The Blindboy Podcast - Basils Fart Carnival

Episode Date: March 3, 2021

I speak about my experience of Irish secondary school Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to the Blind Boy Podcast, you juicy Susans. How is everybody? It's March now, which is... I got a small vibe of positivity today. I noticeably heard the sound of birds. I heard the sound of birds properly for the first time. Which signaled that we're coming out of winter. And it was an enthusiastic type of bird song.

I think they were robins. They looked like robins. But there was an enthusiasm to the bird song. Maybe I was projecting. Maybe I was projecting onto the birds. Projecting intentions and motivations onto the birds song maybe i was projecting maybe i was projecting onto the birds projecting intentions and motivations onto the birds but i genuinely when i heard the birds today that's the first time i've properly heard them since fucking september actually there's there's an interesting thing man and i wonder if i'm right or wrong so I heard birds singing today

and legitimately there was an enthusiasm and a motivation and a sense of like a goal focused tone to how they were singing like genuine that's the vibe I got the vibe I got was like the birds had just gotten out of bed and they have some shit planned and they're all chatting about how to get it done and they really they want to support each other

in doing it no one was complaining right but then when I hear birds in September like the swallows that are up on a pile i'm getting ready to leave and they're all chattering that that fills me with a sad feeling like i'm being left out you know that they're gonna have to do something that doesn't involve me like when your friends your friends have got tickets to go and see a

see a gig or a festival and you didn't bother getting tickets and now you're like really disappointed because they're heading and you're not and is that real or am i projecting onto the birds because it's the third of march lads so legitimately the birds literally they've got shit to do they're thinking about building nests mating, laying eggs alright they're also thinking about the fucking ground isn't cold anymore the insects are doing their thing

we've got more food we have reason to be excited and happy but I'm aware of this it's spring and I also notice the smell in the air and the different quality of light am I projecting an optimistic enthusiasm onto those birds or is there literally enthusiasm in their bird song and similarly in September when the swallows are congregating on electrical pylons. Like I know what they're doing.

They're having the last meeting before they all migrate to South Africa. They're all meeting getting ready to leave. But yet when I hear those swallows in September singing on a pylon. I feel insecure and I feel like I'm being rejected by those birds are they like are they actually rejecting me are they up there going yeah fuck it man let's go down to South Africa it's gonna be class gonna be pure warm look at that prick down there look at that fucking prick down there look at him he doesn't have wings he can't go down to the warm South Africa he has to stay here in Ireland where it's freezing does that exist in their bird song or am I projecting human emotions

into their song so I'm struggling a bit with the I'm struggling a bit with the pandemic at the moment because I can't run my fucking we're all in extreme lockdown lads we're all in extreme lockdown here in Ireland and I have

I have one thing in my day that I thoroughly enjoy one thing that I really look forward to and that's my run alright I do a 10 kilometre run. Every day. Which is really silly.

I shouldn't be doing the 10 kilometre run. Every day. But. I need to get out of my gaff. I can't go to the gym. I miss the gym desperately. I can lift weights at home if I want. But it's.

I exercise for mental health. Rather than physical health. Physical health is a symptom of my exercise. But really. I'm doing it for emotional well being. Exercise gives me. Very beneficial brain chemicals. That's all I can say.

And exercise is very important to me. So. I can lift weights at home but it doesn't do the trick for my brain so I've been finding myself running nearly every day for endorphins but what that's done unfortunately is I haven't been letting my Achilles heel rest and now I have a sore Achilles heel anytime I run even if I try and stay off it for a day or two so right now I can't run I think it would be very foolish of me to run right now because the Achilles tendon is you don't want to fuck that up you don't want to fuck that up and I really really love running and

I want to be able to run until I'm as old as possible so I have to mind my legs I have to really mind them and stretch properly and do this so if my Achilles heel is saying to me I'm sore whenever you run you don't fucking run on it but an unfortunate um

yeah an unfortunate consequence of this is i'm projecting human emotions into birds and instead of simply enjoying the sound of birds in in a here and now present fashion I'm wondering if I can translate I'm wondering if I'm projecting enthusiasm into their song and worse thinking about

if sparrows in September are rejecting me so that's how things are going for all blind by I did find a little bit of. Ironic joy. In the fact that. My Achilles heel. Is literally and figuratively.

My Achilles heel. If the running is what was keeping me. Sane and helping me to cope. Then my Achilles heel is my Achilles heel and now I'm going stone mad I know I'm grand I'm grand I'm just disappointed that I can't uh have my regularly scheduled run so if you're a brand new listener you might want to listen to some earlier podcasts if you're a regular listener, you know the crack. Last week I gave you

you got two podcasts last week. You got two podcasts. You got two big hot takes. One episode was about the Japanese electronic group Yellow Magic Orchestra from the 1970s. And another episode was about

Irish folklore history the history of Irish outlaw characters from the penal laws who were a type of superhero and how they went on to influence the fight for workers rights in America

so this week I don't have a big giant hot take because I didn't have the time to put research into doing one because last week I did two podcasts and I'm also working on a different project so I only had a little bit of time to prepare for this week's podcast. But I'm going to do a companion podcast podcast a companionship podcast where I'm just going to answer some questions that I asked on Instagram and navigate through them and hopefully we'll get a little bit of a podcast hug and I never answer enough of your questions anyway I get fucking tons of questions and if you've ever tried to send me mails twitter mails or on instagram or on patreon just know I

get I get over a hundred mails a day so I I answer what I can but I don't get to look at everyone everyone's mail unfortunately even though I'd like to I'd be at it all day if I was to respond to every mail but when I see ones that I like I respond to it if I can

and if not I take a note of it and I say maybe I can answer this on a podcast so here's one I got from a lad called PJ and PJ says I'm a 16 year old and I listen to your podcast weekly could you do a podcast on your secondary school experience if you wouldn't mind so thank you PJ I love hearing I love hearing that like someone who's 16 is listening to my podcast because I don't associate my podcast with people in school I always think that it's

people who are like college age and over listening to this so thank you for that speaking of the youth I've been trying to use TikTok this week because TikTok is it's a new app and it's huge absolutely huge

with teenagers and i kind of just have to have a presence on it like my job requires the use of social media and as i mentioned last week i fucking hate twitter i i don't like Twitter anymore it's such a negative place it's such a negative place where everybody is is no it's not people's fault Twitter as a platform so Twitter the platform rewards a competitive hostile and negative behavior so it's a hostile and negative behaviour. So it's a hostile and negative place and not a particularly fun place to be. But TikTok actually isn't bad. Once you get your algorithm going, it's actually not that bad.

So I've been enjoying TikTok and I put up a little snippet of one of my videos from Twitch and it actually did really really well I put it up at like 11 o'clock at night and I woke up the next morning and it had 50,000 plays

and I got 6,000 followers so I was thrilled with that that's a pure sign of me being an old man there now someone just mentions that they're 16 and in school so then I immediately start talking about TikTok like a fucking undercover guard at a festival when I was a teenager wearing deck shoes and a Nirvana t-shirt

bringing up text messaging for no reason just because it's a thing that young people do so there you go PJ I'm on TikTok, I'm a grown man on tiktok all right because i know that that's what's cool with you 16 year olds so what was my experience like in secondary school what was my experience like in secondary school um i failed my leave insert and i was expelled from school so technically you'd think that my experience was bad or that I remember it negatively but I don't I I actually really enjoyed being in school I the experience of it was very fun and very exhilarating

so I didn't go to school every day and feel miserable and the reason for this was is I was most definitely I was failed by somebody I was definitely failed by whether it be this yeah the system the system I was failed by the system without a doubt I shouldn't have failed my fucking leaving cert I shouldn't have been in a position where I'm getting kicked out of school I was a child and I found myself in a position

where the education system and the school system simply could not meet my needs, help me to identify what my needs were and made me excessively feel like a failure. I was a failure. Within the system of Irish secondary school, I was a failure. And I don't fully accept personal

responsibility for that I think I was failed so one of the things with me is I was born into a family of eight people and when I was born all of those people were adults. Like my youngest brother was like 16 when I was born. So I was effectively born into a large family of only adults. And the thing with that was, is as a child, I was then raised to speak to adults as simply other human beings a power dynamic exists whereby sometimes children are raised to look up to adults and to speak to adults as if to put on an extra layer of respect when you're speaking to adults. A lot of children are, you know, they're born into a family where there's other children their own age. And the adults in the family teach them.

When you meet an adult, a big person, you must be really polite. You must refer to them as Mr. This, Mr. That. And you've got to show them this extra level of respect. or that and you got to show them this extra level of respect I didn't have that because I'm born into a family of a load of adults and they were young adults and they were mad and having crack so I never was told call adults mister call adults sir or. I was never told to treat adults differently. Adults are simply my peers and this was really beneficial for me as a child because I was quite curious and it meant I would ask the adults in my house any question I wanted and discuss things and all this stuff and there wasn't this silly barrier of be quiet you're a child have

respect around the adults that didn't exist the barriers didn't exist so that gave me that made me as a child very very confident very confident and very outspoken and I didn't have a performance I wasn't I wasn't trained in the performance of how to speak to adults. Adults were just other human beings. But when I went outside my house and I was with my peers, now I'm talking when I'm six or seven

and my friends are also six or seven, I would notice that when they met like a neighbor or when they were speaking to someone in the shop who was an adult they had this extra layer of performance that they would do when they're speaking to adults where they call the mr or mrs they're really really quiet and they're being fake they're being false that's what I saw it as I was like what why the fuck why are you talking to the neighbor as as like that why are you gone all quiet and why are you pretending to be really nice

as if butter wouldn't melt in your mouth just because you're talking to a really tall person I didn't understand that I found it it strange. And it is fake. We raise children to be fake when it comes to adults. We raise children to be. When you speak to another. If you speak to the fucking neighbour. You've got to be really quiet. You've got to put your hands behind your back.

You've got to refer to them as Mr and Mrs. And speak when you're spoken to. And do all this. And parents teach kids to do this with adults because it's the parent injecting their own fear into the child. When you meet the neighbor, you must be really, really, really polite and put on this performance of how you speak to adults because if you don't they will think I'm a bad parent

they're gonna think I'm a bad parent so perform a fake niceness when you speak to adults so the other kids had that but I didn't because everyone in my house was an adult and there was no point in teaching me that there was no point I was allowed that. There was no point.

I was allowed curse. Because my fucking brothers were like 18 or 19. Cursing everywhere. So when I was 5. I was allowed to say cunt and fuck. Because there was no point. There's no point in my ma. Saying to me you can't say cunt.

Because I'm like then why are my brothers saying it. And they're 19. So of course they're going to be saying cunt all the time. So I was a child who might flippantly say the word cunt to my neighbour. And not in a mean way, it's just I would speak to adults as if they were my peers. And the problem with this is that some adults like this in a child some adults see that as they view the behavior in its context it's like this child isn't calling me a cunt they're not being rude they're just refusing to engage in the performance of fake niceness that children do when they usually speak

to me and some adults think that's funny and they're really cool with it and they're grand but then other adults get a little bit of a power trip when children are really polite to them some adults get that power trip and I would then when I when I met adults that were insecure and got a power trip out of children being polite to them and being excessively nice, when I didn't do that, I was labelled as cheeky. So I was now seen as cheeky because I had the audacity to refer to the adult by their first name or ask the adult a question. first name or ask the adult a question or I would initiate the conversation with the adult rather than speaking to being spoken or speaking when I'm spoken to and this became a big issue then when I would get to school so then when I'm in school I didn't really understand the authority dynamic but with teachers.

Because teachers to me were just like, you're only a couple of fucking years older than my brothers. I don't see you as a big fancy teacher at all. You're just another human being. So I very quickly found myself getting chastised excessively for behaviours that I considered to be normal. Like a big, I remember getting dragged up to the principal's office dragged up like the nuns man I was seven or eight dragged up to the principal's office and my mother being dragged in too because teachers had been reporting that I was using

foul language in the schoolyard and I was because I grew up in a house with a lot of older brothers who were saying fuck, piss, shit, cunt every two seconds, not in an aggressive way, just that's how you speak when you're a teenager or in your early twenties. So I was flippantly Carson because I didn't know any different and then fucking my ma had to come in and explain to a nun where did he learn all these words, where did he learn these words and then of course my ma was

mortified, really embarrassed and instead of my ma kind of going he's got a load of older brothers who are adults and this is how they speak and I can't do anything about it but you know what, they're just words and what's the context

and intent he's using it in is the question that should have been asked to the nun is he using these words to bully other children, to hurt other children or is he simply flippantly using words that we label as bad so the nun then went pure fucking judgmental

and basically treated my ma as if i was being neglected so i received major chastisement from a young age in school simply for not treating adults not treating insecure adults how they expect to be treated by children but it got me a bad reputation in school unfortunately in in baby school and then all the way up to primary school I was seen as really cheeky disruptive troublemaker and a lot of it wasn't i was a child a lot of it wasn't i just simply spoke to adults as peers and i was also excessively curious so it got me labeled as a troublemaker so then what happened is that when i got to secondary school i remember being in secondary school and in first year so the thing is with my secondary school

in fucking first year everyone's thrown into random classes okay so I'm like 12, 12, 13 first year of secondary school and we're all in random classes and the thing is I don't know if things are the same now

but back in my day when you went into second year you were put into a class based on your academic performance in first year and I really wanted to get into one of the good classes I wanted

because my brothers who'd been in the school said to me you need to get into the A classes because that's where the good teachers are. The teachers who enjoy their job, who are really interesting, who are good, they teach the A classes. But then the B classes, that's where they put the teachers who are really fucking bad. So in first year of secondary school, made a decision i'm gonna be a nerd

i'm gonna work really really hard at every single subject and i'm gonna behave myself in class and use because i was excited about secondary school because the thing is with primary school excited about secondary school because the thing is with primary school you're not really taught subjects bit of English Irish whatever and maths whatever the fuck and then they touch on something like history or geography but I was really excited by the fact that wow I'm in secondary school and at nine o'clock I've got maths and then I go to a different class and there's Irish and then I go to another class with a different teacher and it's history and this made me feel like an adult and it was really exciting so for first year I worked my fucking arse off and I behaved myself and I really prided myself on being studious and getting results and treating school professionally.

Treating school with a bit of maturity. With the goal of, if I just stick my head down and do the work, I'm going to get into an A class next year. I'm going to get into that A class and I'm going to have all these really good teachers that care about their jobs and that all my brothers had told me about were like really interesting teachers so I did it and I got really good results I got a lot of A's

in my summer exams so then on the morning of second year when I'm like 13 they divide all the students in the whole year and they're calling out the names of who gets to go into the there was like three a classes and three b classes so 1a1 1a2 no 1a 1a1 and 1a2 and then there was three b classes so as they're calling out all the fucking students' names, now remember, I got a lot of A's,

so I got the actual results, because I worked my ass off in first year, and I got the results that would get me into an A class. But then when the classes actually get called out, I got thrown into a class called 2B2, which was the worst class that you could get put into it was the worst class it was for the people who scored the lowest and also for people who had behavior problems now what broke my fucking heart was I wasn't well behaved in primary school now I was a child you're we're talking now about my behavior between the ages of 7 and 11

I was not well behaved in primary school I was a troublemaker I was a messer I was outspoken I was cheeky because I'd been called fucking cheeky by teachers since the start. But when I got to secondary school, I was told I was going to have a clean slate. That's what they said to me. You're going to have a clean slate when you get into secondary school. You have a clean slate. So when I got into first year, I had this pride of, I'm not going to misbehave.

I'm going to do my work. I'm going to get the results. And I did it. And they still fucking threw me into 2B2 the worst class and the thing with 2B2 is that it was such a bad class that

you were almost a pariah when they announced the class the students that are going into 2B2 the whole auditorium would go quiet and and that then felt kind of shameful and it was i was fucking furious because i got a lot of a's i got the results i put in the work but clearly i was being put into 2b2 because i had a bad record of behavior from my previous school so my school basically said I don't give a shit

about this cunt's results he was a disruptive student when he was a child so we're putting him into this classroom and what made me angry I wasn't angry that I was in 2b2 because I was actually in there with a load of people who were my friends anyway who I hung around with that was the other thing they identified who the groups were and my my friends were troublemakers and I was in with my friends but what made me angry was I put in the fucking work I got the results to get into an A class why am I not in an A class and the unfairness of that felt fucking terrible and also what made me really really angry it not wasn't it wasn't even anger lads it wasn't anger because with anger there's motivation it was a deep

sadness and unfairness i wouldn't have had the self-confidence for anger it was a deep sadness and unfairness i wouldn't have identified it as anger what made me feel what broke my fucking heart at 13 is most of the lads that got into the a classes they got there because they worked hard and they got great results but then there was other lads in the a classes because i asked them i obviously had all my results and i was like I got an A in English got a B in history all this really good results and I went around to lads I knew who got into the A classes and some of them were like fuck it this this fella got a load of A's okay but then other lads got way worse results than me and they found their way into these A classes and

I didn't understand it at the time but it was because of like who their parents were it's because of some of them like you know their dad might be a solicitor or a barrister or a college lecturer

so the school put them into the A class because their parents had clout and influence and i didn't have that my parents were just regular working people simple as that so that was that felt deeply unfair and what it did is it it made trying seem pointless it made trying and working hard at school it made it feel pointless because a i'd also been lied to i'd been told you have a clean slate it doesn't matter that you got in trouble in primary school it doesn't matter that that happened you have a chance to try it anew if

you just work hard and that's not how it worked out and i got thrown into the fucking worst class now the problem with being in 2b2 is i'm talking this was this was the this was the late 90s all right and i don't want to be shitting on teachers but there were teachers in in my school in the late 90s these teachers were very old some of them were deeply, deeply troubled people deeply troubled people who really had lost any passion for teaching at all

and it had gotten to them so they were violent uh reactionary not interested in teaching us and and then worst of all because we were in 2b2 and it was a small class it was only like 14 people so it was like 14 of those who's considered to be the worst students in the school the worst these teachers then hated you because you were in this class so because the class had such a bad reputation these old lad teachers come in and they fucking hate you so my first day of being in 2b2 so you have to remember half an hour previously i think i'm getting into an a class because i got these good results and then then it's like fuck that you're going to 2b2 so i'm now there in 2b2 and our first teacher comes

in and he's an old lad of about 70 and he in his mind has it made up going the gorriers they used to call us gorriers i'm going into the class full of gorriers now now i know what these gorriers are like so i have to i have to i have to show them who's boss so now for the first time in my life because i'm like 13 i now have a grown man screaming in my face scream at that like with all the anger that you can imagine a grown man can get out of his body without hitting you I now have a grown man screaming in my face and I haven't done anything wrong. It's simply because he's walked into the class. Has his mind made up about who I am. Because I'm there.

And is now showing me who's boss. And that was fucking horrible. And it was demoralising. And I'd never been screamed at by an adult. Like that. And that just became normal. I don't know why my parents didn't go down to the school and go. The fuck is he doing in 2b2.

He got a lot of A's. Why isn't he in an A class. Like he deserves. They didn't do it. Because. My parents came from a generation. Where priests and teachers are right. And you don't question it.

So I fucking gave up. I gave up at that moment in secondary school in second year I literally gave up I really really didn't want to what's the point now in trying and the other thing then when you're in 2b2

the teachers are deliberately pushing you towards doing pass rather than honours for the junior cert and and like subtle things like so i still knew lads that were up in the a class and the thing is when you're in 2b2 you're not getting out of it you you have to stick with that until junior cert so then when it gets to 3b2 which is the next year and third year that's when career guidance starts to happen and the teachers were going into the a classes and they were talking to them about a serious business now uh next year you're going to start the leaving cert cycle now you might want

to be thinking about going to university of limerick and you want to think about being accountants or you want to think about being uh solicitors professional careers but then when they come down to us and i remember it was my fucking vice principal speaking to us as a class and and literally saying to us don't mind you know don't mind don't mind this this uh leaving search stuff for a lot of you you might a lot of you now might want to get trades you might want to think of getting trades now next year and what they're doing is the the vice principal was basically suggesting to our class that we don't come back to school next year that we quit school at about 15 or 16 get your junior cert but don't come back after that go and get a trade because you're in the what the school considers to be the worst class the bottom class and when the teachers are screaming at you on the first day and you're clearly in the worst class your

sense of values change so the thing is about being in 2b2 and 3b2 was you you still require a sense of self-worth and self-esteem and a sense of identity but because you're in that quote-unquote slow class or quote-unquote gory or class the young fellas in the A stream they kind of laugh at you behind your back you're kind of sniggered at going ah the fucking the tickos in 2b2 but

what you had to do then is you had to find self esteem in our class you shape your identity differently. So we would say to each other, those fucking eejits up in the A class, they're all swats and nerds. They're fucking nerds and swats. Fuck them. And you start to identify as, I'm fucking cool, man. Fuck the system. I don't give a shit about studying. Fuck them, man.

And then you start smoking fags, and you start smoking hash, and you start to identify with being disruptive, and then you start to find a weird sense of pride in, I'm a fucking rebel, I'm outside the system, 2v2 is like being in jail, we've got the hardest cunts in our class, and then for me within the class, like, I'd given up on studying, when you're also, when you're in 2b2 and 3b2, the teachers don't ask for your homework, because they've already given up on you, so I, I stopped doing homework in second year, I stopped at 13 years of age i simply stopped doing homework because nobody was asking me for it um speaking of homework let's well the ocarina has nothing to do with homework really let's have a little ocarina pause i'm gonna play a spanish

clay whistle and you're going to hear an advert for something. things of evil it's all for you no no don't the first omen i believe girl is to be the mother mother of what is the most terrifying six six six it's the mark of the devil hey movie of the year it's not real it's not real it's not real who said that the first omen only theaters april 5th will you rise with the sun to help change mental health care forever? Join the Sunrise Challenge to raise funds for CAMH, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, to support life-saving progress in mental health care. From May 27th to 31st, people across Canada will rise together and show those living with mental illness and addiction that they're not alone.

Help CAMH build a future where no one is left behind. So, who will you rise for? Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca. That was the Ocarina Pause. This podcast is supported by you, the listener, via the Patreon page. Patreon.com forward slash TheBlindBoyPodcast This podcast is my full-time job. This podcast is how I earn a living. I have full editorial control over this podcast. No advertiser tells me what to speak about.

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you're paying for someone who can't afford it to listen so everyone gets a podcast I earn a living for the work that I'm doing what more could you want it's a model that's based on soundness and kindness and it's how I earn a living and thank you to all of my patrons like the podcast, share it

and and also catch me on twitch once a week thursday nights at half 8 twitch.tv forward slash The Blind Boy Podcast, where you can talk to me live and I'm making a live musical to the events of a video game. I have some new equipment this week and I'm really looking forward to Thursday. experience of secondary school which I didn't I didn't think I was going to be talking about it at this length but I'm uncovering quite a lot of memories and I'm realizing this isn't something I think about a lot and it feels a little bit therapeutic for me to be honest to be uncovering these feelings that I don't think about or these memories that I don't think about a lot

feelings that i don't think about or these memories that i don't think about a lot and then so the thing is within the culture then of the students in 2b2 none of us consider ourselves to be academic um so what happens is your the value system in the class is you can be one of two things the value system in the class is you can be one of two things you can be hard or you can be a mad bastard so if you're hard that means that you're strong and you're prepared to get into fights and no one will fuck with you and anyone who is going to slag you certainly isn't going to do it to your face because you're a hard cunt and that became a value system with within the class we'll say now this is an all boys school now i'm not hard i'm not a violent person i'm not good at fighting this was never something i had any interest in so i had to go down the route of

mad bastard so in order for me to have any degree of respect within the class and to get respect essentially from the hard lads i had to be fucking mad didn't give a shit about authority didn't give a fuck about rules being as disruptive as possible locking the teacher out of the class smoking fags at the back of class telling the teacher to fuck off at lunchtime sniffing links through a school jumper at lunchtime making sure everyone sees you so it's like oh man look at him he's fucking sniffing links at lunchtime what a mad cunt holy shit he doesn't give a fuck about anything and then all of that feeling good because my peers now have respect for me, because this is what, those are the parameters of respect when you're in 3B2.

And what are you going to do? We're children. We don't have emotional maturity. We don't have the ability to think critically. We're in a space where you're supposed to be making mistakes but there's no one guiding you otherwise showing you alternative routes for self-esteem or self-worth now I was I was fortunate because I was going home to a house where at least in my house music art education these things were valued so for my family they were going what the fuck is he doing he he loves listening to music he plays instruments

he he draws and he paints at home he's such a passionate creative young fella why the fuck is he in school sniffing solvents and smoking fags and acting like he wants to get expelled? The thing is, too, when I was speaking earlier about the type of teachers that were teaching us. So the vast majority of the teachers that were teaching 2B2, I think they were kind of nearly giving our class as a way to encourage them to retire. It was that vibe. I don't want to be mean to these men. They were just older and they should have quit long ago. And they were very, very angry, aggressive, contemptuous men.

But anyone who's relating to this experience in school, if you had a similar experience to this, where you're kind of labelled and pushed into something, you always know that there's one teacher who's going to be sound. And for me, there was one teacher to all this shit in second year and third year my English teacher Mr Crow and he was young he would have been in his 20s at the time and he used to like the crack of teaching us he used to like that we were bowled and he was also he was the teacher that was sound so you'd never mess in his class out of respect

he used to give me praise academically and encourage me academically in my written English. And that then, I'd do homework for him. Like he identified that I was creative and used to love language. So he would get me on a Friday. My homework was write a short story and have it to me for Monday. So I used to write short stories for him and I'd write them all weekend and I'd get creative flow I used to fucking love it and he used to let me write short stories about whatever I wanted and encouraged me to be really funny and I remember one in particular it was a short story about the vice principal.

And it was about the vice principal going to his golf course that he goes to, but then getting down on the ground and eating magic mushrooms off the ground to the point that he grows a beard of mud on his face. And I remember describing his trip, the vice principal's psychedelic trip after he eats the mushrooms off the ground with his mud beard and I got crayons colored crayons and all the bits that were psychedelic I wrote out in colored crayons and and then Mr Crow would read this story to the class and it's like reading a story that I'd written about the vice principal playing golf eating magic mushrooms in in in Castletroy golf course and then that being okay and the teacher

reading it out and going this is really really good and then everyone else in the class laughing their arses off. And loving English. And loving creativity. Because the teacher. Is being sound. The teacher is being sound. And that really got me through. That absolutely got me through.

That was the. It didn't matter how many other teachers were dickheads. Who thought that we were. Who called us gorriers. To our fucking faces. Because that. Mr mr crow was so fucking sound and encouraging and that really got me through it and i remember one of the fucking proudest moments of my life would have been second or third year because it got back to me mr crow was also teaching some Some of the A classes. And while he was teaching one of the A classes. They were doing creative writing.

And he said to them. There's a young fella down in 3B2. And he has the best command of the English language in this school. And I heard that. And I went home and fucking cried. Because it was the first time. That anyone had said that I was fucking good in that school

that was 20 fucking years ago but I know now for a fact that that same teacher now when he over we'll say the past 10 years if he has a class full of students and

they might be disruptive or he's trying to get them to listen he'll say to them i used to teach blind boy you know i used to teach blind boy and then they'll go fuck off no you didn't what was he like and he'll like withhold stories about me as a dangling a carrot of like if you behave yourselves now i'll tell you this i'll tell you that which for me is lovely to know that's lovely to know because it it means that like it's like having a positive impact on kids that are in there now if you know what i mean although although i think it's a really different school now there'd be no 3b2 in there now it's it's gone more of a kind of a prestige school now at the moment

and that was a little glimmer of light but other than that i was identifying as a mad bastard being as disruptive as possible and that's what my motive my peers would have considered me it's like oh him he's a mad bastard he didn't give a fuck about anything he'll do anything he will to simply have a sense of self-esteem self-worth and identity in my peer group, in a system where these are the things that are valued. One thing that I do feel would have been very helpful to me, possibly helpful to me, would be if I had been able to do a year that's called transition year. So after third year, after your junior cert, there's an optional extra year called transition year so after third year after your junior cert there's an

optional extra year called transition year and this year it's not fully academic this is a year where you get to do work experience you get to learn real world skills if you're interested in art or creativity you can actually have an opportunity at about the age of 15 to work in a theater or to to do something with music or painting it's an extra year where you mature and explore your interests before you do your leave insert cycle I applied for transition year and wasn't allowed to do it because of my reputation and behavior and because i'd been in 3b2 i applied for it they're just like we can't trust you to do transition year this is this is a year for where students are responsible for their own schedule

and things like that not a fucking. You'll ruin it for everybody. Just do fifth year. Get out of the school as soon as possible. So transition year was denied me. Which again broke my fucking heart. Because I'd have been perfect for transition year. I could have explored. My talents and abilities. That were outside of.

Prescribed academic. Curriculum. So. Then by the time fifth year comes around. or outside of prescribed academic curriculum. So then by the time fifth year comes around, you're no longer in these shitty classes anymore. When it gets to fifth year, it's a little bit more egalitarian and it's not as, you kind of choose your honours subject or you choose your past subjects and you're put into classes that way.

But because I was in the B classes the the worst B class I wasn't really getting access to any of the honors subjects even if I wanted them in leaving cert because I was doing past subjects and I'd been hadn't had to do homework since second year so I go into fifth year and it's too late by that stage, it's fucking too late it doesn't matter, I'm a disruptive little shit who challenges authority at all points having to hope of doing anything academic

because I've fallen too far behind so I had to find an identity around being a mad bastard and there's no such thing as a clean slate because I remember going into fifth year I can't remember the class that it was I can't remember the exact class but I'm sitting down in this class first day of fifth year teacher walks in the teacher doesn't know who I am I don't know the teacher but he's

aware that my name is on his list of students I'm sitting down in my new class with a load of people I don't really know and he walks in the door and the first thing he does when he gets in the door he screams my name out at the top of his lungs really angrily out into the ether and as he's doing it he grabs a small little desk and grab and pushes it towards his desk at the top. So it's this desk. That's not sitting with the other desks in the class. It's this special little desk. Beside his. And screams out my name.

And says where are you? And I stand up and I says it's me. And he goes your reputation precedes you. You sit there. You sit there and you don't move. So he'd obviously been told by the fucking the other teachers you've got this fella in your class you have to watch out for him he's very disruptive so he he makes a point to say and at that point i'm in fifth year so that

didn't hurt i felt like a legend that's how fucked up it was that's a bad thing that's a teacher coming into a classroom screaming a student's name and then separating that student and putting him up at the front of the class beside his desk to go you can't participate in the class like the rest because I already know

you haven't got a hope so sit up here underneath my nose but I felt like a legend I felt like a legend. I felt like a fucking legend when that happened. Because everyone in the class who didn't know who I was. Was like wow who the fuck is this guy. This guy must be crazy.

And it felt amazing. And now as a grown adult I think that's really sad. That's really sad. That my identity had shifted towards having a really high sense of self-esteem because i'm so unruly and disruptive that myself is at any hope that i'd had of achieving self-esteem or self-worth from achieving goals or engaging with my study or simply engaging with the here's the thing about that breaks my heart about fucking school lads i had the opportunity to learn about history poetry economics all these things geography

science stuff that i fucking love I'm a curious person I had the opportunity to learn about all those things and I didn't take it I didn't take it and I'm not gonna self flagellate over not taking that opportunity cause what was I gonna do? So by

in 50 year all I gave a fuck about was being the class clown I wasn't, by 50 year I wasn't I wasn't smoking f was being the class clown I wasn't by 50 year I wasn't I wasn't smoking fags in the class or doing any of that I was a little bit older so instead my disruptiveness became about how can I

at any available opportunity say something to the teacher that makes the entire class laugh out loud how can I do that and that's all I give a shit about say something to the teacher that makes the entire class laugh out loud. How can I do that? And that's all I give a shit about. And that's when I say why school was fun.

I used to get up every morning going to school and going to class and all I cared about was making everybody laugh. And with fifth year it's a little different. The teachers teach you with a bit more maturity. Teachers tend not to scream at you when you're 15, 16. They don't do that. Instead, what they just say is just get out of the class. Just leave the class. So every class, what would happen was I would take the risk of I'm going to say something.

Everyone's going to roar laughing. I feel amazing. And then the teacher's going to go, get out. So I'd get kicked out of every single class I'd get kicked out of three classes a day and when you're kicked out of class you're you're expected to stand outside the door of the class and the problem was is the principal used to she used to walk up and down the hall so she saw you standing outside the class she'd suspend you which you couldn't have because three suspensions equals expulsion so as soon as I would get kicked outside the door I'd disappear I'd go into the toilets and smoke fags but eventually what I started doing was my art teacher

my art teacher was really really sound so when I got kicked out of a class I'd just knock on the door of the art room and even if there was other classes going on he would just let me sit at the back of that art class and just draw so that's what I used to do when I was in fifth year I wasn't attending barely any classes at all I was getting kicked out or sometimes simply not turning up and just going to the art room and drawing drawing drawing listening to music because that's all I wanted to do but at the same time falling behind massively in every one of my subjects because I'm not present and the thing is it's not like I'm mitching it's it's not like I'm Mitching. It's not like I'm not in the school. I'm in the school. I'm just up in the art room.

And no one stepped in and stopped. The principal didn't come in and say, what are you doing up here in the art room? You should be back in economics class. It was like an agreement. It was like, if he's up in the art room and he's drawing and he's got his earphones on he's actually quiet he's not disrupting any classes and he's not mitching he's not walking

around town in a school uniform he's in the school so this weird compromise emerged but again now as an adult i go that's fucking horrendous i'm 16 what the fuck are you doing why why the fuck are all the teachers okay with me spending most of my time in an art room drawing not attending classes the adults are essentially failing me because i'm a kid if someone's gonna to let me draw and listen to music I'm going to do it now if you're thinking but blind boy you can do art music all these things for the leave and start you can do creative subjects they're on the leave and start curriculum but the problem is in in my school um you, these were seen as messer subjects.

So they weren't seen as real subjects in my school. So you weren't allowed to do more than one messer subject for the leave insert. So I couldn't do art, music and technical drawing, we'll say. Those are three things that would have been available to me in my school. Art, music and technical drawing. I say those are three things that would have been available to me in my school art music and technical drawing I had to pick one so you couldn't do art and music at the same I should have been doing I should have studied music for my leave insert I'm a professional musician I was playing a lot of instruments at the time I loved music with all my heart I couldn't because I was already doing art and if you did art it meant then that the other subjects you had to do for your leave insert

were really limited so I had to do art accounting and economics now I enjoyed economics a bit but I did not enjoy accounting lads I can barely count fuck am I doing in accounting of course I failed it.

Of course I failed it. But that was it. It was like punishment for doing art. Art and music were seen as messing subjects. Like on a Wednesday afternoon, we used to have double art, which was almost an hour of being in the art room. And the other teachers would just joke about it. Before lunch, your business teacher would joke and say,

Oshie, you've got a half day, practically. You're going up to the art room. And if you wanted... The only way for me to have studied subjects that meet my actual needs, my creative needs and abilities, the only way for me to have done that as part of my education for the leave insert would have been if I'd have gone to what we called the protestant school which was the fee paying school now I didn't grow up poor or with any economic disadvantage I would

have grown up just enough just enough two working parents and a car and never had to worry about food or electricity and that stood to me the privilege that definitely stood to me but i definitely wasn't going to a fucking private school that was five grand a year or whatever the fuck it was so yeah if i wanted to do art music and technical drawing or whatever else creative things i my parents had to have money and send me to the private money school and i'm not saying this to be all oh boohoo poor blind boy couldn't study art and music oh isn't that terrible like in terms of complaints of what people have had to deal with growing up that's pretty small the reason i'm saying it is that

there's a systematic failure at place if when you go to a public school which is a free school a systematic failure is in place if creativity is actively demonized within that structure if you're a creative student and you want to explore all of your talents and abilities and to achieve meaning and to receive an education that suits who you are that's not available to you if you go for free education you instead are told no we're just going to shove you can do art if you want but we're going to put you into accounting and business and you can fail them fuck that there's no place for you in society we don't value this but if you grow up with money then your parents can send you to a fee paying school and only with money can you explore uh subjects that are on the leaving cert curriculum

but are creative so you need to have five grand a year if you want to do that that's systemically wrong and it's pure fucking it's pure Irish Fianna Gael, Fianna Fáil set people up for the civil service

set people up for the civil service or maybe being a priest. And artists. They exist. We've loads of artists in Ireland. But they're on the fringes. They're on the outside.

They're drunken disruptive lunatics. Who we demonise when they make art. But recognise them when the British or Americans give them credit. And then. Even then we don't recognise their art. We're just turning it to something we can get tourism out of so then then by 50 i almost got expelled in 50 i can't even remember what it was for i can't even remember but i was ordered to go to the disciplinary committee and the disciplinary committee is it's the last step before you get

kicked out of the school where basically three teachers have to go over your written record and they interview interview you and based on this interview they decide whether you stay in the school or not and one teacher again he was one of the a-class teachers doc was his name he's a legendary teacher in that school known as being an absolutely fantastic teacher. I think he died a few years ago. But I was in front of the disciplinary committee. They were looking at my record, and they were going,

you have one of the worst records in this school we've ever seen. We don't see a place for you in this school. We don't see why you should be here. I was like fuck it grand. And then. Doc. Turns to me and says. What do you want to do in 10 years?

And I'd never been asked that. And I just turned around. And I started talking about. I love painting. I love. I love writing things. These are the bands I'm listening to. I love listening to Bob Dylan, I love David Bowie, I love Wu-Tang Clan and all of a sudden now

my entire demeanour is changing how articulate I am is changing and I'm speaking about shit that I really deeply care about and like, the stuff I was going home to my room to enjoy, I'm now speaking to teachers because someone said to me, what are your interests? What are your actual interests? And based on that, Doc, the teacher said, well, your record is horrendous, but you clearly have a lot of ambition.

Even though this ambition doesn't appear to be have anything to do with school so we're going to give you a second chance so they gave me a second chance and then sixth year came around and i'm 16 17 and then i finally got expelled in sixth year in february of sixth year and i can't remember what I got expelled for probably just a load of different things and it was an agreed upon expulsion the principal basically said to me I'm not going to officially expel you from this school

it's February so what I want you to do is don't come into this school until the leave insert do not step foot in in the door of this school until you're sitting the leave insert and if i see you in this school that's an automatic expulsion on your record and you're going to have to find a new school to sit the leave insert in so i left school in february of fixture i didn't come in i stayed at home and what i did was as a thank you to the principal because i was like oh thank you so much for not literally expelling me i spent those months between february and june not studying for my leave insert because

i didn't give a fuck about my leave insert I spent those months I did a huge painting I'd gotten an airbrush because I was learning how to use an airbrush to paint so I got this huge canvas and I painted this massive painting of the school and it was in the style of Salvador Dali and it took me months and months to do and I put so much effort into it and my plan was is that I was going to present this painting to the school at our graduation mass because before we graduate for sixth year which I was allowed to attend we'd have this big mass in the church and I said to the principal I'm doing going to do this lovely painting as a mark of gratitude can I present it at the mass and she goes of course you can but what I did was just above

the school I painted this huge penis in the clouds but hidden in such a way that you you could only see it from a certain angle the way that I'd shaded it you could only see it from certain angle so there's no you couldn't look at it and correctly identify a penis unless you were at a certain angle so I could never be accused of putting it in there I could say that's just your eye you're seeing a penis in the clouds why are you seeing a penis in the clouds but I told all the lads so finally then on the graduation mass the principal calls up my name and I get to go to the top of the church all the students and everyone's parents were there and I got to stand beside the principal with my giant painting beside the principal and the priest in the church with my giant painting of the school

and a huge cock in the clouds that all the students knew about and that was my final that was my final fuck you that was my final fuck you to the school to be honest and i don't know if they even found out about the i think the painting is in the school somewhere um it was in the staff room for a while i believe and the the thing is is that the penis was there as a rumor you could never you could only see the penis in the painting from a certain angle so you'd have to find that angle first you can't correctly identify it so it existed as a rumor i don't know where the painting has gone now and i'd love that for me for that to be like the end of the fucking story because that's like a high to leave on and it felt great because it's like there's the final fucking act of the mad

bastard the penis in the painting and then then i then I had to sit my fucking leave insert in June, which was awful, which was horrendous, because I hadn't done any fucking study, I hadn't thought about it, I just turned up, I'm, I'm not able to do maths, I'm barely able to count. So I had to do foundation maths for my leave insert, right? I was the only student in the school doing foundation maths. Foundation maths is the lowest level of maths. You can't even pass foundation maths. No matter what result you get in foundation maths, it's not even considered a pass in the leave insert.

And I wasn't even able to do it and the saddest fucking moment of my school years was we're all in the giant hall and this is 60 or now so I'm like 17 everyone else there is 17, 18

some people 19 so we're adults effectively we have the maturity you know and 17 everyone else there is 17 18 some people 19 so we're adults effectively we have the maturity you know and we're all sitting down doing our fucking maths exam first off I'm the only person getting the foundation paper

that gets a little giggle and then I couldn't do it I couldn't do it I was so bad at maths I was so bad at maths, I couldn't even do foundation maths, I couldn't even do it, and I just, I got up and walked out of foundation maths in the leaving cert, after five minutes, I'd say easily after five minutes, and the whole place erupted in laughter, like it was a joke, like I'd just done a funny joke, and this was another like performance that I was doing, and it wasn't, it wasn't at all,

and that felt like fucking shit, that really felt like shit, to have the whole place laugh, thinking that I was joking, because I walked out on Foundation Mats after five minutes, and that felt like fucking shit. It felt like shit walking out of the leave insert hall like that. So I failed my leave insert. Failed my leave insert. Couldn't get into any college.

And then luckily, via a PLC course, was able to get into art college because I got 600 points in my art college portfolio. But the thing is lads a month or two after I walk out of that leave insert exam like a month or two after and I'm no longer in school and now I'm in the real world and I'm looking at my 18th birthday

that's when I start to present with my severe mental health issues. I didn't really have mental health issues in school. I had a touch of depression. What I now see as depression in the summer of fifth year. But as soon as I got out of sixth year and I didn't have school to go to anymore, and now I had to face, oh fuck, I'm an adult. I'm an adult in the real world and there's nothing next year

there's no school to go back to next year that's when I started to experience intense anxiety attacks agoraphobia bad depression thoughts of suicide that's when that presented itself and like why why wouldn't it i i had to i had to survive through secondary school

using very heavy defense mechanisms on a day-to-day basis I didn't I don't think I lived authentically through secondary school and like it had a deep impact on me I don't get recurring dreams but I have one recurring dream and I get about once or twice a year and that dream is me as an adult now having to put on a school uniform and go back and sit down with a bunch of 16 year olds in school and to have to feel the way I felt in school to have to feel the shame of failure that intensely now as an adult in that uniform that's my recurring dream that's my recurring nightmare and it's happened every year since I've left school I'm I'm someone who was capable of being a good student I'm someone who was capable of getting a good leave insert I was I was someone who was capable of turning up to school every day engaging with the curriculum and finding a sense of meaning from it and doing all the the positive

things that come from that setting and achieving goals I I did six years of not achieving any goals, to be honest. Identifying as a class clown or identifying as a mad bastard, that's a defense mechanism. Because the system is telling me that, oh, you're a piece of shit in 3B2, and the teachers are calling you a gurrier. And then I have to cope by farming a new identity around being a mad bastard and that's where my self-esteem comes from there are heavy duty defense mechanisms there so i've no doubt that the amount of lying to myself

on a daily basis that i had to do contributed to my massive mental health issues and school was fun I had loads of crack I enjoyed it but the summer after the leave insert I felt deep deep shame I felt so much fucking shame at having let myself down having underperformed because when I was 17 18 out of school I wasn't I'm able to look back at that now as an adult and and look back at my time in school and identify bits of where the system failed me and I'm able to have self-compassion because I'm in my 30s so I can be very compassionate towards myself when I'm 12 13 and I'm able to go sure I had I was very immature then so I it's not fair for me to expect so much of myself at that age the adult should have been helping me out but when I was just out of 60

years at maybe 17 18 I didn't have the maturity and wisdom to have that type of compassion and allow that much fallibility for myself when i was 13 so when i got out of secondary school deep deep intense shame of going you're fucking smart you're actually really smart and you know you're smart and you know that you love knowledge. And love writing. And are passionate about things. And you just failed your leave insert. So I would have blamed myself really fucking hard.

Which didn't help my mental health issues. And there's a separate timeline. A separate timeline exists. Where I got a good fucking leave insert and maybe had more opportunities. Like I went to art college and loved it. And I'm very happy right now. But it would have been nice to have more opportunities. I wouldn't have been able to study music.

I wouldn't have been able to study music, I wouldn't have been able to study film, all these things weren't available to me because I'd failed my leave insert, but luckily with art college, they didn't require you to pass maths, and you could make up for it with portfolio points, so that's how I got into art college. So I answered one question there now, a young fella called PJ, who's 16 who's in secondary school asked me what was your experience in secondary school that was it there pj and i wasn't expecting a long a long it to dedicate to the entire podcast but that felt therapeutic that felt a little bit therapeutic for me. To explore memories like that.

And I'm sure. That's not the worst experience at school. I'm sure there's people who had fucking far worse experiences than that. Far far worse. I'm just saying it's my experience. It's my experience. I had a huge laugh. But.

I was definitely. I was let down. I had a huge laugh. But. I was definitely. I was let down. I was let down. The system doesn't work for everybody. Alright. I'm going to be back next week. With a hot take. Most likely.

Because I'll have the time. To research. A hot take. The few things I'm thinking about. Mind yourselves. Enjoy the fucking bit'm thinking about. Mind yourselves. Enjoy the fucking bit of weather lads. Enjoy. First ten days of March are always dodgy.

But once the first ten days are done. It's clear sailing from there. Evening's getting longer. Different smell. Buds appearing on trees. A lot of positivity in the air. So. Embrace that. Embrace it. Don't miss it. Be mindful of it. on trees a lot of positivity in the air so embrace that, embrace it

don't miss it, be mindful of it that's it's a lovely thing to look forward to we're done with winter now it's over, fuck winter rock city you're the best fans in the league bar none tickets are on sale now for fan appreciation night on saturday april 13th when the toronto rock hosts the rochester nighthawks at first ontario center in hamilton at 7.30pm. You can also lock in your playoff pack right now

to guarantee the same seats for every postseason game and you'll only pay as we play. Come along for the ride and punch your ticket to Rock City at torontorock.com. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.