Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening?
Latest Lager Time episode is up
This one is called On Discrimination Old vs New, it’s taken from a quote from Book 9 of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Look then at what is happening now. Only the intelligent creatures have forgotten the urge to be unified with each other: only here will you have no confluence BOOK 9 - 9.3
As ever, you can find it on SUBSTACK, also, Youtube, as below, Spotify, APPLE etc
I feature in this month’s Cene Magazibe, talking about my work
Read MoreYes yes yes
Another week, another Lager Time episode is out. This week it’s EP 3 of the Young UnProfessional series - Alpine Downdressing
This episode sees Reece goes for a few beers with his fellow New Town ex-patriate Stuart Simmons, but they’r both at very different stages in life
You can listen below on Spotify or Apple, or better still on Substack, where you’ll get extra bits, blogs etc
Nice one
Paul
Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening
Earlier this week, I recorded a Not Quite Live Edition of Lager Time. It’s essentially me running through a set poems, stories and some music on the loop-station. Had a few live gigs coming up, so this was good preperation for me
FULL SET LIST
1 - Trap It
2- Times of Respect
3- Whoever Said It Was Easy
4- Fair & Square
5- Chair Wars
6- Not quite A Cheetah
7- Premium Speed Ghost Train
8- Slow and Steady
9 - No Milk For The Foxes
10 - Now, What Do You Want To Say?
11 - Watts & Pommerlers
Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening
The latest Lager Time podcast is out. This week it’s the second instalment in the Young UnProfessioanl series. It’s called The Urban Explorer (but in Sick Trainers)
Reece decides, on a whim, to have a little adverture over in London’s trendy Brick Lane.
Have a blast - you can find Time on Substack, Apple Podcasts, Spotify etc
As I menton at the start, this is a new series which I’m writing as I go, so I’m slowly finding my feet with it; I’m having fun
Paul
Easy. Couple of weeks late but it’s the second part of the Date With Mates story, enjoy
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https://paulcree.co.uk/shop/thesuburban - To purchase my first book; The Suburban
Easy
The latest Lager Time podcast is up. This week it’s the first part of a story about getting a long bus journey, across Surrey to Kingston.
I didn’t get around to finishing it in time, so that’s why it’s in two parts, no other reason.
With these stories I’m trying to add in a bit of production, sound effects etc. I messed up the dialogue in one of the bits by sticking the character Donovan, on a channel where I’d put some reverb on it. I think it was what I used for the story intro. Didn’t intend on doing that.
As I go along with Lager Time, I think, to improve it, I’m going to have get a bit more disciplined with how I record it. Probably need a bit more time for the writing, the recording and the mixing. At the moment, it’s all a bit slap-dash
We keep on and all that
To subsribe via Substack, where you can get the written email and podast, subsribe HERE
OR SPOTIFY HERE
OR APPLE PODCASTS HERE
Paul
Sometime last year (not long out of lockdown, if I remember rightly) my good pal, The Prince of Penge himself, Peter Hayhoe messaged me up, asking if I wanted to do some videos for his channel.
We spent a few hours filming a couple of videos round the New Cross area, then went for a pint. The video below, was a little extra thing Pete asked me to do, right at the end, for his Patreon subscribers. All I had in my head was the first verse to one of my tracks, called Watts and Pommelrers. Named after Alan Watts (who I sampled on the original track) and a nice little boozer I like to occasionally frequent up in Tower Bridge.
I messed up the lyrics a bit but I guess you’re never going to know that!
Easy
The latest Lager Time Podcast is up; Satelite Stories Vol 2 - Drunk and Bunkers
This week is a ittle story about a school escapade. As ever, if you enjoy it, you can subsribe and have it as an em amail and podcast via https://cree.substack.com/ or you can search it on APPLE and SPOTIFY
Large up
Paul
One two
Greetings. Bonjour. What’s happening?
Thought I’d pen a little update for the site about some goings-on – adding it to the consistently-inconsistent blogs and general updates that already exist on here.
So what have I been doing with myself?
Since late October last year, I’ve been regularly writing and recording a podcast / blog using Substack which I call Lager Time (some of which you can see below) I’ve been doing it every week (give or take the odd week off) and tend to share a piece of writing that I’m working and sometimes music, as well as having a general update on what I’ve been doing.
The reason it’s called Lager Time, is because it’s where I like to let off a bit of steam; which for me, I often associate with drinking lager. When I lived in Morden for a few years, with my mate, Dean. I’d often put on a Children’s TV voice and pronounce ‘it’s lager time’ to my mate Dean, whenever I went down to Ganley’s; the big Irish pub in the high street. I used to love going there, sinking a few jars with my brother Nat and chewing the fat.
I’m still figuring out what I’m doing work-wise, post pandemic and where, if at all, I fit in to everything. Even before the pandemic, I had this duel feeling of being a bit lost in the two worlds which I tend to operate; subsidized theatre and spoken word and figured I should try and carve out my own path. Figuring out what and how, is what I’ve been doing since and Lager Time is one aspect of that.
I’m enjoying doing it and gradually getting better at the production aspect of it. I’ve still not quite figured out the best shape of it but I’m excited, as it presents other opportunities. It’s a little platform that I’m slowly building and I’ve got a few ideas for it going forward. Like live-streams, live-events and guests.
You can subscribe directly on Substack, and have an email sent to you every week or you can subscribe to the audio, and have it on both APPLE podcasts and SPOTIFY.
Last week I recorded a live-set, which included a bunch of new poems, stories, a couple of songs and a bit of chat. I’m aiming to do a few more of this over the next couple of months as well as doing a video live-stream.
The big vision, is to be as fully self-sufficient as I can be. Ie – I can produce as much of my own content as I want. Audio, video, graphics, books , music and these are all things I’ve slowly been learning how to do. Earning some dough would be nice too
TOAST IN THE MACHINE
Speaking of music, I’m on the verge of releasing a new self-produced EP called Toast In The Machine. It’s five tracks (two of which I’ve already out put: Whichever Way It’s Blowing and Now, What Do You Wonna Say?) but I’ve remixed those and hopefully made them sound better.
I’ve been dabbling with music production for about fifteen years but never taken it that seriously. This is the first time I’ve attempted to mix and master my own music and mate, it’s hard! Though I’m treating everything with this project as a learning curve and I have zero expectations, I’m thinking maybe I should give it over to a proper producer / engineer as at the moment, it’s not quite sounding but I hope to have it all finished by next month.
RISE
Someone who is a proper producer, is my good pal Conrad Murray. This week he put out this track, RISE (OUTSIDE) which was one of the first track we wrote for High Rise eState of Mind but never ended up using. Have a blast and you can hear me singing on the chorus with Lakeisha Lynch Stevens aka Kiki.
MAKE YOUR OWN BED AND HOPE FOR THE BEST
I spent probably the first six months of this year re-writing this show, it’s now ready to go into production (I think) but I now have to go through the rigmarole of getting Arts Council funding to make that happen, so watch this space… have a look at some of the stuff I’ve done in the past with it…
WORKSHOPS
Aside from all that, I’ve been leading projects in theatre, music and spoken word with Dream Arts, City Academy, Wildcard Theatre, National Literacy Trust with future projects coming with Green Shoes and Mountview. I’ve also helped a couple of mates out with writing wedding speeches, If anyone is interested in any of the above, don’t hesitate to get in touch
So that’s it for now
Thanks, as ever, for the support
Paul
I’m a stickler for nuance, especially in the times we’re in now. Sometimes, it can be a pain in the arse - someone can state something and I find it hard to let it go without piping up, sometimes I wish I wouldn’t, sometimes I do shut-up then wish I did pipe-up, I can’t win and it probably makes me a pain-in-the-arse to be around. It’s worth mentioning, though, all of the above, I only tend to do offline, online that’s a fight I’m too afraid of, which was part of the reason I started this blog.
Some trite examples of popular opinions, in the past few years, that were often on my radar, where I at least try to present a more nuanced point, would be The amazing feat of Leicester winning the Premier League and The amazing success of Stormzy as an independent artist to Jeremy Corbyn is a Marxist and Nigel Farage is a fascist. All these four things are nowhere near as clear or as simple as they’re made out be, some more serious than others, of course but I’m not settling for any of those four statements, as absolute truths, which they’re often presented as.
Brexit was a big one for me, as I’m sure it was for many. A binary question on a highly complex issue - I can see pros and cons on both sides. The toxicity of the mainstream campaigns and debates seemed to detract from what I thought was the original question. It just became another battlefield in the so called culture-war and it all got a West-Side-Story.
Maybe that’s what the problem is, we’re too quick to get partisan and jump in the what we think are the best equipped camps, no one wants to be in no-mans land; expect perhaps for nobs like me who want to take time to figure things out, when there probably is no time. Trouble is, for someone like me, I can only act on what I know and whilst I do read a lot, especially about politics and social issues, I don’t always understand it and when it comes to arguing it, I often struggle to get my points across; yet that insatiable desire for a bit more nuance never goes and I can get obsessive seeking out alterative views.
At times It feels like a dangerous obsession, or at the very least a nagging one that often riles me up and I don’t quite know what I get out of it. Perhaps I’m just an aspiring smart-arse, who’s not yet earned the ‘smart’ part of that phrase.
At some dull-yet-turbulent moment in twenty-twenty, I wrote this little poem, tyring to make sense of what I’m doing. Suffice to say, on the long road to Damascus, I probably got side-tracked at a service station stressing about what flavour of crips I wanted with my over-priced motorway meal deal, when I should’ve opted for the Pan-Pipe Moods CD compilation from the bargain-bin.
At some point I got lost deep diving for truth
whatever that is
been learning to breathe ever since
can barely swim, let-alone dive
no tanned-man in Thailand
just read what I could
asked a few questions from the few people I
knew and the few books I had
made maps on the internet marked with x’s
got my Nike’s dirty down rabbit holes
realised some rabbis weren’t as wise I thought
just a lot of rabbit talk
I remember getting that irritating twitch back
at school, from playground spats to classroom analysis
often thinking there’s more to this than what’s being presented
just never quite knew what it was
some other texture and taste I weren’t getting from that
bland food I was instructed to swallow
got older and felt the same about the news and everyday
views I’d hear out and about
felt stupid when I aired mine
unformed and messy, like a piece of homework
produced on the bus, I’d produce my two p and
instantly feel out my depth, like I took a bath, shut my
eyes and woke up fighting a storm in the North Atlantic
convincing myself I was better off with the inflatables and the
flumes, at least they were a laugh, that and I
wouldn’t get cast out the clan for
breaking ranks
give it a day or two and the feeling resumed
just didn’t know what to do
so I took to diving, with no licence
just a bunch of erratic thoughts and a thirst for something more
I’ve unearthed a few things that muddied the water
each time I come up for air, I find the land more divided
spliced-up and taking sides
status seekers and self-publicists
political mules nudged into reactions
nudged into action
all armed with their half-truths,
cherry-picked data grenades, firing at will
desperate to catch a dart from the opposing side so they
can spin it out the stratosphere
sealing off all access routes to alternative views
dogmatic with diminishing returns
seen the distance between them turn from stream to river
with the banks threatening to burst
I’m back at school again, choking on the tripe I’m being
co-erced to swallow, thinking there’s a lot more to it, a
lot more, I’ve tasted it and I’m
barley getting started but I’m no
Olllie Twist, please sir… just
forget it
A few thoughts on signalling, with a poem at the end, called Weak Walking Shoes, originally uploaded on my Substack page, Lager Time, where you can listen to it as an audio piece
One of the many reasons I enjoy writing, to borrow a cliché, is that it allows me to hold up a mirror to my own behaviour and by extension, others too, hopefully. When I think about this, there is one image that often flashes up in my mind, over and over again, reminding me of that particular reason.
It’s probably a compound of many memories, spent working in Waitrose as a teenager (and any other customer service type job I had, there was a few!) and witnessing some customer going ape-shit, at me, or some other hapless part-timer on the checkouts, over the condition of something relatively minor, like a tin of soup and inevitably demanding something in return for the pain of it; the attention of the senior management, a reduction in price etc. I call it the mirror moment.
Back then, I always used to think, that if you could pause-time in that moment, unfreeze that customer, like a drama improv-exercise and hand that angry customer, one of those little rectangular mirrors we used to use in school, l to measure light-angles or whatever, they could look at themselves in that moment, take a moment and hopefully think ‘yea, maybe I’m being a bit of prick here.’
There are many more of these memories, people having overly-loud telephone barneys in pub lic, hyper-devout church attendees, out-singing everyone else and of course, the over-whelming vast array of behaviour-questioning memories that scrutinise my own actions, hence the poem in this post but for some reason, it’s always that Waitrose one I return too; I don’t know why but I don’t suppose it matters all that much, it does the required job and encourages me to question to my own motivations.
I guess where all this is leading too, is that in each of these examples, my amateur psychological guess, is that each person is signalling something, which may not exactly correlate with what they’re presenting, almost like they’re misleading us, the public, the audience, the viewers etc and it makes me uncomfortable. I don’t like it, it’s dis-honest. Maybe honesty is in itself, a signalling thing but I still don’t like it.
In an age of social-media, this goes on a lot and yep, I’ve most certainly done it myself. I can’t turn on the telly, without some huge mutli-national corporate entity encouraging me to take up whatever moral-crusade they’re promoting, or more simply, some poet who just so happened to pen a poem on the day of some huge tragedy and immediately stuck it up on line and encouraged everyone to share it. I don’t like it.
Mirror moment, why are we doing this? And if we really knew why we were doing this, would we still be doing this? Mirror moment, why am I doing this? See below
Back then I didn’t know many people into people into
outdoor pursuits, certainly not outside Ikon-Diva
Crawley’s premier late-night go-to in 01
gone 2am with a curb-side-view, scuffles on the
pavement, arguments in the kebab que
couple of times I put on a pair of clumpy walking
shoes, zipped up the ugly- fleece and attempted to
scale the moral high ground, preaching to my mates
below that fighting was an immature thing to do
Now I’m at an age, where, keep it down, yea but
I might actually enjoying walking and I might-possibly-
have considered purchasing a pair of ugly-arse walking
shoes, because they’re water-proof and comfy and …
listen, that kid my mates mate slapped that time, probably deserved it
mouthed off unprovoked, squared up, probably shirtless
and when push came to shove, I was probably deserting
knowing deep down, I lacked the right gear for that sort of pursuit
wrong sort of shoes
so I ascended hilly peaks and preached my views
convinced I was on higher ground like a
champagne-socialist one windfall
away from a super yacht cruise
Another video from the day I spent, few months back with the Muddy Feet Poetry team - this one called NOT QUITE A CHEETAH
I wrote it last year during the first lockdown and funnily enough, not long after that my missus went and got a dog, imagine that
So a couple of weeks ago, my good mate Pete Hayhoe, called me over to New Cross to do a bit of filming for his Muddy Feet Poetry channel. We filmed two and this is the first one
I was chuffed to get the call again, Pete is a bit of legend on the London spoken word circuit, genuine top bloke. I’ve been fortunate enough to have had a few videos filmed with Muddy Feet and I’m delighted to see how Pete and his team have consistently built it up over these last few years into a recognised poetry platform
So this piece was originally part of a track I wrote about ten years ago but never did anything with - last year, I dug it out and re-wrote it and with the help of Joshua Idehen, beat it into shape. the material seemed relevant to all the stuff I’ve been putting together for the new show Make Your Own Bed and Hope for the Best. I’ve been in this position described in the piece a few times over the years, skint, demoralised, questioning everything and too knickered to do anything about it, large up anyone going through it, keep going, that’s all you can do and eventually the light comes.
TICKETS NOW ON SALE FOR NEXT WORK-IN-PROGRESS PERFORMANCES
JULY 30TH / 31ST @ CAMDEN PEOPLE’S THEATRE
BABY STEPS
So here’s the coo… A couple of years ago I decided I wanted to write about all the different jobs I’ve done over the years, there’s been a few. I went through each job I ever did and worked out what stories I could tell, I then put that into a body of work, which I called ‘WORK.’ Imaginative, I know.
I spoke to Camden People’s Theatre, who were up for letting explore the idea further, in view of attempting to make a show out of it.
TODDLER TIME
I did a 15 minute scratch of some of the material I’d written at CPT. With the help of Lucy Atkinson (who produced my first solo show, A Tale From the Bedsit, in 2013) I wrote an Arts Council grant to get some dough, for a bit of R&D. I assembled a top team of collaborators to help me out, including producer Ellie Barr. In December 2019, we done another scratch, a bit longer this time, at CPT again, then put an hour-long preview together, for a show at VAULTS Festival in February. Then COVID. Then nothing.
TEENAGE STROP
I decided to leave the show for a bit, I wasn’t fully happy with it, probably a good thing, though as COVID shelved everything anyway, BASTARD!
ADULTHOOD BUT WITH A LONG WAY TO GO
Until I got the itch again about nine months later…
So here we are now, April 2021 and tickets have just gone on sale for the next work-in-progress showings at CPT. The show now has a new name, Make Your Own Bed and Hope for the Best, which I think best sums up what the show is about, in terms my journey in it.
Last November, 2020, I went back watched all the scratches, read the material and re-wrote lots of it, I then decided to film each one and stick it up online as part of the development.
It’s very much still being developed, I’ve ended writing a load more material and I’m now wondering how the faaaack I’m gonna fit it all in but then, that’s part of the fun, isn’t it.
You can have a butchers at the journey so far, all the performances and then the story uploads, then, if you like it, come and see me do it live!
Last week, I did a You-Tube live workshop, for the Tramshed; in An Introduction To Spoken Word.
I enjoyed myself, despite having done a bunch of Zoom sessions over this last year, this was the first time I did it live on You Tube, so I had to take a different approach to what I’d normally do.
I couldn’t see anyone, as I was on Zoom which was then broadcast onto You Tube but there was a team of 4 people behind the scenes doing all sorts of cool techy things to make it happen.
I based the session on using a personal object where you live as the basis to write a story, as well as giving one of my own, large up Stripey Bear. Have a watch / go below.
The workshop was part of Tramshed’s All Together Now, which are free arts workshops every Tuesday and Sunday at 4pm, get involved, they’ve had a whole bunch of different stuff on there.
Yes
Here’s part number 4 - Leafy Canary wharf. It’s about my brief stint as a labourer for a tree-surgeon.
The whole project is coming along nicely, though at some point in the near future, I’m going to have to sit sown and edit them and start to putting them togethor
It’s looking likley that I’m going to be doing some previews in July (COVID permitting / fingers crossed and all that) - anyway, have a butchers and thanks for everyone has watched so far
Paul
Here’s the next instalment in the Make Your Own Bed (and Hope For the Best) story development
Needs a bit of work this one but I least feel like I’m getting better at making the video’s.
Progress, mate
Bonjour
Second story from my work-in-progress theatre show, Make Your Own bed and Hope For the Best (I should have a word with the Paul Cree marketing team) - this one is based on my experiences of working in a newsagent.
Despite the lapel mike, the sound was shite so I’ve had to use the video sound. It’s not just the stories that’s a work-in-progress, this whole damn project is (have a look at a blog I recently wrote, regarding this)
Big thanks to everyone that has watched and engaged with the first two videos, I’m genuinely finding this a useful exercise and I’ll keep them coming.
NEW YEAR WITH A NEW SHOW (FROM LAST YEAR) BUT WITH A NEW NAME
So we all know what happened last year. COVID and that, which in my game, meant cancellations, shows, workshops, projects, the lot. I’ll spare you the ‘it’s been a terrible year’ caper but it has, however, there were a few minor victories, which I’m claiming hard.
This time last year, I was getting ready to go and do a full one-hour preview, of my new work-in-progress show, WORK. Which is about, yep, work, as in all the jobs I’ve done since I was newspaper when I was twelve; I’ve had a few.
Did the show, it went well though I knew there was a lot of work (no pun intended) that needed to be done before it was anywhere near ready for a full run, I was still testing out ideas at this stage.
I was booked in for a two night preview at Camden People’s Theatre in April and by the end of that I was aiming to have a finished show for the end of the year-then CRASH-BANG-WOLLOP, COVID.
ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART GROW HARDER
To be fair, it was probably a bit of a touch. I decided to leave the show for a bit and focus on other things. Anyway - I’ve since been back on it, having had a bit of a hiatus and have come at it feeling somewhat refreshed, starting with the name, which was never gonna top anyone’s Google searches, was it?!
So, WORK is no more, it is now called Make Your Own Bed (and Hope For The Best)- which sums up my working ambitions, from when I had to leave home and fend for myself.
I’ve rewritten quite a lot of it and have added quite a more stories. I’m now in the process of trying to trim it all down, so being that we’re all stuck in doors, I’ve decided to film it in small episodes and stick them up on You Tube. Just me going through that process is useful and even better if people watch and respond. I’ve already uploaded the first part and have the second part ready to go.
HAVE A BUCTHERS BELOW
p.s I’m provisionally booked for two nights at CPT in June, fingers crossed it goes ahead but until then, you can see my boat and hear my dull tones on the video
Peas and taters
Paul
