Why not try to get a few quick words in at halftime? The Seahawks are being manhandled by the hated Green Bay Packers, and it doesn’t look pretty for the second half, with a snow-covered field and Brett Favre’s stupid grinning mug filling my screen. Fortunately, I’m not invested in this game, either through an emotional connection to Seattle or because I foolishly decided to venture downstairs for the first time to place an ill-conceived bet on Green Bay being left scattered and bruised after an assault from the Seattle linebacker corps. And good thing for that, too. I have taken chances this weekend on New York and Jacksonville, and that will be plenty. I take the advice of the Welsh professional gamblers whom I befriended during the regular season at BoDean’s, who laid thousands on the line each week on the American football games but refused to put money on the Barclay’s Premiere League matches- never bet on a team you love, or against a team you hate. They were wise, even if they were drunken assholes who invented a coarse and, frankly, utterly unappetizing slang for various sexual acts they would like the waitstaff at the BBQ joint to perform on them that compared the mouths and sex organs of the women to various meat items on the menu… But wisdom can come from anyone, even the Welsh.

That was an English thing I just did there, taking a shot at the Welsh. It’s important to note that every English-speaking country I’m aware of has a region that receives the same jokes- in Canada, it’d be a joke about the Newfies, those unfortunates with the bad luck to hail from Newfoundland; in the States, you might hear the same gag repeated about folks from Kentucky; the Australians would refer to Kiwis in the same manner. Often the jokes don’t even change, just the subject. I’m in England now, so I’ll make fun of the Welsh. It’s my way of trying to integrate.

At any rate, the Welshmen I spent the Autumn watching the NFL games with are probably winning big right now- they all tended to bet on the favorites, rather than the underdog, except on rare occasion. Seattle’s defense is vaunted and stout, but I doubt it would have been enough to counter the freakish man-love that Welsh people- indeed, all people- seem to feel toward Brett Favre.

It’s funny to me to consider football from the perspective of the Welsh, just like I find it fascinating to talk about the primaries with our Canadian flatmate, to hear what someone without an emotional connection to the US thinks about Obama and Hillary Clinton and Mike Huckabee. These are passionate subjects, the core of America, and removed from that context, from another set of eyes, you can see them differently.

Rhymefest and Lupe Fiasco share the American perspective on politics, but they argue it from a place that you rarely get to see- that of people who know that their words are bigger because they come from people who are going to be listened to, and who understand that responsibility. Jesus, could you imagine if Tucker Carlson or Charlie Gibson understood that? You wouldn’t get dumb-ass questions in a debate about what will your regrets be when a major american city is nuked by terrorists which will totally happen. People talk like they know they’re right, and all it usually means is that they end up sounding stupid. But that’s America- that’s what we want, what we expect, what we pride ourselves on, being right and being first- being Winners.

Like Green Bay- holy cow! I walked away for a while when my mom called and when I get back, the Packers are up 42-20 and Matt Hasselbeck is crying tears of blood into the fifteen feet of pure white snow that’s covered Lambeau Field. Tonight Brett Favre is still a winner, and the commentators will be lining up to say i knew it all along. The only thing I knew about this game was not to put money on it, which is lucky- if I’d been feeling risky, I’d have bet on the Seahawks, and then I’d have my foot in my mouth like Lupe did when he tried to argue with Rhymefest that Obama wanted to bomb Iran…

Yeah, and Rhymefest is a Chicago boy like Obama and, nominally, like myself- we will never say that the Packers were destined to win. It makes our skin crawl to even hear the words spoken. Lupe Fiasco comes from Chicago, too- he used to live a few blocks from our apartment in Wicker Park a couple of years ago, and you could see him buying sneakers on Milwaukee Ave. He made a great record this year, but he talks like he wants to be right, instead of like he’s actually learned what he’s saying, sometimes. It’s something we can all admit to having done more than once. But we aren’t all being listened to by people who will believe us. The Rhymefest / Lupe beef took place strictly on a few message boards and Myspace messages, but it addressed things a lot more interesting than who fucked who’s girl, or who had a hot song a couple years ago- instead they got to talking about the responsibility of a person in the public eye to educate himself on important topics before talking about them in a place where they’ll be heard. Well, hell- you see what happens when you mix two American artforms like hip-hop and presidential politics?

Hip-hop is huge in London, of course. I was briefly confused when we first arrived, thinking the streets were flooded with young, male New York-based expats because the streets and trains are full of kids in Yankee caps, but it’s just a G-Unit thing, and 50 sells a hell of a lot more records over here than Rhymefest and Lupe Fiasco put together. But that’s not necessarily important- after all, it was Rhymefest who wrote an open letter to the Tory leader, David Cameron, and who was subsequently invited to visit and perform on the floor of the House of Commons. Significance is measured in a number of ways. But they love hip-hop over here, even if they see it very differently than we do in the States. I sometimes get stopped on the street when people see my tattoo, and they all think that it’s by Tupac.

And sometimes Cindy asks me why I’m living over in London and writing about America all the time- she can’t get away from Mitt Romney and Tony Romo, and here I am an ocean away going on and on about them. Well, the answer is from over here, I can see it a little bit more clearly.

America is mostly politics, hip-hop, and football. Figure those things out, and it becomes a little bit less weird.