Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening
Welcome to Lager Time, LagerLitles of LagerLand unite.
It’s been two weeks since I uploaded the second part of the Stand In Blend Out story; hope you enjoyed it. I’m trying this, two podcasts a month thing, it feels a bit weird, like somethings missing but I think it’s worth sticking with for now, as it got quite inconsistent towards the end of last year. I would like to be more consistent with it, going forward. So one story podcast and one miscellaneous show, per month; how about that, LagerLites?
What it has, in a way made me do, is work to develop a more regular writing practise for the poems and the like. It’s early days, so we’ll see, but I still enjoy writing random poems, about this and that. In the past, I’ve tended to write them in bursts, or on the odd occasion when I feel like it; as opposed to doing it regularly.
So how it works, is just me, keeping a file of anything I find interesting, from the one regular writing practise I do keep, which is these messy mind-dumps, which I do almost daily, (which some call free-writing) then extracting out things from there. I’ve been doing this on a regular basis for years, now; so potentially, like shale gas or something, there’s an abundance of untapped inspiration (that could well blow up in my face)
On the subject of the freewriting thing that I do, one reason I enjoy doing it, is that it reminds me of the sheer amount of utter bollox that makes up my thinking, at any one time. There are some twats out there, that do this writing caper, that probably think of themselves as some kind of superior intellect, who should be paid handsomely for every breath they bless us with. The idea with the freewriting thing, is that you write down all the thoughts that come into your head, with the aim of clearing a path for more considered thinking; hence the ‘dumping’ in mind-dump. I think a lot, so there’s a lot of crap in there; so there’s a lot of dumping; too much junk-food maybe? When I do it on a Word document, it just ends up being a messy block of black writing, with untold redlines underneath, which in all honesty, is about 95% inane crap; like not even remotely interesting; mostly shite about noises outside on the street, or that ginger cat that keeps mugging off my dogs, or things that have pissed me off. Just every now and again, I’ll hit on something, that is interesting, which occasionally goes on to become something else. But when I look at the rest, and see all the shite, it's humbling, mate. I’m just so humble, as the hypothetical, aforementioned twat, probably thinks.
However, I’ve been the doing the freewriting thing for years but and have got into a habit with the way I was doing it; which I don’t think was serving any great purpose (and sometimes would make me even more pissed off.) So recently, I made a bit of a change. Since the start of the year, instead of frantically trying to capture all the crazed thoughts that float around my head; instead, I’ve been focusing on trying to type without looking at the keyboard. It’s been a bit of a game changer, mate. If you follow my work, or have ever had communications with me over text or email, you’ll know I have a lot of difficulty with spelling, often missing out entire words from sentences. Doing this no-look typing thing, I have to type slower, much slower and hold the thoughts in my head a bit longer. The result of this being, my spelling has improved, as has my clarity, I’d say. However, I have to sit still a lot longer, something else I also have difficulty with; it’s hard mate; but I guess the point of this; is that it’s small improvements.
And speaking of small improvements, I’ve made these wooden frames for my office come studio; and stuffed them with acoustic panels and covered them in black cloth; which now sit to the left and right of me and above my head, on the ceiling. It’s taken me months to do this; and it’s all a bit of a botched job, but I finally did it; and my wife can see with her own eyes, something that I said I wanted to do 18 months ago, is now in existence. I’ve had to buy equipment, cut, drill, staple and hang. Previously, I wouldn’t have even attempted to do this; as organising everything would have seemed to big a task and probably used the excuse of being shit at DIY. What I’ve realised in doing this, is that whilst I am shit at DIY, I had no confidence to even attempt such a thing. My ability to catastrophise; is for the most part, really unhelpful at best; at one point I thought that If I drilled this one hole I convinced myself I was going to collapse the wall into next door; but I preserved and they’re now up. I’m just so resilient, as the aforementioned, hypothetical, humble, resilient twat, probably thinks. I’ve learned a thing or do in this process and the sound in the room I record in, is vastly improved. Like this podcast, it’s far from perfect but something is better than nothing.
So being this is the miscellaneous part of the month, I thought I’d share a recording of the recent gig I did at Poetry and Poppadum’s. The audio isn’t the best, I’ve tried to clean it up a bit. I bought a small audio recorder with me, and left on my chair on the audience when I got to perform, so they’re a few voices around me that you’ll hear, a bit louder than they should be. I’ll include the set-list below and in the podcast description. The intro is form Paul Lyalls; it was a great night.
Couple of little large ups; all the troops from the Spoken Word course I’ve been running with City Academy, over in Farringdon; it’s a great group of guys; in case you’re interested in getting involved there’s hopefully some more courses coming up later this year, have a butchers at the City Academy website. Large up poet Tyrone Lewis, who I’ve bumped into a couple of time on my way up there; I know Tyrone from way back in my Roundhouse days.
And finally, large up Cree Paul, who sent me a random message via my website, merely because we have the same names but the other way around; really made me smile.
So that’s it for now, enjoy the set; I’ve just finished the draft of the next story, which should be up in two weeks.
Peas and taters
Paul
Purchase my first book, The Suburban at www.paulcree.co.uk/shop
Go stream my latest EP Toast In The Machine
Poetry and Poppadums setlist
1: Fingers on the Buzzer
2: Born Slippery
3: Sleep Locked
4: Paper Trail
5: Broad Brush Stokes
6: Jazz Lock: Day 187, Guilty Conscience
7: What Happened to Drum and Bass?
8: Independence Day
9: Life Affirming Moments Part 1
10: Times of Respect
