The Blindboy Podcast - Boulevard Jenga

Episode Date: April 4, 2018

Spanish Lads dressed like the KKK, Toxic lad culture, Emotional intelligence Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Embrace the day, you weeping seaside emus. What have you been doing down at the shore? Has a brash sand accosted your drab flightless wings? What secrets have you been told to make a single tear roll down your long avian neck. You stupid looking bastard of a bird. Hello, what's the crack? God bless. How's it getting on? It's me, Blind Buy. And I'm in the middle of doing the Blind Buy podcast. From my brand new fucking studio

over the past 4 or 5 weeks I've been in transit I've been moving the studio around the gaff recording in different places with various results but now I'm in a brand new fucking studio I have yet to

sonically improve the dimensions of the room so that it gives me perfect fucking sound. There's a little bit of an echo. Listen, listen, can you hear it? A little bit of... Oh, and listen, the chair is back. My squeaky chair is back.

Let's give it a little bit of a celebratory squeak, shall we? it a little bit of a celebratory squeak shall we, oh there's a horrendous reverb on that, yeah, so what I need to, the floors in the new studio are made of wood then, they're wooden floors, so I need to, I don't know, fuck a lot of carpet on the ground I think I'll get a few carpet cut offs and dull in the ground so I don't get that reverberation let's see if we can I click my fingers

listen to that disgusting so I'll dull in the ground and then on the walls I'll stick a load of foam panelling and that should get us back On the walls, I'll stick a load of foam panelling. And that should get us back into podcast hug territory. But I quite like this sound. It's not too bad.

So long as I don't raise my voice, we won't get any nasty sounds. So last week, last week was a live podcast, which I quite enjoyed with Finn Dwyer from Irish History Podcast, and it was about the famine, and I listened back to it myself, and yeah, I really shouldn't have done that, I should have been in the audience, I shouldn't have been presenting that podcast because I got too fucking excited I just was like I just wanted to listen to Finn talk about the famine the whole fucking time and I was jumping in with loads of questions and observations no chill whatsoever but you seem to like it anyway but here's the thing with the live podcasts like I've got loads more coming up actually I'm going to plug

I have a live podcast gig with a pretty cool guest in it's at the Kilkenny Cats Laughs Festival I don't know the fucking date or the venue because that's just the type of person I am I haven't checked it out but it's at the Kilkenny Cats Laughs Festival and I'm doing a live podcast there with a cool guest who I won't announce yet but uh yeah go to please but I'm going to have more live podcasts but here's the thing

I've been talking for a while kind of unsure about you know having the live podcast going out on Wednesday mornings so I think what I'm going to start doing right unless it's an emergency what I'm going to start doing

is that when I have live podcasts to put out, I'll put them out as bonus content on like a Thursday or a Friday or something, and that way the Wednesday podcast remains the same, the Wednesday podcast is for the podcast hug, and then if I've got a live podcast i'll put them out as i see fit as extra content because why the fuck not mainly there's two reasons now for the past few weeks i've been asking you going look if you're put off by the live podcasts if it's not giving you a hug let me know and most people have been like no i don't don't mind it. It's quite nice. It's a different tone. But here's the thing. The reason I don't like putting out the live podcast on Wednesdays is it feels like I've been away from you for two weeks.

Do you get me? So like last week I put out that live podcast. Did a little bit of talking at the start but currently I feel like I haven't uh spoken to you in two fucking weeks I haven't and I don't like that because it gets me it keeps me out of the zone I I like developing this podcast and following on kind of themes from week to week and checking in and I kind of don't get that when I fuck a live podcast into the middle of it. So from now on, live podcasts are going to be bonus content unless an emergency pops itself up whereby I'm just incredibly stuck for time

and I can't record the podcast for a Wednesday in that situation a live podcast will go out as an emergency but other than that I'll fucking put it out as a bonus content because I can you know what I mean

I was over in Spain last week for a a few days. I was going to do a podcast from Spain, but the Airbnb that I got, it was a lovely Airbnb, but the sound was fucking disgusting. The Spaniards are lunatics.

They put marble floors and marble walls and marble ceilings. So I would have been trying to record the fucking podcast from a marble catacomb. Which is utterly impossible. It's just too many echoes. And as well as that. First off I went over to Spain. To a city called Cordoba, where I visit quite often. I went there to write because I have my second book coming up and I just wanted to get fucking straight into fucking writing the second book and achieving the condition of flow, which I did. writing the second book and achieving the condition of flow which I did I came back from Spain with about 16,000 words which isn't too bad for a couple of days work

and I haven't edited the words yet I just kind of farted it onto the laptop, you know, out of my mind. But I'll be editing it this week with a cold eye. I heard a great quote last week about editing, but I can't remember it. Why the fuck did I bring it up if I can't remember it? I think it was something like, write with fire, edit with ice. What is it? Write with fire, edit with ice what is it?

write with fire in your veins and edit with ice in your veins I think it's that but it sums up the process perfectly the act of sitting down to write initially and not in Italy now initially sometimes when you're from Limerick and you say initially Sitting down to write initially. And not in Italy now. Initially. Sometimes when you're from Limerick.

And you say initially. People think you're talking about fucking Italy. And I've just said I was in Spain. So I had to clarify. Initially. When you sit down to write. The goal should be. To simply.

Get it onto the page. You to i don't know it's i've spoken about flow many many times which is entering the state of flow which is essentially it's a waking dream it's your mind is in like a daydream state and i'm writing and basically my mind is going straight into my hands and it's coming out in front of me on the page and I'm not thinking it's just happening and there's no judgment I'm not thinking about good or bad none of that that's that's the initial burst of writing that's how you end up with a plot, characters, a feeling. That's that magical shit that you want in a story. That's the stuff that you can't learn out of a book.

That's the... You know, no matter how much studying you're going to do, or how much training you do, you're never going to get that. That's unique to you if you're a writer that's flow but then once you have that however many thousand words down on the page then you you edit it and editing is that's a much more critical process that's where you use intellect and learned information and that's where you, use,

intellect, and learned information, and, that's when you start to worry about, is this good or bad, you know, so that's the ice, in the veins,

and the fire in the veins, is, that's the passionate, farting of words, into a laptop, so anyway, I went over, to Spain,

in the middle of Holy Week which is the week that leads up to fucking Easter and Jesus Christ did they take it seriously and I wasn't aware of it right because you know we're a Catholic country in Ireland historically you know

we're not really that proud like. Historically. You know. We're not really that proud. Like, I tell you what. When I went to fucking Spain. Made me realise that. The Irish are not Catholic. Only by name. Because the Spaniards take this shit fucking seriously.

So. They had this fucking. Mad thing. I wasn't expecting it at all. So I out into the street and i'm staying in this little i wanted a quiet week right a relatively quiet week in spain and i step out into the square around my gaff and i couldn't fucking move it's like there's it's like paddy's day thousands of people so i'm going what the fuck is happening. So they're all gathered around.

And then a load of cunts. Dressed like the Clue Clucks Clan. Start going past. And. It's a procession. And behind them. Is a load of lads carrying these. It was fucking beautiful now,

but these massive, like, parade floats, but they're carrying them on their backs. And they're just these incredibly ornate depictions of, like, Christ crying blood, or Holy Mary weeping blood out of her neck. And there was real human skulls on some of the floats and everything so this was mad culture shock for me and the people who are watching it right they're all flocking around

but like nobody's drinking and this is going on till one or two in the morning the entire city is out watching these cunts dressed like the Ku Klux Klan not a drink in anyone's hand. Instead what they're doing. Everyone in Spain eats sunflower seeds.

So they're all there watching the Ku Klux Klan. Looking at a giant bleeding Christ with human skulls being carried on lads backs. And they're just nibbling away at these sunflower seeds. And spitting the fucking carcass of the sunflower seed onto the ground so when they walk away the ground is feathered with all these shells of sunflower seeds and then where the clue clocks clan looking lads were walking it's just melted candle wax on the ground incredibly bizarre it um scared the living fuck out of me and made me realize how you know how the spanish managed to take over half the world

because they're she's they're nearly as bad as the brits um so naturally i had to go fucking looking it up the next day it's like you can't just walk into a square and see the kluks clan and a lot of cunts eating sunflower seeds and then just casually walk away from that and not go on a Wikipedia binge. So it turns out that the, the way these lads look, it's like,

imagine, like literally the Klu Klux Klan, but with slightly pointier hats, more perfectly pointy hats. Klu Klux Klan, with slightly pointier hats more perfectly pointy hats Ku Klux Klan they've got a bit of a condom on a floppy mickey look whereas the Spanish lads had

perfectly pointy beautiful hoods so during the Spanish Inquisition 15th 16th century, they used to shame, like, the powers that be would shame people, would shame sinners by making them wear pointy caps, right? We would associate this with, you know, the dunce cap.

In schools in Ireland, even maybe about 40 years ago, a punishment for a child who was bad at fucking, didn't hand in their homework or whatever, the teacher would put a triangular hat on their head with a D on it, and this was the dunce cap. And the child would have to wear the triangular hat of shame. Well, this comes from the spanish inquisition so if you committed a sin the inquisition would tell you to put a triangular hat of shame on your head and you would walk through the streets of spain and when the townspeople saw somebody wearing the hat of shame,

they'd pick up rocks and fuck it off them. Kind of like a medieval version of Twitter. But anyway, so what certain people started to do around Easter was, if in Spain in the 16th century if you wore a pointy cap if that meant cunts throwing rocks at you some people would simply throw on a

pointy hat out of guilt or out of shame or to coming up to Easter because Easter is fucking Christ is crucified and he rises again so mad Catholics would go I want

you know if Christ went through all that pain getting lashed with whips and all of this and crucified then I'm going to put on this dunce cap even though no one's told me to do it I'm going to put on this cap walk through the streets and get rocks fucked at me

because the people don't know the difference so that's where this started these lads would put on the pointy hats walk through the streets get fucked at rocks fucked at them and then the tradition started except now no one's fucking rocks they're just eating sunflower seeds and spitting them onto the ground like animals so it was an interesting week most definitely easter's interesting crack mainly the story behind it like we all know about right good friday all right so christ is crucified hangs around the cross and then he dies and we know about sunday eas Sunday Easter Sunday when he comes out of the tomb

goes, well hey I'm back but no one ever talks about Saturday and I don't know why on the Saturday that's known as the harrowing of hell and apparently what happened is so Friday he's crucified

he dies that night saturday jesus heads down into hell and battles with a lot of demons and he releases a bunch of souls from hell into paradise just to be sound specifically adam and eve he releases adam and eve from original sin and they can finally enter the. Garden of heaven. After 2000 years. Down in hell. For eating an apple. Yeah and no one talks about that one.

So it's been a shitty week in Ireland. On the island of Ireland. There was a high profile. Rape trial. Where three. the island of Ireland, there was a high profile rape trial where three fairly famous rugby players were accused of raping a 19 year old girl and the trial went on laboriously for a long time, quite publicly, and the three lads were cleared not guilty and this elicited a furious reaction

from the people of Ireland who did not agree with that verdict and a lot of people were tweeting at me going blind boy what is your hot take

on the Belfast rape trial and I I don't have a fucking hot take on the Belfast rape trial because you're not supposed to have hot takes on something as collectively traumatic and painful as that. I've spoken about my, we'll say the male privilege before when it comes to sexual assault. Sexual assault is not on my radar. I never have to worry about sexual assault. I can go jogging at three in the morning and it doesn't even enter my head.

Because it is highly unlikely as a male that I'm going to be a victim of it. Because it is highly unlikely. As a male. That I'm going to be a victim of it. So that's. Because of that privilege. When something like. That verdict came out.

And the reaction to it. No matter how angry I was. And how furious I was. I chose to use it. Use that time to listen to listen to women and take on board what they're saying about it and for me to fucking chill out because sometimes

when you come from a position of privilege and you comment on something like that especially if it's a hot take your best intentions can be offensive and hurtful at a time when emotions are fucking high so that's one reason i didn't comment on it the second reason i didn't comment on it and i was going to is because

the reaction online from some lads a particular type of lad um they were the type of lad who only set up a twitter account just so they could say nasty things to their favorite footballer if they fucked up in a game or whatever there was a particular type of young sports lad who turned twitter into a fucking sewer for a week and they a gang of them deliberately sought out any woman who was expressing her distaste with the verdict and using quite aggressive slut-shaming victim-blaming language at these women so i knew if i with my 170 000 followers tweeted something about it i would just draw these fucking shithead sewer bastards on they would spoil spew gogs out of their mouths and then the huge amount of women that follow me on twitter would have more sewer in their feeds so that was another reason i sat back and listened what i did tweet because i felt it was constructive and

fucking useful was a link for people to donate money to dublin rape crisis center and midwest rape crisis center i would urge you now please donate fucking money to your local rape crisis center because they need that fucking money and i tell you why in ireland only one in ten rapes are actually reported out of that one in ten only 1 to 2% end up in an actual conviction, right? That's disgraceful. Something is wrong with the system. Something's very wrong with the system. And I don't just think it's Ireland.

It's a worldwide thing. That's why Me Too exists. Because the system is not representing women correctly. The conversation around it then quickly turned to. Because as well it's worth noting that. The accused in the trial. Then started threatening legal action. Against the people of Twitter.

Who disagreed with the verdict. So the conversation moved away from the verdict and onto the WhatsApp messages that the accused had been sending each other the morning after the night of the allegation. And people were speaking about the misogyny of the language that they used and the objectification of the girl in question, all this type of stuff.

And a lot of people were shocked by it. A lot of lads were shocked by it in particular. And I have to say, I wasn't fucking shocked by it. Because I grew up in that fucking culture that's just how lads speak about fucking women it's normal and

I'm not for one second trying to make excuses for that type of discourse but what I'm saying is that it's a horrible thing that that is normal like when I

saw those the whatsapp messages and when I saw we'll say the misogynistic comments coming from those sports lads as in the twitter sports lads with the fucking the lads who are being pricks not the rugby player not the accused lads

just the general twitter bull boys when i saw the language they were using it made me kind of reflect on just like how i was the culture i was raised in as an irish lad who hung around with other irish lads and and the discourse of objectification and misogynism that was completely normalised from my fucking childhood up until my early twenties and

like I was never thought about fucking consent in school I was given very basic sex education by a priest and the gist of that sex education was when a man and a woman love each other they get married and they have sex and don't wank and that was it no use of the word consent or what that would mean i was never sex was not spoken about with my parents because they came from old school catholic background so parents don't want to talk to their kid about sex if you want to say consent that means talking about sex and you don't do that

in an irish catholic household even though my parents weren't catholic but they came from that tradition and culture if you get me and i grew up to believe that a rapist and most lads in ireland grew up to believe a rapist is somebody a fucking boogeyman creep who hangs around alleyways and has a dirty jacket and a big long beard and a haggard face and looks like a monster and these rapists jump out of alleyways and violently physically attack women and force sex upon them that is the definition of rapist that i grew up with i was not brought up with to believe that a rapist could be an accountant or a bank manager or a bread delivery man or my next door neighbour

I was not brought up to believe that rape is something that happens in bedrooms with a woman who previously consents and then decides that she doesn't want to go further this was never part

of the discourse I grew up with and it made me just really reflect on the first kind of sexual interaction you have with girls as a young Irish lad, it's in about second year of secondary school.

You go to teenage discos. And you go to these teenage discos. First of all, you're in an exclusively male group, right? You go to the teenage disco. Then you try and shift as many girls as possible and then the next day you're with the lads and the conversation is how many did you shift then what did you get off her did you get tit did you finger her did you feel her arse did she wank you? That's the only conversation, right? Then that moves on to what I call smell my finger culture.

Where if a lad did say, oh, I fingered her. He would have to offer his hand to all the other lads. And they would try and smell it to see whether or not he in fact did. And this was completely fucking normal. Not only was it normal, it was... This is how social relations are made in groups of young lads. One thing that's fucking hugely important to young lads is status within a group okay and two things got your status whether you were brilliant at fighting or you were classic getting loads of girls those two things

if you weren't great at getting loads of girls but you kick everyone's head in you had high status vice versa so discourse becomes about how many girls can you get what can you get off them how soon do you think you are to finally actually losing your virginity the two biggest insults i grew up with were you are gay you are a virgin that's the two things now the other thing too is that it's it's kind of it's rooted in very low self-esteem um lads want to another huge insult of massive insult actually was being called a frigid and this was really fucking shitty because lads develop at different levels

so some lads who are late bloomers will say they didn't fucking they don't have their pubes yet they might not fucking have had a wet dream they might not even be getting erections that can happen some lads at maybe 15 while other lads

it'll happen at 11 so for the ones who actually weren't physically sexually developed they too were being forced into shifting girls and really not wanting to do it because they're not sexually mature enough to have an actual interest in it so if you didn't you were called a frigid so if you a gay are being called a frigid bad insults now this is a difficult conversation because i do not want to portray this as as in a in a with sympathy i'm not what i'm trying to do is explain the complexity of a toxic culture from my experience of being fucking raised in it and to to investigate that complexity as a means of understanding it understanding its motivations and then

moving towards a conversation whereby we can tackle it because that's the it's a smart thing to do you know it's a smart thing to do you know it's still fucking toxic and men are still trash I just want to talk about the

the inside of the dustbin and how things end up inside in that dustbin and why it stinks so bad another reason that. Young lads. In my group. And myself included. Would speak about women.

Or speak about girls. In a misogynistic way. It's a fear. When you're 15, 16, 17. 15 16 and you are meeting a girl or whatever and you go back to the lads and you say oh i'm meeting this girl i'm shifting or whatever um i really like her. She's a good friend. I laugh around her. She makes me really happy. When I'm not around her, I really miss her.

I think I love her. If you said that, you got a box into the fucking head. And you were jeered and slagged and bullied. And called gay. For daring to have feelings for a girl because girls are objects and they are merely vessels for you to get things off that's the other thing i was within that culture girls you're kind of lads at that age are led to believe girls don't actually

want sex or enjoy it sex is something a girl has okay and it must be coerced out of them it has to be tricked coerced or pleaded out of them.

Sex is a thing that a girl holds, and she has to hold on to it very tightly, or else she's called a slut. And then the lad then, like a game, has to figure out a way to get that off her, and she's not going to enjoy it. Because girls don't enjoy sex. It's something they have,

and they reluctantly have to give it away um but another key behind the psychology of it is one part of it is trying to be hard and trying to show off and trying to maintain status within your group whereby the signifier of status is how horrible you can talk about a woman the other thing is it's the it's a person with low self-esteem right a young man with low self-esteem and the utter fear of rejection if you're with a girl and all she is is you're getting ted off her or you're shifting her or you're only with her so that you can eventually get the ride right if all she is is that if she

turns around and doesn't like you or god forbid chooses someone else you never have to feel true hurtful rejection that confirms in you your low opinion of yourself so that's the other misogynistic language and a misogynistic way of thinking it's a great tool to prevent yourself from being truly truly vulnerable from having the maturity to give yourself over emotionally to another person and lay that bare and allow that to be hurt okay that's where a lot of that kind of comes from in my opinion as a male and haven't been in these groups haven't grown up with it and that style of discourse and that situation where young men are getting self-worth and social currency from objectifying and dehumanizing women that is the the foundational rock right that is one of the

foundational stones of sexual assault happening in the first place and also the justice system that doesn't seem to take sexual Sexual assault seriously. And. Places the onus on the victim. So that's the. That's the root. That's the bud. Of the situation. And I grew up with it.

I grew up right in the fucking middle of it. And that's why I don't want to be like. On my fucking high horse. About the bloody issue. Because it's like. Okay now now I'm a grown adult man with maturity and all I've learned to do I'm I'm base level misogynistic and toxic at my base level um my initial responses to things because that's what i grew up with but over the years through my own self-development my mental health development compassion and empathy when compassion empathy things like that become a the focus of your life and in your own happiness then i kind of gradually try and

challenge that behavior in myself and in other fucking lads like like i said i'm a fucking adult now if i hear another lad talking like that around me i'm just gonna go why are you saying that man that sounds very insecure. Why do you need to speak that way about another person. To dehumanise them. You're not embarrassed. Not a fucking hope was I saying that when I was 16. I wouldn't have had the courage.

And I wouldn't have identified the other person's. Comments as being bad. I would have seen it as crack and banter. And a mad laugh. Because it had been 100% normalised. And lads out there listening going oh I never did that fuck off yeah you did if you went to school if you hung around with lads

that's the way it was that's what the yanks call locker room talk and take ownership of it and try and fucking change it in yourself and realise a room talk and take ownership of it and try and fucking change it in yourself and realise that yeah I grew up thinking this way

and speaking this way now I'm an adult I have a choice I can challenge it and I can challenge it in other people and fucking hell if you're if you're a grown man and you've got a younger brother now is the time to have a fucking decent chat around that stuff. Do you know what I mean?

Ask him straight up. Do you ever notice when you, do you ever notice when you say that you finger the girl or put your hand up her top that all the other lads like laugh and give you, you know, it feels good and all the other lads seem to give you you you know it feels good and all the other lads seem to give you approval and then he'll go yeah and then talk about it then go do you think that's a great way to be getting approval are there different ways for you to get approval is there approval important to you if that is. Those are the stakes.

And. Speak to that. Young lad. In terms of. An internal locus of evaluation. Which is you know. That's quite a fucking complex thing for. An adolescent who doesn't have a.

Who isn't supposed to have a concrete sense of self. But. Simply. I am better than nobody else nobody else is better than me because you cannot evaluate humans off each other and make that the mantra instead of fucking

talking about hand jobs so the lads will give him a high five and he gets to feel good for a little bit and then feel like shit later on if you are one of the lads who's like yeah that trial didn't really interest me too much found it a bit boring don't really care it doesn't really affect me well sometimes art has a way of transcending we'll say the news and politics and communicating

in a much more powerful way so for you i would strongly advise that you read a book by the brilliant Irish author called Louise O'Neill. And she wrote a book called Asking For It. Which is a very similar story to what's in the news. Not far off it. Please read that book. It's a great book. And it will allow you to. Emotionally engage better.

Through the medium of art. Because sometimes. Not everybody. Can empathize with the news. You know. And if you're a grown man. And. When you meet other grown men. and the basis of your banter and crack, no matter how light-hearted you think it is, if the basis of that crack is misogynistic type chat, maybe have a talk about it between yourselves and ask yourself

is there other avenues of crack are there other potential crack avenues because the system like i said the legal system is currently unjust the social system is unjust this is an issue and your slight crack and banter may be contributing to it even though that might sound silly to you give that a lash give that a go and to the lads

to the lads who were fucking furious about last week em I mean me I felt embarrassed to look other Irish, to look Irish women into the fucking eye last week, I felt really fucking

shit remember repeal the fucking 8th is around the corner so please register to fucking vote get out there and vote to repeal the 8th is around the corner so please register to fucking vote get out there and vote to repeal the 8th ok because here's the thing with repeal the 8th

if you disagree with the 8th amendment being repealed you're not anti-abortion you're anti-safe abortion abortions are going to happen anyway they are happening but the women who are getting these abortions are doing it in this in in a fashion that puts their life at risk and is inhumane so please vote the fucking repeal the eighth

and lads who want to get involved in the repeal the Eighth campaign, the Limerick repeal group are in desperate need of male volunteers, right? And on the 11th of April, in the Absolute Hotel, at 7 o'clock, there is a meeting specifically for men in Limerick who want to get involved in canvassing for the repeal the eighth for the repealing of the eighth amendment right seven o'clock absolute hotel 11th of april which is next week and what that talk is going to be it it will be first of all initiating you if you want to canvas door to door because that's going to be it it will be first of all initiating you if you want to canvas door to door because that's going to be very important and it'll be kind of giving you a decent solid

information that will equip you for canvassing in favor of the repeal of the eighth amendment so please consider that if you are a man in Limerick because they could use some lads helping out there eart gotta say I was very disappointed that more high profile sports people didn't come out and voice a few opinions in the wake

of that trial because those lads would listen to them sports type fellas I can't reach those lads would listen to them sports type fellas. I can't reach those lads with the Twitter profiles. They don't listen to me. They think I'm an SJW cuck. But they would listen to high profile sports lads.

Here's some slightly good news. The Minister for Justice, Charlie Flanagan, is to review the legal protection offered to complainants in sexual assault cases in the wake of the Belfast trial. Which is a good thing. I will believe it when I see it, Charlie, but it's a good thing that he's concerned about it, at least. So, after

many requests, I haven't read out Donald Trump's tweets as your drunk limerick aunt in quite a few weeks because like I said, past few weeks my head's been up my hole, I've been very busy

I was moving studios in transit we haven't heard the ocarina whistle in a while we're not going to hear it this week either. Because it's in a different location. But this week I'm going to bring back. Donald Trump's tweets.

As your drunk limerick aunt. And because it's very late. Right now where I am. I won't be able to roar them. But you know what. I'm in the mood for a whispery drunk limerick aunt. So picture the scene. It I'm in the mood for a whispery drunk limerick aunt. So picture the scene. It's four in the morning.

Your aunt has been out at bingo. She's been drinking wolf blasts. She comes back home. And there's a bottle of Bucks Frizz. Underneath the sink. With all the bags. With all the Duns bags. And she goes over to the box fizz

and she's very disappointed because it's only 3.5% but nonetheless she pops it off and she pours it into a glass tumbler no a mug

she pours the box fizz into a mug and you're up late re-watching season two of breaking bad on netflix you've had a tough day at work and you just want to fucking chill out and you're like it's four in the morning i'm not working tomorrow i'm gonna watch breaking bad again on netflix and i'm entitled to that and you know what i'll get up at 11 o'clock tomorrow. If I want.

Because I'm not working. But your aunt comes in. With her box fizz. Mug. And she says to you. I'm right about Amazon. Costing the United States. Post office.

Massive amounts of money. For being their delivery boy. Amazon should pay these costs plus not having bounced by the American taxpayer many billions of dollars. Leaders don't have a clue or two

to. Check out the fact that you can't get a job at ratings challenged CNN unless you state that you can't get a job at ratings-challenged CNN unless you state that you are totally anti-Trump. Little Jeff Zucker, whose job is in jeopardy, is not going to have much fun lately. They should clean up and strengthen CNN and get back to honest reporting. The big caravan of people from Honduras

now coming across Mexico and heading to the weak laws border. I'd better be stopped before I get started. Cash cow, NAFTA is in play. As is foreign aid to Honduras and the countries that allow this to happen. Congress must act now. You watching Breaking Bad?

Is that Walter, is it? I love him. Is he set in hash? Is that Walter set in hash? Where's Skylar? She's a cunt. So that was your drunk Limerick aunt reading Donald Trump's tweets backed by popular demand. You

bastards. So, let's get to the part of the podcast where I ask you to support me. This podcast is supported almost exclusively by the kindness of the listeners through the Patreon account.

Patreon.com forward slash TheBlindBoyPodcast And many sound listeners give me the price of a pint, which is around a fiver, once a month. price of a pint which is around a fiver once a month and for this you get five hours of delicious podcast hug content and possibly even more now if i start doing this live podcast business on thursdays or whatever but please uh donate to the patreon. Please do. It makes a massive, massive difference to my life. It keeps this podcast going. It keeps me delivering it on time. It's fucking fantastic. It's very, very difficult

as an artist to make money today. Okay? Especially someone like myself who doesn't want to make harsh shit okay for me to earn a decent living in ireland through the channels such as rte i would have to be presenting some fucking hard i'd have to be on dancing with the stars man i'd have to be presenting dancing with the stars or being a contestant on it but because of this podcast i don't fucking have to i don't have to do that horrible shit i can do this which is enjoyable and i like it and ye like it and it's the number

one podcast in ireland and it's made in a fucking bedroom and no one tells me what to talk about or what not to talk about and I listen to ye and it's a shared communal experience and I like it I love doing it so please if you enjoy this podcast contribute

to the Patreon couple of quid once a month the price of a pint would you buy me a pint or a coffee if the answer is yes please contribute to the patreon and if you can't it's grand you're allowed to listen for for free as well but if you can consider a bit of soundness god bless consider a bit of soundness God bless okay now we're coming up to the part where

an advert is inserted into the podcast by Acast and most people don't hear it because I think they only play them in the UK so I don't have my usually what we do every week is when the advert comes up I play an ocarina which is a Spanish clay whistle.

But it is not on my possession at the moment. I've been speaking to the side of the fucking mic there for about five minutes. So instead of the ocarina I'm going to jingle the keys to my new studio. So you're either going to hear the sultry jingle of keys or an advert for mi5 whatever the fuck the brits are trying to feed into your head okay some vacuous shit trying to sell you some vacuous bullshit see not only is it metallic keys but it has a a little plastic thing on it as well you can hear that oh long johnson

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 7.30pm. You can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats for every postseason game, and you'll only pay as we play. Come along for the ride and punch your ticket to Rock City at torontorock.com. 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 the girl is to be the mother. Mother of what?

Is the most terrifying. Six, six, six. It's the mark of the devil. Hey! Movie of the year. It's not real. It's not real. It's not real.

Who said that? The first omen only in theaters April 5th oh long johnson there you go you either heard some keys or some fucking

cold hard capitalism straight into your mind do you know what I'd like to do before I get on to the questions i'd like to talk actually no i should probably just get on to the questions will i no fuck it i'm going to talk a little bit about emotional intelligence because i haven't spoken about mental health on the podcast in a

good while because i've been so busy so i'm going to talk a little bit about emotional intelligence. I'll give you a quick rundown of it. What is it? Emotional intelligence in a nutshell. It's like a. It's a modern enough. School of psychology. That looks at.

Emotional literacy. Right. Being able to identify and correctly label the emotions that you're feeling and to have a certain command and control over them not necessarily command and control but to not to develop emotional literacy to the point that emotions are not commanding and controlling you an emotion essentially is a it's an instantaneous impulse or reaction to an event. That. Developed. Right. An emotion is. It's our brain.

Triggering. Pleasant or unpleasant. Physical responses. To abstract. Stimulations. If someone walks up to you. With a screwdriver. And sticks it into your knee.

You feel an immediate. Physical response. Of pain. And you go. Oh oh that's not nice. If the person that you love turns around to you and says, I don't love you anymore, I want to leave, you experience an intense pain in and around the chest or in your stomach or a myriad of other physical responses, that's emotion. Your person that you love rejecting you, that is an abstract concept. It's not physical, it's abstract.

And emotion has taken that abstract information. Your brain has taken that abstract information, and via emotion, it has communicated this abstract information and via emotion it has communicated this abstract information into physical sensation of discomfort that's emotion and there's various types of emotion and they have evolutionary roots all of our emotions kind of have an evolutionary advantage going back to when we were cavemen

I don't know what the deal is with fucking emotions and like we're homo sapiens we've been around for 50,000 years I think but even before us homo erectus homo habilis neanderthal wonder what their emotions were like. But to run

through some of the top emotions, like anger. What's anger about? What does it do? Anger causes the blood to flow to your hands. You clench your fists and your teeth. And like, the evolutionary kind of benefit of that is like

you know what why does this emotion get your fists to fucking clench on your teeth it's for survival mechanism it's like to hold a fucking weapon or to box someone into the jaw or to bite their face and you get this rush of adrenaline that allows you to supersede your regular strength that's emotion or fucking anger to the emotion of anger fear with fear your blood fucks off into your legs right so you can run away that's the purpose of it send all the blood into the legs you got to do a legger then your face goes cold and white because all the blood's down in your legs and that's fear so like anger is fight and fear is flight or you could freeze when fear

happens because staying still might be the best survival mechanism in your caveman brain happiness stimulates the brain allows your body to rest and repair and love the emotion of love relaxes you removes threats

facilitates cooperation within a social system very beneficial to a caveman. Surprise. Surprise is a fun one. When you get surprised. Feel the emotion of surprise. How that is physically communicated to your body. Is you raise your fucking eyebrows.

And when you raise your eyebrows up. It allows more light. To strike your retina. And when you raise your eyebrows up. It allows more light. To strike your retina. So that you can. Whatever situation is causing the surprise. You can take it in more. You can take more of it in through. A widened retina.

And you can devise a plan. Of this. Surprising situation. And sadness. Sadness causes a loss of energy and enthusiasm and the survival benefit of sadness

what people think anyway, evolutionary psychologists is that it would have kept a bereaved person or a vulnerable person close to home that's there on the cave they wouldn't leave the cave hunting and gathering and get eaten by a fucking close to home, that stay around the cave, they wouldn't, leave the cave,

hunting and gathering, and get eaten by a fucking, badger, or whatever the fuck, ate cavemen, you know, that stay at home, so,

why I kind of ran through, emotions there, in terms of survival, and fucking, caveman terms, is that, emotions are quite, fucking primitive, in in the as part of the human condition they're triggered by the the limbic system of the brain right and within the limbic system you've got like the hypothalamus the amygdala little parts of the brain but they're

the limbic system is is one of the most primitive parts of a brain okay the first creatures on the earth would have had a fairly developed limbic system but we'll say the likes of the neocortex which was responsible for kind of rational measured thought. That wouldn't be too developed in the first creatures on earth. But in humans it is. So your limbic brain. Right the hypothalamus and in particular the amygdala. The primitive part of your brain. This sits kind of behind your eyes.

And it's often the first port of call. For information that your brain receives. And the amygdala and the limbic system, they regulate emotion. Okay. Now behind the fucking limbic system, you've got your rational mind, your thoughtful mind. This is the neocortexortex like i said okay so one of the ways that emotion can dictate your life for better or worse it's what's known as an emotional hijacking okay the amygdala in your brain can take supremacy over the rest of your brain

over your rational neocortex and deliver a very strong burst of emotion to your body this is what like I don't know you're in your car and someone pulls out in front of you

and it was very foolish of them and all of a sudden you are screaming your fucking head off screaming roaring then they scream roaring back then they're like pull over and you pull over and then you're fucking

opening the boot of your car getting ready to take out a Hurley. That's an emotional hijacking. The emotion of anger has completely hijacked your muscles and it has bypassed the rational, measured, sensible neocortex. And you're operating on pure anger. invisible neocortex and you're operating on pure anger in the 21st century if you're a fucking caveman and you meet another caveman and he wants to rob all your food it might be perfectly acceptable to bash his brains in and kill him that's quite useful because you might be killed but in 2016 on the kuna roundabout in limerick or 20 fucking 18 if you take out a harley and

lash a man across the head that's fucking five years in jail that's not a very rational response is it so that is a an emotional hijacking that is your amygdala takes supremacy over the neocortex and it has told you what to do you've lost control okay um told you what to do you've lost control okay um anxiety classic did you ever get a fucking panic attack

what the fuck is that a panic attack is when you perceive a threat that doesn't really exist this threat could be from deep in your unconscious it could be a threat that doesn't really exist, this threat could be from deep in your unconscious, it could be a threat to, you could be underestimating your ability to cope about something for the future, and all of a sudden,

your body freezes, your breaths are deep, your heart is thumping, your face is white, you're fucking shivering, and you have the physical response of somebody who needs to run at the top of their fucking as fast as they can but you're sitting down in mcdonald's so that's not a particularly

rational response to whatever the threat is because your brain has been emotionally hijacked by the amygdala it is telling you what to do now not every emotional hijack is a negative thing laughter like what the fuck is that you hear something that's hilarious and all of a sudden you're laughing into the air and rolling around that's an emotional hijack too but it's one of the good ones so what emotional intelligence kind of teaches people to do is to become literate and aware of emotions the person who's in the car screaming will train themselves to engage their neocortex more to stop themselves in the moment and go no i'm not getting a fucking hurley out because your man in the opal corsa nearly hit my car no i'm not i'm gonna get on

with my day because accidents happen and at least i'm fucking safe and didn't crash that's the neocortex talking and the way to kind of train yourself the way to become emotionally literate and then to train yourself into stopping your emotions controlling your life that's generally done through cbt cognitive behavioral therapy which i'm going to dedicate a full podcast to at some point but the other thing that's emotional someone somebody who gets emotionally hijacked a lot okay would be considered emotionally unintelligent do you ever get into an argument with someone you care about your fucking fucking girlfriend, your boyfriend. And it gets heated. All of a sudden your face feels hot.

And you're saying something incredibly personally hurtful. To the person that you love. And then afterwards you feel like a fucking prick. That's an emotional hijack. That's what that is. And to become familiar with your own anger familiar with your own anxiety you can reduce your

base level fucking primitive emotions you can prevent them from hijacking you what if you're and everyone has different ones you know some people get triggered by anger some people get triggered by anxiety what if the emotion that you get triggered by is is self-loathing or shame okay so anytime you're

in a social situation you start to feel that you're not good enough to be here. Or you start to assume that other people don't like you. So your emotional hijacking, that situation, is to become awkward in social situations and go out of your way to be incredibly nice to the people around you. That's an emotional hijacking. that's an emotional hijacking you know really going out of your way to be very polite very nice because you want everyone to like you because you think they think you're a piece of shit

your life would be a lot handier if that wasn't part of the fucking deal wouldn't it so emotional intelligence it allows us to understand our own emotions to be able to label them correctly to understand when we're feeling it to not allow them control our behavior and through understanding our own emotions we then develop greater empathy for the people around us develop greater empathy for the people around us poor emotional intelligence can actually affect your cognitive intelligence and a lot of people this is why i hate using fucking labels like

stupid do you know what i mean i hate even though you'll probably catch me off guard once in a while and I call someone thick. But a lot of the people that we would call thick, they're not thick. They have an emotional blockage. And their emotional brain is bypassing their logical, rational neocortex. And they're not presenting as what we would consider to be intelligent. And they're not presenting as what we would consider to be intelligent. Sit through a fucking exam. That you've studied your bollocks off for. An area that you enjoy.

That you love. That you consider yourself to be proficient in. Sit in that fucking exam. And tell me that the anxiety doesn't fuck up your result. Right there. That is an example. of how poor emotional intelligence can disguise itself as poor cognitive functioning do you know what i mean i would have liked to develop to uh do more on emotional intelligence maybe i will on another podcast but right now i'm gonna

go to the the question answering part of the podcast, this is a fucking long podcast now, I didn't want that, cause people stop listening after a fucking hour, okay, I'm gonna get to some bastardin' questions, this is a fucking, a loud new studio, isn't it, every movement I make, fucking, anything, move something on my desk you can fucking hear it because everything is wooden so I need to get some shitty carpets in here to dampen the sounds so I can get a bit of warmth back

so because it's 65 minutes into the fucking podcast I'm only going to answer one question this week and that question is actually before I get onto the question loads of you have been sending me mails every week um and just sorry for fucking not getting back to you i get roughly 50 mails a day i try and respond to some i would love to be fucking

sitting down responding to all your mails. Giving decent responses. I just fucking don't have the time. And I'm really sorry. And I appreciate so much when people send me mails. For whatever reason. Thank you. But anyway. This week's question.

It is a sponsored question by. An Irish company. Fair play to them. Who are going going to sponsor a couple of questions over the next few weeks wolfgang digital okay visit wolfgang digital's website and visit wolfgang digital's youtube page because they have a video series called wolfgang bites and when i answer what they ask me a question they go to their office because the whole office wolfgang digital office are fans of the podcast so they get questions off the office they give one to me i answer it and then wolfgang make a video response to the answer that i give and it's wolfgang bites i think you'll find that on youtube you'll also find it on their

website so the question this week is i'll get the trout in our crack to read it smartphone separation anxiety is growing as people increasingly see their phones as an extension of themselves are mobile phones the first step in humans becoming cyborgs will be with part person and part embedded machine in the future. Part embedded machine in the future. Are smartphones becoming the first step to us becoming cyborgs?

I think they fucking are. I definitely think they are, yeah. I mean I am in my mind compartmentalizing myself into my online avatar and my real life. And I dream about being on Twitter. I dream about Facebook posts. a dream about Facebook posts. To be honest, most of the interaction that I have with other human beings happens online, more so than in real life.

I feel that I can be more honest online, whereas in real life I might be a bit more nervous, more confident online. And that is an interesting you know is yes like a reverse renee descartes isn't this like descartes thing was uh not i think therefore i am even though that was descartes cartesian dualism. René Descartes was one of the first psychologists to suggest that the mind and the brain are two separate things. Two different things. And it's interesting that our first venturing into becoming cyborgs. I'd have always thought that when humans become cyborgs that they would be physical

that if our brains were to become cybernetic that we would physically attach a fucking microchip to our brains but it's interesting that the cyborgness has is happening to our minds the intangible part we're becoming cyborg through the intangible ether. We're becoming cyborg. Through the intangible ether. Of our minds and personalities. Do you know what I mean? So yeah. That's a fucking. That is an interesting question.

That I fully agree with. Thank you Wolfgang Digital. And thank you for the delicious. Lovely sponsorship. Yum yum yum. Mmm. All right. Have a good week go enjoy yourselves mind yourselves

read up a bit on emotional intelligence if you enjoy it I'll talk to you next week we'll have a bit of crack and I'm going to keep the podcast nice and huggy from now on and oh yeah subscribe to the podcast leave a fucking review on itunes and on social media recommend the podcast to a friend can't believe i forgot i forgot to tell

you to like and subscribe what an arrogant prick all right All right. God bless. Have a joyous week. You delicious, delectable cunts. Rock City, you're the best fans in the league, bar none. Tickets are on sale now for Fan Appreciation Night on Saturday, April 13th when the Toronto Rock host the Rochester Nighthawks at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton at 7.30pm. You can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats for every postseason game

and you'll only pay as we play. Come along for the ride and punch your ticket to Rock City at torontorock.com.