The Blindboy Podcast - Hanleys Fiasco

Episode Date: February 26, 2020

I answer yere questions about Art,Scotland and difficult breakups Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oh, praise Beelzebub. What's the fucking crack? Hello, this is the Blind Boy Podcast. And before we begin, I'm going to read out a piece of short prose that was submitted by pop singer Jade Therwall from the group Little Mix. On the 9th of May 2018, I placed a Fitbit on the neck of a heron. It was given to me by my cousin Dennis for my 27th birthday.

It was given to me by my cousin Dennis for me to place on my wrist and monitor my health and fitness. But I chose to wrap the Fitbit around the neck of a heron. On the Fitbit app I could monitor from a distance the heron's heartbeat. The heron frequented a collection of puddles behind my flat and lived atop a dead sycamore tree. The average heartbeat for a heron is 48 beats per minute. Most days the heron's heart

would beat between 44 and 50 beats per minute but some days its heart would beat as much as 60 beats per minute. On those days I would feel energized and happy but when the heron's heartbeat returned to a normal pace, I would feel sad and despondent on those days. So I began to startle the heron by fashioning a suit made from loud metal and some bells. I would parade around the back of my flats in the metal and bell suit, making a proud din, startling the heron until it screamed and I would feel jai, and I would monitor its elevated heartbeat using the Fitbit app, elation and pleasure coursing its way through my bones, until the heron got so startled that it flew away. And this is why I don't have my Fitbit with me today. But I can show you the receipt for it. It's in my handbag.

And you must replace it. You can either replace it or I can speak to your manager. You have a choice. How would you like your day to go thank you Jade Thirlwall from the group Little Mix for that moving piece of prose I've got an increasingly squeaky chair lads I've got a fucking swivel chair and the level of creakiness is getting out of control to the point that it's

it's gonna give me a fucking back problem because when I'm recording this I want it to be nice and calming and then you have this sound this is just me moving my spine an inch unacceptable just me moving my spine an inch, unacceptable, like listen to the state of that, this is just regular movement, and I don't know what the fuck to do, because it's a swivel chair so I don't own any screwdrivers I thought I had a bottle of WD-40 I don't

so I'm going to have to remain static I mean I was even considering I was going is there slowly, use the creak of this chair, to create some type of, ship type ambience, but it's not going to happen, I'm just going to have to remain, incredibly fucking still, and I think it's one of those situations, where I might just get a real fucking chair, because,

or a new chair, I flipped it on it on its back earlier on to try and fit because i'm not great at these things i'm not great at putting things together or figuring out how things that exist in a three-dimensional space are put together so i turned the chair on its back and was just left with a sense of confusion, going, how the fuck is this thing creaking? And it's not a bad chair.

Do you know what I need to do? I need to buy a fucking chair. For years and years, I've only ever gotten office chairs by asking people I know who work in offices if they have any chairs in there that are going spare

that they'd miss and I'd say for the past fucking as long as I've been in need of chairs this is how I've acquired swivel chairs I've never bought them it's they've been donated I've rang someone up and I've never bought them it's they've been donated

I've rang someone up and we've gone into their office on a Saturday and they've said there's a fucking chair inside in the utility closet or we're getting new chairs and that's how I end up

with these things and I need to just cop the fuck onto myself and buy a chair a nice fucking chair that doesn't because what's the point in having a studio with excellent sound quality and a good microphone if i've got a fucking chair like this getting in the way fuck that so i'm going to be nice and still for the rest of the podcast and hopefully it won't interfere with your experience

the other thing too is we're just going to have to live with it the other thing too is let's just say I wanted to alleviate the creak in this chair it would mean me having to acquire WD-40 and the thing is with WD-40 now this this is probably just

me projecting but there's two reasons that somebody wants to buy a can of WD-40. Number one, they need it as an actual industrial lubricant to fix a creaky door or to fix a swivel chair. Or the other reason people have WD-40 is if that person is working in a nightclub or a pub or is having a house party and they want to stop people taking cocaine in pubs and nightclubs they spray wd-40 on the toilet seat and on the cistern and also at house parties so that if a person decides that they want to do cocaine on the cistern they can't the thin layer of wd-40 grease when someone puts cocaine on it the cocaine congeals and renders it impassable up the human nostril and this now is all i can think of when i think of wd-40 when I see it again it's probably so if I go into a hardware store

buying WD-40 I just have this paranoia that the person behind the counter is going to cast these aspersions on me and it's probably because I because I'm so inefficient at DIY I'm going to assume this

they're going to go look at him he's not fixing anything I know by the look of him he's not a DIY person so I know what he wants to do with that fucking WD-40 and I just look like someone who's having a big a big huge house party full of fucking Celtic tiger bankers and Leinster rugby supporters who are just going to hover up half of Bolivia off the cistern of my toilet and I have to try and stop them by spraying a protective layer of WD-40 on my own jacks.

I'll probably just get a new chair. I'll probably just buy a new swivel chair. So if you listened to last week's podcast, last week's podcast was an ASMR podcast that I recorded in the Botanical Gardens in Sydney. And I got some lovely feedback off you for it. You enjoyed it. I fucking enjoyed doing it.

I'm back in Ireland now, obviously. Shattered from jet lag. Jet lag's a cunt because I got a load of sleep on the plane. I actually, I did it right. I got sleep on the plane. I got sleep when I got back home. Kept myself hydrated.

Did everything possible. But the thing with jet lag when you're coming from Australia and it's complete other time zone it's not about rest it's about your brain thinking that you're in a different place so no amount of sleep will get rid of it so yeah I could sleep fucking 10 hours and then as soon as 6 p.m hits that's it I want I want go asleep, because my brain thinks that I'm in fucking New Zealand or Sydney or whatever, so it's been a tough old week with that, but in last week's podcast, I answered one or two of your questions, and I get a lot of DMs, I get a

lot of messages from you, whether it be on twitter or instagram or patreon i'd say i guess jesus nearly a hundred messages a day and i try to read every single one of them and reply to as many as i possibly can but sometimes i just can't but a lot of people were asking me will you do another podcast where you're just answering the fucking questions. Or people saying. Here for fuck sake. I've DM'd you now five times. The past couple of months.

With this same question. Can you answer it? So I'm going to answer. Some questions this week. Because. Because you requested it. That's the nature of this podcast lads. If ye are asking me for something i will try and deliver it and apologies if i haven't gotten back to you with a dm sometimes

i'll open a fucking dm and it can be from 2019 or 2018 and i'll respond but it's mortifying to think that i've left someone on read for a year. But I do get around to them. So I'll begin with a lovely, a lovely simple question that I got asked. Jess asked, why do people want what they can't have? And when they have it, they don't want it. That's a really, really fucking common thing. We want what we don't have and then when you get it, you don't want it. A lot of people complain about this.

And it can cause us to be quite kind of unhappy and confused when it happens repeatedly and it can mean fucking anything it can mean a thing you could you know you could acquire an object you could see a fucking i don't know a pair of shoes that you like in a shop and really want them and then when you get them you're only happy for a little bit and then you're sad and then you're sad and you don't want the shoes anymore. Or it can happen a lot with moving to a new place. Someone can set their mind on moving to London then they get to London, they don't fucking like it, they don't want to be there anymore. then they get to London, they don't fucking like it,

they don't want to be there anymore. People can do it with relationships. They can pine after another person. They can fancy the fuck out of another human being. And then finally ask them on a date and they say yes and then they're going out with them and they're left feeling empty and disappointed and not wanting to be with the person anymore. And it's a common thing with being a human being and I don't really have a fucking answer but I can give

you a theory around it I think that happens when we confuse the thing we want for happiness. So what you want is happiness. It's not a set of shoes that you want, or it's not moving to London that you want, or it's not a new girlfriend or a new boyfriend that you want. It's an internal feeling of happiness that you're seeking. It's an internal feeling of happiness that you're seeking. And then our brains confuse this object with happiness. We're not aware of it, but obviously external things can't bring fucking happiness.

A pair of shoes isn't going to bring happiness. Nor is a new girlfriend. Nor is moving to London. It might bring. Momentary joy. Or it might. Change your circumstances slightly. But it's not going to bring lasting happiness. So.

We're then ultimately disappointed. Because what we have is we've. I suppose it comes down to a lack of emotional awareness if you're emotionally unaware if you're not aware of your emotions you're going to confuse objects with happiness so when you think you want to move to London or get a new fucking girlfriend it's what you're searching for

is that content feeling of happiness and then you're just not going to get it you're not going to get it you're going to be left disappointed and then the disappointment is going to feel like you've been defeated

and you'll end up sadder than you were when you wanted that thing in the first place and all I can say is there's no such thing as achieving happiness it doesn't exist it simply doesn't that you there's no such thing as I will be happy when, that doesn't exist, you can say I will be pleased when or you can say I will experience joy when or it will be good when, these are all real things, things if you get the shoes that you want or if you get the partner that you want or if you move to the place you want to go these are good things you will experience a fleeting moment of happiness but you can't bring actual happiness actual happiness isn't the destination point it's not a goal that doesn't fucking exist that's one of the tragedies of the human condition. We have ourselves utterly convinced that you can achieve happiness and you can't.

Happiness has to be a present moment type of thing, it has to be... Do you know what? You can't have happiness have you can have meaning you have to strive for meaning in the present moment that's about it, meaning in the present moment what is meaning meaning

mindfully engaging with something that's authentic to who you truly are and that's a tough one to find but if if you're if you're engaging with something and this is congruent with your true values and who you truly are then you will attain a sense of meaning and you can even attain meaning with something with experiences that aren't even pleasant like being stressed out and busy on something that you on something that matters to you

right even though being stressed out and busy isn't fun it's not pleasurable if you're stressed out and busy about something that truly matters to who you are then that's meaningful but if it's something

whereby you're not getting that it doesn't matter to you or it's something that you think matters to you like i don't know if you're in a fucking career but the career you're in is because of something your parents wanted you to do then there's not a lot of meaning in the stress that comes from that job but if it's a job that is congruent to your own personal values then that stress is meaningful i don't know that's the best i can say what the fuck do i know martin says please talk about your journey learning about

the aboriginal people of australia their history their ongoing culture their connection to the land colonialism and ongoing issues and your irish perspective empathy on the issue i got ghost bumps when you did the acknowledgement of country in melbourne on monday it's really powerful that you did that thank you martin um firstly what martin is talking about there i did a thing called acknowledgement the country so if you if you listen to the podcast two weeks back where I was speaking to your man who was

researching the psychedelics one of the guests asked about I suppose a ritual called welcome to country or acknowledgement to country which is something you do in Australia where if you have an event you either invite an indigenous Australian person that's

from we'll say the ancestral tribe of the area that you're in and they welcome people that are there and remind them that this is their ancestral lands or if you if you're not an indigenous australian person you say welcome no you acknowledge the lands that you're on you acknowledge that you're on you acknowledge that the people who are the ancestral owners of the land the specific i don't know if tribe is the right word the nation maybe and you just remind everybody this isn't fucking white australian european land lads and that's what you do in an event um i spoke to i interviewed some indigenous australian people while i was in australia and i will be releasing that podcast. And that's what I'd prefer to do.

Rather than me talking about. Indigenous Australian issues. Because. I just. I was. I was. What the fuck do I know. One thing I will say is.

I was utterly shocked. I was shocked. The level of subjugation that indigenous Australian people have suffered is pretty fucking mind-blowing when you learn about it and when you hear about it. And it's not really spoken about globally. It's not really spoken about that much inside Australia, to be honest. It's pretty fucked up. It's pretty fucked up, lads.

Let's just put it this way. To make it brief, because I do want to put out that podcast where I spoke to indigenous people. indigenous people indigenous Australian people were considered legally considered animals up until the mid 60s

if not early 70s in Australia I believe as in they were considered a species within flora and fauna so they were legally considered animals and this is the fucking 1960s

okay so that's insanity to have a group of people to be considered fucking animals indigenous Australian people up well up until maybe the fucking 1980s were taken from their families as children.

And this, I believe, was done by Catholic missionaries with the help of the Australian government. So probably kind of Magdalene laundry shit. Indigenous kids were literally taken from their families at birth and given to white australian families to be raised like that's deeply fucked up so those are two huge issues historically then there's a massive issues right now of police brutality against indigenous Australians there's massive issues with deaths in custody there's over-representation in prison everything you can imagine that goes disgustingly wrong with a people who are have everything stripped from them under colonialism the worst of it seems to be happening

with Aboriginal Australians it's if you even say the word Indigenous Australian in a room full of white people in Australia everyone goes fucking quiet because it's so fucking, there's a

lot of pain, there's a lot of fucking pain, there's a lot of pain and a lot of reparations need to be done, so I'll be putting out that podcast. Rose asks do you have advice for other frustrated and fucked up creatives who lack confidence for whatever reason what was it for you

to truly believe in yourself to the extent that you do given your previous battle with anxiety and I think what Rose is referring to there is if you're a creative person if you want to create art whatever the fuck it is

writing, painting, music what in me gave me the confidence to do it a huge thing for me when I find myself um lacking in confidence a huge thing for me is to identify other artists who are whatever it is they're doing, seems somewhat achievable. So, what I mean by achievable is that, if the artist's way of self-expression is quite close to what you would do creatively so for me if i'm feeling fucking if i'm not able to create something

or i'm feeling lacking confidence and i want to bring myself back up and say to myself do you know what you can do this I'd read I'd read Flann O'Brien because do you know what it is you fucking engage with art that gives you that feeling

that you're trying to chase when you create art and for me for writing it's Flann O'Brien I read Flann Obrien and the way that he'll beautifully use really ridiculous and surreal um ideas to turn into stories and novels and i read flan and it recalibrates me it connects me back with the little thing in myself that makes me want to create um for fucking podcasts i don't know i might listen to i like listening to what's his name bill burr if i'm coming up to a wednesday and i'm going fuck what's the podcast going to be about

i listen to bill burr bill burr, fuck, what's the podcast going to be about? I listen to Bill Burr. Bill Burr will just literally turn on the fucking microphone and talk and does a great job of it. So I listen to someone like Bill Burr. Find art that you truly, truly love. Find the artist that connects you with who you are creatively. Like, I'm not, like like I fucking adore David Bowie. I fucking love the music of David Bowie.

But if I want to create music I'm not going to go listen to Bowie. Because Bowie is so good it scares the living fuck out of me. It's terrifying. I need to find a musical artist who's much closer to something that I would see as being closer to my own style so musically I'd listen to Bill Callaghan or smog Bill Callaghan stuff his lyrics I love his lyrics and when I listen to Bill Callaghan's lyrics it makes me want to write lyrics if I listen to fucking David Bowie or Bob Dylan

I'm just going to freak myself out so that's all I can say find the artist that makes you recalibrate with who you are creatively and the only way to sort out confidence you have to truly eradicate the fear of failure

it's not lack of confidence it's terror around failing because of what personal definition you have for failure so if failing at art to you means the worst thing in the world or it means that you're going to feel bad about yourself then you have to work on that and the simplest way to do that think of something you do where you don't give a shit if you're good or bad at it cooking a dinner is a great example i always use cooking a dinner i cook myself a dinner every single fucking day i generally do a good job at it but sometimes i might fuck it up might put in too much salt or I might burn it all right

when that happens I'm appropriately disappointed but I don't feel bad about it I don't self-flagellate I don't think that I'm less of a person if I put too much salt into my soup but if I'm not careful and I sit down to write a short story and it doesn't go how I want it to be, if I'm not self-aware, I might spend the rest of the week thinking that I'm a shit person and that my creativity was just a fluke and now it's gone. Completely irrational stance. So don't search for confidence.

Instead of looking for confidence, for confidence instead of looking for confidence assess the rules and beliefs that you have around failure in art okay

time for this week's ocarina pause before I do it just going to quickly list out some contractually obligated gigs some live podcasts in 2020 that I would like you to attend and Glasgow sold out London is sold out Liverpool and Birmingham right there's a few tickets left there. Fucking. Drogheda. I'm in Drogheda. On the 21st of March.

In the TLT concert hall. Em. What else have we got here? Monaghan. I'm in Monaghan on Saturday. The 28th of April. No. March.

Fuck it. When am I in Drogheda? Yeah. March. Cork Opera House Dublin Vicar Street 1st 2nd and 3rd of April they're almost sold out only a few tickets

left for them Limerick Wednesday the 22nd of April aw my head's up my arse here that's about it lads did I miss anything important there gigs coming up in Barcelona and Madrid if you want to come along to them

they're in a couple of months that'll be good crack and not confirmed yet but I'm currently finalising my Canadian tour which will be in a few months, Canada I'm currently finalizing my Canadian tour which will be in a few months. Canada I'm coming back right. Here is the Ocarina pause where

a digital advert will be inserted. 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, girl, is to be the mother. Mother of what? Is the most terrifying. Six, six, six. It's 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.

What's not real? Who said that? The first omen. Only in theaters April 5th. I've got so many different fucking ocarinas and I just pang I pang for that first one the first ever ocarina that I lost

and I've been given I'd say 16 ocarinas since and I just I can't get that sound the first one alas this podcast is supported by you the listener via the patreon page let's patreon.com forward slash the blind boy podcast if you like listening to the podcast if you're listening every week consider becoming a patron that's what pays my wages that's what makes the podcast a weekly thing. You can't.

And if you can't afford it, you don't have to. If you can't afford it, you're paying for the person who can't afford it. It's a model based on kindness and soundness. And it works fucking brilliantly. And it gives me huge faith in humanity. Share the podcast. Like it. Give it a review okay what other burning questions have I got

because I've been a naughty boy I haven't done a question answering podcast in a while and usually what happens I end up answering maybe one or two questions so this week I'm consciously trying to burn through the questions and give short, concise answers for several varied questions. Please talk about the election and what's happening in Ireland. There's obviously a bit of uncertainty and it'd be great to hear your point of view. Okay, I'm going to try and do this very briefly.

hear your point of view okay i'm gonna try and do this very briefly as you all know at this point i'm a fucking leftist marxist cuck all right i am very left wing in my leanings i believe in socialism social democracy that's what i'm about That's a frightening word for a lot of people. A lot of people have the wrong idea. Ultimately, what do I want? I want to live in a country whereby nobody, right, nobody has to do without housing, education or healthcare because they can't afford it. I want to live in that country.

I want my income to be taxed so that my taxes pay for a person who can't afford it to have housing, healthcare and education because I consider these things to be human rights that's that's my belief that's what I want I want that country why do I want that because I've watched it slip away over my lifetime and because like I didn't grow up poor I was privileged enough to not grow up in poverty in Limerick when Limerick is a poor city but like both my parents worked you know my dad worked in an airport my ma packed shelves and duns and they had a mortgage but I didn't grow up with money either so that meant that I had access to means tested assistance so while I was I was never I was paid for with a medical card it was paid for with taxes when I wanted to go to college my parents couldn't afford to send me to

college means tested grant taxes paid for me to go to college. So two huge things about where I am right now. The fact that my health was looked after because I had asthma. And the fact that I received a college education. I went to art college. Was paid for by taxes. So I was given that opportunity. And even now I can see that disappearing. I can see it being stripped away.

The fact that I essentially went to college for free under a means-tested grant, that's way harder nowadays to get. And fees have gone up. Fees are fucking huge for college now. So that means that we're getting to a stage in Ireland that if you can't afford it,

you're not going to fucking college, which is disgraceful. So right now in Ireland, we saw with a recent election where a huge amount of people really pushed towards a left-leaning government. They seem to want a left-leaning government. They seem to want a left-leaning government, which means a government that will try to provide housing,

healthcare and education to people who need it. Because the problem we have in Ireland at the moment is stuff is shifting towards privatisation. I'm just going to briefly tell you some shit that's happening right now in Ireland that I consider to be deeply wrong and that should be changed. We have a homeless crisis in Ireland and we have a housing crisis in Ireland, okay? Which means that people, families who are homeless and living on the streets, right, if they are fortunate enough to access services that will allow them to get shelter, right, instead of them being able to get a home, like a house, like a council house that's built, or affordable housing. Instead of that, we have a situation in Ireland that's known as emergency accommodation. And what's emergency accommodation?

Basically, instead of the government providing people in need of a home with a home, they put them into a hotel room for a long period of time now a hotel room isn't a home because a hotel room is just a couple of beds and a sink and a toilet so you now have all these families in Ireland living in hotel rooms but here's the problem who pays like a hotel is expensive hotel is like 160 quid a night. The hotels aren't giving discounts so who's paying for it? Well our taxes are paying hotels to be in full occupancy. So it's like pacing money away on fucking hotel rooms instead of providing families with an actual humane dignified solution so that's one thing in ireland that's pretty fucking evil and wrong and what that is right

there and this is one of the when people are scared of the word socialism we have socialism in ireland but it's a it's socialism for rich people okay so right there tax money right tax from your wages or from when you fucking buy something that tax is being spent on a private company a hotel so that right there is socialism, but for rich people, at the expense and misery of the poor. Direct provision, which is a system in Ireland whereby people who are asylum seekers or refugees, instead of being offered humane, dignified solutions, are essentially kept in a type of prison for up to 20 years, where they're not allowed to work, and everything's provided for them, they're very low quality food,

their clothes are washed, they're not given any money, and they're kept in prison for the crime of being a refugee. There's a lot of money being made in direct provision. Private companies run direct provision centres. Private companies cater direct provision private companies run direct provision centers private companies cater direct provision centers so these private interests are profiting like i can't remember the exact figure but but direct provision centers are turning over a profit so in ireland right now

the current government and the government beforehand they've figured out a way to take the most disenfranchised and vulnerable people in the country right they've figured out a way to to turn their misery into a product and to milk this so that private corporations can profit from it. And the profit comes from our taxes. So. That is something right now in Ireland. That's deeply wrong. And immoral. And a lot of people I think would like changed.

So. People. 24% of the population. There was three options right. Fianna Gael who are kind of center leaning right Fianna Fáil who are center leaning right and then you had Sinn Féin who are left leaning 24% of the population voted for Sinn Féin which was more than Fianna Fáil and Fianna Gael and it's basically it's seen as a lot of people now are kind of like, we want to have a go at a left-wing type of thing.

We want our taxes to be used in a compassionate, humane way to offer people actual dignified solutions based on their humanity and not milking their misery for private interests and whenever you hear that just think of it it's socialism for rich people that's what it is so let's instead make it socialism for people that are actually fucking needy whether Sinn Féin are able to do that I don't know they've made a lot of promises all right um but right now I don't know what the've made a lot of promises, alright, but right now I don't know what the fucking situation is, it's all up in the air, I don't know that that answer

the fucking, it's very complex, it's very complex, how can I fucking, how can I answer it, they're just two examples of something deeply fucked up and wrong, and I kind of just want to explain to people, that's what's happening, that's how fucked up and wrong and i kind of just want to explain to people that's what's happening that's how fucked up the policies are in this country on on the homeless crisis instead of giving people homes they've created a situation whereby people can profit from people being in perpetual homelessness when you're in emergency from people being in perpetual homelessness. When you're in emergency accommodation, you are in perpetual homelessness. There's no solution.

You're in a hotel every single night, and the hotel is profiting, and our taxes are paying for it. And what's the danger of a situation like that? You end up developing a very powerful lobby who now don't want things to change because they're making money from it in america prisons are private like look at how fucked up america is they have prisons that corporations run therefore there's corporations who want stronger sentences who want people in prison longer because they can make money from it very fucked up and that needs to end how does it end?

I don't know, I'm not a politician but the solution needs to be compassionate and dignified and it needs to respect the fact that people are human beings Shane asks when is the Devon Townsend interview and it needs to respect the fact that people are human beings. Shane asks, when is the Devon Townsend interview going to be released in any format? So, there is a very, very famous heavy metal musician called Devon Townsend from the Devon Townsend Project

and also a band called Strapping Young Lad and me and Devon sat down in Vancouver a couple of months ago and had a chat for the live podcast but as I told you at the time what happened was I'd just gotten my recorder and I was trying to figure a few things out it only recorded one side of the audio so it just recorded my voice and then Devin's voice is kind of in the distance and I tried my best to EQ it and fix it but the quality of the recording it just isn't good enough to put out so the thing is myself and Devin we stay in contact via email and and we've been chatting for years and years so i reckon when i'm back in vancouver i'll probably be meeting devin

for a coffee anyway just to say hello and i'll ask him again i'll just bring my microphone two lapel mics do it properly and we have another chat I reckon he'd be up for it because the last time that me and Devin met and sat down and talked it was it was at a coffee shop it was outside and it was one of those conversations whereby for both of us it was just a cathartic, fun conversation. It wasn't an interview. It wasn't effort. It was two people who love creativity and art and mental health talking to each other. And it didn't feel like an interview.

And for me and Devin, I don't think it fucking mattered whether it recorded or not. It didn't really matter so I reckon if he's available and I'm back in Vancouver I'll meet up with him and we do it again properly similarly like Brian Cross who I had on the podcast a few weeks or a couple of months ago when I was in Los Angeles like that was a fucking lovely conversation I loved it aside from the fact that I had a few too many fucking cans. And when I had too many cans. And I got very excited. And I was a little bit interrupty.

And I was disappointed at that. But. I'd say I'll chat with Brian Cross again. Too. And I'll record that conversation. Philip asks. Can you talk about how to deal with a particularly difficult breakup

that's a tough one and it has many many different permutations which depends on the age that you are you know it depends on the length of

the relationship that you had it depends on you know what is difficult it depends on the length of the relationship that you had it depends on you know what is difficult like difficult could mean that there's a fucking house involved there's property

that's a big question with many many answers what I can say is this is more I suppose this is more for fucking younger listeners people in their in their early 20s

not necessarily no what I would say is one thing to be mindful of with a fucking breakup is to have emotional intelligence around your own pain. that the easiest way to deal with the sense of loss and rejection is to go to a very safe emotion like anger. Okay? Loss and rejection are very tough emotions.

They require self-reflection. To get rejected by another person, for another person to say, I don't want to be with you anymore that's a lot for us to take on board that's a huge amount you have to assess a lot of things about yourself and and because of the weight and complexity of dealing with this person who i love doesn't love me and doesn't want me anymore rather than face that complexity we can bypass that complexity and go straight instead to

reactionary anger so and a lot of people do that and the problem with that is is when you go to the safety of reactionary anger when what you're actually experiencing is a rejection you end up then just saying things to hurt the other person and when it's a person you really care about that's the easiest person to hurt so you might insult them you might all the little vulnerabilities and weaknesses that you shared with each other while you were together because when you're together with someone in the fucking relationship the boundaries between you blur and you end up sharing very private and emotional vulnerable things about yourself with that person

when you feel rejected and the rejection turns to anger because anger is an easier emotion to experience, it's a very focused emotion that you don't draw upon the vulnerabilities that you learned about that person and then use it against them as a weapon.

Because all that does is it hurts the other person, it hurts you, it puts a greater distance between your anger and your sense of processing your rejection. Another thing I suppose is, don't allow a relationship to define your own sense of identity this one again it might be a bit more relevant to people under the age of 25 I suppose but when you're under 25 you're still searching for who you are. You still don't, you kind of have an idea about who you are, but when you're under 25, most people are generally still searching for who that person is. So when you find yourself in a relationship with someone,

and it's your girlfriend or your boyfriend or whatever, and you fall fucking madly in love, or whatever and you fall fucking madly in love you don't have a strong enough sense of who you are to maintain who you are within that relationship and instead both your identities become melded into this relationship and that means then when the relationship breaks apart you don't know who the fuck you are you're left with this huge sense of you can't cope with the loss you can't deal with the loss of this other person but the gravity of that is most likely not that you can't deal with this person not being around it's that you've lost connection with self

so that's something to be mindful of an adult mature relationship is whereby two fucking adults who have a solid sense of self are capable of joining an emotional union with another party.

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at torontorock.com. ...person while still being grounded in who they are. I mean, the classic kind of telltale signs is that, you know, if you get into a fucking relationship with someone, do you start to take on all their interests? Do you start to change your own interests to suit that person? Is your personality different?

Are you no longer hanging around with your friends group, with your friend group? Are major facets of who you are changing because you're now in a relationship that's a sign of a kind of emotionally unhealthy lack of a sense of identity and that can be quite fucking dangerous it's also prime territory for manipulation and abuse if one person does have a solid sense of self and another person doesn't

you know I don't know, what the fuck that's a big question all I can talk about there is the emotional things if it's something where there's a fucking mortgage involved different scenario emotional things. If it's something where there's a fucking mortgage involved.

Different scenario. Quick question here from Josh. Why was your show in Auckland so expensive? Auckland and New Zealand. Simple answer for that one. Going to Australia and taking a tour manager with me and then all the internal flights a tour of New Zealand and Australia

costs between 15 and 20 grand to do for most acts so it's just one of the issues with fucking Australia lads, Australia is a far away place to get, as soon as any act starts getting on planes

and to be able to do their fucking show it starts getting expensive so that's one of the shitty things about doing fucking Australia is or anything abroad the price of tickets just go up. In order to be able to do it.

One last question. Because we're coming up to the one hour mark. Blind by what are your views. On Scottish independence. I think. The people of Scotland were fucking shafted. In the last election. I think. The people of Scotland were fucking shafted in the last election. I think the people of Scotland, in general, would like to be fully independent from Britain.

But Scotland had an independence referendum in 2015, which was very, very narrowly beaten and I think it was unfair because a lot of scare tactics were used by Britain against Scotland and the main scare tactic that was used in 2015 was okay Scotland ye want full independence from Britain okay okay, but if you become independent Scotland, then you will no longer be in the European Union, and you will then have to reapply to be in the European Union, and that could create a bunch of fucking problems, that you could be on a long waiting list, you could be several years where you're not in the European Union at all, you'd just be this country you'd just be a country called scotland and you'd be in no union what about that and i think a lot of not a lot of people but a margin of people in scotland said fuck it that's scary i'd love to be free from the brits but i'd hate to not be in the european union

for several years because that would cause a recession in scotland i think i'm gonna vote to stay and then what does britain do britain votes to leave the european fucking union and scotland didn't vote to leave the european union scotland voted to stay in the european union but london eng England voted to leave the fucking EU and I think Scotland were shafted I would not like to be a Scottish person

I'll put it that way I mean what are my views on Scottish independence? obviously 100% I'm fucking Irish anything that has to do with the dismantling. Of the British Empire. I am all for.

Fuck that. But I suppose for democracy. You have to respect the vote. But. Like I said. I think they were shafted. I think they were shafted. Stay.

Because of the EU. And then fucking. London. Decides that. Or not london but england decides that scotland now has to leave the fucking eu and now scotland isn't in the fucking eu jesus christ okay i'm gonna leave you go i i had a hot take for this week I had a hot take but I didn't do it because number one a load of people were saying please just do a fucking questions podcast

so I was honoring that and also I just want a little bit more time with the hot take it's a podcast I've been researching and my head's kind of been up my arse this week due to the jet lag

so I'll see you next week God bless you all Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.