Joaquim Maria Puyal

Today, I am going to talk about Joaquim Maria Puyal, the best sports commentator ever. (I am listening to him right now, FC Barcelona is playing against Xerez.) This is (hopefully) going to be my last post on this blog, so if someone is reading this, enjoy it now cause you will not be able to read me anymore!

Joaquim Maria Puyal i Ortiga is a Catalan journalist known for his work in television and radio. He was born in 1949 in Barcelona. He got a degree in Linguistics and another in Romance Philology (which has nothing to do with his actual job at the radio station, I know). After that, he started a degree in Communication Sciences. When he was 27, he decided that he would develop his career exclusively in Catalan, because he thought that the work of journalists could play a decisive role in its normalization (after its repression during Franco's dictatorship).

In 1967 he started working with Ràdio Barcelona, a tiny radio station. He remained there for many years doing various roles until the station's director asked him if he could broadcast a soccer match. He accepted it and that is when he started his job as a sports commentator.

Puyal narrated the first Catalan-language broadcast of a soccer match since the Second Republic. During Franco's dictatorship Catalan had been forbidden in every official institution, but games had been broadcast in Catalan before the Civil War. Puyal realised he had to work with linguists to create the specialized vocabulary needed to analyse soccer (most of the words came from English: corner, offside, penalty, goal... and had its equivalent in Spanish, but not in Catalan).

After Franco's death, he made the proposal to broadcast matches in Catalan to the director of Cadena Ser, a Spanish radio station, because he thought he could do it with the democratic air that was starting to appear in Spain. Cadena SER accepted the project and the new programme was called 'Futbol en català'. The programme became quickly very successful.

In 1985 Puyal left Ràdio Barcelona and started working with Catalunya Ràdio, the most important radio station in Catalunya. Since that moment he has narrated every official match played by FC Barcelona, which makes more than 2,000 games.(He is still working with Catalunya Ràdio.)

Joaquim Maria Puyal's popularity and prestige is due as much to his radio career as to his work in television. He has directed, produced and presented various programs, all in the Catalan language.

In television, he began working on the Catalan circuit of Televisión Española. He started in 1977 presenting the programme 'Vostè pregunta'. In 1985 he signed with TV3 to direct and present the programme 'Vostè jutja', then he started with another programme with 'La vida és un xip' and then with 'Un tomb per la vida'. He collaborated with some other programmes in which he was not the presenter 'Tres pics i repicó' and 'El joc del segle'. He gave the first professional opportunity to many notable Catalan journalists such as Antoni Bassas, Xavier Bosch, Manel Fuentes, Ricard Torquemada (he works with him currently) and Mònica Terribas.

He has many awards for his work in television and in radio. Joaquim Maria Puyal is by far the most popular sports commentator in Catalan (and the best one). He is not like the sports commentators we are used to listen to, he is kind, he can talk properly, he knows everything about soccer but about many other things too. He stands out amongst his mates because he is humble and he talks like a professional, not like a plain fan (it is sad, but sports press and sports journalists are not real journalists, they are just supporters).

Listening to him, you learn lots of things about soccer and really enjoy it. He talks clearly, he expains everything about the match and the players and the most important thing: he does not talk as if he knew everything and he does not commentate on matches under his point of view, he does it as objectively as he can. If you have the chance to listen to him, instead of listening to TV sports commentators, switch on the radio and listen to him! Our frequency here is 106,7.

James Byron Dean

Last Wednesday I went to the library to get a movie in English. I wasn't looking for any particular movie when I saw it: East of Eden. As I really like James Dean, I got it and when I started watching it I realised it wasn't the film, it was a documentary about his life, but as I had already put it on, I watched it anyway.
I didn't expect it to be really interesting, but it really was! Well, James has had a very complex and interesting life. He was born in 1931 in a little farm. He and his parents gave up farming when he was a kid and moved to California. He had a special relationship with his mum, the only person that could understand him. She died of cancer when James was only 9 years old. That was really hard for him and his father, who, unable to take care of him, sent him to his sister place, back in Indiana. He spent his youth there and went to High School. He was outstanding in sports and drama. When he was 18, he moved to California to live with his father and to study drama. He started going to some castings and getting many roles, acting in theaters, TV shows and playing non-important roles in some movies. Two years later, he gave up his drama classes to start being a full-time actor. When he was only 22 years old, Elia Kazan was looking for an actor to play Cal in East of Eden, and thought him perfect for the part. James was exactly what he was looking for, an actor with energy, not very known and young.
The movie was a complete success with James Dean as the main role. In the movie, he played Cal, a misunderstood boy who felt unloved by the world. Cal and Aron are the sons of Adam, a farmer and an investor. Cal is very impulsive and energetic and Aron is the “good boy”. Cal is envious because he thinks his father only loves Aron and he is obssessed with this thought. Eventually, he discovers that his mother, who had apparently died some years before, is alive, is in town and is rich. Cal tries to gain his father's love, but he always lets him down. When his father loses an important amount of money, Cal makes an investment and gets all the money back. He decides to give his father the money as a birthday present, and when he gives it to him, Aron announces he is getting engaged with his girlfriend, spoiling Cal’s present. Cal feels very angry with his brother and tells him the truth about his mother, to make him feel angry and upset. Aron, very bitter with the discovery, decides to enlist the army and goes away. His father then suffers from a stroke and gets paralysed. Cal explains him the truth, that he has always been envious of his brother, that he feels unloved and that he told Aron the truth about their mother. With Aron’s girlfriend’s help, he talks to his father and they sort out their problem. Cal promises that he will stay with him while he is paralysed.
After this movie, James Dean started to get known and his fame went higher and higher. He was very popular among young people and became an icon of rebelliousness. In his second movie, Rebel without a cause, James plays Jim, a misunderstood adolescent. His situation at home is horrible, his parents are always arguing and Jim looks down on his dad for being a coward and letting the arguments happen. He meets Plato, a 15 year-old boy that will become his best friend. Plato idealizes Jim because he is going through the same as him, with the horrible situation at home and feeling misunderstood. Jim then falls in love with Judy and starts going out with her. One day, Jim gets involved in a fight with Buzz, a bully from school. Buzz challenges Jim to a race with stolen cars, consisting in running towards a cliff and getting out of the car at the very last moment. The one that stays longer in the car will be the winner. They start racing and Buzz gets his jacket caught on the car door, and he can not jump off. Buzz dies and Jim runs to his place. He is trying to tell his parents what happend, but they do not understand and he, feeling frustrated, runs away to an abandoned house, hiding from the police. Nevertheless, Buzz's friends follow him and call the police. Meanwhile, inside the house there are Jim, Judy and Plato. Plato carries a gun, and Jim, who does not want another misfortune, takes the bullets out. Then Plato gets out of the house carrying a gun and the police, thinking that it was Jim who was there (Plato was wearing Jim's jacket), shoots him and kills him.
The other movie that James Dean acted in is Giant, but as I haven't seen it, I can not explain the plot. Some other things interesting about his life are that he met a woman (can't remeber her name) and they started going out, but the relationship was not successful because of James' character, so unstable. He was very moody and always did what he liked. When he was asked to go to the war, he declared being homosexual. Once, he asked his father why he had left him with his sister, why he cared so little about him. His father told him that he was not his real father, that his mother had had an affair and he was not his real son.
James Dean's carrer and life were very short, as he died from a car accident in 1955, when he was only 24 years old. Probably, if he had lived longer, he would have given us some more excellent interpretations, but we will never know. Anyway, just with three movies behind him, James Dean has become one of the best actors ever and has become an idol for heaps of people of all times.