Strangers on a Bench - EPISODE 13: Maybe I Need To Go Home

Episode Date: December 9, 2024

Tom Rosenthal approaches a stranger on a park bench and asks if he can sit down next to them and record their conversation.This is what happened! Produced by Tom RosenthalEdited by Rose De LarrabeitiMixed by Mike WoolleyTheme tune by Tom Rosenthal & Lucy Railton Incidental music by Maddie AshmanEnd song : 'The Poet' by Ezra GlattStream it here : https://ffm.to/thepoet Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, sorry to bother you. Can I ask you a slightly odd question? I'm making a podcast called Strangers on a Bench, where essentially I talk to people I don't know on benches for you up for that? Do you want to give it a go? What's your favourite day of the week? I don't know, maybe Saturday or Sunday I suppose. I've never talked about that, I don't know. It's welcome. Yeah, probably the weekend I suppose, yeah. Friday maybe, yeah. Oh, we've got three options there now, suddenly.

Probably Friday, Probably Friday. Can you take me through what would be an ideal day for you? Probably at the weekend, I suppose. I get up at about half six, I read and then I do something like this. I come to Hampstead Heath or sometimes I go for a drive. I go places, yeah, that's it. Yeah. Nothing too Nothing too exciting I mean do you mean if I go to a casino and go to a strip club or something. I mean excitement is in the eye of the beholder isn't it. So whatever you fancy is absolutely fine. You say you go up and you read straight away. That's interesting.

I've just done it for years. Probably lockdown, it became more of a kind of routine just to not go mad. Yeah, I don't know if I succeeded actually in lockdown, but yeah, I just do it. I just get up and read whatever I'm reading. I have some coffee, I have some cereal. I'm actually reading, funny enough,

there it is. The Outsider, which is called The Stranger, it's actually mistranslated. For a stranger and a bunch. Destiny, absolutely destiny. Have you read it? I feel like I tried to read it and didn't finish it, which is terrible because it's a small book. But I have written a song called Al Bek Amu. So it's really bad of me to have not finished that. I think you know why someone told me how this ended. You know when someone tells you how it ends and it's kind of...

I've never seen the sixth sense because somebody taught me how it ended. Yeah so that's it. I think maybe that was the nature of it. But yeah, so how does this book make you feel when you read it? I mean, it's quite a mystic book, isn't it? I mean, the first page is he finds out his mother's dead. And he's not very sentimental about it. He goes to where she's in a home. They've put on some of the nails in the coffin.

And they ask, do you want to take the nails off so you can see your mother and he says no so it's a fairly kind of It's the story of a guy who goes through life without really being tied in with a lot of the moral code, not necessarily moral codes, but codes that we're all tied in with You know, but is he a bad person because he doesn't understand them or he doesn't feel them. It's just interesting. It's an interesting thought-provoking book. Big question for you. How do you personally try and break free of the kind of hold that society has on us,

as in all various structures that are within our lives kind of naturally be that family work so you're reading about someone who's trying to do that is any part of your life you're trying to do that or have done it? I live in a different country so I suppose that's bacon free I don't know people like me more when I go back home because I'm not there for all the stuff that goes on during the week when people are disagreeing or arguing. I just turn up for the celebration, somebody's birthday party and everybody's pleased to see me. That's pretty good.

Can I ask you why you left? I left for a few reasons I think. I was just bored. I left for a year and I've been here nearly 18. So that's kind of how it goes. I left, I don't know, I asked the girl out and she said no, which was about six months before I left. So I was 23 and I thought why don't you go to London for a year. I didn't intend to stay but ended up staying. What happened to this girl? Is that like this? Does she know that she's changed the arc of your life? Do you know what? I didn't know. No, probably not. I don't know. I haven't met her for years but I didn't know until about two or three

years ago. I was like, oh yeah, that probably did have an influence. But it wasn't just the main reason or anything. It was just our reason. I was living in Limerick at the time so I had done as much as I could kind of do there. I played music, I wanted to come to London, there was indie stuff going on, the libertines were still around and that kind of scene, Camden and whatever. That was as much a kind of pull for me I think. How does it feel returning now? I mean, would you call yourself a London person and you go back? No, I'm just Irish, I think. It's too late when you're 23, isn't it? If you're seven or something, maybe, but yeah.

Are your folks still around? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Both back in Ireland, yeah. Do they, what do they think of you being here? I suppose they probably would like me to go back at some point, or maybe I will, I don't know. What would make you go back? Or would anything bring you back?

Weirdly, well this is not very nice topic. My mother had a stroke yesterday. So it's a minor stroke. So that might make me go back, I think. Yeah. So I've just been walking around having a little think this morning. That's a big one. Yeah, yeah. Was it completely, I mean I was getting a surprise. Yeah, yeah, my father. He went down to get his hair cut and he came back.

She was just on the floor. But I think they got her in time. So she's conscious and stuff and she's kind of semi able to talk yeah yeah so I don't know yeah I don't know I might have to go back we'll see yeah. What was your kind of gut reaction to all that happening yesterday? Hmm that's just a big shock isn't it? I don't know, you just think about immortality don't you? It's like the permanence of existence doesn't actually exist apart from we seem to think it does but everything comes to an end doesn't it? I'm thinking about myself. I was in Old Hastings a couple of months ago.

And... Is it Old Hastings? Old Hastings, Old Hastings. Is that different from Hastings? Or you're just calling it Old Hastings? It's just not, no. You're going to be for that Hastings? No, no, it's just the old town.

Okay, sorry, right, right, right, yeah. Yeah. So I don't know, something about the seaside makes you reflect, but... I was watching a trombone player sitting in a cafe just having something to eat. A really good trombonist playing. And I just thought someday there would be a different poet or writer sitting here at this cafe watching a different trombonist. Yeah. So I've been thinking about those things for a long time, immortality and the passing of time, existence.

And it might seem very morbid, but it's actually very good because you appreciate it, don't you? Without being overly cheesy or whatever, but yeah, you do when you think in those terms. Yeah. It's a really delicate delicate balance isn't it? It's really important to have those thoughts and to like confront your own life with the awareness of time and the impermanence of things. But of course if that kind of goes a little bit extra, it can very easily kind of just submerge everything else. I mean yeah. I mean, with everything you just said, and obviously what happened to your mum yesterday, is there a kind of any kind of logical conclusions

to your thinking? Is it, okay, so now I'm gonna do this, or actually I wanna be doing this or I want to be free of this or you know is it just oh well there you go. What's the point here? Yeah there you go. But is there like actually that this means that I'm going to try and do this or act in some way? Yeah I would say the latter yeah. It's just a limitation on your time. I think it does kind of give you an incentive to kind of take your finger out and get something done.

What do you want to get done? Well I've got a new album coming out. You can plug it for me if you want. Yeah, do. What's it called? It's got a long title. It's called I Am A Tree Rooted To This Spot And A Snake Moves Around Me In A? It's got a long title, it's called, I am a tree rooted to the spot and a snake moves around me in a circle. Well that is a good title, but it is long.

It is long, yeah. I am a tree rooted to the spot and a snake moves around me in a circle. Yeah, yeah. So Carl Jung, this guy, he was actually a patient came to him and he was having all of these dreams, and that was one of his his dreams that he was just a tree and he couldn't move and he was terrified but then Young said also the snake is kind of protecting you from any other predators if it's going around you nothing else can kind of come in so there's that kind of relationship of that which threatens protects. So I thought it was interesting and it fits the album so yeah it's a bit long but anyway what did

you said yeah I was about yeah when you kind of answered it you know what you were now gonna do with making music and after it's made what's important to you what's's really important I suppose is the next one. I'm pretty bored with this one now, which tends to happen. So just the next one, just want to get the next one done. But yeah, I don't know. We'll see. Any part of your life you wish you had a bit of extra courage? Women I think, approaching women yeah. Really? Yeah. Can you tell me the last episode you had with a woman?

Well you could describe them as episodes, yeah. Sagas. It depends what you mean by episodes. Can an episode be asking somebody out thinking that they are into you and then you ask them out and then they just say no? Yeah. You had an episode? I had an episode. I'm gonna fucking box it for those.

Can you describe your last kiss? Is that a bit of an intimate question? My last kiss was a long time ago, you know. Can you remember anything about it? I think I was drunk, yeah. I don't know if it was that romantic to be honest. I don't know, I seem to be... my friends get very annoyed with me, with women. I can be way too particular, way too fussy. So over the years, I've got friends who go,

Matt, like how did you kind of not go there? And I have kind of turned down some nice girls, really, what I shouldn't have done. But then I've turned down some that I was right to turn down, which they would have gone there. When your friends lambast you for this yeah what do you say to them? I don't know I just suppose I am who I am really I have got caught sometimes you get with someone that you kind of not really that

into and then you have to finish with them and it's it's you have to be a bit of a bastard sometimes It's not nice is it and I have a bit of a conscience with us over time. Whereas a lot of people don't Yeah So I don't know See see you wish you had more courage And what you relation to women. How would that manifest? What is the missing ingredient? It's a confidence thing, I think.

Well, maybe I overthink things. I've got a friend back home in Ireland, and I've seen him kind of do this. He'd been in a nightclub, and he'd talk to one girl, and he'd go, hey, how are you? And she'd look at him like, and he would literally just turn 180 degrees and say, hi hi how are you

he's just completely it doesn't affect him at all but he gets loads of women he just doesn't give fuck basically whereas I would do that now she's ruined my night a bit oh fuck this I'm going home yeah I do have confidence I mean it's not like I'm a little scared, whatever. My friend said to me one time, what the fuck's your problem? You're looking for this girl who's like really talented, really beautiful, really interesting. And I said, yeah, I'm looking for an equal.

What's wrong with that? Oh, it's fair. I mean, it is fair. It is fair. I mean, you're a poet. That's a good start. Yeah. I mean, is that, I mean... You would think so, wouldn't you? Yeah. I mean, you sing. So that's also probably quite a good thing. Yeah. Do you rely on any of those at all in a kind of seduction technique? Yeah.

Kind of. I have got a spoken word piece actually which is about turning 40 and it was, you know, you're kind of thinking, should I keep going with music or should I not keep going? And I always kind of thought that if I just concentrated on music and got that rise, everything else would take care of itself. So music or creativity or whatever was like the sun and all the other planets spun around us.

Like I was one of the planets in my mind, or your girlfriend or wife, your kids, your home life. Everything else spins around okay, but the way things have changed with the music business, it's hard to, it was hard to make a living from us. So I always kind of thought everything would take care of itself, but as it turns out, it kind of maybe hasn't.

So yeah, you get a bit older and you start thinking what do you do? Do you keep going or do you do something else? What does something else look like for you? Playwriting maybe. I think if it was like, if it was something I could have a choice with. I just like writing.

like writing. You say you recently turned 40 or you wrote a piece about turning 40? Yeah, well I'm 41 but yeah I wrote a piece when I was 40. Yeah. What has it meant to you? What 40 meant to me? 40 was a very weird word actually, and my friend said this to me, he was a couple of years older than me.

He just said the 40s is almost like a male menopause or something. And I remember thinking, ah, right, I wasn't really thinking that. But 40 was a weird seasonal shift, I think. I really felt like I'd shifted into autumn at 40. Like I knew summer was, when you're 20 to 40 or whatever. So it was a weird six months, it was only six months.

It was no longer than that, but it's just a weird one. It's like, well, you're not young. I am, still feel young, but to someone who's 12, do you know what I mean, I'm not young, am I? It is, isn't it? I suppose what you am I? It's a good one for you. I had a party recently and a friend of a friend came who was a bit of a suit. Don't have that many suit and my daughter, my daughters were there and they said a few days after the party said who is that guy in the suit? I said how old did he look? Oh he's I don't know like 60 or something I was like 60 and they were convinced that he was about 60,

which is mind boggling to me, given the fact that he definitely wasn't over 35. And I thought, fuck, to them, that guy, he was kind of towards the end of his stuff. On the flip side, of course, when I talked to, I don't know, a friend of my mum's or something, and then they go, ah, young, young. Oh, it's easy. Fresh. And they're like, oh, really? Okay. I suppose it is that kind of old middle point. I've got a way of thinking about it, which is,

I've got a way of thinking about it which is, by the way I'm 38 so I'm kind of not far behind you in this thinking essentially, but this idea of you can either play it as the youth of old age or the old age of youth and I suppose that's kind of two different ways of doing it. How would you say which camp are you in? I would be the young old person probably, Because I was the youngest in the family, I think that does kind of make a difference in your mindset of like you were the young one. When you heard the news of your mum yesterday being the youngest, did that have any impact?

Do you know what I mean? Did you automatically think, well look, so and so will take care of this? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I have been kind of guilty of that before, I suppose, but obviously I'm in a different country. My mother has had cancer a couple of times, and she had a heart bypass. She's had a few things in the last 15 years.

And I have been there, but my sisters have taken care of my father, really. But now I think, my father has Alzheimer's, my mother was kind of looking after him. So I don't know if she can do that now. And I don't think, like the rest have kids and full-time jobs and stuff, so maybe it's my turn to kind of go back and do my share or whatever.

So that's what I was thinking about yesterday and today. I've said this to you only, I haven't said this to any of my family that I might go back. I don't know what they're thinking but... It's a tricky one, isn't it? Is there anything that you haven't talked to your mum about that you feel like you want to? Sometimes these events, you go, fuck, I wish I'd asked about this. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. No, not with my mother.

I'm quite close with my mother actually. I would ring her every Sunday night. We would do a video call for an hour. Usually sometimes it goes over an hour. And we just chat away about everything. Yeah, when I go back to Ireland I kind of do stuff with her. We stopped at a centra shop and had hot chicken rolls which she'd never had before. She was amazed by them, which you would be if someone introduces them. So that was good and I wouldn't really be that close with my father. There's loads of things where I think I should have spoken to him about this and that. Is it too late now? No it's not too late. He's not really a talker. We're not very chatty like...

I don't know. I don't regret not speaking to him about those things. They've never kind of come up. What kind of dad was he when you were a youngster? A bit of an odd person to be honest with my father. Ah, I don't know, should I get into this? I would say if it was nowadays he'd probably be diagnosed with some kind of, it's gone out of my head, it begins with A, autism. Or something like that. He can just be very quiet.

Yeah. What does he, at least what do you think he thinks of you and your life? I think he's kind of, again, this is not some big sub story. I'm just a kind of disappointment to him because what he wanted was a son who was like a worker. Again, this is not some big sub story. I'm just a kind of disappointment to him because what he wanted was a son who was like a worker. He likes being outside digging. He was a builder,

like he's a grounds worker. He wanted someone like that as a son. I was never like that. I was kind of into music. I was into reading and I was into sport like he's not into sport at all so we very little in common you know I think we're both as frustrated with what I found in a father as what he found in his son I suppose. But you know in his own way he was a good father, he always worked you know he was a very good worker but not much of a friendship kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean it's just one of those ones isn't it? Having had a couple of children I've kind of seen that my second child is for good or for bad, like almost nothing like me. And what I mean is like, if she's foot, something like your leg. Oh yeah, very pretty isn't it? Little beetle on the leg, what's it going to do? Maybe I wonder how long it'll stay there.

Yeah, my second child's just almost untraceable. But you know, sometimes you just land, you know? And you look up at your parents and you go, alright, well, okay. I've been lucky enough where I've got lots of time and I've got time to spend with them. We've figured out our own little dynamics and we find stuff that works for us. But you know, if someone's working and they don't have that much time, it's just the randomness of what can happen I suppose. Do you remember a moment when you called yourself a poet?

Don't mean, because it's always a big one though, because I think some people feel kind of say out loud I'm a poet, it's a big word Yeah, that moment. Yeah. Well, I think because the world of poetry is kind of semi inhabited by a lot of fucking knobs, isn't it like basically who like They give everyone a bit of a bad name because there's a lot of bullshit that goes along with poetry they give everyone a bit of a bad name. Because there's a lot of bullshit that goes along with poetry. And a lot of bad poetry. But I think, I remember one time I read this thing

where there was this guy who, like a fairly prominent poet, and he said, I feel uncomfortable saying I'm a poet. And I'm like, fuck off, like, you know what I mean? So from that, I was just like, no, I'm saying this. And with poetry I've always been very confident. standing on stage just talking, just reading the poetry. So I'm not kind of frightened of that word and also I think I can defend it when people kind of look at it like you're being a bit fanciful. Because if you read street poetry like Bukowski and the big poets, Ferlinghetti and Gregory Corse, all that kind of stuff, François Fillon, the French guy from the

14th century, he was like a fucking raging alcoholic and womanizer and like pretty mad kind of highwayman. All that kind of stuff interests me. A lot of the bookish academic poetry, I find it quite dull. You know, you can be very good, you can be very kind of stuff interests me. A lot of the bookish academic poetry, I find it quite dull. You can be very good, you can be very dexterous and skillful at writing and have a good vocabulary. But if your writing is just so bland, even I, and I'm a big poetry fan, find myself falling asleep. So yeah, poetry can be kind of vibrant and ordinary. It doesn't have to be all about field mice and stuff like that. If someone was listening to this who has absolutely no, currently at least, no kind of care for

poetry, how would you try and persuade them to either write it or read it? It depends on the person. In some instances I wouldn't at all. Okay, let's say there's a person that may be a potential poetry like an appreciator. What would you say to them? I would recommend books to read or maybe give them a book, a poet, would be a good standpoint. Again it depends on the person, if you read Charles Bukowski it can be very vulgar but it's a pretty easy read to get into poetry I think. I like Rimbaud, Arthur Rimbaud the French guy. When you give that to somebody if they're going to be interested

in poetry that's going to impress them I think, you can't really fail to. Further along I would say WB8's boss, it's complex the way he wrote. So I started with something easy. In Ireland, Patrick Caverner I think, a really good poet, he was the peasant poet. So he grew up on a farm and moved to Dublin and very kind of old time working class kind of poet, Caverner. Can you think of your most kind of euphoric, peritory moment in your life? That I've read somebody or... No, well I was thinking more of your own, by your own hand. I don't know if it was euphoric but it was very good though, it was thinking more of your own, by your own hand. Hmm. I don't know if it was euphoric, but it was very good though. It was very pleasing. I've gone into places before where it's busy,

like it's a busy pub or venue and everybody's talking and they're talking over you when you start. And by the end of it, I've just silenced the whole crowd. That's pretty good, you know, when the barman is kind of like even-stopped. But I don't know if it was euphoric, but it but it made me feel like right this could go somewhere kind of thing. It's happened happened a few times I think you're the first poet. Oh, he's already someone that said they're a poet. Yeah

Do you have any access to read one of your poems? I think you get up on your phone Yeah access to read one of your poems? I said can you get it up on your phone or was there anything you'd be happy to read out? Yeah. Because I just thought that would be quite a nice moment. Well I did one about being 40. Okay well let's do that. Yeah. Okay let's see if I got the right one. Okay. I haven't practiced it, but I mean I suppose I'm reading this. This is called, I woke up in a different silence to the one I fell asleep in. Forty hit me like a mule's hoof in the puss.

All those people I had laughed at with their life goals and negative equities and not just property. I had laughed for the day they realised that their lives weren't worth as much as they thought and now they were stuck paying back for something they didn't want anymore. And now here I am, all on my own. No debt mind you. And I can still write a good song when the mood takes me. I don't know why but no children at 40 seems suddenly real. No woman by my side seems false. I laughed at all of their plans. Their life insurance and landscape gardens and paying two grand for a wedding photographer. Well, I'd been prospecting for gold all this time, but now that gold has turned to rust.

The music business is a corroded barrel that hobo's pissing. But life begins at 40, they say. So I've got a head start, I suppose. I always thought if I just kept on singing and writing everything else would just kind of take care of itself. So what should I do? Keep trying or try to settle down. Maybe both options are now out of my reach. Maybe I've painted myself into a corner but the artist in me will find a way to paint his way out. So we'll see. There we go. I might have rushed this at the start a little bit. No, it was wonderful. I was totally tuned in. I closed my eyes. I like how you ended

that with just we'll see. That's a really kind of relaxed, casual ending. Yeah. So this is now the great attempt to paint yourself out of the corner. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think in a funny way, lots of, you know, every life is so different. Personally, what changed my artistic life,

the biggest shift from one thing to another, oddly I think was actually finding a partner. Before that there was no good reason to kind of, I don't know, really push things, to really advance it, to really go for it. I mean I was just enjoying you know just going from this to this and then actually I can kind of chart course of things going better than from being in a like it's something I wanted to be in. Yeah I agree yeah yeah. Sometimes I think you got to do one thing

before the other thing makes more sense. Obviously, easier said than done. That's a tricky one. It is hard. I know people who got that massively wrong. I think it's probably one of the worst things you can do, isn't it? If you have children with the wrong person, it just completely ruins the next 18 years. you have to get that right. I mean that's pretty mildly, it could be the rest of your life. Yeah, yeah and I know people who live through that and gone through the courts spending thousands and things like that so I mean that's a negative way of looking at it of course but it is hard to get the right person.

Being in a band, that's like trying to find four partners it's so hard like to get at Royce yeah I don't know is London really the place to do that maybe it is but I haven't I've been single for a few years now and maybe even part of me thinking going back to Ireland maybe it might be a good thing, I don't know. Has there been a moment in your life where luck has really been on your side and has changed what has come after? Yeah loads and loads of times. Everything is, I can't remember which author, everything is a series of happy accidents.

Laurence Stern I think, isn't it? Trish Samshandy, or unhappy accidents. In terms of fate, does fate exist? Fate doesn't exist, you're just given opportunities, you either take them or you don't, and it becomes your fate kind of thing. So loads of lucky things, coming to London and meeting one person and then they put you onto this other person, and then you're introduced to this whole kind of crowd or scene

that you didn't know before. Loads of things like that, yeah. Can you think of a scene you saw recently, out and about, just with your own eyes, that has kind of stayed with you? A woman walked past me the other day, I was close to Portobello Road and she had the same perfume on as my mother and I've never smelled anybody else who had that, I don't know what it's called. And I'm not ever sure I really liked it but one woman passed by and reminded me of my mother so I did like it. That was last Saturday. Yeah, just haven't smelled that perfume in probably 30 years or whatever.

Yeah, I can't think off the top of my head. Were you tempted to say hello and say, that's my mother's perfume? Yeah, yeah. I don't know if there's a way you could say that, that's a bit creepy though. Yeah, no I wasn't. I was just walking. I tend to write if I walk. A bit of transit is good. Yeah, I can't think of that in my head, any kind of specific scene lately. I mean it probably would be a poem by now if something had happened. Don't worry, don't worry.

If you could ask yourself a question and answer it, what would that be? I sometimes ask this question because I think, well we're only going to meet once here and there might have been something on your mind that you wanted to talk about. So I thought sometimes I give people a chance to do that. If I could ask myself one question. Why don't you do what you want to do in life? I suppose. I should go out and busk more. I should go out and make things happen more. Yeah. Why don't I take the bull by the horns?

Instead of drifting. But then that's my nature I suppose. You are who you are aren't you? If I wasn't the way I am, I probably wouldn't be any good at writing songs or writing poems. You know what I mean? So I'll kind of take my loss. Yeah. It would be terrible wouldn't it if you wanted to express yourself in some way by poetry or whatever you want to do, painting or songwriting or whatever and just not being able to do it or doing it and being really bad at it and I think maybe all those kind of life things you're supposed to have, the wedding probably wouldn't make up for it

a good marriage and having good kids and stuff probably would put a lot of the other things wouldn't basically so Take who you are Perfect Okay last question for you Other answers in a big way or a mundane way whichever way you want to answer it or both What are you going to do next? Today? Oh you mean oh right in a bit? No, but as in today or generally? Today I might play snooker with my friends. In a big way I might have to move back to Ireland, I don't know. In a big way I might have to put on the album? I don't know. Maybe I'll go back to Ireland and find the love of my life, have children and go to number one in music and

become a successful poet. So you can see they're kind of going through, oh god, it's terrible, my world is not well. I don't know, maybe I need to kick up the arse to get out of London because I am kind of drifting a bit I suppose. So maybe I do need a push. Maybe that's a big thing, I don't know, maybe I'll go back to Wynand it's terrible. Maybe I'll remember all the reasons I left it in the first place. You should be definitely sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really know that. Yeah, yeah. Well, whatever happens, wish you the best of luck. Cheers. What to do, who to be, times asurped and dead, I'm a dreamful. season's go oh how i miss my home there by my mother's side oh how i wish this life were written in rhyme I'm sorry.