Pleasuring myself about sycamore trees above the top of Croagh Patrick

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• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:28Blindboy Boatclub?

  Fetch the heron's breadcrumbs, you perpetual Declans. Welcome to the Blind Boy Podcast. If this is your first podcast, please consider going back to an earlier episode to familiarize yourself with the lore of this podcast. We're in the clammy bars of autumn. It's very autumn at the moment.

• 1:52Blindboy Boatclub?

  Winter beckons. I don't mind a bit of winter. Big fan of winter. Winter won't let you down. You know what you're gonna get with winter, not like summer. But the light is disappearing, the skies are darkening, there's a chill in the wind, nights are colder, and the wind is aggressive, very aggressive, that autumn wind that takes the leaves off the fucking trees. And I've been out having wonderful walks. Look, what I love about this time of year, it's not that I have a problem with summer, it's just, there's too much of an emotional load with summer. If it's raining, you're disappointed, because

• 2:33Blindboy Boatclub?

  you're like, fuck's sake, it's summer and it's raining. If it's hot and sunny, you're worried about whether you're enjoying it enough. Summer's a big deal in Ireland because we're not built for fucking summer. The houses aren't built for summer. So when it's hot, it's too hot. Nobody has air conditioning. Summer, summer just feels like a very demanding house guest. And, and when summer is gone, you're kind of like, fuck it, I can relax now. Autumn, I know what I'm getting with autumn. Good old autumn won't let me down. And you know it's gonna get shitter. You just know. So you expect nothing, because you know tomorrow is gonna be noticeably

• 3:15Blindboy Boatclub?

  darker than today and colder. I find comfort in the reliability of that. And I get to wear my Gore-Tex, most importantly. I've given up on fucking fashion. If you're a long time listener to this podcast, you'll know my battles over the years with outdoor clothes. I've completely given up. I don't give a fuck anymore. Head to toe, I'm talking shoes as well. All right? Every single piece of clothing that I wear is purchased because of what it does. Waterproof, breathable Gore-Tex trousers, multiple pockets, multiple pockets. I, I have a pocket near my

• 3:58Blindboy Boatclub?

  shin, and yesterday I put an apricot, an apricot into my shin.

• 4:05Blindboy Boatclub?

  And reach down when I was on my bicycle and eat a shin apricot. You can't do that with a pair of denims. I've got full outdoor shoes, steel toe caps. I could jump in a puddle if I wanted. I'm a hundred percent I'm protected, I'm breathable. I could comfortably tumble into a small stream and salvage the rest of my day. I can step over inches of autumn leaves and not be concerned about slipping. I feel smug. That's the best thing about about fucking autumn. This is the opposite. So do you know it's summertime? It's summer. It's like Spain. So you're in the middle of June, we'll say.

• 4:50Blindboy Boatclub?

  Really fucking hot, clear blue skies. It feels like Spain and you're in Ireland. Can't enjoy it because you're just thinking, am I doing this right?

• 5:03Blindboy Boatclub?

  Should I be at the beach? Fuck it. Should I be washing and drying my clothes? Feeling guilty about sitting in the shade, feeling guilty about being indoors. Looking out the window and going, looking at wonderful weather. I should be out in that. And then you're out in it and it's like, I should be doing something different. Until eventually you're just like, we've had enough of it now. We've had enough of it. But the exact opposite of that feeling, the precise opposite of that feeling is going for a walk or a cycle in the freezing cold, aggressive rain of autumn and being completely toasty and bone dry.

• 5:44Blindboy Boatclub?

  Knowing that I've got like a microporous membrane that lets air in, but my body heat can escape. Walking into big giant puddles.

• 5:55Blindboy Boatclub?

  Inch deep puddles going, might these shoes are fucking waterproof, there's no fear in me. Looking up at big trees getting battered by wind, the boughs fucking bending with big strong wind and then the same wind is hitting me and I'm slicing through it like a Stanley knife. Cause my jacket has strategically placed wind slits, being conscious of my storm flaps. Do you know what a fucking storm flap is? Watch him off with his storm flaps. I think about storm flaps now. So when, when the wind, when the freezing wind and rain is battering off me and I have potential openings in my clothing via zips, there's a little, a little strip, protective strip of fabric that goes over the zip and that's

• 6:40Blindboy Boatclub?

  the storm flap. I, I love wearing, wearing a set of trousers and when you buy the fucking trousers, like the label, the label that hangs off them, it's not like a regular label, it's like a little 16 page booklet of diagrams of all the different layers that make up the trousers, drawings of how, how water can't fucking penetrate it, reassuring me that I'm creating my own, my own localized microclimate in my body. But that mastery, that mastery over the forces of nature, looking up at a tree and feeling smug, that's the exact opposite of thinking that I'm not enjoying a summer's day enough. I'm walking

• 7:25Blindboy Boatclub?

  around going, this is awful, my god, sideways rain and a, and a, a sky the colour of a head butted testicle. This is disgusting, this is bleak. I have no doubt that I'm doing the right thing here. Look at that person over there, their hair is wet. Uh oh, still wearing a t-shirt like it's July. I can see your nipples, sir. Ah, look at that person, fashionable baggy, bootcut jeans in the rain, is it? Why are your shins so dark? And then someone over there is wearing a pair of Converse, wet, wet soaking Converse. Not me, I'm toasty and dry, I feel amazing. I'm like a large bird with multiple, multiple

• 8:10Blindboy Boatclub?

  layers of air being trapped between breathable waterproof clothing. But this all comes at an aesthetic price. I used to joke and say that, you know, if you, if you wear head to toe, outdoor gear, you look divorced, you look like a divorced person. I used to joke about that, nothing against divorced people. I've gone beyond that now. I look like I'm on a Catholic, a solo Catholic pilgrimage to the top of Croke Patrick. And I'm doing it because I can't stop myself wanking. I look like someone who has intense,

• 8:52Blindboy Boatclub?

  deep sexual shame about masturbating and is trying to turn towards Catholicism and pilgrimages to try and fight it or find answers. I'm dressed like that, someone who,

• 9:08Blindboy Boatclub?

  someone who has sexual fantasy, not even about, someone who wants to fuck a wardrobe. I look like a person who's sexually attracted to wardrobes or vinegar, someone who can't get an erection unless they're sniffing a bottle of vinegar. And I have to, and I have to climb Croke Patrick to stop myself wanking about wardrobes. That's how I'm dressed. Croke Patrick is one of Ireland's highest mountains in Mayo.

• 9:35Blindboy Boatclub?

  It's said that Saint Patrick spent forty days up there in the fifth century. And people climb it and religious pilgrimages, some people climb it barefoot. It's a serious mountain to climb. But it's mad religious. You most certainly need to be, you need to bear a lot of outdoor gear, really resilient outdoor gear, if you're gonna climb Croke Patrick. It's no joke. And, I mean, not everyone, not everyone who climbs Croke Patrick is doing it for religious penance or to absolve themselves of sin or to mortify their flesh.

• 10:15Blindboy Boatclub?

  Sometimes it's just influencers, influencers in wonderful Patagonia jackets, looking fantastic. Or it's a middle-aged man who's sexually attracted to wardrobes and can't stop masturbating about it and needs to go to the top of Croke Patrick to confront this, this very shameful part of themselves. So I look like the latter.

• 10:42Blindboy Boatclub?

  I look like that these days and I'm absolutely fine with it because it's that our cold shins. And I was out marveling at sycamores. I was getting battered by just sycamore seeds. You know helicopters, watching a strong breeze tear through a sycamore tree and seeing it send hundreds of its seeds into the air and just watching them perfectly spin and float for miles off into the distance and just marveling at the the efficiency, the sheer fucking efficiency

• 11:25Blindboy Boatclub?

  of that as a seed dispersal system. Marvelant at the wonder of nature and sycamores. So sycamore trees, they're not actually indigenous to to Ireland or to to England. They'd be what's called, I don't know if native the right word. It's naturalized. So sycamore trees, they're not invasive, that's the other thing. So they're not invasive, but they don't come from here. They're naturalized. They exist comfortably within the ecosystem, but with but they're still a little bit odd. They're a bit odd.

• 12:06Blindboy Boatclub?

  Like for instance, like I have a complicated relationship with wind and sycamore trees. So right now the leaves are yellow and brown. They're dying leaves, but like a month ago, month ago, early September, late August, and those leaves were green. But you get that little blast, the little blast of wind that you get, that autumn wind. While the leaves are still green, you have to be fucking careful like sycamore trees because wasps. Have you ever seen a sycamore tree around late August? And there's a strong breeze, right? And the leaves are shaking. And then the, you end up with hovering wasps, the wasps, like loads of, like what, why are

• 12:50Blindboy Boatclub?

  there so many fucking wasps in the sycamore tree? You'd be thinking there's a hive in there. There's not. The wind goes through the sycamore tree and you're walking down the road and then all these wasps, like 16 of them, just get blown about a foot out from the tree towards your face and.

• 13:09Blindboy Boatclub?

  So first off, the interesting thing about sycamore trees is that they're actually maple trees. So they're not from Ireland, they're not from Britain, they're from Central Europe. They came to Ireland and Britain in the 1500s with monasteries. Monasteries brought a lot of them over. But anyway, so sycamore trees, they're very thick with sweet sap because they're in the maple family. And because they have this sweet sap, they have a fuckload of aphids, those tiny little green aphids live all over the leaves. If you look at sycamore leaves in the summertime, you'll just see hundreds and hundreds of aphids

• 13:49Blindboy Boatclub?

  on each leaf. And what those aphids are doing, they're eating the sap, right? And then on their backs, they're producing honeydew, which is mad sweet. So then if you, if you look at a sycamore bark in the summer, the trunk of the tree, you'll see all ants going up because the ants, ants will farm the honeydew off the backs of all those aphids. But then,

• 14:16Blindboy Boatclub?

  again, it's, it's, it's the, the late August, the September wasps, you know, the country wasps. Now I've spoken about them before, but you know, we, we all know that the wasps are aggressive. Around late August, the wasps are definitely aggressive. So when you're walking on the road and you see that wind going for those sycamore leaves, you're frightened, you're like, shit, there's going to be about 10, 16 wasps floating into my face now with that wind. But what makes it interesting is, you've definitely seen this, you've seen this happen. When the wind hits that sycamore tree, those green leaves, and it juts the

• 14:56Blindboy Boatclub?

  wasps out by about a foot, the wasps are fighting to get back to those leaves. Whatever's on those leaves, those wasps really want to get back, right? When the wind blows through it. What those wasps are doing, they gather to the sycamore tree because now they're licking the sugar, the honeydew off the backs of all those aphids. But then the sad thing about that wasp behaviour is...

• 15:25Blindboy Boatclub?

  I've done a podcast on this before, but the fascinating thing about September wasps is they're actually highly traumatised.

• 15:35Blindboy Boatclub?

  So those wasps at one point had purpose and a community. So those wasps over the summer used to have a hive, a wasp hive, and they had jobs and they had families. And what they would do basically is, like wasps, wasps are decomposers, so wasps will eat meat, wasps will eat a dead rat. So wasps would eat meat during the summer. Bring this protein back to their wasp hive, to the colony, then they would feed the protein, the little baby wasp larvae.

• 16:17Blindboy Boatclub?

  But then the larvae excrete a sugary substance and that's what the wasps eat for most of their lives. And then what happens is those larvae, they grow up to become queens and drones. They flee the colony. And then you're left with all of these wasps that have no purpose and have no food source and that are addicted to sugar. This happens around September. So you've got these aimless wasps with no home to go to.

• 16:50Blindboy Boatclub?

  Just craving sugar that they can't get anymore. They don't have jobs, community or access to their sugar. It's gone. So they just wander and wander, searching for sugar, searching for that hit. So they'll either chase me and you, because we might smell like aftershave or perfume or we're drinking a sugary drink, or they're trying to get into our houses because they can smell sugar in there, or they're hanging around the leaves of sycamore trees licking the backs off aphids. So that's why in late summer, when those leaves are green and the wind goes through it, you'll see all the wasps getting gently blown off the fucking sycamore tree. But this week, those wasps are gone, they're dead. It's autumn, the leaves are brown.

• 17:35Blindboy Boatclub?

  And now what I'm witnessing is...

• 17:39Blindboy Boatclub?

  The leaves being stripped from the sycamore trees. And then carrying those seeds, those beautiful, wonderful helicopter seeds. And watching them just shoot off like catapults into the fucking distance and be carried. But the interesting thing about sycamores.

• 17:57Blindboy Boatclub?

  And I had a hunch, I had a fucking hunch, right? Cause think of it.

• 18:04Blindboy Boatclub?

  What type of fucking tree? What type of tree needs that? I suppose I was thinking about it because of my outdoor clothes, the resilience of it. What type of tree? Needs to have seeds? That have evolved over millions of years into being perfect little helicopters? What type of tree needs helicopters? That can fly off into the distance to plant another tree? Why would a tree need that? I mean, conkers just fall onto the ground. Conkers just fall onto the fucking ground. Same with acorns, they're just chilled out. Just gonna drop a load of, load of fruit and seeds onto the ground here. And it'll sort itself out. What, what's going on with sycamore?

• 18:50Blindboy Boatclub?

  That it needs to try so hard? Cause a sycamore helicopter seed, it's a fruit, it's called a samara. The sycamore helicopter seed, that's so unbelievably unique and efficient. It can, it's, it can travel for miles on a wind. And, and, and grow into another sycamore tree. I'm looking at it going, why does it need that? This doesn't make sense, but, but here's the thing. It's not indigenous to Ireland. It's not indigenous here. It's naturalized and it thrives, it fucking thrives in Ireland. But this isn't, it's indigenous ecosystem. Why does that tree need to be that much of a hard cunt? So the, the, where sycamores are from?

• 19:35Blindboy Boatclub?

  They're from really thick forests in Central Europe. Montane forests they're called. That have steep mountainsides. And sycamores.

• 19:49Blindboy Boatclub?

  In their indigenous habitat, they're opportunistic trees. So sycamores in their native habitat,

• 19:57Blindboy Boatclub?

  they grow, think of a very dense, thick forest, much taller trees. Sycamores grow in whatever little space. If there's a little space that opens up that a bit of sunlight can get through, the sycamore will grow there. Much older, taller, stronger, more dominant trees outcompete the sycamore in its indigenous environment. So it has to be hard as fuck. It has to have a real high tolerance for shade because it's a mid-level tree. All the trees around it are way, way taller. The bits of sunlight are getting through, but the sycamore can still do its thing. And then, because its environment is so harsh and there's such competition,

• 20:43Blindboy Boatclub?

  it needs to have these helicopter seeds that can disperse for miles away. Because if it was like a conch or tree or an oak, and it's just dropping its seeds on the ground, that's not going to work in its native environment. So it needed to have, like, just think of the millions of years of evolutionary adoptions it took to have this, a seed that spins and flies like a helicopter. Like, that's astounding. And then you take into consideration that it's in these mountainous forests. And then you can imagine that seed for travelling for miles and miles and miles, just spinning and spinning on a wind. I'm talking the mountains in the Balkans, the Alps, the Pyrenees.

• 21:27Blindboy Boatclub?

  And also what sycamore does in its indigenous environment on the side of the Alps, right, massive mountains. I'm talking about the fellas going up to Crook Patrick because they can't stop thinking about wardrobes. Fuck Crook Patrick, that's nothing compared to the Alps. Giant mountains, right, with very poor rocky soil and these strange forests of tall trees. And in the middle of this is the sycamore. And what the sycamore does in its indigenous ecosystem, it protects the mountain. It works within the ecosystem to prevent avalanches, prevent erosion.

• 22:07Blindboy Boatclub?

  So the sycamore has these really, first off, the, the, the thick, thick leaves, right? So the thickness, like at the height of summertime, if you're sitting underneath a sycamore, there's proper fucking shade. It's a very shady tree because of all those thick leaves. In, in the Alps, where it's indigenous, the thickness of those leaves, that protects the soil, right? And the floor of the forest, it protects that soil from getting battered by raindrops. Because the consistent battering of raindrops in the Alps will erode that thin, mountainous soil. Then the, the roots of the sycamore tree, they go pure deep.

• 22:51Blindboy Boatclub?

  And that then stabilizes the soil of the mountain. So you don't get avalanches, you don't get erosion, you don't get just a bare rock face. And now you have an ecosystem because the wonder of the sycamore tree. And then of course, it's, it's leaves returning to the earth and creating soil. But then it's roots making sure that that soil sticks and doesn't wash away. It's one of those things that's hard to describe because you start describing it and before you know it, before you know it, you're talking about God. That's the problem with this shit. I'm not a God person. But when you look at something like a sycamore, and it's so, again, the word designed.

• 23:33Blindboy Boatclub?

  It's not designed, it's evolution over many, many years. But as a human being, it's impossible not to look at it and think that it's designed. The sycamore is so perfect for protecting a mountain. And then, then you have to ask yourself, who wants to protect the mountain and why? Well, it's protecting the, the valleys and rivers below. And when you look at, when you look at the sycamore's role in its indigenous mountain, and, and everything it does for the health of that mountain and the rivers and the valleys below, your brain starts thinking, well, someone designed that for a fucking purpose. But that's not how it works. It's evolution across millions of years and deep time. And it's just, it's that human brain, the human brain, we look at something

• 24:18Blindboy Boatclub?

  and we find those patterns to, to say this has been created or this has a purpose. And also,

• 24:27Blindboy Boatclub?

  In its indigenous land, right, in the Alps or the Pyrenees, the sycamore has like hundreds and hundreds of species that depend on it, that live in it. Like, there's 130 different species of aphids that live on it. Fungus. So, there's a type of fungus that grows in the soil with sycamore in its indigenous land. Where it's a type of fungus that fuses with the tree's roots itself. Like a conduit between the tree and the soil. There's loads of bards that live in the sycamore tree. There's loads of fucking

• 25:11Blindboy Boatclub?

  lichen that grow on it. There's thousands and thousands of creatures and animals

• 25:18Blindboy Boatclub?

  and fungus that exist with the sycamore tree in its native habitat, in the Alps. And all of these things live with the tree and benefit from the tree. And loads of them kill the tree as well. There's bark beetles that bore into it. There's loads of different leaf-cutting insects that eat all the leaves of the sycamore tree. There's funguses that kill the tree. Like, the sycamore is a hardy tree because it grows up, it's from a tough, tough environment in the Alps. And it has evolved perfectly to work on that mountain range. But now they're in Ireland. They're here in Ireland and they're not from here.

• 26:02Blindboy Boatclub?

  And they're not necessarily invasive. You see, they probably were at one point when they came here in the 1500s. Now they're naturalized. So, sycamores in Ireland, they thrive under what's called the enemy release effect. It doesn't have all these leaf cutter insects that eat it, or these funguses that kill it. They don't exist in Ireland, or over in the fucking UK. So now you have this hard bastard of a tree. This really tough tree and the environment isn't tough on it at all. Like in, in the Balkans, a sycamore tree might have, might support maybe a hundred and thirty different species of insect.

• 26:43Blindboy Boatclub?

  In Ireland, the sycamore has maybe twenty species of insect that depend on it. Like what I described when, when I say be wary of a sycamore in, in late August with the wind because you'll get a slap off a lot of wasps. Like that's strange behaviour there. That, that behaviour is only five hundred years old. That's weird. They're Irish aphids, Irish wasps. And it's, it's just weird. Weird things are happening on the sycamore tree. The wasps are wanking about wardrobes. Sycamore trees in Ireland and over in the UK, they've got quite low biodiversity value. They're not, like an indigenous tree is like a giant apartment block.

• 27:29Blindboy Boatclub?

  An indigenous tree is like, like a city, like a city where all different types of organisms survive within the ecosystem, not sycamores. Sycamores are just these, these hard, hard trees, these really resilient tough trees in an ecosystem that doesn't challenge them. And this is, sycamores, they don't need their helicopters here in Ireland. They've no need for them. But they've still, they go far and wide. And this is why, I don't know, you could be on a train, you're on, you're on a train in a shitty railway track in the middle of nowhere and there's sycamore trees, little saplings of sycamores growing next to train tracks. And it's like, why?

• 28:14Blindboy Boatclub?

  Number one, their wonderful helicopter seat got to travel that far to make it to the train tracks. And two, sycamore doesn't give a fuck about gravel. The sycamore is supposed to be growing on a, on a mountain that has fuck all soil. It doesn't care about the gravel on a train track. It'll find its way down there and establish it itself. You won't see an oak tree, a native oak near a train track though. But it's hard to really, to, to, because they're, they're, they're naturalised now, you see. Sycamores are no longer.

• 28:51Blindboy Boatclub?

  They wouldn't be actively invasive. It's like they've won, they've done their thing. They came over in the 1500s to 1600s with the gardens of monasteries, really, monasteries. And then when the monasteries were dissolved, gotten rid of under Cromwell and everyone after Cromwell, then monastic gardens in Ireland were then replaced with the big Protestant houses. But Sycamore, it displaced our native trees. Ash, hazel, birch. I mean, Ireland was a rainforest. Ireland was a rainforest covered in indigenous trees. And now it's not at all. Ireland is a strange landscape.

• 29:38Blindboy Boatclub?

  Like, the trees, they weren't just cut down by people. They weren't just cut down and felled. The likes of Sycamore played its part. I mean, you think of the Irish place names. Derry means dire, that means an oak grove. There's no fucking oak left. Yall down in Cork means you. Ah, fucking Mayo means plain of you trees. Trim in Clare, elder tree. Inisgane means island of the ash trees. Sycamore with its wonderful, big, thick tickets of leaves. These thick, thick leaves that evolved to be in the fucking Pyrenees or the Alps

• 30:22Blindboy Boatclub?

  to stop rain from battering off the mountain. Now this is in Ireland and those thick canopies of Sycamore are covering the earth and the native trees can't grow. And it's Sycamore as well is highly tolerant of wind and very, very tolerant of salt. Any coastal salty wind, Sycamore doesn't give a fuck about salt. And its seeds, it seeds, of course, that disperse everywhere. So I was just thinking about Sycamore this week while I was walking and looking at it and looking at those wonderful seeds. I suppose what struck me was...

• 30:59Blindboy Boatclub?

  You see, I knew I'd never really had a good think about sycamore seeds. I've been dealing with them my entire life, but this week I just went, holy fuck. What's going on with that tree that it needs to have those helicopters? Nature doesn't, nature does that for a reason. What's going on? I gotta follow that. And, and I did, and I was so fascinated with the, the results. It's like, yeah, this tree grew up tough, really, really hard. And it needs those seeds, but here in Ireland, it doesn't, it, it, it's, you, you think of, I'm always conscious of invasive species. You're thinking about your Japanese knotweeds and your rhododendrons.

• 31:44Blindboy Boatclub?

  And these things are spreading, spreading and killing everything and they're invasive. And it's just fascinating to think of the sycamore as that was once invasive, but it won, that won, and now it's native. And it's impossible to see its trail of destruction. Its trail of destruction can only be measured by, by absence. Its trail of destruction can only be measured by, why are so many counties in Ireland named after trees? But the trees aren't there anymore. And like I said, an indigenous tree is like an apartment block

• 32:28Blindboy Boatclub?

  for all different life forms. And a forest is like lots and lots of apartment blocks. So you lose all your hazel and yew and ash and elder and elm. Then you lose the massive amounts of indigenous insects that rely upon these trees. The fungus, the lichen, the mycorrhizae. Then you lose your pollinators. Then you lose your bards and animals that live in that forest. You lose the leaf litter, the roof struc-, the root structure. The soil carbon declines.

• 33:02Blindboy Boatclub?

  Then you end up with groundwater flow, you see, cause all that leaf litter by the indigenous fords, that's forests, that soaks up the rain, but now that's gone. So now you end up with floods. And then that changes the rivers of Ireland. But now the soil integrity of the rivers has changed because you don't have the native trees and the root structure in the soil holding them together. And it goes on and on until you end up with no salmon in the river or no mussels. And you have an empty landscape, the empty landscape that we see today, but you've plenty of sycamore. And nothing's named after sycamores. There's no ancient Irish names named after sycamores.

• 33:45Blindboy Boatclub?

  The only shit that's named after sycamores are like modern housing estates. You'll get modern housing estates and they're called like Sycamore View, Sycamore Terrace. And I find that fascinating. And I suppose the other reason I'm fucking thinking about it is because of Mancan, because Mancan died. And thinking about things that I've loved to have said to him, I'd, I'd love to, I'd love to have an old sycamore fucking hot take for Mancan. Cause he's the only person I can think of who, who, who would be willing to listen to me, who, who, who would really wanna hear that. The only person I can think of would like to hear that sycamore hot

• 34:29Blindboy Boatclub?

  take is Mancan. And he's gone. And I wanted to do a question answering podcast this week. I didn't intend to speak about sycamores for that long. I wanted to do a question answering podcast. But one question I was fucking asked, I can't remember who asked it, but it stuck out to me. Someone asked me on Instagram about the, the artistic experience of grief and if that's different. And I reckon it is a bit different because.

• 35:00Blindboy Boatclub?

  So my definition of friend. Man Khan was my friend.

• 35:09Blindboy Boatclub?

  And I might have only met him once every two years, like physically, in person. I might have met Man Khan once every two years. And any person who I'd consider to be a friend. I might see this person physically once a year. But I'd stay in contact frequently via text or email and only, only about mutual interests. That's the thing with the artistic experience. Like, I don't have friends, friends. I don't have any person who I'd just hang out with for the sake of hanging out. I don't understand it. I have people with mutual interests. My contact about these interests.

• 35:53Blindboy Boatclub?

  And that's often the artistic experience of friendship. And I've lost about three very close friends over the years. And the experience of loss is really strange because for the most part, it's,

• 36:08Blindboy Boatclub?

  it's a person in your phone

• 36:11Blindboy Boatclub?

  who just doesn't respond anymore. And it's an area of interest that now gets really lonely. Like, I'd have a very close friend about maybe 15 years ago, and this person,

• 36:25Blindboy Boatclub?

  they were my music person. This person was my music person. And they died. And the grief pops up, it still pops up as,

• 36:35Blindboy Boatclub?

  I don't know, I'll hear a song and I'll want to share this song with that person more than anything in the whole world. And they're gone, I can't. And now this, this week there with the, the sycamore, the sycamore hot take. The one person I want to send that to, the one person who I want to get feedback on that idea from, to speak to about, that's Man Khan, and he's gone. I know what he'd have loved specifically. Cause you heard him last week on the podcast. He was big into, you know, the Irish sacred trees and big into places that were named after trees. I mean, that's where I learned it from, from listening to him.

• 37:15Blindboy Boatclub?

  He would have loved the little quirk there that the only time in Ireland you hear shit named after a sycamore is, it's a modern housing estate. All right, this was supposed to be a question answering podcast. I haven't. I don't think I've gotten to one question.

• 37:32Blindboy Boatclub?

  I'm gonna have an Ocarina pause now and then maybe I'll answer a question after the Ocarina pause. For this week's Ocarina pause, I'm gonna shake some chewing gums and then you're gonna hear an advert.

• 37:50Speaker 01

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• 38:18Speaker 00

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• 39:02Speaker 00

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• 39:17Speaker 01

  Your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice message system.

• 39:20Speaker 03

  A missed call doesn't feel like anything. No red flag, no notification screaming at you. It just disappears into your call log. And nine times out of 10, that was someone ready to hand you money. That's why today's episode is brought to you by QUO, spelled Q-U-O. The business phone system built so you never miss a call. Here's what I like about it. All your calls, texts, and voicemails live in one place. So anyone on your team can pick up a conversation, see the full history, and respond fast. No more, "Wait, who talked to this customer last?" And if you're worried about after-hours leads slipping through, Quo's optional built-in AI agent can answer questions and even book appointments while your team's offline. It's the number-one rated business phone system on G2,

• 40:04Speaker 03

  and over 90,000 businesses already trust it to stay reachable. Money is on the line. Always say hello with Quo. Try Quo for free. Plus, get 20% off your first six months when you go to quo.com/tech. That's Q-U-O dot com slash tech.

• 40:30Speaker 01

  Cheers to fall savings at Whole Foods Market, home of higher ingredient standards. This Halloween, share chocolates and candies. Made without that spooky high-fructose corn syrup. Throwing a party? Make it easy with a Berry Chantilly Cake. Ready-to-cook pizza? No antibiotics-ever-chicken wings. And sushi made fresh daily. Fall gatherings never tasted better. Save through November 3rd at Whole Foods Market.

• 40:57Speaker 00

  If you've felt stuck trying to lose weight, you're not alone. Enter Weight Loss by Hers. It's designed to support you in reaching your goals. And Hers now offers access to an affordable range of FDA-approved GLP-1 medications, including the Wegovy pill and the Wegovy pen. Even better, with a range of affordable GLP-1 options, Hers makes it simple to find an approach that fits your needs and your budget. If eligible, you'll get a treatment plan personalized to you and unlimited dosage changes as needed. It's weight loss designed to work with your life. Ready to reach your goals? Visit forhers.com/eligible to get personalized, affordable care that gets you. That's F-O-R-H-E-R-S dot com slash eligible. Forhers.com/eligible.

• 41:41Speaker 00

  Weight Loss by Hers is not available in all 50 states. Wegovy is the registered trademark of Novo Nordisk AS. To get started and learn more, including important safety information, Wegovy clinical study information, and restrictions, visit forhers.com.

• 41:57Speaker 03

  ...to an automatic voice message system. A missed call doesn't feel like anything. No red flag, no notification screaming at you. It just disappears into your call log. And nine times out of 10, that was someone ready to hand you money. That's why today's episode is brought to you by QUO, spelled Q U O, the business phone system built so you never miss a call. Here's what I like about it. All your calls, texts, and voicemails live in one place, so anyone on your team can pick up a conversation, see the full history, and respond fast. No more, "Wait, who talked to this customer last?" And if you're worried about after-hours leads slipping through, QUO's optional built-in AI agent can answer questions and even book appointments while your team's offline.

• 42:41Speaker 03

  It's the number one rated business phone system on G2, and over 90,000 businesses already trust it to stay reachable. Money is on the line. Always say hello with QUO. Try QUO for free. Plus, get 20% off your first six months when you go to quo.com/tech. That's Q U O dot com slash tech.

• 43:08Blindboy Boatclub?

  You'd have heard an advert there for some bullshit. Support for this podcast comes from you, the listener, via the Patreon page, patreon.com/theblindbypodcast. If this podcast brings you mirth, merriment, distraction, entertainment, whatever the fuck has you listening to this podcast, please consider paying me for that work, because this is my full-time job. This is how I earn a living. This is how I rent out my office, pay all my bills, pay for the podcast equipment. Most importantly, it's how I have the time each week to write and research the podcast, to fail.

• 43:50Blindboy Boatclub?

  Sometimes I record a podcast and it's not good enough, I don't put it out. So I record a second one, a new one. I have the time to do that and to explore and to fail because this is my full-time job. All I'm looking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month. That's it. If you can't afford that, don't worry about it. You can listen for free. You listen for free because the person who is paying is paying for you to listen for free. Everybody gets the exact same podcast. I get to earn a living. It's a wonderful model based on kindness and soundness. Patreon.com forward slash the blind by a podcast. Also, it keeps this podcast fully independent to be listener funded.

• 44:35Blindboy Boatclub?

  Means that no advertiser comes in and adjusts the content in any way. Upcoming gigs. Last gig of the year, right? On Halloween night. If you're around Meath on Halloween night, come along to the Polka Festival. Polka Festival in Trim in Meath. What does the word Trim mean there? Trim literally means balia, ah, Trim. It means townland of the ford of the elder tree. So that tells us about Trim in Meath. At one point, there was elder trees there. There might have been one elder tree that was quite old that people could have worshipped.

• 45:15Blindboy Boatclub?

  Whatever was going on, there was an elder tree there that was so important, they built a town around it or a catta. If you want to know where I'm getting these names from, there's a brilliant website called loganam.ie. L O G A I N M dot I E. And that'll give you names, history and meanings of places in Ireland if you type them in. Twenty twenty six gigs. Waterford on the 23rd of January in the Theatre of Ryle. Come along to that. Then 2nd of February, Vicker Street up in Dublin. 12th of February, Belfast, the waterfront theatre. 15th of February, Galway, Leisure Land. 28th of February, Killarney in the Ainech.

• 45:58Blindboy Boatclub?

  I've got some fucking work cut out for me in February, lads. Then Carlo, I'm gigging in Carlo. In March. Don't think I've ever gigged Carlo, have I? Fuck it, fair play, we'll give it a go. In the Visual Arts Centre in Carlow. Then Cork, beautiful Cork, on the 26th of fucking March, Cork Opera House. Listen, there's more, we'll chill out. I'm working on a website that has all my gigs on it, we'll chill out now. Um, what we throw in there for the crack? Oh, fucking Limerick. I'm gigging the University Concert Hall in Limerick on... Is that the 9th of April? Should we worry about it later?

• 46:42Blindboy Boatclub?

  University Concert Hall, Limerick, you can't miss that. That's the one. That's the one I did, I did it last year and I didn't think I'd be able to. I didn't think there was enough people in Limerick who listened to my podcast. Because my podcast is more of an outside of Limerick thing. It's more of a fucking outside of Ireland thing. Said a lot of fucks this week, I think. More of an outside of Ireland thing. But, uh, yeah, come along there to Limerick on the, the 9th of April. And then we've got that big massive tour. Make sure no one put Leeds inside there. Got that big, big massive tour of, of England, Scotland and Wales in October 26.

• 47:23Blindboy Boatclub?

  Brighton, Cardiff, Coventry, Bristol, Guildford, London, Glasgow, Nottingham. And Leeds is there with a big red cross through it. So that I don't accidentally call that out. Apologies Leeds, there'll be no Leeds. You know the crack, it's a lot of fucking gigs, live podcasts, good, good fun. Good enjoyable fun. If you want those English dates. Fain.co.uk forward slash Blind Boy. The rest of the dates, you're gonna have to fucking Google it. Google's gone, gone to shit. That's the thing now. Like Google has gone to balls. It's really, really bad the past year.

• 48:06Blindboy Boatclub?

  It has to be deliberate, it has to be deliberate. I'm, I'm getting ready to stop using Google entirely.

• 48:15Blindboy Boatclub?

  I think they're trying to push everyone towards AI because Google is not working as a search engine anymore. Like, all of those live dates I called out there.

• 48:27Blindboy Boatclub?

  I don't know, fucking Mead, Poca Festival Blind Boy. Normally you just type that in and it brings you to where you get your tickets. I don't know if I can trust Google anymore. I don't use it for podcast research. Simply can't use it for podcast research because Google search now prioritises just very recent. So if I was to try and go and learn about sycamore trees there and I wanted articles on sycamore trees, like the best sycamore tree article might have been written in 2012. But Google isn't going to give me the most relevant result for my search. It'll give me the most recent result for my search. I've

• 49:07Blindboy Boatclub?

  stopped using Google for podcast research. Duck, Duck and Go is a very good, that's a very good Google replacement. Duck, Duck and Go, that feels a bit like old internet. If you, if you search for something on Duck, Duck and Go, it'll give you a relevant research and it won't, it won't give you fucking adverts either. You might have guessed this week's podcast is a bit of a phone call. Look, lads, I'm rattled from Mancon Maggin's death, to tell you the truth. Like, last week's podcast, my, my head was fully up my arse.

• 49:41Blindboy Boatclub?

  It's just a big shock. It's a big shock. It's a big shock when someone's here and then they're not. And your brain has to do catch up with that reality.

• 49:54Blindboy Boatclub?

  Like, I know that Mancon is dead, but I don't really, I don't really. Because when I was doing my sycamore tree walk this week and getting excited about it and thinking about sycamore trees. I was getting excited because I was thinking, fuck it, Man Khan's gonna love that now. And I wasn't verbalising that, but my emotions, my feeling was, I can't wait to tell Man Khan about all this sycamore tree stuff, he's gonna love that. And then I have to come around to the reality. No, he can't do that. That's over. That's over. That's gone forever. Can't do that. And the experience of that is shocking. It's shocking and confusing. And my thoughts

• 50:37Blindboy Boatclub?

  are a bit scattered and rattled this week as a result of that. I can answer some questions. Ashling O'Brien asks, can I ask you a potentially annoying question as a new listener? Is there one episode that is your favourite of all you've done?

• 50:53Blindboy Boatclub?

  I've made an episode every week for the past fucking eight years.

• 50:59Blindboy Boatclub?

  So to say, is there one episode that's my favourite? I can't answer that question.

• 51:06Blindboy Boatclub?

  The one episode that pops up is, I think it's called Hieronymus Bosch from maybe 2020? Think I called it Hieronymus Bosch.

• 51:21Blindboy Boatclub?

  The reason, so Hieronymus Bosch was a painter, a very surreal painter from around the 1500s. And I was having difficulty for a long time trying to find information about Hieronymus Bosch, because there was very little information about him. But I knew I wanted to do a Hieronymus Bosch podcast, because his paintings were so unique, so surreal, so strange. He used to paint visions of hell in the 1500s. And I knew I wanted to do a Hieronymus Bosch podcast. But I was holding off. I'm like, no, not until you have your hot take. Not until you have your hot take. It will come. Something will reveal itself. And then eventually it did.

• 52:07Blindboy Boatclub?

  I had liked the thing with Hieronymus Bosch is he stands out as being so unique as painting this fantastical landscapes of hell with weird creatures in the 1500s. But I ended up finding out that he was actually heavily influenced by an 11th century poem from Cork in Ireland called The Visio Tnug Dalis. And I found out that Hieronymus Bosch, I found out that our modern vision of hell may possibly come from Cork. And then I found out about Hieronymus Bosch. He was good friends with a bishop or a priest, Catholic, who used to sell indulgences, which means that this priest used to, if you were wealthy enough, you could give this priest

• 52:52Blindboy Boatclub?

  money and then you could buy your way into heaven. And this priest used to hold dinners for wealthy people. And Hieronymus Bosch would come along with his paintings and his paintings were, they were triptych, there was three panels, like a wardrobe that you'd open out and he'd open the first panel and it's like, here's the Garden of Eden. And then he'd open the middle panel and it's like, this is your life now, your life of sin. And then he'd open the final panel, this is hell. This is all the torturing that's gonna happen to you because of all the sins you're doing, the drinking and riding and whatever. And this pattern started to emerge where it's possible that Hieronymus Bosch's paintings,

• 53:33Blindboy Boatclub?

  what they were, were like scary propaganda movies to frighten rich people into paying indulgences, to basically to frighten rich people at dinner parties to say, you're sinning, like you're, you're doing loads of sins, loads of riding, loads of gluttony, you're gonna go to hell, well, give that man money over there and then you won't have to. And it reminded me a bit of those conferences that they have now for billionaires in New Zealand where they're trying to sell doomsday prep or compounds to billionaires by freaking them out about societal collapse. So to answer your question, I wouldn't say that's my favorite episode, but it just came, what I, what I like about that episode is that.

• 54:18Blindboy Boatclub?

  I've got lots of hot takes all the time, different pots that are on the boil.

• 54:25Blindboy Boatclub?

  But I might wait two years, three years before I'm ready to do a hot take on a particular subject. I wait until the information reveals itself to me and I don't do premature hot takes. And that episode sticks out for me because I waited. I knew I wanted to do a Hieronymus Bosch episode. I didn't have the information and I chilled out and I waited and I said, something's going to reveal itself for me. Just trust the process. And it took about two years. And then that beautiful hot take just came to me and the information, the research aligned with it. Sarah Clifford asks, what's the strangest experience that you've had with the podcast?

• 55:11Blindboy Boatclub?

  Do you know what's really fucking weird is just

• 55:16Blindboy Boatclub?

  the concept of fame, right? And what I mean by that is,

• 55:22Blindboy Boatclub?

  so this year I went to, I did a tour of Australia and I sold out the Palais Theatre in Melbourne, which is the largest seated venue in the southern hemisphere. It's like three and a half thousand people, sold that out in fucking Melbourne in Australia. Like who's playing there at the moment? Tim Minchin, Crowded House, UB40, those are household names. You could go to anywhere, anyone in Melbourne in Australia and say, have you heard of UB40? And they'd all go, yeah, yeah, I know UB40. Might not be a fan, but I have a vague awareness of who UB40 are. But you could walk around Melbourne and say, who

• 56:05Blindboy Boatclub?

  is Blind By? And like, no one knows. Like, literally, I'm nobody. But at the same time, I can, I can sell out the same place that UB40 is selling out. And that's really strange. I don't know what that is. I think we're leaving a monoculture. So UB40 existed in a monoculture. UB40 were played on the radio, played on TV. So everyone had a cursory awareness of UB40. Or Tim Minchin. Everyone knows the comedian, Tim Minchin.

• 56:39Blindboy Boatclub?

  But now we're moving away from that monoculture into, into polyculture. So you can be not famous at all, unknown, but sell out the largest seated venue in the southern hemisphere. And the dichotomy of that, I just find it, it's, it's nuts. Now, I love it, obviously, because I don't want to be fucking famous. And then the other really, really strange thing that I found, and I'm using Australia as the example because it's so far away. And also after eight years, I, I don't have the, the Irish audience anymore. Very small amount of Irish people at that gig, maybe 20%, which is odd for an Irish podcaster. Any other Irish podcasters that'd be gigging

• 57:23Blindboy Boatclub?

  in Australia, it's going to be mostly Irish people at the gig. So what I found nuts was,

• 57:30Blindboy Boatclub?

  see, three and a half thousand people showing up. Those are mostly people who just stumbled across this, this weird Irish podcast where a fellow with a bag on his head talks and they just stumbled across it and listened to it privately. And then all those people come together at a gig. And, cause I got mails afterwards. Like there was one person and their neighbour, their neighbour, just like three streets down, they met their neighbour at my gig. And then they went, oh, you, you listen to that Blind Boy podcast? I do too. And that's why they're both at the gig together. But these people like live a couple of doors

• 58:13Blindboy Boatclub?

  down from each other and have never said to each other, I listen to Blind Boy. And that's a real, a very strange trend that I, that I see in Australia. And also when I'm gigging somewhere like fucking Norwich, you do the gig, it sells out, there's all these people in the audience and then everyone's looking around going.

• 58:37Blindboy Boatclub?

  Oh, I, I live in Norwich. Here's a bunch of people around me from Norwich. I know some of these people and I guess we've all just been listening to this podcast, but we haven't spoken about it or said it to each other. And I get messages from people confirming this, like Norwegians or whatever you call people from Norwich, just going, "Oh, I thought I was like the only person in Norwich who listens to your podcast." We know now because we're in the same fucking room and Blind Boys up there. And I find that so fascinating and confusing and a little bit scary because it's like the exact opposite of how mainstream, mainstream media worked.

• 59:20Blindboy Boatclub?

  You, you can sell out the venue in Norwich or in Melbourne where famous people sell out, but no one knows who the fuck you are. And it's, it's way better. It's better because you don't get, you don't get any bandwagon people. Everyone who's showing up for the gig is there because they really want to be there. And if you have an audience full of people who really want to be there, then you get a wonderful gig. You get a really lovely, lovely, wonderful gig. And you have to remember too, I'm 20 years gigging. I'll be 20 years gigging next year. I've been doing this a long time up on stage gigging.

• 1:00:02Blindboy Boatclub?

  And for the first 10 years of my career, I know what it's like to have that monoculture mainstream fame in fucking Ireland, in Ireland, monoculture mainstream fame. And to do a gig and 40% of the people are there because they genuinely like what you're doing, but 60% of the people are there because they have a vague awareness that you're on television or doing something, a vague awareness. And when you have those type of gigs, it's actually, it's, it's very difficult to do a good gig. It's very difficult to do the, a good show and to make it an enjoyable experience because you don't have audience cohesion.

• 1:00:43Blindboy Boatclub?

  You don't have that wonderful collective empathy that you get when everyone wants to be there. So to come around full circle where-

• 1:00:53Blindboy Boatclub?

  Just absolute privilege to be, to be doing live podcasts and knowing that every single person in that audience is there because they want to be there and they really like the podcast. Oh, fuck it. I love it. I love it so much and I really want to protect it. I want to protect it and keep it that way and try and not have that type of mainstream.

• 1:01:17Blindboy Boatclub?

  Like, so I had a tough week this week after, because of Mankon, I had a bit of burnout, which meant I did fucking silly things. Actually, I was quite proud with how I handled it. Three deeply triggering things happened to me last week, triggering things for, for an autistic person. Within the space of a half an hour, I lost my keys. Now, that was my keys for everything, my fucking gaff, my studio, everything. I lost my fucking keys because the, the tracker that I have on my keys to find them, I lose my keys all the time. It's a neurodivergent thing. So I have a digital tracker on my keys at all times.

• 1:01:59Blindboy Boatclub?

  So I never lose them. The battery went on that. So I lost my keys, was locked out of my gaff. Then I sma-, then I was so pissed off with that, I dropped my favourite tea mug and smashed it. And then I got a puncture on my bicycle. Now, tho- those are quite triggering things to happen for me. They can, I could really shave myself over that, but I didn't. I was very happy. I dealt with all of that really calmly.

• 1:02:27Blindboy Boatclub?

  I managed to find my keys by being calm. Regarding the mug, I said, fuck it, the mug is broken. I then found the exact mug on eBay and had it, had it sent to me. And then I calmly repaired my own bicycle tyre. And I was very happy with myself because, like I said, those are very triggering things and they're pure autistic person in burnout things. I lose the keys, then the keys. I broke my mug because I lost my keys. So this is how burnout works. You lose the keys, really important, right? Then you begin to panic because you're panicking, then you drop your mug. Then the panic of that means I cycle into glass. A cycle of clumsiness.

• 1:03:15Blindboy Boatclub?

  That just spirals and spirals and spirals until you stop functioning.

• 1:03:24Blindboy Boatclub?

  And I mindfully, I dealt with every part of it and I addressed each issue and I was solution focused and got it sorted and I felt fucking great. I felt wonderful. I didn't panic over the keys. I found them because I was calm. Ordered a new mug, repaired my own bike, felt great. Then I went to the supermarket. And as I got into the supermarket, right, it was Dun's. I'm like, why can't I get in the door? What's happening here? And there was a kerfuffle. And I was going, this is strange. It's like, it's like a Wednesday. Why is there a queue? And then as I got into Dun's, I realised, oh, lots of people were

• 1:04:06Blindboy Boatclub?

  gathering around a person and the door was being blocked. And as I got closer, I recognised the person. It was a Limerick. It was, it was a Limerick micro TikTok influencer. This person has about maybe fifteen thousand followers, right? So that that's micro influencer. Someone who that's, we'll say not enough followers to get an ad sponsorship yet. And I know this person to see because they come up in my TikTok algorithm every so often. And she's, she's an influencer. She's an influencer. She's very good at posting content, at speaking.

• 1:04:48Blindboy Boatclub?

  People like to look at this person and engage with their content and they're popular enough in Limerick to have fifteen thousand followers. Now, I'm not shitting on influencers or anything like that. I have respect for anybody, anybody who goes online and does, as long as you're not being mean to people or hurting people. Gives a fuck anyone who goes online and goes on TikTok and puts themselves out there with anything and has the confidence to do it and they're not being mean or hurting anyone. Anyone who does that has got my respect. I'd much prefer to see a person expressing themselves and putting themselves out there than not doing

• 1:05:30Blindboy Boatclub?

  it because they were scared to try. And that includes influencers, but the point I'm making I couldn't get into Dun's. I couldn't get into fucking Dun's because there was a crowd around somebody, around a limerick micro influencer. And as I got closer to her, I could see, she, she had big shades on, and she had the, the cap, the peaked cap that celebrities have to wear. And I'm like, oh my fucking god, this person can't go to Dun's. There's, there's like seven women talking to her. And trying to get photographs with her, and she's just trying to shop in Dun's. And this is a limerick micro influencer

• 1:06:10Blindboy Boatclub?

  with 15,000 followers. And I'm just saying, having spent the fucking morning with my punctured bicycle, and my, my lost keys, and my smashed, fucking, and coupled with that, dressed, dressed, dressed like a Catholic going up to Croagh Patrick because they can't stop wanking about wardrobes, dressed in full head to toe Gore-Tex, looking like an elbow. Was I fucking glad, was I fucking glad that I've got a plastic bag on my head and no one knew who the fuck I was? I thought, if someone with 15,000 followers can't go to Dun's and do their shopping and has to wear shades and a hat, and I have 250,000 fucking followers

• 1:06:53Blindboy Boatclub?

  on Instagram, if they can't do it, what the fuck would that be like for me? And throwing autism in on top of it. It was hard enough just getting myself, that's the thing. I had a morning of burnout. And it was hard enough just getting myself to Dun's to buy my dinner. Thank fuck on top of that, I don't have to take into consideration, if I go to Dun's today, will 20 people try and crowd around me and talk to me and ask for photographs? And it's, like, it's a strange thing. I can't, it's hard for me to, to judge. Whether or not that would happen, if people knew who I was, I can't tell you see, because I've never fucking dealt with it. But Christ, I just thought to myself, I hope

• 1:07:38Blindboy Boatclub?

  that person is built for that. And I think, I think they are, because I think the type of, the type of personality who would like to be an influencer, the type of personality who's totally comfortable with, here's a video of me buying a coffee today. The person who's comfortable with that is probably also comfortable with being stopped and done. But what I'm getting at is I wanted questions this week, and I asked everybody on Instagram for questions. And I got, I got about, I get about forty-three messages a minute on Instagram. That's how many messages I get a minute. And I try and read as many as possible. And

• 1:08:22Blindboy Boatclub?

  to anyone who's sent me a message on Instagram, apologies if I've never responded. I do try and read all of them if I can, but having the time to, if I left my notifications on my fucking phone, my phone gets hot, like literally hot, and Instagram just shuts off because of the amount of messages I get every, every minute. But thank you to everyone who was sending me messages and asking me questions. I appreciate every bit of it. So also, I don't have time left to answer more questions this week, even though I think I just answered two. And there were thousands of questions sent in. But I'm gonna be back

• 1:09:03Blindboy Boatclub?

  next week, because a hot take will reveal itself to me. And in the meantime, rub a dog, marvel at a sycamore tree, wink, wink at a trout, wank about a wardrobe of croak Patrick. Dog bless.

• 1:09:44Speaker 04

  Hi, this is Dr. Shoshana from TED Health, and today's episode is sponsored by Kashi. Say hi to new Kashi Gut Health Granola, a straightforward delicious way to fuel your gut, made with prebiotics, fiber, and cultures. My favorite flavor, blueberry almond, has perfectly crispy clusters, delicious almonds, and bursts of whole blueberries. It's an easy fit for a daily routine, whether that's for breakfast or a snack. In a world of overwhelm, it's a straightforward delicious choice. Try new Kashi Gut Health Granola.

• 1:10:17Speaker 05

  At Lowe's, this Veterans Day and every day, military members, veterans, and their spouses get automatic MyLowe's Rewards Silver Status benefits. Plus, 10% off eligible purchases with no annual limit. It's one way we honor and give back to those who have served and still do. Learn more and verify now at Lowe's.com/military. 10% discount can't be combined with another offer. Exclusions, terms, and conditions apply. Loyalty programs subject to terms and conditions. Details at Lowe's.com/terms. Subject to change.

• 1:13:54Speaker 05

  The.

• 1:16:04Speaker 05

  The.

• 1:18:14Speaker 05

  The.

• 1:20:24Speaker 05

  The.

• 1:22:34Speaker 05

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