The Blindboy Podcast - The First Man to smuggle Hash into Limerick

Episode Date: September 7, 2022

Sprawling hot takes about hash smuggling and the complexity of human emotions  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Drink the haypenny wine from the vines of the bollocks grape, you shoeshine Michaels. I can't say the name Michael correctly. After Alan Rickman's performance as Devilera in the film Michael Collins, he roamed that name for a lot of people. Michael. Michael. Where did Alan Rickman get that? I'd love to... Alan Rickman get that like what I'd love to Alan Rickman's dead if Alan Rickman was alive

I would have asked him how did you figure out how Eamon de Valera pronounced the name Michael and I ended up searching for footage of interviews with Eamon de Valera to see if he ever pronounced

Michael Collins's name and I couldn't find any but my journey was derailed because the more videos I looked at of Eamon de Valera speaking the more transfixed I became on his physical features. He was a very grind like president. He'd a face like a set of glasses on a dick. If you're a new listener and this is your first podcast, I do recommend going back to some earlier podcasts to familiarise yourself with the lore of this podcast. I had a fantastic gig last week at Electric Picnic. This is my, I think my 12th year gigging at Electric Picnic

the novelty of gigging at festivals has well and truly worn off so when I gig at a festival I don't stick around I literally turn up for my gig do it

and then leave as soon as possible I had a wonderful guest by the name of Rira he was in a group called Scary Era I had a wonderful guest by the name of Rira. He was in a group called Scary Era, who were considered the first ever Irish rap group. Scary Era were making tunes, jeez, they started in 1986. So the idea of an Irish rapper in 1986 was really laughed at.

And they were laughed at at the time. But now we see him as pioneers. Like when I first heard Scary Era and I heard Rira rapping in his Tullamore accent. It's one of the things that gave me the confidence to rap in a limerick accent. Back in 2005 or whenever it was. But then Rira. He gave me a gift. A lovely gift.

He made me a custom plastic bag. And it's basically just a regular plastic bag. But he wrote all over it. Rira. Because that's his name. That's been his name since 1986. But I said it to him. Effectively what he just handed me was.

A balaclava. That had the name Real IRA. Over it. Loads. So I don't think I can ever wear it. But the Real IRA ruined the name Reraw for him. He was named Reraw years ago. One of my favourite pieces of graffiti in Limerick actually.

It's on the side of Treaty City Brewery, which is a Limerick brewery up by the Childers Road. But there's beautiful graffiti on the wall. And it just says C-I-A and then an unfinished R. Spray painted hastily on the wall. And what I love about this graffiti is the dichotomy of it when you try and analyse it. It's either a girl called Ciara who got caught halfway through and couldn't finish her name.

Or someone in the continuity IRA who couldn't spell it and then give up. I hope no one paints over it. It's actually very hard to get to because right beside the piece of graffiti, there's a fence with a very aggressive pony tied to the fence who tries to kick people off bicycles if they cycle past but I like to think that the aggressive pony is defending the graffiti from vandalism but I finished my gig at Electric Picnic I stuck around a little bit afterwards and then I'm like right I'm gonna go home because I've been gigging festivals for years And this is just a loud wet field to me now.

So I'd like to go home. So as I was leaving Electric Picnic. Going towards the car that was driving me home. It was in the artist's car park. As I was walking there was this really old caravan. Like a 1970's caravan. Of people who were staying at the festival in a caravan and this old lad shouts at me and I wasn't wearing my bag but he just figured out I was blind by and

he shouts at me and says come on over, come on over. So I went over to the fucking caravan and I went inside and instead of going home quietly like I'd planned, I ended up hotboxing in a caravan with three men in their 60s. I won't say where they were from in case they're easily identified. And all three of them referred to smoking cannabis as whistling through the devil's parchment. And they were smoking old man hash. The type that hasn't been seen on this island since the 1980s smelly sock we used to call it when we were children and then of course I got paranoid

and I thought they were guards and I ran out of the caravan so apologies to those men if you're listening I know that you're not guards now but they were real old school stoners like they've been doing this a long time and they weren't from Limerick old school stoners. Like they've been doing this a long time. And they weren't from Limerick

but they obviously knew I was from Limerick. And one of them just says to me did you ever hear the story of how cannabis first got into Limerick? So I'm like fucking no. Please tell me. So they told me there was this in the late 1960s

like there wouldn't the thing with Ireland we didn't really have like hippies we didn't have like in London where you had the summer of love Ireland was Eamon de Valera's Ireland the grind like

Dick Glass's president so Ireland was quite conservative so anyone in the late 60s in Ireland who was smoking cannabis it was mainly people who had maybe gone to London to work in construction smoked a bit of cannabis and then

came back with a taste for it. But cannabis was coming into Ireland like hash like blocks of Moroccan hash that was coming into Ireland via West Cork. It was being smuggled on boats. So these lads were telling me the story of the one man who would bring hash from Cork to Limerick to a very small amount of people. There wouldn't have been a lot of people in Limerick smoking hash at the time. The guards probably didn't even know what it was. This was long before gangs were involved.

It was just one fella who really liked listening to Pink Floyd, who wanted to bring a bit of hash back and sell it to his friends in Limerick. So for years, this one dude, well not for years, from the late 60s to maybe the start of the 70s, this one dude was just going down to Cork, coming back up with a bit of hash, dividing it up and selling it to the small amount of people in Limerick who were smoking it

they were the patrons of a biker bar in Fox's Bow in Limerick a place called Buddies that was open throughout the 70s and 80s, so anyone in Limerick back then place called Buddies that was open throughout the 70s and 80s. So anyone in Limerick back then who liked music or anything alternative, they went to this Buddies place and they smoked their little five spots of Moroccan hash that came in from Cork. So the fella who was doing this, taking the cannabis from Cork to Limerick, he used to take the

train and he'd take the train and then he'd have no problems. But then eventually the guards in Limerick started to figure out there's this new thing called cannabis, a small amount of people are smoking it, it's illegal and we have to stop it. And they also very quickly figured out that it was this one man bringing it to Limerick from Cork on the train. So they began to follow him. And they noticed he took the train every week. So each week he'd get off the train, get to Limerick Colbert Station, and then the guards would stop him, and they'd search him,

and they'd find no fucking hash. Nowhere on him. Eventually they started strip searching him they couldn't find the hash and it was still coming into Limerick and it was still him that was doing it because there was such a small market and the guards couldn't figure it out

and these old lads in the caravan knew him and they told me what he used to do so he used to get his ounce of hash or whatever it was down in West Cork. And he'd put it in a biscuit tin with an alarm clock. And he'd close the biscuit tin and get on the train to Limerick. But just about 15 minutes before the train stopped in Limerick.

He'd go to the toilet on the train, throw the biscuit tin with the hash inside it out the window of the moving train. Then the train would arrive in Limerick, he'd get off, the guards would search him, find nothing, let him go. And then he would walk back the train tracks for 15 minutes, whatever it was, and then he'd listen for the alarm clock. And the alarm clock would go off inside in the biscuit tin, and then he'd find the hash and walk back into town. And that's the story of how hash came to Limerick.

So thank you to those three elderly men for telling me that story. And what I love about his method as well is in the context of it being the early 70s in Ireland, that method can only work domestically. Because if, for instance, he tried the same technique by going over to England on a boat and maybe throwing the fucking biscuit tin off the side of the boat as he gets close to the shore, he couldn't. Because you couldn't have an Irishman with a biscuit tin that was ticking like a clock. The world's most obvious IRA bomber.

So this podcast has been nominated for four awards at the Irish Podcast Awards. It's the first ever Irish Podcast Awards. Before this, you had to enter the British Podcast Awards, but this year's is the first Irish Podcast Awards. I'm nominated for Best Arts and Culture Podcast, Best Entertainment Podcast, Best Health and Wellbeing Podcast, and the Spotlight Award. So I have kind of mixed feelings about that. Obviously, I'm proud to get those nominations,

but I have mixed feelings about awards in general. Like, I don't like the podcast charts sometimes I don't even like telling people how many listeners I have purely because that type of external praise can be kind of dangerous to creativity I'm never trying to make the best podcast. I'm always trying to make the best blind buy podcast. That's it. I only ever want to compete with me. I don't want to compete with other people in an area like podcasting, which is effectively creativity. Because it's just, it's difficult to compare my podcast with someone else's podcast because they're two completely different formats trying to achieve different things. So I have to really separate my own creativity from that type of external praise.

But I entered my own podcast to these awards. I entered the podcast to these awards, which is a standard, that's a pretty standard thing to do. Like with television, any award I've ever won or been nominated for with television, same with music. You have to enter your own thing into the awards. That's how it works generally across the board in any creative industry. You have to enter yourself to an award.

So the reason I entered into the Irish Podcast Awards is it's important for profile. So like I'm definitely not the most popular podcast in Ireland. There's Irish podcasts that would have more listeners than me in Ireland but I would wager that I'd have more listeners internationally. A lot of the big Irish podcasts are big in Ireland whereas I'm big in Ireland but most of my listenership really is outside of Ireland and not necessarily Irish people but it would be odd if I didn't enter the Irish Podcast Awards. So I did, because it's important for profile.

I'm up against podcasts that are made by RTE, made by the National Broadcaster. Podcasts that could have a couple of people making it and access to studios worth a million quid. So I do like the idea of holding my own against that level because this podcast is independent it's just me I do all the research the presenting the editing so I like the idea of holding my own against RTE podcasts we'll say podcasts that have the benefit of being advertised on national radio whereas my listenership comes

from word of mouth um my own social media or anytime acast would recommend this podcast and another acast podcast so ideologically i like that for this reason which is something I've spoken about before, but in Ireland, not just Ireland, around the world, there's a growing gulf between what we called established media and independent media. the big radio stations the newspapers media that's been around a long time has a sense of legitimacy about it is backed by corporate money or the TV licence

and then you have independent media which is this podcast made by one person unregulated relies upon word of mouth for its success. Our YouTube creators, for example,

creators who are creating professional content in a non-professional environment and holding their own using the internet. The gulf between these two worlds has widened massively. There used to be a happy medium from about 2013 to 2018 in the form of media sites, we'd call them. In Ireland, we had joe.ie. Joe is still going, but it's been downsized.

We had The Daily Edge and we had her.ie. So these were websites that would act as a medium between independent media and established media these media would report from the internet and publish it as articles

and this would act as a middle ground so if you had a successful podcast if you had a successful YouTube page if you had a successful YouTube page, if you had a tweet that was going viral, these sites would pick it up, post it for clicks and that would bridge the gap between established media and independent media. Around 2018, these sites started to be shut down because Facebook changed its algorithm. Now I want to draw attention to the fact that I'm not using the word mainstream media. Mainstream media is a right-wing conspiracy theory word. It implies a conspiracy like agenda. I'm not saying that. I'm speaking about a business model that I'm witnessing as someone with years

of experience in both established media and independent media. And now what you have is a huge gulf between independent online media and established corporate media. These two worlds are in competition for advertisers and established media tends to pretend that independent media doesn't exist unless the person producing independent media is an already established celebrity working within traditional media. An example would be Vogue Williams. Vogue Williams has a really successful podcast with Joanne McNally but because Vogue Williams we'llogue Williams has a really successful podcast with Joanne McNally. But because Vogue Williams, we'll say, is also a proper celebrity,

her podcast or Instagram posts will make it into the newspaper. Now, you might be thinking, but Blind Boy, you've had TV shows on RTE and BBC. Are you not in that category? I'm not because I don't play the game of celebrity that's a game I have a bag on my head I am very private

the established media don't know what to do with me which ultimately hurts my career but I'm fine with that I'd rather choose privacy and a quiet life over larger profile we'll say but what this has done is it's led to a very very bizarre situation where you have this giant gulf so you'll notice if you live in Ireland you won't have seen

me on TV heard me on the radio or read about me in a newspaper in a long time because I'm now working only in independent media in this podcast and established media only reports on events that occur within other forms of established media and I don't I'm not crazy about how established media in Ireland they've decided that I'm only allowed on TV or radio if I speak briefly about mental health and that's it. Which I'm not crazy about because if you stick me on the radio for five minutes in an interview to speak about mental health, I can't speak about it with any real depth or meaning. I have to resort to soundbites, which is making mainstream mental health discourse as it appears on Irish TV and radio incredibly shallow. Be kind, open up, talk to somebody.

Like there's only so many GAA players or influencers you can bring on the radio for three minutes to tell us that they have anxiety. It cheapens the discourse. It turns something deeply complex, like depression or anxiety, into something throwaway that you'd print on a pillow on TK Maxx. Like when I spoke about my autism diagnosis a few months back, my phone was hopping with radio and TV wanting me to have me on for five minutes

to speak as an autistic person I just said no to all of them why would I do that when I can dedicate 90 minutes on this podcast to genuine congruent in-depth personal reflection

that people might actually relate to as opposed to the radio blind boy I hear you've got autism. Yeah, I failed my leaving cert, and now as an adult, I actually, I prefer listening to music to having friends. Great. What message have you got out there for all the autistic people? I just think something needs to-

And that's all we've got time for today. Blind Boy is autistic. I hope he's got his horse outside. You know the number, guys. 576-312 if you'd like to win a weekend away in Kilkenny. And then I get off the radio for my five-minute piece and all the newspapers go, Brilliant.

Blind Boy just spoke for five minutes on established media. That means we can report on it. Let's take one sentence out of what he said, present it out of context as a thesis statement, run with that as a headline and try and piss off as many people on Facebook and Twitter as we can. What do you mean? Well, what did he say in that interview? He spoke about how as an autistic person, he doesn't have many close friends. Let's run with the headline. Blind Boy says he doesn't have many close friends. Let's run with the headline. Blind Boy says he doesn't have any friends.

And then I'm getting harassed on Facebook by people's daz for the next two weeks. Well maybe if he took the bag off his head he'd have more friends. Now that whole scenario is exaggerated for comedic effect. But it sums up the current landscape of establishment media only reporting on things when they exist in other establishment media and the ongoing problem of radio and television as a format fundamentally being incapable of offering a platform where very important issues can be spoken about with the depth and nuance that they require. And it's not some big fucking conspiracy.

And I'm not disrespecting the journalists or presenters who are otherwise well-meaning people. It's just that on a systemic level, the format of established media is getting its arse handed to it by fucking podcasts. So that's why you don't hear me on radio and TV much anymore. I don't get as many calls. I kind of distrust it a bit because of the scenario I just mentioned. And I don't like being typecast as the lad with the bag on his head who you bring on only to talk about mental health or autism because that creates huge stress in my life because for the people who only listen to

established media of which there's a lot they literally only think there's this fella called blind boy and he has a bag on his head and all he does is come on TV or radio once a year to tell us how mental he is. And that's all he does. He doesn't do anything else. So then they hate me because that's annoying. And then you get conspiracy theorists who think that I'm a government puppet who's pushed out to sell us the soundbite of mental health as a distraction from the real systemic issues in the country. soundbite of mental health as a distraction from the real systemic issues in the country. And if radio or TV are actually interested in celebrating or platforming me for autism, then bring me on to speak about art. Bring me on to speak about the things that I speak about on this podcast. Like I did a podcast this year and it was an hour long where I drew a connection between the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch and an 11th century manuscript from Cork.

Now that's fucking autism. That's me with an academic background in art using intense hyper focus and neurodivergent thinking to identify seemingly unrelated patterns that a neurotypical person mightn't spot. And then you might think, but why is that relevant? Why is that relevant enough for you to be on the radio talking about it? Well, because more Irish people would listen to that episode of my podcast than tune into the Late Eight Show on a friday night or listen to one of the flagship radio shows on national radio and something like the late late show probably costs 50 grand an episode to make and it's advertised on billboards and on the side of buses and every five minutes on television so if you judge relevance by how many people are choosing this content, then it is fucking relevant.

So all that shit there is the reason that I suppose I'm happy to be nominated in the Irish Podcast Awards. I'm up against established media podcasts. So it's like a stamp of approval. It's a recognition. And then you might ask, why do you need that recognition? Well, because another core difference between established media and independent online media is online media is very unstable. Social media companies are the people who make phones, or the next update to your iOS.

Something could change overnight that just makes podcasts irrelevant, gone, or impossible to access. Like we're seeing this now with Instagram. People who had built entire careers on Instagram as influencers are now getting zero visibility because TikTok is huge and now Instagram is trying to be like TikTok. So if your content on Instagram for years relied mainly on photographs, you're fucked. You need to be able to make reels. And if you can't make reels, then sorry, your career is gone. Facebook changed their algorithm from 2017, 2018.

And this really affected big creators and small creators. You'll notice like BuzzFeed, Huffington Post, Joe.ie, The Daily Edge. Those things have practically disappeared. They were huge. But then even smaller creators, like Waterford Whispers News, an Irish satirical site, who I have all the time in the world for,

and all the respect in the world for, for consistently producing brilliant satire, they got fucked by Facebook algorithm changes. This impacted their ad revenue, and now they mainly rely upon Patreon. And if you do enjoy Waterford Whispers News, support them on Patreon, because it's just one or two people operating out of Waterford.

So something like that could happen to podcasts tomorrow, without warning. And it will happen. I just don't know when. So it's foolish of me to get comfortable exclusively in having my entire job relying on podcasts. It's very foolish. So I need to continue my career. I love doing what I do. So awards are very good for that shit. They're little stamps of recognition and approval. Like I have an IFTA. And another IFTA nomination.

And I have a BAFTA long list. And I got nominated for a broadcast award over in the UK. And a lot of comedy awards and shit over the years. All that shit is good for is keeping you in the game. Even though as a creator, I think the idea of comparing two podcasts to each other is silly. I can only be the best version of the Blind Boy podcast.

Collie Ennis' podcast, The Critter Shed, can only be the best version of The Critter Shed. It's about fucking insects. And the Tommy Hector and Loretta podcast can only be the best version of the Critter Shed. It's about fucking insects. And the Tommy Hector and Loretta podcast can only be the best version of that podcast. So I think with these awards as well, they're not listener. The listeners don't vote for most of the categories. There is one category called the Listener's Choice category. And you can vote on that. Just go to Irish Podcast Awards, Listener Choice, throw it into Google. And if you like, you can vote for me on that.

Or vote for your favourite independent podcast, whatever you like. Actually, I'm going to speak briefly about social media algorithms, because I get asked a lot about social media algorithms. Because I've been using the internet for a career since 2003. for a career since 2003 with GeoCities and all the way from GeoCities to Bebo to Myspace to Facebook and I get asked by people who have podcasts or businesses or whatever who rely upon social media which is the best one well it changes all the time right now every single social media company is shitting in their pants and doing radical and weird things because TikTok is by far the largest social media platform and it's very different from the rest. TikTok is a fruit machine. The TikTok algorithm is a fruit machine. If you start a TikTok account today and you post seven videos,

within a week, the TikTok algorithm will choose to show one of your videos to 100,000 people. And if that video happens to actually be good, you might also get 100,000 followers overnight. That's how TikTok works. But you can't predict it. It's a fruit machine. You could have your 100,000 followers. And then post a video. And five people see it.

So you gotta keep posting. And keep posting. And hope one of those posts. Will be shown to everybody. By the algorithm. And that's a fruit machine. That's a one-armed bandit. Now, if your content is very original,

really good and consistent, then some people will choose to go back to your page. But you could have a million followers on TikTok and it's worth fuck all in real life. I saw this a lot in festival season around the world. You could have rappers or singers who are huge on TikTok and then there's no one showing up to their show at the festival. But the fruit machine algorithm that

TikTok has, other platforms are now trying to copy it. YouTube for instance launched YouTube Shorts which are just seven second videos that are a bit like TikTok. The biggest change of all is Instagram. Instagram have moved its algorithm towards Reels. Reels are little short looping videos like TikTok. Instagram isn't showing people photographs anymore. And Instagram isn't really even showing people content from your friends anymore. Now that's shit because Instagram is actually a place where people are friends with their friends that they have in real life. Also Instagram is testing

out a full screen mode which is near identical to TikTok and it's horrendous. I had it for like six days and then it disappeared. It made me never want to open Instagram again. Twitter has changed for the better. Now I maintain or have maintained for a long time twitter is not social media it's a text-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game where people compete to have the best complaint people on twitter are also not who they are in real life. They're an excessively competitive, hostile avatar of themselves. Also, people on Twitter are rarely friends with people on Twitter who they actually know in real life. They have Twitter friends who they met in the video game of Twitter.

And this is why Twitter is insane. Someone on Twitter can tweet something harmless but annoying. Like, I think people who read books in pubs are pretentious. And then by the end of the day, a million people are attacking them and some people are sending them death threats. Twitter is also used by the media, especially right-leaning media, to create moral panics where they don't exist. They'll have a headline like, Twitter users are calling out Harry Styles for wearing an orange hat and they'll link the three tweets.

And it's like, of course they are, it's Twitter. Twitter can also be very useful when it comes to important discussions about race or gender, equality, politics. But it's a fucking shame that these conversations happen on Twitter because the nature of the platform means everything inevitably descends into hostile chaos.

So Twitter has changed its algorithm recently, which makes things a little less toxic. The trending page isn't really the trending page. It's unique to each user. So it's harder for everybody to rile each other up all at once and get incredibly furious at the same thing at once. Twitter has become fragmented. Also last week Twitter introduced a new thing called Twitter

Circles. I don't know how that's going to work because it flies in the face of what Twitter is. You can now pick 150 people, 150 followers and put out tweets just to them. Now I haven't seen someone point this out, maybe they did, but what I find interesting is 150 is known as Dunbar's number. Now Dunbar's number is a theorized number by an evolutionary psychologist called Robin Dunbar and Dunbar reckons that the human brain is ideally suited to a community of 150 people. That the human brain is capable of having authentic caring relationships with 150 people. But beyond 150, we dehumanise. Now on Twitter, people become regularly dehumanize. Now on Twitter people become regularly dehumanized. People will be quite mean and nasty and harsh to people on Twitter as if they're not really human beings with feelings

but with Dunbar's number of 150 apparently this is the natural amount of people that would have existed in a hunter-gatherer society. It's the amount of people that are generally on Christmas card lists. It's the size of the average 11th century English village. A community of 150, according to Robin Dunbar, will self-regulate. People will be kind to each other. People will help members of that community who are in need. People will communicate with each other and people will not want to lose face in front of the group of 150. It's a very important number within anthropology and I reckon that's why Twitter chose 150 for Twitter circles.

But I don't know if anyone's going to use it because Twitter isn't about being your authentic self. It's about performance, a performed version of yourself. You can't be performatively cruel or performatively hostile or performatively virtuous within a community of 150 people because it will look inauthentic and you won't be trusted. Also, you won't be sufficiently rewarded with retweets. So I'd be interested to see how that pans out. Is Twitter a good place to promote your music, to promote your podcast, to promote your business? No it's not. Twitter is really only good for

Twitter clout. Twitter clout won't translate into people buying tickets for your shows, people listening to your music, people buying from your business. It's Twitter clout won't translate into people buying tickets for your shows, people listening to your music, people buying from your business. It's Twitter clout. It's monopoly money that only works within the ecosystem of Twitter. If you're talented and you end up getting like real life success, even if you come from the environment of Twitter clout, then Twitter has to turn against you. This is why you don't see many

celebrities posting on Twitter anymore, because the comments are generally negative, because other users are getting Twitter clout from acts of performative cruelty. So no, Twitter is an awful place if you're trying to use it as a platform for your career, whatever that is. It's great if you just want the momentary self-esteem boost from Twitter clout. What's the best place right now to actually engage with people who like your work, to promote your podcast, your music, your art, whatever the fuck? Instagram, especially if you're posting reels. Why? Because on Instagram, there's a sense of accountability. People on Instagram behave closer to how they would behave at a party. They're aware that they're being watched by people

they're actually friends with in real life so you tend to get genuine positivity. If I post a podcast on Instagram someone in the comments will actually tag their friend in real life. And that's a legitimate friend-to-friend endorsement. I announced a Vicar Street gig on Instagram today. And loads of people not only actually bought tickets, but then shared that they bought the tickets in their Instagram stories to their actual friends, who then went and bought some tickets. If someone shares my podcast in their Instagram stories to their actual friends who then went and bought some tickets. If someone shares my podcast

in their Instagram stories to their friends, they're not doing it to be performative. They're doing it because they literally liked my podcast and they want their friends to listen to it too. People are more kind on Instagram. Even when people are critiquing something, the critique tends to be more constructive rather than nasty. If someone on Instagram is thinking of a mean thing to say, they tend not to say it because all their friends will see it and that person will then look mean and that would be bad. So they keep the negative thought in their head where it belongs, and then that person is slightly more positive. On Twitter, people will say the mean thing, the meanest version of it,

because they're not themselves. They're a hostile avatar of themselves, and so is everyone else. So hostility is awarded points within that video game. But I also think this is why so many people who use Twitter a lot can come away from it feeling awful. Even if you don't participate in that negativity, seeing so much of it can feel terrible. Twitter is the only social media app that can legitimately damage my mental health.

And that's not even from people saying mean things for me. It's simply watching other adults fighting. Like you ever been at a house party and there's a fight in the house party? You just want to get the fuck out. You want to leave. It brings everything down. It's depressing. Twitter is when you stay at that party because one person might give you a line of coke. Now, I don't do coke and I've never done coke, but I think it's the right drug to use in that example. So if you're trying to promote things, one Instagram follower is worth 100 Twitter followers. Facebook is worth nothing.

And TikTok can be incredibly powerful but deeply unpredictable so Instagram is the best social media platform right now if you're relying on it for your job I genuinely did not intend to do 40 minutes there of dissecting the world of media and social media but sometimes I just gotta follow where the podcast takes me if If that's where I'm feeling at that point. If that's congruent to my emotions at that point. Another good piece of advice if you have a podcast is don't wait for 40 minutes into the podcast to get to the bit where you ask people to support your Patreon page.

You really want to be doing that within the first half hour. You see, do you know what's wrong? I'm drinking a fucking energy drink. A high caffeine energy drink this week. Which I shouldn't be doing. And it's after wiring my head to the moon. And that's why I've gone so long to do the fucking ocarina pause. I don't have the ocarina so instead I'm gonna...

I've got a tube of eye gel. Very, very good eye gel. If you get dry eyes, I recommend getting gel for it rather than drops. Eye gel is fantastic. I've got eye gel and a high caffeine... A large high caffeine fizzy drink that tastes like effervescent vomit. I'll let you guess which one it is and I'm going to hit this can of energy drink

with the eye gel as a little pause instead of the ocarina because I don't have it, I'm in the office on April 5th you must be very careful Margaret it's a girl, witness the birth bad things will start to happen evil things of evil it's all girl. Witness the birth. Bad things will start to happen. Evil things of evil.

It's all for you. No, no, don't. The first omen. I believe 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. Who said that? The first omen. Only in theaters April 5th.

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that was the eye gel fizzy vomit energy drink pause you would have heard an advert there an algorithmically generated advert that was inserted by a cast support for this podcast comes from you the listener via the patreon page patreon.com forward slash The Blind Boy Podcast. If this podcast brings you entertainment, distraction, food for thought, information, merriment, meaning, please consider paying me for the aforementioned listed emotional responses. I adore making this podcast. I love it. In the coming months,

we're coming up to the fifth year anniversary of this podcast. And I'm not joking you when I say that they have been the happiest five years of my fucking career. Because I've had the opportunity to make something that I love making, that I'm really proud of, and something that provides me with a regular predictable source of income, which is something I never had before this podcast. And I've been doing this job for almost 20 years. 15 of those years have been professional 2007 was my first gig I think but these past 5 years

because of my Patreon page I have a regular source of income for doing work that I love and it has brought me stability and happiness and time and space to fail and it's because of that

that this podcast is the most successful thing I've ever done in my career The Rubber Bandits was good crack but this podcast now is approaching 50 million listens I know I said earlier I don't like fucking lashing out figures or quantifying the podcast in any way but I love

this podcast I love making it I love having the space to work on it and I love that I can begin the podcast talking about a story of how hash was imported into Limerick and I know that someone's listening to it in Madrid or Vietnam I love that people travel from all around the world to visit Limerick City and visit the places that I mention in this podcast. I love that someone is definitely going to try and find that C-I-R-A graffiti and the pony that kicks people off their bicycles.

And I hope, I hope I'm fucking still doing this podcast in another five years. I never want to years I never want to I never want to end doing this I love it so I want to thank all of my patrons for making all this possible if you enjoy this podcast

please consider paying me for the work that I'm doing alright all I'm looking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month that's it patreon.com forward slash The Blind By Podcast.

If you met me in real life, would you buy me a pint? Well, you can. But if you can't afford that, if you don't have the money, if you're out of work, whatever the fuck, that's fine. You can listen for free because the person who is paying is paying for you to listen for free. It's a wonderful model based on kindness and soundness. Everybody gets a podcast. I get to earn a living. And also, it keeps the podcast independent. If an advertiser wants to advertise on this podcast, they do it on my terms.

And no advertiser can adjust or change the content in any way. So support whatever independent podcast that you enjoy just want to promote one or two gigs i'm not doing as many gigs as i used to do anymore the pandemic showed me that relying on gigs is foolish so i'm just doing a small amount of gigs and the gigs that i want to do so I've got the Ballycotton Comedy Festival which is down in Cork on the 29th of September I believe into this month and then on the 1st of November I'm back up in Vicar Street I just announced these tickets today they're going quite fast it's a Tuesday night gig. I deliberately picked Tuesday night for this gig.

Tuesdays can be quite difficult to get people to show up for gigs. But the thing is, my podcast is... I want a crowd. I want a Tuesday night crowd. A Tuesday night crowd is a crowd that goes to the cinema. Or a crowd that goes to the theatre. So come to my Vicar Street gig live podcast on November 1st

and we'll have a lovely relaxed fun Tuesday night you don't have to fucking drink because it's Tuesday night you can be back at home in bed by 12 and up fresh the next day for work or college or whatever so that's why I chose a Tuesday night so I'd actually intended this week's why I chose a Tuesday night.

So I'd actually intended this week's podcast to be a fucking mental health podcast. I wanted to speak about primary and secondary emotions. So I will do that. Just maybe not to the extent that I initially had intended. So what are primary and secondary emotions? Well, it's a concept within emotional literacy or emotional intelligence or emotional awareness. A huge part of managing my own mental health is understanding

the full palette of emotions that I experience. Now primary emotions are the easier ones to spot. A primary emotion is the first emotion that you feel, the first feeling. Secondary emotions are more confusing and are less easy to spot. A secondary emotion is a feeling about a feeling. Secondary emotions can be kind of, I don't know, disturbing the world. Yeah, they can disturb you. I can be disturbed by a secondary emotion and not really be aware of why it's happening. I'll give you an example. Last week, my brother called around to my house

to collect a book that he'd given me a loan of. And I was searching around the house, and I'm like, I don't know where the fuck it is, so I start looking and looking and looking. And then I see, ah, there's the book. It's fallen behind the couch. Now, I have the type of couch, which is, it's a bit like a lazy boy. It's a recliner. You sit on the couch and you pull a lever

and it reclines. So my brother was out in the kitchen and I was in the living room. So I climb onto the couch to reach over the back of the couch to find this book that's on the ground. But as I do this, I reach both my hands over the back of the couch. As I do this, the reclining part of the couch engages and both my arms got caught between the wall and the couch but my body weight was pushing against it so I was legitimately stuck. It was an absolutely bizarre situation. I was literally stuck with both my hands over the back of the couch against the wall

and the only way I could have pushed myself away from the wall was to use the power of my head. But the power of my head wasn't strong enough to push my body weight. Now this was intensely painful. The corner of the couch was cutting into my arms. And I suddenly realised, with both my hands caught in the back of the couch with my body weighed against them that there was literally no way for me to free myself by myself someone would

have to help me now I was terrified I was panicking because I could not move I couldn't move at all so I start screaming help help help Now luckily it happened when my brother was in the house so he came into the living room and just pulled me away from the couch and then everything was fine. He got his book and he left. Now my primary emotion there was fear and terror and it was an appropriate situation to feel fear and terror because my body was literally stuck. I couldn't move and my arms were in utter agony. And the primary emotion of fear didn't really leave me because I'd freaked myself out quite appropriately. I'd gotten myself into a very bizarre position that if I'd have been in the house on my own I could have been stuck with my hands down the back of the couch in agony with no way

to move for quite a long time. Possibly 20 minutes maybe even more because it required the power of my head to push my entire body weight away. I'm not joking when I say that if I'd have been on my own in the house I could have lost circulation to my arms. Then the fear subsided. I said to myself you've just discovered something terrifying about your couch. You need to be very careful of that in future. Don't ever climb on the recliner and put your arms around the back because this might happen again but I spent the rest of the day feeling very deep shame and embarrassment, more shame than embarrassment, I wasn't embarrassed in front of my brother but I felt a lot of shame that I had gotten myself into such a ridiculous situation

and also I started to think imagine I was there on my own and I got stuck with my arms behind the couch and it did cut off circulation and I lost the use of my arms or something terrible happened like that imagine having to explain to people that my injury was because I got my hands stuck behind a fucking couch in my thirties. This is the type of thing that would happen to Homer Simpson.

It was that level of silliness. Like remember Homer Simpson got his hand caught in a vending machine and then they came along and like almost had to cut his arm off to free him. And then they realized that all along he'd been holding onto the can inside the vending machine. It was that silly. Now maybe I could have freed myself. I don't know.

Maybe I didn't have to rely upon my head. But I felt so deeply ashamed and embarrassed of myself for possibly giving myself a serious injury from something so dumb, the type of thing that would end up in the papers if I had actually injured myself. That's a secondary emotion. actually injured myself. That's a secondary emotion.

I initially felt fear because I found myself in a frightening situation with my hands caught behind the couch and my body weight cutting off circulation. But the secondary emotion was the feeling about the feeling. I felt ashamed of my fear. I felt ashamed that the panic and fear I felt in the moment meant that I couldn't problem solve

and pull myself out of the couch I felt helpless for my brother needing to come in and pull me away from the couch and then I felt shame a feeling about a feeling I felt great shame at being so helpless. At being so consumed by panic. And I started to imagine myself as a helpless elderly man who got his hands stuck

behind a couch and nearly injured himself badly. I didn't need to go through those secondary emotions. They didn't serve a purpose. There was no need for that whatsoever. It was appropriate for me to feel fear and helplessness in the moment because I got my arms stuck behind the couch and I was in a lot of pain. But it was a fucking accident. It was just an accident.

I wasn't thinking properly. I saw the book behind the couch and I didn't think to myself that recliner is going to recline if you put your body weight on it so what I needed to do when that secondary emotion of shame came up was to not entertain it

to have self forgiveness and humour it's kinda fucking hilarious that's kinda funny that's kind of funny that's a comedy sketch an adult man getting his hands caught behind a couch and not being able to move

that's Mr Bean shit I should have been thankful that my brother was there to get me free I should have had a bit more confidence in myself that if I was there on my own and I got my hands stuck behind that couch

I'd have probably realised right there's no one here to help you calm the fuck down and you can probably wiggle yourself free in reality I was Homer Simpson with his hand inside the vending machine if I'd have calmed down I probably could have moved my legs in some way, or arched my back, or engaged my core.

The idea that I'd have to push the entire couch away from the wall using the power of my own head was just a panicked solution I'd come up with in the moment while in a state of panic. It could have happened to anyone. It didn't mean that I was a big, helpless, clumsy lump who can't be left alone with a reclining couch. Because that's what I felt. I felt deep shame. So that is an example of a primary and secondary emotion.

Even though I know that that particular situation is not very relatable. I can't imagine many of ye found yourselves with your hands caught down the back of a couch thinking you're going to die, but it happened to me this week, and it's a good example of primary and secondary emotions. A negative feeling about a feeling. Secondary emotions, the way to address them is usually through self-forgiveness and self-compassion

here's a more relatable example like these pop up if you're particularly hard on yourself I'm particularly hard on myself and if you're hard on yourself you will suffer the wrath of secondary emotions let's just say you have to give a speech at work. Not even a speech.

Let's say you just have to address your team. You're at work and you have to address your team. Whether it's in person or over a Zoom call. So you feel anxious. Because that's a very, very common anxiety. Most of us are anxious at any type of public speaking. We feel a little bit little bit of anxiety so you begin your speech because you're anxious but as you're anxious

addressing your team you notice the anxiety coming out in your voice a bit you might laugh nervously or your voice might shake because you've noticed that you're anxious. Now you feel embarrassed about the fact that you are visibly anxious. So the anxiety of public speaking is the primary emotion. Now the embarrassment, now you're embarrassed about being anxious. That's the secondary emotion. Then you finish the speech or finish the address and now you feel ashamed of the fact that you were embarrassed about being anxious. Now the shame is a tertiary emotion.

Now you have a feeling about a feeling about a feeling which can get very confusing. Now the thing is with secondary and tertiary emotions they tend to hang around a lot longer. The anxiety you felt when addressing your team, you only experience that anxiety in the moment. But then the shame and anxiety of being anxious in the first place can carry on for the rest of the day. Then later that night, a fourth emotion comes in. Now you're angry now by this stage you're on four emotional reactions so you don't even know why you're angry you're angry because you spent the day ashamed and embarrassed about being anxious earlier in the day now the fourth emotion of anger

that you're feeling at nine o'clock that night is so far removed from the primary emotion of anxiety that you felt nine o'clock that morning. The anger will find its way out by looking for a target. And now you're grumpy and you're snapping at your partner or you're impatient with your child. So what happens is at each stage of primary, secondary, tertiary, don't know what the name is for number four, but at each stage of that emotional chain, you get more and more confused and less self-aware. And when you reach a point of having very little self-awareness,

that's when you start projecting on other people. People who don't understand their own emotions try to control other people's behaviour. They've lost all sense of intrapersonal, intrapersonal understanding and dialogue with oneself that you search for an external reason why you feel that way so now your little child is playing their Xbox and it's just a tiny bit too loud and that's a bit irritating but now you scream at him turn that fucking thing down

because you don't know why you're angry because it's the fourth emotion so you try and control your child's behaviour to alleviate that does that work? no now when a new emotional chain is set off, now you feel guilty because you got angry with your child. Now we're on to the fifth emotion. Now you're gone to bed with an intense sense of guilt that you don't really

understand. Now you can't sleep because with the feeling of guilt the anger turns inwards and now you can't sleep because you're thinking about what a horrible terrible person you are. So that there is a chain of feelings about feelings about feelings about feelings about feelings and the further you go along the chain the more confusing it becomes and the less of a sense of emotional literacy you have the less your capacity to actually understand what it is you're feeling because you have multiple conflicting feelings so my goal with emotional self-awareness and where i practice it through mindfulness is to try and not get to the fifth fucking feeling to not get to the

fifth feeling that when I get my primary emotion which is often triggered for a legitimate reason that when the secondary emotion shows up I have the self-awareness to analyse and name

that secondary emotion in the moment and say to myself am I being harsh on myself here I was terrified I got my hands caught behind a fucking couch primary emotion I felt helpless my hands were caught behind a couch primary emotion where's the evidence for this shame where's the evidence that I'm a big dumb stupid lazy

Homer Simpson bastard who gets caught behind couches where's the evidence that that's something that's unique to me

and not something that could have just happened to anyone because what really happened there is just I was unlucky in that moment in all my years on

this earth I've never gotten my both my hands caught behind a fucking couch before that incident so it took well into my 30s for that to happen once it was a one-off accident and it doesn't mean that I'm a big helpless Homer Simpson style joke. If I'd have been able to catch that in the moment, I'd have simply had a better day. I went to bed feeling worthless. I mean another example. This again would be more relatable than getting your hands caught behind a couch. I was practising my driving the other day.

I'm taking driving lessons again, I did my driver theory test, I was practicing driving alright and I made a really silly mistake on a roundabout I entered the roundabout too early and a car had to swerve a little, nobody

was hurt, I got on with my journey now what do you think I did? primary emotion, bit of anxiety because almost a little accident, almost. Secondary emotion, intense shame. Now it wasn't necessarily shame that I'd made the mistake, it was shame over the anxiety. I felt anxious on the roundabout because I was unsure of my driving ability because I'm just getting back into it. I felt anxious. The anxiety meant that I made a silly mistake and then I felt shameful for feeling the anxiety in the first place. I should have been confident. I should have been more cool-headed. Loads of shoulds and musts and judgmental language towards myself.

Instead of, that was a close call. You better learn from that mistake. But ultimately, forgive yourself. You've just gotten back into the car. It's okay to have one little fuck-up and thank bollocks. You weren't hurt or someone else wasn't hurt. Learn from this and move forward. Instead

of feeling the secondary emotion of shame. Not all primary and secondary emotions are bad. It can be a Friday evening at work and you suddenly realise holy fuck it's a Friday evening. So you feel happy that it's a Friday evening. Then you feel happy about the fact that you're happy.

So that's my takeaway for the week. Do you have your day riddled and ruined by secondary and tertiary emotions? Try and catch yourself in the moment when you have a negative feeling about a negative feeling. Because chances are, the only feeling you really needed to feel was the primary emotion in the moment. Sometimes it's okay to feel angry. But if you were raised with parents who didn't allow you to express anger,

every time you legitimately feel angry over something, you might have a secondary emotion of shame. Because you felt angry because you were shamed as a child for expressing anger. The most classic example of course is tears. Especially if you're a man. For most of us at certain points in our childhood, we're very clearly given the message that tears are no longer appropriate. Are you a baby or are you a big boy? Big boys don't cry.

Why are you crying like a baby? Boys don't cry. So if a man finds himself in a situation where something very sad happens and he fucking cries, even if it's just by himself, doesn't even have to be an audience that primary emotion that healthy human reaction of tears is immediately followed by the secondary emotion

of shame and embarrassment because the tears happened in the first place alright that's all we've got time for this week, you glorious cunts. That was a mad podcast. That was a bizarre podcast. That was mainly because I had to maintain a straight fucking face while telling you that story about my two arms getting caught behind the couch but again that's part of my healing that's part of my fucking healing

that's a ridiculous thing to happen that is a comedy sketch it's fucking ridiculous I was really embarrassed to get my fucking hands caught behind the couch but now I'm telling ye fucking l loads of ye so that I can be comfortable

with my vulnerable emotions because embarrassment is a very vulnerable emotion alright dog bless go fuck yourselves I'll catch you all next week for some glorious fun I didn't add any kisses on the end of last week's podcast. I don't know why,

but I'm going to give you double kisses this week. rock city you're the best fans in the league bar none tickets are on sale now for fan appreciation night on saturday april 13th when the toronto rock hosts the rochester nighthawks at first ontario center in hamilton at 7 30 p.. You can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats for every postseason game and you'll only pay as we play. Come along for the ride and punch your ticket to Rock City at torontorock.com. Thanks for watching!