It has been cold these last few days; overnight temperatures have been dipping as low as -4C (a). Balmy in Minnesota terms, but Ungodly Cold for the Britain.There are those on this blessed isle who would try to manufacture the sort of pseudoscience bullshit that would get them klaxoned on "QI" (b) in claiming that the cold here is somehow actually worse despite its not actually being cold. They insist it is a damp cold that seeps into your very soul and chills your will to live in such a way that no polar fleece can defend against. There may be a modicum of truth to the "different kind of cold" theory but for the most part the simple reality is that (many of) the British are pussies who are either too stupid or too stubborn to dress properly.They are also too stupid or too stubborn to...
Today was the shortest day. It was a bleak, wet and miserable day; the kind of day that this island of Britain is so adept at producing. If miserable days were a commodity to be bought and sold, soggy Albion would be surviving the global economic downturn with aplomb.Somewhat counter-intuitively, this place is also quite capable of manufacturing days of perfection; days that fill you with life and hope. And most strangely, these days -- the glorious and the miserable -- can often run consecutively. One day, the meteorological stage is set for you to finally win over your One True Love. The next day, the cold, wet and dark hang unrepentant as she dies tragically in your arms.My arms remained corpse-free, but it was a miserable day nonetheless. The sun never shone. The weak grey mist of...
"Just because you're older than the rest of, Chris, it doesn't mean you know more," Fflur said as we staggered our way through the surreality of Saint Fagan's at night.Pause."Oh, dear," she said. "That's going on the blog, isn't it?""Most certainly."We were there -- along with several other members of our Folk Studies class (a) -- to partake in the museum's Christmas Nights festivities, a hodgepodge of random Christmastime things packed into the museum's sprawling grounds.For those of you playing along at home, or indeed anywhere that isn't Cardiff, "museum" is a misleading term when referring to Saint Fagan's. In American parlance a museum is a largish, boring building filled with boring things. Americans only ever go to museums when we are visiting other places. We do this because we...
As I write this, polling stations in the United States' east coast are opening and millions of people are queuing to take part in what feels to be the most important election of my lifetime.There is the historical element, of course. If the polls are right, the United States will elect its first black leader and we can say once again that the American dream is fulfilled. Few histories are more tragic and painful than that of blacks in America. As a white middle-class kid from the suburbs I won't be so condescending as to pretend to be able to fully comprehend that history or how it feels to carry it around. I also won't suggest that the election of a skinny mixed-race fella from Illinois ties it all up in a neat bow.I can remember from my own childhood seeing the "whites only" water...
"Black Rain" by Ben Harper I apologise that I have become more and more brazen in breaking my loosely-adhered-to rule of remaining apolitical -- the latest evidence being the Barack Obama badge over there on the right.If you are one of those people who occasionally stumbles upon my posts several months after the fact -- reading this subsequent to the 2008 election -- you'll see that I have since removed the badge, so here it is in the body of the post just for you:There is something about a presidential election that causes my behaviour to become more and more erratic. I fail to heed the advice of Public Enemy and I believe the hype. I start to think that this really may be our last chance (a) and I get sick in worrying that we'll blow it.Since the beginning, the rhetoric of the Obama...
All U Can Eat - Ben Folds The other day I was talking to Rachel about a girl we both know who is, for all intents and purposes, a self-serving, out of touch, ignorant, morally ambiguous bitch. But see, she's pretty. And I have this terrible habit of wanting to be an apologist for pretty girls' unacceptable behaviour because, you know, they're pretty.So I stumbled upon something that I referred to as pretty girl syndrome, which is the wavering internal compass that guides this particular pretty girl, as well as several others I know. For those pretty girls reading, I'm not saying that every pretty girl is like this, just that it is a behaviour endemic of your kind (a).As a pretty girl said female has spent her life encountering (and gravitating toward) weak-willed souls such as myself who...
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...
People who know me feel free to confirm this: When buying new clothes I will stand in front of the mirror and say: "Does this make me look anything like Paul Newman?"If the answer is so much as a simple grunt to the affirmative that article of clothing is purchased forthwith.I'm not really one for looking up to famous people. I think it's a bad idea. But I make an exception for Paul Newman, who died today. How could any man not want to be like him? Who else could make getting your ass kicked seem like the coolest thing in the world? Almost as much as I dislike the idolization of celebrities, I dislike eulogizing by people who never so much as met said famous types. So I won't. I'll just keep trying to copy his shit.Headline comes from one of the best movie lines...
This is me and several of my friends in in high school. Eric is in the white hard hat. It's not even worth explaining what we're doing. I'm the only one without a hat. I was that vain in high school -- I didn't want to ruin the...
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,...
Brilliant quote from my friend Paul: "I find it harder and harder to make new (friends); and impossible to make new old...
Frustratingly, my brain decided to wake me up at 2 a.m. this morning so I could lie in bed and ponder possible scenarios for this Saturday's "Doctor Who" finale. Really, of all the things I could have been doing, I had to spend an hour or so pondering Donna Noble's significance in the weakly-put-together universe of a man who enjoys 70s disaster films and a fair bit of camp. But there we are.I am theorizing that Donna turns out to be a time lordess or some such thing. This would be another one of those things where a time lord is hiding in a human form that is totally unaware of being anything else. The Doctor did this last year, as did the Master. If this were the case it would validate all the "Donna is gonna die" stuff, because effectively she does die. Remember the emotional turmoil...
Remember 2003? Year of the blog, I think it was. And all we ever did was blog via memes. Heather, Chris and Neal are bringing the good times back, and now so am I.
1) WHAT WAS I DOING TEN YEARS AGO?
I had driven out to Lake Tahoe to spend the summer working at the now-defunct Ponderosa Ranch, a "Bonanza"-themed tourist trap on the Nevada side of the lake.
I was a gunfighter, "robbing" the wagon rides that took people up the mountain to have breakfast. I also worked in the photography area, taking pictures of people dressed up in cowboy outfits. I was apparently really good at the latter because:
1) I goofed around a lot, which kept the people who were waiting from getting bored. 2) I understood the basic principle that people wanted to be photographed holding lots of guns. They'd say...
Once again I give you the audio version of my latest column. this idea of reading the column aloud would be far better if I weren't doing it. In a perfect world, I would resurrect Orson Welles and he would provide the voice. I had also thought about having my dad read it. He and I have slightly similar voices but he has better annunciation. It would be amusing to give him a column and provide no direction, allowing him to decide what words should be emphasized and what pauses belong where. One of the weird things about writing is that the voice is not all that clear. I've been to book readings in which I sat there listening to the author voice his own work, thinking: "Dude, you are getting it all wrong."Although, I don't suppose there's a great deal of variation in the interpretation of a...
I am presently in the midst of revising (FTYPAH: "studying") for exams, so blogging has fallen way down the priority list -- still above housecleaning but well below watching "I'd Do Anything" (a). So, I was all set to let the blog go into its usual other-things-are-happening languishing state, but now Eric has given me something to post.Here are a few videos from a recent performance of the Secondhand Ska Kings at Minneapolis' Fine Line. It's a group of people in their 30s pretending they are still in college. But they are betrayed by the fact that they are in tune:On this one you get to hear funky, funky Eric sing. An interesting thing to note is that Eric is always like this. Watch his mannerisms and this is pretty much how he acts all the time. No, really. Go to his house and you'll...
The other day, Geraint listed his Facebook status as: "Geraint doesn't live in Chicago." Thus prompting this Wall conversation:ME: "I don't live in Chicago, either. But I used to work there... in an old department store..."GERAINT: "But you don't work there anymore?"ME: "No, not since a woman came in and asked for a hammer."GERAINT: "A hammer from the store?"ME: "Indeed. A hammer she wanted. My tool she got."For those of you playing along at home, uhm, this whole exchange isn't really worth explaining. But it strikes me as particularly funny. Perhaps because it's a conversation that played out over three days.I wonder if there is anyone reading this who might have also worked at that same department store. I wonder if they still work there; or if not,...
Is that a general Kerouac question are you referring specifically to On The Road, since it is mentioned in the list of things I've read this year? This was actually my third time to read the book and I have to say that with age (that is, as I age) it loses something. Kerouac is a good gateway for people who haven't really thought about using words to convey complex and convoluted emotions, rather than, say, cohesive thought. But there are authors before and since who are better at it than he was. If you strip away the events, you get storytelling that isn't actually that strong. Kerouac holds you with the action and pace rather than plot, narrative, craft, etc.But, perhaps those criticisms are too easy to make 50 years after the fact. Classic literature rarely holds its initial impact for...
Here's a random thing that really annoys the hell out of me: When an artist releases a track or record, and music writers use the word "drop" where "release" belongs. e.g.: "Jason Mraz has decided to drop this year's summer anthem early."That's an actual sentence I read today. That "drop" is used in context with Jason Mraz makes it particularly lame. Mraz doesn't really strike me as an artist that drops tracks. That's more of a hip-hop thing. But even then it sounds stupid. I am waiting for music writers to start using other inappropriate verbs: "Van Morrison expectorated his latest album, 'Keep It Simple,' on March...
I woke up yesterday in Dublin. That sounds like a song lyric, but it is, in fact, a simple declarative statement about my life. And not all that exciting a statement, considering I had gone to bed in Dublin the night before. It would be a much more interesting story if I had woken up in Dublin after a night of heavy drinking in another country. But I already have a story like that, and a man's liver can only stand so many such experiences. In this case I was simply visiting Donal and Isobel in the comfy green of north Dublin. It was in their apartment that I woke up. Again, this story would be so much better if I hadn't been invited to their apartment, or if I had woken up between them dressed in a leather nurse's uniform and covered head-to-toe in 5W-40 motor oil. Sadly, that didn't...
This is my old friend Alicia Cordes. Her favourite hobby is stealing babies. I'm not entirely comfortable with this behaviour, I'll admit; but, really, who am I to judge? I can no more disown her than I can my white grandmother.When I refer to Alicia as an "old friend," I mean that I have known her for a long time -- not that she is actually old. We knew each other in high school, which, for our friends in the Home Nations, is something different than what you call high school. High school in the United States generally encompasses those terrible wonderful years from age 14 to 18. Terrible in a wonderful way; wonderful in a terrible way. Like the strange ecstasy that comes from diarrhoea. Alicia's locker was next to mine for those four years. Shoulder to shoulder for four years, on...
There is more to the story of English Major.I finished my overpriced tea and walked over to the library for a bit of tedious Welsh-language post-modernism. It is a genre that annoys me in the Welsh medium. I think that is because it didn't arrive until the late 80s, which is about when most people elsewhere were starting to think that postmodernism was dead. Welsh-language culture has a bad habit of jumping on the band wagon only after the wagon has actually stopped and been abandoned. Grunge is scheduled to take the Welsh music scene by storm next year.The library and the humanities building are within a stone's throw of each other, separated by a small green area with trees and shrubs and a wee hill that seems to be the exclusive domain of cute girls when the weather is nice. In the...
Primrose Hill is not in Greenwich. For those of you who playing along at home, Primrose Hill is, shockingly, in Primrose Hill -- in Regent's Park, specifically, a fair walk north of the river and on London's western end. Greenwich is east of London's East End, hugging the southern bank of the Thames.I have no idea how I screwed up these locations so badly. But it was to Greenwich that I dragged Jen Rodvold in my pursuit to stand where Iolo "Reality Spoils A Good Tale" Morgannwg stood in 1792 and held the first Gorsedd. Fortunately, the adventure turned out to be worthwhile. Jen is a friend of mine from high school. It seems the older I get, the more friends I have from high school. Thank you, Facebook. Thank you, maddening nature of aging. As we get older and spin further and further...
Remember those old Mountain Dew country cool ads? These were the ads that came before the days when Mountain Dew was target-marketed to morons. In the 80s, Mountain Dew ads were almost indistinguishable from ads for Busch beer. They generally involved a group of buddies gettin' together and throwin' themselves into lakes and rivers while hooting and slammin' back a few cans of the Dew. For our friends in the Home Nations, this is the sort of thing we do in America. Every day.It's from these commercials that I got the idea of Mountain Dew Moments. Well, it's from these commercials that Jim Moore got the idea of Mountain Dew Moments. Moore is a Texas-based journalist who is my prototype of what a proper journalist should be. He once quit a job because of personal ethics. A journalist with...
As mentioned below, the child bride and I will be in Ireland for the next few days. I won't be back at the blog until at least 4 January. Somehow I think you'll carry on.This is probably stupid on my part, but I am really looking forward to 2008, perhaps more so than I can remember for any previous year. In general, I refuse to make New Year's resolutions or pretend that a new year is any different than a new month, new week, new day, new hour. "In Christ all things are new," a pastor once told me. Shawn can probably tell you what scripture that comes from (I'm guessing New Testament, because of the stuff about Jesus). But even if you remove the "In Christ" bit it's a generally true statement that I try to remind myself of when I get frustrated. All things are new all the time. But there...
If you haven't had enough Christmas spirit, my latest column is...
This picture both amuses and pains me. It is me, Sara, and Sara's best friend Michelle back in 1995. Damn it we were cool. So, so cool. Really cool.Maybe if I keep saying it to myself that will make it true.Great googly moogly, we were cool.Did I mention how cool we...
My latest column is out. And contains a sentiment that I will save for when I'm famous and asked to speak at high school graduations: Older people are not superior, they've simply had more time to formulate arguments that they...
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...
Lately I feel as if I am going through some sort of pre-midlife midlife crisis. I am boring, my bitches. I have left Coolsville. OK, I was never a resident of Coolsville. They let me visit once, but only carrying a pass, and I had to be out by sunset like the Welsh in Chester (a). But I did used to be less boring.I was reminded of this fact when my cousin, Shawn Jr., recently commented on a post, reminding me of the reason why he wouldn't let me drive my Papa's golf cart. Because when I drove "all thought and rationalization flew out the window" (b).I'm sure a number of the people who read this blog could tell you similar stories involving me behind the wheel of a car. Or of my strange love for throwing myself from things -- speeding boats, rooftops, etc. You know those stories you always...
Here's an actual thing that happened in my life: Some 15 years and six months ago, Eric and I were in the Dominican Republic, wearing wool marching band uniforms, and several hundred people were shouting, "guapo," at Eric's brother. That's the sort of thing you wouldn't think I'd forget, but I had until just...
