Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening?
Welcome to Lager Time, legions of lager-lites, grab your tins, your bottles and your pints. This here is a little blog and podcast which I write, record and produce, via Substack - where I share bits and bobs that I’ve been writing – be it poems, stories, music and more recently these thought-sort-of-essay attempts, whilst not really knowing what I’m doing; at any point.
Today is Wednesday and I’m in the gaff, in Maidstone, shortly getting ready to make up way to London for a few days, to carry out my usual workshop activities etc. This episode should be out on Friday, all going well. However, it’s unlikely I’ll have one ready for the following week, might have to wait a week - I’m not gonna be at home much; I don’t think I’m gonna get the time to record it - it takes quite a while to do it all and I’m not that organised.
A little bit of news – I’m gonna be back on stage, in a theatre show, in April at the Polka Theatre, in Wimbledon. It’s a hip hop re-telling of Romeo and Julliet and it’s written by my Beats & Elements spars and good pals Conrad Murray and Lakeisha Lynch-Stevens. I’m one of the understudies, for the role of Mercutio I believe, and will be doing four shows, all in all, I think. I go into rehearsals in February and then it opens on the 2nd March – I think the dates I’m doing are the 12th,13th and 14th April. I’m a little nervous, because it’s been a while since I’ve been in a production like this, and one that isn’t written by me – the cast are very good - the guys I’ll be doing it with are razor-sharp from the various shows they’ve all been doing, so you know, it’s gonna take me a bit of time to get up to speed but sometimes you just gotta throw yourself in, mate and do your best.
So this weeks episode is called On Bull-Shit Detection and is written in response to a quote from Book 3 of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations’ in case you’ve not got the memo about what I’m doing over here. Hope you enjoy it
If you’d like to support my work the best thing you can probably do is introduce it to someone who you think might like it, as weird and niche as this little thing is. Alternatively, you can make a donation on KO-FI, or BUY-MY-BOOK – The Suburban – there’s only a few copies left of this, or the book of plays I co-wrote with Beats & Elements – Hip Hop Theatre Anthology or just stream my music or watch the videos or whatever; you know the coo.
Have a banging weekend
Keep it Larger than life
Peas and taters
Paul
On Bull-S*it Detection
Nothing is so conducive to greatness of mind as the ability to subject each element of our experience in life to methodical and truthful examination, always at the same time using this scrutiny as a means to reflect on the nature of the universe, the contribution any given action or event makes to that nature, the value this has for the Whole, and the value it has for man – and man is an inhabitant of the highest City, of which all other cities are mere households.
BOOK 3 – 11.2
The older I get, the more I think that a strong marker of a successful life, is the ability to smell and call-out your own bull-shit: address it, change it, then crack-on. It’s taken me a long time to figure that one out, all this stuff here that I’m doing, is mere evidence of the excavation process; hold tight Tony Robbins and his squad of Time-Teamers.
Growing up, moments of self-awareness would occasionally appear, like an unreliable, rural bus-service that only comes once a day, and provide me with some honest feedback, like: ‘you were being a dick-head there, Paul.’ The majority of the time, though, I was submerged in my own nonsense and acting accordingly, not really knowing why I was doing things, like the sudden sharpening of my accent, or use of certain slang terms when I’d meet girls, or boys from other areas at parties or whatever, as if they would be somehow impressed; yea.
Sometimes, what in retrospect was an angel, but at the time I thought was probably a prick - someone else would deliver those hard-hitting messages that I needed to hear. After I left school, I went to East Surrey College, with most of the other drop-outs and did some made-up course in IT; except that, it was actually quite hard, and the course leaders were tough on us. I carried to that college, the same attitude I had at school and barley did anything for nine months beyond dicking-about in internet-chatrooms, smoking draw in the park and playing pool and snooker in Redhill town-centre; yet I still turned-up, pretty much every day.
A few letters went home to mum and dad about my massive backlog of assignments, with a threat to boot me off the course if I didn’t liven-up and do some work. I didn’t, yet I still turned up every day, perhaps convincing myself that at some point I was going to knuckle-down; or, more likely I was just putting-off the inevitable; like some ageing celebrity who every year gets a new bit of surgery to suppress the encroaching stench of death, that gets harder and harder to hide; hold tight Madonna
One day in class, I was making light of the fact that I was probably gonna be kicked-out and didn’t really care or whatever, playing it all casual, when a kid called Ben, who was a bit older goes, why are you even here then? Why do you keep coming in every day? What’s the point of you being here? I had no answer. I felt like a total bellend. At the time, I hated him for it, I wanted to chin him; or at least say something witty in return, but I had nothing; he was spot-on.
After that, I tried to knuckle-down and do a bit of work, just a bit, still convincing myself that I could catch-up and eventually with the doomsday-clock ticking, I went cap-in-hand to the course-leader, asking for more time. She was this no-nonsense, quite intimidating women called Anne, who’d been round the block and probably dealt with hundreds of half-arsed strings like me. She called me a twat to my face and said that it was too late, and thus - I got kicked-off the course and out the college; bringing an abrupt end to my formal education.
When not lost in the multiple layers of my own bull-shit and my attempts to disguise it, to myself, I’d observe others seemingly swimming in their own bollox too and acting accordingly. From the age of 14, I worked part-time in a newsagent and then graduated to Waitrose, where I went full-time on the check-outs for a while, after being booted from East Surrey. There were times when customers were ripping-in to me, or other sensitive young un’s on the checkouts, for the most innocuous of things, like a slight dent on a tin of beans, or a que that’s taking slightly too long; proper flinging their socic weight around. At times, it was like being on the floor and taking the vocal equivalent of a severe kicking, because you ever-so-slightly brushed a protruding thread on some geezers YSL shirt, in a packed-pub; when trying to careful manoeuvre through the boozer doing the very-delicate ballet of the four-pint carry. It was in these moments that I’d disengage and then wonder, what it would be like, if we were able to secretly film these tirades, and then calmly take these people into a room, and make them sit down and watch the replay. Would they see themselves, grimace, that then go – yea, I lost my head out there today, feel like I’ve really let the lads down, fair-play I’ll hold up my hands to my mistakes – just gotta get back on the pitch and make that doesn’t happen again - I like to think so.
Around the same time, mobile phones were starting to become ubiquitous. Sometimes I’d be sat at the station, or somewhere else public, whilst some loud-mouth would be having an overblown row down the phone; as if it was all for the benefit of those of us in ear-shot. Again, I’d be thinking why are you doing this? Then go back to trying to maintain my geezer stance; chest-out, head back, spit on the floor, trying to bring attention to my Reebok Classics and my hoop earing; you know the coo.
And there was always some rude-boy on the train; who’d hopped the ticket-barrier at the station and then got busted on-board for not having a ticket on-board; but they’d always be going nuts protesting their innocence. And I’d be thinking just take the hit mate, put your hands up.
One of the good things about starting to write lyrics, and then poems and everything else, was that it became an opportunity to examine what I was doing and why I was doing it; pointing the camera at myself, I suppose, and over the years it has been pretty useful in that respect; even if self-reflection wasn’t my intention. Of course, it could also go the other way, which it quite often did, where I’d end up endlessly reinforcing my own bullshit; like the poem about the BNP I once wrote.
When I started performing poetry stuff, I must’ve unconsciously made a note of the types of crowds who’d be at these gigs, because at some point, I produced this poem ostensibly mocking the far-right British National Party. In hindsight, what it really was doing, was having a pop at a particular group of people within society, making crass generalisations, who may or may not have been racist, but really, I was probably just signalling to the good people of the room that I too was a decent, moral person, like them, but I really wanted their validation.
I’m certainly no supporter of anything even close to the BNP, but I remember reading that poem, just once, to a packed room, getting a few laughs and nods in the right places, then coming off the mic, sitting back down and feeling a bit sick with myself.
I got the same feeling another time, when I had a piece that had a pop at Daily Mail readers. Again, I’m no fan of the Daily Mail, but why was I doing it? Really? Probably because in those circles, the BNP and the Daily Mail, and the stereotypes of their followers were easy targets, and it made me look good or something equally shallow, self-righteous and disingenuous. Had I written a poem about some UK-based, far-right Islamist organisation with equally abhorrent and supremist views on society, would I have read that one out? I doubt it, for fear that some of those people laughing at the punchlines in the BNP piece, could possibly label me a bigot and an islamophobe. In the arty circles I’ve operated in for the last 15 or so years; being called a bigot is probably worse than being outed as a nonce.
For the record, I’ve had disingenuous pops at Guardian readers too, and one time, whilst there, and on stage, stereotyping the entire audience at the Latitude festival; not sure what the motive was there; probably letting them know that I had a bit-about-me; which might’ve won over some females. It didn’t. Again, though, easy targets.
Nothing is so conducive to greatness of mind as the ability to subject each element of our experience in life to methodical and truthful examination, always at the same time using this scrutiny as a means to reflect on the nature of the universe, the contribution any given action or event makes to that nature, the value this has for the Whole, and the value it has for man – and man is an inhabitant of the highest City, of which all other cities are mere households.
There’s been much written about echo-chambers in the last few years, and I can see why. It’s so easy to get lost in amongst people that reflect your own opinions. It’s like it somehow eventually dulls the senses, with all threats removed from your circles and yet simultaneously makes us even more paranoid of those outside of our group.
For a good while now, I’ve been suspicious of this insistence on kindness and compassion taking centre-stage in every interaction we have. In and of themselves, they are great virtues, if used correctly and truthfully. But it seems their meaning gets distorted and twisted, when someone is just seeking validation to quieten-down an insecurity. I’m feeling low today / You’re so beautiful, babe. We just end up in these feedback-loops which in the long-run don’t help anyone, bar the sweet instant-gratification of a dopamine-hit.
If I stick a link up online to a new bit of work I’ve just uploaded, or I tweet something witty, give-it a few minutes and I’m clucking for some likes. Or if I’ve hoovered the stairs in the house, I’ll try every trick in the book to make sure my wife knows, whilst mentally marking a spot on the wall for the Military Red-Cross award that my wife will want to present to me for my domestic heroics; but then of course, I’ll turn it down, because I’m humble like that.
Yea, listen, of course I’m delighted but at end of the day it’s just about the result, there’s some real quality in that dressing-room and a great bunch of lads; it’s a win for all of us.
Despite my propensity for getting lost in my own bollox, I feel truly grateful that I’ve had people and things around me, that could occasionally slap me out that mess. Things like this book of Mediations, even if I’ve discovered it relatively late in life. My parents, and being raised a Catholic, a raised with the practising of saying prayers everyday and making me reflect on not only what I’m grateful for, but also, what I’ve done wrong. And in an age of social media, where it seems we’re actively encouraged to disappear inside our own rectums, taking videos of ourselves, whilst we’re being kind and compassionate to homeless people, I need all the help I can get, mate.
On BullS*it Detection