Patriot Man

So who will be coming down your chimney this Christmas Eve? Sion Corn, Santa Claus or will it be Patriot Man? If it is Patriot Man you will have to pin him up against the kitchen units and unmask the diawl because according to BBC Radio 4 this morning it could be either Paul Nuttall of UKIP or Stephen Kinnockio of Labour for they have both claimed the word for themselves and their parties and presumably the electorate. According to Wikepedia a Patriot is someone who feels strong support for their country but which country pray tell are they talking about because Great Britain is not a country it is a collection of countries many of whose residents/subjects are reluctant members of Team GB. Patriots in the American Revolution were those who supported the cause of Independence against Britain. In the U.S.A they have a Patriot Day established  in remembrance of the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks. So we have to ask the question "Are Nuttella and Kinnockio New England Patriots?" What country do they want us to be patriotic towards? The conglomeration of countries built on the back of slavery and empire? That's history butt, that's a long time ago. In the same week that we hear that the cost of rewiring Buckingham Palace will be 369 million, we are told that there are parties that are going to put the Great back in Great Britain. Well you can fuck right off with that malarkey in a Cardiff accent. The British Government and Secret Service have been historical masters of Divide and Conquer. We are seeing the results of this in Israel and Palestine at the moment. The Patriotic British and Americans set up strategic bases in Bahrain to get to the oil hence our patriotic involvement with Saudi Arabia. Oh what tangled webs British & American Patriots have weaved over the centuries. I tell yew what butt, if Patriot man comes down my chimney this Christmas Eve, I'm going to roast his chestnuts over an open fire and sing Calon Lan whilst doing it! Iechyd Da!  



Single Unarmed Dangerous Middle Aged Male

 

Like Kerouac he was determined to write spontaneous prose and fuck the consequences and fuck the swearing. If you didn't swear there was something wrong with you. You were part and parcel of the Seventh Day Repressionists, those in black coats that he had been trying to get away from all his life. The country, Wales, the mental health condition, schizophrenia, not for Harley but for the country. He was 21 and he had decided and written down in his notebook that Wales, the country, was schizophrenic. It had a fault line. It was divided by language and would never be united so like his long lost Dad, the biker, he had to leave. He had to go on the road. He had realized long before his friends that if he stayed that he would be suffocated. He knew that like his old man he would keep coming back to top up his oil. Was it the magnetism in the mountains? Was it the radium or plutonium hidden underground? The nuclear waste that the locals had been told was being taken away by Arriva train from Wylfa B and dumped over the border. Was it hell?

He had done his reading. He wasn't like all the others, into singing, dancing and the arts. He scribbled a bit of poetry now and again but Harley was tactile, he wanted to work with his hands. 'Apprenticeships' screamed the signs but Harley having been taught the ways of old Labour by his father, a Bethesda born, union man, before becoming a biker, that apprenticeship meant indentured servitude and prison. A prison of the mind. So as he crossed the porous border of Offa's Dyke, the engine fair thrumming to his ears he knew that he would not return. Farewell to all this! Adieu my schizophrenic lovely!

29 years later, Harley was sat drinking out of a can, his paunch pressed firm up against his biker belly. He was still a biker of sorts, 21 speed, 25 year old Raleigh with Shimano gear structure. He was in the front room of a two up, two down, terraced house in Grangetown, Cardiff. The Capital City of Wales. He had fled North Wales at 21 and now was back at the other end of the country but he was back at where it was at. The action capital of Europe except on a Sunday which was still rather a dour and dry affair, hence the cans. The motorbike had long gone, it had been stolen from outside a Biker's cafe in Birstall. He had got to Cromer in Norfolk on it. Not quite Route 66 but he was still young. After a few months potching about as a handyman on a caravan park he too got the pull that his old man had had. The mountains were calling, he only got as far as Stoke on Trent before the bike went AWOL so he had to walk back to Beddgelert and by that stage he was ready to emulate the famous dog and lay down and die but fate or was it the famous myths and legends played a part in where Harley found himself now. A Hip Hop rapping ensemble had got lost on their way back from a gig at Bangor University and even though Harley looked and to all intents and purposes was a greaser, Flat Pac and his posse needed a roadie and the rest as they say is history or what will actually unfold in the following spontaneous prose. Very much like the author, Harley had not formulated a plan or storyline. He hoped that his life would just unfurl like an anarchist's banner on a hot July day but the old adage is " If you fail to make your own plans, then you will end up in someone else's" and Flat Pac and his No 2 Biggy Smells from Splott Cardiff, knew that. They knew a naive Gog when they saw one, plenty of them had moved down in the early 1970's to the teacher training colleges and to work for the small media outlets like HTV and the BBC. It was their offspring now who were running the joint, they had been groomed at Glantaf and they had their contacts. These were earning good money on the radio and Flat Pac and Biggy Smells wanted to get on the Radio. They had heard of the greats like Edward H Dafis and they wanted groupies that looked like the ones they had. They wanted to get on RadioCymru and Harley was going to help them. They were listening to the groovy funky hipsters like Lisa Stephens and Huw Gwilym presenting on the way down the A470. By the time they stopped for a piss in Rhayader some Gog geezer called Shar-man was singing reggae music about white rastafarians. This was dope to the ears of Flat Pac who had decided after a storming night in Bangor that he was never going back to driving a fork-lift at Ikea. So that day Flat Pac and Biggy Smells decided to adopt Harley as a kind of modern day slave. They would turn the books round. They would be the slave masters and he would be their naive, white gog, slave. They would keep him in a cellar in their house on the Splott Road and would allow him out once a week for a stroll around the park. So this is a spontaneous tale of how a dream can die if you have your motorbike stolen or fall into the wrong company. Harley did eventually escape from the cellar on the Splott Road but only got as far as Grangetown because by this stage he had become institutionalized and co-dependent. As he took another slug out of the can and allowed the shopping channel to flicker its sick he comforted himself with the thought that he was a single, unarmed, middle aged but on occasion still dangerous male. 

Post 601: Fame by Luke Austin Daugherty

Luke Austin Daugherty is an old friend of the Shark Fisherman of Wales who you first met here

http://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/love-with-vengeance.html

so this is more a return visit than a guest post. I am delighted that he has agreed to have his new book and his personally chosen poem featured here.

Please support Independent Artists and Publishers.

https://lowshelfangels.com/

Fame

Everyone wants to be fucking famous

And I suppose that I do too

What is fame anyway

I really don’t even know

Is it everyone knowing your name

Is it being surrounded by endearing fans

Fawning loved ones

Admiring peers

Jealous enemies

Or, perhaps just a single

Unfailing muse

To encourage your art

Whatever it may be

Since I have no fame, I am not for certain what it is

But, I think I have an idea

There is no fear greater

Than the fear of dying alone

And as we go, we lose more and more of those around us

Until, at our own last breath

There may not even be one fellow left by us to hear it

Perhaps the desire for fame

Is actually the deeper desire to have a form of social insurance

That, if you start off with enough people paying you attention

Even after you have lost more and more as life goes

There will be at least one unfailing muse left for you at the end

To encourage you in the art of death

@LukraticMethod

Luke pours the stuff of life into whatever vessel he is comfortable with.

"There's something about being captured by a thought, feeling, or moment when you can't hardly breathe until you've taken it captive in return. It's usually unexpected and happens in the strangest places. But if you don't respond, you've done humanity at least a small disservice. Everyone should have the opportunity to share in it. As for me, I try to put the cookies on the bottom shelf as much as possible and try not to make art, in whatever form, something for 'the elite'." 

- Luke Austin Daugherty

600th Post by Special Guest Matthew Lidis

Matthew Lidis is a writer.

He lives in Manchester.

He can be found on twitter @matthewlidis 

When the sharkfisherman invited me to write this guest blog I felt excited and a little bit apprehensive. Writing a guest blog feels like driving another man’s car or taking his wife out for a drink when he’s in hospital. I want to respect the great man’s space without leaving a turd on the back seat or accidentally shagging his betrothed. So, for the next few minutes you’ll be in my company as I sit across the table from you, desperately trying to not look at your tits.

My name is Matthew Lidis and I’m a writer. I met the sharkfisherman three years ago when we were both studying for an MA in Playwriting at Salford University. I assume by me saying I’m a writer you’ve already made some judgements about what that could possibly mean. What qualifies me to say that? I can type. But so can pretty much everyone.  By saying I’m a writer what I’m saying is I can type, just better than most people. An arrogant boast perhaps but a welder is one who can weld better than most people so why not confer that title on myself? I don’t make my living out of writing, yet, so in the eyes of the majority I’m as much a writer as I’m a sculptor, ivory dealer or light-welterweight champion of the world.

The labels we choose and the labels we are given appear to act as some kind of shorthand for who we are, where we have been and where we are going. When introduced to each other most humans will have soon found out how the other makes a living and then the tired old back scratching process of championing each other’s method of income can begin, forbid we actually find something interesting to talk about.

When I’m asked to write a profile of myself online, as we often are I always feel tempted to put ‘human man’ in the blank space in which to define myself as this is pretty much all I can feel can be said for definite about me. Left for others to complete I’m pretty sure that the first definitions to spring to their fingertips would be along the lines of ‘No children’ ‘No car’ ‘Not married’. So shocking it is for a member of our tribe to not be emblazoned with these social medals aged 37.

As a child I was brought up to believe that the ability to think for yourself was the most precious thing there was. That tiny, locked metal box deep within your soul that no amount of conditioning could penetrate. As a teenager my deep suspicion of authority and conformity has me labelled as something of a hippy at school. Yet I did my work and got my grades so I was not tampered with any further by colleagues or teachers. It was most likely a phase that we all go through to be worked out of the body and moved on from like some dying strain of far out 60s chicken pox. I had allies at school and we had a band. Course we had a band. We drank, smoked and took drugs and then we all went to uni to carry that on. But somewhere else and with posher company.

15 years after leaving uni I find myself in a minority of one among my school friends. I’m not married, I don’t own a house or a car I don’t have any children. Why? What could possibly be wrong with me? What is the deviant, bizzare affliction I suffer from? Well, simply, I don’t want any of the stuff you’re supposed to want in order to be labelled as a functioning member of society. None of it appeals. Thanks but no thanks. It’s not through want of trying. I’ve had desk jobs, I’ve lived with girls I even had a car. It made me feel trapped and unwell.

Now as I plough on into middle age free of the shackles of responsibility for anything other than myself, I am free to attend a friends children’s birthday party alone only to endure sly digs about the possibility I may have attended only in order to rape the junior attendees. How funny.

It seems that that main function of society is to replicate itself and throw doubt, fear, confusion and paranoia into the minds of those who choose not to spend their time crossing off the social shopping list so that they may be deemed normal by their peers. I see this as a storm to be weathered, a desert to be crossed so that we who choose to live life on their own terms may shine as beacons to ourselves and others who would rather leave the restaurant than eat when faced with life’s limited menu. 

A Street Cat named Bob

FILM REVIEW

Well the shark fisherman has done a couple of book reviews. Now he turns his hand to a bit of Barry Norman and Mark Kermode. I bought the book in a charity shop in Whitchurch Rd, Cardiff, a couple of years ago and lent it to another cat lover and never got it back. So I saw this was on and went for it! The Screen on the Green in Islington makes a cameo appearance as do a number of recognisable actresses but no names, no pack drill to spoil it for you! The actor who plays busker James Bowen is a fine actor but too fine for this film. If the singing is really him, then he should stick with busking and forget the cat and selling the Big Issue, what a voice! The cinematography at the beginning is all over the place and I felt a bit dizzy as I wasn't sure whose POV it was. It suddenly dawned on me that we were momentarily seeing the world from street cat Bob's point of view. I'll let you decide whether it works. The character of James the busker is ignored by all and sundry, even his father who was on vacation from Australia and Buffy the Vampire Slayer but the moment he turns up at Covent Garden with a beautiful green eyed ginger tom, he slays em. Then everybody wants to be his friend. James best friend in the film is played by a runty little guy with a Welsh accent which I identified as flat valleys and could have been from anywhere between Neath and Tonyrefail. Baz is something out of a Dicken's novel which is handy because the film gives a nod to Christmas time. The bit which floored me was when James turns up to his Dad's house for New Year's Eve and he is greeted by the two girls who were on holiday in a Youth Hostel in Eryri, the last time I was there. Crikey, they get about I thought! It is a film about broken homes and how broken families can lead to broken souls. Personally I wish the real James Bowen had played himself, a tad unfair to the main actor who carried it off but there was too much shine and polish for my liking. I wanted more rough and ready. There were parts which reminded me of Trainspotting but of course the Director couldn't go too far because there was a cat in it and it has a 12a rating. So we have the Busker and Bob and Baz and then the 'luuurve' interest Betty, although James would not listen to his support worker who said to him "You are not ready for a relationship". So the film could have been called the 4Bs! Oh for names not beginning with B! Apart from the main characters, people, don't come out of it very well! People in general! They are menacing and leery and even the well meaning ones are out to line their own pockets. Without the Cat, there would be no book and no film and no, possibly happy ever after because James is an addict and we know that there are no happy ever afters for junkies (not my word but the twin girls' word) just good days and better days! The problem is that people could leave the cinema thinking that their own cat or friendly neighbour-hood stray could transform their lives. It's only a problem if they don't believe it. 

Another Freedom Post

http://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/freedom.html

Yes Folks! Yet another Freedom Post. This blog is providing me with great relief and therapy. I'm sorry if you're bored! I'm not sorry at all. It's your choice whether to click on the link but now that you have, come closer! Are you free? Do you feel free? More Free on a Saturday than a Monday Morning? From whence did we get our life scripts? You learnt from a young age that you don't get anything in this life without working for it! The Protestant Work Ethic. The world doesn't owe you a living. The Job Centre does though! You are free to get a job, to change job. You are free to create a CV, to tinker about with it, to embellish it a tad! You are free to sit in front of the bathroom mirror to practice your interview technique! You are free to earn the minimum wage of £7.20 an hour! You are free to work a month in advance. This should really be a poem. So you've been in a job awhile and you have been taught or you have learnt perhaps that man meets woman and they settle down and create other little men and women. They need somewhere to live so they have to keep working to provide for the little people. The little people are so full of ego! They scream me, me, me and you chuckle because they remind you of yourself when you were that age. So the debt of mortgage keeps you free to earn money for an existence that you are perhaps growing tired of. Is there more to this life than the illusion of freedom? Don't forget that you are free to shop! Especially at this time of year, it is mandatory! You have to shop to buy presents for the significant others! Tradition you see! We've always done it! This freedom is costing us our health! Is this another what is the meaning of life posts? Might be, we're just too darned busy to work it out the answer. Hang on a moment there, I might just have the answer for you! Click on the Link Below!

http://www.lulu.com/shop/http://www.lulu.com/shop/david-williams/ten-years-a-free-man/ebook/product-22510425.html

Thatcher stole my Trousers

http://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/stalin-ate-my-homework.html

He didn't ask me to write a book review but I didn't ask him to write the book so we're evens. I'm glad he did though. Unfortunately I didn't purchase it this time from the News from Nowhere Bookshop on Bold Street Liverpool because I was nowhere near there but bought it on a whim from Waterstones, Aberystwyth. Not that I was flush but I wanted to read about the the flash "Ullo John got a new motor". Like his first memoir this again is a slow burn which is an honest reflection of a person's life but by the time you get to the end you realise that there will be another one if not two after this one. Well a guy has got to make a buck somehow and you realise that Alexei Sayle was very adept at doing that. Although I never went to see him live I was and am a big fan. His anarchic comedy was a blast of fresh air and hope in Thatcher's Britain and by the end of the book you will believe that he actually stole Thatcher's trousers, not the other way round. We begin at the Chelsea College of Art, he has left Liverpool out of Lime Street Station and returns sporadically to visit his mother Molly and their cat. He dedicated the first volume to his mother and this one to his wife of many years Linda who became ostensibly his manager and you feel that if it hadn't been for her guiding hand and gentle touch that he would have gone off the rails many times. The hours he kept and the people he mixed with would have frazzled the fuse of many a lesser mortal but there was a burning desire to make people laugh and to make it at the same time. I'm afraid that the Young Ones passed me by but I tuned in just to see Alexei Sayle in it and turned it off once he'd finished his bit. Whenever I knew that he was on the telly I would tune in and seeing him was like being prodded with a cattle prong, his electricity ignited yours and reading his words in this volume has once again switched me on politically. Despite his success I detect a sadness and subjective puzzlement at show business and the people within it. Fame does not come without a cost. He names others but does not shame them but is frustrated by the madness of others because he of course is the maddest of them all, at least on stage. I suspect that he's far happier talking about guns and cars in real life but he knows that should he write a third volume of memoirs that I will buy it and review it whether he wants me to or not! Katanga!     

Gathartig

Mae'r profiad o gael sgwennu am bethau mor bersonol a ddwys yn fy 'Wenglish' bondigrybwyll wedi bod yn hynod gathartig. Am ddau reswm dwi'n meddwl 1) oherwydd dwi eisiau fy nghyd Gymru darllen a deall ac wedyn penderfynu dros ei hunan os i feirniadu neu gydymdeimlo 2) fod rwtsh fy isymwybod yn deillio o addysg fonedd gwpl Saesneg. Mi wnâi ymhelaethu, teimlaf fy mod wedi cael fy di-wreiddio (up-rooted) mewn sawl ffordd ac mae sgrifennu fel hyn yn ryw fath o hunan therapi. Trwy edrych yn nol dwi yn gweld fy mod wedi ymbellhau o gymdeithas gyffredin a hynny oherwydd ofn. Dwi'n dipyn o 'Coward of the County'. Mae ymwneud a phobol yn y gorffennol yn gyffredinol wedi gadael ei ôl. Oherwydd dwi ddim yn berson cystadleuol mae hwn wedi arwain at ddiffyg menter a threial un rhywbeth newydd. A gydag oedran mae'r chwant gwneud rhywbeth all fynd a fi mas o'r 'comfort zone' yn lleihau. Mi ddylwn ni fod fel Boris Johnson neu David Cameron neu un o'r Toffs yma sydd wedi bod trwy'r un system ond mae o wedi troi fi yn erbyn y system yna a'r fath bobol oherwydd wnes i fethu'r system a wnaeth y system methi fi. Mae o'n seicoleg weddol syml. Dwi hefyd yn erbyn sefydliadau ac awdurdod. Mae fel bod ymennydd plentyn da fi. Mae pobol yn tueddi cilio rhag pethau asgell chwith fel maent yn heneiddio ond mae fy mhrofiad i i'r gwrthwyneb. 
Y peth mwyaf dwi'n difaru am y fath addysg oedd diffyg presenoldeb merched oherwydd dwi ddim yn gyffyrddus iawn yn ei chwmni oherwydd dwi ddim wedi dysgu'r ffordd i ymddwyn yn briodol. Y pethau iawn i ddweud. Os i weld nhw fel pobol a ffrindiau neu i ymdrin â nhw fel bodau gwahanol.
Mae rhaid i fi gyfadde' i rywbeth dwi'n siŵr wnaeth cythruddo rhai ond mae gen i 'superiority complex'. Dwi'n ceisio peidio ond dwi yn gweld yn hun yn wahanol i bobol eraill ac os ddim yn well yn bendant yn fwy trugarog (humane) 
Roedd gadael awyrgylch ysgol fonedd fel methiant yn dipyn o sioc, mynd i weithio yn Wasg Gee, Dinbych am £25.00 yr wythnos ar gynllun Y.O.P (Youth Opportunities Programme)  Margaret Thatcher a dyma fi tri deg mlynedd lawr y lein a dim ond ar dair gwaith y maent yr wythnos rŵan o dan Theresa May, ond tro ma’ ar Carers Allowance, yr unig fudd-dal allai fynd arno heb ypsetio fy iechyd meddwl. 
Dwi yn meddwl fod script ein bywydau fel oedolion yn cael ei setio pan rydym yn ein harddegau. Cyfnod andros o anodd i bawb. Rhieni a phlant fel ei gilydd. Mae'r awyrgylch 'llwyddo at unrhyw gost yma' wedi costi fywydau pobol. Y nod afrealistig yna a wnaeth cyn lleied o bobol cyrraedd. Yn lle'r curriculum yn canolbwyntio ar wybodaeth, beth am ganolbwyntio ar fod yn bobol well. Sut i fod yn 'Mindful' Sut i drin a phobol eraill yn y ffordd briodol yn lle bwlio a chael ei bwlio. Ar ddydd Sul fel hun ni allaf beidio meddwl am y bobol ifanc sydd yn ofni i fer ei esgyrn mynd nôl i ysgol yfory oherwydd maent yn mynd i gael ei bwlio. Dyma'r ffaith dwi'n ceisio dygymod a fo i'r dydd hwn "Sut all un person cael cymaint o ddylanwad ar berson arall?" "Sut a pam rydym ni yn rhoi ein pŵer i ffwrdd i bobol sydd ddim yn heiddi cael o?" Mae sawl un yn deud 'Natur Ddynol' 'Natur Ddynol'. Yn lle derbyn hwnna fel ffaith beth am geisio newid natur ddynol yn ein cyfarfodydd bob dydd yn lle derbyn yr un hen rwtsh gan bobol flin a chymdeithas fygythiol?    

O Brofiad

Dwi'n dyn hanner cant oed ac mi ddechreuodd fy mhrofiadau iechyd meddwl pan oeddwn yn dair ar ddeg oed. Mi ges is fy medyddio yn David ond newidiais fy enw i Dafydd. Mi ges i addysg Gymraeg tan yn saith oed ac wedyn addysg gwpl Saesneg. Dwi'n beio'r profiad yma o gael fy llusgo o'm gwreiddiau Cymraeg a'r ffaith fod yr addysg mewn Ysgol Fonedd ar yr Afiechyd. Mi ges i fy 'breakdown' cyntaf pan yn 21 a rhodded y Seiciatrydd pryd hynny ddiagnosis o 'extreme sensitivity' i mi! Deunaw mlynedd wedyn mi es i  garchar yn yr Iseldiroedd oherwydd fy mod wedi dioddef o 'Drug Induced Psychosis'. Cannabis cryf roeddwn yn defnyddio i leddfi fy mhoen meddwl. Ers tair ar ddeg oed mi roeddwn yn dioddef o rywbeth maent nawr yn galw 'Pure O' sydd ar sbectrwm OCD. Intrusive thoughts neu feddyliau cas a milain roeddwn ddim yn gallu gwneud dim amdanyn nhw. Os roeddwn yn ymladd y meddyliau mi roedden nhw yn mynd yn waith. Ar ôl un ar hugain mi roeddwn yn yfed yn drwm ar y penwythnosau ac yn defnyddio cannabis i leddfi'r poen ond yn ddiarwybod i mi roedd y cannabis cryf yn Amsterdam wedi troi fi mewn i ryw fath o 'ticking time bomb'. Mi roedd y Seiciatrydd cyntaf yn iawn oherwydd fy mod yn tristau yn ofnadwy am ddigwyddiadau'r byd. Mi wnes i gwympo lawr i lefain pan ddigwyddodd trasiedi Lockerbie yn 1988. Yn 2001 gyda pawb arall sugnodd lluniau 9/11 mewn i'r isymwybod a fi'n ceisio dal lawr swydd fel athro yn Llundain. Wedyn pan ddaeth 7/7/2005 mi golles i'r plot yn llwyr. Mi roeddwn yn Amsterdam ar ôl gadael fy ngwaith ac yn ceisio dygymod gyda'r byd ar betws. Wnaeth y bomiau aeth off yn Llundain y diwrnod hwnnw tanio bomb afiechyd meddwl yn fy mhen. Dwi wedi sgrifennu llyfr a ddechreuodd off fel blog am yr hanes yn Saesneg ac mae o ar gael gan Chipmunka Publishing. Dwi'n Cymro Cymraeg sydd ddim wedi gweithio am ddegawd oherwydd dwi'n meddwl fod iechyd meddwl yn wleidyddol. Dwi'n argyhoeddedig erbyn hyn fod y ffordd rydym ni yn cael ein gorfodi byw ein bywydau fel rhyw fath o production lein mewn ffactori yn mynd i arwain at epidemic o afiechyd meddwl yn y dyfodol. Mae bywyd i mi wedi bod fel carchar oherwydd dwi ddim yn rhydd i fynegi fy marn, neu os dwi yn, dwi yn cael fy anwybyddu fel gwallgofddyn. Anhwylder Dau Begwn yw'r diagnosis mae'r byd Seiciatryddol wedi rhoi i mi erbyn hyn ond dwi yn tueddu cytuno gyda fy Seiciatrydd cyntaf. Dwi yn hogyn a dyn hynod sensitif mewn byd creulon ag ansensitif ac yn anffodus erbyn hyn dwi wedi caledi fy hun i fy amgylchiadau.