The Blindboy Podcast - How to cook a dinner

Episode Date: October 19, 2022

I speak about the emotional resonance that cooking a meal has for me. And how a stew once gave me a panic attack  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Godspeed you oozing Brunos. Welcome to the Blind Boy Podcast. I hope you've all had a very charming week. As we hurtle towards the end of October. When the clocks go back. Do they go back? Spring forward, fall back. They do. Which, I think we should stop doing that. I think we should stop doing that

shit with the clocks. You just wake up one day and it's dark at five. It just seems unnecessarily cruel and sudden. I think most of us would prefer the darkness in the morning because the thing with morning darkness is there's a hope to morning darkness because you're waiting for it to get bright like in the winter sunrise is always a little bit more beautiful than sunset because there's a bit of hope to it I mean I think it would be nice for it to be dark at eight o'clock in the morning and then we all get to watch that unfold into brightness but then it getting dark at five o'clock in the evening. What's the point in that? All that does is it says to us fuck's sake I've just spent the entire day at work or at college or at school. I've just spent the entire day at work or at college or at school.

I've just spent the entire day doing this shit and now it's gone. And it's half four and it's getting dark. I'd love the extra hour of brightness. I think we need to reconsider that. Unless there's something, unless there's a really, really good reason for daylight savings. Is it something to do with farmers? this is a really, really good reason for daylight savings. Is it something to do with farmers? And another really good critique that I saw of daylight savings is when it gets dark at five,

women in particular don't feel safe going out for a walk or a run in the dark for obvious reasons. For me it's just it's just annoying for aesthetic purposes. I'd like that little bit of light in the evening but for other people it's a legitimate safety issue. If you're a brand new listener maybe consider going back to some earlier episodes of the podcast to familiarize yourself with the lore of this podcast. If you're an occasional listener and you've just tuned in this week, I recommend having a crack at my last two podcasts. In particular, my podcast last week, where I spoke to the fantastic Mán Chán Magan about Irish folklore and mythology and its relationship with environmentalism.

My last, the last two podcasts were about Irish mythology. And thank you to everybody for the lovely feedback for those last two podcasts. What I enjoyed about them, and a lot of the feedback I got from them were from Irish people. What I like about doing podcasts about Irish mythology is, and this is what I get from you too, we did learn a little bit about Irish mythology in school. We learned about the salmon

of knowledge and about Fionn MacCool. I used to love that in school, Jesus. Like I really remember those stories so fondly being about seven years of age and the teacher is telling you about a salmon that has all the knowledge in the world if you just touch a blister on its back or learning about cuckolding, killing a dog with a harley and a slitter. These stories are with all of us if we received an education in Ireland and it's fantastic to go back to them as an adult and to look at them with a more critical eye or look at them within their historical context and to look at them as quite important stories that tell us something about the land and the environment of Ireland. Something really beautiful that Mancán said last week that really stuck with me is he said that myths are the

fruiting bodies of human consciousness. That our collective consciousness together is like mycelia, the little underground fungal networks. And then the fruiting body of that fungal network is a mushroom. So myths are the mushrooms of human language and human consciousness. And I found that fucking beautiful. But if you're just popping into this podcast, and maybe you haven't listened to last week's episode, I do recommend it, last week and the week before because those are both podcasts where I go in depth into Irish

mythology and a lot of people really loved it and the feedback that I got was it's just the time of year the weather is kind of shit and people are out having their little walks. And it's a bit colder and it's a bit wetter. And mythology served its purpose. Mythology and good storytelling is like comfort food for the head. Actually, there's the little, there's the little glimmer of positivity. Within the days getting shorter when it gets dark at 5 o'clock that's when I start thinking about winter food

making making meals that are real wintery ones that are proper warming and cuddly and meals that take a little bit of extra time to make. Because in the summer I don't want to be cooking for ages.

I want to try and enjoy what's left of the evening. But in the winter I want to be in my kitchen making a lovely meal that will keep me warm. And then I'll sit down and eat it and watch television. And I adore cooking. I fucking love cooking. So I'm going to be having a new kind of comfort food meal each week. As a little treat. And something I'm going to make myself this week are savory oats.

Bacon and cheese savory oats. And I'm going to make it because it sounds fucking mad. I couldn't stop thinking about it. It was like hearing a Talking Heads song. Where you're like, I don't know if I like this or not. No, fuck it, I love it. I can't stop thinking about it. So I saw on Instagram a recipe for bacon and cheese savoury oats. Actually, I'll credit the Instagram page.

It's Foxnestfood on Instagram. And she's an unbelievable food vlogger from Limerick and I follow loads of food accounts like lots and literally every week she will have a recipe on her account that's so just at the right amount of strange that I can't stop thinking about it and I have to make it. Like over the summer she had a recipe for Pornstar Sangrias which were unreal. It's basically a Pornstar Martini which are beautiful because a Pornstar Martini is basically passion fruit and vanilla vodka, but it's a sangria. So it's a porn star martini with fucking cava, sparkling wine. It was unbelievable.

So, but what I'm going to make this week is her recipe for bacon and cheese savory oats. Cause it sounds mad. Cause I'm thinking oats are for porridge. That's what you eat for breakfast. You don't eat porridge for dinner. But it looks like, it looks like a risotto. Like a really simple risotto that's less time consuming.

So that's Fox Nest Food on Instagram and TikTok if you want to see that recipe. And I had to give her a mention because I know she listens to this podcast. So I'm going to make that. And I'm sure you could make it without meat or without cheese if you wanted to. You could easily do a vegan alternative.

I kind of fell off the wagon there over the pandemic. I have a plant-based diet most days of the week. And then I have meat as a little treat. I was almost fully plant-based just before the pandemic. And then I have meat as a little treat. I was almost fully plant based just before the pandemic. But then when lockdown hit. I just returned to meat. I was stuck in the house.

My only outlet. Was the joy of food. And I just couldn't leave meat out of my diet. This week as my comfort food treat. I made lamb cumin noodles which is a Chinese Muslim dish which was made popular by a restaurant in New York called Xian Famous Foods and it was lovely because it was like minced lamb, loads of cumin, Chinese chili oil and then cabbage with these flat noodles that I bought fresh from the Asian supermarket in Limerick but you'd get

away with tagliatelle if you were stuck and then next week I'm gonna make sauerkraut and sausage soup which is a bit like it's a bit like an Irish stew except it uses sauerkraut and smoky Polish sausage. I always feel guilty. I always feel like a prick when I talk about food on this podcast, like I'm wasting your time or something. And then I have to fucking remind myself. The fucking The Guardian. The fucking The Guardian.

Like two months ago, The Guardian said that my podcast is the best food writing being done anywhere in the world today. Words to that effect. Which I find hilarious. I find it so funny because I never intended to speak about food, to do podcasts that are food related. But when The Guardian said that, I was like, yeah, I've done loads of podcasts about food to do podcasts that are food related but when the guardian said that I was like yeah I've done loads of podcasts about food I think for me like I always interrogate with myself

you know what is it about cooking that I love so much why do I love doing this so much like it's never a burden it's always just the right amount of challenging without being stressful and I think for me it's cooking cooking represents more than just food for me cooking really represents the starting point of a very transformative mental health journey for me I didn't do much cooking growing up. My ma would have made all my food. I began cooking at about the age of 20. But when I say that cooking represents something transformative for me, it's because when I was about, when I was 18, 19 and experiencing,

we'd say the worst period of my mental health issues, anxiety in particular, what terrified me the most was I didn't feel like I could be an adult. I didn't feel the concept and idea of you're 19, you're an adult. You have to stand on your own two feet. The idea and concept of, that means I have to pay bills. That means I have to know how to walk into a bank. I need to know what insurance is. I need to wash my clothes and if I don't wash my clothes, they'll be dirty.

and if I don't wash my clothes they'll be dirty. I need to go to the shop, budget, plan, purchase food and know and learn how to make that into a dinner or I'll starve. And all of that at the age of 19, that terrifying whirlwind of autonomy scared the living fuck out of me. I didn't see how it would be possible, but I knew it had to be possible. And I was also receiving counselling at the time. And I used to say to my counsellor, like I've mentioned before, one of the things that set this off was I was in college. I think I was in like first year or second year, and I would have been living at home with my parents and my ma doing everything for me. But at lunchtime in college, I would go to my friends' apartments, and they might have been from Cork or Dublin or Waterford, and they were the same age as me,

and they were living in an apartment on their own and one day my buddy was making himself like a proper stew for lunch like a stew meat potato vegetable stock and when I saw this I had a full-blown panic attack. Very extreme panic attack, where I fainted. And I think the next day, because I was receiving counselling in college, I went to my counsellor and I said, yesterday I had a fucking panic attack. I had a terrible panic attack yesterday. Now, I didn't have the language of psychology.

I didn't have emotional literacy. I just knew I'd had a terrifying panic attack, but my counsellor was a good counsellor. So my counsellor said, well, where were you when you had the panic attack? I was in my buddy's apartment. What was happening when you had the panic attack? And'm like I'm not sure he was he was making he was making dinner and then before I knew it I just felt overwhelmed I thought I was gonna die and then the counsellor said what what was he making for dinner and I said he was making a stew he was making a stew well what does a stew mean to you and when he said that something unlocked. You see what a stew means to me and not just me within Irish culture. A stew isn't just a dinner. A stew is the ultimate

like mammy meal. Like you think of what a stew is. It's a large pot. It contains carrots, potatoes, meat, broth. When you see a stew, it's not just dinner. It's you're providing for an entire family. This isn't just an Irish thing. This is across multiple cultures. You think about stews in cinema in TV as we grow up you think about people around the campfire someone's just been hunting or foraging the person who makes a stew is a central figure they're taking on a lot of responsibility

to give sustenance to a lot of people and that's why I got a panic attack because my buddy who was making it was 19 as well. He was the same fucking age as me. If he'd have been making coca noodles, if he'd have put a good fella's pizza in the oven, I wouldn't have reacted because they're like student foods.

But I couldn't handle a fucking stew. He may as well have had a mortgage. And it scared the living fuck out of me. It made me feel like a useless, helpless, tiny baby. And I had a full blown panic attack. And my counsellor wouldn't let it go. He was interrogating. Listen, we need to talk.

If the stew gave you the panic attack, we need to find out what this fucking stew means for you. And the thing is, I wasn't aware of this either. I didn't know this shit. I hadn't a clue. This is my unconscious mind. I was at an extreme state of anxiety. I didn't have access to my internal world or my unconscious

fears. And slowly but surely through questioning, we were able to arrive at the realization. I was able to arrive at the realization. I couldn't for the fucking life of me imagine walking into a shop, imagine walking into a shop picking out carrots over there picking out spuds over there picking out chicken stock picking out meat I couldn't imagine doing something as responsible and adult as that and then taking it home and making a huge pot of this at the age of 19. I couldn't imagine it. It scared the fuck out of me. And from there we had a breakthrough. Ah, you are terrified of being an adult. Now what we didn't know as well is that I was autistic and autistic people can struggle with what's called executive functioning. So there was those issues as well which we didn't know but that moment there put me on a path to recovery it gave me a little goal post and I knew

that a journey of healing for me meant I must stand on my own two feet so a few months later when I was 20 I moved out I moved out of my home and forced myself to stand on my own two feet, which back then in the 2000s was not particularly difficult financially. That's the difference there. I think my rent was like 150 quid a month or something stupid like that. Also, I'd just gotten myself a job. And this is the mad thing again about Ireland before the fucking recession. and this is the mad thing again about Ireland before the fucking recession.

So my job, I'd gotten a job as a painting teacher in a college, not like a third level college but a PLC college, a college that I'd been a student in like two years previously and how I got the job, and this is going to make me sound like a boomer. So the cottage was looking for someone to teach beginners level painting to adults at night time and I literally walked into the office of the person who was the head of the night time course and brought my portfolio with me and literally said, I'm the person for the job. Here's my paintings. This is what I can do. I'm the person for this job. I know I'm only 20, but I'm the person for this job. I'll do better than anybody else. The type of shit you see in

an American film that's trying to sell you the illusion of the American dream, that shit that never works in real life. And I think the person just went, this cunt is mad. I think I need to give him the job. So they gave me the fucking job and it was handy as fuck. Two nights a week. I was earning 800 quid a month while in college. And it's a paradox because you might be thinking, how could you be so rattled by panic attacks and so terrified of being an adult but then capable of teaching painting to an entire class of fucking people in their 30s and 40s and the only answer I can give is if I was talking about art there was no fear there was no. I loved art and painting so much

and loved speaking about painters and the history of painting and showing people, this is how Caravaggio paints, this is how Monet paints. I would just go into autopilot and I never experienced anxiety. And it's actually nuts when I think back about it

because the idea now of a 20-year- old walking into a fucking PLC course and saying, give me that job. And they go, yeah, there you go. That's 800 quid a month. That's just nuts. But that was Celtic Tiger Ireland. How I used to teach painting. I used to always go with the,

I'd always follow the example of the Impressionists, because the Impressionists, were the first painters to really see things, honestly, the Impressionists, the likes of Monet, which would have been the mid 1800s I think, they were the first painters who benefited from commercially available, industrially produced tubes of paint.

They were the first painters who could walk into a shop and buy tubes of paint. Before that, artists had to make their own paint and they'd spend a lot of time in their studios. But the Impressionists were the first painters to leave the studio and paint outside in a field with a portable easel and portable paints and they had the benefit of the the new science of optics so they were truly looking at things and seeing things as they are and what I used to do when I was teaching painting, beginner's painting, I'd always do still life because the students would come in and they'd be like oh here's a photograph of my dog, here's a photograph of my cat, I want to paint this photograph

and I'd never allow it because I'm like no. You have to train your brain to see in a new way. I don't want you looking at a 2D image and then painting that 2D image on a 2D surface. You need to look at something that's 3D, that's in real life. And your brain has to navigate the complexity of translating that into a 2D surface. So I'd do still life, which means you'd bring in a teapot, an orange, a banana, whatever objects, fuck them all into the middle of a table and say to people, paint that. And I used to love getting people to see colour. Because the thing is, when it comes to painting and seeing colour and seeing objects, language is actually a huge barrier. If I put an orange or a banana in front of somebody to paint,

often they're not painting the banana that's in front of them, they're painting the banana in their mind. The concept of banana-ness, What the banana in their mind is shaped like. The yellow of the banana in their mind and these preconceptions actually get in the way of truly seeing what's in front of you. So I'd say forget that it's a banana. Forget that it's an orange. Don't be thinking about this as an orange. Don't be thinking about this as a banana. Paint, only paint the shapes that are in front of you and try and forget about what it is you're painting. And when you do that, you can actually see. And I'd always use Monet's paintings of haystacks as an example.

Monet has three or four paintings known as the Haystack Series. And all it is, is four paintings of the same haystack at different times in the day. And you can tell what Monet was doing. A simple haystack in a field is a very simple image. It's something that Monet had been looking at his entire life. But he was clearly trying to forget that it was a haystack. He was forgetting that it was in a field and what he was painting were the multiple abstract shapes and colours that make up the haystack. And if he did that with enough detail, truly seeing what's there, eventually it looked like one of the best haystacks you've ever seen. And get a look at Monet's haystack paintings, in particular the one he did in midday.

You'd think of a haystack as it's a round thing that's the colour of hay. What's the colour of hay? It's yellow. But you won't find any yellow in this fucking painting. It's several different shades of blue and purple and cornflower because what he's painting is how light hits off objects.

So that's how I used to teach painting. Not showing people how to paint, like Bob Ross, but getting people to detach the bias of language and words and mental imagery about objects.

Discarding all of that so you can truly see what's there. Abstract shapes. I didn't intend to go into the mechanics of painting there but what led me to this is I was I began speaking about why the act of cooking and cooking food is very important to me and why I enjoy I enjoy it so much and why it brings me so much meaning. When I like deliberately and radically forced myself to move out of my ma's house and to stand on my own two feet, the first thing I had to do after I'd moved all my stuff into this apartment and I was getting ready to spend my first night living away from home by myself.

I had to make myself dinner that night. And I was frightened and I was scared. But I didn't have a choice. I had to make dinner that night. I had to. And I was hungry. And I went to Aldi. And I think it was something really simple it was just like a

fucking bolognese it was literally minced beef bolognese sauce and spaghetti and that's it and I made it and I ate it and it was lovely and it might sound really silly but that was so fucking important to me for someone who had previously been getting extreme panic attacks because the idea of doing this seemed so utterly impossible the feeling of confidence that I got from that little act was huge

and this wasn't it wasn't a spur of the moment thing I'd obviously spoken with my counselor and we'd put a plan in place and he'd said to me well if if standing on your own two feet is the source of your anxiety why not try and do it can you move out can you get an apartment can you get a job can you do these things can we draw out a roadmap to make that happen and that's what I did because the thing with tackling anxiety and especially if you're using a CBT led approach which is what I was doing

you can change your thinking you can address your irrational thoughts, but real change comes from radically addressing behaviours. I knew I could only spend so long using CBT on my thoughts around my fear of autonomy. When I was experiencing that anxiety and getting panic attacks at the sight of a stew, panic attacks at the sight of a stew. My internal, my internal self-talk to myself, I would have said things like, you are useless. You're a baby. Everyone else your own age is more capable. They are real humans. You're not a real human. You're not real. They are real. You're not real. You will never be able to make your own dinner. You will never be able to wash your own clothes or dress your bed. You will never get a job or pay a bill. You will never stand on your own two feet because you're not capable of it. And when I would imagine what will my life be like in 10 years,

when I was in the throes of that anxiety, what I would see is, I thought I'd be in care. I thought that by about the age of 30, I'd be in what you'd call a mental hospital. I thought I'd be in a mental hospital, in a bed, heavily medicated, because there was simply no way whatsoever that I could participate in society as an adult and pay bills and think about insurance and do all these adult things. And what's worse, in the throes of it, that was more than a fantasy. That was more than a fear. It was almost a goal.

It's like, that's kind than a fear, it was almost a goal. It's like that's kind of what I want to be because at least then in a mental hospital someone would be there caring for me. I won't have to worry about standing on my own two feet. Now something which contributed to that particular fear was as a child I had a cousin who was schizophrenic who was in one of these institutions and I would have listened to a lot of conversations with the adults in my family speaking about this and the fear in their voice and the sadness in their voice and how terrible it was that he was in this situation and I was too young I was too young to understand it so I internalized so much of that fear and anxiety and sadness from the adults and found a way to blame myself somehow because

sometimes when children don't understand where the adults around them are upset they can blame themselves and I know that sounds very extreme. That's quite an extreme fantasy for me to have had, to be 19 and to literally think in 10 years time, I will be in a mental hospital. But that's anxiety. That's extreme anxiety. That's known as catastrophic thinking. I was catastrophizing and I didn't have any tools for this. I didn't have any language for it. So it would just spiral and get worse. But obviously with my therapist I would challenge that thinking. I would challenge those thoughts. Where is the evidence that I would definitely be in a mental hospital in 10 years? I understand that mental

hospital isn't a particularly sensitive word, but that's the word I would have used back then because I would have heavily stigmatized mental health issues too. There would have been no compassion around it. So I would have actively used CBT to challenge all these thoughts. You will never cook a dinner. Where's the evidence for that? And I would challenge the rigidity of my internal thoughts and replace those rigid thoughts with more flexible ones. And that then, after a few months, got me to a position whereby I was able to put things into action. Because changing behaviour, like literally changing behaviour,

that's, for me, that's for me that's what had the most aggressively transformative impact on me and cooking my own dinners was the big one because I was good at it like I'd have made that barnaise on the first day and then the next day like that would have upped my confidence a bit

because I'd have said to myself that fucking barnaise that I made last night was nicer than the dinners that my ma was making me at home a bit because I'd have said to myself, that fucking bolognese that I made last night was nicer than the dinners that my ma was making me at home. Maybe I'll try some chili con carne tonight. It's practically the same thing. I'll buy some mints. I'll get some boil in the bag rice. I'll buy a jar of that chili sauce. Each night I was preparing these meals and I wasn't only satiating my hunger, my confidence was growing.

I didn't start to think that I was capable of being an adult. I was being a fucking adult. I was doing it and it was easy. And then I'm going to my job, teaching at night time, talking to people who are in their forties and being like, fuck it, I'm able to do this. I think I'm good at my job. And then when it came to the cooking, I'd say things to myself like, I'm going to have bolognese tonight, but maybe I won't use any jar sauce. What if I use this cookbook here

and I make bolognese from scratch and now I'm buying a basil plant and I'm buying fresh garlic and I'm buying fucking a tin of tomatoes and now I'm buying a basil plant. And I'm buying fresh garlic. And I'm buying fucking a tin of tomatoes. And now I'm literally cooking from scratch. And not only is it filling my confidence. I love doing it. The process itself is quite creative.

It reminded me of painting a bit. And I'm getting a real sense of accomplishment from it and making tasty lovely dinners at the same time and then a few months pass and I'm still making brilliant dinners and I'm exploring food and one day I just notice haven't had one of them fucking panic attacks in a long time I don't even think I feel anxious anymore. And everything spirals in the opposite direction. My internal, my internal voice,

which six months earlier had been, you are incapable, you are useless. That turned into, I never thought I'd be able to live on my own and cook my own dinners. This felt fucking impossible and I did it and it was easy and I actually love it. My internal voice turned into, you can do whatever the fuck you want.

Because six months ago when you were fantasizing about the possibility of moving out, I would have thought of catastrophic situations. What if I starve? What if there's no one in the apartment and I lock myself out and I have to sleep on a bench? What if I fall asleep and in the middle of sleep and I open my eyes and my eyeballs stick to my pillow and then I die because my eyeballs are stuck to the pillow? I know that's mad, but I was mad. But none of these things happened.

None of these things happened at all. I faced down my fears and found that it was actually an enjoyable process. So then thoughts such as you can make your own baronets turns into maybe that music that you're doing on your computer. Maybe you can put that on the internet.

Maybe that's good enough to put on the internet. Maybe that part of you that really actually wants to do gigs and perform, but that you'd never admit to yourself because you don't feel like being an adult. Maybe that part of yourself is valid. Give it a go. What's the worst that can happen? And then like a year later, I'm up in Dublin,

selling out gigs. And that whole process started with a simple plate of shitty bolognese from Aldi. And I think that for me is why cooking holds such a special place in my heart. Preparing my own meals was genuinely the beginning of a hugely transformative journey in myself that showed me I'm capable of being an adult. It's not hard at all. It's natural, in fact. I had intended this to be a question answering

podcast, but that was 35 minutes there about why it's a good idea to make dinners. That's like three weeks ago I did a full podcast on why it's a good idea to wear jackets. I've been hoofing into a lot of Samuel Beckett. I'm reading Murphy. And I was reading Malai. He has me thinking in a very minimalist, a minimalist way at the moment. Okay, it's time for an ocarina pause. I have an actual ocarina with me.

You're going to hear an advert for something, I don't know what it is. On April 3rd, 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, don't.

The first omen, I believe, girl, is to be the mother. Mother of what? Is the most terrifying. Six, six, six. It's the mark of the devil. Hey! Movie of the year. It's not real.

It's not real. It's not real. Who said that? The first omen. Only in theaters April 5th. Will you rise with the sun to help change mental health care forever? Join the Sunrise Challenge to raise funds for CAMH, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, to support life-saving progress in mental health care.

From May 27th to 31st, people across Canada will rise together and show those living with mental illness and addiction that they're not alone. Help CAMH build a future where no one is left behind. So, who will you rise for? Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca That's sunrisechallenge.ca That's the high-pitched ocarina, not very friendly for poor old little dogs.

Support for this podcast comes from you, the listener, via the Patreon page, patreon.com forward slash theblindbypodcast. This podcast is my full-time job. It is how I earn a living. Do you find yourself getting solace from this podcast? Do you listen to it for a little bit of entertainment? Does it provide you with distraction? Whatever reason you have to engage with this work, please consider paying me for this work via the Patreon page all I'm looking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month if you met me in real life

would you say fuck it I'd buy him a pint well you can via the Patreon page and this is how I pay my bills it's how I pay my way and it's how I deliver a podcast each week but if you can't afford that don't worry about it

you can listen for free because the person who is paying is paying for you to listen for free so everybody gets a podcast I get to earn a living it's a wonderful model based on kindness and soundness it also keeps the podcast independent

I'm not beholden to anyone it means that I can do a podcast about dinners and no advertiser can come in and say, we want you to interview this very famous TikToker in the state. This incredibly famous TikToker we are not that interested in. We want you to interview them instead of doing a podcast about dinners. So I can say, fuck off. I don't need your advertising. I have

an independent podcast that's supported by the listeners. So you can go fuck yourself, Mr. Advertiser. Now, if I do have an advert, it's on my terms. Let's take it or leave it. It doesn't impact the content in any way. Just a few little gigs that I have coming up on the 30th of October, which is quite soon, I'm at the Poker Festival in Meath. Then on the 1st and 2nd of November, I'm in Vicar Street in Dublin. The 1st is sold out. The 2nd, there's tickets left for the 2nd one, but very soon I'm going to do some contractually obligated media appearances for that gig and that will make himself very quickly so if you're thinking of coming to my vicar street gig on the 2nd

of november which is a wednesday get your tickets now those nights are going to be fantastic crack i have lovely guests lined up i just love vicar street gigs. It's a beautiful venue. It's so perfectly suited to a live podcast. There's great intimacy in the room. On the 5th of November, I'm at the Wexford Spiegel Tent Festival. And then on the 18th, I'm over in Brussels. And you can get all of those tickets on the internet. So I'd like to answer some questions that you've been asking me on Instagram. One question I got asked, I can't remember who asked it, I apologise, but the question was, what is masculinity when it's not toxic? Which is a fantastic question.

I mean, all I can say is I've never found a concept like masculinity to be of any use to me whatsoever. Even if I'm trying to motivate myself using self-talk like if I have a challenge if I have an upcoming challenge and I need to kick myself up the arse I need to motivate myself sometimes I'll hear a little voice inside my head say be a man come on fucking man up be a man and I always try and catch myself because that's so

that it serves such a shallow purpose it's like putting on a little fake man armour and also as well that's inherently misogynistic because why in my head am I associating being courageous and being determined with being a man?

That logic infers that women are not courageous, which is harsh. That's just a lie. So I've never found any concept of masculinity, healthy or toxic, to be of any use to me. It's of no use to me. What I've found to be of great use to me and to be quite effective is the concept of adulthood. I'll say to myself, be an adult. What would an adult do in this situation? And that's way more useful to me than bringing any gender into it. It's more authentic. So I try not to think in the masculine or feminine. I think in, can I respond to this situation as an adult or do I respond to it as a child and I want to avoid responding to situations as a child because there's a child within me well there's two children within me there's

my free child and my adapted child and my adapted child is the wounded version of me as a kid when I respond to a situation and I'm being led by my inner adapted child, I might sulk because children sulk to meet their needs. If I make a mistake I won't take accountability for it. I respond as a child and if I make a mistake I feel like I'm in trouble and I need to hide and I'll run away from the consequences of the mistake that I made. I won't apologize if someone else is impacted by my mistake. I'll be afraid of that person if they're impacted by my mistake or I'll hide from them

or I'll lie and pretend I didn't make a mistake because I've responded like a child. I think that I'm in trouble, but adults can't get in trouble. What else would I do if I'm living in my adapted child state? If someone does or says something to me that upsets me, I might allow myself to get excessively upset and then blame that person for causing that upset rather than accepting a degree of personal responsibility.

I might then lash out or throw a tantrum. So this is what's called living in my adapted child. Being an adult, being a physical adult, but meeting the needs of the child within me, rather than meeting my adult needs. And what is an adult? When I said there, I don't think in terms of gender. I don't say to myself, man up, man up, toughen up, man up. I say to myself, how can I be an adult right now in this situation? And what is an adult?

Adult has nothing to do with gender. An adult is someone who is emotionally present in the here and now. If a problem presents itself to me, or a situation that requires conflict presents itself to me, I want to respond to that as an adult in the here and now. And adults are assertive. You see, manning up, man up, that's not assertiveness because who gets told to man up? Little boys who cry. So when I try to man up, I'm not being assertive there. All I'm doing is I'm putting a large man, man-sized armor on the needs of a little child who's wounded and hurt and on the surface that can appear like confidence. It can appear aggressive. It'll get you so far, but ultimately it's not about the here and now. So instead, I try to be an assertive adult. And an assertive adult responds appropriately to a situation of

conflict. An assertive adult isn't concerned with winning or losing. An assertive adult is concerned with solving the actual problem that's at hand and using compromise if possible. Also, an assertive adult is so calm and aware of their emotions in the here and now that when it comes to a situation of conflict, they truly know when they are right and when they are wrong or when someone has wronged them. When you man up, you don't know this

because you're wearing that city suit of armor. You're presenting with a type of aggression, a version of what you think an aggressive man is and you will filter all conflict through that lens of aggression. Someone's attacking me and I have to fight. There's very little compromise in man up. Manning up is competitive armor. So what's masculinity without fucking toxicity? It's being an adult. It's being an adult that has nothing to do with gender. Whatever gender anyone identifies as, we're humans. And if you're over the age of

18, you have a capacity as a human to be an adult, to respond to your adult needs in the here and now in the present moment. And I mentioned there mentioned there too you know I've got two children inside me we all have two children inside of us there's the adapted child and the free child and as I mentioned the adapted child is the wounded child who will sulk or seek revenge or throw a tantrum but you also have the free child and the free child is quite a healthy thing to explore that's the child within us who used to was curious curiosity playfulness exploring humor so that's the child in me that i i allow out to flourish every so often because it's healthy out to flourish every so often because it's healthy but not too much because you might run out in front of traffic. Contoall asked, hi Blindby can you chat about how to enjoy conspiracy theories

without being consumed by it? That's a lovely question because as you know from this podcast I love conspiracy and I love conspiracy theory. I love more conspiracy I love conspiracy theory. I love more conspiracy more than conspiracy theory. When I speak about conspiracy stuff on this podcast, it tends to be shit from 30 years ago that we know to now be true. I tend to prefer that stuff. I tend to prefer conspiracy where I can literally go onto the CIA's website and it's like yeah that's the shit we were doing there's the proof I tend to be less interested in contemporary conspiracy theory

because it's like a collective fiction that a bunch of people are writing but over the pandemic in particular multiple people have lost family members and friends to conspiracy theory communities. People who just fell down a rabbit hole of anti-vax stuff or QAnon or whatever and now they're very difficult to speak to and to reach. And what I would say to you is that if you want to healthily enjoy conspiracy theory as entertainment and maintain criticality about it, maintain a critical eye and a skepticism, don't get involved in any of the communities. That's what I'd say. Don't get involved in any of the communities. It's the social aspect of conspiracy theories, the groups. That's what fucks people up. You find yourself in a conspiracy theory Facebook group and you start off interested

and then before you know it you post something, you say something that kind of agrees with the conspiracy and then when you say that a bunch of other people who agree with you. Tell you that you're right. And they like your comment. And they give you lots of approval. Because you're not a sheep. You've woken up. You can really see things. And all of a sudden now you're getting all this approval from people.

Let's just say. Vaccines are made on Venus. Right I just made that up. Vaccines come from Venus. They're made by aliens. So you say. Yeah I really think these up. Vaccines come from Venus. They're made by aliens. So you say, yeah, I really think these vaccines are made by aliens on Venus. And everyone says, totally, man, you got it, man. Fuck the sheeple. You really have it. And then someone else comes into the page and they say, this is ridiculous. Vaccines aren't made on Venus by aliens. This is stupid.

ridiculous. Vaccines aren't made on Venus by aliens. This is stupid. So then you attack that person and say, you're a fucking sheep. The vaccines are made on Venus. And then a lot of people like your comment and a lot of people come and defend you. And then you feel like you've got fucking friends. You really feel a part of this community. You feel valued when you talk about how vaccines are made on Venus by aliens. The people agreeing with you make you feel really smart and valid. This feels so good. It's us versus

them. And then when any them come in here and trying to tell us that vaccines don't come from Venus they're bastards. They're paid. They're paid by governments to come in here and and tell us that we're wrong they think that we're stupid but we know we're smart so that's what I'm getting at I don't think it's the conspiracy theories that drive people over the edge it's it's where and

how and why it's happening and one thing that really drove conspiracy theories over fucking covid lockdown was facebook groups facebook groups private communities of people together agreeing on shit and i think the isolation of lockdown and the stress of it caused people to really feel some nice social feelings, some nice approval within these communities. And that's where the radicalization comes from. Like a cult. It's the social aspect. And then before you know it, you're having Sunday dinner with your family. And then you say, you know that vaccines are made on Venus by aliens.

And then your mother says, that's ridiculous. And now you're calling your mother a prick. And you leave the table and you go back to your little Facebook group. And you say, I just had a really disappointing dinner with my family. Unfortunately, my mother doesn't believe that vaccines are made on Venus by aliens. And then your community says, we're your real family. They don't have a clue you're unfortunately your your your blood family are sheeple but we understand you here you're so smart you're so smart for knowing this thing about vaccines coming from venus that are made by aliens

i mean you see the same shit on twitter, except not about conspiracy theories. With Twitter, it's more just performative behavior, performative hostility, performative cruelty, fighting, radicalized by the algorithm. And if you want to know if your Twitter radicalized, ask yourself this question. If someone you know in real life saw your Twitter account, would you be embarrassed? And if the answer is yes, then you're Twitter radicalized. But Twitter radicalization isn't, that just makes people a little bit annoying. It's not like conspiracy theory Facebook radicalization, which can be quite harmful. And you can see evidence it's it's often hijacked by right-wing groups that's that's evident we can see that shauna asks is there any new music right now that you're

listening to that you can recommend um what pieces of music have i been listening to that i've enjoyed there's an artist by the name of steve Lacey who used to be in a band called The Internet and I'm just liking his stuff at the moment. He sounds like a mixture between Frank Ocean and Mac DeMarco or a bit of Gust Apperton and I saw something with the artist Steve Lacey the other day which gave me a huge generational culture shock. So Steve Lacey has a song called Bad Habit off his new album but this song is huge on TikTok as a TikTok sound. Now you know if you've ever been on TikTok. When a song goes huge on TikTok it's like a 15 second snippet of it. huge on TikTok. It's like a 15 second snippet of it.

So this Steve Lacey song is massive on TikTok. And I saw footage of his gig the other day and he's up on stage. And also this song trending on TikTok made it the number one song in the American Billboard charts this week.

But he goes up on stage and he performs this song Bad Habit. And the audience are singing along and the audience are all they're young I think they're teenagers they only knew 15 seconds of the song they only knew the 15 seconds from TikTok and then they all stopped singing and Steve Lacey's there

holding the microphone out to the audience and it's awkward as fuck, and it made me feel so old. Because if I heard 15 seconds of a song, and I liked it so much that I'd memorised those 15 seconds, then I would go and, like, try and hear the rest of the song. Well, this entire audience of people who had come to his gig didn't even do that.

All they knew was 15 seconds of his song from TikTok. Who else am I listening to? There's this artist from London called Eliza. Now she used to be called Eliza Dolittle around 2010 and made kind of theatrical bubblegum pop but now she goes by the name of Eliza and she makes quite difficult, inaccessible R&B almost like D'Angelo or nearly trip-hop and she has a fantastic voice and her band is incredible and the production is brilliant. She sounds like Destiny's Child if they all had depression. So she has a new album out called A Sky Without Stars and I'm listening to that quite a lot

okay that's all we have time for this week please make yourself a nice comforting warm dinner make yourself a thoughtful dinner rubber dog I'll be back next week with a hot take. rock city you're the best fans in the league bar none tickets are on sale now for fan appreciation night on saturday april 13th when the toronto rock hosts the rochester nighthawks at first ontario center in hamilton at 7 30 p.m you can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats for

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