The Welsh-language hip-hop scene could fit comfortably in a Chrysler Town & Country; everything that hip-hop has come to be it is not. And despite that, or perhaps because of it, there is something beautiful-appealing about the lonely state of this music form yn y Gymraeg.Here (skip ahead to about 1:40 in the video) you have Y Diwygiad -- two guys who wouldn't look out of place at the Fargo Applebee's performing for whatever audience that may happen to exist in the Harry Potter space (i.e., under the stairs) between the gift shop and the toilets of the Millennium Centre in Cardiff. In terms of artform purity this is hard to beat; they're not doing it for the money. You've got to respect...
Classes are under way again. My final year of university has begun.Of course, one of the highlights of walking across a crowded university campus is the opportunity to see myriad fashion disasters. My favourites are the ones that are woefully climate inappropriate -- extremely skimpy clothing in Britain in October. Obviously I am more forgiving of the females who do this.The weather today was cool enough for the intelligent people to wear undershirts or light jackets, but that didn't stop several others from prancing about trying to pretend that they were attending university in Cardiff-by-the-Sea rather than Cardiff, Wales. Walking toward classes today I spotted a dude wearing a white tank-top, white shorts and flip flops."Yeesh," I thought to myself. "Does that guy not know what country...
The Eisteddfod Genedlaethol is under way in Cardiff city centre at the moment. More than just a word that my father has never been able to pronounce the Eisteddfod is arguably the apex of Welsh-language culture. I say "arguably" because when I criticise it, Welsh-speaking Welsh are often eager to back away from it, seemingly suggesting that just over the hill there is some higher greater better cultural element that I have yet to encounter. But how can you get higher greater better than a teenage girl singing a harp-accompanied ode to Doctor Who? That's really as about as good as it gets.Or, at least, as good as it gets in Eisteddfod, which is why I may not go this year.The girl in that clip is performing a Welsh folk art known as cerdd dant. Literally translated as "tooth poem,"...
Old couple come storming into packed pharmacy almost as if tumbling downhill. Older woman (Bet) is instantly in gossip mode with someone she sees. Old man sings to himself and then loudly talks to harried pharmacist.Old man: "You got my Viagra yet? No?! Hahahaha! Hear that, Bet? I still can't get no Viagra."Bet: "Thank God for...
The last song was, of course, Space Pirates. That's totally obscure and only for people who sit around in the middle of the day trying to think up excuses not to write. I also watch a lot of Welsh-language children's television. Which kind of segues to an e-mail I got last week from someone who works on the Welsh-language programme "Hacio." It's a current-events programme targeted at younger viewers. I have never quite bought into the "news for young people" concept. Does it really work? Do kids actually care? In my years as a member of the Global Media Conspiracy people were always trying this sort of thing -- I even once auditioned to be a presenter for such a show -- but I can't think of one that's ever really worked. It's all crazy camera angles and no desks and people with hip hair,...
An anonymous poster (why is it that I get annoyed when people post anonymously?) asked me the other day if I know Christopher Glamorganshire, a blogger in Wales who was sacked (FTYPAH: "fired") from his job in the Cynulliad because of his blog. FTYPAH: the Cynulliad is the Welsh legislative body -- a sort of toy version of British Parliament.I don't think I know Glamorganshire personally; he is one of my Facebook friends, but that means nothing -- Al Franken is one of my Facebook friends. Welsh people are obsessed with giving themselves pseudonyms, but then strangely expecting you to know who they are regardless, so it's quite possible that I hang out with Glamorganshire all the time and he just hasn't told me. I don't think so, though. According to Alwyn ap Huw (may or may not be his...
It's been a while since I've written any sort of update on what's actually going on in my life. A fair number of this blog's readers are family members who check in occasionally to see how the child bride is doing, and who have no interest in "Doctor Who." Sorry, y'all.Rachel's fine. She's been in better spirits since summer arrived and her Welsh course ended. I think the latter may have had more effect. The summer is typically British. Occasionally the sun will peak out and make you think: "Ooh, I'm a bit busy at the moment, but tomorrow I will go out and make the best of this weather. I'll make a lunch and bike out to Gelynis and pick strawberries and it will be lovely." But then it will rain for three days. The child bride is planning to carry on with her Welsh learning in the autumn;...
Cunard persists on sending me e-mails promoting their transatlantic voyages. I never asked for these e-mails but I can't seem to get myself to mark them as spam out of that crazy desire for them to be relevant. I want to be someone who has the time and money to spend six days crossing the Atlantic. I have this vision of my taking a laptop along and spending the time happily typing away, occasionally venturing out to go... uhm... do posh things. I don't actually know what I would do; it is an economic bracket beyond my comprehension. In truth, though, I would probably hate it. I have always had a similar vision of travelling via train across the United States -- writing and staring at the landscape and writing. But Owen Martell told me once that he has already pulled this stunt and it was,...
I've never been to Merthyr Tydfil. I've only heard about it, and nothing good. When people here say "Merthyr," they say it with a tone of defeat -- as if they are remembering the pain and frustration of being punched really hard in the stomach. In my head, Merthyr is associated mostly with its name. Welsh for "martyr," I envision life there as a process of slow and constant suffering. The once heart of Wales gouged by the deception of industrial promise; and a moral tale of what happens when you refuse to let go of the past. Merthyr, in my head is what Wales was. Or, rather, it is what What Wales Was has become. It is that unhappy cocktail of failed dreams, and ambition deficiency. In my head, the sun never shines in Merthyr.That's almost certainly not true. I know a girl from Merthyr and...
I have fallen out of habit of directing to my columns, but I am still writing them. Here's my latest one, which I am sort of pleased with simply because of the imagery, e.g., "dairy-treat-bearing land shark."To that end, I'm pretty sure that Bomb Pops to the Malevolent is a good name for a...
Portsmouth and Cardiff are in the FA Cup final. Anthony, if you are reading this you'll want to read up on these teams because this is the match you will be watching when you and Maggie come to visit. Travelling several thousand miles only to find yourself watching soccer in a pub may seem a bit silly, but this is non-negotiable. You will be supporting Cardiff City. This is equally non-negotiable. I'm not necessarily happy about it, but supporting the home team is a matter of health and safety in this country. In the United States, it is a cheeky thing to sit in a bar in one team's town and support the other team, but this isn't the United States; people here don't think it's funny to do that. They will hurt you on principle.For those of you playing along at home, there's this game called...
In barber shop Wednesday, with Red Dragon FM playing in the background:Woman Cutting My Hair: This is tha' ... wha's 'er name? Lil Kim, innit? The one wha' died, i'n she?Me: It's Lisa "Left-Eye" Lopez. But you're right that she died. In a car crash.WCMH: Tha's the one. Only, she died in a plane crash, though.Me: No, it was a car crash. Aaliyah died in a plane crash.WCMH: Oh, tha's right, love. You're good at this stuff. You should go on one 'em shows on the telly, like.Me: A quiz show on the tragic deaths of celebrities. Not sure how that would go over.WCMH: Ha, don' make me laugh, love. Got a razor in me...
As if to make up for the intelligent kids of last week, standing outside the humanities building Tuesday was a bloke with one of those Chinese yo-yos that are the staple of a music festival, renaissance faire, cannabis legalization rally, or any other event where long hair and a goatee are the look de riguer. This bloke was relatively clean cut, though, wearing the internationally recognised uniform of the English major. I'm not really sure what an English major is called in the UK; they don't tend to use the word "major" when referring to university courses of study. But you probably know the look: sport coat or velvet jacket, T-shirt or untucked frumpy dress shirt, corduroy trousers and trainers (FTYPAH: "sneakers"). Often the look is accentuated with an oversized scarf worn in such a...
I was born in Texas. You might have picked that up. And in Texas, from the moment we take that first earthly breath it is drilled into us that our state is the best place, with the best people, ever. Indeed, the indoctrination may begin sooner -- it is not at all hard for me to imagine a cowboy standing and screaming Lone Star patriotism at my mother's stomach. That famous scene in "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" is factually based.I'm more mature now, I've seen a little of the world; I realise that Texas is not actually better than every place else. There are some places that, in their own sort of way, are as good as Texas -- for example, Minnesota and Wales. But having said that, it's important to remember that no place is better than Texas. Any persons having the audacity to claim otherwise...
One of the things that always made me a bad journalist was my admiration for police officers. I think they're cool. Yes, I realise the football cards they gave me as a child were just a propaganda ploy, but it was a propaganda ploy that worked. For our friends in the Home Nations, when I was a boy, in both Houston and Bloomington, if you went up and talked to a police officer they would give you baseball cards or (NFL) football cards. I still have a few of those cards stored away, including Kirby Puckett and Nolan Ryan cards that could now probably get me enough cash for a nice dinner.These days I tend to like police officers for all sorts of reasons: because they are underpaid and deal with all the people that I don't want to have to deal with, and because they have an understated sort...
SON: "I'm not being funny, Dad, but when you're shagging your girlfriend, answering the phone isn't really on your mind, like."FATHER: "Yeah, you've got a...
OK, lovers of stereotypes, what do we know about Britain?- People here have funny accents.- Everyone has bad teeth.- They all drink warm beer.- It rains a lot.Well, the first two aren't all that true, unless by "Britain" what you really mean is "Barry." Interestingly, those two stereotypes could also be used to describe the American South.The third one is only partially true, and less likely to be true in areas where the first two are true. Go round to Ricky Hatton's local and odds are they're all drinking cold pints of Carling.But the thing about the rain -- that's true. Granted, there are long stretches of lovely weather, but it does rain with a certain frequency not seen in, say, San Diego, California. Yet, bafflingly, the person-to-rain-jacket ratio there appears to be about the same...
I've mentioned before that Welsh-language television has a bad habit of being not very good. Media is a challenge for a minority language. While modern media can help to promulgate the ancient tongue, it can also savagely expose a limited talent pool. Only a few of any population are going to be legitimately talented. If the population is 750,000 (a) that few are very few. Sometimes one has to wonder if a programme is on the air simply because there are people speaking Welsh in it.Another problem for a minority language like Welsh, or Irish, etcetera, is the fact that viewers will compare whatever they see in the language to the stuff they see in English. And they subconsciously expect it to be as good or better. It's not really fair to compare something on S4C to a programme with an...
For those of you playing along at home, you're missing a load of amusing television in Britain at the moment. One of my favourite shows is "Coal House," if not simply because it features Rhodri Phillips, the most amusing child ever.My catchphrase at the moment is, "I don't like piggies" (about 8 seconds...
This city is only as old as the stories that are told about it.I learned recently that Cardiff was established by the Romans 1,952 years ago. Nobody appears to have been keeping records before the Romans showed, so as far as we know Caerdydd (a) is the oldest city (b) in Wales. You wouldn't really know that from walking around. On the surface, Cardiff often resembles St. Paul, Minn., with its relatively wide and tree-lined streets, architecture that tends not to date back more than 150 years and ample parking. It is a city that Welsh people, Welsh speakers in particular, are often eager to dismiss. This modern, always changing, historyless place; it's not the REAL Wales.Of course, in fact, it is. Like the real Wales -- whatever the hell that's supposed to mean -- it's history is...
I think I've mentioned before that one of the more amusing elements of British university-campus fashion is their strange love of random Americana on T-shirts and sweatshirts ("hooded jumpers," for international viewers). For example, I often see faux-worn-out clothing promoting Minnesota kayaking clubs or non-existent Wisconsin colleges.Thus far my favourite of these had been the shirt that simply said: "CENTERFIELDER." But today I saw one even better: a girl wearing a sweatshirt that said:CHEESECAKE97I want to believe that it was an ironic shirt, that someone somewhere spotted this ridiculous trend and decided to take it to its ridiculous extreme. But it's so hard to tell...
Actual experience at Llandaff branch of Barclays:ME: (Handing over cheque, deposit slip and bank card) Hello, good afternoon. I just need to deposit this cheque.BANK TELLER: OK... (Types in numbers on keyboard) Oh, but this cheque says "Chris Cope."ME: Yes...BANK TELLER: Well the account is for "JC Cope."ME: Right. (Quickly assessing that explaining the whole shortened-middle-name thing will be too much for this woman) "Chris" is my middle name.BANK TELLER: But the account says "JC Cope."ME: I know it does. And the "C" in "JC" stands for "Chris," as in "Chris Cope," as in the person standing in front of you.BANK TELLER: But it's different from what I have on the screen, you see?ME: You don't think my parents named me "JC," do you?BANK TELLER: (Pausing for thought) Well. No.ME: The "J" and...
I'm not Welsh-American (i.e., someone born in the United States of Welsh heritage) or even Welsh American (i.e., an American citizen born in Wales), but somehow I've taken the prize for best Welsh-American Blog according to the relatively unknown Welsh Blog Awards.You'll note that this is the first time the Welsh Blog Awards have been mentioned here. This is because I have a problem with the concept of blog awards. I think they are ridiculous, but I'm not 100-percent sure why. I think it partially has something to do with the personal nature of blogs, or, at least my blog. I just write a bunch of nonsense that comes to my head, which more or less reflects how I feel at the particular time of writing. If you like it, rock on. If you don't like it, I guess that's OK, too. But if you like...
I've mentioned before that the Welsh love poetry. I've had a few people try to disprove me by pointing out that they don't like poetry, but that is simply because another thing that is true of the Welsh is that they are naturally contrary. The fondness for verse was again on display this week. Where else but Wales would they have a television programme that mixes poetry and rugby?On Tuesday, BBC 2 aired a programme called "Rugby: Poetry in Motion." Featuring poems by Phil Carradice, Gillian Clarke, Kathryn Gray, Paul Henry and Owen Sheers, it was little more than half an hour of slow-motion shots of rugby players set to dreamy voiceover.What's strange is that it worked. It shouldn't have. When someone refers to the fullback position as "midwife and curator," and suggests that it is an...
It would appear that a major part of the writing process for me is spending several months telling people that I am going to write something, but not actually writing said thing.Before I wrote The Way Forward (formerly known as Drinking Stories but still unpublished by any name), I spent about five months claiming that I was going to write it. In the case of my second book, that shit-talking interval has been reduced to four months and I am now in the process of very slowly crafting yet another story that no one will read.I acknowledge the futility of such an act, but I still post myself in front of the computer every day, because that's my mental picture of what a writer should do. Much of the way I approach writing is wrapped in what I think I should do. That's a clear sign of a poseur,...
I walked today from Barry to East Aberthaw and decided to turn the experience into an audio/visual blogging extravaganza. Well, perhaps "extravaganza" is a bit much. It's really no more than a slideshow with commentary.I apologise for the quality of the audio in some of these clips. It's blustery on the coast. Adding to the poor quality is the fact that in most of the clips I was walking. My goal was to do things quickly and give it a sort of "instant" feel, but arguably this still could have been achieved while standing still and out of the wind.The audio has the added factor of displaying my present hodgepodge accent. It's generally the old Minnesota-with-Texas-twang sound, but occasionally you pick up South Wales phrasing. It's most notable, I think, when I'm talking about mini-golf in...
One of the seminal novels of Welsh-language literature is Traed Mewn Cyffion, by Kate Roberts. The title literally translates to "Feet in Chains," but the book could just as easily be called "101 Things to Be Miserable About." It is that kind of novel that so often appears on lists of classics, in that it is about miserably poor people living their miserably poor lives. These novels always annoy me and cause me to react like some sort of 1920s Tory, growling at the book: "What's wrong with you, man? Pull yourself together and make something of yourself, why don't you. What?"To her credit, Kate Roberts tries to answer that question in the title and in a dialogue late in the book that was probably put there for stupid people like me that need things spelled out. In life we are bound to all...
Admittedly, I'm not truly Welsh, but I think I can speak for all the people here when I say: "Thank you, Lord, for Duncan Jones and his ability to make a tackle." If we're honest, Wales is not going to beat France next week, which meant that this week was Wales' best chance of going into World Cup with at least one win after the record defeat to England. Without Duncan there to strip the ball from Durand, it would have been a draw and the Western Mail would be calling for a Nicolae Ceausescu-style removal of Gareth Jenkins from the coaching job.The thing that baffles me is that the commentators were on about him having to compete for the No. 1 shirt. Who the hell are they watching? Duncan's got good hands, he's a forward that backs can't get past and when the players have to be lead by...
If, like me, you feel obligated to watch every television programme featuring a poncy British guy yammering on about whatever subject it is that he thinks is so delightfully interesting it deserves an hour of your attention, you know that the modern Olympics aren't quite the Olympics as they used to be. In the good ol' days, of course, the chaps ran around naked and killed each other. Ah, good times.Somewhat similarly, the Eisteddfod dreamed up by Iolo "Forgery is Fun" Morgannwg isn't exactly the same sort of thing that was going on back in the 12th century. It is an opium-induced Edwardian romantic vision of Welsh culture. That's an element that I wish they would play up a little more: "Welcome to Eisteddfod: kooky pseudo-druidism from the mind of a nutjob."Of course, dreamed-up cultural...
