The Blindboy Podcast - Coalbrookdale by Night

Episode Date: February 8, 2023

I speak about growing old, accidentally dressing as Eminem and then finding a painting that depicts the beginning of global warming Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rub cake on the corn crakes toothache you naked cases. Welcome to the Blind Boy Podcast. The days are longer and we have definitely exited winter. If this is your first podcast, maybe go back and listen to an earlier episode. Some people even begin all the way from the start to fully immerse themselves in the lore of this podcast. I hope you've been enjoying The Last of Us. I have to say it hasn't let me down because a couple of weeks back I did a podcast telling you all to watch The Last of Us and I hadn't even seen it yet. I just had good faith in it because I knew the story was going to be good and Craig

Mazin was writing it who wrote Chernobyl and I just felt he's too good at his craft to fuck this up and I really built it up and I'm just glad to say it's fucking amazing now this is not sponsored

I just love The Last of Us I think it's amazing and I want to speak about it. I haven't seen this week's episode yet. But I've been watching the first three as they came out. And it's fucking brilliant. It's incredible. It's everything I wanted it to be. It's just enough like the video game to be faithful.

But they've brought something new to it. For it to be exciting. And even better. whenever a Last of Us episode comes out there's an accompanying podcast where the writer Craig Mazin

speaks with the creator of The Last of Us Neil Druckmann and they both speak about the episode that you've just seen which I strongly recommend if you're enjoying

The Last of Us listen to The Last of Us podcast as well because you learn about the craft of writing the craft of writing television and Craig Mazin is a complete and utter nerd and he loves talking about writing and the writing process and he'll speak about how this character was inspired by somebody from the wire or how this opening scene was inspired by another opening scene from Breaking Bad. He really lays bare the utterly fascinating process of getting an idea and turning it into television but there's mad spoilers so make sure you don't listen to the podcast ahead of the episode that you've seen what i've been doing since the start is i watched episode one of the last of us it came out on a monday night loved it let it sit with me for a couple of days

and then on like thursday i listened to the podcast about it which is it's a lovely experience I'll tell you why The Last of Us comes out every single week they didn't just give us all the episodes at once to binge it's that old school experience that I remember from my childhood a very rare experience these days the experience of cultural scarcity something we don't have anymore if I watch The Last of Us and it's amazing and I can't fucking wait to see what's going to happen in the next episode I have to fucking wait

I have to wait a week and it's frustrating because I'm accustomed to binging TV shows now if I find a TV show that I like, I don't just watch one episode and stop. I'm like a child with a bag of sweets. I go straight in. I go straight into the series and do an entire season in one day until it fucks up my dreams. And it's just not as much fun. It's not as, that's not as enjoyable as seeing an episode of something, having it really affect you,

and then having to spend the rest of the week thinking about that episode and anticipating it. And what I like about this new format of release a TV show on a Monday, then put out a podcast about it. It's like a digital way of reintroducing what they used to call the water cooler moment. In the days before the internet, TV writers were always looking for what they called the water cooler moment. When you didn't have WhatsApp, or you didn't have YouTube to replay a clip or share it on fucking social media.

The best slot that a TV show could hope for on television was Sunday night. The big TV show went out on Sunday night because everybody in the country watched it and then they'd talk about it the next day Monday morning at half nine as everybody in the office gathered around the water cooler and spoke about it and then that would generate a buzz

and that would then leak into the media and everyone would speak about the TV show and you'd get more viewers than the next Sunday and that was the water cooler moment like for comedy this was huge for comedy shows in particular. Like sketch shows I remember were massive when I was a kid. Like the Fast Show

or the Harry Enfield Show. Used to go out on Sunday nights and sketch shows at that time, comedy really relied upon catchphrases. You don't see catchphrases anymore because there's no point in catchphrases anymore. A catchphrase was a funny character in a sketch show would say a funny thing but once they said that funny thing it was over. Time had passed. You couldn't rewind it. The funny thing exists in the ether, in your memory. So you, the human being, had to repeat that catchphrase. You had to repeat it in real life, like a form of temporary madness. Like Father Ted used to go out. And in Father Ted, you had Father Jack, who'd say, drink, arse, fese feck girls and then the TV show was over couldn't rewind it because it was on

TV there was no YouTube to go and look at clips so you just had to say drink arse feck girls all the time to all of your friends or the Fash show which was a brilliant fucking comedy sketch show in the 90s

they had these two characters that sold suits and their catchphrase Fash Show, which was a brilliant fucking comedy sketch show in the 90s. They had these two characters that sold suits and their catchphrase was, oh, suit you, sir. Oh, suit you, sir. And then the next day in offices and schoolyards up and down the country

everyone is saying, oh, suit you, sir. It's what humans had to do in an environment of cultural scarcity. It's what humans had to do in an environment of cultural scarcity. It's what existed before memes. And it was actually loads of fun. It was actually really, really enjoyable. Now it's just annoying and pointless. Like, there used to be a type of person.

Now, if you're my age, you'll remember this type of person. There's a film called Whittenail and I. Incredible film. Fucking brilliant. But everybody knew someone who based their entire personality around gnawing catchphrases from Whittenail and I. And every friend group had that one person who knew every single line from Whittenail and I.

And you'd be at a party and this person would meet the other person from the other friend group who know every line from Whitnail and I and they'd just shout lines from the film at each other and if those two people were members of the opposite sex they were riding that night guaranteed and they were gonna shout Whitnail and I catchphrases into each other's arses now that sounds insufferable it kind of wasn't it wasn't annoying because you'd be like oh yeah I remember that line from the film too that film that I can't immediately watch right now in the phone that's in my pocket that film that if I if I really, really, really want to see it,

I'll have to wait till tomorrow and go to the video shop to get it out, which I might not do. Cultural artefacts were really, really scarce, so you had to keep them alive through conversation. But when I was a kid, if a new episode of Father Ted came out on a fucking Sunday night and it was really funny

and you can't see it again because it's gone, the only thing you could do to hold on to the memory of the enjoyment of how much you loved it was to just shout drink arse feck girls at all your friends

and they did it back to you it's a moment in culture that's gone and it's recent enough because I remember when I first started writing for TV writing sketches on RTE around 2009 and the first sketch I ever wrote for TV was on Republic of Telly which was like a sketch show on RTE and I wrote a sketch called The Rubber Bandit's Guide to Limerick and I wrote a catchphrase into it and that catchphrase was that's Limerick City because I needed people to say that in real life at other people because memes didn't really exist in 2009. Well they did in very small select internet communities. But they hadn't leaked out into popular culture.

Now memes are nearly gone. They're something for millennials. They're for people 30 and upwards to share in WhatsApp groups. And even when the sketch went up on YouTube. Nobody had a phone that you could watch YouTube on. People watched YouTube maybe once a day at 5 o'clock when they got home from college or work

and looked at their computer. So we still needed catchphrases. But I'm loving the way The Last of Us is releasing an episode once a fucking week and you see it and it's amazing and you can't wait for the next one next week and the little podcast that's released in the middle that's the digital equivalent of

the water cooler moment but instead of me like talking to people about the last of us episode that i saw i'm listening to a podcast on the th Thursday where the two fucking writers are talking about the episode I just saw. So if you're listening to this, you might be thinking, here goes old blind boy again. Old man blind boy talking to us about what it was like before the internet. Old geriatric millennial blind boy. Because I am. I'm an old man I'm in my late thirties I'm heartling towards my forties

with a fist full of grey pubes and perpetual aches and pains that I'm waiting to heal and they're not going to heal that's just how it is now I'm middle aged now I know there's loads of you listening and you're around the same age as me

and you're saying stop saying that we're middle aged blind boy shut up stop saying that I know there's loads of you listening. And you're around the same age as me. And you're saying. Stop saying that we're middle aged blind boy. Shut up. Stop saying that. I'm not ready for that yet. And I hear you. But really.

In my experience. I really think it's a good idea to. Throatfully acknowledge where you're at. When it comes to age. Acknowledge where the fuck you're at. When it comes to age, acknowledge where the fuck you're at. Take ownership of it. Sit with it and be comfortable with it as part of your identity. Because there's nothing you can do about it.

Just be comfortable with that. I'm in my late 30s. I'm middle-aged. It's grand. It's quite freeing. It's incredibly freeing. It's initially a painful process, but it's very freeing. Because the a painful process but it's very freeing because the opposite is if you don't acknowledge it and you still try to hold on to youth that you no longer have society will remind you very quickly and very cruelly and it's very painful i'm going to give

you two examples i'm going to leave the cringiest one to last because it happened to me a year ago. And it's taken me a year to tell you because it's that cringy. But the first example happened this week and that's why I'm talking about The Last of Us.

So if you're over the age of 35, most culture is no longer directed at you. Most music, most TV, most fashion is no longer directed at you. The majority of popular culture is made for people between the ages of 18 and 35. Like I was even trying to listen to Nelly Furtado last week. Music from when I was young.

She's singing about, if you see me in the club, I'll be acting real nice. And I love that tune. It's so catchy, it's amazing, the production is incredible. But I'm listening to Nelly Furtado going, I'm sorry Nelly, I can't relate to this anymore at all. What in the fuck would I be doing in a club? If I was in a nightclub now, I'd just look really tired and frightened. And a

22 year old would come up to me and ask me if I'm feeling okay. But society will tell you when you're old, it begins quite subtly. Like I'd go into fucking Starbucks or somewhere, ready to order my coffee. And there's a lad behind the counter of about 25 and in my head I'm going oh a fellow young person there's a fellow young person there like me and then I go and order my coffee the person behind the counter is on high alert like they're speaking to a teacher like when I was in my 20s and I went to coffee shops and the person behind the counter is also in their 20s, they're like, what's the crack, man?

What coffee do you want? They're completely relaxed because I'm one of them. They get to communicate with their tone of voice and body language. I fucking hate this job. It's shit. I'm just doing this because I'm straight out of college. Do you want a coffee, do you? They're able to let loose. There's no threat.

But now when I go for a coffee, the lad behind the counter has to put on his professional voice because he's scared that I'm going to get him in trouble because I'm a proper real adult. And if he's not polite to me, I might tell his manager and get him in trouble. And then I collect my coffee and he goes, there you go, sir, one Americano.

And you know what I do? I try and be as nice as possible. I don't try to be cool. I don't try to be young. I'm not going to start talking about TikTok. I'm just going to be really nice to communicate. I know I'm old, but I'm not one of those ones. I don't enjoy the power of being cantankerous.

I'm going to be really polite to you and thank you for doing a good job and go on about my day because someone else my age is going to be a prick to you. But also culture will remind you that you're old. This is why I was talking about The Last of Us. So during the week, Saturday Night Live,

which is that huge big American sketch show, I've never really liked it. I've never understood it. I've never understood that type of American comedy. But Saturday Night Live, it's still a kind of a big deal. And they had a comedy sketch last week, which was a parody of The Last of Us. And it had the actor Pedro Pascal from The Last of Us. And the premise of this comedy sketch was,

what if HBO made a gritty reboot of another video game? Because The Last of Us is a video game, and HBO have made The Last of Us series about a video game. So the premise of this sketch was, what if HBO made a dystopian futuristic video game about Super Mario Brothers? Wouldn't that be hilarious? Wouldn't that be so far-fetched and absurd that it would be funny? So they made this sketch and it was the actors from The Last of Us

and it was Super Mario Brothers and it was set in the future and it was all bleak and this was the actors from The Last of Us and it was Super Mario Brothers and it was set in the future and it was all bleak and this was the comedy sketch and it went viral. It did what it was supposed to do. This wasn't a comedy sketch. It was an advert for The Last of Us that was paid for by HBO

and it was designed to go viral but it was being shared all over TikTok, on Twitter, on Instagram and the people sharing it who were in their 20s were going It was being shared all over TikTok, on Twitter, on Instagram. And the people sharing it, who were in their 20s, were going, Oh my God, wouldn't that be so funny? Imagine how ridiculous it would be if they made a future dystopian film about Super Mario Brothers. How silly. And I'm watching it in my late 30s going,

They actually did that. They actually did that in real life. In 1993. In 1993, they made a Super Mario Brothers film. It was traumatising. I was a fucking child. I loved Super Mario Brothers.

I went to see this in the cinema. It's one of the strangest films ever made. Bob Hoskins plays Mario and John Leguizamo plays Luigi and Dennis Hopper plays King Koopa and there's dinosaurs in it for no reason. And it's like, it's like a really camp version of Blade Runner. It's set in a futuristic, dark, cyberpunk city. It's nothing like the Super Mario Bros. game in any way whatsoever. It came out the same time as Jurassic Park. And it really upset a lot of children.

Me included. But Saturday Night Live put out a fucking sketch. And the entire premise of the sketch is. Oh my god. What if. They made a dystopian. Dark version of Super Mario Brothers. And I'm there pulling my hair out.

Going they did it. In 1993. It's real. It's a real thing. This isn't far fetched at all. It happened. And what it told me was. Not one person.

Working on the writing team in Saturday Night Live or the production team knew this because they weren't old enough they were all too young and nobody sharing it on the internet knew this or cared about it because they were all too young and then I started thinking there has to be some older people working in Saturday Night Live in their late 30s they They must have said stop this whole sketch doesn't work anymore it's no longer far-fetched because it's already happened and then someone else said that doesn't matter because this isn't directed at anyone over the age of 35 so their opinion doesn't matter this isn't for them no one cares about it. The Super

Mario Brothers film from 1993 was a complete flop. It's been forgotten by culture and the only people who remember it are too old to be the target audience. They don't matter. Put out the sketch. And that there is a moment where culture told me you're old buddy, you are old. And that's why it's a good idea to embrace it into your identity, to acknowledge it. Don't be fooling yourself. Sit with it. It's grand. It's absolutely fine. It's just time. Because after about the age of 30, you're not cool anymore. You're not cool anymore.

Doesn't matter what you do. You can try your best. You cannot have access to what coolness is. You also shouldn't really want to have access to that. Coolness is whatever, whatever anyone from the age of 16 to 25 is doing, whatever the fuck they're doing is cool. If you're that age right now listening to this podcast and you want to release art, music, whatever, fucking do it. Because whatever it is, it's cool. You could film yourself sharting into a bag of chips and it's cool. Not only is it cool,

it's relevant. And you can kind of hang on to coolness and relevant from the ages of 25 to 30. But after 30, you can't have coolness anymore. It's just not there for you. And it shouldn't really matter because the mechanics of how coolness operates is very much tied in with a very specific type of insecurity that you're supposed to have in your early 20s. Like in your early 20s you're an adult but you haven't really figured out who you are yet. You're not 100% sure of your identity so you're still kind of testing what this identity is and so is everyone else who's the same age as you. So there's a consistent type of unsureness and insecurity where everyone's evaluating each other off each other, which was a lot of fucking pressure.

I remember that. That was quite stressful. But only within that structure does coldness emerge. But once you figure out who you are as a person, you don't really give a fuck what anyone thinks of you that much anymore. That infrastructure doesn't exist. But still, you want to try and remain somewhat fashionable or trendy in your 30s. You want to still at least try. Like I've spoken before, I'd love to just wear outdoor clothes. I'd love to go into an outdoor shop and just literally buy everything. The hiking boots, Gore-Tex pants, Gore-Tex jacket.

Literally every piece of clothing that I wear. It doesn't matter what it looks like. It's 100% functional to keep me dry and warm. I'd love to do that. But you can't because you look like you've had an unbelievably difficult divorce. So I try my best in my late 30s to have some awareness of fashion. Just an awareness. I don't want to stand out. I don't want to try and look cool but I'd like to have an idea of what is acceptable clothing and that looks okay in other people's eyes but the older you get

the harder it is to figure out what the fuck that is like right now the clothes that are considered cool are fucking terrifying to me because everyone in their 20s were born around the millennium. So all the people in their 20s now are dressed exactly like how I used to dress when I was in my teens. And it's very disorientating. Like last week I saw a bunch of art college students walking around Limerick in their 20s. bunch of art college students walking around Limerick in their 20s but those art college students were all wearing bootcut jeans and shiny pointy brown shoes those art college students were dressed like engineering students when I was going to college and that wasn't cool then no offense to engineering students but the students who were in like engineering

wore boot cut jeans and pointy leather shoes and were really into the stereophonics. But now the art college students are dressing like that. And I know, well if the art college students are dressing like that, then that's what cool is. But what's cool is what was uncool when I was their age so I'm going to tell you a horrendous story that happened to me the past year so with the two years of the pandemic within those two years it was quite disorientating when I entered the pandemic skinny jeans were kind of still okay skinny jeans were still fine then 2020 2021 you get into 2022

and now skinny jeans aren't cool anymore so I come out of the pandemic about this time last year and I decide maybe it's time for me to update my wardrobe now nothing too drastic just take a look around and see what the cool people are wearing and try and incorporate some of that into your own wardrobe now i didn't want to go too far and i simply can't because from what i can tell the really cool lads in their early 20s they're wearing boot cut jeans pointy leather shoes they have a giant mullet and a fucking moustache now when I see that now

in my late thirties I don't see that as cool I see that as that man is in the IRA and he's on his way to Birmingham to put a bomb in a hotel like you know your man Paul Meskell that actor from Maynooth

with his little moustache and his earring, and his small chain. When I was a child, men who looked like Paul Meskell looks now were on the news for kneecapping a drug dealer in West Belfast. That's my specific cultural reference for that particular look.

The mullet boys with the moustaches. But my opinion doesn't matter. I'm not slagging those lads. I'm old. I'm out of the loop. The style and fashion of people in their 20s is none of my business. They're right and I'm wrong. So it's this time last year, coming out of the pandemic, and I start thinking about clothes and And my appearance. Now also. I'm going mental. Alright you know this. This time last year.

I had pretty bad mental health issues. My anxiety was returning. I had hyper vigilance. I was not well. It was around the time I got diagnosed with autism. I did a pretty good job at showing up here each week and not letting you know how mental I was but this time last year I wasn't in a great place and anyone who's ever not been in a great place generally the first thing you'll do is make radical changes to your haircut. If you've ever been mental,

you'll know that this is a thing that happens. Taxi Driver with Robert De Niro, he nails it when the character of Travis Bickle gives himself a mohawk. But anyone who's struggling with mental health issues, you suddenly get this desire to change your haircut.

I think what it is is my mental health gets quite bad and I'm really in the throes of anxiety to the point that the majority of my day is quite anxious thoughts. When I get like that at my lowest point I lose sense of self I'm stuck in my head with anxious thoughts all day long and stressed all day long to the point that I kind of lose a sense of who I am and my inner voice and when that happens often as a cry for help I do something drastic to my hair. Now, I wear a plastic bag, you know that. But for 99% of my life, I don't wear a plastic bag. I'm just a normal human being who walks around the place.

So I decided, what was cool when I was 17? What type of haircut did I have when I was 17? I bleached my hair. Yeah, because that's fashion now, isn't it? Everything that was cool when I was 17 is fashion now. So at this time last year, I bleached my hair. Yeah, because that's fashion now, isn't it? Everything that was cool when I was 17 is fashion now. So at this time last year, I bleached my hair. I bleached my entire head. Did it myself in a bathroom, which meant I also bleached a portion of my forehead and the tops of my ears, which wasn't me being mental. I reckon that was the autistic part. Absolute cry for help um trying to change something external about myself to mediate an internal pain fuck it what harm so i bleached my hair and then i had to go over to london right

to meet my agents who i hadn't seen in like two years because of the pandemic so i'm over in london with my bleached hair and then because I'm a cultie because I'm a fucking Irish cultie I say to myself I'm in London the fashion capital of the world what a great opportunity for me to buy some new clothes and I'm not going to buy the regular clothes that I'd buy

I'm going to update my fashion because fashion has changed since the pandemic I'm going to try and dress slightly younger I'm not going to get skinny jeans I'm going to try and dress slightly younger. I'm not going to get skinny jeans. I'm going to go to a shop and I'm going to buy myself some nice baggy blue jeans like I used to wear when I was 17 because that's what's cool now.

So I bought myself some baggy blue jeans. Then I got myself a lovely white t-shirt, a nice baggy white t-shirt. And I got myself a checked shirt because they were cool as well. So I'm walking around London with my bleached hair and my cool new clothes, feeling quite good about myself, feeling quite good, even though I'm in my late 30s. I met my agents, who are about the same age as me.

Everyone complimented my bleached hair. And then when I was finished meeting my agents, I decided I'm going to meet some old pals who I haven't seen in ages, who I used to work agents. I decided. I'm going to meet some old pals. Who I haven't seen in ages. Who I used to work with in Soho. So I go and meet my pals later that night. In a bar in Soho. Which is the West End. Where all the theatre stuff is on.

And I'm in this bar. With my bleached hair. And my cool clothes. And having a good time. Like holy fuck. I'm'm out the pandemic is just over this this seems pretty good and i go out to the smoking area and it was hot out there so i took off my shirt and as i'm out in the smoking area smoking a fag this lad comes up to me who must be 22 or 23 and he's with his friends and he says to me

oh are you like in a in a play or something are you in a show now I don't know him and I'm like I'm sorry what in a show what do you mean he's like the way you're dressed I'm like what do you mean the way I'm dressed

you're dressed as Eminem is there like an Eminem musical on or something like that and you're in it? Because it's like it's the West End, like where all the shows are. And then it dawned on me. I was wearing baggy blue jeans. A baggy, bright white t-shirt. Because I'd taken my fucking shirt off. And I'd bleached blonde hair.

t-shirt because I'd taken my fucking shirt off and I'd bleached bland hair and I'd managed to accidentally dress and look exactly exactly like 1999 Eminem Slim Shady era Eminem and this lad in his 20s who wasn't being mean because I was drinking in the west end of London legitimately thought that I was an Eminem impersonator because why in the fuck would a man who's clearly in his late 30s be dressed like that

and it was mortifying and that's what happens when you try to be cool in your fucking late 30s that's what happens when you try to be cool in your fucking late 30s that's what happens the universe will creep up and slap you into the face and put you in your place very quickly so i'm making no more attempts at being cool i'm not sure how i'm supposed to dress and this is a problem for geriatric millennials as we career towards our 40s now. We can't start wearing slacks.

We can't start wearing suits. We can't keep wearing skinny jeans. You can't keep doing that because when you're a man over 35, your body changes. Your legs kind of stay the same, but then the upper half of you, that grows. It just gets a bit bigger so if we collectively continue to wear skinny jeans we're all gonna look like pigeons

like if i just type into google now how to dress in your late thirties as a man yeah like I'm not getting away with that in Limerick no one's getting away with that in Limerick

you'd have to live in London it's all it's you look like you're perpetually at the afters of a wedding it's when you haven't been invited to all of the wedding just the bit that starts at three o'clock.

I can't look like that all the time in Limerick. It'd make you want to become a Christian fucking brother. You just get to wear that brown robe all the time. So there's a part two to that London story where I accidentally dressed as Eminem. But first, I'm going to give you a little ocarina pause. But I'm in my office, so I don't have the ocarina. I've got the Puerto Rican guiro.

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's sunrisechallenge.ca. On April 5th, you must be very careful, Margaret. It's a girl. Witness the birth. Bad things will start to happen. Evil 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? It's 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. What's not real? Who said that? The First Omen. Only in theaters April 5th. That was the Puerto Rican Guayrapaz. You would have heard an algorithmically generated advert for something there I don't know what it was support for this podcast comes from you the

listener via the patreon page patreon.com forward slash the blind boy podcast do you enjoy this podcast does it bring you solace does it it bring you meaning? Does it distract you from whatever you're trying to distract yourself from? Whatever this podcast does, whatever has you coming back listening to it, this is my full-time job. This is how I earn a living. It's how I feed myself. It's how I rent out this office. It's how I get to dress like Eminem. It's my full-time job and I adore this work. I love making this podcast and having the space and time to be a professional artist, to make this podcast, to write my book, to pitch TV shows, to do all the things I need to do to be a professional artist.

If you enjoy that work, please consider paying me for it. If you're consuming the work, consider paying me for it if you're consuming the work consider paying me for it all i'm looking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month that's it patreon.com forward slash the blind buy podcast and if you can't afford that don't worry about it you can listen to this podcast for free because the person who can afford it is paying for you to listen for free everybody gets a podcast i get to earn a living it's a wonderful model based on kindness and soundness it also keeps the podcast independent it means i'm not beholden to advertisers support whatever independent podcast you enjoy the podcast space is now very corporate. There's a lot of podcasts being made

where nobody on the production chain actually cares about what's being made. It's like radio. It's a lot of people just showing up to do a job and pandering to advertisers. That's what has radio fucked. It's what has television fucked. And what has television fucked and now the vast majority of podcasts that are being made by the large podcast producers are that and it's drowning out small independent creators who are making something by themselves that they're genuinely passionate about and that's what podcasts are about at the end of the day. We're trying to get away from TV and radio to find the people who are making that thing that's a little bit rough around the edges

but what you're getting is legitimate passion and enthusiasm. So support whatever independent podcast you listen to and that support doesn't have to be monetary. Share the podcast, leave a review, use your social media presence to recommend it to a friend. Upcoming gigs. I've got Cork Opera House on the 15th of this month.

I think that's sold out. I've got a class guest lined up. On the 4th of March I'm in Belfast in the Waterfront. Very few tickets left. Wednesday the 22nd I am in Vicar Street. 22nd of March I'm in Vicar Street in Dublin. There are some tickets left for that

on Wednesday the 22nd. Friday the 24th, Vicar Street. That's sold out. And then this one. The TLT Theatre in Drogheda on the 1st of April. It's hard to sell tickets in Drogheda lads. Drogheda's a bit like Limerick.

So if you're around Drogheda on the 1st of April please come to my gig in the TLT Theatre. And then I'm in Canada. I'm in Toronto on the 26th in the Opera House and I am in Vancouver on the 28th in the Playhouse Theatre. Both those gigs are almost sold out. I can't wait to come back to Canada. I fucking love Canada.

I'm going to be doing a larger tour of Canada. I couldn't do it this year because I've booked deadlines. But I'm looking forward to Canada. Those gigs are nearly sold out so one theme of this podcast this week is embrace whatever age you're at embrace it acknowledge it accept it as part of your identity we have a society that demonizes getting older absolutely demonizes it that heralds it as something to be ashamed of. Also, being a millennial,

you have the double-edged blade of none of us are where we thought we would be at this age. If you're in your fucking thirties, chances are you feel like an absolute fucking failure because the economy that you grew up with as a child made promises about how things were supposed to be and then a fucking recession happened in 2008 that crumbled all that to the ground and you have a society and a culture that then refuses to call people in their fucking

mid-30s and older middle-, they're calling us young people. They're calling 40-year-olds young people. And it's being used. It's being used against us. It's being used to infantilize us. They're calling millennials young people. And I'm talking about politicians. They're doing this to placate us, to keep us quiet. Because if you keep calling us young people, then we don't feel so bad when nobody can afford a fucking home. Or have a pension. Or have a secure career. Or give you bouncy castles and a pool table

instead of allowing you to join a union or to farm a union. I'd rather say, no actually, I'm middle-aged. I'm fucking middle-aged and this isn't good enough and there's nothing wrong with being middle-aged and when I was saying there earlier about you no longer have access to being cool I mean great like that was a lot of pressure being cool and relying upon the opinion of other people and other people thinking that you're cool that was really tough going and it was quite arbitrary

you can replace being cool with just being a nice person just being a decent person that's what I like trying to do I try and put effort in every day that whoever I meet and interact with that I really try to be respectful and kind and use empathy with every single person who I meet and I they're not going

to think oh that fellow was so cool and edgy I just want people to think oh he was sound he was a nice person he was lovely and that's actually way easier to maintain than being cool, just basic human respect and kindness and the beauty of that is you're not doing it for your sense of identity, you're not doing it because how you want another person to value you, when your focus is just being kind and nice and putting that effort in. And putting the effort into yourself. Putting the work into who you are. So that you have the emotional capacity to be kind. The rewards are a more solid sense of self.

Going to bed every night and saying, I did my best today and I quite like who I am. I put effort in to be kind and compassionate to people. I quite like who I am. I put effort in to be kind and compassionate to people. I quite like who I am. And if I genuinely put that effort in and someone still doesn't like me, that's got nothing to do with me. That's their problem.

It's none of my business. That's far more fucking rewarding than going, I wondered that everybody liked my eyebrow piercing. And you can try that as well in your 20s, of course. You can put the effort in to be kind to people. But it can actually be more difficult because your peer group, the people your age, are still trying to figure out who they are. Because kindness can be perceived as someone being a little bit darky.

Let's not forget, cool people generally don't behave in a way that's very friendly. They tend to establish their coolness by calling everything shit to give the impression that they have everything figured out. So being a kind person, a kind nice person within that social fabric can actually be quite difficult. It can frighten people. It can be a bit too real where the rules are to be a little bit fake because you haven't figured yourself out yet. Maybe up to about 25 but in your 30s it's a lot easier. People don't really give a shit anymore about who's cool and who's not and people are quite happy just to meet someone who isn't acting like a prick. So back to London when I accidentally dressed like Eminem. That was really embarrassing.

That was fucking mortifying. That wasn't pleasant in any way whatsoever. I think I'd have actually felt better about it. If the fella who thought I was dressed like Eminem was being deliberately mean. But like he wasn't. Because I'm too old for him to be mean to he doesn't view me as competition I was just a middle-aged man dressed like Eminem because I was portraying him in a West End musical so I immediately left I left fucking immediately I was not about to hang around like I couldn't

I couldn't have a pint after that get the fuck back to your hotel go home so I went straight back to the hotel and then woke up the next day and was like oh my flight back to Ireland isn't till seven o'clock that night so I've got the entire day in London to do something I legitimately feel shit about the Eminem thing that was really embarrassing I felt like shit over it so I want to do something nice for myself and doing something nice for myself in London means going to museums on my own

that's what I love doing so I said fuck it man you learned a lesson move on let's go to some nice art galleries but then I slowly realize that I don't have my old clothes because you see I was flying back on Ryanair and I didn't bring

any luggage so when I bought the M&M costume in the shop the day before I threw my old skinny jeans and my old t-shirt in the fucking bin in the shop because they were old pandemic clothes and now I had new clothes and I didn't have space from anyway because I didn't get luggage because it was a Ryanair flight and I was just there for a day so this now meant that my lovely day of self-care that I had planned to go to the art galleries I had to do that while dressed like Eminem so I did it and I had the checkered shirt anyway it only looked I could not, I couldn't take the shirt off I couldn't go

white t-shirt, blue jeans, blonde hair fucked, forget about it causing a scene but blue jeans, blonde hair checkered shirt I just looked like a weird American so I went to the National Gallery went to the Science Museum I went to a bunch of galleries and

museums over the course of the day and had a magnificent time and what I was really looking for was 18th century landscape painters, the British landscape painters from the 18th century, Thomas Gainsborough, John Constable, really beautiful paintings of pastoral countryside scenes in quite a specific dramatic style at a time before photography existed with an incredibly masterful use of oil paint. I wanted to see that type of work and I wanted to see it up close because again to mention cultural scarcity that I mentioned at the start of this podcast. One example of cultural scarcity that you can still experience today is being physically present

around an absolutely fantastic painting by a master. I can go to google now and I can get really high resolution pictures of John Constable's paintings and it's not the same. I can see the composition, I can kind of get an idea of the colours. But what I can't see is the language of the paint. And that's what painting is about. It's about brush strokes, layers and texture. And how that becomes the prose of the painting. These marks are the poetic language of that painting.

And how different layers speak through each other and you can only experience that when you're physically beside the fucking painting when it's right there in front of you and I got to do that in London on this day while dressed as Eminem but this one painting really stuck out and I want to speak about this so the 18th century landscape paintings they are incredibly well painted bright depictions of English countryside scenes painted masterfully with a little bit of drama to them but which I mean they're not pure realism when John Constable paints a scene of a little stream and trees and horses you can tell it's dramatized it's not exactly as it was that day when he painted it he would have moved a tree over here a horse over there a cloud here to create a very aesthetically pleasing composition so he's dramatizing nature but throughout all these beautiful green and blue paintings of pastoral English countryside scenes

there was one painting that was terrifying and it looked like it didn't belong. I thought it was a Hieronymus Bosch painting. I've done a podcast on Hieronymus Bosch. He was a 16th century painter, Dutch painter I believe, who used to paint visions of hell. He used to paint fucking hell. Fiery cauldrons and smoke rising into the air with people being tortured. So I couldn't understand. I was like, why is there this one painting that stands out amongst these English country landscapes?

The name of the painting was Colebrookdale by Night by a painter called Philip James de Lutherberg. And I'll just describe this painting to you. It's from 1801. And it looks like... The composition is clearly an English landscape painting it looks like a constable but it looks like someone went into a constable painting and committed arson it's a terrifying scene and you have all your English country cottages

and you have a horse-drawn carriage and then you look closer and you realize oh this isn't a fire this isn't arson it's like a factory so I immediately went researching what is this painting it's a painting of where global warming began the exact spot in 1801 where global warming began the painting is of a place called Colebrookdale which is the site of the world's first large industrial blast furnace for making iron. You see up until the late 1700s society was able to smelt metal to make things out of metal like iron, but not on a large scale. Because in Britain in particular, furnaces that would be used to melt metal and to make things out of metal,

they were powered by charcoal. Charcoal is wood. And from the 1500s to the 1700s, Britain was actually in a fucking energy crisis because they were burning all the wood that they had they were chopping down all their forests and burning all the wood but this made charcoal quite expensive

because wood was scarce but in the 1700s this fella called Abraham Darby in Colebrookdale figured out a way to melt metal at incredibly high temperatures and not need to use wood. He figured out how to use coal.

Now that might sound a bit mad. How do you figure out how to use coal? Especially in the 1700s, coal comes out of the ground. But this Abraham Darby fella had figured out how to use a type of coal called coke. It's when you get coal and you heat it without the presence of air and it forms a type of coal that can burn at incredibly high temperatures.

Caulk is the coal, but charcoal is the wood. So up until that point, coal had been lying around, but no one had found an industrial purpose for it. but no one had found an industrial purpose for it. So in Colebrookdale, Abraham Darby built the world's first big blast furnace. This huge big furnace full of fire that could melt massive amounts of iron and now produce iron in a scale and quantity that had never been seen before. So this painting that I saw, this painting that's incredibly out of place from 1801, this painting full of fire that looked frightening. The painter Philip James de

Lutherberg had inadvertently painted a picture of the beginning of the industrial revolution because that's what that furnace at Colebrookdale meant. It was a leap in technology. The ability to have this giant fiery furnace that uses coke to make massive amounts of iron was enough to change iron smelting from a small industry that was done individually by smiths and metallurgists into something that could be done on a massive industrial scale. And from that came steam power and railways and trains and the fucking industrial revolution. But also what that painting Colebrookdale by night depicts, that is the exact beginning of global warming. When the industrial revolution began, because of that blast furnace in Colebrookdale, that was the first time that humans reached into the earth and pulled out something called fossil fuels and burned it on a massive scale and produced ridiculous amounts of carbon. is now heating and destroying the world. And what I find beautiful and tragic and ironic about the painting is when I first saw it from across a room,

this strange out of place painting of fire, it looked like hell. It looked like the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch, 200 years previous, who specialised in painting a fiery vision of hell but this painting from 1801 Philip James de Lutherberg he didn't know that he was painting a vision of hell he was just painting an iron foundry that was full of fire he was reporting what he saw it wasn't a critique of industry because the industrial

revolution hadn't happened yet. It wasn't a warning of things to come because no one could have predicted at the time that if you burn that much coal it'll heat the planet. It's a strange little terrifying painting that I reckon in 50 years time will be considered one of the most important artworks ever created because it depicts a starting point to a massive mistake that humans made that would threaten our very existence. So the painting is called Colebrookdale by Night and if I hadn't accidentally dressed up as Eminem I wouldn't have gone into a gallery, and seen that little strange painting, and noticed how much it stuck out,

and decided, I can't just walk past this one, it's too strange, I need to find out what's going on, so I suppose that's the only positive I can take from that humiliating experience, alright, I'll be back next week, in the meantime, enjoy the stretch in the evenings and rub a dog.

Rock City, you're the best fans in the league, bar none. Tickets are on sale now for Fan Appreciation Night on Saturday, Aprilil 13th when the toronto rock hosts the rochester nighthawks at first ontario center in hamilton at 7 30 p.m 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.