The Blindboy Podcast - Scanlons Pang

Episode Date: January 31, 2018

Fragile Masculinity, Horse Soup, Stainless Steel Mugs Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oh yeah! We are 15 weeks at number one here on the Blind Boy Podcast because of your gentle actions of liking and subscribing to the podcast and leaving pleasurable, favourable reviews. Thank you so much. To celebrate our 15 weeks at number one, I have written a poem that I'd like to read out to begin the podcast. This poem is called Geoffrey Archer's Far-Fetched Car Park. Pregnant Declan drinks his gin from the stinking king's flap. He plays a woolly trumpet for some Jewish men in drag. There's a bandy-legged chandelier dripping crystals on the floor, and a dandy beggar with pointy ears fists a princess through a door. It's ten miles long and three hours tall.

It's not right or wrong or big or small. The cars are made of razor blades, their windshields dull as priests, the petrol smells like takeaways and the tyres are stacked in these. It's as frisky as an alleyway, as angry as a hammer. The tiles will ask you questions and the gable end has manners. Go there when you're lonely, when you think you've had enough, when your mouth is dry from sniffing Spaniard's dandruff off your cuff. I go there in the evenings to think about the day. Geoffrey Archer's far-fetched car park is where I want to stay. A heaven full of dinosaurs awaits you at the entrance. Eleven sexy minotaurs adorn their chests with heavy pendants. Slide down the dreamer's drainpipe into the Turkish puzzle.

Geoffrey Archer's far-fetched dog grows parsley on his muzzle. He guards a fireplace with small tits for a dram of christened whiskey. He runs around the car park chasing Asians throwing fr frisbees Lord Archer is a humble sort With a heart as big as men His car park is a labyrinth Of the secrets in your head He won't accept your money Not your property or kin

He'll just sip the sweat and tears That burst from pores along your skin And so I go there in the evenings To think about the day. Geoffrey Archer's far-fetched car park is where I want to stay. A paisley dentist made the bollards from a fist of Persian sand. They dance around like minstrels, the way that other bollards stand. The tickets print on Archer's parchment. It feels so wrinkly and charming. It's paper chewed by wasps who've had their arses bleached in Derby. His high-vis jacket glows like

coals and brighten up his face. His teeth, they look like flocks of sheep that are floating into space. Lord Archer has an arm span that could stop a nuclear war. His legs as long as drainpipes that save a pavement in a storm. And if you feel alone and need a hand to hold, Geoffrey Archer's eight-foot chest will shelter you from cold.

And so I go there in the evenings to think about the day Geoffrey Archer's far-fetched car park is where I want to stay so that was a poem for you to celebrate 15 weeks at number one so I I wrote that poem there the other day

while I was down in Yorty's couch you'll remember from a few podcasts back. I had a spiritual experience with an author. Called Yorty Ahern. And. That was about five or six weeks ago. And I haven't seen Yorty since. I think I got a glimpse of him once.

But it might have been a log but down in Limerick there's this river, the Plassy River and it's a tributary of the Shannon but the back of University of Limerick and it's gorgeous just to go down there you know it's got a lovely cycle track and it's a nice bit

of wonderful wilderness in Limerick City so I go down there but frequently i'm going down there now to try and find yorty ahern again the river has been severely flooded there the last couple of weeks as happens this time of year and yorty's couch is fully flooded now a few people have spotted him and you've been sending in photographs and sightings of Yorty from the Plassey River one person even said that they saw him swimming on his own up the canal as far as town which is very interesting but anyway I was down by Yorty's couch I'll occasionally go down there around dusk because he comes out at night he'll come out when the when the sun is low i love going down there when it's i find a little bush to hide in and i sit there and if it's raining

even better because i like to hear the sound of the rain around me but it gets cold you know and i was thinking fuck it i'd love to you know while I'm on a yorty stakeout, waiting for him to emerge from his couch, I'd love to have a hot drink. Usually the cups you get for, like those keep cups or whatever they're called, or the travel mugs, they're grand like and they keep things hot, but you can put fuck all inside of them, it's a tiny, just a little, a a small cup of tea or a tiny cup of coffee so I was thinking I want to have

see normally when I drink tea I love tea normally I drink it from a pint mug a full pint of tea that's perfect for me as opposed to I don't like drinking just a straight cup of tea

it's a little bit too strong so I was like can I get a pint mug keep flask is does this exist because i don't want to have a big one liter thermos flask either i want what is the pint mug flask so i went on to amazon and i saw one and i bought it because I was like, excellent. Here is a stainless steel vacuum mug that will carry a pint of tea for me to sit looking for Yorty for about 20 minutes with a hot cup of tea. Heaven. Perfect for me. So I managed to get my hands on one. That's where I wrote that poem.

I wrote Geoffrey Archer's Farfetched Car Park on my phone while waiting for Yorkley so anyway the mug I ordered the mug on Amazon didn't pay much attention to it 20 quid, quite expensive for a mug but stainless steel

good brand, Stanley didn't pay any attention to what it looked like didn't give a shit, I literally just looked at the fact that it was a pint mug. So it arrives anyway in the post. And I take it out of the package. And then when I look at it. It was just bizarre looking. It didn't look like a mug.

It looked like. Like a black and deckered drill this mug which is clearly like an outdoor camping mug which is what I bought it for was adorned in the front with bright yellow and black

like power tool design and I wrote down some of the stuff that was on it. Because this was on a big sticker on the front. And I took it off obviously. But it said Stanley vacuum steel camp mug. And then it had loads of like statistics.

Keeps your drink hot for 2.5 hours. Cold for 4.5 hours. Iced for 20 hours. Stainless steel material. Double wall vacuum leak resistant and it was just this theatrical but practical display of how efficient this mug was you know and it didn't feel like i'm looking at a gun all i want to do is drink a hot cup of tea is it going to keep it hot it will but it was pitching this mug to me even though i'd bought it as if i was going to use it to hammer nails into a wall and it was this point that i realized

this mug was made to appeal to fragile masculinity. It was, fragile masculinity is, it's a consumerist thing, right? It's where men are sold products that are very much for men. Not necessarily for, they're for the, a very masculine ideal that is sold to men through culture and advertising. And it's often the language of power tools, the language of power tools and workers tools,

but as applied to something as a mug. A mug is a fucking receptacle for a hot drink with a decent cover on it that keeps it warm that's all it is but this thing was you know it was promising itself to me as if it as if i was going to survive in the wilderness for years and years you know lifetime guarantee it says at the top lifetime warranty as if i'm going to go out into the woods forever for the rest of my life and this mug is just that's gonna save my bacon anything I want this mug will do it and how products kind of pitch themselves to fragile masculinity it's not only by defining masculinity on, we'll say, the advertiser's terms, but also by defining masculinity by what it isn't. And often what that is, is what it isn't is what are perceived to be the negatives of femininity. This mug is practical and straightforward.

What it does not have is anything resembling decoration or emotion whatsoever. It is straightforward, down-the-center, rational mug, which suggests that the opposite is irrational and hysterical. A feminine mug is hysterical. A masculine mug is practical and rational and this is what this is what it's trying to appeal to advertising no longer sells you

the actual product what advertising does and it's been like this now for about 80, 90 years advertising tries to sell you a better version of yourself or an idealized version of yourself so I'm not being sold or pitched a mug here I'm being pitched the part of myself that wants to be a big strong independent self-sufficient alpha male man and I thought I was above that. I was, you know, I was critical and

laughing at it. But then when I got down to Yorty's couch with the mug, with this lovely, sturdy, practical, stainless steel, heavy, large mug in my hand, I started to feel like more of a man. I started to feel, oh oh look at me with the river and the elements nothing can beat me I bet I could light a fire with this mug and it appealed to my fragile masculinity it made me feel like an alpha male or some stupid bullshit like that you know and then when I put the fucking mug down beside me now at this point I'd taken the sticker

with all the information was taken off so what I had in my hand now was a very plain khaki army green metal mug that just says Stanley on it and when I put it down beside me on the grass I looked off to find Yorty and then

when I moved back slightly I couldn't find the fucking mug because it's khaki green and had camouflaged itself with the fucking grass so I'm there looking for the fucking mug I've got my light on my phone to make sure where it is I eventually found it after about a minute and then I realised the sheer how farce the whole thing is how ridiculous the whole thing is they've pitched

this ultra practical efficient survivalist mug to me and it's so efficient and green that I lose it in the fucking grass Tactical. Efficient. Survivalist mug. To me. And it's so efficient and green. That I lose it in the fucking grass.

And then I started thinking. Lads. If you wanted this. Mug to be truly efficient. You'd have painted it bright pink. And then I wouldn't have lost it. And that's how I realised. How bullshit. Shitty it is. This mug isn't for, you know,

I'm not worried about giving away my fucking position. There's no snipers trying to take me out. What do I need a khaki green camouflaged mug for in the 21st century in a river in Limerick at the back of a university for? It bullshit painted bright pink but they can't do that can they cause if you paint your stainless steel Stanley mug bright pink then it won't make you feel masculine because pink is seen as a weak female colour

pink is seen as loud and bright if your mug is pink then the opposing male sniper is going to take you out. He's going to shoot you from a distance. Or a bear will come along and eat your arse. Then I start to get pissed off with York the Ahern because, as I mentioned before, like, otters, if you see an otter, chances are that's the only otter around for 21km because

it's usually a male otter and they defend their territory violently against other males and often other females so Yorty is a complete and utter alpha male dickhead and then I

started thinking what would Yorty think of this mug he'd probably laugh at me and call me a cuck while he parades around his 21 kilometers of river Yorty didn't appear I drank the cup of tea and it was gorgeous and the mug did what it was supposed to do it facilitated me to drink a hot cup of tea it remained hot for the duration of its consumption which was performed at leisurely intervals and then as I went home then I started to get pissed off at myself for getting pissed off with York the Horn and for projecting so many human emotions on top of him. And who I was really pissed off with, to be honest, was myself.

For allowing that, for allowing the mug to win. You know, for allowing myself to place aspects of my identity and self-esteem in something as frivolous as an idealized version of manhood which is a vestigial construct of capitalism communicated to me through a fucking mug but if we're to try and get to the

the hot take of this issue because as you know this podcast is about hot takes by which I mean don't take it fucking seriously it's just a fleeting opinion in a moment that is maybe be wrong or possibly even offensive but I started

to think where does this this fragile masculinity come from where does this this idealised masculinity come from, where does this, this idealized masculinity come from, and I started to think, you know, about psychology, and how we're raised as children, and if, okay, put it this way, if you've got a little boy and a little girl, right, and two separate rooms, no, no, same room, and they're playing with Lego, about three years of age, if the little boy is playing with his Lego, and he gets frustrated, makes

a bollocks of it, that little boy will get angry, and pick up the Lego, and fuck it off the wall, and throw a tantrum and jump up and down and get a red face and start screaming and shouting so then the parent or the teacher or the television steps in and they will slightly chastise the boy but they will also normalize the behavior by going here calm down now but however boys will be boys little boys are very angry that's just the way they are you know the aggressive behavior is reinforced by the adult now if that same male child makes a bollocks of his lego gets a bit frustrated and expresses his frustration with tears he is very much chastised and told little boys don't cry.

He is entitled to get violently angry. He is entitled to throw the Lego off the wall, but he is not entitled to cry. He is chastised for crying. So that little boy then grows up to be a grown man who punches walls when he's angry. Or when he's upset, he expresses his sadness through aggression and anger. Then similarly, the little girl, she's fucking with her Lego and she gets frustrated.

and she gets frustrated if she picks up her Lego and fucks it off the wall and gets really angry and starts screaming and throwing a tantrum she is severely chastised and said no no no no little girls don't get angry like that little girls don't do that that's not ladylike however

if that little girl chooses instead to express her frustration with the lego with tears to start bawling crying she is rewarded by the parent the parent comes over and goes oh you poor thing you poor little girl oh i know i know i know you're annoyed with the lego so the little girl is kind of reinforced to express her frustration through tears and that little girl could grow up to be a woman who expresses all sorts of emotions sadness and anger to express those emotions through a distorted filter of tears. And you end up with a woman who cries because she's angry. And then society turns around and calls her hysterical or irrational.

Why are you crying? The situation isn't sad. You're crying, but it's not sad. What's going on? You're mad. Are you mad, are you crying the situation isn't sad you're crying but it's not sad what's going on you're mad are you mad are you you're hysterical I can't entrust you with any position that requires any responsibility

because you'll get too emotional because you're crying because you're angry I'm going to give the job to him he punches walls even though he's sad and neither of those positions I'm going to give the job to him. He punches walls. Even though he's sad. And neither of those positions can be.

Of any benefit to anybody's mental health. Because. They are both. From the perspective of emotional intelligence. Quite irrational positions. So it's worth. for our own self-care to re-evaluate we'll say our life and our childhood and some of the messages that we were given at a young age that we have ingrained as absolute truth regarding our gender and how we must behave in accordance with that and that's my hot take on that i think that's possibly where it starts it's it's societal rules as expressed to the parents or through

school or then you know exploited by advertising when you're an adult by trying to sell you an unrealistic idealized version of your own gender that you can never truly live up to. You can disagree with that if you like. I don't mind. My hot takes are even hotter this week. They are hotter for longer because I pour them into my fragile masculine mug with its stainless steel vacuum walls last week we spoke about three very very famous Irish

monkeys and I got very positive feedback from that, you all seemed to enjoy the monkey stories and then I received a very cryptic Twitter direct message the other night it was about 3 in the morning

and all it said and it's one of my favourite direct messages of all time look closely at the Fitzgerald monkey which is now a potential contender for the name of my next book so when you receive

a direct message now like I said last week as well I get a lot of direct messages I don't get to read all of them I respond to some when I check in and this one just caught my eye look closely at the Fitzgerald monkey

what a beautiful phrase so I immediately had to start googling Fitzgerald monkey. Which took me down. A bit of a rabbit hole. A good you know. A Wikipedia and a Google rabbit hole. Which I adore.

And. I started to look at the name. Fitzgerald. Now immediately when I hear a name like Fitzgerald this excites me because I'm a lover of Hiberno-Norman history in Ireland. The Normans were, they were kind of half Brit, half French. They were the first invaders from the British Isles. They come over from Wales in the early 12th century.

And the Normans had invaded Britain about a hundred years previously to when they invaded Ireland. They invaded the Anglo-Saxons. And the Normans themselves were nothing but French Vikings

they were Vikings that settled in France and were given the area of Normandy but anyway when I saw the name Fitzgerald I know that Fitz is the French word for Fee which means son so it means son of Gerald

and in Norman history I am very interested in a man called Gerald of Wales, who was a Norman. Now, I don't know. I think he was. Gerald of Wales was he was a Norman noble and he was also a historian and he was he had some religious title. He might have been a bishop or a monk or something. and he had some religious title. He might have been a bishop or a monk or something. But anyway, what Gerald did,

and this was very soon after the Normans invaded Ireland. This was maybe 20 years. Gerald wrote a book called Topographia Hibernica, meaning Topography of Ireland. And Gerald was a Norman historian who wrote this book in Latin about what he saw in Ireland. And like I said, Ireland had been recently conquered, so you would have still had Irish tribes living under Brehan law. And Gerald wrote this book in about 1190, which basically portrayed the Irish as fucking nutjobs. And on looking back, a lot of people say that the stories that Gerald had about Ireland were because he was Christian.

And the Irish were kind of half Christian. St. Patrick had come over 300 years earlier, but ancient Irish Christianity had been distorted and warped, and it got mixed in with Irish mythology. I spoke about the voyage of St. Brendan a few podcasts back. But Irish ancient Christianity, before the Normans came over, was unnoticeable from standard, we'll say, continental Christianity. There was no internet. There was nothing. So the Irish invented their own Christianity. Gerald is seen as somebody who constructed a colonial narrative about the native people of Ireland

to portray us as completely bizarre, irrational savages in need of civilized conquering. And all colonialism requires that. All, you know, if one civilization is to nationalistically control another, it requires a narrative that portrays the colonized as savage and, you know, subhuman and in need of civilization. That's what the Americans do it now by using the word democracy. Let's bring democracy to the Middle East. My hope.

But anyway, so Gerald wrote this book, Typographica, Hibernica, and it's very entertaining. It's fucking nuts and it's got beautiful illustrations. And I'll go through some of the bizarre claims he made about the Irish as he saw them. Whether they were true, whether he actually saw them, whether he was recounting stories or whether he was flat out lying, like I said, to justify colonial narrative remains to be seen but it's still one of our earliest external texts about what ireland was like which is a shame because it may be distorted but it's still great crack um he was up around uh mullet um which is up near Mayo, I think. Not sure. Apologies if it isn't.

But anyway, he claimed that there was an island there and that when people died, the corpses, they don't putrefy. He said that when the island was scattered with corpses in perpetual freshness that refused to decompose which sounds a bit mental but then I got thinking about that and there's this there's this thing that happens in Monster anyway, I know it happens in Limerick

called Soap Mummies I don't know if you've ever heard of this but Limerick has a fierce amount of limestone Limerick is built on limestone and this weird thing happens corpses in limerick when they're buried the lime in the soil okay leaks and mixes with the fat of the putrefying decomposing body in the soil okay and when you mix lime and fat you get soap

that's what soap comes from soap is lime and fat so certain corpses buried in limerick they develop a crust of a bizarre soap like substance that preserves them it's called saponification

making them soap mummies so I do wonder did Gerald comeonification making them soap mummies so i do wonder it did gerald come across a couple of soap mummies it's unlikely though it's unlikely it could have been a bunch of lads sleeping on an island and he assumed that they were dead and then went on now that's the only one of gerald's claims about ireland that i'm willing to entertain with some science and rationality because he was off his rocker he claimed as well that the island of Ireland was populated by

a type of bird called a barnacle goose which was half bird half fish and he claims that barnacles that used to hang off rocks would suddenly that these were actually eggs that would hatch into these geese

that were half goose, half fish and they were completely genderless because they never had sex they just came out of these barnacles and then he said that the Irish used to eat these barnacle geese on feast days because they were half fish and half bird and therefore

not meat he had no love for Limerick Limerick at the time that Gerald was there in the 11th century would have been it would have been ruled by Vikings, it would have been a Viking settlement so this is what Gerald had to say about Limerick

Dovanald king of Limerick Dovenald king of Limerick had a woman with a beard down to her navel and also a crest like a colt

of a year old which reached from the top of her neck down her backbone and was covered with hair the woman thus remarkable

for two monstrous deformities was however not a hermaphrodite but in other respects had the parts of a woman, and she constantly attended the court, an object of ridicule as well as wonder. The fact of her spine being covered with hair neither determined her gender to be male or female,

and in wearing a long beard she followed the customs of her country, though it was unnatural in her. Also within our time a woman was seen attending the court in who partook of the nature of both sexes and was a hermaphrodite on the right side of her face she had a long and thick beard which covered both sides of her lips in the middle of her chin like a man on the left her lips and chin were smooth and hairless like a woman so apparently in limerick there was the king's girlfriend was half horse half human and both male and female at the same time and then the same crack was gone up up in in connoct but this was half man half woman but split exactly down the middle now either gerald is completely telling fibs,

because, you know, he also said that thing about the genderless birds that are born, the fish birds that are born from eggs, or else, you know, Ireland in that time genuinely had quite a liberal and accepting attitude to transgender people, and Gerald was over shaming them with his Christianity I don't know he could have been a fibber one particular quote from Gerald that stands out for me as being of historical interest and importance is if you remember last week I was talking about the origins of the Irish. And I had a hot take about the possibilities of the Irish arriving from Morocco via Spain. Now only recently in the past 15-20 years by tracing the Irish DNA did we find out that the Irish did in fact come from the western coast of Spain around that region.

western coast of Spain around that region and Gerald has a quote from you know the 11th century that says the Irish's custom is to be armed with three kinds of weapons namely short spears and two darts in which they follow the customs of the Basquialness, the Basque people. He also said there are veins of various kinds of metals ramifying in the bowels of the earth which from the same idle habits are not worked and turned to account even gold which the people require in large quantities

and still covet in a way that speaks their Spanish origin. So back then he was Gerard spotted a similarity between the people of the Basque region where the Irish genetically come from and the Irish living in Ireland then so the fact that we came from

the coast of Spain and the Basque country that was staring us in the face from the 11th century in Gerard's writings so that's interesting but back to the bullshit some of the best shit in Gerald's book about Ireland are the illustrations

now it does contain an illustration of the bearded limerick horse princess but it also has an illustration of an Irish chieftain hugging a goat and the goat is about as tall as the chieftain standing up. And the goat and the man are shifting with tongues while the goat is on a boner. Another illustration which might be my favourite and which fully kind of depicts the savage irrationality that Gerald was trying to get across about the Irish.

Is there's this lovely image of a fella chopping a horse to bits and what Gerald said is that when the Irish would get together that one man would chop a horse into

pieces while it's still alive and then they'd get a big tub like a big huge bucket and underneath it they'd boil the bucket so it's boiling alive and then they'd get a big tub like a big huge bucket and underneath it they'd boil the bucket so it's boiling water they fucked the bits of the horse into this bucket so it makes this mad horse soup and then the leader of the clan the male leader would climb into the boiling bucket of horse soup and and everybody would gather around, and eat lumps of horse out of the soup, while the man was standing in this boiling soup bucket,

eating the horse too, and bathing in the horse bloody soup broth. Fucking madness. And how I always read this, is one of the things that distinguished the normans and made the normans so good at what they were doing in as warriors is their use of cavalry and horses the normans were fucking brilliant at that when william the conqueror came from normandy to take over britain and i'm talking 1066 he took a load of horses and boats from France

to Britain which is madness at the time that is a huge undertaking bringing a lot of horses with you but that's one of the ways that the horse as an archery is one of the ways that the Normans conquered the Anglo-Saxons so what this communicates to us is that the horse would have been seen as a very noble animal not something to be eaten because we don't eat horse now because it's a service animal and to suggest that the irish were cutting up horses and making them into a soup that they all bathed in and ate from is to show how truly uncivilised we were. A major theme throughout Gerald's book is that the Irish were surrounded by wonderful natural resources but we were too thick and barbarous to actually exploit them. He said that we still lived in forests, that we

had loads of fertile pasture that we grew nothing on that we lived mainly off cattle that we were too thick to grow food we had no fruit um and then again when you when you show that there's horses around and instead of figuring out that we can ride them or use them for battle we chop them up and have a big soup orgy that is the most damning kind of critique of the native irish people and communicates a message because it was written in latin to not only the norman king of england but most importantly to the pope that the irish are a nation with no natural rights and in need of conquering because they're animals in need of civilizing. If you want to see Gerald's book, I think it's available in, is it the National Library of Ireland possibly? I think the National

Library of Ireland has a copy and the original copy of Gerald's book that you can get a look at, has a copy and the original copy of Gerald's book that you can get a look at but I'm certainly going to try and find a copy myself because it's just gas I love that that's brilliant and on one hand it's a shame that one of the kind of who was recording the history of Ireland a thousand years ago was somebody who wanted to conquer us but at the same time it is entertaining to have this conquer us but at the same time it is entertaining to have this bizarre depiction of anti-Irishness which carried on for many many years that right there is the genesis of the thick paddy archetype so how did I get on to this how the fuck did I get on to this oh yes the direct message look closely at the Fitzgerald monkey so I started doing a bit of research about Fitzgerald and monkey.

And I found something very interesting. Which I would have been quite beneficial to last week's triad of monkeys. Triad of famous Irish monkeys in the podcast. The Fitzgeralds are, they're a very early Irish Norman family. They're one of the first, like I said. Now, I don't know whether they come from Geraldus Gerald, who I was just talking about there,

or another Gerald, but they are from Gerald. And the Fitzgerald coat of arms, when you look at it, has got two fucking monkeys in it. So, again again we're talking 1150 whenever when the Fitzgerald's would have started so about a thousand years ago what the fuck are a pair of monkeys doing on a coat of arms of an Irish Norman family what's going on here Of an Irish Norman family.

What's going on here? We already had. Tony the monkey. From up north. Whose skull was found. The Barbary Moroccan ape. Whose skull was found. In the.

Ancient Irish ring fort. 2500 years ago. Now we've got a 1000 year old monkey. Two of them. On the Fitzgerald coat of arms. So I did a bit of research. And apparently a young lad called John Fitz Thomas,

the first Earl of Kildare, right? When he was a little baby, he was sleeping in his bedchamber and a fire broke out in the castle, right? And when this fire broke out there happened to be a pet fucking monkey in

a cage who was in chains and when the fire broke out the monkey broke loose from his chains rescued the little baby john fitz thomas and took him to safety away from the fire now we're talking a thousand years ago. In Ireland lads. And a monkey's after rescuing a baby from a fire. So this monkey rescued the baby. And the Fitzgerald family were so. Grateful. That the monkey had saved the baby.

That they incorporated. Two monkeys into the family crest. As the guardian. So if you're Fitzgerald. Your family crest contains two monkeys into the family crest as the guardian so if you're Fitzgerald your family crest contains two monkeys so there's the fourth famous Irish monkey the Fitzgerald monkey who rescued a flaming

baby and that again that sets my head afire wondering you know whatever about the monkey 2500 years ago where did he come from like where did what the fuck were the Fitzgeralds doing with a monkey in Kildare monkey 2500 years ago where did he come from like where did what what the fuck were the Fitzgerald's doing with a monkey and killed there a thousand years ago and the only thing they can think of and rationalize is that as Normans the Normans did

travel quite the Normans did reach Africa you know so it's not the maddest thing in the world to think that the Normans might might have taken a couple of monkeys from Northern Africa and maybe brought them to Ireland. So there you go. Normans as well, they were interesting. We refer to the Normans as the Old English. When the Normans, they did conquer us and they did it brutally but the normans intermarried with the irish chieftains and were quite respectful of our culture and they started

to take parts of our culture into theirs and vice versa and by about 300 years after the Norman invasion the Normans themselves were speaking Gaelic they were speaking Irish and this is what led to I think it was called the second Tudor invasion the original English that had gone to conquer Ireland had so much crack here that they were like fuck England we're Irish piss off

and then we had to be reconquered. So that's what we call the old English. And people who have names like Fitzgibbon or whatever, who have Fitz in their names, they come from the original Normans. Fitz meaning son of, like in Irish, O'Brien. O, son of Brian. Mac, son of. And that is the kind of compromise. Fee, Fitz, son of Brian Mac son of and that is the kind of compromise

Fee Fitz son of so there you go actually I wonder is the name Fitz Gibbon anything to do with monkeys cause like Gibbons, Gibbons are monkeys I'd love to look that one up so there's one thing

just cause it's on Twitter this evening that's been playing on my mind and kind of bothering me a bit so there's an actor called Mark Sellings he used to be in Glee

which was like a teen drama there about 10 years ago so anyway Mark Sellings was caught about a year ago with So anyway, Mark Sallings was caught about a year ago with an awful amount of child pornography. And this evening, it appears that he pled guilty to it, and tomorrow he was due to be sentenced. And this evening, it appears that Mark Sallings took his own life by suicide and it's a tough one

because the comments online appear to be celebrating and cheering his death by suicide and appear to be there's a lot of jokes about his suicide because you know he's a paedophile.

It's as simple as that. And it's a complex situation because, obviously, I'm fucking disgusted by anyone who is involved in child pornography or paedophilia. That's natural to be disgusted and to be furious over that. or paedophilia, that's natural to be disgusted and to be furious over that but at the same time I'm uncomfortable with people feeling that just because the person who committed

suicide is a paedophile that it gives them a free pass or makes it okay to then make jokes about suicide or to wish suicide on someone and when you do that you're not taking the piss out of him

you're taking the piss out of every person that's taken their life by suicide and i think it requires a bit of awareness around it and it's a tough one to bring up because that now sounds like i'm defending the actions of a pedophile which I am not at all I'm disgusted by it I'm angry by it and my initial rage and anger when hearing about it to be honest my initial feeling was oh fair play he's dead good riddance that was my initial my anger wanted this man to be dead and to be glad but i can't allow my anger and my rage that emotion to dictate my my thoughts and feelings because that then will not facilitate my own mental health My thoughts and feelings.

Because that then will not facilitate. My own mental health. So what I have to do. Is re-evaluate this situation. As it is a complex situation. Which requires in me. A complex reaction. And the complexity of that reaction. Is.

I'm disgusted by his actions. I wanted justice to be met out on somebody who does something that abhorrent but at the same time the complexity of this situation demands that i don't feel glad that he took his own life by suicide and that's a tough one that's a balance, that's a complex balance between those two things but I refuse to allow myself to be so black and white as to

kind of disrespect people who've taken their own lives just because of this one person and his abhorrent acts so it's something I'd like the people of the internet to kind of consider you know and that's not even separating the person from the crime it's about it's about every it's it's you can't take the piss out of somebody who took suicide without

without then stigmatizing further stigmatizing suicide itself and that's where it becomes important so i would have preferred if he just went to jail and was completely and utterly the most important thing i think with with pedophiles even though it initially we engage with this incredible rage about it for me the most important thing is that whatever sentence is handed out to them that they are removed completely from ever having access to another child or engaging in anything that hurts another child that's the most important thing i think removal um but our initial reaction when we hear about it our anger takes over and we want to fucking we want them executed you know that's that's how rage takes over our critical faculties and our mental faculties but for yourself and for myself all

i'm saying is that that's not a great way to um look after your own emotional well-being situations are complex human beings are complex and it we do ourselves no service by reacting to a complex situation in a binary black and white way do you get me i'm not defending him not for one second another thing as well there now i could go back and i could edit this and change it but you know what I won't I think I used the phrase committed suicide there which is a phrase I'm trying to remove completely from my vocabulary because the reason I say it is that that's regular parlance when I grew up how suicide was spoken about it was in terms of committing and the only thing you can commit is a sin do you get me so even the phrase itself to commit suicide infers in the language that it is um a sin and and you can't say that about a suicidal person instead what the correct way to

speak about suicide is to say the person died by suicide so i apologize for saying committed suicide but i left it in there so i could make this point um the fact of the matter is and it goes as well for people who are misinformed and ignorant and use phrases such as suicide being selfish and shit like that what we have to remember about people and suicide is that a person who takes their life is in a suicidal frame of mind and that is not a frame of mind that you or i as we'll say mentally healthy people can relate to, we can't judge them by the rational rules that we ourselves have, do you get me, so they can't commit nothing basically, now don't allow that short section of the podcast there which dealt with some pretty real shit, do

you know, I went from talking about Irish history and monkeys and a lot of good, fun, crack, mad stuff to getting very serious there all of a sudden. I'd like you to kind of have a bit of awareness around not to allow that to drag you down or to feel uncomfortable because part of destigmatizing the mental health conversation in general is about making it regular normal parlance life contains unavoidable pain as i've said before and it is okay to jump from

a conversation that is frivolous to something that is a little more serious and sad and that's okay and don't let that bring you down instead experience it as a very real emotion we can have ups and we can have downs in this podcast do you know what i mean that's all part of the podcast hug so like i said to you about you know if you're out walking and the weather is a pile of shit and you're allowing that weather to influence your mood and to bring it down don't do that accept that the the weather is it's just going through a down phase now you know and growth comes from that so it's okay for us to drift in and out of topics of varying levels of seriousness for us to drift in and out of topics of varying levels of seriousness and some people might think too you know jesus is that not a bit disrespectful to jump from you know 11th century monkeys or

whatever the fuck i was talking about to something as serious as you know mental health issues and i'm like no no it's not really because i can speak about it in a respectful fashion. What I'm not being is solemn, but solemnity serves no real purpose. I can still be very caring and passionate about something without needing necessarily to be solemn. Solemnity serves pomposity, like in religion and in the military and in the law. So we're now 50 minutes into the podcast and I think it's time for our ocarina pause, the digital Angelus. Every week I play my little Spanish clay whistle which is growing on me more and more especially when I consider the genetic lineage of the Irish in Spain. When I play this ocarina I do feel consider the genetic lineage of the Irish in Spain.

When I play this ocarina, I do feel like one of the savage Irish that Geraldus was judging. But I'm going to play my ocarina for a little portion of time and insert a digital advert.

Well, I don't insert it. The company that runs this podcast, Acast, they insert a digital advert. Well, I don't insert it. The company that runs this podcast, Acast, they insert a digital advert. And depending on your geographical location, you may or may not hear this advert. If you are lucky enough not to hear the advert, you will hear a beautiful ocarina. If you do

hear the advert, I will ask you not to fast forward, because that might earn me a couple of pence. Here's the ocarina. 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. What'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. We'll try and make it sound like one of Gerald's mythical barnacle geese. Sounds more like a barnacle turkey with no bollocks. A barnacle turkey sucking helium. Alright for the lucky few who've heard the ocarina, you enjoyed that. The other people just got sold some bullshit. What else was I doing this week? I was looking at... Because something came up in my inbox.

As you know, as I mentioned before, I used to go to art college in Limerick Limerick School of Art and Design years ago and I received a fantastic fucking education there it was great crack because I was shit at school and then I got into art college and it was like fuck me I can be creative this is unreal and that's where I started to learn about critical theory and how I learned how to deconstruct culture so I could turn it into my own creative works but anyway when I was going to the art college back then I was mad to do something with like video or film but the facilities didn't really exist there was no facilities that existed then but there's a new course in the art college now and i've just seen it it's only about two or three years old called photography film and video

and you can get a look at it on the i think it's on the lit website or whatever if you're interested in it but it looks really fucking cool and it's the type of course that I would have loved to have been in the art college when I was there especially now because Limerick has got this thing called Tri Studios I think basically because of Brexit Game of Thrones was being filled up in Belfast

and now the Game of Thrones studio is after moving to Limerick so Limerick is going to become over the next few years, our main industry in the city is going to be the filmmaking industry, which is class if you're in any way creative. Because Limerick has got the makings of like a Berlin.

It's pure cheap. The rent down here is pure cheap. Culture is fucking class. There's a lot of empty, large spaces if you want to be an artist. And the art college in Limerick, Limerick School of Art and Design, is fucking class. There's a lot of empty large spaces. If you want to be an artist. And the art college in Limerick. Limerick School of Art and Design.

Is fucking amazing. It's world renowned. And I'm pure proud of it. So take a look at that course. Photography, film and video. Because I think the CAOs are up now. And even if you're thinking of going back to education. It could be a good bit of crack to have.

In the context of Limerick becoming. The future of Limerick being in the film industry. I'm always going to promote Limerick. You know that about this podcast. Because we've been given a bit of a hard time. Getting misrepresented in the press. People have a lot of misconceptions about the place. A lot of Gerald's myths still exist about Limerick.

People think that we bathe in horse soup you know so I'm always going to try and promote it I forgot to recommend an album last week because I was so excited about the monkeys so what I'm going to recommend the last album I recommended was

John Prine by John Prine and I got some great feedback off that I was glad to see that unbelievable songwriter so what I'm going to recommend this week is he's an artist called Scott Walker bit of a

lunatic but Scott Walker would have been the Justin Bieber of the 1960s and then one or two albums in he was like fuck this. I don't want to do this pop stuff. I want to do some weird shit. So he released an album called Scott 4.

Which is. It's just amazing. It's kind of a highly experimental. Classical. Slash pop piece of work. And Scott Walker over the years. Has gone from Justin Bieber. To we'll say. Justin Timberlake when he did Justified and teamed up with the Neptunes and got a bit cool but now Scott

Walker has just went full lunatic he's work from the 90s onwards has been highly highly experimental you know he went off to a studio for like three weeks to record the sound of himself punching a a side of beef and put that into a record and he's got a a lyric

I was listening to last week I can't think of the song but one of the lyrics is I'll punch a donkey on the streets of Galway and he repeats it about 19 times

so listen to Scott 4 by Scott Walker unreal album thank you to everybody who is supporting the Patreon account repeats it about 19 times. So listen to Scott 4 by Scott Walker. Unreal album. Thank you to everybody who is supporting the Patreon account. Good few people giving the equivalent of a cup of coffee or a pint or a Mars bar once a month. And the collective efforts are really keeping this podcast going.

So thank you very much to all the people on Patreon. And if you would like to contribute to the patreon of this podcast it is patreon.com forward slash the blind boy podcast and you don't have to it's a suggested donation if you like it still gonna keep doing the podcast but i really do appreciate it it's fair play to you fucking hell um so at this point of the podcast i like to read out a few questions that you ask me jay diddly asks would love to hear you speak about the melanesian cargo cults jay that question is so fucking good that i'm not going to answer it because cargo cults are so brilliant that they deserve their own podcast i'm'm not going to answer it because Cargo Cults are so

brilliant that they deserve their own podcast I'm not even going to tell you what it is don't even google it I will do a podcast on Cargo Cults and thank you for reminding me because that was definitely creeping around my unconscious as a potential fucking podcast

episode MSCMS asks what would you like your non-irish listeners to know about limerick i think i just previously answered that before i read your question in a feat of yorty ahern inspired youngie and synchronicity that calls for a drink out of my um fragile masculinity stainless steel mug i'll play it for you Fragile masculinity stainless steel mug. I'll play it for you. Listen to all that masculinity in the mug.

Neil Lynch has got... It's not a question, it's a statement. It's a little story. We'll read this out. 1970s, Cregan. A goat. Children loved him. He was called Joe he died and he was

buried with a cross out of back garden that night there was a huge gun battle between the IRA and British soldiers the British army

claimed to have killed two gunmen the next day they found this grave and they dug it up thinking that it was the IRA gunman. It was actually Joe the goat. R.I.P. Joe, the IRA goat.

He he he he he he he. Fucking gas. Yart. Go on Joe. Lorna says, Just became a patron this morning, meaning to do it for a while can't stress how much I fecking love this podcast

every week, no kidding you bring up stuff I've been thinking about or really resonate with would love to hear you talk more about introversion as I identify with this too but love listening to anything you chat about really sound, thanks very much Lorna that's very kind words

thank you yeah introversion like i'm cautious even about using the label even though i've you know i i would never and i even though i probably did already i would try and avoid labeling myself as an introvert all right because labels are never a good idea, whether applied to other people or applied to yourself especially. So I would avoid saying I am an introvert if I can. What I would prefer to say is that I have a tendency towards introverted behavior and for me what that means basically is my I just prefer spending an awful amount of time on my own that's I'm happiest that I get my energy from myself whether it be reading or I could spend hours a day fucking around in my studio making music going for walks on my own I just happen to

I love my own company and I never get bored I don't know what the feeling of boredom is like to be honest I'm always occupied by something and I'm very very I'm a very happy person 90% of the time the only time I'm unhappy is when I receive a piece of sad news but that's fair enough, you're supposed to be unhappy then but I'm never actually unhappy for as a mood I need to be triggered into unhappiness for a rational reason

so that doesn't mean I don't love hanging out with my friends do you know, I do absolutely adore it I just don't do it very often maybe once or twice a month I love

hanging out with the lads and having a few jars but I wouldn't be a nightclub person I would like a relatively small group of people and genuine conversation and a few pints

I love that but I kind of have a limit then where after a few hours of talking I just disappear off onto my own and I fuck my headphones in and listen to music

because I love music so much and that it doesn't calm me down it just brings me back to a base level I find extroverted activities to be incredibly draining on me a little bit you know and they take quite quite a lot out of me so if I'm around a lot of people for too long

I'm kind of like I'd love to just be back on my own again but to label myself an introvert could result in emotional unhappiness because then with that label comes what you never want. What I found when I was younger and especially when I was getting like agoraphobia and account of my anxiety, you don't want to be telling yourself that you can't be around other people. You don't want to be telling yourself that you can't be around other people. Or you don't want to be telling yourself that like, I hate being around other people. Or I am unhappy around other people. These things can be challenged. Just because you have an introverted personality doesn't mean that engaging in extroverted activities needs necessarily to be negative it just means you don't do it loads i don't like seafood do you know what i mean but i'll occasionally have a cotton chip some people want to eat seafood all the time and that's fine some people are extroverted

they get their energy and they get their happiness from human interaction and being in groups of people so that's brilliant and when they're on their own they can start feeling quite negative or they can start feeling a little bit down or bored so if you're extroverted you don't want to you know label yourself an extrovert to the point that you're afraid to be on your own because I do know people like that I know extroverted people who are afraid to be on your own because I do know people like that I know extroverted people who are afraid to be on their own because they feel they'll get sad or bored or frightened and that too is a kind of an irrational position so it's about acceptance some people are introverted some people are extroverted it's not a condition it's just a way of being. You know? And there's nothing wrong with that.

And I'm creative. So creative people tend to be quite introverted. It requires... Like this podcast is nothing but the result of me being stuck in my own head all week. I have non-stop continual conversations with myself about whatever the fuck. And then that gets farted out into your ears. On this. Do you know what i mean john d asks how did your appearance in the new train spotting film coming about come about um that came about as a result of another writer's procrastination train spotting the screenplay not the book not train spottinginspotting, the screenplay,

not the book, not Trainspotting 2, the book, but the screenplay for Trainspotting 2 was written by John Hodge, I think in conjunction with Danny Boyle. And they were procrastinating writing the script and putting the film together. And John Hodge said it in an interview, when he was supposed to be sitting down to write Trainspotting what he would do is end up going online and just looking at a load of our videos

online as a way to completely procrastinate doing his work and then he got obsessed with watching our videos and I think the only way he got himself out of his procrastination was to eventually write dad's best friend into the film and he rationalized it by saying that the characters in train spotting 2 if they were real what they would be doing is looking at our videos he felt that the bandits would that the characters in train spotting would be fans of the Rubber Bandit songs. So that's how we ended up in Trainspotting. Emmett Burke says, I received a really strange item sent to me in an unmarked package via Parcel Motel. It turns out it's a Masonic apron.

What should I do? I can send you photos. It's a mad looking thing, made out of the strangest, softest leather. Fuck me, Emmett. Yeah. Please send me photographs of the strangest, softest leather. Fuck me Emmett. Yeah. Please send me photographs of the mystery Masonic apron. Jesus Christ. I want to find out more

about that. Sent a Freemasons apron. Brilliant. Please Emmett. Please send me the fucking photographs. At Rubber Bandits on Twitter. Immediately please. Jack Selby. How would your critics react if the book was under a different pseudonym is Celebrity Life

a hyper real simulacrum I think if I had released that book and didn't call it blind buy if I called myself some stupid Irish writer name fucking Declan Ryan, something normal like that, then the book would have gotten a lot more respect from critics, like I mentioned

before, the literary world did not like that somebody from, we'll say the celebrity or internet world stepped into their space and was like how are you getting on I can write now so I received what you would call mixed reviews

on the book which is quite strange lads because it has 156 5 star reviews on Amazon you cunts but yeah I do think

I think the fact that em cause the book of short stories is like there's no novelty to the inside of it it's like a proper attempt at fucking decent proper writing with imaginative short stories however the outside of it is blind by with the plastic bag in his head and it's quite a commercial front cover so this, this, the reaction that I got from some critics

left me very disappointed because I felt that they were literally judging a book by its cover without giving the inside the kind of, the fair trial that it deserved. But fuck them.

Who cares? It was voted Ireland's favourite book and I sold a lot of them. I didn't give a lot of them. I didn't give a shit. A.M. Kylie asks, What's whirring around your brain when it comes to separating the art from the artist? Um,

I do separate the art from the artist. Purely, especially when it comes to music. Like, I can't not like a piece of fucking amazing music or like an incredible painting if the artist is objectively an absolute prick we'll say someone like R. Kelly

I fucking love R. Kelly's music what can I do it speaks to my soul I love the vibrating molecules of air that he produces as music however the man himself has got some

several very shady allegations against him uh regarding underage girls and that makes me sick so what i do when i separate the art from the artist i obviously don't want to support R. Kelly, but I can't not listen to his tunes, so I try not to, we'll say, share his stuff online, and then if I am listening to R. Kelly's music, I make sure that I'm listening to a YouTube clip or something whereby I know that he is not benefiting from it monetarily. That's the only thing you can do. If you want to separate the art from the artist

and you still love their art enjoy the art but don't patronise them don't you know maybe illegally download I'm not telling you to do it but I'm just saying that's an option the artwork is out there but it doesn't mean

you need to put money into their pockets and further support them if they've done something illegal or abhorrent helen asks that's the last question i'll take now helen asks i'm a teacher and i'm finding that an increasing number of my students have aspirations to be famous this invariably takes the form of becoming a youtube star are similar what advice would you give them um our desire for for fame is essentially just it's it's our desire for approval from other people you know which which we have humans are social animals i don't give a fuck who you are even myself i say that i'm introverted but at the end of the day i'm a human being I'm insecure so I like it when other people say that they like me I try not to let this define who I am or to live my life by seeking other people's approval but I do like other people's approval when you're striving to

be kind of famous which is something I can relate to because there was at once a time in my early career where I was like yeah I'd like to be not famous like I've explained before I don't want that type of fame where you're walking down the street and people know who you are but I do like creating work and a lot of people see it and like it I did reach what we would call fame in particular around horse outside you know we'll say intense fame around 2010 when horse outside come out there was about a week where we were the most famous people in the country i was in a hotel room that rte put me in and the newspapers would come in underneath the door every morning and the rubber bandits were on the front page of every single newspaper the front page because we were beating x factor in the the fucking the race to number one christmas number one when christmas number one actually

meant something and i do remember feeling a very very intense emptiness because it's like there it is in front of me it's like there you go now you're the most famous person in the country there you go are you happier and I wasn't at all I was not happy but up until that point I truly and genuinely believed whether it be conscious or unconscious that if I can just become famous then I will be happy if I can just become famous then everything will be okay and everything that worries me will be gone and when it happened it was no and I was left with an existential crisis and an emotional gulf because I did not understand how I still felt unhappy and sad even though my bagged face was on the front of every single paper I had technically gotten the goal that I thought I

wanted and all I was confronted with was utter emptiness and many years on from horse outside fucking eight years on I now realize that like true happiness must come from within if you're searching for happiness in the approval from other people whether that be fame or even fucking losing a lot of weight and thinking that people desire you you will never ever find happiness in that you're much more likely to find a degree of happiness in the journey that you take to try and reach that goal but once you do reach that goal you will be left with an emotional gulf because happiness can only come from genuine self-acceptance genuine self-esteem and what that is and I've said it before and I'll say it again I am no better than anybody else and nobody else is better than me and it doesn't matter to fuck

what my behavior is, it doesn't matter if I got Christmas number two in the charts or I was on the newspaper, that aspect of my behavior does not define my value as a person, and it does not make me any better or worse than any other human being. And that's why I was left with an emotional gulf. So what I strive to do on a daily basis is to just love myself and have self-compassion, and be kind to myself, and have an understanding of my own emotions. And through that self-care and self-compassion and understanding of myself that then allows me to have compassion

and understanding and empathy for other people and through that then comes a kind of a real lasting happiness and I mentioned like I said 10 minutes ago you know I'm I would consider myself to be a very happy person but I have not reached a state of continual fucking happiness the reason I'm happy is because I work daily on my

mental health and I work on my happiness and I don't allow myself to become dependent on the approval of other people because it's bullshit it's utter bullshit most people don't give a fuck about you most people are too worried about themselves

to be giving too much of a fuck about other people you know you must what you should say to those students say to them you are better than nobody else and nobody else is better than you and if they want to become a YouTube star

there's nothing wrong with that that can be great crack that can be very fulfilling especially if they're creative but get them to focus on the journey and the process get them to enjoy making it and to enjoy doing it that's where the happiness will be in setting goals and realizing them in the journey and learning but that fame that fame is not going to bring them happiness what they're doing is they're trying to fill a hole inside themselves with external praise and you're better off working on that gulf working on that hole that's in you than trying to fill it with nonsense you're filling it with fucking

dog popcorn you're filling it with popcorn for dogs, they're selling dog popcorn in Lidl, because I saw it there during the week, and I bought a packet of it, I don't even have a fucking dog, but I bought it because it was chicken liver flavoured dog popcorn, and at that moment I knew the recession is over lads, alright I'll leave you off this week, that was a long enough rant was it that was nearly an hour and twenty was it em go in peace I'll be back next week em

look after yourself as always look after yourself look after your friends whatever the fuck do whatever keeps you happy and contribute to the Patreon if you want leave a review of the podcast like the podcast

things like that and hopefully next week we will be 16 weeks at number 1 and we will have reached the grand goal of Brian Adams when he released his song for Robin Hood Prince of Thieves and got 16 weeks at number 1 hopefully we're going to be there next week

Eeyart Number one, hopefully we're going to be there next week. E-Art. 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.