The Blindboy Podcast - Wasp Doctrine

Episode Date: May 16, 2018

Folk Mythology, Dog Saints, The Heroes Journey Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oh, holy moly, you endearing fecals. Welcome to the Blind Buy podcast. It's week number 31. This week's poem has been contributed by the actor Nick Nolte. Okay.

Bruce Lee was so healthy his heart burst I swear to you it's the truth I read about it on an online forum the people who told me were so passionate so knowledgeable these people spoke truth

one night he was oiled up in front of a mirror near Hoboken so knowledgeable, these people spoke truth. One night, he was oiled up in front of a mirror near Hoboken, admiring his nude body. Suddenly, his heart burst. Such was his health. The exact mechanics of his death were covered up by Jewish people. And that was Bruce Lee was so healthy his heart burst by Hollywood actor Nick Nolte. Thank you very much Nick.

I'm so glad that you listened to the podcast and that you're so enamored by it. And thank you for that letter that you sent me. So I'm just going to go straight into the I won't say theme but something in this podcast that I want to speak about I want to talk about a dog saint a dog saint called

Saint Gwynefort I was having an old squint through some early medieval art, you know, some religious art. And fucking Pinterest or something, I don't know. And I came across this fucking mad painting from about the 14th century and I thought it was fake thought it was fucking fake

this is what interested me so it was this kind of fairly standard 2D fucking early medieval religious panel and

it was kind of almost Byzantine style because it had that lovely gold leaf in the background but it was like the body of a man. He had his hand, one hand up and the other hand was holding like a bishop's crozier with a cross but the man had the head of a dog so I was like what the fuck I can't be coming across an early medieval painting where a man has a dog's head where a religious saintly figure has a dog's head

and then not immediately go on a fucking an information hole to try and find out what's going on so it turns out it's a saint called Saint Guinefort or Guinefort

and it's Guinefort is a dog saint he's a saint who's a dog with a man's body but he's an illegal saint and he's been worshipped since the 13th century in France

but all over the place as well mainly in France in Lyon and the Catholic Church made this saint illegal because peasants were worshipping him. A folk saint is a type of a saint

whereby the regular people worship the saint but the church does not recognise this figure as a saint. You see a lot of it in South America. You see a lot of it in communities that once had pagan religions but were colonised fairly quickly by the Catholic Church you'll see in the Mexicans they have the Day of the Dead and they

worship some mad looking dead versions of Holy Mary but anyway, Guinefort is a dog saint an outlawed Catholic dog saint and the story of Guinefort is pretty class

so Guinefort was a 13th century French greyhound and he lived in a castle near Lyon and he belonged to a knight this is the story and it's quite

similar to the story of the Fitzgerald Gibbon, who I told you or the Fitzgerald monkey that I told you about a few podcasts back the Fitzgerald family in Ireland have a monkey in their crest and this story of Guinefort is actually quite similar to this

Fitzgerald monkey story possible Norman French connection actually but anyway I'm digressing Guinefort the dog in 13th century France who lived in a castle his owner who was a knight

went out hunting alright and he left his infant son His owner, who was a knight, went out hunting, alright? And he left his infant son in the care of the greyhound, Guinefort. When he came back from hunting, he went into the nursery to look for the child. And everything was fucking wrecked. The cot was overturned, There was plates knocked down. The place had been. Looked like the place had been ransacked right. And he couldn't find the child.

But then Ginniford. The Greyhound. Comes up. To greet. His master the knight. And his face is covered in blood. Absolutely covered in blood. And he's wagging his tail.

And the face is covered in blood. Absolutely covered in blood. And he's wagging his tail. And the face is covered in blood. So the knight. Just becomes overpowered. With anger. He's like. You fucking cunt of a dog. You're after killing my infant son. You fucking prick of a dog.

And he pulls out his sword. And immediately kills his dog. Dead. Kills Guinefort. For eating his dog. Dead. Kills Guineford. For eating his child. And then. After Guineford's dead soon after. He hears the cries of the child.

The cries of the infant. And he looks over into a pile of. Rags that are on the ground. And the child is in there. Absolutely fine. Crying the ground and the child is in there absolutely fine crying but alongside the child is a snake and the snake is bloodied and dead

and the fucking the the knight starts bawling crying with guilt it's like oh man I'm after I'm after killing poor old Guineford

I'm after fucking killing him because I thought he killed the child but what he actually did is he saved this child from a vicious snake that was trying to kill him he bit him in half he did his job he protected this child's life and the reason he was wagging his tail with blood all over him as he was just trying to say, look at me, master, I did a good job. So the knight was heartbroken, right? But, also kind of,

embarrassed, that he'd just murdered, his pet greyhound, you know, because, knights were supposed to be, upstanding members of society, they were supposed to be, chivalrous.

You know, he was a big, strong man, out hunting. It's not very good, good for your image in the community if the local knight is going around stabbing greyhounds is it so he got the body of Guinefort and he threw it into a well

but what the knight didn't realise is that one of the servants had seen what had happened and the servants went and told all the people of the village about Ginnifort the hero dog who saved the child from a snake but was killed by accident

so the local people started going to the well you know and started covering it up with stones and planting little trees around it and then of course rumours started flying around the place

that you know miracles were being performed at this this dog's grave so people started to travel to this this dog's grave

for healing purposes or to have miracles performed you know because this is the 13th 14th fucking century like you know what are you gonna do and the reason that people would travel is for two reasons the first reason was the nobility of his deed the nobility of you know killing that snake but also the actions of the knight the knight who acted upon passion and anger and didn't act upon good judgment

didn't you know sit back and take all the facts or consider his morality that's why people went to this shrine people who felt that they were going to be led astray by the devil to do immoral acts would visit the dog's grave

so that the dog could lead them in the path of good judgment. Also, the dog's grave, Guinefort's grave, became a massive shrine for, visiting place for mothers with newborn babies because in 13th century France infant mortality would have been fairly fucking high and these

are regular peasant people they're not educated okay they don't have the wisdom of the fucking bible because in the 13th century the bible was read in latin if you didn't fucking didn't in latin if you didn't fucking didn't understand latin which you didn't if you weren't educated you didn't have any of the wisdom of the bible you just did what you were told you had folk mythology so children would go there or

mothers would go there with their sick children or healthy children and carry them to the grave. And one thing I find interesting too, a few podcasts back I spoke about the changelings in Irish mythology. And I spoke about it in specificity with Pudgene makers. And just to recap quickly, a changeling in Irish folklore is when

a fucking child might die an infant might die or an infant might become sick the belief in ancient Ireland was that the infant the sick infant in the cot is not your actual child that fairies had come in the night time and replaced your healthy child with a sick fairy child and your actual child, that fairies had come in the night time and replaced your healthy child with a

sick fairy child and your healthy child is off somewhere in the woods with the fairies and this I described it as part of the Jungian collective unconscious that the changeling is an archetype you know and

we found in France in the 13th century, people would visit Guinefort's grave as a way to stop changelings, to frighten off the changelings. So there was this old woman who lived in a castle nearby Guinefort's grave, and women would pay her money, and the old woman would perform this bizarre ritual with the child over Guineford's grave where the

child had to be jumped into the air seven times between the mother and the old woman and pass between two trunks of trees in this elaborate ritual and this would stave away the fairies from turning that

child into a changeling which I find quite interesting you know because this is France and we had the same shit going on at the same time in Ireland so Guinefort became very much worshipped as a saint

by the peasant people of France and this pissed off the Catholic Church, because you can't have, how do you maintain control over a population, when everyone's worshipping a dog, you know, and you had this, wonderful folk art,

depictions of this dog saint, the man's body in a dog's head, so the church were like, they'd made it fully illegal, they were like, you're not going to worship enough, there's no dog saints in the Catholic church, you pricks,

is what the church said, so, Guinefort was worshipped as a folk saint, well up into the 1930s, like, hundreds and hundreds of years, and I say bring back Guinefort you know

if Christ can walk on fucking water you can worship a dog I could have an extremely hot take and say that Guinefort could be transcending transcending through memes of dogs through popular dog memes on the internet

let's turn Ginniford into a dog meme but yeah folk saints are fucking interesting you know these saints that come about through medieval

popular culture but not are not venerated by the church are not recognized there's another class folk saint that i came across and this saint goes back to the 14th century various places across europe it's saint wilgefortis and what makes wilgefort is so unique to me is wilgefort is transgender essentially it's without gender and the images you will find of wilgefort and there's statues and there's paintings it's it's basically a a woman's body right like a like a like a maiden in lovely clothes with full breasts and female hips and kind of a feminine ish face but a full beard so imagine imagine these people throughout the medieval times getting down and kneeling in front of a

a crucifix where christ has a pair of tits and is wearing a dress and that's what saint wilgefortis is so i was like how the fuck does that happen how does that happen in the 14th century some people argue right that the origins of wilgefortis is you like you have to remember in medieval times the church was split in two right you had the the western kind of roman church but then you had the eastern church controlled from constantinople right these are the byzantines that i spoke about and in eastern christianity they had a different style of dress. The countries were fucking hotter, you know.

So people would have worn kind of what like you see people in Saudi Arabia wearing today. Like long dress, like female dress, like clothes. You'd see men wearing dresses. seen men wearing dresses so some people argue that an image of christ around the 14th 13th century started knocking around europe but this image was created in the eastern uh church and it was an image of christ wearing what looked like a dress to western European eyes okay and how religious images kind of get passed around at the time there's no photocopiers

there's no newspapers there's nothing so if someone saw an image of Christ if they were handy at art they might you know make a little quick copy of it on a piece of wood or whatever

so this image of eastern church christ wearing eastern style of dress somehow got translated by a peasant into christ wearing a woman's dress and it's almost it's almost like a like a simulacrum like a hyper real simulacrum, because it became copies of copies of copies. Over about a hundred years, it ended up with Christ with a female body and a full beard, and like a half-man, half-woman face, and this was St. Wilgefortus,

heavily outlawed by the church, by the way, because whatever about worshing a dog saint you are not worshiping christ with a pair of tits that's not happening you don't get to run a fucking oppressive regime regime such as the catholic church with people worshiping christ with a set of tits not happening so what i find so kind of fascinating and enamoring about saint wilgefortis is they became a symbol of female kind of liberation like in spain wilge Fortis was called Liberada the Liberator and how this came about is when this image of a female bearded

Christ was being passed around you know people started to kind of stitch narratives together and create a story as to why this figure existed because again uneducated peasants you know and the narrative that came about around wilga fortis is that

wilga fortis was a a teenage like a noble teenage princess from galicia or portugal teenage princess from galicia or portugal and she'd been promised in marriage by her dad to a muslim king now this is 14th century like females were property it's simple as that if a father had daughters that's it it's sell them sell these daughters sell the most beautiful daughters to the richest men sell them as property and get loads of money in return that's how women were treated in medieval times so this girl wilgefortis um was promised to a muslim king and the muslim king was like an old man you know so she was a teenager going i don't want to fucking marry some old man but i don't have a choice this is being forced upon me so one night she prayed and prayed and prayed to uh fucking to god that that he would make her utterly repulsive right

and one day she woke up with a big massive man's beard and then the Muslim king saw this previously gorgeous female daughter with this giant beard and he was like fuck that to her dad he was like fuck you you're after making me travel all the way to Portugal to see your daughter and she's got a big long beard. I'm not marrying her.

So then the father was so pissed off that she had done this that he crucified her. And that's the story that the people of Europe, the plain people of Europe had developed around these androgynous Christ images that were knocking about. That's who they see Vilgefortis as. And Vilgefortis became hugely popular in medieval times with women who were in highly abusive marriages, or women who'd been forced into marriage, or women who'd been deeply into marriage or women who'd been deeply, deeply oppressed and mistreated

and they flocked to St. Wilgefortus, the liberator as a symbol of freedom from the massive patriarchal oppression that they were experiencing. So that is pretty fucking class let's bring back St. Wilgefortus please

St. Wilgefortus outlawed by the church I think between with those two folk saints what's kind of interesting me about them and kind of drawing me towards what I think the kind of broader theme of the podcast is, is that while both those stories, we say, you know, Guinefort, the loyal dog who was slain by his master, and Vilgefortis

the bearded lady both of those tales are they're not necessarily unique in human mythology right

even a few podcasts back I spoke about in the 12th century Geraldus in his book Topographic of Hibernica which was

Geraldus' book about 12th century Ireland which he was using to give to the Normans to conquer Ireland. He wrote about the King of Limerick and the King of Limerick's girlfriend with the big long beard. And Guinefort's story, like that is very very common throughout the world all across cultures

and you find this in it's a field called comparative mythology which is something that furiously interests me which is a field of kind of literary interrogation where you look at myths in cultures all across the world who've had no contact and you find commonalities, similar stories in all these cultures. And the Guineford story is like, you find that story in ancient India, you find it in China,

all over the gaff. It's a common human story about the killing, all over the gaff it's a common human story about the killing the killing of a loyal animal through harsh judgement

and for that story to serve as an allegory for humans to chill the fuck out you know, don't judge the situation. And. So quickly. Step back from it.

Before you act. And you find that. Yeah that story is common across a lot of. Mythologies around the world. You know. Because animals are great. You know. Animals.

Any story that involves. A heart or pain to an animal I think always gets an empathic reaction out of us because they're so helpless and sound and loyal probably

the Indian story is actually about a mongoose I don't know is it the killing of a mongoose it's called the Brahmin the Brahmin and the mongoose it's probably about

a loyal a loyal Brahmin because I know the Indians are big into their cows the Hindus but it takes me onto the field of comparative mythology and to my old friend Carl Jung and Jung's thing as you know is big theory, the collective

unconscious that we as humans And Jung's thing, as you know, is big theory, the collective unconscious. That we as humans have a shared well of consciousness that we all on this earth have access to. And it could just be seen as a fancy word for instinct. but because we humans have the complexity of thought to communicate ideas through words and metaphor, that we have a collective unconscious, our brains have these common stories and common characters throughout whatever your culture is. Whether you even. Had contact with another culture. That these commonalities exist. And what it takes me on to.

Is kind of the coolest one of all. And it's one called the. The hero's journey. Right. And this is something that you know. Intimately. If you've never heard of it. You know this intimately. It just hasn't been pointed out to you

so comparative mythologies like was hugely hugely influenced by the work of Carl Jung his collective unconscious and the archetypes

right and there was one comparative mythologist called joseph campbell and joseph campbell was he was a young freak he was also a james joyce freak he wrote books about james joyce's work to try and figure out what the fuck joyce was actually on about so with comparative mythology it's it's and also structural anthropology there's a fellow called Levi Strauss looking at the various myths, stories, fairy tales folk tales of cultures

all around the world and attempting to find a common template for them all and this common template in line with Jung's view would kind of reveal the collective unconscious of humanity the little cogs of our unconscious mind that are our instinct in the way that a bird knows how to get out of its nest and fly and do bird things and lay eggs or whatever the fuck birds do

that humans have this too but because we're complex beings with complex brains our instinct is happens through meaning and metaphor and symbols and words and stories so Joseph Campbell came across

came upon this thing that he called the hero's journey this template that he called the hero's journey this template that every kind of good story in the world follows and this template is used

pretty much to a fucking T deliberately in Hollywood movies fucking Netflix whatever you want if there's a story and it's good, chances are it follows this hero's journey. The bones of the hero's journey is that, like, first off it's the story of Christ, it's the story of Buddha, the story of Moses, it's the story of Harry Potter, the story of the Lion King, the story of Star Wars, the story of Moses it's the story of Harry Potter the story of the Lion King the story of Star Wars the story of the Lord of the Rings once I kind of tell you what this hero's journey

is it's going to ruin a lot of films for you because it can make films quite boring because when a movie sticks to this template too perfectly, when you can spot it, it's just, it's like seeing the fucking hand of Kermit the Frog's arse. You know, it ruins it. So there's 17, the biggest hero's journey has 17 stages, but the smallest would have three stages. It starts with a hero.

Okay. The hero can be anything. It can be a character. Or it can be an idea. Good documentaries that you see. If you see a decent documentary. That too follows the hero's journey. Except the hero is an idea or concept. So the hero's journey starts.

When our hero. Is called to adventure adventure of some description. Okay, it starts off in the normal world, okay? For fucking Frodo, it's, I don't know, that place where the hobbits lived that looked like a golf course. I'm not really up on my Lord of the Rings. But anyway, so we start off with our hero in their world of normality then something happens

that kind of disturbs that normality and our hero is given a kind of a challenge or an adventure right then our hero resists this challenge they're like fuck that i don't want to do it that's not for me at this point they cross the threshold they go from their known comfortable world into an uncomfortable world when this happens they accept the challenge, right?

Then a helper usually comes along, a supernatural helper of some description, and helps them along and mentors them in this journey. At about the halfway point, they enter the abyss, right? Something really fucking mad happens where you you as the person listening to this story or in the cinema goes oh fuck no the hero's gonna die oh shit and you think it's like it's all over but then the hero comes out of this abyss and something about them is transformed they're i don't know given a fancy sword or they learn something about themselves and this transformation then takes the the hero that was a weak novice who was learning in the first half in the second half after they kind of come out of the abyss and the near death

they've gained a strength and the hero has a new strength and they've transformed then three quarters of the way through they reach atonement okay they kind of they look back and atone for maybe what mistakes they made at the start and they really grow and then finally three near the end they return to the world where they were at the start but with this new kind of gift either this knowledge about themselves or this magical fucking sword and they sort out whatever the problem was that turned that world upside down at the start. And it ends as it started. That's every fucking Hollywood film you've ever seen.

That's the story of Christ. That's the story of Buddha. That's Moses. That is the hero's journey. That is the monomyth as it's known. That is Joseph Campbell's life's work it's his attempt at finding the template and the commonality in every single famous mythological story or folktale across communities across the earth regardless of whether they had any contact that's what he found

across communities, across the earth, regardless of whether they had any contact. That's what he found. And, you know, some people see it as, you know, evidence of the human collective unconsciousness. My own hot take on it is that... Actually, no, I'll get to my hot take after this. I'll show ye,

right, off the top of my head. I'll show you how we can use the hero's journey, right, on anything to create something that sounds like a riveting story. Okay? So we'll use fucking my mug of tea. Alright, I'll take a sip of my tea.

Ah, fuck, my thing's after falling off the front of the microphone two seconds so I've got a mug of tea in front of me and it's a filthy dirty dirty filthy mug of tea well what I do when I'm drinking tea actually you're going to hate this

but I have a particularly large mug of tea and I like to allow the tannin from the tea to build up inside in it you're going to hate this, but I have a particularly large mug of tea, and I like to allow the tannin from the tea to build up inside in it, because it gives me a more flavourful cup of tea, I don't wash the tea, I don't wash the, I'll go maybe 25 cups of tea before I wash it, because I think the brown tannin substance inside offers extra flavour to my tea but ok let's do let's do the hero's journey on my mug em so we start off in a kitchen ok

and there's a lot of mugs and they're all filthy dirty dirty mugs on they're all filthy dirty dirty mugs on a kitchen countertop the sun is shining in and illuminating kind of how filthy and dirty they are and then a caretaker walks in

and he notices how filthy the mugs are so he grabs one the dirtiest mug and he's like oh man I need to clean this fucking mug so he grabs the mug and the mug is like

screaming and roaring going what are you doing put me down put me back put me back to my friends put me back with my dirty mug friends but the caretaker's like no man you're getting washed look at the stadia you're filthy i don't want to be fucking washed i don't want to be washed leave me alone i want to i want to stay filthy forever with all the the other mug lads caretaker's like fuck that so the caretaker goes over and there's this tiny little mug the camera's kind of just zooming into this small little mug and we see that the caretaker

he's got a this big dishwasher and he opens up the dishwasher the door the door of the dishwasher opening up are like fucking jaws huge big jaws and this tiny mug is going in there on his own

and the door is closed and it's dark and you start to hear these loud grumbling fucking noises and boiling hot water is splashing all over the place and it's shaking and rumbling and it's fucking terrifying it's like a storm at sea of this boiling hot water and mad noises and steam and the mug is inside screaming screaming because it's being scalded and all the dirt is stripping

off the mug and you're watching it going oh no fuck this is too much this is too much the mug is gonna fucking that mug is gonna smash it's gonna die oh no it's all over. But then there's silence. And there's steam. And there's calm. And the noise has stopped. And the door is slowly opened. On the dishwasher. And plumes of. Wonderful blue steam emerging.

Or illuminated by the light of the kitchen that comes in. And our mug emerges from it. Squeaky fucking clean and the mug's looking at himself going fuck I feel fucking great man I'm clean oh look at this I can see the wonderful polish on my ceramics

I can see the design of the duck on the front of me fucking hell that dishwasher wasn't so bad at all I mean it was tough but christ i feel great i feel fucking clean so then this clean mug is returned to all the like the caretaker gets the clean mug and he puts it back on the counter with all the filthy mugs now the filthy mugs are looking at the clean mugs going, what the fuck happened to you, you look different, you're not the same, what happened to you, get away, get away, but the clean mug is like, hold on a minute lads, I've been to the dishwasher, I've been there, it's

cleaned me, I feel better, I'm a better mug, I'm a better mug for being washed, I swear it, I'm a better mug for being washed. I swear it. Okay. Don't be afraid. I've been to the dishwasher. It was terrifying. It was.

It was. It was horrible. You know it was hot. But I came out of it. And I'm a better mug. Look at me. Look how clean I am. Don't be afraid.

Don't be afraid. Because one day you're going to go into the dishwasher. And you'll be cleaned. And it's going to gonna be grand now that there I literally off the top of my head had the hero's journey template in my head and applied it to a fucking mug

and that's the bones of a Hollywood film a riveting engaging Hollywood film about a mug and I guarantee you when that mug went into the dishwasher you were invested in it's safety because that's the hero's journey

that's the story of fucking Christ it's Christ going to the tomb going to fucking heaven or whatever the fuck he did and coming back and saying I've got a message it's the whole shebang and that's a common theme

throughout fucking human mythology and when we hear it when we hear a story that hits those marks you know it takes our brains into that place of contemplation where we're i don't know we're kind of wondering about what is the nature of existence. That's what that story does. So some say that it's, you know, it is evidence of the collective human unconscious. I think what it is, my hot take on the hero's journey and why it's evident in the mythology of all cultures, regardless of whether they had contact with each other,

if you think of it, it's our's our sleep process okay that's what it is you're gonna go to bed tonight um you're gonna climb into your bed and it's gonna be night time you turn off the lights and then you drift into sleep and and while you're asleep, you're going to have all these, you know, these mad, crazy dreams that you don't understand, and you're going to crash the threshold into the world of dreams, and where your brain will be figuring out whatever happened that day, or whatever happened in your childhood, your brain goes after this strange sometimes beautiful sometimes terrifying land of intangible dream but you'll always wake up and when you do wake up you wake up in the exact same bed you went to sleep in except the sun is shining in the window and it's

a bit clearer and a bit more positive it's morning it's the cycle of the sun and the moon you know the hero's journey is also it's daytime the sun rises you know you've got dawn dawn doesn't know what it is dawn is kind of like ah i don't know am i i don't know what i am am I night time am I day time you could argue that dawn is resistance dawn is resisting

both night time and day time but then it's like nah fuck that I think I'll go for a bit of day time so then we've got the full sun

and then the sun fucks off and has it's battle with dusk where it's like oh what am I I don't know am i am i night time what am i am i daytime but then it goes into full fucking dusk and the moon comes out and then we're back at day again that's also the hero's journey that's why i think maybe that exists in the human mind because it's echoed in both how we go to sleep and wake up and how the sun

appears to have this this battle with the fucking moon or this battle with the night time but it's always going to be okay the hero's journey is circular just like going to sleep and waking up and just like the sun and the moon and all that carry on you know I don't know I hardly ever get dreams I'm convinced it's because I spend so much time kind of writing during the day that whatever shit is inside

my unconscious that needs to get out it gets out in the day time when I'm writing and as a result then my mind is empty at night or I just don't remember dreams like I've two recurring dreams like not mad recurring

maybe twice a year obviously I have the leave insert dream which is fucking awful I'll get that maybe once every two years I hate that mine isn't sitting the leave insert it's the dream where you have to repeat it or I

oh yeah yuck yeah because I failed my leave insert you know and it's that feeling of oh man Irish exam is coming up now in two months and I haven't studied Irish since junior cert you know but I get that recurring dream exam is coming up now in two months and I haven't studied Irish since junior sort you know but get that recurring dream and then the other recurring dream I get is walking out on stage and I've forgotten to put my bag on that's the other one that's a shit one I had that last week I had a

dream that I did a live podcast and went out without my bag and then suddenly I woke up on a bed in an airport and the actor Aidan Gillen was shaking my hand having a clue what that's about so do you know what we'll do? let's go back to something I haven't done in a while on the podcast

your drunk limerick aunt where I get the most recent tweets of Donald Trump and read them out as your drunk limerick aunt where I get the most recent tweets of Donald Trump and read them out as your drunk limerick aunt so let's see what old

Donnie's been up to on his Twitter okay you're it's it's it's two in the morning you've had a tough day

your aunt comes in she's been at a new Italian restaurant and they've been serving Negronis and she's never drank Negronis before she's had a few too many

because they went down so easily and she sits beside you on the couch you're trying to watch the wire you're re-watching the wire your aunt sits down

she says can you believe that with all of the made up unsourced stories I get from those media together with the 10 million Russian witch hunt there is no collusion

I now have my best poll numbers in a year. Much of the media may be corrupt, but the people truly get it. Trade negotiators are continuing with China. They've been making hundreds of billions of dollars a year from the US. For many years, they choked. Our great First Lady is doing really well. We'll be leaving hospital in two or three days.

Thank you for so much love and support. The so-called leaks coming out of the White House are a massive over-exaggeration put out by the fake news media in order to make us look as bad as possible with that being said leakers and traitors and cowards

and we'll find out who they are swear to god swear in the holy picture so that was your your drunk limerick aunt reading Don and Tom's tweets. Hold on, I'm all over the place here, lads.

Okay, it's time for our ocarina pause. Because we're 44 minutes into the podcast. The ocarina pause is where the app that this is uploaded on, Acast, in exchange for their wonderful, delicious, easy service, certain listeners must endure a digital advert that is placed in the middle of this podcast. Now, I don't want your fucking podcast, Hug, disturbed all of a sudden by some loud advert for bullshit. All of a sudden.

By some loud. Advert. For bullshit. Last week I heard that some people received an advert for. Some anti-choice. Ads about the 8th amendment. Fuck that. Can't believe the cunts are buying ad space on my podcast.

The pricks. I emailed Acast to see if there was anything that could be done about it. So anyway this is the. I'm going to play a lovely Spanish clay whistle. Called an ocarina. Now there is a whistle that I'm trying to source actually. It's an Aztec death whistle. It looks like an ocarina.

It's a clay whistle. But when you blow it, it makes the sound of a screaming man. But I don't have that. I've got my Spanish. Ocarina. Clay Whistle. From the region of Andalusia. And I'm going to play it. Right. As a warning.

That there may be an advert. And if you're lucky. You will only hear the Ocarina. But if. The gods are not with you. You will hear. An advert for some bullshit. Actually, regarding the ocarina recently, I've seen a lot of people have been sending me videos of their dogs.

Their dogs have really, really been enjoying the ocarina pause. It makes them quite sprightly. Will you rise with the sun to help change mental health care forever? Join the Sunrise Challenge to raise funds for CAMH, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health to support life-saving progress in mental health care. From May 27th to 31st, people across Canada will rise together and show those living with mental illness and addiction that they're not alone.

Help CAMH build a future where no one is left behind. So, who will you rise for? Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca. Rock City, you're the best fans in the league bar none tickets are on sale now for fan appreciation night on Saturday April

13th when the Toronto Rock hosts the Rochester Nighthawks at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton at 730 p.m. 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 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. Sounds like a startled turkey, doesn't it? That was the ocarina Pause, you delicious cunts. This podcast is supported by you, the listener, okay?

It is financially supported by you, the listener, through the Patreon page. I'm still out there looking for some sponsors a few of them have been biting I almost had a sponsorship from a very large magazine and then they actually listened to the podcast and found out how much I say the word cunt and I also think they thought that I really liked the IRA. Which I don't.

I just like Irish history. But anyway, they pulled sponsorship. Fuck them. That's what I say. Um. There might be. Do you know, I'm not too pushed on sponsors anymore. I'm just not too pushed on it

some sponsors are like we'll sponsor you but can you do this thing that you do a little bit differently fuck em like no like that's my problem with that model it's like

the podcast is the way it is because I'm doing it the way that I want to do it I'm not answering to anybody don't want a fucking advertiser going in going we I don't know a payer company we really want to sell payers on your podcast but can you stop talking about the IRA and it's like no I can't like it's like, no, I can't. Like, it's part of history. It's not specifically talking about the IRA. It's just calling ye cunts all the time.

And just a bunch of other stuff. But like, that's the whole joy of a podcast. To want some advertiser telling me what to do. So fuck them. But, better than advertisers the wonderful democracy that is patreon and this podcast is supported by you the listener so what i say every week is that like i make about five hours of podcast a month um it takes a lot longer than an hour to make it so it's a fair amount of time goes into it i love doing it absolutely adore doing it but if you enjoy

listening to it and you're like i enjoyed that five hours of podcast so much that uh if i met blind boy in a bar or in a cafe i would buy him a pint or a cup of coffee. Then go to patreon.com forward slash theblindboypodcast and you can donate me the equivalent of a cup of coffee or a pint once a month in exchange for my five hours of podcast. And yeah, do. If you feel like like doing that please do i that makes a massive impact in my life it's class if you can't afford it and you don't or you simply don't want to that's also fine you can listen to this podcast for free because i listen to a bunch of shit for

free too so i think that's a pretty a fair system that it appeals to people's sense of kindness it appeals to how much some people can afford and how much some people can't afford just seems fairly straightforward and

a decent system so please become a part of that if you want and if you don't no one's gonna shit in your letterbox. Cuz. Yeah, nice one.

Also, recommend the podcast to a friend. Share it on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, whatever the fuck. Subscribe to the podcast on your app. Or leave a rating or a review these are all nice things you can do to help support this podcast that i absolutely adore fucking doing and that i wouldn't change for the world your art okay now i'm gonna answer some of your delicious questions i'm gonna fill Delicious questions. I'm going to fill my tummy up. With gorgeous sumptuous questions. And answer them into your ears. Lewis asks.

You probably get tired of hearing it. But I'd like to ask your opinion on Father Ted. I grew up watching it in England. With my grandparents and brothers. And it's still my favourite comedy ever. As an Irishman. What are your thoughts on it? Or any hot takes behind it?

I don't really have any hot takes behind it? Yart. I don't really have any hot takes about Father Ted. It's fucking brilliant. It's perfection. It is true kind of sitcom perfection. What I love is that

until Father Ted the greatest sitcom was Fawlty Towers okay and that just had one season Fawlty Towers which is Fawlty Towers is sitcom perfection and it's like how do you do better than Fawlty Towers

and I think personally Father Ted did and they did this by they answered they went that Fawlty Towers with a post-modern view Father Ted is basically Fawlty Towers with the satirical freedom and storytelling of the simpsons okay with faulty towers each week you had you know incredibly strong characters and you know a good sense of conflict and a setup and a good idea and you you know the character of basil faulty so well that you're like i have an idea of what's going to happen but I can't wait to see how it's going to happen but it always stayed either in the foyer or in the

restaurant and it happened around the hotel what Father Ted did is it was able to use cutaways essentially you know Father Ted left the studio to have recurring jokes outside of it, which I think they borrowed from The Simpsons. Father Ted as well, on top of Fawlty Towers, like I said, I'm not knocking it, it's fucking perfection, but Fawlty Towers was not, I don't think it was a biting satire. Father Ted has got the writing perfection of Fawlty Towers

but also it was released in I think 1994 at the height of the Catholic Church scandal like Father Ted in the context of when it's released was a dangerous satirical comedy that really attacked the Catholic Church in a way that would not be possible in Ireland beforehand. It would not because the Catholic Church had some very heavy censorship over our media. So not only has it been hilarious,

it was humanising the people of the church in a way that was absurd and surreal but not necessarily nasty. So it was politicised in a way that Fawlty Towers wasn't. And it's perfection. I always call it the fucking, the Beatles, do you know, I was commissioned about six years ago, back when television kind of meant something, it was the end of when TV meant something, and we were given a pilot on Channel 4, which in 2011 was a fucking huge deal, channel 4 which in 2011 was a fucking huge deal that was a massive massive deal that was tv was still being watched it meant something and i was only a young fella and i'd never written anything other than three minute sketches and all of a sudden it's like here you go half hour fucking pilot on channel four and channel four at that point

channel four to me had been father ted brass eye the pressure was fucking ridiculous for me to write this thing and the first thing i did because that's a frightening thing that's very frightening it's like right a half hour for fucking Channel 4 there, frightening thing, so what I did is I went to the first episode of Father Ted, and I watched it with a fucking razor blade, I broke down every second of dialogue, every camera angle, every plot point, you know, and I broke it down almost like a reverse kind of like a Joseph Campbell thing to try and I don't know get the father Ted formula not to copy it but to kind of this thing was so perfect that I wanted to understand exactly how it worked so that I could

not kind of break the rules but have a decent understanding of them like I mentioned the hero's journey earlier you know like I just wrote a book full of short stories and at no point when I'm in a state of flow when I'm writing my short stories am I thinking back to the hero's journey am I looking at the hero's journey going oh did it hit that point did it hit that no what I do is I intimately understand the hero's journey because it unconsciously informs my process in the way that's what I was trying to do with father Ted I wanted to break it down into its smallest components so that I understood that perfection so that when I was in a state of flow I had that learning behind

my process do you get me and one of the pitfalls to the point that fucking yeah the director of my channel for pilot was Declan Lowney who directed the first two series of Father Ted Declan Lowney, who directed the first two series of Father Ted. Declan's a fucking legend, an absolute gentleman. And because I was young and wasn't particularly confident, and I needed the mentor of someone like Declan Lowney, who'd worked with the likes of Graham Linehan and Arthur Matthews, who wrote Father Ted, me having Declan Lowney on board gave me... It filled in the gaps of confidence

for someone who'd just written four minutes on fucking RTE and I don't really like the pilot that I wrote to be honest it's you know when I look back at it I see a lot of

a huge amount of failures and mistakes but from those failures and mistakes but from those failures and mistakes and reflecting on them come successes at a later date there's nothing better than making a bollocks or something you know there's nothing better than trying and taking a risk and getting something wrong that's where learning happens learning doesn't happen from success it happens from failures you know but even though it was in my opinion um a failure in terms of it didn't accurately reflect my voice um the channel loved it and it was ready to like get a fucking series we were going to have a rubber bandit series on

channel four but what happened was the commissioner of channel 4 left and a new person came in and any time a new person comes into a TV channel a new commissioner the first thing they do is they scrap the things that were on the table from the old commissioner

because a new commissioner is trying to stamp their old identity Alan Partridge even did an episode about it, it's so common and that's happened to me twice when a new commissioner comes in that's it, you're fucked, so that's what happened and it was unlucky but yeah, Father Ted is

it's the Beatles when I got that channel for a pilot, people were like em what were they saying the media were like will it be better than father ted or you're being compared to father ted because father ted was on channel four and you're irish and now you have a comedy thing on channel four and what i used to say was father

ted is the beatles you don't father ted invented a rule book so you don't compete with Father Ted you can only try and do something different or respond to it but there's no such thing as better than Father Ted it's too perfect and but maybe there is because I was ready to say that about Fawlty Towers but yeah no Father Ted isn't better than Fawlty Towers, it just twisted the formula in its own way, and gave it its own identity, and respectfully carried on from it, you know, was that a self-indulgent rant, did I make that question about me, I think I'm allowed to, we were the first Irish comedy commissioned, comedies, first, yeah, the irish comedy commissioned after father ted um that ended in 97 we were commissioned in 2011 i could be wrong there there might have been

something in between but i think it's fair enough i'm allowed to bring my experience of writing for channel 4 into my father ted experience considering i did um try and work out its template to write my channel for, thingy. Apologies if that was self-indulgent, making it about me. Paul asks, Hey Blind Boy, just wondering if you ever fancy doing an audiobook version of your books? Yes, I do.

As you know, if you go back to the start of this podcast, the first few episodes were me reading out short stories from my book, The Gospel According to Blind Boy, which is in shops now, you pricks. But, yeah, I was going to do an audiobook then,

but it's actually loads of work. Well, no, I made it loads of work because I don't want to do just an audiobook. I want to read just an audiobook i want to read my stories but also create um musical soundtracks to the stories to make it something more than just an audiobook like a piece of audio theater there is going to be an audiobook okay right now what i'm doing i'm writing my second, so I'm fucking sickeningly busy, I'm writing 5,000 words a week, okay, and I'm a tiny bit behind, so tomorrow, or today,

sorry, I gotta write 2,000 words today, get that out of the way, and then immediately begin 5 000 for next monday um i aim for about 7 800 a day out of that 7 800 you maybe keep three uh so i'm very busy right now but i do have i believe it's the month of august is scheduled in on my schedule to record the audiobook for book one and the audiobook for book two not sure how they're going to they'll be released as either separately or as one but yes there is going to be an audiobook

but it's it is a lot of work it's a huge amount of work you wouldn't think it but reading something out um and and then composing the music behind it and getting it to the level of what i want it because i don't want to just fart out a fucking audiobook where it's just me talking my stories you know i mean i could also give it to someone else to read but fuck that i want to do something

new um what i really wanted to do for book two but I'm not sure I'm gonna have the time is write the fucking book obviously that's gonna get done I wanted to paint the image on the front cover so I write it paint the image on the front cover and then also release the audiobook with specially curated music to it because why not if fucking Roddy Doyle was able to paint and make music I'm sure he would be doing that to enhance his art and I'm a big believer in meta-modernism which is what people say is I'm gonna do it I might do a separate podcast on that alone actually. Metamodernism is what people say is the current state of culture.

We had modernism at the start of the 20th century, then the middle of the 20th century we had postmodernism, now we're in metamodernism, where boundaries are well and truly blurred, where we can be both ironic and sincere at the same time and where the boundaries of what an artist is are not clearly defined it is okay for an artist to be painting writing making music dancing directing videos whatever you want because I grew up in a multimedia world

I grew up as a creative person with the fucking internet so as a result of that I was able to develop far more skills than somebody who would have come before me

but yeah there will be an audiobook you are and Simeon says I'd love if you did an episode where you take the podcast to a gallery or discuss art with an artist your approach to making art

accessible and open to all is so important thank you Simeon yeah I'd fucking love to do that that is something that's on the cards ultimately what I want to do and. That is something that's on the cards. Ultimately, what I want to do, and it could be a couple of years down the line,

but when virtual reality technology becomes more ubiquitous, right? At the moment, we're in this stage where not everybody owns an Oculus Rift. Only a few kind of people who are very passionate about it. I see the playstation are rolling out virtual reality headsets and so are xbox but when in maybe two years when virtual reality headsets are something that most people will have i do want to do full 3d immersive

virtual reality podcasts where you put on a headset and i take you through galleries around the world um that sounds nuts but i think that would be really really class imagine throwing on a headset and we go to the louvre or we go to the british museum or we go to the fucking the national portraitrait Gallery or even the fucking Irish Natural History Museum and I just have like a GoPro or something and it's full 3D immersive and you walk around with me and you can turn your head left and right or all around you and see what I'm talking about I think that would be unbelievable and we just wait for technology to kind of catch up with that. But I can see it being possible.

In the meantime, I might do, if I get a chance, to do a straightforward audio podcast-y thing. One of the big galleries in Ireland contacted me recently asking me if I would do some art tours for them but I just didn't have the schedule for it even though I would love to do it but I was fucking far too busy to be going up to Dublin doing that for a few weeks

we're 66 minutes in I think I'll let you fabulous bastards go this week em I didn't speak about mental health fabulous bastards go this week em I didn't speak about mental health this week em

I don't know why I just I was enamoured by folk saints and information my head was in an information place probably because I'm doing so much writing

but I am continually everyday looking after my mental health em place because probably because i'm doing so much writing but i am continually every day looking after my mental health um if i'm not doing it actively through my cognitive processes i'm doing it through exercise um again this is my plea to you to consider exercises as part of your mental health journey not in a facetious way. Not in, oh you're feeling sad, go for a run. Fuck that.

I understand what it's like to not want to get out of the house. I understand what it's like for your self-esteem to be so bad that going to a gym feels terrifying. But if you are considering a bit of exercise, whether it be going to the gym lifting weights or running

I urge you give it a go give it a go get a couch to 5k app or just start lifting I reckon that's 50% of my daily mental health management

if I'm falling behind a bit we'll say on my writing I get up at 7 in the fucking morning and run 10 kilometres to kind of I don't want to say flagellate myself because that's a form of punishment and running for me is very enjoyable but it's it's very difficult for stress or negative thoughts

to dictate or control my day when I've used that much physical energy, when I've gotten that many endorphins flying around my brain. So that's where I'm at at the moment, mental health-wise. Also, of of course the mindfulness I jog by Yorty's couch and I take in the wind

and the breeze and I notice my pace and I notice the the sheer fucking beauty of nature and all that stuff is for you take that on board

if you're walking this morning if you're doing anything have a lash at mindfulness today the very simple practice of whatever it is just choose it choose your moment whether it's eating your lunch washing the dishes rubbing your dog going for a walk in a park do it mindfully by which i mean, make your mind a mental sketchbook, if you're walking on the ground, notice the type of ground that's under your feet, notice the smells in the air, categorise everything, take it all on board, tell yourself, oh I can smell the roses, I can smell, you know I the dandelions have a crack of piss off them

whatever this will take you out of the the stressful cacophony that is the inside of our heads on a daily basis and that's what creates stress and disease dis-ease unease and ultimately unhappiness Unease. And ultimately unhappiness. I say that of course to people that are relatively mentally healthy. If you're in the throes of anxiety or depression. My words there.

I understand that that seems quite patronising. You're in a different place and that's fine. Other people are in a different place that's all I can say go in peace you pricks have a great week I wish you all the best see you next week Thank you. rock city you're the best fans in the league bar none tickets are on sale now for fan appreciation

night on saturday, April 13th when the Toronto Rock hosts the Rochester Nighthawks at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton at 7.30pm. You can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats for every postseason game and you'll only pay as we play. Come along for the ride and punch your ticket to Rock City at torontorock.com.