The Blindboy Podcast - Transcendant Endas

Episode Date: December 2, 2020

I speak about the centenary of the Kilmichael ambush and answer yere questions about various craic Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bronze your oxters, you cross-legged townsends. Welcome to the Blind Boy Podcast. What's the crack with you lads? If you're a brand new listener, go back to an earlier episode. That's what I always suggest if you're a brand new listener. We're getting new listeners every fucking week. If you're an old listener, a normal listener, what's the crack? This week what I'm going'm gonna do because i haven't

done it in a while i'm gonna answer some of your questions i like to do a question answering podcast every so often so that i can so that i can fucking listen to you so that i can listen to you and listen to what you want me to talk about or listen to your questions and respond to them. Traditionally, with any question answering podcast, I promise you that I'm going to answer a lot of questions and what happens is I only answer maybe two. This time I'm really going to try to answer multiple questions. If question answering podcasts aren't your vibe, then i would suggest looking for an earlier podcast to listen to because we're almost up to 200 podcasts now at this point and i highly doubt

you've heard every one of them if you're one of these people if you're a dreary tina if you're a forever declan and you have actually listened to every single podcast up to this point, then fair fucking play to you. Fair fucking play to you. But for the majority, I doubt it. I doubt it. So if listening to me answering your questions is not the vibe you're after this week,

go listen to an earlier podcast and get your hot takes. So before I answer questions, I've had a i've had a complex week is a complex week the correct terminology so i'll tell you the week i had it's worse i won't say we're not i can't say the word celebrating i can't say the word celebrating. I can't say the word celebrating because it's not accurate. Roughly 100 years ago, 26 counties of Ireland achieved independence.

The Republic of Ireland, which is 26 counties of Ireland. It's called a country called the Republic of Ireland. We achieved independence from Britain, from 800 years of British rule the six counties in the north of Ireland have yet to achieve independence from Britain but where I live in Limerick we are part of the independent Republic of fucking Ireland and that Republic was achieved by a fucking war of independence a war against the British and that's why we're a republic down south and this is a fact and it's 100 years ago so this weekend, the 28th of November, was the 100 year anniversary of the Kilmichael ambush. Basically 100 years ago, in a place called Kilmichael in West Cork, the Irish Republican Army, the IRA, ambushed two lorry loads of auxiliaries.

Auxiliaries were the Royal Irish Constabulary it was known as, but Ireland was part of Britain. They were British officers. They were British officer soldiers. IRA ambushed them, shot 17 of them dead 100 years ago. It was a hugely important ambush. It was considered a turning point in the Irish War of Independence. ambush it was considered a turning point in the Irish war of independence it's considered probably the most the most important ambush of the Irish war of independence definitely considered

and it was 100 years ago at the weekend and like I said there were I think it was like 40 members of the IRA three of which were my relatives, my fucking grandfather and my two granduncles did that so I chose to remember it online, on Twitter and on Instagram and what I did is I shared where the Kilmichael ambush happened

there's a particularly there's a striking stone that's there and the reason it's striking it just says command post west cork brigade flying column ira and on this road to died 17 terrorist officers of the british forces on the 26th of november or 28th of november 1920 so i shared that now for british people listening and you're gonna have to with me, alright, because there's a lot of stuff about Irish history that you simply were not given access to in school. So you're going to have to bear with me because I understand when you hear the word IRA, what that brings up.

And it probably is incredibly jarring for you to see that there's a memorial which refers to the British forces as terrorists. to see that there's a memorial which refers to the British forces as terrorists. Now, why am I sharing that? I'm sharing it because it needs to be remembered and commemorated. Like, what feelings come up in me when I think of my grandad, my granduncles, being involved in the Kill Michael fucking ambush and being in the IRA is it like is it swelling me with this fucking nationalist pride not necessarily

mainly what I want I'm remembering I'm trying to remember it's a sadness it's it's sad it's sad like here's the thing

my grandad was 19 my granduncle was a bit older he was about 25 I think my other granduncle was even younger still he was like fucking 16 and like they weren't so here's first of all the British soldiers that were shot

the auxiliaries that was 17 hardened World War I veterans. And they were officers, so they were very, very posh. These were military men. They had been to military academy. They were part of the British army as such in Ireland as mercenaries.

But the thing is with... My granddad was 19. They weren't in the IRA because of necessarily ideological reasons. They were fighting fucking terrorism. I literally look, they were fighting the fucking Nazis. That's how I look back at it. They fought the Nazis. And the Nazis in West Cork in 1920 were the black and tans and the

auxiliaries because that's how they behaved they behaved as if they were the ss and my granda who was 19 was in that ambush as as a matter of fucking survival because in west cork at that time literally the local law and you can look it up, the local law was that any young man who had his hands in his pockets could be shot dead on sight. That's for real. And one week previously to the Kilmichael ambush, where 17 British auxiliaries were shot dead, one week previously, in Dublin, in an event known as Bloody Sunday, the first Bloody Sunday

Black and Tans, who were British forces they they went into a football match in Dublin there was a Gaelic football match a fucking football match lads they went into a football match British soldiers, about 60 of them

and they opened fire on the crowd and they shot 80 people They went into a football match, British soldiers, about 60 of them, and they opened fire on the crowd. And they shot 80 people, including children, and they killed 14. So, if you're a British person listening, this is the conduct of the British forces in Ireland at that time. Terrorism. Straight up fucking terrorism. Winston Churchill sent the Black and Tans to Ireland. To be terrorists. And to wear the British army. And do it all with the fucking medals and all that shit.

But terrorism. And you don't hear about that. Back in Britain. When soldiers in uniform go into a stadium. Full of spectators watching a football match. And just shoot it up with guns shooting 80 people and killing 14 that's terrorism, they're terrorists now

they're not all the pomposity of medals and uniforms and ranks that bullshit you know, fucking whatever happened over in World War II or the Somme once you start doing that you're you become terrorists now you're not soldiers anymore so the kill michael ambush which was a week later would have been a response to that it's like okay you're gonna go in and

shoot up a fucking a football match full of civilians then we're going to we're going to attack your elite forces. And that's what the Kill Michael ambush was. And I remember it with a sadness because it's like I said, my granddad didn't really, he didn't go, I want to be a fucking soldier. I want to be in the IRA, normal granduncles. They didn't like want to be military people. It wasn't a career.

It was an act of defense do you know what i'm saying so i remember that with a sadness but what kind of fucking annoyed me is just i had to feel a sense of shame about remembering it ireland the irish political parties in ireland weren't remembering the michmichael ambush because it was too politically sensitive for them because the two ruling parties in Ireland at the moment Fianna Gael and Fianna Fáil are involved with a campaign against Sinn Féin where the main weapon that Fianna Fáil and Fianna Gael use is to continue continually say to people oh Sinn Féin IRA Sinn Féin IRA to turn people off Sinn Féin so now you've got Fianna Gael and Fianna Fáil who can't barely can barely

acknowledge our war of independence because that means they can't smear Sinn Féin in 2020 but also as well what what made me really fucking annoyed and angry last week when I mentioned there about in 1920 British fucking soldiers the black and tans right shot up a crowd full of people a crowd full of innocent people just as terrorism in the name of the British crown funded by the taxpayer terrorism right Artishek Leo Radiker like he did an obligatory Facebook post where he's in Croke Park

where it happened remembering on you know 100 years previously but any time I saw remembrance of Bloody Sunday as it's known when the British forces shot those civilians Irish people felt the necessity to mention why the British forces had opened fire on a crowd of people the reason it happened is they were retaliating because earlier that day

the ira executed i think it was 12 i don't want the exact number i think no 16 i think earlier that day the ira executed 16 british spies so again these are british the equivalent of mi5 military people there's a war going on, so these are military targets. The IRA under Michael Collins executed these British spies. And then the British response is to kill civilians.

We shouldn't have to say that. When, how, when, imagine a massacre in World War II that was committed by the SS. Imagine the SS committed a massacre in World War II that was committed by the SS imagine the SS committed a massacre when do you ever hear anyone say the SS committed this massacre as a response to you just go no no no the SS committed war crimes

you don't offer an explanation as to why the SS committed a war crime or a massacre you just simply don't it's absurd so why are we doing it for British soldiers why why are we still a hundred years later embarrassed because that's what it is embarrassed of offending the British offending the British, offending the British by pointing out that your forces engaged in several acts of terrorism in Ireland under the banner of the fucking British Army why is that controversial

why me saying this or me expressing it online is this then framed as me being anti-British or me, the equivalent of me saying up the rah why is that the case why do we have to to explain why the British would shoot up a crowd of people to justify it as if shooting up a crowd of innocent people is an appropriate response response to military targets being executed and then why when i post that 100 years ago my grandfather and two granduncles shot 17 british officers and the memorial says 17 british terrorist

officers of the british forces were shot here why Why do I then have to feel like I have to fucking apologise for it? What the fuck is that? If we can't turn around and call, we'll say the actions of the Black and Tans during Bloody Sunday, the first Bloody Sunday, and the second Bloody Sunday in the 70s, if we can't call that terrorism, if we can't say it to the British, to their faces,

that was terrorism terrorism funded by the taxpayer done in the name of the crown if we can't do that and we still feel ashamed to say it then our minds are still colonized our minds are still fucking colonized and that shouldn't be a controversial thing to say and i'm able to say that while absolutely having no animosity towards English people British people I'm someone who's still compassionate I'm someone who likes peaceful solutions to things when I think back to my granddad 100 years ago it's not pride that I feel for him being involved in an ambush it's a sadness i feel for him being dragged into defending himself and being in a position where him and him and his friends were taking fucking lives where him and his friends were traumatized for the rest of their lives for having to take lives to defend themselves

in their communities i mean that's the difference here i mean they're not in a culture, they're not in a military culture. The auxiliaries who are of the officer class, like, military with all its ranks and with all its training and with all its badges and with all its lore and culture that's around it, that's a culture of desensitizing. That's a culture of normalizing violence. That's a full ideology that's not the same as a load of lads who a year ago were working on a farm who now are in a position where they must defend themselves because the blackened hands are because they can be shot for having their hands in their fucking pockets and they're watching their neighbours getting shot

so when I shared that online when I'm like 100 years ago my grandad was involved in this I had Irish people Irish people commenting at me going oh we have to get over it oh we shouldn't mention things like this but then over in Britain

everyone's wearing a fucking poppy do you know what I mean it's it's just if you're if you don't want to celebrate any war that's absolutely fine but what gets my goat is how one why is remembering the sadness and effort and sacrifice of something like World War II with poppies, why is that a noble thing that's celebrated and normalized? But Irish people, remembering normal Irish people, fighting the terrorist occupation of the British in Ireland, why is that still stigmatized 100 years fucking later?

And why do Irish people feel ashamed of doing it you can you're it's you can remember it I choose to remember the sadness of it I'm not someone who's into violence I'm not remembering or commemorating the violence of it I'm recognizing that the violence happened and I'm choosing to remember the sadness out of respect to my fucking poor granddad and poor granduncles who found themselves having to be in the ira and defend their communities so i'm gonna read you now a little an excerpt from one of my granddad's memoirs i don't know what you caught in a memoir or something my granddad would have written um and i'll read you an excerpt for that this would have been for the official military records after the war of independence every every man who was in the ira had to write an account of

their activities while in the ira i say man because the reason they did it is that if you were in the ira you were entitled to a pension and women weren't entitled to this pension so unfortunately the only voices that got recorded were the voices of men and a lot of the voices of women who were involved in the war of independence weren't recorded at all so we have this mistaken belief that women weren't involved they were i had a grant my grand aunt was i don't know was she in the ira but she was heavily involved in smuggling weapons and smuggling dispatches but her record she didn't get to write in the military records because she wasn't entitled to a pension because of her gender so anyway i'll read you this and i'm reading it to contextualize what life would have been like in west cork at the time for just a regular irish

person to contextualize the environment that my granddad was in which meant he basically he either had to join the ira or become a victim or see his family become victims so it was a week after kill michael ambush and my granddad this time he would he was 19 he would have he wouldn't have been living at home everyone in the flying column in tom barry's flying column they had to sleep in ditches or sleep in different houses they used to sleep they used to go to the houses of protestants and they'd basically go to the protestants house with a gun and say we're sleeping in here tonight because the tans wouldn't search those houses you see the whole area would have been surrounded by black and tans and auxiliaries looking for uh ira men looking for young men to shoot whether they

were in the ira or not so this is a story I'll read you, which is fucking harrowing. So my grandad had just, he'd, he'd, he'd met a neighbour of his, who was a fella by the name of Howrahan, who was 60, which would have been quite, 60 would have been very old in 1920,

in West Cork, where people were poor, 60 would have been considered quite old. So my granddad had met this Howrahan fella by a field and was talking to him and then left so as he left him I'll pick it up from there now Howrahan it's worth mentioning Howrahan he wasn't in the IRA he was just a goat farmer he had a big family just an old man an innocent old man so my granddad says then what's the crack how are you getting on talk to you later so i'll read you now the the bit from my my granddad's report of what

happened and i left him and crossed the boundary friends into our own land and i was moving along i came out of a valley into an open field carrying the revolver for which I had no ammunition in my hand so my grandad had a revolver that he'd taken from the Kilmichael ambush he'd taken it off an auxiliary I'd not gone far into the open field when I saw an auxiliary with a rifle in his hand on top of a rock at the back of my house about 30 yards away. I was now in the position that I felt I had been seen, so I immediately dropped the gun and continued to walk toward the auxiliary. As I moved along I lost sight of him, and when I came close to an intervening rock in the field,

I then ate the dispatch which I had in my pocket, and I sat down beside an old farce bush on the side of the rock so my granddad had a note in his pocket too which was obviously from Tom Barry or someone and he ate that so that if the Brits caught him they wouldn't find a note on him so he's now hiding beside behind a rock and directly above him on the rock are two auxiliary British soldiers and they don't know he's there hiding okay a few minutes later I saw the shadow of the auxiliary which came right over me at about the same time I saw poor Howrahan the old lad he'd just been talking to whom I had been speaking to coming towards me and I beckoned him away so now my granddad's hiding

behind this rock or beside the rock the auxiliary is above the rock Howrahan is after seeing my granddad again and decides I'll go over and chat to him Howrahan hasn't seen the British soldier so my granddad is using his arms as best he can going go the fuck away go away there's british soldiers go away howrah and turned but had only gone five or six yards when the auxiliary approached and searched him howrah and was then released and he crossed up our land and over the boundary fence into the lands of mr harry wood as he was walking close to the boundary friends i heard a rifle shot rang out and i saw him fall to the ground i could clearly see him from the position i occupied after he'd been shot i saw him trying to get on his feet but he failed to do so a few minutes later two auxiliaries passed quite close to me not more than 30 yards so that's the story that my grandad wrote for the

military history bureau after Kill Michael Ambush he'd been talking to his innocent fucking neighbour, a man in his 60s he hid behind a rock so the auxiliaries wouldn't see him and they didn't and the two

auxiliaries just shot, they went over and searched Howardahan and then they shot him for no fucking reason wouldn't see him and they didn't and the two auxiliaries just shot they went over and searched howahan and then they shot him for no fucking reason they they saw a farmer and decided to murder him for crack terrorism okay this is an old goat farmer they shot him in front of my granddad now the version that i know because i've been told it through my dad and I suppose my granddad didn't write it down into the official version of things because the official version had to be it couldn't be hearsay it had to be like the exact facts as it happened in a procedural fashion my granddad heard the two British soldiers taking a bet all right he heard them they searched Howrahan and he heard the two fucking British soldiers

going I bet you this that I can get him as he walked away the two fucking British soldiers decided I bet you a pound or a shilling or whatever the fuck it was that I can hit him and they had the bet and they fired a shot and they killed him stone dead so that's what life meant

for an Irish person in 1920s in fucking west cork that two british soldiers could take a fucking bet and pick you off and kill you stone dead an innocent person and this is a man with a family and the saddest thing about that story from the version that was said to me is is because i remember my dad was either asking my granddad my grand uncle like were you scared and the biggest fear he had is that his heart was when he was hiding behind that rock and the auxiliaries hadn't seen him his heart was thumping so hard that he was afraid they would hear his heart and when my dad asked him we were afraid they'd kill you he said he said as far as we were all concerned all of us in the flying column we were already dead they considered themselves dead

already death was a certainty you're going to die what they were afraid of was the practice of torture the auxiliaries and the black and tans, if they caught a young man who they suspected of being in the IRA, if they didn't shoot him on sight, what they would do is torture. And their favourite method of torture is they had lorries called Crossley Tenders. They would get a young man and they would tie him between two lorries and then they would pull his body apart. And that was the fear it was torture it wasn't death i'm afraid they're gonna rip my body in half with lorries because it happened to my friends that's what the fucking british were up to that was the normalized and encouraged conduct

of these 17 auxiliaries that were shot dead at the kilmichael ambush that we can't that we can't even mention. We can't even mention it happened today. Their conduct wouldn't be out of place in fucking Schindler's List, lads. In speaking of films, get a look at the film. If this stuff is sounding familiar, get a look at the film The Wind That Shakes the Barley by the brilliant British filmmaker Ken Loach. The Wind That Shakes the Barley by the brilliant British filmmaker Ken Loach The Wind That Shakes the Barley with

Cillian Murphy is, it's loosely based on the events of Tom Barry's flying column in West Cork of which my granddad and granduncles were involved and it's loosely based on them around that time with stories from that era

as a kind of, a fictionalised version but heavily based on what actually happened to and and it portrays the kill michael ambush also so that's what that's the world my granddad was living in when he decided to fucking be in the ira and shoot six 17 fucking auxiliaries all right and that's why i feel sad over it that that's why I don't, I don't, I don't well up, it's not like I'm wearing a red poppy, where I well up with, with the bravery, it's like, no, no, no, that's the fucking environment, and the law clearly stated too, you can look it up, the law in West Cork at the time, if a man was seen to put his hands into his pockets, that was enough

to suggest that he was a terrorist, and could be shot and to add insult to injury i went looking up the i use a website called the irish newspaper archives fantastic fucking website where you can look up irish newspaper archives going back 300 years so i went digging and searching for a report of what my granddad said in his report of that man's death mr howrahan and i found it and it was just a small little piece in the paper on that date and it just said uh local local laborer um i can't remember his first name mr howrahan uh it was described in the paper as a tragedy and it stated that the man was mistakenly shot by auxiliaries

while running away so my grandad saw him being shot dead heard the British soldiers taking a fucking bet over who could kill him for crack and then when the reporters came to the police station or whatever and said what happened to Mr. Houraghan? Why was an innocent man in his 60s with a large family shot dead?

They just said he tried to run away. He tried to run away and because of that there's a war going on and we had to shoot him. So that's what my granddad was living under. That's what my granddad was living under when he found himself involved in the fucking kill michael ambush what else are you gonna do what the fuck else are you gonna do that's terrorism that's the shit that the ss were getting up to and i don't give a fuck who does it anyone who deliberately targets a civilian population anybody i don't give a fuck who it is right a british army ira uvf whoever if you deliberately target a civilian fucking population that's an act of terrorism and i i don't like being made

to feel as if i'm anti-fucking british by investigating my family history like that i shouldn't i shouldn't have to feel anti-brritish by saying my fucking grandfather and two granduncles were in the IRA and they shot 17 auxiliaries. And if you are feeling that that's anti-British and you are British, then why are you identifying your Britishness with tyranny? Do you know what I mean? Even if you have relatives that are in the fucking British Army. i mean even if you have relatives that are in the fucking british army and i get mails from people in the british army who listen to this podcast who say to me no no i'm off doing humanitarian work i'm doing this i'm doing that like if if me recounting a history of that type of terror and tyranny is anti-british then don, then that means you're identifying that as British.

When you should be chastising it, distancing yourself from it, in the way that I am. In the same way that I'm, I'm abhorred and distance myself from acts of terrorism committed on civilian, on fucking civilians, supposedly on behalf of Ireland. And there's so much about

British so many elements of British history that you can be fucking proud of and in the same way that Irish people or that British people don't learn about Irish history there's elements of British history that Irish people could benefit from learning from too in particular things like fucking and I'll do podcasts on this eventually it's shit i need to learn about more but like working class revolutions in britain the fight for for workers rights the history of strikes fighting against against big capitalist fucking industrial revolutionary owners of of factories and and fighting for the rights of workers so that you can have a certain hours in a day or decent pay or decent conditions

there's so much of this history in Britain the fucking Battle of Cable Street you know in London fighting off the fascists saying fuck you to Oswald Mosley identify with that shit, that shit to be proud of that you can be proud of that fuck the black and tans

fuck the SAS so yeah, regarding the 100 years since the Kill Michael ambush I shouldn't have to feel anti-British for that you know what I mean? I view it in the context of defending yourself against terrorism because that's

the situation you've been put in and I want to reflect. On the deep sadness. Of all of that. The deep sadness of it. That's what I want to hold into my heart. Not necessarily a pride. Not necessarily.

I mean there is a fucking. It's very hard to hold down anger. It's hard to hold down anger too. When you think about that. When you think about what was done to people like you. But I think a more constructive, healthy emotion for me to meditate on there is just the sadness of it. That's really, really sad. That a 19 year old had to see his neighbour getting shot dead.

Had to hear hardened soldiers do it for a bet, had to be put in the position where he's taking people's fucking lives when all he wants to do really is milk his cows. Do you know what I mean? And I know there's a lot of British people. To the Irish people listening, most of the Irish people listening,

you're familiar with this shit. You know the story with this. And to people in the north of Ireland, this is nothing, I'm talking about my this and to people in the north of ireland this is nothing i'm talking about my fucking grandfather people in the north of ireland your parents have stories like this there's people listening to this podcast in the north of ireland who might be in their 40s who have seen this stuff in their own communities and it's embarrassing for me you know speaking about irish independence for the 26 counties and the privilege that i had to to grow up safely without british soldiers on my streets

that's embarrassing knowing that there's people from the north of ireland listening and you know you had fucking bloody sunday was in the 70s do you know what i mean this shit is is recent memory for people in the north of Ireland I I don't want to be seen to undermine the complexity and the sadness of that situation but to the British people listening to to I don't even like saying the word fucking British man because it's excluding Welsh people Scottish people to to to English Scottish and Welsh people listening who feel uncomfortable the person who's responsible for

bringing those brutal troops to Ireland in the 1920s specifically the Black and Tans Winston Churchill ordered that Winston Churchill and a fella called Hamar Greenwood who was the great great grandfather of Cara Delevingne but like

they designed this the Black and Tans as mercenaries and their goal was specifically go to Ireland and target civilians go to Ireland

with uniforms as crown forces and murder, maim and kill civilians so that the Irish will turn against any idea of independence, make them afraid. Winston Churchill did that, okay. Do you know what else Winston Churchill did? Winston Churchill turned the British army on striking miners in Glasgow, in Liverpool and in Manchester. So it's not an Irish-English thing. It's a power structure thing. It's a class thing. The rich elites over in England didn't give too much of a fuck about poor people in Britain either. And the wonderful trick that the British fucking empire has managed to play on the people of England

is to convince the poor people of England that poor people in other countries that are colonised are their enemies. And to send them over to be fucking cannon fodder and you want to see the roots of that look up the history of council housing in the uk council housing was introduced and accepted in i believe the year was 1916 no 1919 i think the first council houses were built in Britain by Neville Chamberlain the reason the council houses were decided to be a good thing were because the British military had done a big report on its performance in World War I and a huge amount of British soldiers in World War I were poor people poor people from the slums of cities like manchester or london and the report had come

to the conclusion that british soldiers in world war one were at a disadvantage because they came from slums that didn't have sanitation and they were malnourished so council houses were introduced in britain so that better working class cannon fodder could be created for future fucking wars never chamberlain did that so take that shit on board and if if when i'm speaking about this stuff if it makes you feel deeply uncomfortable i'm not speaking about irish versus fucking english it's a power structure thing it's a power structure thing and irish people we shouldn't feel uncomfortable speaking about our fucking history i shouldn't feel uncomfortable speaking about our fucking history. I shouldn't feel uncomfortable speaking about my family history.

I shouldn't have to feel ashamed or embarrassed to tell these stories. It's as simple as that. And all this has gone on. You know, I'm talking about something that happened 100 years ago this week. And right now this week, if you've been looking at the news, you know, British investigations, inquiries into the murder of a human rights liar called Pat Finucane, who was murdered in 1989. He was murdered by the UDA, I think it was.

They were loyalist paramilitaries. And he was a human rights liar, right? So he wasn't involved in an organization he was a human rights lawyer who happened to defend he would defend IRA members he also defended loyalist paramilitaries but he was shot dead and there's overwhelming evidence that his death was aided by British forces. And there's also evidence to suggest that it was overseen by Margaret Thatcher. And this week alone,

they're trying to look into an inquiry about it, and it's been shut down, it's been silenced over in England. So that's what's happening now, and I'm talking about something 100 years ago at the same time. So it's very complex, and it's very complex complex but i don't think anyone should feel fucking ashamed speaking about history and just to kind of to round it up and take it back to the theme that this is supposed to be a question answering podcast and i'm fucking 30 minutes in and i i've been answering my own questions a question anytime i ask uh for questions from ye i always get blind by what's

your thoughts on a united ireland what's your thoughts on the united ireland always and to tie it in with this discussion would i like to see united ireland absolutely i love the romantic idea of united ireland i love the thought of that i really do realistically what would i like to see what i'd like to see right what's more important to me than a united ireland more important i want whatever scenario which guarantees and provides the safety for everybody in the north of ireland regardless fuck sectarianism every human being in the north of ireland whatever scenario guarantees peace and safety that's the better option for me that's the one that i want peace and safety of human beings

to live happy meaningful meaningful fucking lives. That's the most important thing for me, regardless of United Ireland or whatever the fuck. Peace and safety of every human being in the north of Ireland is the most important thing for me. That's my opinion. As a compassionate person who loves people. Alright? So, questions. Padraig wants to know, Excelsior or Galahad all right that's a tough one so Excelsior and Galahad Excelsior is Lidl's cheap

lager and Galahad is Aldi's cheap lager I'm going to go with Galahad if I had a choice between the two I'm going with Galahad but only if I don't have any option I don't really like Galahad like 7 years ago 7-8 years ago when I was living on maybe

between 30 and 50 euros a week then I was going to I was going to Aldi and I was drinking Galahad cans because they were so fucking cheap but even Galahad isn't that nice as a beer

like it's what don't I like about Galahad it's quite sugary now it's not as sugary as when you're in Aldi you've two choices I'm not interested in Lidl beer I'll be honest Aldi's better

you've got a choice between Galahad or this other one called Saint Etienne, which I've heard is just Stella Artois in a different packaging. But both Galahad and Saint Etienne, they're both very unnecessarily sweet. So I wouldn't like either of them. If I was on a budget in Aldi, I'd probably go for that go for that do you know the small little French Pilsner bottles those small little ones that would be my choice if I had to but now I have a little bit more money

I don't need Galahad so I'd probably go for one of the craft beers or sometimes they have Paulaner or something like that but listen I'm serious about fucking cans. I love a freezing cold can. I don't necessarily pine for IPAs or particularly fancy beer. I like a humble, decent fucking lager.

Anyone who knows their shit will tell you. Polish cans. Anyone who knows their shit. So if I want budget cheap cans no bullshit very refreshing fizzy cold drink that delivers a certain amount of alcohol i'm going into the polish supermarket i'm going into the polish supermarket my favorite is is zweizik it's called it's six percent that's by far my favorite but to be honest I'll pick up whatever Polish can is going whatever the Polish

Czechoslovakia they know how to do lager they know how to do it so if you're on a budget head into a Polish supermarket go down the back very cheap high quality alcohol Aldi and Lidl it's full of sugar and once you notice that

you'll start tasting it and you won't be able to taste it again also really good cheap beer which I found myself getting recently this one the way I found this talk about strange advertising I was walking past some bins

do you know like the big industrial bins and I was walking past these bins near duns and i saw on the ground like these cans that obviously someone had drank and left behind the bins and it was a yellow can and something about it being on the ground beside the bins made me go hmm i wonder what that's like like Like a fucking big billboard, except someone has left it on the ground beside the bins. And I looked at the can and I said, right, Hackenberg, I'm going to check that out. I went into Dunn's.

Lo and behold, Hackenberg was there, four cans for a fiver. Five percent. Looked at the ingredients. Only barley malt, yeast hops, what more do you want? Got myself four cans of Hackenberg gorgeous clean beautiful decent quality beer that you can't complain about

at a really cheap budget price way better than fucking Galahad Hackenberg is number one choice if you're on an extreme budget and want to get yourself some cans up the rat time for the ocarina pause now what are we are we half an hour are we half an hour into this let me double check

here now 43 minutes 43 minutes all right ocarina pause um this is the part in the podcast where you might hear an advertisement uh adverts are digitally inserted by a cast a cast or who host this podcast so a cast host the podcast and because a cast host this they put digital adverts in here i don't know what the advert is going to be it's based on your algorithm so everyone gets a different advert so i'm going to put in a little musical interlude so that you're not surprised by a big advert. You may notice this week too that you're no longer hearing the squeak of a chair. This issue has been solved. I'll tell you how it's been solved after the ocarina pause. Rock City, you're the best fans in the league bar none tickets are on sale now for fan appreciation

night on saturday april 13th when the toronto rock hosts the rochester nighthawks at first ontario center in hamilton at 7 30 p.m you can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats for every postseason game and and you'll only pay as we play. Come along for the ride and punch your ticket to Rock City at torontorock.com. 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 for you. No, don't. The first omen, I believe, the girl is to be the mother. Mother of what? Is the most terrifying. Six, six, six. It's the mark of the devil. Hey!

Movie of the year. It's not real, it's not real. What's not real? Who said that? The First Omen. Only in theaters April 5th. very frantic ocarina pause there sounded like it was wailing sounded like the ocarina was crying for help

it's not, it's absolutely fine I got a new chair I got a new fucking chair, finally lads after two years of this podcast or three years or whatever the fuck we're on. The squeaky chair is no more. I got myself a lovely gamer chair. Goes up and down.

I can slouch in it. And I can move back and forth as much as I. When I'm thinking. When I'm thinking of hot takes. And I'm rocking back and forth. I used to be in the old chair not rocking rocking back and forth as much as I want because I'm terrified that it make this loud noise now you wouldn't even know I'm moving now it's a lovely fucking chair so I'm really happy this chair was funded

by you no but it was this chair was funded by you the listener all right i bought this chair for the podcast because i have patrons there's a patreon page lads and the patreon page right patreon.com forward slash the blind by podcast that allows me to earn a living for doing this podcast and it allows me two things buy myself this new chair and very shortly i'm gonna buy myself a brand new computer because this computer i have it's just filling up it's filling up with all these fucking podcasts so i need to get a new computer pretty soon there's about three months left in it but i don't want to be put in a situation where the computer gets so full that when i'm recording it starts crashing i can't have that happen that would be

heartbreaking so i'm gonna get a new computer soon and all this stuff is funded by you the listener um this podcast is my full-time job i i'm a full-time artist i fucking love doing this podcast right i love doing it and if you love listening to it just consider paying me for the work that i'm doing four podcasts a month all i'm asking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month that's it you get four podcasts all right and i get the time and the space to put all the work that needs to go into making these fucking podcasts also by this podcast being listener funded I've got full editorial control no one tells me what to do I don't worry about what I want to fucking talk about everything comes from the heart and I'm making something I genuinely want to make and share with you um like no advert like i just spoke there for a fucking

half an hour about the kill michael ambush about the ira about british terrorism i had some difficult chats there that you're just you're not going to hear this on irish radio you're just not going to hear it it's not it's it wouldn't be allowed it wouldn't be allowed it just simply wouldn't um this podcast i have the space to do it. If an advertiser comes along to me and says, we didn't like that bit where you referred to the British Army as terrorists, I'll say, go fuck yourself. Fuck off and sponsor someone else's podcast, so you pricks.

Do you know what I mean? Whereas with a listener-funded podcast. We can do that. We can have that conversation. We can work through it. Do you remember when the fucking British Army was trying. Man. About two years ago. The British Army were.

They were inserting adverts in my podcast. For my British listeners. And it was brought to my attention. And I said no. No British Army adverts on my podcast. And they kept fucking doing it and I had to start listing out British war crimes

I had to engage in digital resistance, I had to create a hostile environment on this podcast so that the British Army wouldn't advertise on it and it worked, they never came back look, patreon.com forward slash the blind buy podcast become a patron of the podcast, if you can afford to Look, patreon.com forward slash the blind buy podcast.

Become a patron of the podcast. If you can afford to, please consider doing it, right? This is how I earn a living. If you can't afford it, you don't have to. This is a model based on kindness and soundness. So how it works, if you can't afford to be a patron of this podcast, you're paying for somebody who can't afford. All right? Everyone gets a podcast and i earn a living everyone's happy um i wouldn't change it for the world also come join me on twitch all right like the podcast subscribe to it if you're in if you're

outside of ireland recommend it to a friend alright this podcast has gone really global because of people going I heard this podcast you gotta listen to it so you people are really valuable

those people not in Ireland who are suggesting it to people join me on Twitch three nights a week twitch.tv forward slash the blind buy podcast

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday at about 8.30pm I go live on twitch and you can chat with me live and we have unbelievable fun i i make music live to the events of a video game it's an art project that i'm doing an ongoing art project where i'm trying to create a new genre called hyper real songwriting where I write songs to a digital environment

as a response to quarantine and it's a lot of fun so join me on Twitch for that back to the questions let's try and answer some questions lads Maxer asks right is there a name

or a habit for atheists saying God bless? That's an interesting one. You'll notice from listening to this podcast, I say God bless quite a bit. And I say God, I'd say God bless a lot. And I'm not religious. I would be, I'd be agnostic, the only reason I'd never call myself an atheist is that atheism, there's a certainty to it, there's a certainty to atheism you see, and that type of certainty to me is religious, so I would never call myself an atheist, instead I'd say agnostic, in that I don't know, I don't fucking know like i i had a theory a few weeks back that the universe might be a simulation that's currently infected by an internet mushroom that changes the the nature of reality to benefit the internet algorithm but i i can't say that i'm an atheist when i think of

something like time like time isn't time time being cyclical that shit fucks up my head so I'm gonna go with agnostic I listen to people who have ayahuasca trips and shit like that I meditate and when I meditate or when I when I when I meditate I've achieved spiritual type feelings you know what I mean um when i create art and i enter flow i enter a plane of consciousness that isn't of my everyday life i don't know are these things supernatural i don't know but i'm gonna go with agnostic i don't know if there is or is not a higher power. Or whatever the fuck. But I still say God bless. So when I say God bless.

For me it's more of an Irish cultural thing. God bless is Irish. I hear God bless is an Irish thing. It's what Irish people say to each other. It's a lovely compassionate Irish way to say goodbye. There's an irony to it as well. So when I say god bless i'm preserving uh something irish i grew up with and i'm able to say god bless without it necessarily meaning god or having any religious affiliations it's just it's it's cultural thing

that's why i say god bless and i I don't want to give it up. I like doing it. It makes me. Do you know what man. It gives me. It connects me with my fucking ancestors. It connects me. When I hear God bless.

I hear older people. Talking to each other when I'm younger. So it's like connecting connecting with my ancestors through language so that's why I say God bless Hardy asks why do you sometimes refer to everyone on the podcast as lads so sometimes I'll say

well lads and Hardy says why do you sometimes call everyone on the podcast lads I don't know how I feel about it em well lads I don't know how I feel about it well lads in Ireland is actually gender neutral it's a lovely thing in Ireland

in Ireland you grow up in school and I went to a school when I was a little kid anyway primary school where it was girls and boys in the class together and the teacher calls you lads sit down lads be quiet lads so within irish culture that the collective term lads is has no gender whatsoever girls will call each other lads

boys will call each other just lads is simply a each other. Just lads is simply a group. It's a friendly way of saying a group of people. There's no gender to lads in Irish. My friend used to call his ma lads. I know someone else who called their dog lads. If lad, singular, that's gendered. That's a gendered term. But lads isn't.

Lads just means everybody and i've seen people embrace it a bit online as well and celebrate that celebrate that we say lads in ireland as a gender neutral term because gender neutral terms are just nice they're just a good way to conduct yourself you know it's it's inclusive you don't know what you don't you you never know what someone identifies as personally so when you're using gender neutral language in your everyday life as much as you can and it's effortless and we have this thing called lads that's already in our culture that's gender neutral that's a good thing poxy asks blind by it's coming up to 10 years since horse outside how do you feel about it That's a good thing. Poxy asks, Blind Buy, it's coming up to 10 years since Horse Outside.

How do you feel about it? So, for people listening to this podcast, I used to make music under the name Rubber Bandits. Myself and a fella, Mr. Chrome. And we had a really big song 10 years ago next week i think it was called horse outside which went really viral and how do i feel about it i i mean it's a thing with the the rubber bandit stuff i view the rubber bandit stuff as i just say to myself

that's what i was doing in my 20s that's what i was doing in my 20s the rubber bandits was my creative output in my 20s now i'm in my 30s i'm older i'm a different person to who i was in my 20s so now i'm doing different stuff which is more congruent with where I am right now with my beliefs with my aesthetics so that's how I look back on rubber banded stuff I how do I feel about horse outside I mean it was fucking life-changing it was in my early 20s it was fucking life-changing it's horse outside was the moment when I went I in my head I went, right, I'm a professional artist now, like I've been doing this shit, since I was fucking 16,

but Horse Outside was the moment, even though, like I'd done bits on TV, and I'd been writing TV scripts, and we'd been releasing songs, and I'd even, I'd gigged Electric Picnic and stuff, before Horse Outside,

but I never thought, before Horse Outside, that, like I'd be a, I'd be a professional artist. That that would be my fucking job and my career. It was never going to be. I thought I was going to be a psychotherapist or an art college lecturer. But when Horse Outside came around, I was like, fuck, this is big.

I can keep this momentum going. I think it's dated a bit, it has dated a bit, especially the lyrics have dated a bit, it's, I mean look, it's a fun song, I'm very proud of it as a pop song, as a piece of pop music, it's really, really really catchy and it takes the boxes that i want to take with a real catchy fucking pop song earworm you know even though some of the lyrics are absolutely fine for lads in their 20s messing but saying if i was singing horse outside now in my thirties, along with a lot of rubber bandit stuff, it'd feel fucking strange. Just doesn't

suit. Just feel weird. Do you know what I mean? Up on stage in my thirties talking about fingering. No thanks. I'm trying to gracefully transition into being a da. And I don't mean da as in father of a child, but just

slowly, gracefully transitioning into into middle age you know and trying to do that while not being reactionary or hateful you know

you see you see lads on their internet on the internet in their 30s and they just fucking hate anything the people in their 20s and they just fucking hate anything that people in their 20s are doing and they hate anything that's new or frightening and I'm trying to not be that. I want to just gradually become older, uncool and my focus is just being nice, being a nice person who's open to ideas and whatever people in their 20s are

doing doesn't scare me it's just trying to become that that's what i'm trying to do not fight the fact that i'm going into my 30s and don't fight it never fight it just go this is where i'm at all right oh they're doing what now okay okay grand, I would have been doing that when I was that age as well, it doesn't threaten me, absolutely fine, this is where I'm at, oh beige trousers, yes please, do you know what I mean, but I tell you what I will say, I tell you what I am happy about with fucking Horse Outside, for a while there, I thought Horse Outside would have been like the biggest thing I'd ever done in my career because it's it's got 20 million youtube views in 10 years which is quite a lot and I was

like fuck it is that is that the peak now is that the biggest thing I've ever done um and I'm really really glad that like it's not it's just a thing i did and i've done stuff stuff since like my books or my my tv series and even this fucking podcast like acas got onto me last week and they said that next week this podcast is gonna hit 25 million listens so this podcast in three years has gotten 25 million listens and horse outside has gotten 20 million views in 10 so i'm able to go fucking class i'm not a one-trick pony that's what i did in my 20s and it was good then and now this is what i'm doing now and that is also good so that feels nice that feels good to know that I'm not defined by that one thing. And you know right now.

I want to write. I'm getting ready to write more books. I fucking love writing books. That's the main thing for me. In my 30s is the books. Because I adore it. And it's congruent. Where I am.

Emotionally. And I'll probably keep that going for another while and then I envision myself I've the shit I'm doing on Twitch obviously as well doing music on Twitch hyper real songwriting that's far more exciting to me

than making songs and releasing them as videos making songs on the fucking fly I'm really excited about that and then as I, when I'm older then, when I'm in like my fucking 40s and 50s and beyond, that's when I want to start painting, I, I, I love painting, but I've been so busy with fucking writing the music, that I just never got around, I haven't really painted properly since I was about 18, and I fucking love painting, and I'm handy enough at it

so when I'm older that's what I want to be I'm going to be a painter that's when I'm going to fucking crack out the oil paints again and that's what I'm doing then you know that would be my retirement a fucking painter you know as the as the final phase of blind buy I think because you know as well I'm too much of a fucking hipster I'm too much of a hipster to be defined by fucking horse outside and if I wasn't me I'd probably hate horse outside to be honest you know

but I'm very proud of it as a pop song I'm very proud of it as a pop song it's a banging pop song and when you hear it it's stuck in your head what more do you want old gray whistle test if you hear it it's stuck in your fucking head you don't want anything more than a pop song and do you know what man fucking take an x factor to its knees it was christmas number two in 2010

but x factor really mattered back then x factor was the biggest thing going. And it truly threatened X Factor at the number one. And to do that. On a computer. With something that was made in a fucking bedroom. And mixed on a pair of shitty speakers. That makes me feel really proud. Because of my love of pop music. You know.

So I am happy with that. Of course. Fucking. We've got this program in Ireland. Called called reeling in the years where they do like a they do a roundup of the year 10 years ago on this thing called reeling in the years and i think horse outside is going to be on the one for 2010 but i heard through the grapevine that that's rTE have lost the original HD footage of Horse Outside so the only footage that exists is the really shit

2010 YouTube quality that's what I heard, I hope it's not fucking true I hope they've sorted it and they haven't actually lost Horse Outside but it's RTE, they're capable of it Saoirse asks any tips on how to stop worrying about what other people think about you

em that's a tough one right first of all accept your humanity accept your humanity here's a couple of things that we should accept about being human

we are all insecure ok Okay, here's a couple of things that we should accept about being human. We are all insecure. Okay, we are all insecure. There's no such thing as a person who is not insecure. It's okay to be insecure. It would be strange to have complete and utter security and confidence in yourself at all times. Okay, so we're always going to be a little bit insecure when insecurity is crippling and it prevents you from living a normal happy life and having normal happy relationships then that's an issue but insecurity is healthy

so as a because we're all insecure and you know what what? Say that to yourself every day. I say it to myself. I am insecure. I say that to myself. Okay? And there's a great liberation from it. Because we tend to think that insecurity is a weakness or a flaw. And it's an insult. And it's ridiculous.

We're all insecure, lads. Every one of us are insecure. And a kind of condition of this insecurity is we want other people's approval. We're human beings, we're social animals. I want other people to approve of me and it hurts when people don't approve of me. Okay?

That's a fact. That's how I am and it's a normal part of the human condition so these are helpful things to say to ourselves i'm insecure i want people to approve of me it hurts when other people don't approve of me okay when you become obsessed with other people's approval when people when you feel that people must approve of you and when you feel that if people don't approve of you you start to self-flagellate and withdraw and feel a great deal of shame now you have an issue now your relationship with other people's approval and disapproval is unhealthy okay so i have a healthy i require a healthy amount of approval from people and you know i

don't like it when people disapprove but i always try and take it back i try i always try and ground myself and i remind myself if if i'm if i'm being respectful to other people if i'm being kind and compassionate and respectful to people right and they still don't approve of me then I have to park it then and I can go their disapproval that's fucking nothing to do with me because I've reached the basic level here of showing this person respect and kindness and compassion and being nice to them if that hasn't if I can't get their approval beyond that, that's none of my fucking business, and I won't chase that person for approval, because when you feel insecure, like excessively insecure, you'll start being overly nice to people,

overly nice to people who don't approve of you, or who are being rude to you, and you try and be extra nice and sometimes that person then will interpret that as weakness and that's how you end up in a situation a kind of a toxic situation where you may even be bullied so how do we how do i get over how do i stop excessively worrying what other people think of me it's a double-edged blade so the trick is yeah when someone does give you a compliment or when someone thinks you're good or someone gives you a lot of approval you can't i don't allow myself to focus too much on that so it is a fact that it feels good when other people approve of me that's a fact it feels good but if when someone approves of me i place too much weight

and happiness on their approval then that means when someone disapproves of me it's going to hurt heart twice as much so yet the way to get to a healthy level of seeking approval is to not don't make too much of a fuss of it when people think you're good don't make too much of a fuss of it you you you have to have your own approval you You have to have. I mention it all the time. A fucking inner locus of evaluation. An internal locus of evaluation. If you don't want to be excessively worrying about other people's approval. Try and get the most amount of approval to come internally from yourself. About yourself.

And the classic mantra that I use all the time. I am better than nobody else. and nobody else is better than me because humans are too complex to evaluate against each other and that's a fact we all have intrinsic worth and our intrinsic worth is equal to all other human beings and aspects of our behavior good or bad don't add or take away from our intrinsic value so focus on your intrinsic value um similarly if if if you're like training yourself to not you know don't don't let it make your day if you meet some new people and they think you're really funny or they think you're sound don't allow that to make your day because they approved of you instead what you can take to bed that night and feel good about is not the fact that they thought you were funny or thought that you were nice

focus on the fact that you were compassionate and friendly to another person that you put in that work you put in that effort you showed them respect and then a consequence of that is they gave you approval but fuck their approval what you should be proud of is that you put in the effort to show this person respect and to listen to them and give them compassion and empathy because if you do that properly approval is going to obviously come but focus on the work that you put in to just show another person compassion and respect focus on that because that's real internal locus of evaluation shit and and don't worry about the approval that comes from it yeah it's nice it's better than someone calling you a prick similarly don't don't uh don't allow yourself to feel contempt for other people so if if you're consistently worrying and seeking the approval of other people right and hurting deeply when they disapprove chances are right you're probably also quite judgmental privately of other people

because it can't that's just kind of how it works it's sometimes how hard you are on other people is a reflection of how hard you are in yourself you know so if if you see someone if you're in a social situation and someone new comes in and they are talking a bit too much because they want your approval and inside your head you're going jesus does this person ever shut up god this person's really insecure fucking hell man this god they talk so much shit try and avoid try and avoid this type of thinking inside yourself where you have contempt inside you and now this person who's looking for your approval and they're putting in a bit too much work and now you feel contempt because they're looking for your approval and you're you're going in your head, what a fucking idiot, do they ever shut up, what a stupid thing to say, like you're judging that person as harshly as you judge yourself when you're at home worrying about how people approve of you, so what, instead of saying to yourself, this person's an idiot, this person's talking too much, this person is cringy oh my god i can't believe

they said that instead of going there bring it to a place of compassion and empathy and say wow this person doesn't seem too secure in themselves and because they're nervous around this they're now saying things that are cringy. They're now working too hard. And try and have empathy for their sense of insecurity. That then drives their behaviour in that direction. And when you do that now you have compassion. So when you can extend that compassion for another person for being insecure. You won't be as hard on yourself. You'll be more forgiving of yourself.

When you go and meet a new group of people you meet a new group of people you feel insecure you want their approval now all of a sudden you're talking out of your arse that's how it works you're talking out of your arse why did i say that why am i trying to be funny why am i keep talking why can't i sit back and listen and you're beating yourself up so you need to be able to have the self-compassion to go yeah I felt insecure today and as a result of that I went into a new friends group and I spoke too much I looked for too much approval that's okay I'm a human I'm insecure I'll try and work on it the next time so you have to have compassion for other people and not be judgmental at them if you then want

to have that self-compassion for yourself where you can get to the internal locus of evaluation if that makes sense jamie asks how come my books aren't available as audiobooks the company that commissioned my my first two books gil Books fantastic fucking book company they gave me my first break in writing they were the ones who believed in me who approached me and said blind boy will you write a book for us and I'm eternally grateful to them

and especially to Conor Nagel the commissioner but Gil just don't seem to have an audio book department the audio books are recorded they're done but I can't put them out if the book company doesn't have the infrastructure to put out audiobooks so

it's as simple as that which is a shame it's a fucking shame but audiobooks will come out eventually I don't know how it's going to happen but it will happen Ole asks what is the one thing that you think teenagers and college students are missing out on um the the fact that literally the fact that so

much of a teenagers and a person in their early 20s life is now lived out online like when i was fucking a teenager i was a fucking silly eejit you know um but if i said something mortifying or embarrassing or if i was if i was really insecure and because i was so insecure i was saying dumb shit to get attention right it just disappeared into the ether, it just disappeared you know, whatever dumb shit I said when I was 19 in a smoking area or showing off to people because I'm insecure

reactionary opinions trying to get attention looking for attention that shit just disappeared they were just words that happened then they disappeared into the air i can't remember them and no one around me can remember them and i got to mature and grow as a human but like teenagers now they write these things down on fucking instagram or on twitter and And if they don't delete them, they're there forever.

So that's one thing I think young people miss out on. I'm old enough to remember being a teenager and the internet wasn't fucking important. The internet was a thing you had in your living room on a computer. But it didn't write all your thoughts down down so dumb teenage shit just got to disappear disappear gone forever words spoken into the air as vibrations existed for a second also i would have been i was i was bullied quite a bit as well in my early teens i was bullied quite a bit because I was because I'm a creative person I would have as a teenager your peers then see you as being weird or mad so when I was in my

early teens I would have been seen by my peers as fucking mad really really strange and odd and mad because I was creative I had a different way of looking at things a different way of looking at the world a different sense of humor and when you're young your peers just go that person is is mad and I used to get used to get picked on quite a bit um speaking of rubber bandit songs there's a rubber bandit song called spastic hawk and that like that's that's like I suppose it's kind of like about me in my early teens getting picked on I was called a spastic quite a bit spastic in limerick it was just it's a term that was used in limerick for someone who was fucking different or someone who was weird or strange and but the thing was even though people would be mean to me in school and that would be hurtful, I got to go home and disappear into this private world of books and music and all the things I absolutely loved. didn't have to worry about it until the next day I disappeared into my lovely lovely world of music and books and art and all the things I adored that you know if people were picking on me in school

and calling me names because I'm weird or the music I like is different or the jokes I make are strange or the observations I make are, and then you get picked on for that, I would go home in the evening, and my books, and my art, and my music, and all this stuff, whatever wounds happened during the day, where I would worry as a teen, about fuck it, am I weird, am I a spastic, you know, and apologies for using that word there, because I'm aware that's, that's an ableist word. I didn't know that at the fucking time in Limerick it wasn't used in that context. But in the Limerick context that's the word that was used against me.

And I'd worry about that. And then I'd turn on my music and enjoy my art. And it would fill me with the confidence to go, no no I'm not these things that people say about me I just like different stuff and I have a different way of looking at things and it would feel wonderful but children today they fucking go home and they whip out their phones and and the name calling and bullying continues in social media and that's fucking heartbreaking and I'm so glad I didn't have to deal with that and my heart breaks for young people

who that the bullying is 24 fucking hours a day if they're getting picked on or being called weird or they're now getting excluded from whatsapp groups or people are making memes about them fuck me at least I had at least I didn't have that shit you know i could avoid it i could

fucking avoid it it was just a shitty comment in the schoolyard it wasn't relentless all day long you know so i suppose that's the difference that's the the main that's what fucking young people are missing out on that freedom so one last question how do you think religions would react if we found alien life i used to think that if we found alien life it would change fucking everything it's like there's a fucking alien oh my god my entire perception of reality and what it means to be human has been changed since the coronavirus pandemic i no longer feel this way there is no doubt that coronavirus is real okay that there is no that that is straight up evidence there is a disease called coronavirus and it's killing people and this is real but yet there's still tons of people who think that it's fake even though the

hospitals are full of sick people there are people who will say they're actors this is a conspiracy so i think if aliens landed tomorrow and personally called around to people's houses and said what's the crack i'm an alien you'd still have a sizable amount of people who try and figure out who try and say that it's a hoax that it's bullshit that it's not real so I think if Alien lands you're still going to have people saying it's fake it's a hoax

and they'll come up with all sorts of reasons to justify why it isn't real and it mightn't change everything so there you go I don't know what I'm going to be back with next week

I hope you enjoyed that now I like this, this was a slight change of tone because I got to speak about things that I don't normally speak about and it was nice I hope you enjoyed it anyway and you had a nice sense of companionship for that little journey there

and I'll be back next week with a hot take or something alright God bless you glorious cunts And I'll be back next week with a hot take or something. Alright. God bless. You glorious cunts. 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. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.