The Blindboy Podcast - When I was 13 and my Da gave me the Sex talk

Episode Date: February 28, 2024

Lamping Rabbits, tongues cut from a foxes mouth, battery acid melting shirts from shoulders Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rub custard on the doomsday husbands you ulster gubnets. Welcome to the Blind By Podcast. It's the end of February. It's almost March. And I'm noticing that grand stretch in the evening. It's getting dark now at about 6 o'clock in the evening. And it's bright. It's bright at half seven in the fucking morning.

And the overall quality of sunlight is different that intense promise of summer is glistening now's the time to start planting your wildflower seeds get yourself some native wildflower if you're in Ireland order it from irishwildflower.ie

don't get it in like don't get it in like don't get it in some fucking hardware store don't buy a packet of wildflower seeds because they may not be native but wherever you are get yourself some native wildflower seeds and plant them plant them now

and watch them grow if you don't have a garden even better plant them in some derelict land. Plant them in a rotting ghost estate, a concrete Celtic tiger shopping centre. Find the boarded up ugly derelict building that some greedy bollocks landlord is hoarding. Find that building and plant some wildflower there. If you can't access the property, get your wildflower seed and make some seed bombs. Go onto YouTube and learn how to make some seed bombs and throw the wildflower seed over the fence into the derelict property as a

guerrilla act, as an act of resistance, as an act of protest. And by early summer, your seeds will have grown into native wildflower. And bees and butterflies and spiders and crickets and wasps, dragonflies, beetles, they'll find that patch of native wildflower and they'll have a little habitat. And you will personally have made a little difference to the local biodiversity in your area in the face of biodiversity collapse. There's a tremendous feeling of meaning in that. Against a backdrop of hopelessness,

there's a great feeling of meaning in being responsible for a little urban meadow. There hasn't been a lot of positive news recently. Everything is quite bleak. There's the ongoing, heartbreaking genocide that's happening in Gaza. You had the US soldier Aaron Bushnell, who self-immolated outside the Israeli embassy, as a protest against genocide, while on active service.

Segments of the media are portraying him as crazy because he died for a cause. But if that same US serviceman died protecting the free trade of container ships near the Suez Canal, he'd be portrayed as an American hero. The news is bleak right now. Today was the first day in a long time that I read some good news in the media. The European Parliament

has approved the Nature Restoration Law, a law that was being viciously opposed by right-wing bastards all throughout Europe. But the European Parliament's after approving the nature restoration law today. It's part of the wider European Green Deal. And what this means is that European member states. They now have two years to plan how they're going to restore. 20% of the EU's land and sea areas by 2030 and all ecosystems by 2050. Technically this means that EU countries now have a legal responsibility

to restore their biodiversity, to rewild areas that have been exploited and destroyed by human activity because we're facing biodiversity collapse and that doesn't just mean losing animals and losing the beauty of nature it means the potential collapse of an ecosystem which threatens the survival of all life including us so we have to act there's no choice survival we simply have to act. There's no choice. It's survival. We simply have to act. So the approval of this nature restoration law today, that's quite good news. That's a positive step. And people who are in the know are excited about this. So that's positive news. Whether or not it's enforced, whether or not it's repealed by bastards, we won't know. But I'm certainly happy with that little bit of news today. So I'm going to be planting some more

native wildflowers this week because I know it has an impact. I've seen with my own eyes the impact that it can have. I've seen my own garden explode Explode. With tiny little insects I'd never seen before in my life. Grasshoppers. Mad looking spiders. Last year I saw a lizard. An actual little brown native Irish lizard on a really hot day in June. Came to my fucking garden because I had a bunch of wildflower there. And whatever insects whatever native insects this little lizard was interested in they were in my garden and I got a lovely gentle warm feeling of hope and meaning from that knowing that my actions were making a legitimate difference that I could see and touch with my own eyes. And it's such a huge contrast.

You know, Ireland in 2024, where we're facing biodiversity collapse. It's such a huge contrast to, we'll say, the Ireland that my dad grew up in. Like here I am, trying to save and protect tiny little insects. But the countryside that my dad grew up in, my dad was born in the 1930s, the countryside that he grew up in, in Cork, in the 40s and 50s, was abundant with all types of life. Not just insects, but foxes and badgers and rabbits and hares. All the larger animals that can exist in a healthy ecosystem.

I remember when I was about 12. It's when I first started to notice girls. No, it's when I first started to notice women. This one summer when I was 12 or 13. I started to fancy women. One of my older brothers had like lads mags in the house. FHM, Loaded, those type of magazines. They were actually really good magazines because there was no internet and I used to read them. Because if you'd read like FHM or Lauded back in the 90s, you'd have really interesting

articles about travel and music and culture. I used to read these magazines for these articles. It made me feel like an adult. I knew that these magazines, they weren't for kids. They were for adults. They weren't adult magazines in the pornography sense. They were just magazines directed at adults or older teenagers maybe. But there was also like women,

women in bras and bikinis in the magazines. It wasn't porn or anything. It was just women in bras and bikinis. I used to not really notice the women in bras and bikinis because I was genuinely reading the articles. But then when I was 12 or 13, I really did start to notice the women in brazen bikinis. I wasn't glassing over those pages anymore to get to the next article. And one particular magazine, it was an issue of FHM, I believe. It had a pullout poster, a pullout poster of a woman called Kelly Brook. Now I knew Kelly Brook because in the mornings when I'd be getting up for school at like 6 or 7am

I'd turn on the television and I used to watch a morning entertainment show called The Big Breakfast on Channel 4. It was live TV and this is what I'd watch when I was 12 or 13 at 6 in the morning because I was too old for cartoons.

And one of the presenters was called Kelly Brook. She was really funny and nice. But one day I opened this copy of FHM and there's Kelly Brook and she's wearing a bra in the form of a pullout poster. And I remember it because I'm like, I'm really interested in Kelly Brook now that she's wearing a bra. I'm very interested in this. Fucking hell. She's amazing. I think I'm in Kelly Brook now that she's wearing a bra. I'm very interested in this. Fucking hell. She's amazing. I think I'm in love with her. What's this about? I never noticed this before.

So I took the pull out poster. And there was also a TV show called Saved by the Bell. That I used to watch. There was a fella called Zach Morris on that. And on his bedroom wall. Used to hang up posters of women in bikinis. So I thought, well fuck it if Zach Morris is doing it, then I'm going to

do it too. I'm going to get this pull out poster of Kelly Brook wearing a bra and I'm going to put it on my bedroom wall. So that's what I did. Up until that point I had been putting posters on my bedroom wall. Mainly manga posters.

I used to go to the local petrol station once a month and buy a magazine called Manga Mania with Japanese comic books, incredible illustrations and artwork. And I'd get this magazine Manga Mania once a month and then just spend ages drawing and copying all the illustrations in this comic book.

Probably the happiest memories from my childhood were me painting and drawing images from Mangamania. So much so that during the pandemic I went onto eBay and bought like some fattest collection of these magazines that I used to collect when I was 12 and I had them delivered to my house and it wasn't the same. I couldn't feel that same joy. I shouldn't have done it. I should have kept it as a memory from my childhood. I kind of ruined it but when I was 12 I'd hang these drawings on my bedroom wall. My dad used to even take some of these drawings and put them in a folder and bring them into work to show all his buddies at work to show him how good his his kid is at drawing and made me feel really proud so after about two days of the the poster of Kelly Brooke in her bra hanging on my bedroom wall my dad walks in while

I'm in there he was coming in to tell me that my tea was ready or something. He was about 60 at this stage. So he walks into my bedroom and then he sees the poster of Kelly Brook in her bra amongst all the drawings the cartoon drawings that I've done. There was a poster of an adult an adult woman in a bra

on the wall and he goes a bit quiet and he stares at it and he thinks about leaving quiet and he stares at it and he thinks about leaving and then he comes back in I'm sitting down on my bed and then he says to me when I was a young lad

of about your age and then I went oh fuck fuck is this the sex talk is he going to give me the sex talk now is this what this is? Is he going to give me the sex talk now?

Is this what this is? The most dreaded moment in every 12-year-old boy's life. And your dad coming in to give you the fucking sex talk. So he keeps going, when I was a boy of your age, you know, when I was your age, now my face is obviously turning into a fucking raspberry. I've gone red. I'm gone red.

I'm mortified. I'm embarrassed. I'm terrified of what he's going to say next. He obviously gets really fucking nervous too. Then he sits down on my bed and he says, you know, when I was a boy of your age, I used to be lamping rabbits.its and I go what? and he goes just let me talk now just let me talk you need to listen when I was a young boy of your age I used to go

Lamping Rabbits now when my dad was 12 or 13 this was the 1940s in incredibly rural West Cork so my dad goes me and my brothers.

We used to go out into the fields. In the pitch dark of night time. I used to get the headlight. The headlight from my Uncle Jimmy's motorcycle. And I'd get that headlight. And I'd attach it to the battery. Of Uncle Jimmy's motorcycle. And I'd put the battery on my back.

And me and my brothers would walk the field in complete darkness at two or three in the morning and we would shine a motorcycle headlight into the eyes of rabbits. There'd be hundreds and thousands of rabbits. You'd hear them, you wouldn't see them. You'd walk through a field and you'd hear the thud of their paws running all around you. And then I'd turn on the big headlight, this big detached motorcycle headlight. And if it was a foggy night, you could point the headlight into the air and see a big beam that would illuminate the clouds. And we'd point the headlight into the eyes of rabbits.

And we'd dazzle them. When the rabbit caught this headlight in its eyes, it would freeze. It wouldn't know what to do. And I'd point this headlight at the rabbits. And then my brother Jim would run towards the dazzled rabbits and beat them into the head with the end of a pole cue.

And we had a dog called Spot, a little vicious terrier. And he'd catch the rabbits that Jim didn't kill with a pole cue. And we'd collect them all and pull them into a big brown sack, all the dead rabbits. to a big brown sack, all the dead rabbits. And at the crack of dawn, we'd go to the butcher shop and we'd sell the butcher a fresh bag of dead rabbits for a half crown. The butcher wanted the rabbits that were beaten to death. No one would buy a rabbit that had been shot because the pellets would spoil the meat. So the butcher would buy beaten rabbits off you. It was the only way that we could earn money when I was a boy of your age. Now I'm on the bed listening and I'm thinking, right, maybe this is how he's getting into telling me about sex or how sex happens or

masturbation or whatever the fuck. Maybe this is his in inn because he's staring up at Kelly Brook in her bra when he's telling me this story because see some of my friends in school they'd gotten the sex talk off their parents and they'd tell us about it

so we knew everything anyway but you were dreading the moment that your own fucking dad has given you the sex talk so I'm waiting for him to start talking about sex to get to the moral

of the story but then he looks up at Kelly Brook and he says talk. So I'm waiting for him to start talking about sex to get to the moral of the story. Then he looks up at Kelly Brook and he says and then one night I stopped lamping rabbits I never lamped rabbits again. The night got off to a bad start when the motorcycle battery on my back

began to leak acid. I didn't notice it at first. I felt an itchy sensation. Wet and itchy all down my back but it was pitch black so I didn't know what was happening. And after about a half an hour

I started to feel incredibly cold. And I noticed that the acid had melted the shirt off my back. And now I was bare chest with my brothers in the darkness of West Cork with a shirt melted off my back. But we had a job to do.

We were out to kill rabbits and we could hear them thumping all around us and running. But because the battery acid had leaked, the headlamp wasn't as strong. It was flickering, but still I found a steady beam from the headlight and shunted at a group of rabbits, and they froze still.

And my brother Jim and Spot the dog went running towards the rabbits, but the light cut out, and Jim started swinging in the blackness, walloping the pool cue off the rabbits's heads until he heard a yelp and he'd killed Spot in the darkness. He'd hit Spot into the head and killed the dog and to this day you can't bring up Spot around my brother Jim or he'll start crying. So now I'm invested. Now I'm invested and I'm going,

but Jesus, what happened next, Dad? What happened next? Was this the end of Lamping Rabbits? And he goes, no. We agreed that we could never replace Spot the Dog. Spot the Dog was such a great rabbit catcher. Because he died under tragic circumstances. We couldn't replace him.

So we had to move. From lamping rabbits to legging ferrets. What? We had to leg ferrets. There was another way to catch a rabbit. But it was illegal. And it was through the use of ferrets. So we'd wander the fields.

With the headlight. And we wouldn't have a dog we wouldn't have a pool cue we'd bring a couple of ferrets with us but you had to store the ferrets down your pants legging we called it we'd get a pair of trousers our father's trousers because they were too big nice big baggy trousers and you'd get a bit of twine and you'd tie the twine around the ankles of your trousers so it's nice and tight and then you'd get the ferret and you'd put it down the belt of your pants and at first the ferret would be running all around your legs but eventually the warmth of your body and the movement would make the ferret calm.

And it would nestle in the gusset of your trousers around your thighs into a little warm ball. And the ferret would be calm and asleep. And we'd go and walk the fields with the lamp and the ferrets down our trousers. Now I'm waiting for some sex stuff. They're stuffing live ferrets down their trousers. Did someone get a boner? I don't know. I'm waiting for the sex stuff to happen.

He continues. You'd go out into the field. And you'd shine the torch. And you'd dazzle the rabbits. And then you'd shout. And you'd frighten the rabbits away. And watch them as they run into their burrows. Then you'd find the hole. You'd take the ferret out of your trousers,

you'd reach down into your belt, you'd take out the ferret and you send it down the hole, you send it down the hole and the ferret will go down into that hole and it'll kill all the rabbits. But you couldn't leave the ferret down the hole for too long because a ferret won't eat the rabbit. It'll suck all the blood out of its body and then you can't sell the meat so we'd have a spray bottle of vinegar and then you spray the vinegar into the rabbit hole

and then the ferret comes out and you put the ferret back into your trousers and then you dig up the dead rabbits we put them in a bag we brought them to the butcher the next day and sold the bag of them for a half crown now the whole time he's telling me this fucking story put him in a bag, we brought him to the butcher the next day and sold the bag of him for a half crown. Now the whole time he's telling me this fucking story,

like staring at the Kelly Brook poster. Now looking back as an adult, I'm wondering, was he attempting some type of sex talk through ridiculous metaphors? Because in a way, you're removing the ferret from your crotch,

inserting it into a hole, quite penetrative visual imagery. You're sending the ferret down the hole and then immediately retracting the ferret before it sucks all the blood out of the rabbit. Immediately retracting the ferret. Before it sucks all the blood out of the rabbit. I'm thinking. Was he using metaphor to say. Don't get someone pregnant.

Is the vinegar a condom. No. Because then he goes. But I never got into the foxes. I never got into foxes. There was no honour in lamping foxes. So he says what other lads used to do. So in the 1940s in Ireland, foxes were considered vermin. Native Irish foxes were like a problem animal to farmers. They'd kill chickens, they might kill baby sheep, and there was a bounty on foxes.

So I'm asking my dad, what do you mean there's no honour in killing foxes, what does that mean? So he used to give a loan of the motorcycle headlight and the battery to lads who used to go out dazzling foxes. You could dazzle foxes too, and the fox would freeze, and usually the lads would have a gun like a shotgun and they'd shoot the fox but you couldn't eat a fox and foxes were large

so what would happen is lads would go out killing foxes in the countryside of Cork and they'd cut the fox's tail off and then they'd put all the tails into a bag and you'd bring the bag of tails to the local Garda station, to the police in the 1940s in Ireland in rural Cork

you'd call to the police station with a bag of fox's tails the policeman would count the tails and then pay out a half crown per fox's tail that was handed into the police station because these animals were considered vermin. These wonderful native animals, there was money going for killing foxes. But he said what eventually started to happen is lads would figure out a way to scam the guards so what they used to

do is they'd put like 12 foxes tails into a potato sack but they'd leave they'd leave it for a few days so that the tails, the foxes tail in the sack would

start to rot and start to smell. And then they'd call around to the Garda station at about half four or five, when they're about to clock off work, they'd call around late, with this stinking sack of fox's tails, real smelly rotten tails, they'd hand them to the guards guards and the guards would just be like fuck this, this is stinking I'm not taking out these foxes tails and I'm not counting them

how many tails are in here six, alright that's six half crowns, there you go, fuck off the lads would leave with the money and then the guards would be like I'm not dealing with this stinking bag of fox's tails. So the guards would immediately run out the back of the station and they'd put the bag of rotten fox's tails into the bin.

Then the poachers would go off and hide behind a wall and they'd watch and they'd wait for the guards to go home and then the poachers would go to the back of the police station and they'd retrieve the bag of rotten fox tails, steal it and move on to the next guard station and do the same trick there. Just travelling the countryside with a bag of rotten fox's tails, scamming the guards for half crowns. So at this point of my dad sitting on the end of my bed talking about bags of rotten fox's tails, I'm starting to realise this isn't a sex talk at all. He sat down to try a sex talk, but it's so awkward he's trying to do anything but a fucking sex talk. And I'm mad invested in the story at this point so I say but what happened to the lads who

were scamming the guards for fox's tails like did any of them get caught and my dad goes all the guards figured out pretty quickly that they were being scammed and they changed the rules so you couldn't go to the guard station with a bag of fox's tails anymore. You still got a half crown if you cull the fox but what you had to do is you had to bring the body of the fox to the Garda station now, a full body to the Garda station and what the guards would do is they would cut the tongue off the fox and throw the body away so that you couldn't come back with the same fox, and scam the guards out of a half crown. So if the fox's tongue was cut out, that was it.

That fox has been handed in, and you can't hand it in a second time, to get an extra half crown. And then my dad says, and I remember, being a boy of your age, and walking past the local Garda station, and you'd have a line of cats, hanging around the door of local Garda station and you'd have a line of cats hanging around

the door of the Garda station waiting for a feed of fox's tongues and then he got up off the bed and before he left my room he looked at the poster of Kelly Brook on the wall and he said, you've taken my son, you've taken my son, my little son is gone and then he left the room. And that was my sex talk, that was my birds and the bees. Pitch black wilderness shorts melting off shoulders with battery acid, dogs being beaten to death with pole cues and ferrets being shoved down trousers. Frozen starter rabbits lit up in a beam with dilated pupils. As kittens devour a thousand dismembered fox tongues.

Wes Cork, Hieronymus Bosch shit. Patrick Cavanaugh if he was writing lyrics for Cannibal Corpse. I wouldn't change it for the world. I'm glad that was the sex talk I got. And then like a year later we got our sex talk. In fucking school. From a priest. A priest. Came into my class and gave us a sex talk. And told us that if we have a wet dream we slept with the devil but it did forever change Kelly Brook for me. I still fancy Kelly Brook she's gorgeous but I forever associated her with the extremely violent calling of animals. I forever associated Kelly

Brook with that imagery and the years went on. My dad died when I was like 19. And I didn't think of Kelly Brook much. Till about 8 years ago. When I saw a particularly bizarre. Nose headline. A headline so strange it made me question reality. Because of the level of synchronicity that was going on. The headline was.

the level of synchronicity that was going on. The headline was, Kelly Brook's boyfriend pleads guilty to crashing van full of dead badgers into bus stop. Now aside from how horrific that is, that's probably the funniest headline that I've, that's the funniest headline of the last decade for me. So Kelly Brook had a boyfriend around 10 years ago, and he was an ex-Royal Marine.

And over in the UK, quite controversially, there's a bounty for the killing of badgers. You see, badgers spread TB to cattle. So because of that, the government over in the UK encourages people to kill badgers, to cull badgers. And that's what Kelly Brook's boyfriend was doing. Because he was an ex-Royal Marine, he was handy with a gun. But he got addicted to killing badgers or something because he'd done a really long day of shooting badgers, loaded them into his van to collect the bounty.

And then while driving his van full of dead badgers, he fell asleep at the wheel and crashed into a bus stop in a van full of dead badgers. And he was brought to court over it because I think he wasn't driving with due care. It's illegal to fall asleep at the wheel. And I really had to double take at that headline when I saw it because

all this time I associated Kelly Brook with the violent culling of wild animals and now her boyfriend is crashing into bus stops in a van full of dead badgers. The synchronicity was very powerful. It was very strong. And I wanted to tell my dad so much. I wanted to tell my dad about that story

and say to him, do you remember that poster I had on my wall and you told me that story about killing the rabbits? Well, look at this headline. But he was gone. My dad was dead. One of the hardest parts of grief is when a specific piece of information or a song or a film or something arises up in you and you get this strong desire to tell the one person who this story has meaning to

you get that little flicker that little bit of excitement and then it all comes back and you go they're gone. They're gone. They're not here anymore. I can't tell my da about Kelly Brooke's boyfriend crashing a van full of dead badgers into a bus stop. But what a strange ending to that story. I think they broke up afterwards. I don't know if I don't know if that incident was the reason that their relationship broke up. I imagine it didn't help. It's time now for a little ocarina pause.

I'm in my office and it's late at night. I don't have any ocarinas. I'd rather not hit myself into the head with a book this week. What I might do instead of the ocarina pause is I've got a little bottle here of Turkish barber aftershave that has a wonderful smell of lemon. I think I've used this for an

ocarina pause before but I'm going to spray myself with my wonderful lemon scented Turkish barber aftershave and when I do this you're gonna hear an advert for something I don't know what the advert is for so here we go here's the Turkish barber aftershave pause will you rise with the sun to help change mental health care forever join the sunrise challenge to raise funds for CAMH the center 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. 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, no, don't. The first omen, I believe, girl, is to be the mother.

Mother of what? Is the most terrifying. 666 is the mark of the devil. Hey! Movie of the year. It's not real the devil movie of the year it's not real it's not real it's not real who said that the first omen

only in theaters April 5th mmm lemony wonderful smell instant freshness if you want to smell like a urinal cake if you want to smell like a urinal cake then

get yourself some Turkish barber aftershave support for this podcast comes from you the listener via the Patreon page, patreon.com forward slash The Blind Boy Podcast. This podcast is my full-time job. It's how I earn a living. It's how I pay my bills. It's how I pay my rent. It's how I'm able to deliver a podcast each week about something I'm legitimately passionate about. It's how I have the time and space to do that. So if you enjoy this podcast,

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Let's plug a couple of live podcasts. So in April, I'm doing a fucking massive tour of England, Wales and Scotland I cannot wait to come back to England, Wales and Scotland to do a couple of gigs for you for the marvellous Cracking Tens

so starting on the 21st of April I'm in Newcastle then I'm in Glasgow that's sold out then I'm in Nottingham I'm in thecastle. Then I'm in Glasgow. That's sold out. Then I'm in Nottingham. I'm in the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff.

There on the 27th. I'm in Brighton on the 28th of April. 29, I'm in Cambridge at the Corn Exchange. 30th of April, I'm in Bristol. I think that's sold out. And then on the 1st of May I cannot wait for this my biggest ever live podcast I'm in the Hammersmith Apollo

in London please come along to that gig in London I can't believe I'm doing a gig at the Hammersmith Apollo I'm pinching myself every fucking night I cannot believe it and I can't wait to do that gig I'm unbelievably grateful to have that opportunity. Now I do have a few gigs in the summer but something I really want to plug because it

just went out this week is on Sunday the 18th of August which I know is fucking ages away I'm in Letterkenny at the Summer Sessions Festival. So if you're around Letterkenny, up in Donegal on the 18th of August, come along to that gig. Like the podcast, leave a review, subscribe to it, all that crack. Tell a friend, follow me on Instagram, Blind by Bow Club. I've started doing Pilates. And I have to say, the results have been incredible. I started doing Pilates and I have to say the results have been incredible. I started doing Pilates about two weeks ago. I'm in my late 30s and I have absolutely stupid aches and pains and a physiotherapist told me you don't have aches and pains because you're in your late 30s.

There's no reason for that. You can't just accept aches and pains just because you're in your late 30s. There's no reason for that. You can't just accept aches and pains just because you're in your late 30s. You're not that old. The physio said most likely there's a bunch of smaller muscles in your core or in your legs and you're just not working them enough because you're spending too much time at a desk and this is why you have aches and pains. Give Pilates a go and tell me how you feel. So I've been doing beginners Pilates. Just half an hour videos on YouTube. And all my aches and pains are gone.

They're fucking gone. And not only that. The half an hour of Pilates a day. It's actually really, really enjoyable. It doesn't feel like a workout. It feels like intense meditation. It's just like simple bodyweight exercises that are really slow and contain a lot of focus, breathing and also what Pilates has done for me. It's brought like certain muscles in my body

into my conscious awareness. Like muscles in my lower back and muscles in my legs that I just didn't think about. Pilates is like, it's like a mind-body connection. It's really grounding. It gets me thinking about and focusing on tiny little muscles in my tummy. Or each vertebra of my spine. I fucking love it. I adore it and I can do it late at night. Usually with any type of exercise you don't want to do it too close to bed because then you'll have trouble sleeping. But with Pilates it actually helps me to sleep. It just relaxes my

entire body. So if you're sitting at a desk all day with shitty posture and you get aches and pains, maybe give it a go and see what happens. It's free. Something I wanted to speak about a little bit on this podcast, because it relates to the first half, is the complications of grief. You know, I spoke about a wonderful story that my dad told me when I was like 12 or 13 that I have lovely memories of but the issue is my dad died when I was like 19 and when I was 19 I was still a kid effectively I wasn't an adult I wasn't the adult that I am now in my late 30s. And it's hard for me to think back to moments with my father in the context of who I am now with maturity and adult levels of self-esteem and the wisdom that just comes with being around for more than three decades.

So when I think back to that story with my dad, it's all rooted in a real innocent childhood frame of mind. And to be honest, even when I recount that story of my dad talking about lamp and rabbits when I was 12, even when I recount that, I don't know how accurate it is because it's so difficult to recount and parse the emotions I would have been feeling at 12 years of age. To be honest,

I doubt I enjoyed that story. I'd have been quite immature. I was fucking 12, I was a child. I do remember being really really embarrassed and mortified because oh fuck my dad's gonna have the sex talk. But when I think back I don't really see myself as 12 on that bed listening to my dad. I'm there now as an adult sitting beside him listening but I've no context for that. That's one of the hardest things about losing a parent when you're young. I have no

context whatsoever of meeting my dad eye to eye as an adult. When you meet someone as an adult, as an equal, as someone with the same level of maturity as you, there's much greater empathy and understanding. Like I can talk to my ma now and I know she's my ma but she's not really my, like she's an adult, she's an adult the same as me. So I can have a conversation with her as I would another adult and when you converse with another adult, you can see their flaws, their insecurities. You can achieve a much greater level of empathy and understanding when you're an adult speaking to another adult. But when you're 12, talking to your da, you're just looking up.

It's your da. They're like a superstar. When I describe, you know, my da walking into my room and seeing the Kelly Brook poster and getting nervous and nervously telling me that story, I don't think I'd have had the emotional intelligence at 12 years of age to notice that my da was nervous. I think I'm fitting in a lot of gaps there and I'm imagining that my dad was probably nervous speaking to his 12 year old son about the birds and the bees. I'm fitting in all those little gaps because I have no context whatsoever. None. As to what an adult conversation with my dad is like. I never got to read him as an adult

because he died when I was a kid and I probably thought I was an adult at 19, 20. Now I look back, no I was not, I was a fucking kid. And sometimes I wonder when I think to myself, oh I'd love to talk to my dad. I'd love to talk to my dad I'd love to speak to my dad about this or about that that desire is forever framed in a childhood version of me and I don't know am I the same person when I was 12 13 14 19 was I the same person then as I am now? And that conundrum, that conundrum of, you know,

are we the same person now than we were 10 years ago or 20 years ago? It reminds me of a story from Greek mythology called The Ship of Theseus. a story from Greek mythology called the ship of Theseus now I did a podcast about two months ago about Greek mythology specifically the Minotaur and how the Minotaur

this half bull half human was culled by the hero Theseus the Minotaur lived in the labyrinth, this maze, and the island of Crete. And nobody could slay the Minotaur. Nobody could kill the Minotaur. The Minotaur was ferocious until eventually this hero called Theseus, he called this animal. He was the one that killed this half bull, half human. He was the one who did it.

And when Theseus killed the Minotaur, he returned to the island of Delos triumphantly on his ship, the ship of Theseus, and he founded the city of Athens. But every year after Theseus slayed the Minotaur, the people of Athens would celebrate his journey. And they'd celebrate this journey by recreating it using his ship. They would sail the ship of Theseus from the island of Crete to the island of Delos. And they'd do this every single year until eventually Theseus died but they kept carrying on this tradition

and after about a hundred years the physical ship, Theseus' ship started to fall apart a little bit so they would replace a piece of wood here and a piece of wood there and they kept going and going and replacing bits of wood there and they kept going and going and replacing bits of wood and fixing the ship

until eventually after about 500 years of recreating this journey annually as a celebration there was no longer any original piece of the ship of Theseus but a ship still existed that they called the ship of Theseus and they

still carried on the tradition and the question is is it really the ship of Theseus when there's no original parts there and you can apply that conundrum to yourself and your identity especially as it relates to grief it's near impossible for me to truly remember that story of my dad telling me all that stuff and sitting on the end of my bed with the Kelly Brook poster like it happened for sure I remember the poster I remember my dad walking in I remember him telling me stuff about the culling of animals. But it's really difficult for me to genuinely remember that. It's difficult for me to truly remember my dad. Because I don't know if I'm the same person when I was a child as I am now as an adult.

What parts of me are still the same? Even the way that our body grows and our cells regenerate. How much of our original body is still here? Am I walking around with the exact same set of ears I had when I was seven or have enough cells shed and been replaced that I now have a completely different set of ears? I just think they're mine. You can apply the ship of Theseus to culture. their mind you can apply the ship of Theseus to culture. If I say it to you now, you know that TV show The Office, most ye will think of the American office, the American office. Now I remember the original office with Ricky Gervais, I remember that on television. Not only do I remember the original office because it was a huge success. I remember when the rumor was going around that they were going to create an

American version of the UK office. And I remember thinking and everyone saying they can't do it. There's no way it will fail. But not only did it not fail, the American office ran for a lot longer and became more popular and had a bigger impact on culture than the UK office. And it started off with the first few series, you know, quite similar scripts to the UK office. But then the American office grew its own legs and became its own thing. You could argue that the UK office. But then the American office grew its own legs and became its own thing. You could argue that the American office became the ship of Theseus. We all agree that it's the office,

but does it really contain any of the original parts? The pop band, the Sugar Babes, like Sugar Babes is interesting, they started off in the late 90s. Three members, Keisha, Mucha and Siobhan. And then slowly but surely, each of those members left and were replaced by someone else. But by the time 2011 came around, the Sugar Babes were performing with none of the original members.

We all agreed that it was the Sugar Babes, but it contained no original members, so the Sugar Babes could be argued to be a ship of Theseus. Judas Priest. I fucking adore Judas Priest. One of the first ever heavy metal bands. Judas Priest are still gigging. The first member I believe of Judas Priest to be replaced was the lead singer Rob Halford. I think they replaced him with a Rob Halford impersonator. But Judas Priest are still gigging. And there's only one original member left. Ian Hill, the bass player.

Now he's about 75 years of age. If Ian Hill, the bass player, years of age if Ian Hill the bass player dies no disrespect to Ian Hill but bass players in a band they're quite replaceable only under certain circumstances like fucking Bootsy Collins but like once Ian Hill gets replaced

Judas Priest are probably gonna still keep gigging without one original member of Judas Priest. So they're a ship of Theseus. A wonderful example that's playing out in real time. To the point that I've tried to stop myself saying it to the person on Twitter. That group Fun Loving Criminals. So the lead singer of Fun Loving Criminals, Huey, huey is no longer gigging with fun loving criminals instead fun loving criminals are doing like a 30th anniversary album tour and it contains one of the original lads and then they found another lad who looks like huey

but huey's on twitter every single day going don't go to this fucking gig. That's not the real fun loving criminals. They're fakes. They're actors. This is a fraud. And I would love to I have to stop myself tweeting at Hughie from fun loving criminals and saying Hughie are you familiar with the ship of Theseus?

I need to stay out of it. I think he possibly owns a pizza parlour in Dublin. So if someone knows Hughie, gently nudge him towards the ship of Theseus, but keep me out of it. Alright, that's all I have time for this week. It's quite late here in my office.

I'll be back next week with a hot take. Or a rambling story, I don't know. In the meantime, rub a dog, plant some wildflowers, wink at a swan, crash a van full of dead badgers into a bus stop. Alright, dog bliss.

Catch you next week. rock city you're the best fans in the league bar none tickets are on sale now for fan appreciation night on saturday april 13th when the toronto rock hosts the rochester nighthawks at first ontario center in hamilton at 7 30 p.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 TorontoRock.com Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. you