Parallel Universe

Somewhere in a Parallel Universe there must be Facebook Friends who only share UKIP and Tory Posts, there are EDL creatures who are  friends with BNP/Britain First. I suppose although cannot scientifically prove it, because I wouldn't want to and I don't really like science! What, hold it there old Sharkie Fisherman, you pint sized piscine impersonator, "What do you mean you don't like Science? Are you trying to tell me that you are one of these Creationists"? No, I don't like Science and Maths ever since school. Those topics were a turn off. As a Welshman I am afraid to say that the topic that I liked was English and that is why I am writing this now in English. The human brain tends to deal in absolutes, if you don't like this, then you must be one of those. Boxes and Brackets where we ourselves can remain secure and never has this been so obvious as in the political realm at the moment. I am never sure whether I am a left leaning liberal or a liberal leaning leftie! Am I Green Left, Green, Left Unity. I couldn't call myself an out and out socialist without feeling uncomfortable because I know where I have been politically and socialist socks are ones that I have grown into rather than ones that I was born with so there is always a self stigma of 'Fraud' whenever I use that word to describe myself. I am Republican and Anti-Monarchist but what about these other people in the parallel universe because they must exist but maybe they are more covert than the Left. Admitting to being a Tory or a UKipper is only something you can do in certain geographical parts of the UK without huge derision. If we have such a vast swathe of political opinion then it can only lead to a Dis-United Kingdom and a weaker Dis-United Kingdom would be meat and drink to 'our' media created enemies, ISIL & The Russians at the moment.  So the media are whipped into a frenzy of fear by Whitehall who in turn mercilessly whip us. Why don't we just refuse to watch television, a media blackout, what about the ostrich in the sand approach, let GCHQ and MI6 do the worrying for us because as sure as eggs is eggs we can't do anything about it. Standing around the Aneurin Bevan Statue, which by the way needs a jolly good clean by Cardiff City Council Cleansing Department, feels jolly desperate especially when the rest of the world is walking by with its shopping. Unless mainland Britain is bombed again as it was in World War 2 will people stop shopping and think "Hang On, maybe I should pursue a more austere lifestyle, perhaps rationing wouldn't be such a bad idea, perhaps it might reduce my obesity because at the moment I know that I am comfort eating because I am so unhappy" and so it goes on. But you sound like a Tory boy saying that, that could be straight out of the mouth of Gideon! As someone who has had to run the gamut of Ian Duncan Smith's welfare reforms how can I even entertain such filthy ideas. Well, from personal experience I know that the Welfare System is not working and that it does create dependency in some. It created it in me. Don't worry fellow left wing liberals I am not going to join the parallel universe of right wing thought but I just want you to think for a moment about what is going on in that primordial swamp called the subconscious. Are you too having dark thoughts that might be misconstrued as from another political ideology. Some wag once said that you could put a cigarette paper between far right and far left ideology...and I think it was me.

      

Fundamentally Different

Let's be having you

body bags and boots on the ground.

lets get those heads on the decks

kiss me good night sergeant major

tuck me in my little wooden bed

are you fucking gay or something?

or something sergeant major sir!

It's these mad mullahs in their white onesies

bobbing up and down like little bastards in friday prayers,

they are amongst us.

I'm going down the pub to read me porn son

there's some stunners in the Sun.

I'm scared sir

I don't want to be beheaded just because

I'm white and British.

You'll be all right son

You're not a journalist

It's journalists wot gets decapitated

its the writers of war 

not the warriors of war

that die in such a public

and humiliating fashion

slow, squealing like a pig

It's funny they don't eat pork innit!

It's bombs wot does our work for us these days

Tory Toff presses the Red Button

and it's off.

Some cunt was telling me that when we woz in the dark ages

they woz in the age of enlightenment and when he told me what the Duke of Wellington said in 1813

"The French system of conscription brings together a fair sample of all classes; ours is composed of the scum of the earth — the mere scum of the earth. It is only wonderful that we should be able to make so much out of them afterwards."

Well I effing nuts him dunt I.

Knowing full well, that there's no help for heroes.

Onward Christian Soldiers

Allah hu akhbar

I'm afraid there will be no

Inshalla

in our time.  

Me, Myself and Dai!

An Interview with Myself

Dai: So why have you got 3 names then David?

David: Well, I was christened David to Welsh speaking parents who thought that they might have to move to England for work and didn't want me to be teased because of a very Welsh name like Dafydd.

Dai: So when did you start calling yourself Dafydd? 

David: Well I have been Dafydd for as long as I can remember. A teacher in primary school asked which I would like to be called and I said Dafydd immediately.

Dai: So why have you started using David again? 

David: Well the names Dafydd and Dewi are Welsh for David which is Hebrew for beloved. I go through phases and I felt that David would be a good name on any written work that I produce although I use Dafydd on any Drama and Theatre work that I write.

Dai: So where has this Dai come from?

David: I was doing some voluntary work on an allotment project and somebody piped up  'David is Dai in Wales', thus came about my third name so I answer to David, Dafydd and Dai. 

Dai: Isn't this confusing for other people?

Dafydd: Probably, I've never asked.

Dai: You don't really care about other people do you?

David: Not really, if I'm perfectly honest. People, I can take them or leave them and I usually leave them.

Dai: But aren't people the meat and drink for any writer? What about characters? Who are they based on?

Dafydd: All my characters are based on me! Each character I have ever written has always contained a facet of my personality. 

Dai: Do you think this is why you have not been more successful with your Playwriting?

David: Probably, you are very perceptive Dai. I've been on a lot of courses, I'm even completing a Masters in Playwriting but my characters are still one or two dimensional.  I find it very difficult and challenging to push and promote my Playwriting because I am very weary of people and the Theatre Establishment. I think its just a dream and I'm scared of the dream actually being fulfilled because what would I dream about then?

Dai: I see you've moved into Poetry?

David: I've moved back into Poetry. I've always liked it as a medium because it is the short form and it doesn't feel as strained and forced as my Theatre work. I actually enjoy writing poetry. I don't enjoy writing drama and plays. The irony is, that during my Masters Course in Playwriting I have published two volumes of Poetry, perhaps as a form of sublimating my frustration.

http://www.lulu.com/shop/david-williams/genius-loci-poetry/paperback/product-21567917.html

I think writing plays is incredibly difficult. I might crack it one day, perhaps when it's time to pull the pension from the Post Office. I anticipate being the 'oldest playwright in town' and then dying unfulfilled.

Dai: So who and what do you write about?

David: As if you need to ask that Dai, the dispossessed and the disenfranchised, those on the fringes. I write about the shadows and those who lie within. I write about the underdogs and the places that they come from. I write about Cardiff, Liverpool, Aberystwyth, Manchester and London. I write about mental health & inner conflict.

Dai: That is not going to get bums on seats is it Dafydd?

Dafydd: I don't really care. I care about what I care about, not about what others care about.

Dai: Couldn't you lie? Couldn't you pretend?

David: No mate, I am on a continuous course to be conscious and authentic. I don't want to please others and appease people.

Dai: You wont play the game will you?

David: No

Dai: It must make for a lonely life?

David: I am alone much of the time but I cannot say that I feel lonely. Through my writing I have come to gain a greater respect for myself because despite my protestations I know that I do care deeply about the world and the state that the world is in. This is what my writing is about. It is not meant to be easy reading or entertainment. It is meant to be political.

Dai: Well, we have to wrap up now David but thank you for giving us a brief insight into such a conflicted psyche.

Dafydd: Could I ask that the next interview is conducted in my mother tongue, the indigenous language of Wales, Cymraeg?

Dai: You've got a real chip on your shoulder about that haven't you?

Dafydd: Is that a No then?

Dai: I'll see what I can do. Nos da!

Dafydd: Nos Da. 

If you have enjoyed this interview with myself, you might be interested in the further thoughts of 'Chairman Dai' on Theatre.

http://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/in-yer-face-theatre.html 

http://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/free-theatre-movement.html



Rhywbeth bach i godi calon

More than a Feeling

"So many people have come and gone

Their faces fade as the years go by

Yet I still recall as I wander on

As clear as the sun in the summer sky"

It feels rather churlish to write about oneself on such a historically miserable day. A country has voted against its own Independence. The despondent melancholia has fallen like an early morning mist in Glencoe. In this wee postie I am going to speak about the people I associate with on Social Media so in other words YOU! Or maybe not you. As an empath who feels things keenly, from energies to feelings I have noticed a difference between the interactions of those who have not met me in real life and those that have. The ones that have, (this is a sweeping generalisation) tend to be rather dismissive and brief in their postings. A kind of 'the man's a fool and I shall not tarry to waste my time in response to him'. Those who haven't met me reflect the old time manners and respect that we would have to people in real life way back in the 1970s. A certain shyness shines through. I like shy people. I don't like arrogant people. Friends and family know that I am limited in my social interactions and find real people difficult. So if you have met me and are taking a wee bit of pleasure in diffidence, insolence, brevity, indifference. Well fuck yees! My first Psychiatrist diagnosed me as Hyper sensitive. The second with Bipolar Disorder. The way I feel at the moment, I think the first may be closer to the mark.    

The Three Amigos

On the day that Cardiff City sack another manager, as a diehard Wrexham fan I have to admit that once, but only once did I agree because I am historically a soft touch, to drive a minibus full of Cardiff City fans to an away game at York City. It was between the seasons 1989-1991 when I worked as a driver/gardener for Cardiff City Council. A fellow employee who spotted my foolhardiness asked whether I would drive a minibus so they could all have a drink. I was often at a loss at what to do at weekends when not playing hooker for Cathays High School Old Boys.  Why not?
It was a bloody long way to York. It was a 1-1 draw I think and the minibus crowd had a drink and I drove back with a face like a miserable meme wondering what the hell I was doing with my life. Although having lived within a mile of Ninian Park and now the Cardiff City stadium for the last 25 years, I have perhaps been three times in all those years because friends were going and needed a shoulder to cry on when they lost. I can't say I hate the Bluebirds but I am cold and ambivalent towards them. I believe that the club like the Capital City of Wales are cursed by a leviathan that lies underground (serious) It is green, has three heads and looks like Craig Bellamy. It can't be co-incidence that the club has experienced such bad luck. With a Bond Villain as chairman who set up a Scotsman for a fall, the new manager who replaces the baby faced assassin will need more than luck. They will need an excommunication of the dark energies that stalk the Capital City's Football Club. Get the Ouija Board out.  

STOP PRESS

Will the new manager soon be wearing this?

As long as it's in blue eh?

Southport Pier

 You would swear that you were on a pilgrimage

to Lourdes.

Overtaken by wheelchairs and buggies on their way to the end.

But there was bugger all on the end!

Was a gate going to open?

The fishermen were evidently not fishers of men.

Scottish accents

"How are things in Cumbernauld? have you heard?"

The sun is shining and life is short 

Funland?

It was like a film set for widows and widowers.

The Hall of Mirrors was free.

On a clear day you can see Blackpool.

It was not a clear day.

everything is in slow motion on 

Southport Pier 

Another Place

I was witness today at Blundell Sands & Crosby

to a scattering of the Ashes.

Another Time

Another Place

I noticed them immediately

A black mother and daughter

a box and a bag

I watched on from a distance

feeling like a priest.

Like life, the ceremony was over so quickly

I felt like a witness and an interloper but 

I couldn't look away.

I was transfixed by the alchemy of ashes to sand.

An R.N.L.I vehicle stationed by the edge of the lapping sea

could not save this soul.

Father, Sister, Son, Brother, Uncle, Auntie

Iron Man looked on. 

Happy Families

Well before this rag time razzamattaz referendum I had never heard of the United Kingdom being called a family of nations before but then I have led a very sheltered life but we all know about families don't we? We all know about families and their secrets? So who has England been playing all these years? The Domineering Matriarch, the Bullying Patriarch. Scotland is the snotty nosed, street urchin who flicks the two fingered salute to the pomposity of Westminster. This is not anti-English which ever way you want to square it. This is about Anti-Westminster. After Scottish Independence has been announced on friday, a new Facebook page will be set up called 'Cockneys against Westminster'. Newcastle, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool will all fall to proportional representation because its fair and it makes sense. Why should a geographical, class based elite be running the affairs of people hundreds of miles away. As a wee shark fisherman off the coast of Wales I am quite happy to sit and wait like a garden gnome for an Independent Wales. I don't care when it happens as long as it does happen. Today is Owain Glyndwr day that's why and if you don't know who he is, you'd better 'ap google' it or 'ap wikipedia' it. Dydd da i chwi teulu dedwydd! 




http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/511321/David-Cameron-Independence-Speech-No-Better-Together-Vote

Rambling Rose

Well three out of the last four blog posts are in Welsh and that is a record for me. I'm in Manchester as I write this. I will be in Liverpool tomorrow and Thursday and then back in West Wales on Friday. My M.A in Playwrighting at the University of Salford is drawing to a close and I am back in the North West to get some feedback on my final draft before hand in date. I'm not satisfied but then I never am. I am using characters as mouthpieces for my political views and I don't have a story or plot.  My work is a rambling rose that does not smell so sweet. I ramble, I meander. My written work is a metaphor for my life. No Plan, No Plot. Just a rambling man! I have however written another 'slim volume' of poetry which will be thrown into my coffin with me and here as a 'freebie' is the first poem from the collection which you can order by clicking here.

http://www.lulu.com/shop/david-williams/limbo-land/paperback/product-21778390.html

Eartha Kitt’s Eyes

“You’re the Sheik of Arabie

Please belong to me”!

Sang Eartha Kitt to Nat King Cole

Spiritual Prisoners in a Black Skin

That burnt in Alabama

Trees that bare strange fruit

Again the tired, worn out suggestions to authoritarian bigotry.

Once again, the White Man plays God.

“White Man No good, Full of shit”

Said the Bedouin tribesman as he emptied another Tommy’s Bedpan

In the dust of a Tangier Sunset

There is something in this man’s eyes that says love

Eartha Kitt’s eyes loved Nat King Cole

Who learnt Spanish grammatically.

Barry, who was a Yankee Doodle Dandy in Popeye’s Coffeeshop on the Haarlemstrasse.

Remembered the Klu Klux Clan of Crescent City, Florida, and dreaming of Castro.

All this and more seen through Eartha Kitt’s Eyes.

Mwg, Gwin a Merched Blin

Mwg, Gwin a Merched Blin

Mi roeddwn yn hoffi smocio bong

Gan wisgo one piece thong

Mi ddysgais arferion drwg

Gan anadlu llond trol o fwg

Roedd fy nghyfoedion yn 'gonts'

Yn smygu yn ei Y Fronts

Nosweithiau hwyr a boreau hwyrach fyth

Doeddwn ddim yn gallu cadw fy swydd yn W.H.Smith.

Diffyg hyder, llawn bryder, heb synnwyr

Roeddwn allan weithiau yng Nghlwb Ifor Bach

Bragwyr a burger seimllyd ac wedyn cach

Breuddwydion rhamant ond yn y diwedd dim ond

Mwg, gwin a merched blin. 

Difaterwch y Dyn Gwyn

Difaterwch y Dyn Gwyn!

Bois bach! Beth sydd yn digwydd yn y byd? Dydi ddim yn gyfnod saff i fod yn genedlaetholwr. Fydd Ebola a Isis ddim yn stopio wrth Bont Hafren. Mae NATO wedi cyrraedd y de ac efallai dyma'r tro cyntaf mae Caerdydd wedi teimlo fel Prifddinas ers iddi gael ei wneud  yn un, ddol yn bumdegau'r ganrif ddiwethaf. Mae gwastad yn rhoi'r argraff i mi fod yn Brifddinas anfodlon. Dwi wedi bod yn gaethwas i'r ddinas ers pum mlynedd ar hugain ac edrych dol ar yr amser maith yma teimlaf yn ddug. Hoffwn wedi byw a bod rhywle arall. I berson ifanc ddaeth i lawr o'r Gogledd ddwyrain gan feddwl fod Caerdydd yn mynd i fod ym man gwyn man draw, yn fuan sylweddolais fod o'n ddinas yn ddwrn haearn y dosbarth gweithiol Catholig. Bobol galed, ansensitif i ddiwylliant y tu allan i furiau'r Castell! "You're very Welshy aren't you"? "Yes and you are not unfortunately" oedd fy ymateb. Felli byw a bod mewn 'dead end' yn Grangetown neu Trefaerdy neu Trelluest fel newidiodd y Welshies yr enw. Mae'r ddinas wedi cael braw wythnos yma gyda phenaethiaid rhyfelgar y byd yn cyrraedd Casnewydd (Cyfieithiad New Hate) a dyna fi wedi ffoi i'r Gwyll (Hinterland) Mae'n dda beth fod Caerdydd yn cael gweld byd tu draw i dair pluen a phêl Rygbi. Does dim 'doubt' da fi na thlodi sydd yn achosi anhapusrwydd ac rwyf wedi gweld yr un bobol anhapus yn Lerpwl, Manceinion a Llundain. Y broblem sydd gen i yw bod gen i feddylfryd dosbarth canol ond rwyf yn gwrthwynebu ei sefyllfa gyfforddus yn hierarchaidd y Deyrnas Unedig. Bobol yr Eisteddfod Genedlaethol well 'ych a fi'. Os oes da chi meddylfryd dosbarth canol a dych chi'n byw ymysg yr hen ddosbarth gweithiol mae'r difaterwch ar ddi obaith yn tueddu rhwbio ffwrdd. Mae'n anorfod fydd rhaid i mi symud cyn bo hir i rywle dwi ddim yn teimlo mor 'Glostroffobic'. I mi mae Caerdydd yn sugno'r enaid ar anadl mas ohonof yn araf bach. I ble ai? Watch this Space!

The Awkward Squad

I am a self confessed member of the awkward squad. I wont sign on the dotted line. I will not join. If the mood of the nation goes one way I will go the other. Sometimes with this blog, I feel that I am outside the tent pissing in. I am only 1 person. I am not influential. I am a Manic Depressive so I have less to lose than 'normal' people. I can shoot my mouth off and claim diplomatic immunity waving my mental health card high in the air. My mental health was compromised by being a 'Yes' man, by conforming to conditioned society. I shudder to imagine what young people are going through!
What must they think of us? Adults! In name only perhaps. I was advised that if I was running out of things to write about then I should look up Google Trends. Well I did but that was all celebrity and sports and that is not what I am about even though that is what our national snoozepaper, the western fail continues to do on a daily basis. We are being dumbed down on a daily basis. I have fled the Capital this week to get away from the Helicopters and the Security Lock down. I am fortunate that I can do so. I have somewhere that I can run to. I could have chosen to stay and protest but something is nagging at me. I don't want to become a professional protester. I have done a couple this year. The Wales March for Gaza and the Cymdeithas yr Iaith vigil outside the National Assembly, and this is for why I am a member of the awkward squad. If peeps believe that they can start relying on you for 'rent a mob' then you start becoming diminished. I care but I obviously don't care enough. I should care more about earning a living but the 'job world' is the one which I feel is a bigger threat to my Mental Health than anything that is happening in the Middle East. I would like to go Freelance, become a Creative Arts Facilitator but my motivation is now in question. I fear that I am no longer motivated enough for anything.