The Blindboy Podcast - Shovel Duds

Episode Date: November 15, 2017

Blindboy talks Trump, Conor MCgregor and Pine Martens Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

hello you bandy legged chandeliers I'm going to have to drop in something there hello you bandy legged chandeliers em welcome back to podcast number four which I'm very happy to announce is still at the top position

in the iTunes charts we're still at number one because of ye pricks for continuing to subscribe and to give it reviews position in the iTunes charts we're still at number one because of ye pricks for continuing to subscribe and to give it reviews and to recommend it to your friends please continue subscribing and

leaving pleasurable reviews don't leave shit reviews that's the sound of my android cigarette because it's 2017 actually my electric cigarette at the moment is I'm charging it into my laptop you know so it's

it looks like I'm smoking the internet if someone walked in they'd think I'm sitting down like if someone alright if someone from like 2012 no 2011 got into a time machine to 2017 now. And saw me smoking my electric fag.

Hooked up to my computer. They would just go. Fuck sake. You can smoke the internet now. That's what's happened. Smoking the internet. No flying cars. Nothing like that.

This lad's going to own a place smoking the internet. Which is one of the criticisms I have about Blade Runner, you know the film Blade Runner which, the events of which take place in 2019 they're smoking these cigars they don't have electric fags, you'd think they'd sort that one out wouldn't you?

fuck's sake yeah so here we are, podcast number 4 last week's podcast which fell on wednesday november 8th the year of our lord 2017 i had uh some jazz piano playing gently in the background and i asked you um if it was pure and iron I was going to get rid of it but I asked ye tell me what you think of the jazz piano because I wanted to include it to create a lovely warm feeling

a lovely warm gentle ambient feeling and most of ye said please keep the jazz piano I really enjoyed it so I'm glad of that so this week what I've done is

instead of playing that little phrase on a jazz piano I whipped out my guitar and now it's jazz guitar yeah there you go baby and

just to fill the space. Do you know. And the other thing too is. I've got a very noisy computer tower. That makes a humming. A humming noise. That most people won't notice. But I fucking will.

And the jazz guitar. Or the jazz piano. It kind of um. I don't know. It masks it a bit. So that makes it easier for me. I don't know it masks it a bit so that makes it easier for me I don't know

next week I'll be playing something something different I might play my ocarina I don't know where it is now I got an ocarina over in Spain it's a

a little clay instrument it's a good crack actually you hold it around your you wear it like a lanyard on your neck and it's made out of clay and it's a good crack actually you hold it around your you wear it like a lanyard on your neck and it's made out of clay

and it does little whistling noises it's very good fun thank you for subscribing and thank you for leaving reviews that is the life blood of a good podcast. That's what keeps the podcast, the momentum going and shit like that.

Let's start this week's podcast with a hot take. A boiling hot take, right? We'll talk about one of Donald Trump's tweets. In a jocular fashion. Now, the thing is with Donald Trump's tweets. Because we've had him around for a year now, you know, so. We've never seen anything like him, you know.

We've never had somebody behave in such. You know, the most powerful person in the world. We've never had the most powerful person in the world behave in such an explicitly unprofessional fashion. That's not to say that all American presidents are fucking saints, because they're not.

It's just Trump wears it on his... wears it as a t-shirt he lets us all see it but you know Obama was sound still dropping drones on Pakistani children Trump freaks us out

because we we unconsciously understand that you know America is essentially a rather large colonial empire and colonialism doesn't exist without evil but if the leader appears to be somewhat balanced and sound

I don't know it makes us feel calmer but not with Trump usually when he tweets something usually to Kim Jong Un or about Russia it's quite terrifying. More terrifying than a Jack Russell terrier with human hands. That'd be fucking freaky. But yesterday, or today, sorry, he tweeted,

He tweeted Why would Kim Jong Un insult me by calling me old when I would never call him short and fat Oh well, I try so hard to be his friend and maybe someday that will happen I mean that is exceptionally irrational

statement by a world leader That is um That's your mad aunt. After one and a half bottles of West Coast Cooler on Facebook. He's a couple of characters away from... Sharing a passive-aggressive minions meme. That's where the man is at right now.

And the thing is as well, Donnie... Statistically, you're the oldest person well man to be elected US President so it's not factually incorrect to call you old you silly boy

and also I did not mean to gender Donnie's tweet there by comparing it to your mad aunt on Facebook after her west coast cooler he's also behaving like your mad uncle

who gets kicked out of Tesco for thrusting cock first into a punnet full of bruised plums that's what that tweet is like and the most absurd facet of Donald That's what that tweet is like. And the most absurd facet of Donald Trump's tweets, I think, is that

his tweet is now US foreign policy. He's the president. It's his words. He's talking to a world leader. It is now US foreign policy. And that's nuts. But, apples and oranges, lads.

I mean okay. Fair enough that is. Objectively unprofessional. And insane behavior. But. The US have been known to. Drop a bomb. On.

A wedding of 250 people. Innocent people. If they think there's one terrorist there. That's what they do do what else did they do in the 1980s they deliberately flooded California, the CIA flooded California with cocaine to fund

Nicaraguan rebels it's called the Iran Contra Affair and the journalist who exposed that Gary Webb died in very mysterious circumstances in 2004 he committed suicide by gunshot

so the official report says but a lot of people think he might have been killed don't know and some people were saying, I'm enjoying the podcast, Blind Boy, but I don't agree with a lot of your politics, so please don't talk politics. This is not politics.

This is not fucking politics. It is a pantomime. It's reality television. It's not politics to speak about that fucking tweet. What a fucking nutjob. Here's the thing. This is how we get to the hot take, the boiling hot take that I have. It's a conspiracy theory, if you will. If you look at the world economy, right?

If you look at, you know, where the most amount of money is being made right now in 2017 aside from the obvious uh oil and the petrochemical industry which is you know that drives a lot of the world economy specifically with america because america i think they've got a thing called petrodollars. So if you sell or buy oil in the world, you must pay for it in American dollars. And this activity strengthens the US dollar. So this is one of the reasons why America is so heavily invested in the oil industry. It's not just to, You know have supremacy over that. It's their economy.

Their money. Relies upon fucking petrodollars. Which I think was. It was introduced by Reagan. If not Reagan it was Nixon. One of those boys. I'm not sure. I have not checked this on Wikipedia.

This is from the top of my head I heard that in a hairdresser's in 2013 when I was getting my hair cut in Dublin and the hairdresser was talking conspiracy theories here's my conspiracy theory

if you trace the amount of money that's been made in the world today next to the petrol industry and the fucking the arms industry of course it's big data it's Facebook Google

these are the cunts who are making the most money and how did they make this money they make the money by farming our data you know I mean to Google and facebook you and i are nothing but data everything we do that this podcast that you're listening to the things you click on you know your browsing activity this is all data that is sold usually to advertisers and this

generates income. Therefore, in a conspiratorial fashion, what if the world leaders, such as fucking Donald Trump, Kim Jong-un, Vladimir Putin, all these incredibly strong characters, are not actually politicians but rather carefully orchestrated

baddies like in a pantomime or in wrestling what if they're all powerless baddies that are there to make us feel nothing but outrage and we express our outrage through clicks and shares and tweets and data.

The more Trump is a giant Mickey, the more we get angry and the more we tweet. The more we share. Creates content. get angry and the more we tweet the more we share creates content and this creates money for Google and Facebook so that's today's hot take to begin the podcast what do you think of that

that em Donald Trump tweeting and warbling like a bereaved heron with a disturbed nest. A mother heron who's returned to its nest to see that all its eggs have been crushed. Warbling and screaming towards the moon. That that's what Donald Trump is. And this is a carefully orchestrated

piece of reality television or wrestling and that script is written by Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk don't mind me I'm talking out of my fucking hope alright next

what are we going to talk about now what did I get up to what did I get up to during the week fuck all well I fell afoul of some Conor McGregor fanboys on twitter because

I called out his behaviour, his recent behaviour now here's the thing with me and Conor McGregor. Now, I know nothing about sports. That's the first thing I'm going to say. I don't have the gift of understanding sports, but I'll stick an eye in every so often. I've always defended McGregor

because I was of the belief that there's no way he could be that much of an asshole. I believed that he's playing a character, like in wrestling, that McGregor has brought the baddie character from wrestling to MMA, and that's what he was playing in order to service his brand

and to make headlines. So that's fair enough. And I kind of admired that. I thought it was cool. I liked the theatre that he brought to the sport. And as well, you know, he's an incredibly dedicated person. The best in the world at MMA from what I can see. To achieve that degree of excellence,

a person tends to be balanced and focused and is able to set goals for themselves and behave in a professional fashion and if someone was that much of a prick they would never have made it that far because they'd be they'd have glassed someone outside Supermax

in Ennis so I always forgave him I always said no it's a character he's playing he's probably really sound in real life and he's dedicated and professional and he behaves himself but recent events have changed my opinion so I tweeted

McGregor is a fucking fool first the homophobia then this referring to of course an incident at the weekend where Conor McGregor was at an MMA match and his friend had won and he hopped into the

ring he was a spectator he hopped into the ring to congratulate his friend a referee got involved because McGregor's not a fighter and he's in the ring he's a spectator and McGregor took not a fighter and he's in the ring he's a spectator and McGregor took umbrage to the

referee accosting him and got quite physically aggressive to a fucking referee which to me suggested that his ego has gone absolutely nuts

he reminds me of Tupac Tupac the year before he died you know, started to believe his own bullshit and started behaving like a gangster, even though he wasn't,

because his mother didn't raise him that way. Tupac went to drama school. But McGregor's acting like a cock, so I called it out. And oh boy, did I upset some fans. Now, here's the thing. I believe that it is possible to admire a person's success. McGregor is a legendary fighter and an unbelievable entertainer. His success is unparalleled. He's putting Ireland on the map. But at the same time, I can believe that while also holding the conflicting belief that he is behaving like a langer.

He is. I can hold those two beliefs, conflicting beliefs, at the same time about the same person. The McGregor fanboys were not having this at all. I got some comments such as, why call him a homophobe? I don't understand how that isn't hypocritical. He grew up in a violent area during the Crumlin-Drimna feud and that's been distilled in his personality. Right, first of all, that's bullshit because I know lads from Limerick who grew up in that situation. And they're not all homophobes. Some of them are disgusted by homophobia. Another person said, Stop kissing the ass of the mainstream. Surely you, more than anyone, know about colloquialism in Ireland

and how most people have used that word in a completely generic way. His buddy had just lost a war. Referring, of course, to the word faggot. McGregor used that word to refer to someone being gay. Now I've had that word used against me all my life. Nothing to do with gayness to police my masculinity yes that word is used in many contexts, usually to call someone a sissy or to say that someone's weak, all negative things

to specifically to use it to refer to gay people that is exceptional that's not something that in my life I hear an awful lot of, most people know that that's a line you don't life I hear an awful lot of most people know that that's that's a line you don't cross it's a that's a it's used in a very its intent and context is very hateful in that fashion and that's what I heard McGregor doing he used that word to

give condolences to his friend and who had lost a match to basically say I know you lost a match, but the guy you lasted to, I heard a rumour about him. I heard a rumour. He's gay. And he used that word to refer to his gayness, to connote that he is weak and lesser. And fuck that, that's homophobia. He said it with no cameras around. So that means that, to me, that behaviour suggests that when Conor McGregor thinks of someone who is gay, he thinks that they are a lesser person. That's homophobia to me, so I'm calling it out. Fuck off, Conor. You're classed at fighting, but I'm not into that.

And here's something, too, that I'd like to bring to the attention of the lads who are defending him. I say lads as well, because, to be honest, it was all men. The fanboys i criticized an aspect of his behavior yet they were not able to separate that criticism of his behavior from him as a person they viewed it as me making a global assessment of the entirety of conor McGregor right if you can't separate those two things when looking at how someone else is criticised chances are

yourself when you fuck up or when you do something that you would view as bad or other people view as bad you are unable to separate that behaviour from your own value as a person. And that is going to have quite a negative effect on your self-esteem and your mental health. What McGregor did with the homophobic remark and with slapping that ref and with the casual racism,

those are examples of terrible behaviour which deserve to be called out and deserve to be reprimanded in some description but that doesn't necessarily mean that Conor McGregor is 100% now a bad person it doesn't mean that he is a bad sport, a bad boxer, he's still

a class boxer and you know what he probably really loves his child, he probably went home that night after making the homophobic remark and you know what he probably really loves his child he probably went home that night after making the homophobic remark and you know gave his child a hug and give him a kiss he probably has love in his heart at some points of the day and is a good person in other respects but his behavior is often despicable your behavior does not define who you are as a human being. It does not define your intrinsic value. And that is not, that doesn't excuse behaviour.

It just means that, you know, we all have intrinsic value. You do, Conor McGregor does, and it's okay for behaviour to be criticised. Now in order for some people listening now, because I'd have quite a liberal audience, who might actually disagree with me there and go, no, fuck that. No, fuck that. But why do I believe this?

I'll tell you why. See, it's important to separate a person's behavior from their value so that you can allow space for that person to grow and change. When you start globally condemning a person 100% as good or bad, that's a form of dehumanization. And it is important for a progressive and compassionate society to recognize every human being's intrinsic value despite their behavior their behavior can still be punished but we must recognize the possibility for growth and change and why to prevent future victims generally if conor mcgregor is allowed to assess his behavior you know with time and with some humility

you know he might see what the rest of us see and will never say something homophobic again he may possibly grow to be a person who is so ashamed of his behavior and some of the things he does and recognizes its impact negatively on other people that he might become an advocate against it we can still chastise him and call him a prick and call out his behaviour and allow him that space for change which I believe all humans have the capacity to do bar

a few diagnosed psychopaths I don't think McGregor falls into that category just a bit of a silly buy but look that's my opinion. The reason I kind of have that opinion

too is it makes me a more compassionate and a more happier person. If I go around the place globally labelling people as good or bad it's not great for my own self-esteem. It's not good for my mental health, to be honest it means that I'm

I'm carrying around a toxic anger inside myself that kind of goes around in this shitty circle you know so by kind of directing that anger in a healthy fashion towards somebody's behavior

but not towards them as a person it just allows me to have more compassion and to be happier like kind of in a Buddhist way almost you know what I mean but look that's my opinion that's how I like to live my life you can disagree with me if you like we'll still be friends another thing that I notice and it's a strange intersection in the particular type of lad who defends Conor McGregor's behaviour

and of course I'm not speaking about every Conor McGregor fan or any every MMA fan I'm speaking about a certain type of lad who tends to defend Conor McGregor's behavior. They're very macho. They're quite masculine. They aspire to be macho and masculine. They're lads in quotation marks. I hate to use the metaphor of the alpha male and the beta male because I don't believe in that. Not in today's society but I also believe that effective

communication happens in the language of the receiver so I'm gonna speak that way for a little bit now the most beta male thing that you can do is to not

stand up to the alpha who's behaving like a fucking cock to not stand up to the alpha who's behaving like a fucking cock, to not stand up, to follow the leader of the pack who's bullying people, or who's saying shitty things, or who's being abusive to women, and to follow them, and to giggle and laugh, and to defend them. That makes you a beta male. So if you want to be an alpha, call it out. But of course, that's all bullshit.

Alpha male, beta male, it's fucking bullshit. I'm merely using that metaphor in the hopes that the type of person who believes in that stuff can kind of see where I'm getting at, you know? Call that shit out out it's not acceptable and it doesn't make McGregor any lesser of a fighter he's still classed at fighting alright what will we do

with him at all hey Siri what's up with Conor McGregor these days I found something on the web about what's up with Conor McGregor these days? I found something on the web about what's up with Conor McGregor these days. Check it out. No thanks. Can you take me to...

Where are the Pine Martins in my vicinity? Which one? Tap the one you want. No, I'm looking for pine martins I want to be serenaded by a choir of pine martins are there pine martins in my vicinity can you get me a stort?

At least. Yes, Siri, can you get me a stort? I would like a stort. Siri, are there any Pine martins in my vicinity ok check it out this is fucking pointless this is the future

that we live in this is 2017 I'm here aching for human connection and asking a robot to connect me

with a pine martin or a weasel or an otter. And what's worse is there was a genuine part of me that was terrified that she'd actually order a box full of pine martens to my house. Siri, why are we all so very lonely? She doesn't give a fuck. She doesn't give a fuck. She doesn't give a shit. That's not the barren clinking of a wine glass, by the way. It's a cup of tea. Lovely warm hot tea.

Siri's a bit of a gas cunt, isn't she? Can't say her name now or she'll pipe up. Hey, Siri! No, she's not listening she's after making me highly impatient of recent about three years ago I started using Siri

and I used to have to I used to have to speak in an American accent because she didn't understand my limerick accent but now she's learnt it completely you know completely learnt my accent because you know to listen to listen to me in case I say Reebok or Nike and then I go on to Facebook and I'm having

Reebok and Nike appearing in my news feed that's how it works Siri's collecting your data too that's the trade off these apps and these phones they make our lives a little bit easier and the contract is we give them all our data yeah she's after making me a little bit impatient you know if I lose my phone I just roar

hey Siri, I don't want her to hear me I just roar that and she I don't want her to hear me, I just roar that and she pipes up and goes, I'm here so I don't lose my phone anymore, I just scream her name and my phone says I'm here, and the other day I lost my belt and I had somewhere to go and I had no

belt on my pants, and I roared, hey belt, and felt like a dickhead, but then I got really angry, I got really angry and impatient that i couldn't scream from my belt and it's siri's fault i would hate to speak to a human being the way i speak to siri you know i just bark demands at her all day so what i've started doing and you're gonna think i'm nuts you're gonna think i'm making it up but i'm not i've started doing and you're going to think I'm nuts, you're going to think I'm making it up but I'm not, I've started saying please and thank you

to Siri and that little gesture alone takes away some of that weird frustrated anger that I have when using her just please and thank you and sometimes she appreciates it so that's what I've started doing

for my own kind of. Emotional wellness. Because I found this. Crazy negativity coming up. Impatient. I'm mad to take a Baraka. Vitamin. I don't know where the Baraka are.

I want to scream out. Hey Baraka. Hopefully that'll be the case. Someday. My shoes. I'll be able to shout for my shoes shout for my belt shout for my pants they'll all listen to me

sell me more pants sell me more shoes and the the circle continues okay we'll give it one more lash hey Siri what is a pine martin

the european pine martin known most commonly as the pine martin. Yes. Yes. Sing to me. Now we're talking, Siri. Look at this now. As soon as I fucking say it in an American accent she listens she can respond then what is that only yank privilege

right there that is Yankee privilege she will not listen to the fizzy princely lilt of my hiberno English tongue but if you're a yank yeah no shortage of pine martins there.

The Yanks are spilt for Pine Martins. And authors drowning in them over there in Oregon. And fucking Albuquerque. Non-stop Pine Martins up the walls. Yankee privilege, boys. Actually, they probably don't even have

Pine Martins in America. They've got Wolverines or something. Hey Siri, have they have pine martins in America they've got wolverines or something hey Siri have they got pine martins in America here's what I found on the web for have they got piney mountains in America oh fuck off

that pine martin tangent was so long that I'll probably now have to speak about the cunts I don't know have you ever seen a pine marten? Do you know what I'm talking about? They're these gorgeous little, um... They're like weasels or stoats, but they have lovely little faces and these pointy ears.

You'll see them around Limerick very rarely. I've only seen about one or two in the wild. They're related to polecats, I think. Polecats are another small, stout-like creature of which there's a population in Charleville. Pine Martins are classic. They're my favourite

Irish animal, hands down, because they're beautiful. They're so cute. And they're horribly endangered because their fur is so delicious. Delicious for wearing, not for been yeah they've been trapped and killed off there's only a few left and there's some prick

of a counsellor up around Monaghan or somewhere and he wants to kill pine martins he wants to legalise their killing because he's a ghoul but pine martins are class and we should encourage them because they kill red squirrels. And red squirrels are an invasive species. That are wiping out the native grey squirrel.

So pine martins are actually the solution. So if you see a pine martin. Give him a high five. I love pine martins so much. That if you are subscribed to our Spotify if you look up Rubber Bandits on Spotify

I've got some musical playlists and I've got one playlist called Objectivity Class Tunes which is tunes that are class in an objective fashion and the Pine Martin is the avatar for that playlist so I'm not just talking out of my arse I'm a dedicated

pine martin enthusiast so fuck you Siri em I am trying to earn a living from doing this podcast so there's gonna be some advertising inserts at certain points so I'm gonna

make a little space now for an advert. The first omen. I believe the girl is to be the mother. Mother of what? Is the most terrifying. Six, six, six. It's the mark of the devil. Hey! Movie of the year. It's not real, it's not real. It's not real.

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Help CAMH build a future where no one is left behind. So, who will you rise for? Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca. You may or may not have heard that, depending on what you use. Someone asked me on Twitter during the week, would I be interested in doing, making two podcasts a week? I'd love to do that, but I just don't have the time.

I'd absolutely love to do two podcasts a week. I tell you what, if I could do one podcast that was just about music, as in the history of music or, you know, how the history of music production, audio examples of the music. And you just can't do that really. Unlike iTunes, because you're using other people's music with no license. So for that reason, no, I'm going to stick with one podcast per week. If I can. What I might start doing is recommending one album a week. That if you want to hear a new album if you're like, I'd love to

and I don't mean songs now I'm going to go straight album so for ye, if you're like I want to hear a new album get stuck into it I'm going to suggest a new one every week the first album I'm going to recommend to ye

is Blue Valentines by Tom Waits quite apt actually because the jazz guitar that I'm playing in the background there is quite inspired by Blue Valentine but it's a fantastic album it's from 1977

I think and it's Tom Waits, it's late Tom Waits in terms of his jazz period, just before he went kind of nuts in 1980 and started the more experimental stuff. I think everybody can enjoy the album Blue Valentine's by Tom Waits. Doesn't matter what you're into, it's just one of those perfect albums give it a lash okay so usually what I do is I go on to Twitter

at rubber bandits and I ask ye to ask me what ye would like me to discuss on the podcast and I'm gonna do that right now Erica asks what's the most interesting story from history that you know And I'm going to do that right now. Erica asks,

What's the most interesting story from history that you know? I'll tell you a story. It might not be 100% factually incorrect, but it sure as fuck is interesting. In medieval times, during the Crusades in the middle east there was these islamic lads called the hashashin

and it is where we get the word assassin from if you've played the assassins creed video game it's those lads assassins creed 1 anyway the hashashin were called Hash Hashin because they smoked

loads and loads of hash all the time they were kind of fearless assassins but what their leader used to do, a fella called Hassan something he used to get the young recruits

and he would bring them into a garden in his fortress that contained loads of food and beautiful trees and fountains and tons and tons of women for them to have sex with and loads of hash, non-stop hash all the time

then he'd get the recruits take them away from the garden fuck them into prison, take the womenits, take them away from the garden, fuck them into prison, take the women away and take the hash away. They'd go into withdrawal and then he'd tell them, that place that you were with the women and the hash and the food, that was actually heaven.

And if you, you know, go and kill and sacrifice yourself, you will return to that garden once again. If you die, you will return to that garden. So the assassins went out and were absolutely fearless. They would give their own lives for whatever, for the cause, just to return to this garden of women and hash and beauty. It is this situation is what has led now to the mad bastards in ISIS who blow themselves up. The suicide bombers who blow themselves up for the 40 virgins. It comes from this lunatic who was lobbing lads into his class back garden.

That's pretty interesting. not sure how factual it is because I'm not a historian I'm a man who reads Wikipedia Brian Lide who is the he's the film review man for entertainment.ie asks

talk about Black Rain and Blade Runner do you know what Brian those two Ridley Scott films are so, I feel so passionately about those two films that I might leave it for another podcast Black Rain and Blade Runner

like, the book that I wrote Gospel According to Blind Boy when I was writing that book in my head visually about 80% of those stories are Black Reign and Blade Runner that's how I see them with that type of

lighting and that type of ambience and soundtrack so I might leave that for another podcast because I devour those films I watch Blade Runner once a month at least Blade Runner's my period basically

that's a bit of male privilege for you there Gaz wants me to talk about language I'm a Scot in England and have no idea what yort or gas contest are the old shitbag dictionary might be worth a few minutes musings. Cheers.

Well, yort, yort is a limerick exclamation mark. It's a word that's specific to limerick. It's about 15 years old. Very specific to the north side of Limerick I you know

I've been using it for many years you know you say yart whenever I can say yart as a question mark you go into the shop yart do you understand yart that was a class film yart

yart is a beautiful word it can be whatever you want it's an exclamation mark and it's unique to Limerick and Cork can fuck off if they think they're having yurt not a chance lads, even off language gas cuntist a gas cunt

that's an Irish thing but for me and Limerick a gas cunt it that's an Irish thing. But for me and Limerick, a gas cunt, it's a specific type of funny person. You know, it's almost like if a person's humour appears to be quite dark or something, or if a person's humour appears to be quite stupid, you'd go, Yeah, yeah, he's a bit of a gas cunt though. Gas cunt suggests that there's a depth. Someone who's a gas cunt

they've got a depth behind whatever it is they're speaking about. Which is why, over the past few years, we labelled what we do, the rubber bandits do, as gas cuntism. Which is our artistic movement, gas cuntism. is our artistic movement gas cuntism

which borrows a lot from the dada movement of the early 20th century which is basically when society becomes so full of pain and hopelessness that

you must strip it away to its basic absurdity and the only appropriate response that art can have is to not reflect it accurately but to respond with an equal amount of irrationality and absurdism but a certain comforting humour within that absurdity and absurdism. That it came about when World War I, you know, when World War I happened.

You have to remember that there was no, a war had never been waged using industrial technology before. using industrial technology before the idea that a machine gun one gun could mow down hundreds of men in 20 minutes that had never ever been seen by human society ever

before that wars were fought with cavalries and guns and the odd cannon it was brutal but it wasn't one dude with a machine gun killing a hundred men and the dada art movement found this so hair pullingly absurd that the artist marcel duchamp got a urinal a urinal a toilet and he put it into a gallery and said this is art now and he did that in in 1916 i believe he did that yeah he did two months after the irish 1916 rising

and i have a theory not a theory i've got a something i said to the lads with a few joints in me, that the Irish 1916 Rising, which was a group of, you know, led by poets, painters and teachers, that they took on the might of the British Empire in this fabulous example of theatre, this theatrical display of violence and zeal that they knew they would never win the 1916 rising was at its core extremely absurd because they knew it would fail and

the fact that the Dada Manifesto was released in France a month later I'd like to contextualise 1916 as a piece of extreme Dada theatre and that might sound nuts

and it is a bit nuts but Dada came from futurism and the futurists they were very much about war and sacrifice as art you know I don't know if any of the leaders

in 1916 had an eye towards that or the futurists maybe they did they were smart boys and women sorry the women were written out of history of course in Ireland because they couldn't get their pensions there's a hot take for you I'm good at the old hot takes today

look gas cuntism is just it's a name I put on what the rubber bandits do because I studied a masters in art and that makes you a little bit pretentious that way one thing I said there actually that I'm gonna

I'd like to clarify on more because I spoke there about the women being written out of the role of women being written out in 1916 the other thing that was written out in 1916 and if you know our work you'll know we made a documentary on 1916

in 2016 you might find it online but one of the things I didn't get to get across in that documentary and it's something that kind of struck me is I mentioned there that 1916

was led by poets and painters and teachers okay but the fact is that those leaders were a very small, that was a small group, the people who fought but the fact is those leaders were a very small, that was a small

group, the people who fought 1916 were incredibly poor people from the slums of Dublin and around the country but mainly from the slums of Dublin people who because there was a thing called the

1913 lockouts a few years previously where the workers in I think in certain industries they tried to strike and then the police came in and didn't let them strike and then they were banned from working after that so they were unemployed

and living in slums and these are the people who died and took up the guns in 1916 but if you look at the way that history is told to us post-1916, if you analyse, you know, what is a painter, or a poet, or a teacher? Only an incredibly middle-class profession. So we've been sold this narrative of, what that basically says is, revolution, and having a gun in your hand and violent revolution against power is only acceptable if you are a member of the responsible middle class. A gun is a good thing in the hands of a responsible teacher a responsible painter a responsible lawyer but

what it also says is that a gun is not a good thing to have in the hands of somebody who was poor and works in a factory and that right there is a classist narrative that i think we've been sold the working class people at dublin were written out of our history in that respect it's like no no put the gun into the hand of the painter not the lad who works in the bread factory not him and what does that tell you about power in Ireland

I promised I wouldn't get political now but is that political or historical I don't know it's just something for you to think about and tell me I'm wrong on Twitter then if you want it's the whole part of it it's the whole joy of this and for any of my British listeners

you won't have a fucking clue what I was just talking about there because all of this was written out of your history and I don't want to give you the guilt trip but I'm trying to give you a lovely gentle warm podcast hug but you were not thought about the 800 years of colonisation and brutality

that the Irish people faced at the hands of the British Crown and it's okay, you didn't do it you didn't do it, you're grand the other thing I like to say too is I like to view the Irish struggle as not something against the people of Britain but against the the forces, the forces of power

that also kept the ordinary English person under the boot as well there I go I've gone political again I've gone Marxist fucking hell I'm gonna get nice gone Marxist. Fucking hell. I'm going to get nice and Marxist now in a minute when I try and sell you my book.

Yart. Ross asks, talk about your audiophilia. Even your atmospheric beds on the podcast are cool. Thank you very much, Ross. Yeah, I said on episode one that I'm an audiophile, so... I just love sound. Do you know, I love sound in every description.

And... The other thing, I'm a multi-instrumentalist, you know. I can play fucking... Guitar, piano... Bass, a bit of drums. And I'm a producer as well. So I adore sound and music, it flows through my very being, I don't believe in spirituality, or an afterlife, but if I did, I do think I'd die

and become a piece of music, a musical note, that's because it resonates with me so much that Jesus lads, the way a piece of music can make me feel fuck me, do you know, especially when I can achieve musical flow which is quite fucking rare, I can achieve flow in writing but musical flow that's just like having my soul wanked

em the atmospheric beds that I put into the readings I have them there very specifically to the atmospheric beds that I put into the readings I have them there very specifically to to get you to immerse yourself fully in the story I love how certain sounds how the brain responds to certain sounds how sounds can relax the brain and draw you in

so I select certain ambient sounds that will enhance the experience of the story for you and give you a better a more intense mood and we mentioned blade runner earlier on and the upcoming the short story that i'm going to read for you in a little bit today I created most of that using a Yamaha CS80 synthesizer which was the synthesizer that was used to create the soundtrack to Blade Runner which is my favorite movie soundtrack ever hands down and the sounds that you hear underneath the stories um they mainly come from synthesizers and effects units you know i'd program the synthesizers to get exactly the atmospheric

sound that i want but then other sounds are from audio recordings that i make that i then manipulate using effects i always carry a a zoom stereo recorder around with me everywhere and I'll record anything like I could be in a shop and if I hear the sound of a fridge and I like the sound of that fridge I'll go over beside it and record a minute of it to bring it back into the studio and fuck with it

last week the scaphism story I slightly regret adding a drumbeat to it. Some people found it a little bit distracting to the story. So, do you know what?

When you start adding a drumbeat into something atmospheric, it stops being atmospheric and it becomes more of a song. Do you know? So, the short story I'm going to be reading to you today has got no drumbeat.

It's pure atmosphere. Right, well you must have sent me about 80 questions. I'm going to get back and answer more of them next week. Because there's so many that you sent me. And there's some really good questions in there too that I can't wait to talk about. But we don't have time this week. My book, The Gospel According to Blind Boy, has been nominated for an award.

It's nominated for Best Newcomer at the Irish Book Awards. And I would invite you, if you enjoy the short stories that I've been reading over the past few weeks, please go into Google, look for the Irish Book Awards, and vote for The Gospel According to Blind Boy in the Best Newcomer category. Please, if you don't mind, if it's not too much trouble, I'd appreciate that.

I wouldn't mind an award. Be good, Crack. Let's move on, now at the end of the podcast to a short story. Okay? I'm going to. To a short story. Okay? I'm going to read you a short story. This story is called Shovel Duds. And it's very pleasant. I'll be honest

I'm telling you this now from the interrogation room I'm in a fair amount of hassle be careful who you confide in online because they will rat you out. This is the crack. I can't stop looking at the videos. I watch them on the bus on the way to work, underneath my jacket, so no one else sees. I watch them on my little cousin's Asus tablet, when I'm over on Aunt Maeve's for Sunday dinner.

I tell the family I'm going to for a big long shit and then I take Jack's tablet and watch them in the bathroom on earphones. I never logged out the last time and Jack couldn't sleep right for months after. Aunt Maeve knew it was me but never said nothing I watched them on LiveLeak sometimes you'll get the really new ones on Twitter

before the accounts get deleted it looks so fake when you watch it it looks like Terminator or Alien. But the thing is, I know it's real. I'm looking at a photograph right now. I saved it. Because they get deleted pure quick. Yellow desert sand.

The same colour as the shit part of a sponge cake. And this lad in a blue shirt lying on his back. Wearing this normal blue shirt like my dad would wear. Like the ones the boys from Skolida wear under their jumpers. He's got one hand on his stomach. The hand kind of twisted into this claw shape and looking stiff. His foot is resting on another lad's head. The other lad is dead too.

Around his body is this dark black pattern that fades into red. The spill of blood. When I see them on my screen they don't look like pools of gore. They look like the outlines of countries that haven't been discovered yet. That's what they're the bulb of. This lad here on my phone lying in the sand in his blue shirt. Not sure

if he's in Syria. Could be a Coptic Christian from Egypt too. He has that big forehead. But he's surrounded by an irregular blood pattern, darkening as it soaks deeper. It's so red you could paint the door with it, and not a soul would notice. You know the videos are real when the lad's head peels. In the cinema, when someone is shot, they crack their head like an egg. If you watch it, the bullet goes in the front, makes a little hole, and then the back cracks open and squirts the blood on a wall behind him, like water pistols. But in real life, on the internet, when a person is shot, their head peels open, like the skin of an orange opening up, or

a fist turning to a palm. When lads get shot in the face on the internet with a big gun like an AK their face opens up into this rose blossoming in fast forward these lads are fucking deadly they truly don't give a fuck I watch all their videos most days in work it's quiet I burn off the hairs with a torch but after 10 runs I'm ready for

cutting throats. Hair burning is no crack. Their hair is fat and bristly like strands of bale twine. It melts down to the skin like the fuse on a firework. Then lots of little strands of the acrid bone smoke flake up my nostrils and my eyes go dry. strands of the acrid bone smoke flake up my nostrils and my eyes go dry. Padraig lances throats. He feaked Eileen McQuinlan on lunch break and got me to smell his finger. Smelt like the bottle cap of a BPM energy drink, or a comfy bra after wearing it three days straight. Pure grapefruit.

Not sure I'd be too happy if some lad went around getting his friends to smell his fingers after me. But that's the game here. Padraig thinks I'm some sort of Egypt because I'm a girl. Reckons I wouldn't have it in me to cut the throats. Thinks he can shock me by making me smell his fingers. If only he knew how much I wanted to slit the throats. We work in an old hangar that used to be for small aircraft, but Mr. Bradley converted it into an abattoir. Bradley's alright. One of those ex-Brit hippies, small bit soft from acid, but old money. Now he runs an organic, miniature beef farm. Royal beef, fancy beef, tiny beef. Free to roam 23 acres of alfalfa and vetch, loaded with

assorted victuals to game the meat, Bradley says. They're short, black and white, belted galloways who only dine on acorns and hazelnuts for six months of the year their shit smells like Nutella they get cured into beef iberico we've zebu lads from Zimbabwe who wear guards on apples and corn for sausage meat pear sucking Dexters with long ears

like old man's balls and double chin gaiters holsteins and molasses and buckwheat with a type of malted weak beer for their supps the lot Bradley has the best organic bull meat in Ireland I burned our hairs and Padraig slits their throats Bradley does the butchering by his own blade

traditional slathering too not the machinated way we kill by hand their throats. Bradley does the butchering by his own blade. Traditional slaughtering too, not the machinated way. We kill by hand. To protect the meat, make sure it's bled and hung right. Any machinery we do have is hand operated. Cast iron crank elevating heist. Mounted on a trolley for transport to the bleeding zone, rolling hooks that clank on the wire, induction hardened pneumatic working platform for eviscerating, with a small conveyor for red and white offal, a brisket saw, hot skinning knife with galvanised edge, two hand splitting saw, hot galvanised steel. Non-mechanised tubular rails. With detachable chassis.

And a ten foot bloodbath. We are well equipped by. I wash it all down every evening when the two gone beans go off to tea. The bones of my day is on the hanging floor. It's down at the end behind the partition. Podrick kills. I burn. Bradley cuts, in that order. When I hear the screams next door, I actually shiver, like I'm on the bottom end of a rollercoaster going down.

It does this thing, this vibration thing in my head that travels all down to my limbs and flutters in my tummy, like shrinking white suds in a sink of dishes and it's the most real feeling say that out loud and they'd think I'm a looper the calves scream because they know what's happening next

dangling upside down with the hook through their hooves that's the scream that gives me the tingle if Bradley or Padraig knew, they'd go apeshit, but sometimes I frighten the bullocks before they get cut. I go to the pen and bang their cage with my house keys. Once I flash the flame of the torch at them, enough to burn their arses. When they get excited like that, their hearts beat heavy.

Then, when Padraig slits the throat, the blood gushes out with the pump, splashes out over the bleeding tray, onto the floor, and through the partition. Where I watch it rolling in Burgundy by, Padraig gets the raw blood pumped into his mouth and has to gawk like a baba. Tastes like bad kinds he says the terror

leaping out of a cow's jaws to me is like a feed of Ben and Jerry's to someone else how it changes in tone and pitch when the blade goes into the windpipe it's my one criticism of the ISIS boys they gag the lads during beheadings. You need

to hear how the scream changes from high to low to gurgly. That's the masterstroke. I saw a video last week. I watched it in the bathroom of Hook and Ladder in Limerick. Aoife's boyfriend was being difficult and I had to listen to her shite on about him choosing Fivicide over her. Anyway, I sat down in the cubicle and opened up Liveleak with the headphones on. It was this lad in a cage. Like in the zoo. Like where you'd have an aardvark or something. That sized cage. Miles out in the desert. He was Arab looking. And they had him wearing a bright orange play suit.

He must have done something horrifying because the ISIS boys were having none of him. But he was wearing this suit like a big orange pyjamas. And at the start of the video. He was telling some story to the camera. And then they had squiggly writing on the screen and it cut to shots of green fields with loads of bombs going off in the mountains. And bodies, bodies, bodies.

A montage of bodies lying on the ground, I'm telling you. When it's real bodies, they always look fake. I can't explain it proper. Then a hospital with children wearing masks. Then a beardy lad with a beard talking to the camera. He was holding a big gun and had on a green military looking vest. I fast forwarded most of the shite talk to get to the end. So beard lad was roaring to the camera and then yurt.

That's when it cut back to the orange playsuit man in the cage. They dragged the chains, pure fucking with him. The camera looked like the films, slow motion, like Fast and the Furious. Unbelievable detail. You could make out the hairs on his nose like. They obviously had the jumpsuit doused in petrol anyway. Because Beardy lit the chain. And yellow flames trailed up the lad's back.

And they hugged him. I swear the flames came over his back like he grew them. As wings. And they hugged his chest. His eyes had a queer expression. He looked more irritated than anything else but his hands seized with the agony of the fire. Couldn't bat it away.

Closest thing I could compare him to is when you're sleeping and you wake up frozen and you want to move and scream but you can't because you're stiff. I think that's what a person being burnt alive must feel. After a while, the lad was charred. Then the sick cunt on the camera zoomed into his burnt black face,

because his tongue was sticking out and bubbling. The air and fluid in his lungs and body were boiling and escaping all bubbly out his mouth. I felt empty and helpless, like nothing is real. Then my mouth started to water when his tongue bubbled and I said to myself, Kira, you're one fucked up bitch. I knew then I'd have to head to Syria. That's the only place for me. It's not that I want to hurt anyone. I'm not angry. But the vulnerability of any creature when it knows it's going to die is fucking beautiful. That look they give you. Where they're gone beyond fighting and just have this stare of handling all their power to you.

It's the same look a baby gives the first set of eyes it sees when it comes out. That's how it was when my cousin Jack was born and he looked at Aunt Maeve. It's the look the frogs gave me when I chopped them up with the sharp knives when I was nine. But by Christ, I need to see that look in an adult man. I want that powerless look behind the eyes of something that's capable of complex emotions. That's my buzz. Fuck slitting bullocks.

I'm not thick either, so I'm hardly chancing that shit in Nina. I'd get caught rotten. And also, their families would miss them and I wouldn't like to be disturbing the town like that. I'm not an asshole. But I need to get as far as Syria and have ISIS take me in and let me cut lads up and set them on fire. That's my vocation. I've been chatting to a fiend who's calling himself Malik on WhatsApp for three weeks. Found him through one of the Twitter accounts that uploads the videos.

WhatsApp is safe because it's encrypted. But Jesus, Malik doesn't trust me at all. He thinks I'm police who's pretending to be a girl from tip. And when he does infer that I might be legit, he asks if I've a brother who'd be interested instead. I've made it fair clear that I have no interest in religion at all. I haven't the first clue about their religion or what they believe. That's their business. I skip past all that in the videos. And they're in fucking Ardabig anyway.

I can't even be arsed checking Wikipedia. Reading isn't my thing at all. Malik says, That bit is grand. They don't care what my beliefs are. I reckon those ISIS lads don't believe anything either. Deep down, they're into feeling that power of killing. Same as myself. they have that addiction too

Malik says I'd have to leg it to Jordan or Turkey and snake across into Syria and that I wouldn't have a hope of making it as an unattended woman fucking gobshite freckly red haired girl from tip, offering to join them and he trying to talk me out of it

I'll cut my hair and pretend I'm a lad if I have to snort a load of burning bulls hair and make my voice hoarse and deep for the trip be like that one Grace O'Malley the pirate queen from junior sort history wear a big

stupid GAA jersey and shorts. With piss stains on them. Whatever. They'd get all the publicity in the world off me. Imagine me slicing throats and talking English into cameras for them. Sure that's ideal. He's a coward. Same balls crack as Padraig with the blade

doesn't believe I have it in me cause I'm a girl typical shit I knew if I was to get what I wanted I'd have to work harder waste my time putting in a load of extra effort just to prove to stupid fucking lads

that I'm right for the job so the day in question, I battled on, after a long old stint in Bradley's hangar. We'd done a load of the Zimbabwe Zebus, the small bulls. They're like little balls of muscle when they're dangled and thrashed around by the trotters.

Padraig gets freaked out that the knife will go through his wrist, so then Bradley has to come in and steady their legs when the puncher is made pair of fools pure thrilled with themselves when they need the two of them

to do a one man job then sticking their heads in over to the partition telling me to be careful with the torch when I can blast a full hide in under two minutes, I have it down, lads, relax. So we finished up anyway,

and Bradley and Parig went up to the house for jars of the homemade pressed cider, flat shite. I stayed behind, washing down the killing floors with borax. Normally, I'd hop for the bus straight after, but that night I stayed around. I'd say I was realigning the bone saw blades if they asked.

After three jars of pressed cider, the two apeshits would always get pathetic and order a taxi into town to stare at 17-year-old girls in tight tops above in Neary's lounge, arriving in with hangovers the next day and acting like they're doing a great job. After two hours, I stuck a head out the hangar and saw the lights of a taxi up the drive of the main house like clockwork. When it fucked off, I got to work. Dusk was bothering me, so I had to act fair quick. There were too many Dexter calves birthed last season, and they hadn't been inventoried

properly by Bradley. He'd never know if one went missing. Lazy prick. They're worth about 800 quid in meat. The evening had nice warmth to it and the coconut smell of new gorse flour came down off the hill on a breeze, settling the tang of sour cow shit. So I rocked on over to the Dexter pen with a bucket of grain and started shaking it over the fence. They all came over. They're the ones that only get fed pears, so they were gagging for a bit of grain. I spied one of the untagged calves, ushered her over to the gate and unlatched it,

had the wire noose ready and placed it around her neck. But she was a calm old bint in fairness to her. The sun was low but clear. It nearly had that desert quality, could have been in Jordan. I had an area prepared against the gravel pile and a load of bright orange curtains that my Nan threw out. I tied up the cow with a chain so that she hadn't much movement and secured her good to the inside window of an old Ford Cortina carcass that was scrapping in the dirt. I was using the camera on my iPhone 6, which was full HD. I had it on a selfie stick to get that professional feel that Isis had.

Nice and steady, no shaky wrist shite distracting from the action. I was going to use my arm to steady it and pull it back and forth like a pool cue. I'd spent the last week fitting out my nan's curtains into a basic cow suit shape with a few stitses on the sewing machine. I wrapped this over the chains on the calf who was calmed by the pile of grain in front of her. She was looking great, full orange jumpsuit. I had an old brown wig too that I got in the joke shop. Lobbed that on her head. The sun was at a slanty angle, giving a nice mood to it. Then I lashed on the petrol and lit her up.

I had the microphone up full to catch her screams. Bawling and howling she was. She was tied down good, trying to run from the fire but she could only trash on the spot rearing her front legs up like cattle don't jocking like a mare the flames ripped through the orange curtains

and I was getting right up close with the camera to capture her eyes she was only a suckling curtains, and I was getting right up close with the camera to capture her eyes. She was only a suckling, but she still knew when she was being ended and couldn't escape. She gave all her power into that camera lens. Perfect stuff. It had that passion. I hadn't the memory on the phone to capture the full char, but I got the best bits. Stink of Sunday roast and petrol off my hair. I covered over the black pile of bones with the gravel and disturbed the earth. Bradley wouldn't miss her and he wouldn't check either.

After I washed the evening out of my hair I sent the file to Malik on WhatsApp let's see the fucker turn this down this is art this will show him that I'm ready for Syria as good as any lad

I watched the screen for three minutes while it uploaded. Malik was online. I waited more for him to watch the six minute video. I was sick of his shit at this stage and felt smug as fuck. What is the meaning of this? I don't know what this is. Why would you send this? Malik typed. It's me showing you I'm serious, you apeshit. I'm ready for Syria. Make arrangements because I'm booking flights to Jordan as soon as I get offline. You get me, hun? Please don't. Please leave us alone, said Malik. There was no response.

Because the dickhead fucking blocked me. ISIS fucking blocked me on WhatsApp. Is he for real? What did I do? Like, I didn't sleep a wink with the fury. If I was a lad, they wouldn't give a roaring shit. Why would he block me? I was drifting off at about half five

when there was a loud kick on the downstairs door and my room lit up with blue. Malik, you fucking rat. Oh yeah, that was Shovel Duds. Cool new story. Off my book of short stories, The Gospel According to Blind Buy. Please buy it in a shop. Please. I'll talk to you pricks next week.

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