The Blindboy Podcast - Gizzard Penchant

Episode Date: September 30, 2020

The origins of the word Quare leads me to discuss art created by Elephants Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Crows, Onas, Boulevard, you duty-bound Brendans. Welcome to the Blind Boy Podcast. I'd like to give a special welcome in particular to our brand new listeners. There's lots and lots of brand new listeners because of last week's podcast where I interviewed WWE wrestler Sami Zayn. I'm pleased to announce that since last week's interview with Sami. He has now become the Intercontinental Champion in WWE. A phrase which I haven't thought about the Intercontinental Championship.

Since fucking Bret the Hitman Hart. Or Shawn Michaels. That's how long I've thought about the Intercontinental Championship. But Sami Zayn won it last night, fair play to him one week after we had a fantastic interview on this podcast and fair play to fucking Sami man

like Sami's got millions of followers online and he obviously really enjoyed the chat that we had last week, I'm guessing Sami basically was plugging the fuck out of this podcast all week to his millions of followers. Which for me is fucking fantastic because it's like you have all these people in America and Canada, all around the world, who enjoy Sammy. They are now getting the opportunity to listen to this podcast so that's fantastic it was a lovely gesture out of Sammy and to me it told me too

Sammy obviously never gets much of an opportunity to speak about the issues we spoke about I'm guessing when Sammy gets interviews a lot of the interviews are just about wrestling and he doesn't get the opportunity to express himself which is a shame because as you could tell from last week's podcast unbelievably articulate, insightful person

with some really on the ball opinions about compassion and politics and someone who needs to be heard more but a good week was had by me and I'd say me and Sammy are going to hook up again

I'd say we're going to do something again in the near future don't know what it is but I'd say we're going to do something again so congratulations Sammy on your Intercontinental Championship so for this week's podcast I'm going to answer one or two questions that you sent me

but I want to answer questions around a specific theme and the theme that I'm thinking is so as you know I use I do live streaming on a website called Twitch. I do it three times a week.

And it's me fully live, either chatting or making songs. And because it's live, everyone who's watching can interact live in the comments. And because of this, there's a real, the community on Twitch is really supportive and wholesome. So if I'm making songs and the people in the comments are aware that I'm making songs live and I'm trying to enjoy creativity, I'm trying to get into a creative place, there's real effort put in from the people commenting to create a kind of a happy environment. So you never really get negative or disparaging comments at all. It's one of the things I fucking love about Twitch.

Because on the rest of the internet, people are really mean. People go out of their way to say hurtful things. But on Twitch, a community of support exists. And that's why Twitch is such a nice thing to use but anyway last wednesday i was writing songs and someone wrote a comment and the comment was blind boy is in queer form tonight and when i saw the comment i got kind of pissed off because it's like you don't write you don't write negative comments in the Twitch stream, man, I'm trying to create music, I'm trying to create music, I'm trying to achieve a sense of flow,

so if you tell me I'm in queer form, then I'm going to read that, I might take it on board, and that kills the buzz, so this person wrote, blind boys in quare form. And I go, what do you mean I'm in quare form? And a few other people said, what do you mean he's in quare form? And it made me realise that the word quare, which is an Irish word, a word we use in Ireland, quare, that it has completely different meanings depending on where you are in Ireland. So the person who said blind boys in queer form,

what that person meant is that I was actually in good form. I was being entertaining. I was in the zone. But I read it as a Limerick person, and when I read the word queer. I hear. That I'm off. That I'm off or that. I'm being odd.

Or that I'm giving off bad vibes. In Limerick the word queer. Means that. I don't know if you met someone. If you said they were in queer form. In Limerick. Or in Cork. It means that the person was in a bad mood but anywhere else if you say the word quare it's like that was quare good

or that pint was quare nice it's used as a phrase to mean a good thing and I always thought the word queer like growing up in Limerick queer to me I just assumed that queer is an Irish way of pronouncing the word queer but the word queer then has different meanings the word queer like I would have grown up with the word queer meaning strange or odd but then the word queer has a different meaning because it was initially like a disparaging a disparaging word against against gay people but then the gay community and the LGBT community embraced the word queer to mean a kind of an in-between you know that societal norms of gender or sex that are kind of binary it's like queer is is the in-between it's a fluidity it's a it's consistently moving in fluxes but if you're from the north of the country

or specifically if you're from the east the southeast of the country queer is it means very so that's queer good this book was queer good that film was queer bad that dog is queer angry so queer in the east of the country is like I think you'd call it an adjective it adds flavour it adds flavour to something it adds emphasis to a word to mean

very or large it inflates something and the reason for this is very fucking interesting so where I come from in Limerick queer it's literally just a version of queer and the reason for this is very fucking interesting so where i come from in limerick queer it's literally just a version of queer it's a version of queer is it means odd it means strange so if you say to me you're in a queer mood that's a that's an insult you're telling

me that i'm in a farm that something about me is soured. But the reason in the east of the country that quare means a different thing, that quare doesn't come from English or Irish, right? The quare in Wexford comes from an extinct language, a language that doesn't exist anymore. So I'm going to give you about a thousand years of history now, in the shortest amount of words possible, to try and explain why there was a misunderstanding about the word Quare on Twitch. We all know Ireland was invaded by Britain.

So how did that happen? In the 900s, there were Vikings. The Vikings were from like Norway, Denmark. They were, they lived in a shit place with no grass and a lot of lakes and rocks. So the Vikings were like, this is shit and it's freezing we hate it here there's nothing here so what we need to do is build brilliant boats

and just go everywhere we need to continually expand and take shit and that's what the Vikings did they were doing it for ages but about 900 one group of Vikings made it to France. And they got to France and were like, fuck me, this is class.

Wow, look at all these lovely fields. Look at this. This is so much better than Norway and Denmark. And because the Vikings were such hard bastards, you know, they just went to the French and said, we're taking this area, this is ours. And if you don't like it, we're going to fuck up Paris. We're going to fuck your shit up.

So the French were like, grand, stay there. Here's a section of France and this is yours. And they called it Normandy. Because the Vikings that settled in France around 900 the French called them Normans which meant Northmen men from the North

so now you have these Vikings that live in France called Normans now they would have been speaking I don't know, what did Vikings speak? Norse I don't know what what did Vikings speak? Norse. I don't know what the fuck the Vikings spoke. They spoke whatever language was spoken in Denmark and Norway more than a thousand years ago. But when they got to France and became Normans, they spoke a bit of their Danish Old Norse.

Danish, Old Norse, but then also started speaking an early type of French, which would have been influenced by the Romans. It would have been influenced by Latin, because 500 years previous to that, France would have been in the Roman Empire. So therefore, it would have been speaking Latin, right? So the Normans then start speaking half French, half Norse. So the Normans then become kind of French, and they're there in Normandy, but then they get itchy again, and they're like, fuck it, man, you know, we're here in France.

It's a good crack, I like it, lovely grass, but you know what? My grandfather was a Viking, and my grandfather came from this shitty place where it was just rocks and rivers and very little grass so i have this itchiness in me and i need to go on and take some shit i need to leave france and i need to find somewhere else and take it because that viking anxiety exists within me because i'm a norman i'm a northman so 1066 the normans are like let's go over there what's that britain is it fuck it man let's go over there so the normans head from normandy over to britain in 1066 now britain in

1066 what was a weird place it was a strange place okay it was a strange place. Okay? It was controlled by the Anglo-Saxons in 1066. Controlled isn't the right word. It wasn't like... It was populated by these lads called the Anglo-Saxons. Britain used to be a Roman colony. It used to be part of the Roman Empire. And then, but the Roman Empire collapsed. Okay, why the fuck did the Roman Empire collapse?

Okay, let's park the Normans. The Normans are in Normandy in France, 1066, looking over at England going, yum, yum. Yum, yum, I want some of that. England going yum yum yum yum I want some of that let's park them for a second and go back maybe 600 years to about 400 so Britain was part of the Roman Empire and the Roman Empire collapsed in this really slow and gradual way how do i explain it imagine the eu just stopped tomorrow the entire european union just stopped tomorrow but there's no telephones there's no internet there's no communication structure so if the eu ended tomorrow how long would it take for that information to truly reach Ireland?

And not just the information, but for the flow of money, the flow of funding, the collapse of laws. Imagine there was no internet or phones, and in Ireland you're just trickling over about 100 years, hearing that there's no more EU and not knowing whether to believe it or not. And it's just all of a sudden this money is disappearing and shit's shit's gone, it's like Roman Britain

slowly had it's pants pulled down it's like someone come up and just slowly slowly pulled it's pants down over about a hundred years or more and then slowly it just looks down and it's like I've no pants anymore man. My pants are gone.

That's what happened. The Roman Empire collapsed. I think it was a combination of corruption. I think what happened is. I could be wrong. By saying it was Caesar. I could be wrong by saying it was Caesar. I could be wrong in saying that, I'm not going to

fucking check it up, some emperor basically kind of established themselves as a dictator the whole thing with the Roman Empire is that it was supposed to be the cornerstone of democracy but one of them became a dictator and then what happened, they started

counterfeiting their own money they had gold coins to pay all the soldiers but then counterfeiting the gold with lead became a big thing and the money lost its fucking value and then all the soldiers all the like the generals the lawmen whatever the fuck the politicians were just like they're paying us in lead the money's not real anymore they're paying us in lead this money has no value and the civilization roman civilization just just dissipated it just collapsed it just collapsed because of lead money you know the people lost faith in the empire soldiers are like well i'm not soldiering anymore if i'm not getting paid

no one's getting paid and then all these different tribes and communities just start to hacking away at it hacking away at it and invading and the roman empire just collapsed but there was no phones or nothing there was no phones there was no internet so it's slowly the information slowly trickled out. So Rome and Britain, around 300, 400, everything just started falling apart. The information from Rome stopped coming. The funding from Rome stopped coming. So you had this strange society that was existing as Rome and Britain, essentially.

But they weren't really aware that it's like the game is up so as it slowly collapsed and information slowly collapsed from Germany comes these lads called the Saxons and the Saxons were like Germanic tribes

they were warlike very superstitious and they weren't technologically advanced like the Romans and they weren't as advanced as the Romans let's be honest I think they were naked I think they were I think they were mostly naked they didn't have clothes half of them so the Saxons slowly start to I won't even say invade Roman Britain because they didn't meet much fighting. They just kind of trickled in and these German tribes became Anglo-Saxons, right? And they were a queer bunch.

To use the limerick phrase queer, they were a queer bunch. So the Anglo-Saxons, because they weren't technologically advanced and they were very superstitious, when they would visit cities like London that were built by the Romans Anglo-Saxons, because they weren't technologically advanced and they were very superstitious, when they would visit cities like London that were built by the Romans, and they would see these magnificent Roman buildings, with huge big buildings with columns and Roman architecture, the Anglo-Saxons, because they had such a poverty of technology and information, when they saw London, or any any Roman city or place like Bath,

they couldn't understand that these things were built by humans. It's like those mad documentaries, those ancient alien documentaries. The ones on the History Channel. When the History Channel stopped being about history

and it started sniffing solvents through the sleeve of its school jumper in the mid-2000s, when the History Channel went like that, and you've got this scientist with a haircut like a cat's arse and a face like a plate of bacon and cabbage, and he's completely unable to fathom that, like, the Egyptians built the pyramid so they go must have been aliens all right no way are you telling me four thousand fucking years ago that these cunts in Egypt built a pyramid not believing it it was aliens right if the Anglo-Saxons were

around today they'd be making history history channel documentaries except about london so the anglo-saxons were like that london over there man that wasn't built by humans no no no because a human couldn't possibly build these huge columns because we don't know how to do it so there's no way a human did that no that was giants big load of giants did that so So the fucking Anglo-Saxons refused to live in cities. They would leave the cities to rot and be abandoned. And then they'd live out in the woods, terrified that if they go into the city, there was a lot of giants that had come back. Fucking Egypts. A shower of fucking Egypts.

So let's go back now to 1066 and the norman lads who were over in normandy in france the normans in 1066 like i said they're they're like my grandparents were vikings we need to go somewhere we need we need to go further they have a look over at england and the normans are quite advanced the normans are technologically advanced because they have all that shit from the fucking Vikings with building boats and stuff like that they're a technologically superior civilization to the Anglo-Saxons who were in Britain

so the Normans look over and go they're fucking short of dopes over there watch them, they think the cities were built by giants and they won't go in there fucking dopes, history channel dopes with their mad hair so the Normans are like fuck that we're heading to england so they do in 1066 and the normans invade england and then they take it over completely and now england britain becomes norman fucking britain which is a french connolly, but essentially a Viking Connolly.

Then they go on another hundred years. But while the Normans are in fucking England and Britain. So the language they were speaking, when they went to France, they had a bit of Old Norse. Then they get to France and they start speaking a bit of French. But then they get to England and they start to adopt elements of the Germanic languages so in England they were speaking Anglo-Saxon which was a mixture of the German shit that the Saxons were speaking and then like early English which would have had its roots then in Latin because it was a former Roman colony so the Normans start to speak old English I suppose you'd call it old English which was a

mixture of Latin, French, German, I suppose a bit of Norse and one of the maddest things actually that exists linguistically from that period is that when you think of food okay so the normans who took over from the the anglo-saxons in britain in 1066 right the anglo-saxons were speaking this real early type of english which was a mixture of kind of latin and german and then the Normans were speaking their fucking half French half Norse but the Normans ruled so if you look at food

beef once it's on a plate it's called beef but once it's in a field it's called a cow or a bull once it's on a plate it's called poultry once it's in the field it's called a cow or a bull. Once it's on a plate, it's called poultry.

Once it's in the field, it's called a chicken. So why in the English language is it poultry on a plate, chicken in the field? Beef on a plate, cow in the field? Because that shows you the language divisions. Poultry comes from poulet, a French word. Chicken is, I think it comes from fucking Anglo-Saxon. So basically the ruling Normans who were French Vikings were eating chicken, but the Anglo-Saxons who were underneath them were working in the fields raising the chickens and not eating them. And that still exists today in how we discuss food because we speak English.

So the Normans anyway, they take over England and they become Norman British. They become fucking British, I suppose you'd call it. And the language they spoke would be called Middle English. Okay, so the Anglo-Saxons, the History Channel lads who thought that London was full of giants they spoke old English right which was a mixture of German that they brought or what would have been German Germanic languages a mixture of languages from that area which they brought

to England when they met Roman Britons who spoke a kind of a version of Latin that was old English then when the Normans come in they start bringing in old French and a bit of Norse and that becomes known as Middle English so by 1160 the Normans that were in Britain were speaking Middle English that's what it would be referred to. There's a book called The Canterbury Tales by a fella called Chaucer and it's like this long epic poem and that's an example of middle English. Read it for the laugh.

Canterbury Tales, give it a read. You can kind of understand some of it as English. A few words. And that's English from nearly a thousand years ago. So the Normans settled in England for a hundred years. And then those lads are like well my great great grandfather

was a Viking. My great great grandfather came from Denmark and Norway and you know there was nothing there. There was a couple of lakes a few stones there was fucking nothing so i get i'm anxious i'm anxious now i know we were in france we had good crack there they're still over in france but now we're here in britain there's plenty here in britain there's

loads but no no no my great great grandfather was a v Viking and they had nothing. So I want more. So then they looked over to Ireland. And the Romans never came over to Ireland, you see. The Romans never came to Ireland. Now, this is the real hot take version of why the Romans... Like, you're wondering, why the fuck did the Romans colonise Britain? And then go, nah, fuck Ireland, we're not going over there. Why? Britain and then go nah fuck Ireland we're not going over there

why one theory which if there's any historians listening will probably box the head off me because it's so basic what's the Latin name for Ireland Hibernia what does hibern when you hear the word hibern

what words come up hibernate what's hibernation when a fucking an animal goes to sleep for the winter What words come up? Hibernate. What's hibernation? When a fucking... an animal goes to sleep for the winter. Hibernia basically means the land of eternal winter. When the Romans got to Britain, they just assumed that Ireland was too cold.

And they didn't bother their holes. And they called it Hibernia. They're like, there's the land of eternal winter, I'm not fucking going over there. That's one version. I'm sure it's far more complex than that. But they did call Ireland Hibernia. But the Normans are like,

my great-grandfather's from fucking Norway, man. I had a granduncle from Iceland. He could give a fuck about cold. We're heading over to Ireland. So they did. So in 1160 or 1170 the Normans start heading over to Ireland and they leave from Wales

and the first place they reach where is it? Wexford so the Normans, the Brits you know the old English, the Brits I suppose this is old English, the Brits, I suppose this is the first time the Brits came to Ireland and started to colonise, is around 1160

the Normans, they first reach Wexford and as they expand, now these Normans over the next kind of three, four hundred years, they started to adopt kind of Irish, Gaelic culture and shit, you know. They say that they became more Irish than the Irish.

So, yes, they colonized, but they kind of, they adapted quite well. Anyone whose name is like Fitzgibbon or Fitzgerald, these names that we think are Irish, they actually have French origin because it comes from that French Norman thing. Fitz means son, comes from fee. So Fitzgerald, Fitzgibbon, anything with a Fitz, it tends to be an old, it's a Hiberno-Norman name. But anyway, the Normans come over 1160 and they start to form a pretty strong colony in Wexford specifically which is on the southeast, southeast of Ireland.

And the colony that they establish is so strong that a unique dialect and culture emerges called Yola. And Yola was like a mix of Norman French, Middle English and Irish. And Yola existed there kind of undisturbed as this language up until the 19th century which is the 19th century is like the is that the 1800s is it 200 years ago this language and culture existed in wexford that wasn't english it wasn't irish it was called yola and this yola language which is like a preserved ancient language. The colony, the Norman colony around Wexford was so strong that this antique language preserved itself.

That's old English, bit of French and some Irish in there. Yola stays preserved up until the 19th century. But there's one word we have left there is one word that still exists from this these normans in wexford and that word is called quare quare is the only word that exists that we still use from the yola language which is now dead and that's why when I was on Twitch the other night and someone said to me blind by your inquire farm I didn't understand it I took it up the wrong way

because I'm here in 2020 in my cyberpunk dungeon broadcasting on the internet in the fucking pandemic cyberpunk dystopian future and some cunt on twitch is speaking norman at me someone was speaking norman at me on twitch and even in 2020 it led to a disagreement and a misunderstanding i i understand the word the word queer to just be an English version of the word queer

but this cunt's speaking Norman at me on Twitch so I think that's what I want I want this podcast to be inspired to take the theme of the word queer I'm going to answer some questions that I consider to be queer questions alright

queer as I understand it not the Norman way where it means very but queer as I understand it in Limerick questions that are about odd things weird things oh at this point you may notice a slight difference in sound because i'm recording

the second part of the podcast away from my studio but my microphone fucked up so i have to use this particular microphone which isn't as it's not monophonic this microphone goes from left to right so apologies if you notice any slight sound difference in this microphone it also means that it's more difficult for me to edit so i'm just gonna have to go i'm gonna have to go in lads gonna have to go in without a swimming cap and get my hair wet all right but um it's time for the ocarina pause we don't have an ocarina but what we do have is a microphone that's in stereo so i'll give you a special treat this week for the ocarina pause instead of there being an ocarina i'm going to create the sound of a motorbike by going from left to right,

but a very sad, despondent motorbike. So right now you might hear an advert for some bullshit that you do or do not need, okay? And so you don't get startled by the advert, I'm going to do a little pause. So here's the despondent motorbike pause. Are you ready? Ready? No, that's too distant that doesn't sound like what does that sound like

that doesn't sound like a fucking motorbike that sounds like a a dinosaur on the roof of a taxi a dinosaur on the roof of a taxi that's just... 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 Centre 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. 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 the 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 in theaters April 5th. Receive some distressing news. So that's the distressed dinosaur on the roof of a taxi.

ASMR. Bonus noise. You are welcome. I assume, I mean, what do we know about dinosaur vocalizations i've heard that t-rex is most likely honked like giant geese because they would have had the the vocal cords that would be quite similar to birds so anyway support from this podcast comes from you, the listener, via the Patreon page, patreon.com forward slash theblindboypodcast. This podcast is fully independent, as you can tell. You can tell this isn't a professional operation. It's quite obvious. So the podcast is supported by you, the listener.

I get the odd advertiser, but if I don't like him, I tell him to fuck off and they can't tell me what to do. So you like this podcast if you listen to it regularly you're enjoying it it's bringing you some fun then uh just consider giving me the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month that's all i'm asking for if you're listening to this podcast and just pay me for the work that i'm doing that's it coffee or a pint once a month patreon.com forward slash the blind boy podcast if you can't afford that

don't worry you don't have to pay someone else will pay for you but if you can't afford that if you can afford to give me a pint or a cup of coffee once a month please do in exchange for the work that I do and also

because it gives me editorial freedom and control I just did a despondent dinosaur Please do. In exchange for the work that I do. And also. Because it gives me. Editorial freedom and control. I just did a despondent dinosaur. On the top. On the roof of a fucking taxi. You know what I mean. I'm not getting away with that.

If I'm run by sponsors. They're going to ring me up and go. Blind Bay what the fuck was that. But I can say it to them. It's whatever the fuck I want it to be. You corporate bi. Okay so moving on to some of the. Have I anything else to be. You corporate, bye. Okay, so moving on to some of the... Have I anything else to plug? Watch me on Twitch.

Twitch.tv forward slash TheBlindBoyPodcast. Three nights a week. I have some good live fun. And like the podcast. Follow the podcast. Most importantly, share it with a friend. If you're a new listener, especially if you're a brand new Yank listener,

or a Canadian Hoser listener, or even an Australian listener, because of the Sami Zayn shit and you're liking this podcast, go back and listen to some earlier episodes and tell a friend. I can do some ASMR shit now because of this mic. Tell a friend. Tell a friend. Tell a friend. Tell a friend about the podcast okay

let's move on to some queer questions some questions that are queer so i have a question here from from reggie snow reggie snow is an irish hip-hop artist who is a bit of a legend one of the most successful successful Irish hip-hop artists in the world. He's one of the few Irish hip-hop artists who is probably bigger in the UK and America than he is in Ireland. Reggie Snow is a bit of a legend. So Reggie Snow, I went up onto Instagram and I said, give me some questions. Reggie Snow came in and Reggie says, can you talk about Suda the painting elephant? Yes, I can, Reggie says can you talk about Suda the painting elephant yes I can Reggie yes I can I want to talk about so Suda the painting elephant is one of these there's several elephants

that have gone viral over the years even before the internet who became famous in the media because these elephants paint paintings and they're not like trained how to paint they literally they're shown how to like here's a paintbrush but the elephants appear to be engaging in actual creativity it's not mimicry like an aesthetic choice now there are animals in the wild who make things that are pretty. One example is the bowerbird. The bowerbird is... Where are they from? They're either from Papua New Guinea or South America.

But the bowerbird is a particularly bland looking bird. But what they do is the male bowerbird builds this elaborate little home with twigs and decorates it with flowers in order to attract mates okay so look it up b-o-w-e-r this bird is incredible tiny little bird and it builds little huts and decorates them. Decorates them with flowers. Appears to have some aesthetics going on in their bower. But is the bower bird being creative? Is the bower bird thinking about art? Not really. about art not really the Bowerbird has evolved

a way to create these Bowers but all I can think about is now is fucking Dane Bowers

man that singer from another level what happened to him he got caught selling remember Mephedrone remember that drug

I think he got caught selling Mephedrone at a UFC event or something. I better Google that now. Two seconds. This is unedited shit. Dane Bowers. Mephedrone. Just in case I'm up for Lidl. Dane Bowers was arrested over a Mephedrone bust in 2006 okay he was arrested for selling methadrone, Dane Bowers from another level was arrested for selling methadrone

or investigated, I don't know whether it actually happened, I'm just saying the police were interested, Dane Bowers is not to be confused with the Bower Bird which is a tropical bird that builds nests. Aesthetically beautiful nests. To impress their mates.

They just happened to share a name. With Dane Bowers. Who was in a mid 2000's boy band. Called Another Level. Totally unrelated. And I don't know if Dane Bowers was guilty. I'm just saying. He was arrested for selling Mephedrone. Mephedrone man.

That was this weird fucking designer party drug around 2010 around then. Anyone I knew who'd fucking took Mephedrone man. Never any pleasant stories. I remember one lad I knew he did an electric picnic.

Yeah he did Mephedrone at an electric picnic and he said all it dididrom an electric picnic and he said all it did is it kept me awake and I was in my tent trying to sleep and I've never in my life

wanted to sleep more and I couldn't so stay away from Mephidrom so the bower bird is this bird that it creates bowers

it creates I can't say bowers and not think of Dane Bowers. It creates a little house. It creates a little house to impress a mate, but it is not engaging in art or creativity. It has an inherited level of aesthetics, another level of aesthetics that it achieved over many years of evolution. level of aesthetics that it achieved over over many years of evolution elephants however appear to be making aesthetic choices in their art and so did the elephant and another elephant that can

paint was called ruby there's about there's about 20 elephants in captivity lads who who have canvases and they pick up some paint and they paint patterns on canvases and elephants in the wild have been observed creating patterns on the ground with sticks and Ruby the elephant who I believe was from the 1970s

she was in a zoo and her keepers noticed that one day she was just like arranging sticks on the ground or creating designs on the ground with her trunk and a stick. So someone said, fuck it man, give her paints. And they did. And Ruby started creating all these beautiful paintings. Soda, I think Soda's still knocking about.

And still, and still, Soda Cream now. I'm thinking of Soda Cream. Soda, no, nothing to do with Soda Cream. Soda the the elephant creates paintings and they appear to have aesthetic fucking choices

as in Suda is having a good old think about what her paintings look like and whether they're beautiful and she's an elephant but what has me intrigued about this is you know i'm often thinking

okay does suda the elephant create paintings or does she create art i would argue that what she's creating is art because suda appears to be making aesthetic choices now the reason i'm i have such confidence in the fact that this elephant is creating art and not just kind of pretty designs like the bowerbird is elephants are queer. All right. Elephants are very unique. Elephants. It has been posited that elephants may even have a religion one of the main

researchers into this now here we go his name was Ronald K. Siegel he was a psychopharmacologist at the University of California he worked in the psychiatry department he was a professor, legit professor working in a university

a psychiatry department. All medically legit, but his research was strange. Ronald K. Siegel is most famous for, he taught a monkey how to smoke crack. He taught a monkey how to smoke crack cocaine, okay? So that's who we're dealing with here. But Siegel's other passion was he believed that elephants practiced religion he believed, he observed

what he saw as elephants engaging in moon worship, right elephants appear to be like incredibly aware of the moon Siegel observed the fucking elephants that appear to be like incredibly aware of the moon. Siegel observed the fucking elephants that when the moon is full,

or when the moon is waxing, I don't know what a waxing moon means, I guess it's when the moon is kind of half, when the moon is disappearing. Elephants pick branches up and they use their trunks and they wave like collectively wave their branches at the moon if it's disappearing i i don't know why they do it maybe they want the moon to come back but they're definitely aware of looking up the sky seeing this circular moon and going the moon is fucking off and they wave branches at it and then when the moon is fucking off. And they wave branches at it. And then when the moon is full, elephants engage in what Siegel observed as ritual bathing. They bathe together when the moon is full. So they seem to have this, it's more than just an awareness of the moon.

But they seem to have, to apply some type of behavioural meaning in relation to the moon but they seem to have to apply some type of behavioral meaning in relation to the moon's behavior and elephants are incredibly intelligent and that that again it supports the case for right why i believe so that the elephant creates art right firstly what do i think the purpose of art is right on a purely existential level I think in order for humans create art because we are aware that we're alive it's like one of the tragedies of being a human and having our the intelligence that we have is the trade-off for knowing that we exist like animals animals don't like know that they exist the way that we do they're not able to hold on the abstract idea of consciousness of themselves like a cat a cat can't really think about themselves and hold these abstract thoughts of, I am a cat, this is who I am, this is my being.

At least there's nothing about their behaviour that suggests we know this. But we think that elephants can. Elephants have a very developed cerebral cortex, right, or neocortex, sorry, which humans also have. A few ape species have it and dolphins do too and they say that elephants have an awareness of self they can hold the idea of a sense of identity they're also aware of death you know i'm going to get on to that in a minute but elephants are aware of death elephants too they arrange themselves in a kind of a societal structure that's quite similar to how humans arrange ourselves but the thing about art is art is kind of what we do

to make to achieve a sense of meaning we create art to battle the tragedy of being aware of I am alive, therefore I will die. What the fuck is that about? What the fuck's that about? I'm alive, I exist in this world and so do other people and we're all going to die. Fuck is that? And what happens afterwards?

And creating art, whether it be music dance painting whatever is an expression of the search for meaning you know it's it's a language it's not just the language of of words it's a different type of language. It's art is using whatever medium to try and achieve a sense of meaning about our lives and what they are. And the appreciation of art, whether it be music or painting, the appreciation of it, again, is a way to understand ourselves to understand humanity and to understand our identity and i believe suda the elephant is doing this when she paints the thing about elephant society is it's quite similar to it's similar to humans, right? Elephants can grieve for each other, you know? An elephant society can fall apart if certain family members die. Like, there's one story, right, about these poachers,

and they were chasing a family of elephants, right? And one of the elephants died her name was tina and when she was dying her knees gave way but two other family members stayed they walked by her side and as tina the elephant this was in in the african savannah as tina was dying right the other two elephants just kept trying to lift her up. And then when she died, they were picking up bits of grass and putting the grass into her mouth with their trunks, trying to bring her body back to life. And then they like stayed beside her body for ages, trying to lift her up and then finally when they accepted that she was dead the two elephants began to dig a grave and they buried her and they throwed leaves over her body and then they stayed by her grave for for a night so that's not mere animal behavior that that's that's animals who are aware of loss and identity and

a sense of an afterlife if if these elephants watch this elephant die try to resuscitate it then accept the elephant has died and ritualistically bury it by putting leaves in the body that suggests a real awareness of self and an awareness of life and death and these are to me the conditions that I see why shouldn't they create art to work through those feelings if they have the sophistication to bury a body and put leaves on it then they need to have mechanisms

to understand the complexity of those emotions and that's what art does do you know what I mean there's been other reports about elephants in the wild so sometimes elephants like steal crops ok so elephants together will like go to other reports about elephants in the wild so sometimes elephants like steal crops okay so elephants together will like go to uh where humans have planted crops and then go in and rob all the

crops right but it's been observed that elephants do it in accordance with the moon and sometimes they don't do it in a full moon now Now, some are saying, okay, the elephants are smart, so they're going to rob crops when the moon isn't full because you're less likely to see them. But if you tie that in with the fact that elephants have been seen to worship the moon, maybe they're scared that the moon is shaming them. If the moon is their god, is that too hot a take? Elephants have been observed to display altruism. Now altruism is another really complex behavioural thing that you associate with humans. Altruism, like I tell

you who's not altruistic, cats. I'm shitting on cats a lot now even though I love them. Cats just kill for the crack. If you put a bird in front of a cat, the cat's going to fucking kill it even if it's not hungry. Cats just, they go on killer instinct. Elephants show mercy and help other elephants and even other fucking animals. There was a situation in, I think it was an Indian elephant, right, where in India elephants are used as beasts of burden to pull trees down, pull logs, right?

And there's this story of this lad was using an elephant to pull down these trees and to drag logs all around the gaff. trees and to drag drag logs all around the gaff and when so this elephant is dragging logs okay and he was placing the logs in these holes and following instruction from his human instructor to do this but then the elephant got to one hole and the elephant refused to drop the log in and the human instructor was going drop in the fucking log drop in the log this is your job drop in the log you're an elephant and the elephant was like i'm not dropping in the log and then when the human went over to the hole that the log was to be dropped into

there was a dog a wounded dog hiding in the hole and the elephant was basically going i'm not putting the log in because i'll hurt the poor dog and then the human was able to figure this out and was like fucking hell got the the sore dog out of it and then the elephant put the log in so right there is evidence of the elephant made a choice based on compassion to not hurt a dog and only an animal that has the complexity of awareness of self and death and pain and abstract concepts that you're talking about there is abstract thinking here is another animal in pain and my actions my actions will impact this animal and hurt it and now i'm going to make a choice about my actions that's human level thinking but an elephant is doing it

elephants have been known to protect humans if a human is injured you know elephants will self-medicate in the wild elephants are aware of certain plants having medicinal properties and like there's one tree i think it's uh they can induce labor by eating the bark of this tree you know these are very complex thought processes and again you take it back to Suda the Elephant, which is what the original question was about. I believe she's creating art. I believe that elephants are not just making pretty paintings, they're creating art and they're doing it to try and achieve a sense of meaning.

Elephants are also capable of, I know this sounds silly, but they understand pointing, all right, as in, if I'm a human, so are you, so if I point over at a tree in the distance, and I point over my hand, and you look, and you're able to understand, my pointing, that's language, right, language is simply a sign that communicates meaning from one human to another we always use language in terms of humans i point at a tree and then you understand my action and you are able to use complex abstract thought to join the

pointing and action of my hand and go ah blind boy is talking about that tree elephants can do that too elephants understand pointing which is really really complex that's several layers of meaning there to arrive at an answer you know and an awareness of abstract things outside of themselves that's what makes humans so class is we're capable of abstraction we don't just communicate in the moment we can we don't just communicate about a and b you know a and b being things that are immediately in front of us humans can bring up c and c isn't even. C is a concept or an idea or a place that we aren't at right now. And two humans can have a chat about C, an abstract thing, because language allows us to understand that complex meaning.

And if an elephant understands pointing, then they're certainly on track to that type of abstract thought. Now if we're thinking, oh but are fucking parrots mad smart now because they can talk? No, not necessarily. Parrots and birds, crows can do that.

If you cut a crow's tongue down the centre when it's a baby, that crow can learn to talk. That's mimicry. If you teach a baby crow how to cut tongue to say fuck off, fuck the queen, up the rah, you know, that crow isn't literally saying fuck the queen or up the rah. That crow is mimicking what it's heard and doesn't actually understand the meaning of what it's saying. Elephants have a very complex use of tools also okay which is similar to humans now

monkeys use tools as well and monkeys are quite clever with tools but the way that elephants elephants appear to be be able to understand steps like elephants if an elephant is in an area right and there's a drought and like elephants have trunks and these trunks are very dexterous so i wonder actually is the dexterity of an elephant's trunk and its similarity to human hands does that is that somehow does that drive their intelligence. Or is that why they evolved this intelligence. But elephants anyway. An elephant could be out in the jungle.

And it's dry. And they want some water. So what an elephant will do. Is that they'll dig a hole. Right. Then they can go to a source of water. They suck the water up with their trunk. Then they go to the hole that they've dug, spit the water into it.

But then they like get loads of leaves and they cover the fucking hole with the water to stop the water fucking evaporating. So when the dry season comes. And the lake is gone. The elephant remembers. That it's dug these fucking holes. That it spat a lot of water into. And that it covered over with leaves. So it doesn't evaporate. Like that's pretty complex shit. You know. Elephants have been observed.

Actively. Breaking electric fences. In a way that makes them they understand that certain fences are electric so asian elephants if they come across an electric fence they'll break the fence with a rock or a log from a distance to cut the electricity off you know what i mean they understand this fence is dangerous I'm going to fuck it shit up and then it allows a safe passage elephants also they've been seen to to engage in playing

right now dolphins do this as well I think manatees have a good bit of crack at play do sea otters play when they're fucking around with stones on their bellies I'm not sure about that dolphins play a game well dolphins again have these they've got brains similar to elephants

but dolphins are a different story dolphins will like get a bit of water grass and they appear to play a game like soccer with the grass but what elephants do is elephants like spit water into the air and do all this shit as a way to entertain other elephants so they perform to for the enjoyment of other elephants which is pretty mad

not just for themselves like rats rats apparently laugh apparently rats have a great sense of humour and they laugh but I don't know if rats try and make each other laugh but I suppose the big thing about elephants for me I touched on it earlier

it's their clear their clear understanding of death all right animals don't like there's only three species of animals that's been seen to have complex death and burial rituals humans neanderthals and elephants right like it's been witnessed several times over and over like old, there's elephant burial grounds older elephants when they feel

they're going to die walk these long distances and go to a place with other dead elephants and just lie down and die there you know em there's been several situations where they've seen very complex funeral rituals around elephants.

In particular, elephant society is matriarchal. It tends to be led by older matriarch fucking mother elephants, right? And people have witnessed an entire herd of elephants when the matriarch dies it's like the helper to her death and they all touch her body but they touch her body in this really tender, rubbing, kind of careful way. And they let out a unique kind of grumbling, rumbling sound when they're present around the death of an animal, like this mourning rumble.

Or sometimes they make crying noises. And like I said again they they do they bury the dead elephant and the rest of them throw leaves and sticks on the body of the dead elephant they're fully aware that this their friend their, whoever the fuck, is after passing on. And the level of awareness of life, identity, self, their relationship with other elephants, that's unbelievably complex. Do you know?

There's stories from Africa of, I think a woman fell asleep under a fucking tree and she woke up the next day to find an elephant petting her and then she was freaked out because it's like elephants are big cunts you know she was freaked out because the elephant was petting her and then all these other elephants showed up and they started throwing leaves at her because the elephant thought that she was dead

elephants are very tender around the bones of other elephants even if they're not related to them they they've been witnessed showing a very definite sense of respect and understanding for other elephants bones they know what they are they know this is a like this isn't just an object these aren't just bones these bones that i found were once something that looked like me and these bones remind me of where i'm gonna go and these bones remind me that i'm my life is finished you know that's some complex shit lads that's very very complex shit

for an animal we understand that because we're fucking humans but all of this all of this supports the idea that yes elephants are creating when elephants paint they create art it's not just pretty

designs they're creating art now elephants and music so elephants definitely understand music because that's how the circus performing elephants work which is something i deeply disagree with i think i don't like circuses anyway i don't like animals and circuses but elephants understand musical cues and that's how they perform in circuses because they understand music. Because music is a language. Music is just another language. Language doesn't mean words. Language is any series of signs that communicates meaning from one creature to another.

Humans are able to do it. Elephants are able to do it. There's one elephant in a zoo in America and she can play the harmonica which doesn't I mean look the trunk the elephant's trunk is a melodic is capable of creating noises and pitches but this elephant

can play the harmonica and apparently has an awareness and aesthetic to how she does play the harmonica. So that's an elephant who plays music. But they're much more visual in how they create art. So there you go.

I was asked a question about Suda the Elephant and the creation of art. And it's something I do think about a lot. I think about elephant art a lot. I think about elephant art because it helps me to understand art and meaning myself what I do find interesting too is elephant art is is abstract elephants don't paint things they don't paint like trees and shit like that they paint colors and patterns that are abstract. And it reminds me of the art of the earliest humans. Earliest cave paintings. Like even something like...

Not even cave paintings. Newgrange in Ireland. Which is about 6,000 years old. And you look at the art that the early Irish people created. It was all abstract patterns. Now some people say that that the early Irish people created it was all abstract patterns now some people say that that art up in Newgrange was influenced by a type of magic mushroom that grew from cow shit around that area and that the people who lived in Ireland at the time would take these mushrooms and the abstract patterns that they created Were like what you see when you take these mushrooms.

But I find it interesting that. You see abstract art. Abstract art in its most simplest form. It's a way. You're trying to paint feelings. You're trying to paint feelings and complex emotions. Things that can't be described by words. You're trying to probe things that are inside yourself

and then get them out of your body via art for you to understand and then for other people to appreciate and understand as well. So I think there's a strong case to be made. The elephants, yes, can create art. They're not just just it's not aesthetic because there's many animals that can make marks and create things that look aesthetic but creating art's a different story creating art means that you if you create art you suffer right now suffering when i say suffering i mean the suffering the sufferance of existence

right to exist is to suffer i say this a lot to be alive and to be aware that the price of being alive is that you and everybody you love is going to die which is that's a that's a big one i don't think cats go around the place worrying about cats worry about shitting on cats again and i love them dogs i don't think dogs worry about death i think they worry about dying they like animals self-preserve obviously they want to preserve their life they don't want to die but i don't think they worry existentially about the act of death and the cessation of their identity and existence but i think elephants do and humans do as well and art comes from that art is a way to soothe and understand. The suffering of. Knowing that you exist. And your existence is finished.

You know. So this has been a queer podcast. This has been a. This has certainly been a fucking queer podcast. I started off. With the etymology of the word queer. I didn't expect. I was going to record.

This half in a hotel room with this queer mic this was this was straightened up I had a choice either I don't record the fucking podcast or I do what I can to make it happen and that's what I did and as a result we now have something queer the whole thing is queer. And that works for me. As an overall team of queerness. Team. This was a queer podcast. Probably not the best one to put out.

Considering I've got a shit ton of new fucking listeners. Who joined for the chat with Sammy Zane last week. But here you go lads. This is the nature of this podcast. This is the nature of it. this is the nature of it also in keeping with the theme of queerness i said i'd answer a few questions i'm just going to answer that one question because i i lost a lot of time tonight trying to figure out the fucking audio equipment that was being a prick to me because i'm in a hotel here. I'm in a hotel. And all social distancing, don't be worrying.

Don't be worrying. I'm in a hotel because I need for some work. And my equipment wasn't working so I just went, right, let's bring out this mic, which isn't the best one, but fuck it, we'll put it off, we'll do it. And I get to say, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye goodbye goodbye goodbye like that each year like a cool dude okay so i'll talk to you next week i might be back with a hot take i'm certainly going to start investigating doing more interviews via distance all right because the i got no complaints

from you last week about the audio quality of me chatting to Sami Zayn. No complaints. So if you're happy with that, I'm going to start fucking interviewing cunts. You know? Why not? God bless. I'll talk to you next week. Yart. 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 Centre 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.