"I can sell you two cans of Hatred, but you can't open them in here."

The Facebook Site for the pub I work at is called "Rhyddings Hotel, Centre of the Universe." Cough. Cough. Cough. I didn't make it. This probably means, however, that I'm entitled to talk about what happens there as it effects everything to occur anywhere, ever.

so here we go: Superhappy Workfun #1.
There's too much longwinded backstory that isn't interesting to get this one across, but I'll try. There's two of the regulars who come by. One is Huwie, who is nicknamed "the horrible cunt" and then there's Ceri, who's a good few decades younger than Huwie, but is his boss. On and off. It's a complex relationship; Ceri often comes in and asks. . . So. . . any horrible cunts around?
No, no sign of odiousness.
Good good. So it hasn't been that loathesome in here today?
Not that I've seen.

It's good banter. Actually, probably 60% of the truly quality banter from the dailies comes from Ceri-- "I'll take a few pints of self-loathing with a chaser of despair and-- oh wait, you don't SELL dignity here, do you?
So it was pretty la-a-ame when Ceri was in a few weeks ago with a good group of mates I'd not seen before and they proceeded to give me and Simon a good bit of shit.
( Parentheticals you probably figure but I'll say anyway--Now-- Taking Shit is part of a bartender's job. Not enough bubbles in your pint? Here, let me pour your pint into a new glass and top it up, wasting what ends up being nearly half a pint of beer just so that your Fosters is foamy enough. Too MUCH head on your beer? Let's just top that up for you. Yes, it sure IS a shame this isn't a "Real Pub." I'll serve you so much faster when you snap your fingers. Etc.--)

But there's Taking Shit and there's some shit-- when one of Ceri's mates' pint was flat after about three new glasses, well, that's not my fault, is it? Plus by now we've put almost a pint and a half in the waste tray just trying to conjure up some bubbles. So then every time I walk past he complains, cusses at me or remarks that he paid £2.60 for this pint and blah blah blah (he actually paid £2.45.)

This isn't what got Ceri banned. Ceri was just sitting there laughing. Would I have liked it if one of my regulars who I'm always quick to serve actually said something-- anything-- to the effect of "come on, guys, I drink here every day, lay off." Yes.
But I wasn't expecting it.
However, when the lot of them started sending texts to the pub phone aimed at Simon saying things like Next time make sure my pint has bubbles in it, you hairy cunt and similarly hilarious bits (revolving around the C-word. I'll miss it's ubiquity when I go home.) that Simon refuses to serve them. I go along with it, because seriously, fuck those guys.
Meanwhile, the "horrible cunt" is sitting at his stool, shaking his head and politely waiting to be served. Ironies.

So if there's one thing I can say for Tony and Angie, it's that they back up their employees. None of this "customer is always right" rot. Tony tells me that he doesn't want those guys in here any more and if Ceri wants to keep drinking here he needs to issue an apology. Now I don't want the guy banned-- I just want his charming friends to leave me alone. However, Saturday night he comes in and gets into a proper Row with Angie and now he's 86ed. Meanwhile, "horrible cunt" now works for us as a cleaner.

Superfunhappytimes #2
Jane has worked at the pub for quite a while now. She's been in and out of the bartrade for a good long time and the customers like her. She is not, however, good at managing her drinking habits in such a way to line up with her schedule. Even by the Rhyddings standards. Which run along these lines-- "If I can go out and get absolutely shitfaced every night and still show up here and do my job for eight hours, you damn well can too."--Kim.
We don't care about hangovers, blurry eyes or cranky tempers. We do care (or I do) when we get texts at 6:30am asking for coverage of the 11am shift. Hypothetically. Which I did because 1) I'm a sucker and 2) I'm good hearted and 3) I'm broke and 4) all of the above.

So working an unexpected 11-5 on a rugby day was fine; but when Simon shows up and asks if I want to cover him because "he's got to do some shit" well. . . alright. Half your shift. Til 9pm. For an even 10 hours.
But when Simon doesn't show to cover the last half of his shift, well, I'm already on a pint of bitter and sure as hell no one ELSE is picking up the slack. So Angie tells Kim to text Simon "If you're not here in 15 minutes don't bother coming back."

Needless to say, he doesn't show. I'm sure he'll have a story. On one hand I feel bad for the guy -- 22 years old, two kids and what sounds like the banshee from hell to contend with, personally. When he didn't show up for a week and returned, teary-eyed and apologetic, Angie let him back.
On the other hand, I believe Nicola put it best when she said: "Well, it serves the stupid twat fucking right for not showing up. Asshole."

Because at the end of the day, yeah man. We've all Got Problems. But we show up.

It's like the Awesome Nameless Summer Poetry Project, but will probably get a title soon. Part 1.

Today I got an e-mail from GPS with a contract and everything. Something about invoicing them. I've never "invoiced" anyone before; largely because I'm usually on the other end of that equation and because most of my dealings are with friends. This, however, is with a large, poetry-based corporation.

More on that later. With regards to the Other End of my cash-acquisition, I'm currently working on a new Chapbook to complete in time for a top-secret lock-in fundraiser at Lewis' band's practice space beginning of April.
Yeah, I know.
Something about a "top-secret fundraiser" sounds eight ways to dodgy, but still. . . I like reading in cramped, poorly lit spaces. If my words don't hit people, specks of saliva will.

So I'm currently going through a list of potential poems for this book. I want it to largely consist of pieces I've written (or heavily edited and completed) here in Swansea, I want it to have a strong Sense of Place, but I don't want it to read like a poetry-based laundry list of images and places; I find that heavily themed works get real stale real fast.
So. I've got a list of titles here, some with links to them, others you can easily find on this blog, others are yet unseen in online form and we'll let that stay the case.



First off, the Poems I Wrote Pre-Wales, that for whatever reason I Feel Strongly Enough About to consider including
Story Problem
Zombies and Paint Thinner
Dinner For One
Watching Films About Death
Little Red Corvette
Cavities
Caleb Barber Loses His Teeth to Meth
Everyone Has Something
Murder Ballads

Poems I've Written in Swansea, More or Less About Swansea or Places in It or about General 'Welshness'-->(*Marks one that needs a good bit of work)
Beneath the Cathedral
Paintings of Famous Satanists
Rugby '08
Rugby '09*
Rucksacks*
The Cafe Across From the Train Station
Glasgow Weather and Inappropriate Footwear
Carmarthen Train #1
Its What We Writers Do (For Jen)
Christmas Light Gallows*
Tall Drink of Water
Black Pudding*
Isolation Therapy
At the Chip Shop
Beck House D 3.1*
Ambition is Critical*
Swansea-Cardiff Blues (Bellngham Edition)*
Earl Grey
All My Friend Back Home (Start a band about this one)*
Tired Eyes


And These Are About Girls or Concepts or came from Ryan's prompts and aren't necessarily tied to Wales
Ellie
Donkey Kong Country
New Poem For Old Plasters
We Laughed at the Same Thing (M4W)
Clippers! Clippers! Clippers!
A Little Fear of Drowning
Flicking Ash
24th Ave, NE*
Cities that Exist in Movies*
Children Go Missing Every Day
Context and Subtext
Ways In Which Gloriana Flotsam McGrew Will Probably Die, Since It's Always So Fucking Glamourous With Her (addressed to the subject)
Pigeon Bait
Children Go Missing Every Day
Forward Thinking
Boyz*
Three Counts of Public Urination
Enough With the Cape Already*
Genus, Species and Flavour
I am the tired orphan*

yeah. So about 15-20 poems out of those. Plus a few that are very much in my head but not on paper yet. Some are shoe-ins, but it really depends what sort of thing I want to make and what purpose I want it to serve for me and how long. Which I'll talk about later. I've tagged a lot of places you can find some of the mentioned poems.

Call it romantic predict-a-text*

*for best results, scroll to the video and press play. listen to song while reading the entry. this one is just a song; there's no video to go with it.

First-- A poem from January. You might remember it. This version is slightly edited.

Swansea,
I have met so many girls
with fast laughs and careful smiles
who've known you far too long
whose tired eyes would do
so much better
elsewhere.

This, we have in common.

T and I broke up yesterday. It started Wednesday morning when I was walking her to work and I made one of my brilliant "here'ssomethingcasualthatactuallymeanslots" comments about how I could, you know, really get used to this. Then Saturday night at Sin City (there's an entry coming about how all my relationships in Wales have seemed to start or end at Sin City) she writes me a note on her phone about "I think I'm falling for you way too fast."
I think Pantera's "Walk" was playing in the background at the time.
So she came over to mine yesrafternoon, dodged the crowds of baby-dedicators and we hashed things out in my room. It was either going to suck a lot now or suck a lot in a few months; selfishly enough I would have preferred the latter. Because then all the leaving-related-angst could be packed up into one misty-eyed suitcase, i could write a note on the airplane and mail it as soon as I got back. But the intervening months, helping me pack, scribble goodbyes, those would have been hell on her.

So I guess I'm taking this one in lumps.



long. fucking. sigh.

All this talk of leaving when it still feels so far away.

Today is a heavy internet day for me. So be it.

For Lent this year I'm going with the old standby of giving up booze. There've been the odd occasions in the past when (for lent or other reasons) I've given up booze where the fact that I really didn't want to meant I needed to; this time the fact that I'm not bothered about it means it's all just as well.


I mailed off my visa app yesterday. The weight off my shoulders is tremendous. I probably have about 2 -4 more months in Swansea now and I've got shit to do. Among the things I've got planned:

--> Help Theresa move forward with her plans; she sent off an application to Grad School in Cardiff yesterday and will be looking to move soon. I like our parallell trajectories in some ways; we're helping each other along. Also, do more fun stuff with her now that I'm not in perma-whinge mode.

--> Global Poetry System. On March 27th there's a workshop in London I go to (this may be one of the few notable Lent Exceptions I allow myself as long as its determined ahead of time) and we'll get some events nailed down. The idea being to schedule a series of events related to poetry found in unconventional places and presented in new and unusual ways. It's a UK-wide deal and I'm Swansea's guy for it.

--> Pare down my collection of books, clothes and CDs; when I do move I want to minimise shipping costs. Maybe get the odd new item to supplement; I can throw out five old T-shirts I never wear a lot easier if I have one new one I think is rad.

--> The Crunch. Get that shit official; talk to Academi and get funding so we can pay features from out of town. Find someone to host in my eventual absence. Keep the momentum we have.

--> I still owe a few people Letters from Wales. It's way more exciting (when you're in Seattlingporthamland) to receive Letters from Wales than from Stanwood.

--> Tunes with John. Demos at least. Something to remember the Unnamed Trio by.

--> I'm thinking of making an extended version of Swansea Morning Coming Down with 15-20 poems in it; mainly ones written since coming to Swansea. Maybe a few old standbys. It'd be a cool thing to have as a record of a specific time and place; plus I could schedule a few readings and sell them. I'm broke.

--> See more of Wales. Preferably the parts that weren't bombed to shit by the Luftwaffe and subsequently paved over.

--> Get a few more pictures of this town, country and my friends that aren't taken inside Mozart's Wine Bar or The Office. This will possibly be the most difficult.

It's a song that just makes you want to travel

Wednesday I got paid. My policy on getting paid is that even if you have gotten far less money that you hoped/needed (which was certainly the case this time around) you should still allow yourself some fun. Because if you can't waste a bit of money the day/weekend you got paid. . . well shit, son.
So I went home and stashed most of my wages (paid in cash) where I always do and left the house with twenty pounds. The leaving-with-only-what-you're-willing-to-spend policy is also helpful in keeping things on the "oh, I shouldn't have bought that CD/last beer/t-shirt" range as opposed to "Shit>.!! I just spent everything i own and some of what I don't on dogfights, cocaine and women of the night."

Headed to Coyote for a punk gig. Coyote is about the size of someone's living room, so the music doesn't have to be great, just genuine. As it was, I saw Exeter band The Dead City Stereo who I keep ending up seeing on accident; I'm starting to recognise their songs. I don't go to many gigs at all, so the fact that there's a band (from out of town, no less) I've seen more than twice surprises me.
I also remember when that was my life.

At the gig I met up with Dave Beer and his Newport buddy Stubbs and we headed down to Mozarts for their first ever Open Decks Night. That's right. Show up with music, the in-house DJ shows you the ropes and you get 20-30 minutes to play whatever you want.

No one was there. Which was ideal, really. The Punks (john&jess) showed up and Keiran (who had his best buddy from back in the day visiting. It was mainly us and the staff, so I ended up getting to spin for an hour. Thing is, Rick had just played a pretty great set of proto-punk and leather-coated indie (Sonics, Brian Jonestown, The Only Ones) and Gemma went before me with a consistently bang-on set of '60s soul and r 'n' b. I knew I couldn't compete on that level of single-minded focus.

so what to do?

The answer (as is often the case in matters of life, death, taste or religion) lies with Steve Albini and The End of Radio. (see video above.) I believe the song to be one of the great combinations of music, lyrics and ideas of the last five years. . . that, however doesn't make it traditionally melodic, atmospheric or less than nine minutes long.
The beauty of leading with something like that is you can pretty much do anything you want after it.


This had a drunk-off-Stella-and-Tuborg Dave Beer jumping around and shouting HIT THE NOOORTH! into the faces of anyone there. There were a few people there by then and I just ended up playing a fairly trad-Graham set; some "anything by Ladytron" for Keiran, TV on the Radio and so on, closing with McLusky's "To Hell With good Intentions." Which i'm not posting here because if you know me, you've probably heard it. Enjoy some synth pop and Welsh instrumental maths, though.




This segued nicely into the next set, which was Hollie playing a mix of classic rock song and bands that sound like The Bronx.

"This is a total abortion of taste."-- Keiran, on the aforementioned set, possibly during a track by Boston.

So. From one abortion of taste to another, Adam, Keiran and Ian and I went and got Curry. At 2 a.m., when eating more always sounds like a good idea. The problem is, while nominally better for you than the dreaded Kebab, Curry is even worse the next day. It sits inside you and seeps through your skin; even the act of showering feels like you're wallowing in your own filth. The day after a post-midnight curry one genuinely feels like while there may be fleeting joys in life, nothing will ever be clean or whole again, for the rest of your life.

Which isn't necessarily how you want to feel getting up at 9:30 and rushing to the station to meet your girlfriend to catch a train to Cardiff.

I can't believe we've lost our cool

Started the day with a goodbye to two very old friends, opened my e-mail to bad news from home. Tonight I work at a local pub during the rugby match between Wales and England.
This is the beginning of the longest two weeks e-var.

on an up(?)side, I got a couple in www.heroinlovesongsjournal.blogspot.com. Apparently there will be a print edition as well. Credibility and all that.

We Laughed at the Same Thing > M4W >(Thursday outside the Garage, after midnight)

the assignment was to write one in the style of a craigslist missed connection. this one is true, in a non-specific way.

Every time I get off work I think I’ve stopped with girls forever, I just notice the way the street is a sewer after 10pm in that bermuda triangle of chips and styrofoam where Sketty turns into Walter. I saw you by accident, a pleasant surprise in scene-profiling. There was the contrast between the twee scarf and the scuffed cons and you seemed vaguely capable of murder. Or charity work.

So. Definitely my type. . . and obviously you were smoking. You didn’t see me until the couple outside Mr. D’s started yelling at eachother, her an orange lizard in white mini-skirt, him a brick-built cliche, dropping his chips everywhere and never standing on both feet at once.

“Don’t ye fackin’ tells me that! Where was you! Where was you!?”

Outside the Garage where the rockers clustered you shook your head with a smirk. I was wearing the frame of a guy who would like to fall in love but couldn’t be bothered. And a wrinkled black shirt. You looked like every girl I’d ever kissed or wanted to fucked and made babies. And real good in a blue jacket. I’m the guy who laughed with you and tripped over the gum on the pavement on the way to somewhere else.