The Blindboy Podcast - Why I'm buying Lions Urine on the internet

Episode Date: April 18, 2023

An update on my cat Napper Tandy after the loss of her brother. Also, some instructions on How to write short fiction. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Spool the eunuch's jewellery, you winking antonies. Welcome to the Blind Boy Podcast. If you're a brand new listener, please consider going back to an earlier podcast. Some listeners even go back to the very start, which seems a bit daunting, because we're coming up to 400 episodes now. But you know what? Anyone who has listened to this podcast from the start has encouraged others to do the same,

to familiarise themselves with the lore of this podcast. So I just want to thank you all for the wonderful messages of support that I've received the past week. Because in last week's podcast, I had to announce that my beloved cat, Silk and Thomas, died. So last week's podcast was a bit of a eulogy to him so thank you to

everyone who sent me a message of condolence for poor old silken thomas and loads of people have been asking me how is his sister so the whole week i've been asking myself the question like can a cat grieve for another cat grieve for another cat and I'm being cautious not to project human grief into a cat but what I will say is two things have happened

so Nappertandy she's definitely behaving differently the first thing I started to notice was about four days after Silken Thomas died she would come up to the kitchen window to me looking for food now she's been well fed this week because all week I'm just thinking about her because she's lost her brother so I'm just thinking she has no need for food she

gets fed in the mornings and she gets fed in the evenings but the past week no matter how much food I give her she still comes up to the window as if she's starving like sometimes if I had a gig or whatever and I was away from the house for a day which meant they went the day without food when I came back she'd go apeshit she'd see me in the kitchen and she would run up to the window and rub her back against it and show me her belly and claw at the window and do everything in her power to scream at me and say we are fucking starving give us food well she's doing that now all the time even when she has food she's up at the window to me every day screaming for something and I think she's screaming for her brother have you seen him

where is he what's going on you're the boss around here where is my brother tell me I'm being cautious not to project human grief on a cat. Her grief might not look like sadness but her behavior has changed. She's behaving like a cat who's starving and there's plenty of food. So she's coming to me consistently whenever she sees me coming up to the window and asking me frantically for something. And I think she's asking me for her brother. Because they're both kind of wild. It wouldn't be mad for one of them to disappear for a day or two. That's happened before.

But now she's noticing her empty bed. These were adult cats. She could be ten years old. She's definitely five or six. She has known nothing other than the company of her brother for her entire life. I have to assume that they were born together in a litter and just didn't separate since they were born and stayed together ever since and she protected him and she minded him because he was deaf and didn't have good eyesight and she was an arsehole to him. She was an arsehole to him. I'd be in the kitchen some days and I'd just hear screaming and roaring outside and it was her

kicking the head off her brother and tearing him so far out of his arse usually inside in the bed. The two of them would be tucked in cuddled inside in bed and he would do something that would piss her off and then she'd kick the head off him because she had to do so much of the work. She was the one who had to come looking to me for food

because he couldn't even climb up onto the windowsill because of his eyes and his ears. She was the one who if a tomcat came into the garden she would fight the tomcat away while he hid in the bed because he wasn't able to fight. Again because he was deaf and half blind and scrawny and then this would manifest as a every so often Harger's getting pissed off and walloping him across the face or taking a bite of fur out of his arse. But then I'd look out the window 10 minutes later and they're booping noses with each other

and rubbing off each other and licking each other and they're friends again. But she doesn't have that now. For the first time since she was born, she's trying to figure out how do I do this when it's just me? Because I can't be friends with her.

Because she's wild, so I can't rub her, I can't do any of this shit. She has to figure this stuff out on her own now. The boredom of just staring at a wall. But if she didn't love him, she wouldn't have stayed by his side their entire lives. That's the thing. If she didn't love him him she wouldn't be with her little fucking brother who was deaf and blind now i might be projecting too much humanity onto the cat i might be projecting love into this cat but what i will say is that there was something

in this for her as well there was something in this for her because i used to wonder why is this healthy this healthy female cat why is she going around with her brother who's very very unhealthy and appears to actually be a burden on her what's that about what's the nature of their band because i don't see how he benefits her survival in any way. And nature is fucking cruel. Weak cats die. And this week I'm truly realising what the purpose of Silk and Thomas was to their relationship. From a cat's point of view. Not a human point of view.

So this past week she's been behaving differently. But another thing has started to happen. Loads of other cats, the stray cats of the neighbourhood of which there's a lot, other strange cats have started appearing in my garden the past week. Cats I've never seen before, lounging around the place, walking up to her dish, taking food out of her dish. Since Silk and Thomas died, my back garden appears to be like a free-for-all for all of the fucking stray cats in the neighbourhood. Even though he couldn't defend himself,

and he was a weak cat, the fact that he was a Tom must have meant something to the sovereignty of their territory in the eyes of other cats. So he's dead and now the past week all these other cats I've never seen are just walking around the garden like they couldn't give a fuck. I have to assume that it's because the male cat, Silken Thomas, is no longer marking that territory. Because he was neutered, I didn't think he'd mark territory anyway. A neutered cat isn't in search of females. But I looked it up and a neutered cat is less territorial. A tomcat who's neutered,

they're less territorial but they still mark their territory. They still spray piss around their territory to let other cats know, you don't belong here, this is ours. Now female cats generally don't do this. Neutered female cats in particular really don't do that. But they do begin to do it when certain circumstances bring out an anxiety in them. So now her whole world has been disturbed,

and she's behaving very differently. So she's coming to me every day frantically asking for something. I don't know what that something is. To me it just looks like food, but she's asking me for something. There's all these other cats around going at her dish. I saw this fucking orange Tom who I'd never seen before just lying on the deck, just lying around. Didn't give a fuck. He's just going to lie around. That didn't happen before. That just wasn't allowed. When Silken Thomas was alive, strange cats didn't get to lounge in the back garden it's not happening

even though she'd be the one who'd hunt them away that's the other thing all these cats are coming in she's well able to fight and she's not she's not fighting them away she's standing back she's looking at them

she's not fighting them away she need I think she needed her brother's piss I think she needed even though she's well able to fight and defend she needed her brother's marking to defend the sovereignty of her territory and then all these other cats are coming in going I don't give a fuck about you love I. I don't smell a tom around here. I'm going to sit down here and lie down.

So she's started to, she's wandering the garden and sitting down in places where I've never seen her sit before. Her routines, her patterns. Like cats are predictable. Cats have, they'll either sit there, there or there. And these are their spots. Her world has been turned into chaos. I saw her this morning, there was a spot of gravel. She was just sitting in the gravel for ages doing nothing.

So I don't know, can I call what she's going through grief? As in the sad loss of her brother. But most definitely her brother is gone and now her world has been turned upside down on its head. Now I've been doing my best. If I look out the window and I see a fucking tomcat, I take it personally. I take that very personally now.

Because this is Silken Thomas' territory. So I have a water pistol with a bit of vinegar inside it. Now unfortunately the water pistol with a bit of vinegar inside it. Now unfortunately the water pistol looks like a real gun. It's black plastic in the shape of a Glock and I got it at a stag party years ago. But it's a water pistol but it looks like I'm pointing a real gun at the cats and I should probably get a super soaker. So I put a mixture of water and vinegar in it and I run out and I scream at the tomcat

and spray him with the water pistol and he runs off I'm sure my neighbours fucking love it so any tomcat I see I'm defending the territory now I'm letting them know no this isn't for you this little girl cat here

this is her territory you fuck off and if you come here then you're dealing with me now I don't know if that will work like in the short term that the tomcats understand but there's a human and he's coming towards me and spraying this horrible vinegar thing at me this is rotten i'm gonna leave that's a short-term solution but i can't operate in the chemical language that these cats operate in. I considered pissing out my own back

garden. I considered doing pisses all around the perimeter of my own back garden with my piss because I'm a male. There's probably testosterone in my piss. What's the harm in trying? What's the worst that can happen? It's my own back garden. And then I said no not now you're mad now you've gone insane you've taken the rational position of there's tomcats in my back garden it's a problem and crossed that threshold into insanity where you're thinking of taking your dick out and engaging in chemical warfare with local cats by pissing all over your garden. Now you're mad. You're a mad person now. So I didn't do that obviously. If I get very carried away with an idea I can cross the precipice into mad behaviour quite easily if I don't keep it in check. So I set it into the mirror.

To be real firm with myself. Fucking Robert De Niro and taxi driver behaviour. Your cat is dead. I get it. It's very sad that his sister is now in a situation where she feels unsafe in her own territory. That's very sad. I understand that you're taking it personally on behalf of your dead cat

to defend the integrity of the territory. But you're not going out your back taking her dick out and pissing around your own garden that's not going to happen because that's insane and if you want to know why it's insane imagine your neighbor opens the window and says what are you doing and then you turn around and tell him exactly what you're doing i'm pissing all over my garden so that the tomcats will smell my piss and stay away. Is that okay with you? And then the neighbor's going to go, oh, that man's insane. So it's not going to happen.

And I'm saying that as well, just in case someone's listening to the podcast and they're like, oh, did you hear what blind boy's doing? Did you hear he's pissing all over his garden to ward off tomcats? That hasn't happened and it's not going to happen. It's not a thing that's happening, even though I think it may be a plausible solution. Let's find out how mad that would actually be. Let's ask artificial intelligence, who I've trained my AI model to be the ghost of Charles Stewart Parnell. Would it be considered mad or insane to urinate in my own back garden to fend

off tomcats? So here's what Charles Stuart Parnell has to say, who gave a wonderful eulogy to Silken Thomas last week I might add. So Charles Stuart Parnell says, ladies and gentlemen, one might question the sanity of urinating in one's garden to deter tomcats. Though seemingly eccentric, I hesitate to call it mad or insane. There are, however, more socially acceptable alternatives for such a purpose. I entreat you to consider employing motion-activated sprinklers or commercially available cat repellents. These methods are likely as effective and would spare you potential embarrassment and social stigma. Thank you Charles Stewart Parnell. So I didn't need Charles Stewart Parnell to tell me that because I know it

already. I'm not pissing up my backyard and it's not going to happen but however what I was considering doing is my idea isn't that crazy I can purchase online from America the powdered piss of a male lion dead serious they get male lions and mountain lions they get the male's piss and they boil it down into a soluble powder which you can order on the internet if you want to keep away like if you've got crops or whatever and you want to keep away deer or pigs or goats if there's animals large animals that are going to come to your property and eat your garden, you can spray mail order lion's piss all over your territory. And this keeps deer and all these animals away. So I was thinking, could I get the piss of a lion, a male lion,

ordered on the internet and then just start spraying that around the perimeter of my back garden so now the tomcats in the neighborhood are like ah that that fucking stupid bitch up there with her dead brother he's dead now we're gonna go down to that garden and do whatever we want we're gonna roll around the ground because he's gone so that that territory is whoever wants it imagine they're like did you hear she's after fucking hooking up with a lion? Yeah, inside in the small little house that she has, there's a massive lion inside. Don't go near the place, there's a lion. What if I sprayed lion's piss everywhere and that was the effect that it had? But the only thing I'm afraid of is if I go spraying lion's piss around the back garden I don't want her thinking that there's a

big lion now and she has to fuck off so I have to think about it I have to think about it as a strategy but maybe maybe I shouldn't even be chasing the tomcats away maybe I should let nature do its thing let her figure it. See what happens before I intervene. Because what if she makes a friend? What if one of these toms that comes into the garden and starts basking? What if she becomes friendly with him? And then he decides, Oh, I like it around here.

It's not too bad. And then he goes into her little house. And now she has another cat to be friends with to cuddle up and be warm with I mean if that happened then that Tom is more than welcome I'd love that so that won't happen if I keep chasing them away so I should probably not intervene just see what happens to that story there where I I talked myself down from doing a piss out my back garden you know and I rationally went through the process of why that would be a step too far it reminded me for some reason of when I was about 14 I became obsessed with it was one summer was one summer when I was about 14

I became fixated on the idea of getting a suntan now it wasn't an aesthetic thing I wasn't like I want to get a suntan so that my skin will look nice and golden for other people to admire me. No, I became fascinated with the concept of a suntan. I became fascinated with the process. I was 14, so I hadn't done a lot of thinking about suntans up until that point. And I was just like, wow. So if you go outside into the sun for long enough, your skin gets darker. Wow, that's mad. I wonder how that happens. There was no internet. There was no YouTube. I couldn't go into YouTube and go, what does it look like to get a suntan? This didn't exist. Now I'd seen people with suntans, obviously. The neighbours would go off to Lanzarote and come back and their legs are brown. That's not what this was about.

I wanted to see the process. I wanted to watch in real time a suntan happening. I was going, does it just go brown overnight? Does it slowly happen? I need to see how this happens. So I said to myself, next time there's going to be like a real hot sunny day, I'm going to go outside the back garden, lie down, right, in my underpants and I'm going to let a suntan happen to me throughout the day and I'm going to observe how this suntan happens because

I'm really fascinated by the process. I found it incredible that the sun is a star up in the sky and it takes nine minutes for the light and heat of the sun to reach my back garden. And that there's a star in the sky and it can darken my skin. Isn't that amazing? So one day it was like, it was June. It was early June because we were still in school.

So it was just before summer holidays. And it was definitely going to be a brilliant day. I could just tell. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. It was warm. This was the day that I was going to give myself a proper suntan. Also my parents had gone away for the day. So I had the house to myself for the entire day.

And my plan was you're gonna strip down to your underpants, lie out the back garden, listen to music and you're gonna get a suntan and you're gonna watch how it happens. So I started off at about 11 in the morning, got into my underpants, lay out the back garden and let the sun absorb all over my body. But at the same time a friend of mine from school called Jar, he had a new friend and this friend's name was Lala. And Lala was a drug dealer, I suppose you'd say. Not really a drug dealer, like he was 15.

But Lala, he either had an uncle that was connected with one of the gangs or something. uncle that was connected with one of the gangs or something but Lala would have been a young lad who was hard and really really cool because he had access to hash and he used to sell hash and when I was a teenager if someone was like selling hash and they were your own age this person was really cool they were like a rebel they were someone to be looked up to so my buddy jar started hanging around with lala and they'd only just become friends and jar really wanted to impress him he really really wanted to impress this lala dude because this then made jar look cool because jar knew lala and lala sold. So within the social hierarchies of teenagers in Limerick in the early 2000s, Lala was an important person and being his friend gave you status.

So I'm lying out the back garden, sunning myself at about one o'clock in the day in my underpants and my house phone starts ringing. So I run in going, oh oh someone's ringing the house phone and I pick it up and it's Jar and Jar knows that I have a free house because I would have said it in school the day before Jar's on the phone and he says to me

I'm here with Lala and Lala's after getting a nine bar and we need to go somewhere to cut up the nine bar into ounces. Can we come to your free house to do this? Now a nine bar was nine ounces of hash. It was a mythical object. You didn't get to see a nine bar unless you were a drug dealer. Most people would see a ten spot or a five spot or if you were lucky an ounce. These were little small bits of hash that you'd buy if you were a consumer. But a nine bar, if you had a nine bar this was serious business. It meant that you were connected with someone, someone belonging to the gangs. It meant that you were connected with someone, someone belonging to the gangs.

Nine bars of hash came directly from the shipment. Whatever hash was smuggled in from Morocco or whatever came into Limerick, it came in nine bars. They are brown, solid, about the size of an iPhone now. I'll tell you what it was. Did you ever hear the term soap bar hash? Well, the 9 bar was the bar that was it looked like a shiny brown

bar of soap but a bit larger. Wrapped really tightly in cling film and on the 9 bar is the stamp usually of like a palm tree or something and this stamp was stamped in Morocco. So this was the real deal. This was a nine

bar of hash that was smuggled into Limerick before it hit the streets. So when Jar said to me, can me and Lala come to your house and use your microwave and use your kettle and cut up this nine bar into ounces?

I said yeah, because I really wanted to see a nine bar. I wanted to see what a nine bar looked like. Now I was 14 and that was a really stupid decision to make because I was thinking it's not my nine bar. I'm not selling any hash. I'm not doing anything illegal but if you let someone come to your house and cut up a nine bar in your house then you're part of the crime now but I didn't know that when I was like 14 I just really wanted to see the nine bar and I was thinking about the suntan to be honest I was fixated on this fucking suntan so I'd said to jar all right you and lala come over at about three o'clock that's grand my parents aren't here

you can use the kitchen put the nine bar into the microwave or whatever it is you're doing or hot water cut it up into your little fucking ounces also i could tell by jar's tone on the phone this was really important to him he really wanted to impress this lala character he wanted to be the one who solved Lala's problem and Lala's problem was I've got a nine bar and I have nowhere to cut it up and Jar says I know just the guy he's got a free house. So I went back out the back garden to focus on my suntan and was about half one at this point and there in my underpants looking at my body looking at I'm there in my underpants. Looking at my body. Looking at my arms.

Looking at my legs. And they're noticeably redder. Definitely like the sun has made my skin kind of prickly and red. Because I've been in it for two hours. And I start to get kind of impatient. And I start thinking. I wonder can I hurry this suntan up. And I start thinking.

Don't people put like suntan cream on themselves. Or suntan oil but I didn't have any money because I'm 14 and the house on my own so I start looking around the kitchen and I see a big bottle of olive oil so I decide why don't I rub olive oil all over my body and then like I'll kind of cook like the sun will penetrate the oil and it'll be hotter. And then I get even more of a suntan. So I do this. I cover myself, my face, my chest, my legs.

Covered in fucking olive oil. And I go back out into the sun and I lay down. And I'd kind of forgotten about the nine bar. I'd forgotten about Jar and Lala. So then a knock is at the door and it's three o'clock. And I go, oh fuck, it forgotten about Jar and Lala. So then a knock is at the door. And it's three o'clock. And I go. Oh fuck it must be Jar and Lala.

To cut up their hash. So I walk out to the door. And answer it. In underpants. Absolutely glistening head to toe in oil. And Jar doesn't know what the fuck is going on and this lala fella just looks at me and walks away it was worse than someone calling the guards this cool dude lala fella's like what in the fuck is this whose

house is this? Why is this young fella coming to the door covered head to toe in oil? And he wearing jocks. What's going on here? I'm not cutting hash up in this house. And he disappeared. And it embarrassed the life out of Jar. It was the most uncool thing that could have happened.

They never came into my house and I never got to see Lala's nine bar. I'm kind of glad it didn't because then I would have been... That's a serious crime. If the guards would have shown up, like even if you're 14, chopping up a nine bar is... That's definitely going to court activity even if you're 14. So it never happened. And so I got my son ten and my skin went nice and brown. And then I went into school on Monday Jar had told everyone that I was gay that him and Lala had called to my house to chop up a nine bar

and I answered the door covered in oil to try and seduce them so I had to convince everybody with my big brown face that I had in fact fetishised the process and notion of a suntan. I think the story, I hadn't thought about that story in a long time and when I thought about it I was just roaring laughing during the week at how funny and bizarre it was. When I was talking myself down from pissing out my back garden to ward off tomcats and saying no don't do that that's too far i think it came into my head remember that time you covered yourself in oil and answered the door to the cool boys do you remember that do you remember how silly that was well this is like that except now you're you're nearly 40 and also i changed the names there in

that story it wasn't jar and it wasn't Lala. There were different names. But the drug dealer dude, he had a ridiculous nickname that wasn't far off Lala. Then another story came to me. Something that fits in with the theme of knowing when to stop when a notion takes over you. Understanding. Don't piss out your back garden to ward off tomcats. Don't cover yourself in olive oil and answer the door. Even if you have a decent explanation for it, it still looks mad. Just don't bother doing it. It's not worth the hassle. There was this really old man in my ma's neighborhood about 10 years ago. His name was Bart. And Bart was about 90 years of age and his wife had died like 20 or 30 years ago. And Bart was just kind of the old man

in the neighbourhood who lived on his own, who everyone loved. They all checked in on him and the neighbourhood would have made sure all Bart there is 90 and he lives on his own so make sure that you're looking out for Bart so one day about 10 years ago I called out to my mother's house and as I was leaving her gate I nearly got hit by a fucking car it was Bart the 90 year old and he was driving up on a fucking car. It was Bart, the 90 year old. And he was driving up on the fucking footpath. He was, he'd left his, his house. And he was driving entirely on the footpath.

And hadn't gone onto the road and nearly hit me. So I went back into my ma. And said, fucking Bart down the road's nearly after hitting me in his car. He was driving up on the footpath. Is he, is he gone senile? Is he gone very old? That's not safe. That's dangerous. And then my ma says to me, oh, that'll be Rosie. And I asked my ma, what the fuck is Rosie? What are you talking about? What do you mean Rosie? And she says, Rosie. He's gone head over heels for Rosie. He's obsessed with rosie he loves her she's ruling his life he's like a young boy again he's mad about rosie so i'm going all right what

does this have to do with him nearly killing me with his car the mama said she was in the hairdressers earlier that day now this is like you know those hairdressers that you'd have for older women? It's not even a salon. It's like the garage of someone's house and they operated as a salon. So my ma was in getting her hair done in there with the girls who were cutting the hair and the other women. And then Bart, the 90 year old man, he also went to this place to get his hair cut with the women. So my ma was sitting down getting her hair cut. And Bart was talking away to the girls that were cutting his hair. And he didn't shut the fuck up about Rosie.

Rosie this and Rosie that. I'm the happiest I've ever been since Rosie came into my life. Myself and Rosie wake up together in the bed. And she jumps all over me. Licks my face. And she loves the postman. The postman comes in the morning and I open the door to the postman. And myself and Rosie and the postman would be in the hallway having the best of crack.

Now my ma and all the women in the salon. Are listening to this 90 year old man talking about Rosie. Fully convinced he's speaking about a woman there's some young one in his house waiting for him to die and he's really old now and he's telling us sordid sex stories about what him and Rosie get up to that's what he's talking about right now in this salon and do we need to stop him and then they quiz him and it becomes apparent that rosie's actually a dog he's after getting a new dog a cocker spaniel called rosie and his head over heels about her and rosie sleeps in his bed and licks his face and she runs down and loves the postman and then they're all like okay thank thank it's a. And he's not talking about riding.

But as they quiz him more about Rosie it becomes apparent that the dog is like taking over his life. When the postman like puts letters in the door Rosie used to run up and just tear the letters out of the postman's hand as they came in the letterbox. But she'd

be ripping up his medical appointments his bills. he didn't give a fuck as long as the dog was having fun and then the dog started getting impatient, Rosie started getting impatient so he had to make fake letters, he used to have to get bits of paper and put them in envelopes and then put them through the letterbox himself just to satisfy Rosie's desire to eat things that came in the letterbox. And then she started getting real comfortable in his bed. And whenever he went to sleep in the bed, she'd growl at him. So he had to sleep on the couch downstairs while the dog slept upstairs in the bed.

And then she stopped eating dog food. He'd put her dog food out at dinner time. And she'd be like, I don't want this. I want scraps from the table. So he'd give her scraps from the table. But then she'd start barking. And then she'd jump up on the table and she started eating his dinners so when he'd make a dinner for himself a steak and a bit of spuds Rosie was eating his dinners now and this dog was like taking over his life he was devoted to her he loved her but the dog was calling the shots at this point and And then I said to my ma, what the fuck does that have to do with him nearly hitting me in the car?

And she said, that's what he does now. When he drives that car, Rosie sits on his lap in the car, and he has to roll down the window. And Rosie's favourite thing to do is to stick her head out of the car and bite the leaves off the hedges that they drive past. So he now drives on the carbs,

endangering people's lives, so the fucking dog can eat leaves off bushes. And then I asked, like, is he having fun? Does he know what he's doing? Is this enjoyable to him? And then my ma says, I think he enjoys it, but sometimes I won't. And then my ma says, I think he enjoys it, but sometimes I wonder.

Sometimes I wonder, is he a bit afraid of her? So he let the dog, The dog fucking took over. It was her pet. He'd gotten too old. And he loved the dog. And he couldn't say no to her. And she just pushed the boundaries. Pushed the boundaries.

Until he's driving up on footpaths. With a dog in his lap. Trying to eat hedges. And I thought of that story as well this week I thought of that story when I was out the back garden roaring at Tomcats dead serious defending the territory of a dead cat

defending his honour I was hissing, I was a human being spraying a water pistol full of vinegar and hissing, hissing at cats in their language. And the neighbours probably heard it and someone might have looked out the window and went, there he is with his gun hissing. So it needed to stop at that. It needed to stop there.

That's why I'm not taking pisses out my back garden to mark territory on behalf of a dead cat. That's why that's not going to happen. It's time now for the ocarina pause. I've got my Puerto Rican guiro here that was given to me by

I don't remember who gave me this but it's a guiro that was made in the Bronx by a Puerto Rican man. So I'm going to play this guayro, and you're going to hear an advert, a digitally inserted advert. I don't know what that advert is going to be for. Nice acoustics in this office. 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

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It's all for you. No, no, don't. The first O-Men. I believe the girl is to be the mother. Mother of what? Is the most terrifying. Six, six, six. It's the mark of the devil.

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That was the Puerto Rican. Puerto Rico. That's how Donald Trump says it. How does Donald Trump say Puerto Rico? Hold on. We are also praying for the people of Puerto Rico. We love Puerto Rico. Hold on. We are also praying for the people of Puerto Rico. We love Puerto Rico. What a lunatic. What a mad cunt.

I worry that people have forgotten what an odious and dangerous bastard he was. Because, let's be honest, that's hilarious. The way he said Puerto Rico there is hilarious but like it's not a comedy show. He's not a comedy character. He was a real president who did real damage and I see people lovingly

looking back at his presidency in these meme-ified moments and remembering like moments like that where he said Puerto Rico and it's funny but forgetting you don't want this man back in power and his supporters are horrendous like sometimes the Trump presidency feels like a really good season of Carbure enthusiasm like the bit at the end where they accidentally booked the Four Seasons garden centre

and Rudy Giuliani is there giving a conference at a fucking garden centre. That's hilarious. That's so funny. But it was real life. It really happened. I see people

who should know better. People with left lean in politics saying I miss Trump. He was so funny. It wasn't a TV show. It wasn't, it wasn't. I know everything's mediated to us now as entertainment,

but like, you don't want him back, or his ilk. And then you've Joe Biden, in Ireland this week, coming out, coming out to the dropkick Murphys. Not for the people of Ireland, but because he's losing the white racist Irish American vote back home

to Trump and he wants those people by doing a bit of diddly eye. So that was the Puerto Rican, Guero and American presidency pause where you heard an advert for something. Support for this podcast comes from you the listener via the Patreon page. Patreon.com

forward slash The blind boy podcast if you enjoy this podcast if it brings you merriment distraction solace joy whatever reason that you listen to this podcast please consider supporting it directly via the patreon page all i'm looking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month if you can't afford that don't worry about it you can listen for free you can listen for free because the person who is paying is paying for you to listen for free so everybody gets a podcast and I get to earn a living because this is my full-time job and I write these podcasts and it's how I earn a living and exist as a creative person. So patreon.com forward slash the blind boy podcast. Also it keeps the podcast independent. I can turn up each week

and speak about whatever I want in a passionate fashion and no advertiser can dictate the content or steer it in any way. Support any independent podcast that you listen to. That doesn't have to be monetarily. You can like the podcast, share it on your social media, leave a review, all that type of carry-on. I don't have anything in the way of gigs to promote, do I? I'm in Canada next week. I can't wait. I'm going to be in Canada this time next week.

I'm in Toronto in the Opera House and I'm in Vancouver. in Canada this time next week I'm in Toronto in the Opera House and I'm in Vancouver Vancouver is sold out Toronto is down to the very last tickets please come along we're going to have a lot of fun I'm looking forward to getting a lot of writing done

when I'm over in Canada because I'm going to treat it as a I'm doing my gigs but I'm going to take a few days there to just go into cafes and stuff and get a shit ton of writing done. I'm in full flow at the moment. I'm writing several thousand words a week. I'm really happy with the words that I'm writing.

In fact, Silken Thomas' death... Inspired a story that I'm writing this week. I've been reading a fantastic Irish writer called Liam O'Flaherty. He's a short story writer. I'm going to do a podcast on him at some point. His work is incredible. But in particular his nature stories. The way he writes about animals.

He writes about animals in the third person. But the voice that he takes is the neutral voice of nature like liam o'flaherty will write a short story about a goat kicking a dog to death and he'll write it in this this neutral third person language the complete chaos of nature and then you as the reader are forced to project your humanity on the animals and he's incredible the way he does that so I'm trying to write a story at the moment it's it's like an epic like it's a big story might be 10,000 words and it's it's kind of the story of Silk and Thomas not really it's it's just about how hard it is for stray cats and feral cats. And it is about a brother and sister.

And one of them is deaf with eyesight problems. But it's not specifically them. But they're in there in how I write about the cats. And I can't wait to get up tomorrow fucking morning and get back to that story. I even woke up this morning. morning and get back to that story. I even woke up this morning and when I woke up the first thoughts in my head were I was writing this story in my head so I can't wait to get at it again tomorrow morning. I'll read you the first 500 words. Fuck it because I have it here in front of me because it starts off with the story is called Two Cats. I think it's called Two Cats right now.

That's the name I have at the top of the story. And it starts off with the two cats being conceived. The tomcat's penis was barbed with backwards keratinised spines. This made the coitus incredibly painful for their mother. She had been in heat and mated with two other toms that day. This one had long white fur and different coloured eyes. His two front canines lodged into the marmalade tabby hair at the back of her skull while he penetrated her. She howled an agonising wail as his penis ejaculated.

He withdrew and attempted to scrape out the semen of the previous male using his barbs. His efforts were not successful. They were born under a purple sun in a nest of styrofoam and rags that was assembled by their mother in tarmac wasteland against the back of a corrugated hardware store. The type of yellow land you see with the side of your eye

between the retail parks where cars dump washing machines. Brother and sister, conceived by two different fathers. A rare thing but still natural within the super fecund reproduction system of cats. The female kitten came out a brilliant black, almost blue, with the tiger patterns of an orange tabby revealing itself across her belly. He was born piss yellow-white, with a pink nose and pink little paws like his father. Their mother stretched her long orange torso in amongst the rags and licked her two little kittens clean. She gently nudged their faces towards her nipples to nurse and take her milk. They both fed voraciously.

She mewed and rattled a gentle sound that was just for the comfort of her two tiny babies. Her paws flexed out and revealed ten terrifying talons. She poured a great awe and pride at the two little balls of fluff that she had just given birth to, hidden amongst the nettles and dandelions. In the styrofoam and polyester rags. A family. The kittens let out their tiny meows into the night. Against the whoosh of nearby cars.

So that's just like. That's the first few hundred words. And it's a large story that I'm writing. And I'm trying to take on that. That third person tone that I said Liam O'Flaherty does. Where it's the voice of nature. But the thing with Liam O'Flaherty's stories is he was born in 1890 something and grew up on the Aran Islands. So when he wrote about animals and nature, he was writing about a wild land where ecosystems worked and where there were plenty of birds and insects and nature was vibrant. But something I'm finding

and something I'm realising as I write this story about the fear of cats, I'm writing this story and trying to get a cat's eye view of what it's like for cats to be born behind an industrial estate, we'll say, and to try and live. And what I found was, when you write about nature, and it's unnatural, there aren't many insects around. There's no rats for them to eat, because rent to kill. Kill all the rats. And there's cars everywhere. And you're writing about nature in the urban environment where nature isn't allowed to exist. What ends up happening is your world becomes post-apocalyptic. It becomes almost science fiction. It becomes Mad Max or Blade Runner.

The life of animals that have to survive in wasteland behind an industrial estate is post-apocalyptic sci-fi from their point of view. And if you're wondering there, why the fuck did you start the story with two cats fucking?

What way is that to start the story? My thinking behind that was, first off there's an Ice Cube song. I can't fucking remember the name of it, I think it's on the album America's Most Wanted. But Ice Cube has a song and he starts off with a sperm going into an egg. And it always jarred me. And the thing is, starting off that story there starting off a story with the words the tomcat's penis it feels uncomfortable and I'm fascinated by the conflict of that because starting anything with conception is completely natural

every single person listening to the podcast, your story started with conception. Your story started with two people having sex. So I like how, even for me reading it there, it feels uncomfortable to immediately open a story with the act of sex. What I like to do too when I write a short story is, I try to do what's called establishing authority as soon as possible on the page. Like I want someone, when they pick up one of my short stories, I want the person's attention immediately. I want the reader's attention immediately.

Because once I have the reader's attention and they feel uncomfortable or they feel intrigued once I have that then I can begin the story I'm not waiting around for their attention I have it right away and then I can take the story wherever I want it to go so you begin with a jarring detail that leaves the reader with questions the tomcat's penis was barbed with backwards keratinized spines. You're like, what? What the fuck? What are you talking about? I can't leave now. I need to find out about why the fucking cat's dick has got spines on it.

You gotta explain that one to me. And what that is, is cat's penises do have barbed backward spines on them. Because as I mentioned in that story there, cats are what, they're super fecund, super fecundity. A litter of cats can be born. There can be four kittens born. And each one of those four kittens can have four different fathers. And female cats can mate multiple times a day with different males

and each one of those males can fertilize an egg now it doesn't always happen but that's the deal with cats reproductive systems it's also the reason if you've ever heard cats having sex in the distance it's very loud because it is painful for the female cat the queen it's painful because the cat has barbs on its penis so that it can rip out the sperm of the previous tomcat so that that that tomcat can have all of the kittens and eliminate any other male cat can have all of the kittens and eliminate any other male that might have just had sex with the with the queen cat so I'll open a story like that to establish authority if you read that in the first few paragraphs or the first 150 words something intriguing or interesting you've told the reader something immediately that they didn't know if you open a story with that

or a song or a poem you establish authority immediately you get the person's attention immediately with a song for instance but this isn't a rule this is no you have to do it but let's just take a pop song a pop song that's on the radio often radio pop songs will open with the chorus they will open with the catchiest bit of the song you're not waiting around for verse pre-chorus chorus if it's a radio song and you want someone's attention immediately the radio edit will put the chorus right at the start then the listener goes well that was great i'm going to stick around for the rest of the song because i need to hear that again a great example of establishing authority in tv breaking bad especially after the first season your average

episode of breaking bad starts off with something completely unrelated to the story. Some arresting image. Something that you can't turn away from. Like one episode in particular of Breaking Bad that does it amazingly. It's in the last season, I think. It's like a 90 second shot of a dude eating chicken nuggets and the camera I think slowly zooms into him but it's just a man eating chicken nuggets

and dipping them into different dips and you're watching it going what is this what's happening here why are they opening with this I can't look away now I need to find out I'm not switching channels and if you do

that and you get the observer right in you hook them in then you have a lot more permission to take the story where you wanted to go because you have that person's attention or the classic another example it's called the awe structure you'd open with a dead body and a voiceover going this is the story of how my daughter shot me in the face you've given the ending away you've given the ending away on the opening shot but the audience are going all right I can't I kind of need to find out how that happened now there's many ways to do it and I like to do it with an interesting fact, an interesting fact, or an uncomfortable feeling, or a strong smell, or a strong sense.

Go in with that immediately, and then soften things up from there. And then the last line of the bit that I read out, The kittens let out their tiny meows into the night against the hush of nearby cars. Now there's two things you can do with that in a story or in a script or whatever. So that sentence, it's at odds with itself. The kittens let out their tiny meows into the night.

Cute little soft lovely vulnerable kittens against the whoosh of nearby cars. So immediately now you think, fuck, danger. Why would the writer mention whooshing cars nearby are they going to get hit by a car what's going to happen now you can do two things with a sentence like that in a story you can do what's called a Chekhov's gun which is very simple Chekhov's gun comes from a short story writer and I think he was a playwright too Anton Chekhov which is if you show a gun at the start of a story then that gun

is going to have to shoot someone at the very end but you don't have to so that sentence there meows into the night against the whoosh of nearby cars I can plant in the reader's head a feeling of danger

a fear a fear of cars a sense that a car is going to come back and do something bad but I don't have to what's important there is the fear and anxiety in the reader's mind I don't have to have a car come back later on

and do something bad I'd rather the reader is frightened that a car might come back and kill the kittens and then when it doesn't happen and something else happens you get surprised. So that there is like planting a fake gun. That's like a card trick. That's a sleight of hand that a magician does. That's deliberately misleading your reader. And then other times if you're writing a story or writing a script or whatever and you don't know how that's going to end you don't know how your story is going to end what some writers do is they go back to the start of their story and they look for some little detail that they

can then bring back at the end to give that feeling of completion. Fight Club did that. When Chuck Palahniuk was writing Fight Club he didn't know how the story was going to end but then he went back to an earlier part of his manuscript where the character of Tyler Durden had been making soap and the character in the script had mentioned

that soap can also be used to make explosions and Polanyiuk had written that in there but it didn't go anywhere and then when he when he was coming to the end of the book he went back to that and said ah let's have him blow up a building and it makes sense now because earlier in the novel I mentioned that you could make explosives out of the things you make soap out of. Another lovely example of planting a gun and misleading the viewer or the reader is in Pulp Fiction. Like at this point, we as an audience are all media literate. it we know if you watch a piece of tv or read a book and a gun or some object is just mentioned at the start out of nowhere we instinctively know ah that's gonna come back we get that feeling and it feels nice feels like we're participating with the narrative. But throughout Pulp Fiction, you have these three or four stories that seem unrelated.

But what relates them all is this briefcase. There's a briefcase in Pulp Fiction, and you never get to see what's in it. All you see is, when the characters open it, a light glows, and they look fascinated. Whatever's inside this briefcase, Tarantino's not showing us, but it means something to the characters.

And we never find out what's in the briefcase, ever. And there's nothing in the briefcase. There's no great conspiracy. If you say to Tarantino, what's in the briefcase, man? Because some people think it's the soul of the character, Marcellus Wallace, because he's got a band-aid on the back of his neck, a plaster.

And some people think his soul escaped through a little hole and went into the briefcase and that's what's in there. It doesn't matter what's in the briefcase in Pulp Fiction. All that matters is that it joins all the stories together. is that it joins all the stories together. It's a device. It's a writing device that confuses us into thinking that there's this big coherent narrative. And Tarantino did that deliberately

because Pulp Fiction is postmodern. It's a film that knows it's a film and knows that an audience is watching. So it plays with the fact that we know what a Chekhov's gun is. This was supposed to be a mental health podcast. My past four podcasts, each time I'm like, this is going to be a mental health podcast. And each time I end up going on a different tangent. But having said that, you're always

asking me to speak about writing, to speak about how writing is done. And the shit that I was mentioning there, especially the fact that it was in the context of a story I'm currently writing, I'm not showboating there. I'm not sucking my own flute. All I'm doing is being honest about techniques that exist within the craft of writing. That's all this shit is. I get flow, ideas come to me, I write.

That's the most important bit, the flow, because that's my unconscious mind. That's my unique voice. But the rest of the stuff, that's craft. That's the bit that you can learn. That's the bit that you get from studying other people's work. So that if I have a shit ton of words in front of me that I've just written in a state of flow I can then go back to them with all these different techniques and tools and go what if I do this what if I do that what if I take this out can I use this technique if this was a painting I was talking

about I'd be saying this is a blank canvas here. You don't paint on white, it's a good idea to under paint your canvas in maybe a brown or sometimes an orange. I'm choosing to use oil today and not acrylics because oil takes longer to dry and oil contains more pigment within the paint so I can get deeper colours. This here is called perspective, there's rules to colors. This here is called perspective. There's rules to perspective. This is called color theory. These are just crafts. Part of the craft of painting. Well that shit that I mentioned there is

part of the craft of writing. Same with songwriting. No different. Verse, chorus, middle eight. These things exist. These things are part of the craft 10% inspiration 90% perspiration and the perspiration is often in the craft that's the hours and hours that's your 10,000 hours or whatever they call it of studying other people's work and learning how this piece of art that I like how did they do it and studying it and dissecting it and reverse engineering it so much that you understand it to a point that when you're doing your own creativity, you can draw upon these things

to solve the problems that are there in front of you. So that's all that is. That's why I opened a story with two cats fucking. That's why. It's mainly for my ma. I know my ma's gonna be listening to this and she's gonna kill me. She's mainly for my ma i know my ma is going to be listening to this and she's going to kill me she's going to kill me and go that story about the cat sounds lovely why did you have to start it like that that's why i'm establishing authority on the page as soon as

possible so i can take the story where it needs to go but i'll be back next week if you want me to do more podcasts where I talk about like the craft of how to write stories or the craft of any type of art let me know if you enjoy that because I do enjoy talking about that stuff and it helps me to understand where

I'm at with my own work as well this was an odd episode, this was a strange episode okay I'll catch you next week. Pick up a snail. Put it in the shade. Kick dart over a warm rubber dog. Wink at a goose. So So So

So So So So So So So So

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