The Blindboy Podcast - The Divils Prayerbook

Episode Date: May 13, 2020

Blindboy speaks about Masks for all. Legalising cannabis, and grief Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bola bus you bougie bun cousins, welcome to the blind buy podcast. How is everybody? I hope you're chilled out and relaxed and not putting too much pressure on yourself. Because that's all you can expect of yourself right now. I have got, have I got two, yeah, two public service announcements before I begin this week. The first one, I want to speak about this, now this is not sponsored. I'm not saying this because it's sponsored or because anyone has asked me to say it. I just think it's a pretty fucking class thing it's a very well-kept secret and I don't understand why it's such a well-kept secret it should be something we all

know about but so are you a member of a library in Ireland right if not go to librariesireland.ie sign up to your local library you can do it all online and I tell you why if you sign up to your local library

for free which you're entitled to your library has a massive If you sign up to your local library for free, which you're entitled to, your library has a massive amount of free online newspapers, magazines, e-books and audio books, right? It's fucking insane, right? Go to librariesireland.ie and just create a library account they'll give you a library number if you don't already have one

if you don't already have a library card like you just have to check it out it's insane you can access a huge amount of newspapers right you can access a huge amount of newspapers, right, you can read them, all the newspaper, every fucking day, it gives you access to a website called Pressreader, right, where you can,

like I'm talking hundreds of magazines, for free, audiobooks, and then a shit ton of, a shit ton of books that like, I don't know, you might normally be spending money on your Kindle, or on Audible or something, to get audiobooks and Kindle books, or magazines, or subscribe in the newspapers, it's already there, free, paid for, by our taxes essentially, and I'm just shocked i'm shocked that how much of an amazing secret it is like i didn't know about it i didn't know so i think everybody during quarantine if you want access to newspapers magazines ebooks audiobooks at this ridiculously huge library go to librariesireland.ie and get yourself a library number you're entitled to it it's free our taxes are paying for it and i shared it on twitter right and a lot of librarians either got into my dms or said underneath the tweet they were thanking me

like a lot of librarians and that to me the fact that they were coming out thanking me for sharing it let me it i got the opinion that they're just scared that libraries are one of these things that the government are going to defund and if the government see that a resource isn't being used they go brilliant we don't have to fund it anymore i will hand it over to a private organization so the librarians were really glad that i'd shared it on twitter give it a crack i i signed up for it today and it's just one of those things where i'm like this is too good to be true where's the catch but there's no catch shit ton of free magazines the magazines are what i'm most interested in and yeah it comes with access to two or three apps so you can either have it on your desktop or even better if you've got a tablet if you've got a tablet that's the best one so that's my little

public service announcement the other one i want to speak on i want to talk to you about the importance of wearing face masks in public as a response to coronavirus now if you've been listening the past few weeks you know that i'm deliberately not mentioning coronavirus a lot. And that's, you know, it's a deliberate thing. You're sick to death of fucking hearing it. Right? It's all over the news. So I'm trying to provide a space whereby I don't want you going, it's time to listen to Blind By this week. And then it's me talking about the fucking coronavirus.

So I have been avoiding it because I want to give you companionship and escapism and a bit of fun, right? But however, I do want to mention this because it's really important and I'm conscious of the fact that there's a million people listening to this podcast. Alright, that's a lot of fucking people. So if I can get a message across to a million people, that can have a really important impact. So I want to talk about face masks. Now firstly, I'm not an expert on fucking anything. Like I'm certainly not medicine or coronavirus. I'm not an expert on fucking anything like I'm certainly not medicine or coronavirus I'm not an expert so the reason I'm speaking about face masks is who I'm listening to is an expert I'm talking

about Professor Luke O'Neill who's the professor of immunology in Trinity College in Dublin. I had him on this podcast about three or four podcasts ago, talking about viruses, but Luke is an expert. He's an expert in immunology, right? So viruses are his field, and he's a world-leading expert. And Luke has been going on non-stop on Twitter about why we all need to wear face masks when we interact with each other in public. When I say face mask I don't mean medical PPE. I'm not talking about the type of face masks that a nurse would wear or a doctor would wear.

the type of face masks that a nurse would wear or a doctor would wear what i'm referring to and what luke is referring to is a face covering right that covers your mouth and your nose and it prevents large droplets from being exhaled into a public space and this is what what Luke O'Neill is calling for. Not just Luke O'Neill, he's basing this on the consensus of other scientists in his field around the world. So here's the deal, right? And it's a tough one to get across. So what we need to be doing is all of us, when we leave our houses and interact with the public in any way, even if it's your one hour a week where you're going shopping to cover our mouth and nose with a simple cotton covering and the important thing it's it's not about this is where we have to make the strange leap in thinking and this is not thinking about

other people and thinking about ourselves this is where it'll get difficult because the concept of this it kind of flies against our culture a little bit okay so we are we live in a capitalist society we live in a society whereby we're focused on ourselves more than the group we're individualistic okay so when you suggest to most people wear a face mask what immediately jumps into our head is wear a face mask in the supermarket to protect ourselves that's that's not what this is about you're not scientists aren't asking people to wear face masks so we protect ourselves it's that you're protecting another person and then if that person is also wearing a face mask they're protecting you it really requires a kind of a collaborative cooperative trust model which is is a bit of a struggle because that that flies in the face of capitalism and where we are as a culture

so when you go to the supermarket this is what I do when I go to the supermarket I say to myself in my head I say coronavirus has no symptoms for one

week therefore I might have coronavirus and also the week the asymptomatic period appears to be the time when it's actually most infectious so before i go to the supermarket i say to myself i might have coronavirus and I don't know because I feel fine so I now have to behave as if I do have coronavirus so when I walk into Aldi I in my head I say I have coronavirus and I have to make real my goal today when I go into this shop is to make sure that I don't give this to anybody or leave it on any surface, that's my goal today, and it's, I tell you what, it's a, I tell you, for a mental health point of view, it's nice, because that's, for me, I'm engaging with quite a bit of empathy, right now is a time where like there's a global pandemic so

it's an anxious time and it's okay to be anxious and worried but being worried and anxious and engaging with fear they're very defensive and protective emotions that make you think in a self-centered fashion so and that's for me that's not good for my mental health if I want to be working on my mental health I have to be thinking about compassion and my relationship with other people and how my actions impact other people and when I engage with those thoughts I'm engaging with empathy and when I'm engaging with empathy that improves my mental health it's just a wholesome compassionate thing and it allows me to cope and grow when I'm not engaging with empathy and when I walk into Aldi and think all of these cunts are going to infect me I can't make eye contact with him keep

my head down get in and out as quickly as possible that's selfish and competitive and views other people as as a kind of a danger instead i prefer to go i am here to try and protect other people from what i may or may not have so that's the attitude that i take so i wear a cotton face mask when i go into aldi and not a lot of not a lot of people now I know you're thinking but blind boy you wear a plastic bag in your head I do but when I go to Aldi I don't wear a plastic bag in my head I wear a human face and I buy deodorant my own human face that grows on my bones not another person's human face that I wear um but so when I go to Aldi um I throw on my cotton mask I made seven of them from a couple of old cotton t-shirts that I had

lying around I just went onto YouTube and it's like how do you make face masks from old cotton t-shirts and I made them and I had a needle and thread and it took a couple of days and it was good fun it was enjoyable because I don't do a lot of sewing and I enjoyed the project so I've got seven cotton masks that are washable and I wear them to protect other people from droplets that are could come out of my mouth and my nose now here's the science here's here's the facts and the reason i'm confident i can say that these are facts is because i'm basing it on something that the matter hospital in dublin shared um on online so let's just say let's just say i'm in aldi okay i'm in aldi and i'm this is not sponsored by fucking aldi by the way it could be lidl it could be tesco it could be duns it could be whatever the fuck you want fucking donny buck fair if you're a posh cunt um i could be in Aldi and I'm beside the Brussels sprouts

and I'm wearing a cotton face mask that I've made myself out of an old t-shirt and I'm perusing some Brussels sprouts and my buddy comes over to me let's just call him Ross and Ross has asymptomatic coronavirus Ross feels fine but he's carrying coronavirus and doesn't know and Ross comes over to talk to me about Brussels sprouts I'm wearing a mask and Ross isn't and he's

carrying coronavirus there is now a 70% chance of me getting coronavirus. Even though I'm wearing a cotton mask. Let's just stay instead now. I'm at the Brussels Sprouts in Aldi. I'm not wearing a mask. But Ross is wearing a cotton mask made out of a t-shirt. And he comes over to me to speak about Brussels Sprouts. Now there's a 5% chance that i get coronavirus so because ross has worn a cotton mask and he has

coronavirus the large droplets are not leaving the mask and now there's only a five percent chance with close contact that i'm getting fucking coronavirus. Now, let's look at the ideal situation. I'm in Aldi, perusing some delicious frozen Brussels sprouts. I'm wearing a cotton face mask. Ross is over looking at some Pringles. They don't have Pringles in Aldi, do they? They have their own shit version of Pringles. They don't have Pringles in Aldi do they? They have their own shit version of Pringles. Ross is over looking at shit fucking Aldi Pringles and

he's got a cotton mask on as well. Now we both interact with cotton masks. He's got coronavirus but we both have cotton masks on. Guess what the probability of transmission is now? 1.5%. That's how big two people wearing cotton masks made out of t-shirts covering their mouth and noses having a brief interaction. It can reduce the chance of transmission from 70% down to 1.5%. And that is fucking insane okay so what we need to do all of us we need to absolutely and utterly normalize the wearing of cotton masks in public spaces okay learn to make them yourself out of cotton t-shirts or you don't even fucking have to lads all right what is a face covering it's a piece of material that covers your mouth and nose and prevents large droplets being exhaled into a public space it could be a scarf it could

be a bandana right it could be like i said a cotton thing that you made yourself out of a t-shirt, you can chance buying them online, but you know yourself that'll take a while, I'm not talking about PPE, I'm not talking about masks that doctors and nurses wear, it's a whole different situation, they're wearing masks to protect themselves, all right, because they're on the front line, all right because they're on the front line i'm talking about people just interacting um you want it to be something that allows you to breathe easily that fits really well and securely all right for several hours and you what you don't want is something that you need to continually be touching you want to avoid your hands kind of at it all the time so find something that's comfortable for you now the big thing is normalization when i go to fucking aldi

and i'm in the queue outside i'm let's just say there's 60 people queuing honest to god it's really only in my experience it's me and maybe 5 other people who are wearing face masks and I can tell you when I rock up into the queue in Aldi with my cotton face mask on people look at me really

strangely and I even have heard a few fucking comments like there was a woman on a phone and I walked past with my face mask on and she said, oh Jesus, they're out in the face masks now for fuck's sake. Now I know for this woman, she saw my face mask and it frightened her. You know, we already have an anxious situation where people are going to the fucking supermarket and people are scared. So my mask made her feel afraid. But what it also is, is even though we live in an individualistic culture, you're chastised if you stand out too much.

Do you know what I mean? if you stand out too much do you know what i mean you know it yourself how many times have you bought a jacket or a pair of pants or a pair of shoes and you're wondering fuck it man is town ready for this is this jacket too mad looking are these pants too colorful will i get too many looks will i be made uncomfortable will I appear by wearing this item of clothing will I look to other people that like they'll go who the fuck are they they think they're great and unfortunately what I've noticed cotton masks right now culturally in Ireland when you wear it the general reaction is who the fuck is that person with their mask on? And we have to move away from that,

and the key to moving away from it is, it's normalisation. Like, I see tons of people in the queue for the supermarket with gloves on. They're wearing shitty fucking plastic gloves. Even though the experts are saying, don't wear fucking gloves, that's actually unsafe and unhygienic. Wear a face mask people are wearing the gloves because yes they're anxious yes they're afraid but it's like the shame of possibly standing out and possibly looking as if you think you're

special or great the shame of that is greater than keeping other people safe and that's a big issue and you know i'll tell you where it isn't the big issue in cultures that operate in a collectivistic fashion which tend to be asian. People in Asian countries. Korea, Japan, China. Have been wearing face masks for fucking years. Right. It's completely normalised. And if you see someone with a face mask on in Japan.

It's just understood. It's like oh you have a cold. Or a flu and I notice you're wearing a face mask to protect me and it's completely normalised there. We don't have that. It's a different vibe here. We're scared of standing out and looking selfish or looking like we think we're great

and that's not going to work this time so my plea is start wearing a face mask when you go outside okay when you do it yes you might get a couple of looks but you contribute towards the normalization and it becomes normalized very quickly once enough people have the face masks well i'll tell you what i'd love to fucking see i'd love to see influencers makeup artists uh people with influence trendsetters on social media sports people fashion bloggers people who are followed online because you are seen as setting a trend

or being hip or being fucking cool or fashionable you have the greatest opportunity in the world right now to save people's lives post selfies in your fucking cotton mask. Look it up.

Figure out how can you creatively. Bring this into your brand. And normalise it for your followers. And save some lives. To start wearing face masks. And making it look. Acceptable and cool. Like.

I saw fucking. Holly Carpenter. She's a model up in dublin i saw her wearing a face mask on instagram there last week and fair play to her if more influencers just start wearing cotton masks on their instagram it sends a message that it's like this is okay it's grand and you can actually make it cool if you want and another way to think about face masks too to try and because you're gonna look if if if you're listening to this and you go right tomorrow is the day i go to duns or aldi with my face mask on you're gonna feel anxious and like a bit of a dickhead all right and that's okay because it it's, it, that's our culture, alright, you're gonna be right back

to when you were in school, and maybe you got a brand new haircut that was different to your normal haircut, and you're terrified of going in on Monday, in case someone says something, or makes fun of it, or points it out, or if you get new fucking shoes, or if your shoes aren't good enough, the fear of being ridiculed and standing out is going to be there, and just sit with it, it's grand. Consider yourself a warrior of normalisation, okay? People get over it very quickly.

Wear the fucking face mask when you leave the gaff and it's a weird and difficult conversation for me specifically to have because as I mentioned I wear a plastic bag on my head blind boy wears a plastic bag in his fucking head and now I'm telling you to trying to talk about wearing masks while I also wear a plastic bag in my head and I just have to reiterate if you've been listening to this podcast and you know about my struggles with mental health and my historical struggles with mental health specifically around social anxiety this is now very challenging for me

I don't wear a plastic bag in my head when I go to Duns or Aldi as I've explained before I'm an artist and an entertainer I have a large following online I wear a plastic bag on my head to separate my role as an entertainer and then my completely private life where I'm just a regular normal person who goes to the shop and has a quiet life that's all i want i have wearing a plastic bag and i'm an entertainer and i'm blind by and then i have not wearing a plastic bag

and i'm just a regular person and that's what i have and i fucking love it and you'll know i have a history of getting panic attacks in public places. Now it hasn't happened in a long time, but my mental health issues are rooted in the fear of getting a panic attack in somewhere like a supermarket or a shopping centre or something like that. So I'm over those issues, but it never fully goes away. So when I do go to Aldi in my normal human face, but I'm wearing a cotton mask, I don't like being, I don't like going to the queue and people are looking and going,

who's that man with a cotton mask on? And now I'm the centre of attention. As mad as that sounds, I don't like that that's triggering for me that's triggering for me because it brings me back to my social anxiety years ago when my specific fear was becoming a center of attention in a public situation getting a panic attack all right so it's triggering for me but I also understand as someone who's on a continual and consistent journey with my mental health anytime I challenge an internal fear like that I conquer it more and I grow so when I wear my cotton face mask in the queue to the shop

and I sit with the anxiety of someone looking at me in a strange way or I sit with the anxiety like when that woman on the phone said oh Jesus they're out in their face masks that felt shit for me I'm not judging her she was just frightened and that was how she reacted in in the moment and this is my anxiety. But I'm like, fuck, they're looking. People are looking at me. That's triggering for me. But I sit with that anxiety and I go, I'm wearing a face mask and I'm doing this to protect people. And yeah, it's a bit, you know, it's not nice.

People are looking at me weird. It feels strange. I'm standing out. That's not pleasant. But I'm sitting with it and I'm coping with it and then my self-esteem grows. So use this now as well as an opportunity, your self-esteem now gets to grow, you now have the challenge of sitting with the anxiety of being the person with the cotton face mask on when no one else is wearing one and they're looking at you like a weirdo or someone who thinks they're great or someone who's standing out sit with that anxiety go don't say nothing to no one this is fine this is normal and you're doing the right thing and you'll your self-esteem

will develop from that action because you're gradually exposing yourself to the source of an irrational fear because it is irrational it's completely irrational so what if people are looking at you who gives a fuck and one way to think of it as well is to make it feel normalized

is it's just underpants for your head like we already have a system in place whereby you have underpants for your head like we already have a system in place whereby you have underpants made out of cotton and you have one pair and you change them every fucking day and you wash them after you use them and you have a load of fucking underpants and you wear underpants every day to i suppose it's the concept of modesty but you're protecting other people from your bollocks as well if i go to duns with no underpants on and no pants on then everybody in duns or aldi now has to deal with my bollocks or if i bend over they have to deal with my rectum all right and i don't want to do that to people I don't want to walk into Dunn's and then everyone's shocked because this man's got his penis out

and I don't mean it in a sexual way I mean it in a naturalistic human body way I'm not shaming the naked human body but I live in a society whereby if I walk into Aldi Donald Duck style all right wearing a blazer but dicking balls out if I do that I'm I'm ruining a couple of afternoons so I don't do it I wear underpants also if I've just gone for a wee wee and after a piss even if you wipe your dick there might be piss coming off your dick so I'm protecting Aldi from the piss coming off my dick and it absorbs into the underpants. So we already do it every day with our torso. Let's start doing it with our face.

And do you know what? My piss isn't going to put someone into intensive care. I don't... I can say that with confidence, that my piss isn't going to put someone into intensive care i don't i can say that with confidence that my piss isn't going to put someone into intensive care but my breath might or my spit might do you get me so normalize the wearing of cotton masks look it up online okay make it out of a t-shirt a a bandana, a scarf, do you know, do you know what's a really good one, if you have large stretchy socks, like you can get a sock and cut it with a scissors and that sock will fit over your head like a tube, do you know, if it's one of those large stretchy socks,

that'll do the trick. This is controversial now, and I'm not, I'm not, this might sound utterly ridiculous, but, and I haven't tried it, and it sounds dodgy. Children's underpants. Buy yourself a multi-pack of cotton children's underpants. Why children's underpants, blind boy, you strange cunt? Because they're small alright, if you try and get adult human man's underpants or women's underpants

and put it on your head, it might be a bit baggy, but small children's underpants, buy them, don't take them off a child buy the underpants multi-pack, see how that works on your fucking head no one's going to know they're jocks

fold it, no one's going to guess that that person's got a child's underpants on their head you know give it a lash, be creative all you want to do what is a what fits really well on your head doesn't require you to be touching it all the time

with your hands allows you to be touching it all the time with your hands allows you to breathe easily and will keep large droplets on the fucking mask so that we can all reduce the chance of infection by 70 percent no more you're bringing it down to 1.5 percent that's how we get out of this shit if you want want to buy cotton face masks, I'm going to give one plug, right? Because there's a company called WeMakeGood.ie and they're selling cotton face masks. But the reason I'm giving them a plug is that they're an ethical business and they have a system whereby if you buy cloth face masks from

them they will donate a class a cloth face mask to somebody living in direct provision in ireland people in direct provision are not able to earn money they don't have much money they're incredibly marginalized there's clusters of coronavirus in direct provision people in direct provision need fucking face masks so if you go to we make good.ie you can buy face masks for yourself and they'll also give one to somebody in direct provision so that's that's a good idea all right so i felt compelled. To. To share that with you this week. Like I said.

I know. I want to avoid talking about the coronavirus. As much as possible on this. But I think that one's too important. It's too fucking important. And. If you want to learn more about. The importance of wearing masks,

where the data and the science is coming from, look up masksforall.org. Masks4, the number 4, masksforall.org. And remember too, it's not a replacement for social distancing and not touching your face and keeping your hands washed still maintain good hand washing with soap and water still don't touch your face and still maintain two meters where possible but if you add on top of that the face mask thing it really really improves the situation. I reckon, I have a feeling the Irish government within the next week is going to start rolling out face masks anyway. They're going to start requesting that people wear face masks as we step out of quarantine into...

into like the next year or so it's going to be a long time before things return to what we consider to be completely normal so we're going to have to make these new adjustments over the next year or year and a half probably until a vaccine comes out and society is going to learn to because lockdowns you can't have lockdown forever so society is going to learn to change and cope with this and face masks are going to play a huge part in it and contact tracing and things like that and i i'm an optimist i'm a positive optimist so when i see a huge challenge like that, I actually look to the optimistic side, which means what a great opportunity for us all to become a more considerate and collectivistic society. away from selfishness and think to understand ourselves as as part of a system that there's no such thing as truly being out on your own looking after yourself that we exist in a society as part of a system and compassion and protecting other people and caring for other people that's

how you gotta operate as a a human society. Not this. I'm 100% out for myself. And fuck everyone. And. Fuck all support structures. Because that requires. My tax. I want everything for me.

That's not gonna work. And it's that exact. Attitude that has. Like America. God help anyone living in America right now. Because. It's fucking terrifying. Cunts out living in America right now. Because it's fucking terrifying. Cunts out with guns. You know, it's just mad.

It's individualism on a horn. So, I know a lot of you are wondering, where am I with my live streaming situation? Well, during the week, some very important equipment delivered. I got myself um the problem i've been trying to set up uh my live streaming setup now for five weeks i'd say it's been really difficult steep learning curve um what's made the whole thing so time consuming is i'm trying to get like all these pieces of equipment to speak to each other and kind of what happens is like

if i need a new cable or if i need a new attachment something small i can't just like the shops are closed i can't just walk into an electronic shop and buy the cable because the shops are fucking closed so i'm buying them online so when a tiny problem arose i had to go online and wait two weeks for a cable to deliver so the final piece of the puzzle arrived this week i got an appropriate desk and i got a new PC because I was trying to make live streaming work with my Mac wasn't happening so I got a PC everything is now running completely smoothly I have two monitors a camera that's working my microphone's working Xbox is working everything's speaking to each other perfectly

i've got a tiny issue with sound which i'm going to sort out in the morning but that's fine sound is my area i know how to fix the sound problem and i've been doing live stream testing i haven't told anyone where i'm streaming because i wanted to do it with like a tiny audience so I'm now going to tell you where I'm actually streaming so I'm going to be streaming on Twitch which is a live stream website and if you want to check it out my address is twitch.tv forward slash the blind boy podcast and what it's going to be for the next week how it's going to roll out is so all my equipment works now so i know now that i can stream so the next week i'm going to be going on to twitch at whenever it suits me and still being kind of in a testing phase i'm gonna be online i'm gonna trying things out gaining followers i need to figure out a way

whereby i need to figure out the twitch software and stream lab software and shit like that so i'm giving you my twitch address because you're welcome to subscribe and follow. And you might catch me online over the next week or so. I won't tell you when I'm going to go on. And then once I'm comfortable in a week or so, then I'll start to schedule when I actually go live. when I actually go live I'll actually say to you I will be live three times a week at Sundays at nine and and Wednesdays or whatever the fuck that's what I'm going to announce but I don't know what it is yet I'm going to be learning the ropes but you're welcome to check me fucking learning the ropes over the next week and just to explain what twitch and live streaming is

over the next week and just to explain what twitch and live streaming is it's a completely live interactive setup where i'll be playing video games or just talking to camera or making music or doing some art and you get to watch completely live and you also get to chat to me and talk to me in the comments and i'll respond to you there and then and it's live broadcast but a real kind of community feeling around it and i can't fucking wait to get into it because it just looks like so much crack i had limmy on the podcast a few weeks back who's a huge twitch streamer limmy's been he's been a great help to me over the past couple of weeks helping me out with advice on streaming on equipment limmy's been fantastic so fair play to limmy for helping me out giving me a lot of advice

and i'm a massive fan of limmy i watch him when he's live streaming and it just seems like so much crack and i want to start doing that because as you know i can't do fucking gigs my gigs are gone for the foreseeable future so this is my new thing live streaming and podcasting and i'm very excited about it i'll do a little ocarina pause now the ocarina pause is you may or may not hear an advert depending on where you're listening to the podcast from you might hear me passive aggressively having to read out an advert

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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!

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game and you'll only pay as we play. Come along for the ride and punch your ticket to Rock City at torontorock.com Shit Ocarina lads, I apologise apologize where's the lovely blue boy no he's too far away sounds like a despondent owl no thanks so i have a new a new idea this week um i want to do it really as just a thank you

to all the people that are patrons of this podcast who support the podcast on Patreon I can't do gigs so all my gig income is gone and I accrued a fair deal of debt for postponing gigs in London so as a thank you

to the patrons of this podcast if you become a patron on patreon.com forward slash the blind boy podcast I'm gonna pick each month I'm gonna pick one new patron at random and I'm gonna do a drawing right if you know my books and my two books of short stories there's little drawings that I draw in these books right I'm gonna do a custom not a print but an actual fucking signed hand drawing that I'm gonna send to one person each month who becomes a new patron I'll pick you at random. I'll contact you on Patreon. And I'll send you a fucking drawing.

And this will be. A one of a kind piece of art. That only you have. And don't worry. Once the drawing is complete. I'm going to leave it for 72 hours. Right. And it will be placed into the envelope in a sterile fashion with new gloves

and a face mask on and the drawing will go into the envelope just in case you're paranoid about coronavirus over the post even though i've looked that up i don't think it's something we need to be worried about coronavirus can exist for i think it's like a day on a surface like paper or an envelope but i don't think we have to be worried about the post i wipe down my post anyway just to be safe i wipe it down with disinfectant wipes or i either wipe it down or if a package comes in i just kind of leave it for a day and i, I'm not going to touch that for a day. So don't be worrying about that. I'll package it in a nice sterile fashion.

And you should be grand. So, new patrons. I'm going to pick one of you a month. And I'm going to do a signed drawing. That's a one of a piece. A one of a kind piece of art. For you. So, patreon.com forward slash the blind boy podcast if you're liking the podcast

if you're enjoying it all i'm looking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month that's it all right if you can't afford it you don't have to someone else's generosity is going to pay for it it's a lovely system works perfectly i wouldn't change it for the fucking world it doesn't leave me beholden to advertisers either, so I don't have a big hot take this week, I had about three or four half hot takes, but they're not fully developed, and I like to, if I'm delivering a hot take, I need to make sure it's fucking. It's roasting hot. I want it to burn your ears. Don't want to give you a lukewarm hot take.

So this week's podcast is much more. Conversational. And I wanted to get that face mask shit out. It's more conversational. Part of the reason too. I'm having it's more it's difficult for me to be fucking creative in this

quarantine environment like it's mad I've got tons of time in my hands to be productive and to do things and a huge amount of my time is taken up by setting up the streaming but the part of my brain that develops hot takes i'm really noticing the importance of

just simply interacting with other human beings in my day and how that stimulates my mind you know so hot takes just they're not arriving into my head as immediately as they used to because I'm just living with four walls all day long and kind of struggling

time is a mad one during quarantine isn't it just days feel short the days are flying into each other so i don't have a hot take this week i'm what i am going to do for the remainder of the podcast is answer a couple of questions that he asked me so sonia asked on instagram blind by are you worried about the economy because of coronavirus? A little bit. I mean, what are you going to do?

We've lived through a recession before. The thing is, a recession doesn't necessarily have to be 10 fucking years like the last time. I'm hopeful that as things start opening up people will start returning to work and people will i mean what one of the positives about this is that we're all stuck inside so we literally can't wait to get out and start purchasing things you know to start spending money so as people emerge people are going to start spending more and spending is what drags us out of recessions so i'm i'm optimistic i'm not i don't think it's going to be a big long deep one like the last one because but what do i know i'm not a fucking economist i was listening to david mcwill McWilliams. He's an economist and that's what he reckons.

But I'll tell you what I was thinking of just my own... I suppose it is a hot take in a sense regarding the recession and an opportunity that Ireland has. I think Ireland has this class opportunity right now where with cannabis, right right now bear with me during the week i saw so in ireland we have this thing called the hse it's like the nhs in england it's the health service executive and they had a a pamphlet an online pamphlet on cannabis just like a drugs awareness leaflet so i looked at it for the crack and i went to the section where

they had the war the negatives of cannabis and i had a look at it to see right what are the hse are saying are the negatives of cannabis and here's some of the negatives of cannabis according to the hse number one high strength weed is more dangerous to your mental health than hash. Okay, that's true. Second one. Some resins have things added to them, such as beeswax or boot polish. Animal excrement. All these things. Alright, fair enough.

Damp weed can cause mould, which can damage your lungs. Certain weed is sprayed with glass and chemicals. Certain weed is sprayed with synthetic cannabinoids. And as I'm reading the HSE's negative warnings about cannabis, I'm realising, hold on a minute lads. Every single one of these negatives, they only exist because it's illegal. Every single one of the things that the hsc is saying is wrong with cannabis exist because it's prohibited not regulated and it's in the hands of criminals the first one high strength skunk can cause psychosis that's a fact high incredibly high thc weed that has low levels of cbd can trigger psychosis in certain people

who are predisposed to mental health issues and it's also not good for the young developing brain that's a fact but why are people smoking high strength skunk because they don't have any choice Why are people smoking high strength skunk? Because they don't have any choice. There's not, like there's not, you can't go to your dealer in Ireland and say, I would like to have a mild cannabis that has a mix of CBD and THC please. The dealer's just going to go, I have this shit here that smells like petrol and gives you panic attacks. Do you want it or not? And people just have to take it.

Like if it was alcohol. If alcohol was illegal in Ireland, what would be happening? It'd be made by drugs gangs in bathrooms and warehouses covertly. It would be incredibly high strength fucking moonshine with chemicals added to it and people would be dropping dead and we'd have no choice you know the whole beauty of alcohol is like i don't want to drink a liter of poutine like that's not how i want to spend a friday night i want to have three glasses of wine or i want to have a can of beer and I want to spend a Friday night. I want to have three glasses of wine. Or I want to have a can of beer.

And I want to moderately enjoy safely this substance known as alcohol. And there's nothing wrong with that. But if it was illegal that choice would be taken away from me. Instead I have to drink high strength poutine with antifreeze inside in it and that's the situation that's happening in Ireland with cannabis you know

their other thing cannabis is sprayed with synthetic cannabinoids or sometimes glass yeah because it's illegal it's not regulated I was over in

Los Angeles and San Francisco a couple of months ago where cannabis is 100% legal for recreational and medicinal use and I just walked into a dispensary like it's completely normalised there now it's the most bougie middle class thing possible they have posh fucking restaurants where white people rich white people with dogs sit down and a bud tender comes over and gives them a menu

and hands them a bong and they choose from all the different types of weed and they smoke it and it's this completely normalised middle class bougie thing over there with zero stigma and it just took a year and that's how it is in California

and I walked into a dispensary and I said I'd like something mild and the woman behind the counter said oh great okay she handed me a pre-rolled joint for five dollars of an incredibly mild weed which had a balance of THC and CBD so I knew this was safe good quality weed nothing sprayed on it organic natural and I knew as well oh, good quality weed, nothing sprayed on it, organic, natural. And I knew as well, ah, okay, it's got THC, but it also has CBD, which protects the brain from the negative effects of the THC. And I smoked it, and it was just lovely.

No paranoia, no anxiety. I didn't feel particularly stoned or high i was able to get on with my day perfectly and it felt like the sunshine was giving me these warm loving parental hugs and i was listening to spotify and every single song sounded like the first time i heard prince and that was my experience of cannabis in a regulated safe sensible market where it's not prohibited and where safety standards aren't in the hands of criminals not only criminals people involved in human trafficking in Ireland a lot of cannabis is grown by people who are who are trafficked into the country and are treated as slaves and grow houses that's

a huge problem and what i'm getting at basically is ireland has a huge opportunity if if we know we're facing a bit of a recession right why not completely legalise recreational cannabis like in Canada like 50% of the United States like Amsterdam, like Portugal like you know it's decriminalised in a lot of countries

in Europe like Spain why doesn't Ireland just fully legalise it like in California or Canada open up a new industry, right? Where it's, like, there's, Colorado has too much tax from weed. It's been legal in Colorado for about three years.

They have too much fucking tax. Tax the cannabis. Earn a huge amount of government revenue from it. A new industry opens up you've got entrepreneurs you've got people working in this new fucking industry right who are now fully employed generating tax income restarting the economy okay here's the other fucking thing so as we look at the roadmap of opening up businesses from coronavirus the irish five-step plan restaurants are going to open up i think in sometime around august but a huge problem we're

having in ireland is pubs what are the fucking pubs gonna do in ireland because in a coronavirus environment where restrictions are eased but we must still socially distance how the fuck is a pub supposed to operate and the Vintners Association of Ireland who are the association that run pubs they tried to put out kind of a manifesto last week which was a guideline to suggest here is how a pub would open and operate in a socially distanced coronavirus environment and it was ridiculous it was unworkable they suggested 100 full table service so if you go to a pub oh i think it was only four people to a table and you must sit there you can't leave and your waiter comes to you and takes table service for alcohol now that sounds pretty cool that's they do that in spain i love that but it's alcohol and it's irish drink culture okay

once people start drinking then the rules of social distance go out the fucking go out the wall right or go out the door there'll be queues for toilets how do you keep bringing someone pints and then expect them to stay sitting at the table

that's not gonna work lads are gonna get up and they're gonna piss in the pint glasses or piss against the wall women will will either try and do that too or just be like i'm not fucking pissing against the wall and there'll be massive queues for toilets social distancing is impossible they suggested in the guidelines that like you they said no ds or live music as if it's music that will make people behave belligerently

and fucking ignore social distancing and not alcohol so pubs are a huge contributor to the fucking Irish economy and we can't figure out how we can keep pubs open and generate money in the socially distanced coronavirus environment. We don't know how it's going to happen. If you fully legalise cannabis and instead people go to these cannabis restaurants where they're chilled out, getting mild weed, smoking, getting their little buzz.

You can have a waiter or a waitress comes to you with your cannabis and you smoke your joint. You're not passing the joint, obviously, or you vape it. No duck arson because then you can still smoke joints in a socially distanced way. Now you have a social activity, recreational consumption of a substance that people are entitled to do in a free society which isn't based around alcohol or needing to take a piss and i can see that operating in a socially distanced environment so that's that's my response to that question i know it sounds silly but why not legalize fucking cannabis create a

new industry tax something keep people safe and then also have a means of consumption in a restaurant environment which can also maintain a level of social distance so that you don't completely lose the revenue that's to be gained from the pub industry potentially collapsing so that's my that's my thought for the day Craig asks I'd like to hear your thoughts on processing grief a bit

I lost my dad last year and I'm still wrestling with it well as you know if you've been listening to this podcast a while, you know, I lost my da when I was 19, so that's fairly young to fucking, or no, I was 21, that's pretty young to be losing a da, you know. I thought it was old at the time, but it's not.

That's very fucking young to be losing a parent. but it's not it's that's very fucking young to be losing a parent one thing i can say is you know if if you're asking me if you're if you're if you're worried about how you're processing grief you shouldn't be right because your experience of grief is as unique as the relationship that you had with the person who you're grieving okay, so there's no right

or wrong way whatever way you're doing it is the right way as such I mean sit with the sadness one thing I always look at is the concept of rippling

which is take note of like even though your dad's gone and this person that you love that was hugely important in your life is gone and they're no longer physically there or around and how sad that is that event and and their their death and their loss to your life. Has created now this huge sense of meaning in who you are. You're a different person.

Now than what you would have been if your dad was still alive. And to work on. Like. He may be gone. But things. You know. Aspects of your relationship with him conversations he had values you learned from him experiences that he had they now ripple into everyone to you to everyone else in your

family and influence and shape who you are as a human being, so the person is gone, but their impact on your life still fucking remains and grows and informs who the fuck you are, do you know what I mean, and that's, I find that as a really beautiful, meaningful way to look at it, you can't change the fact that they're gone, you can't change the sadness of they're gone you can't change the sadness of that but it's not all for nothing like a huge amount of my values how I speak

my opinions on things the core of who I am is influenced by my dad and the lessons he taught me and he's not around he hasn't been around for a long time

he hasn't been around for over 10 years yet he still exists in my actions and thoughts and words and how I interact

with other people so that's a good way I think to process any type of grief to take meaning from that that it's not just a person's physical presence that they live on through you and through the relations relationships that you have with other people who are also bereaved your family you know so that that's a meaningful way

to look at it that's how I look at it and I take great meaning from it it doesn't take the sadness away but that's life life contains pain life contains an inevitable pain

you can there's unavoidable there's that's the death of a person who you love is unavoidable suffering and it's a given

and we're all going to lose someone we love and it's going to hurt like fuck and that's the price you pay for love is grief and that's unavoidable suffering but there's a shit ton of avoidable suffering too do you know what I mean? so

a way to avoid the avoidable suffering is to take meaning from the unavoidable suffering and meaning from that unavoidable suffering is the person's life lives on in the impact they had on the people who are grieving and that's all I can say on that okay that's one hour I'll be back next week with a fully developed hot take and like I said share the podcast tell people about it

subscribe to it leave a review and if you're on Twitch twitch.tv forward slash TheBlindBoyPodcast and you might catch me streaming this week. I'm going to be on it on and off. And then in about a week or so, I'll let you know when I'm definitely on it,

what my schedule is. And I'm really looking forward to that. Yart. jewel is and I'm really looking forward to that ERT 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 host the Rochester Nighthawks at First Ontario Centre in

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