanic yesterday and I’m going to draw from it whenever I see fit) but the thought of going to places for the enjoyment of company and the substance of the experience feels me with all kinds of joys for my future, I know there are steps before that but quite frankly I’ve had enough of groups of lads with their arms round each others necks chanting Seven Nation Army (especially when it is an abysmal dub-step remix. Savages.

  • Cutting loose.

    There come times in every one of our lives where we just have to give up to our primal urges, tonight my urge is dance and drink. This year I have pretty much evaporated my alcohol intake for a number of reasons. It feels good to be going to my favourite night spot for the first time in 2012 this evening, it also happens to coincide with the birthdays of two of my dearest friends (neither of which it should be noted are the Queen). 

     

    From writing my novel about silly post teen excesses I’d nearly managed to turn myself off to the concept entirely but there is still that tiny little voice that says ‘come on Paul, don’t be such a boring old cranky bastard already, plenty of time for that, come and show us your moves’, and I listen to that little voice because on the odd occasion it’s the best thing for me to do. Tonight I shall drink and tomorrow I will regret it but human are characters of error and I will do it again sometime in the no too distant future, the thing to remember is that you make good with the time in between. 

     

    Be safe.

  • Procrastination

    I’ve always struggled to focus on a task, I can’t put that down to any singular reason though because it covers both things I want to do and things I have to do, so it’s not just that I get bored as I previously thought because I procrastinate when I’m writing and that is purely what I want to do. I think that procrastination is key to being able to do, it’s the other side of the coin, the truth is that you can’t be ‘on’ all the time, if you try then you just end up wasting time and this is procrastination.

    The important thing to recognise is that it is all part of the creative process and should be embraced. I try to use my procrastination from one task to propel me into another one, or to achieve or learn something. Even sitting and watching a film is something, as long as you’re not sat staring at the wall then you’re into something.

    Keep at it.

  • Skint.

    Today is statistically a terrible day for me, every nineteenth of every month for the last three years is just a dumping ground for negative feelings in my body. Today is the day before payday.

    I’m not a materialistic person (as I’m quite sure I’ve mentioned before) but money sure as hell makes me blue, mostly because I never seem to have any of it. I don’t know how I’ll ever survive if I do buy my own place (as intended) in the next couple of years. I think what really gets me about it is the fact that I don’t get to enjoy the fruits of my labour, I’ve pretty much stopped ‘going out’ of a weekend and I don’t waste money on clothes or DVDS really, it just leaves my account in repayments and direct debits from my previous life, and it’s hard to see a silver lining. I guess I should be thankful that on the whole my job doesn’t cause me that many problems, in fact I’m lucky to have a job and a wage, I completely understand that, but it’s natural to never be happy with your lot on life. What I really need to do is finish my redraft and send off my novel, it’s very much viewed as being my golden ticket, and I have total faith in it, so it’s just a waiting game for something to happen, but at least I’m trying, at least I’m trying.

  • The Push.

    I’ve been with my girlfriend for a year and a half now and I’m beginning to get the push. That’s the term I’m going to use to describe it. It covers occasions where friends and family say things along the lines of ‘so errr….you’ve been together for quite a while now…errrrr when are you errrr gonna pop you know, the errr, the question’. It first came up at my cousins bar mitzvah when me and Kate had been dating for less than six months and my mothers cousin (oh, bless him) asked if we were engaged. What a question. Oh brother. It meant that we had to have a chat about it, to work out what we both thought of his ridiculous outburst and what it meant. Luckily for me Kate is very much on the same page as me for most things but I imagine there are a number of young men who do get engaged because people keep asking them when they are going to do it, after a while if you’re of a particular mindset/temperament/thin skin then those things start to burrow and grow.

    I don’t have any issues with getting engaged or the sanctity of marriage, one day I would love to get wrapped up in all that but for the time being I still feel very young and I’m not going to let other people influence when I change my life. I have friends who are happily engaged or even married who orchestrated the thing entirely under their own steam and not as a result of the push and it seems to be working for them. The important thing to remember is that like most things there is a choice, and for the time being I am perfectly happy with what I’ve got going on.

  • Tupac from the dead.

    Don’t get me wrong, I’ve watched the footage of Dre and Snoop at Coachella this weekend with a hologram version of their old playmate Tupac (who was shot dead in 1996) and it is absolutely incredible that something like that is possible but my fear is what it is leading to. There’s something a little unholy about it. I completely understand what a buzz it must have been to be there, to see an artist that you obviously never thought you would be able to see, ‘singing’ ‘onstage’. My problem is that it stinks of the kind of defamation that Kurt Cobain being computer-generated and forced to sing Bon Jovi and the like as part of the Guitar Hero franchise did. It’s essentially a step above making a marionette of a corpse right?

    I understand that the show had the complete support of the Shakur family but there’s just something uncomfortable about it. Then again we search high and low for footage of Cobain, Morrison, Vicious, Hendrix and anyone else who was taken before their time so is this anything different. I wonder how long it will be before another singer is drafted back to the staff through the power of technology. My money is on Elvis.

Paul Schiernecker

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

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