A rivetting chat about art and writing with Patrick Freyne

I chat with the hilarious and kind Patrick Freyne, who is an author,musician and journalist Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:58Speaker 01

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• 1:28Blindboy Boatclub?

  Unhinge your chins, you whispering Vincent's. Welcome to the Blind Eye Podcast. If this is your first episode, consider going back to an earlier episode to familiarize yourself with the lore of this podcast. I'm sure you can tell there's something up at my voice. I'm in the throes of seasonal cold or flu, whatever, whatever the fuck it is. The whole shebang. Sore throat, chills, pains in my bones. So, I need to be horizontal. I need to be horizontal today. I don't have a full podcast in me. It'll be grand in a couple of days. But I do have an absolutely magnificent chat for you with a journalist and writer by the name of Patrick Frain. This one is from the vaults.

• 2:13Blindboy Boatclub?

  I recorded this.

• 2:16Blindboy Boatclub?

  I think 2023 at the Dorky Book Festival, maybe earlier, maybe even 2022. Today, I was like, I'm really sick. I'm not going to be able to do a monologue podcast. So I went listening through just live podcasts I'd done over the years. And this one from 2022 jumped out. I was like, fuck it. This was great crack. This was wonderful crack. Why did I not put this out yet? I think the reason is, so I'd recorded this, I'd say two months after the, after lockdown ended. And I think this was my first, like, normal gig, like, no restrictions.

• 2:55Blindboy Boatclub?

  Although, no, it wasn't. It was outdoors. So I think this was still recorded under the parameters of COVID lockdown. So I'd, I'd kind of forgotten how to interact with human beings. I'd forgotten how to chat with people. So one thing I want to apologize for with this chat that you're about to hear, I'm quite interrupty. I interrupt quite a bit. Something I need to say around that is, so I'm, I'm neurodivergent. And people who are autistic and ADHD, we have serious trouble when it comes to not interrupting people when we're having conversation, because it's, it's perceived as incredibly rude. It's a rude thing to do.

• 3:38Blindboy Boatclub?

  And it's perceived as arrogant. It's like, what I have to say is more important than what you have to say. It lacks courtesy. Interrupting people during a chat and speaking over people is a real social faux pas. When you're neurodivergent, it's incredibly difficult to not do it. Neurodivergent people,

• 4:01Blindboy Boatclub?

  neurodivergent people interrupt other people in conversations when, when we don't, we just miss those little social cues. We miss the little, the social cues. We are supposed to stop and let the other person speak. So it's not arrogance or rudeness. The reason I'm doing a disclaimer is if ever I put out a chat and I interrupt people, I do get very negative comments. People get really triggered by interrupting. And I just want to ask you to give me a break when it comes to this. I'm not being rude. I'm not trying to speak over my guest. I'd just done three years of fucking lockdown and I'd

• 4:43Blindboy Boatclub?

  forgotten how to talk to people. So it was, I was going off on rants and everything. And now, now, now I'm back. Now I'm masked again. Now I don't interrupt as much. I actively listen when I speak to people. Masking, I mask when I speak to people. I, I don't enjoy conversation because instead of enjoying the conversation, I'm thinking about not interrupting or their eye contact or facial expressions and shit like that. So I do that in social interactions because it's the polite, proper thing to do.

• 5:22Blindboy Boatclub?

  But that then makes, it makes conversation kind of stressful, stressful and not enjoyable. Whereas what I'd like to do is make no eye contact, be looking all up and down the room, and then ranting about what's whatever the fuck is important to me. This is just a disclaimer. Please, nobody, nobody write on Instagram, um, you interrupted a lot blind boy. Trust me. I fucking know. I know when I do this because I have to listen to the conversations afterwards and then feel like a prick. I even had someone write before on Instagram, I know that you're autistic and autistic people have difficulty interrupting people, but you sure do interrupt a lot. I know, I know so much that I go out of my way to avoid people. So please bear that in mind.

• 6:07Blindboy Boatclub?

  But other than that. So I think that's the reason this, this, this conversation I had, it was the Dorky Book Festival 2022. And I listened back to it today and I'm like, this is fucking great. I had a wonderful chat with Patrick Frame. We just spoke about art for 90 minutes. Patrick is an incredibly interesting person. He's a writer for the Irish Times. His articles frequently go viral just because they're so funny. He wrote a brilliant memoir called Okay, Let's Do Your Stupid Idea. And this coming June, he's releasing his first novel called Experts in a Dying Field. On top of Patrick being incredibly talented, he's

• 6:51Blindboy Boatclub?

  just a very warm, kind, compassionate person who I loved speaking with. And I just have to play this chat because it's too much crack. It's too much crack for me to not put out because I'm self-flagellating over being interrupting. You don't need to listen to my fucking voice when it's like this. Look, here's the interview with Patrick Frame at the Dorky Book Festival from about three or four years ago.

• 7:17Blindboy Boatclub?

  So that was, yeah, that was from my first book of short stories. I'm currently writing, I'm writing my third book of short stories at the moment. I was writing, I'm writing a story about a woman who gets addicted to eating photographs. I don't know where it's gonna go, but it'll figure itself out in the end. I have a fantastic guest tonight. He is a journalist, a critic, a writer, and an all-around sound man and funny cunt. Patrick Frame.

• 8:00Blindboy Boatclub?

  I think someone's choking him.

• 8:05Blindboy Boatclub?

  Alright, alright, you had to wear one of those fucking...

• 8:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 8:08Blindboy Boatclub?

  So you've got one of those mics that...

• 8:09Speaker 04

  They're really weird, because they get stuck in my hair. And I'm not really, like, I have long hair, but I'm not really good at having long hair. So my hair kind of gets stuck in anything.

• 8:18Blindboy Boatclub?

  And I've never interviewed someone who's wearing one, and now I'm starting to worry if I'm hearing your voice in my head, which isn't great. I'll be asked.

• 8:28Blindboy Boatclub?

  I had a small bit of happy grass beforehand.

• 8:30Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 8:32Speaker 04

  So, yeah.

• 8:33Blindboy Boatclub?

  I couldn't wear one because I have a plastic bag on my head.

• 8:36Speaker 04

  Have you tried wearing one with the plastic bag?

• 8:37Blindboy Boatclub?

  Oh, yeah. Man, I... The experiences I've had with microphones over the years, the worst experiences are on the Late Late Show. Are you shushing me at my own gig?

• 8:50Speaker 04

  It's probably just a can opening.

• 8:52Blindboy Boatclub?

  We want to hear Patrick's beard against the microphone. This is an ASMR audience.

• 8:59Speaker 04

  I love ASMR.

• 9:00Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah, I have multiple terrible problems with microphones because of this plastic bag. And when I go onto the Late Late Show, they usually give you a microphone that goes onto your chest.

• 9:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:11Blindboy Boatclub?

  And it's RTE, so they're fucking idiots. So I say to them, "Don't put a microphone on my chest, I have a plastic bag on my head." That's not in their manual, sort of like, "We have to put it..." And so, like, "Okay, grand." And any interview with me on the Late Late, listen to it. I go out, all you hear is crinkle, crinkle, crinkle, like you're eating potatoes. And then immediately they cut off that microphone and they have to resort to this emergency shotgun microphone that looks like a teenager's penis that's on top of his table. And it's, that's what happens. And then I can't wear those. I can't wear those.

• 9:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, I find them really strange, and they hurt my ears, but, uh...

• 9:54Blindboy Boatclub?

  They didn't have a second one of these, I'm being greedy.

• 9:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, but that story was great. I was kind of listening to that going...

• 10:04Speaker 04

  I was listening to that going, "I'd love if that was the news." Like, if you had turned on the radio and that came on, "Here's the news", and then you're talking about being a horse goat guitar player.

• 10:16Blindboy Boatclub?

  I bet you someone thought of it like, I mean, what I end up getting ideas like that is, people always say to me, why the fuck are your stories so fucked up? And for me, I'm making my anxiety my friend.

• 10:31Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 10:32Blindboy Boatclub?

  So, the thing with me is, I have, I I'm mentally ill. I'm mentally ill. So I have tremendous problems with my mental health. I'm doing all right now.

• 10:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:44Blindboy Boatclub?

  But when I was like eighteen, nineteen, I couldn't go to gigs because I would get ferocious anxiety. And when you have anxiety, and I'm also autistic, which I only found out a month ago, anxiety, autism, and also being creative, not a great combination. So I'd be there at a gig trying to enjoy it, and then I'm looking up at the person on stage going, what if I went up and killed him?

• 11:13Blindboy Boatclub?

  Do you know what I mean? And anyone who has bad anxiety, you'll know, yeah, I can relate to that. So I used to, because when you get a, an anxiety attack, one of the themes for me was, what if I do something in public that would make everyone look at me? You know, and I'm doing all right now up on stage with a bag on my head. But when I was younger, it was like, what if I do something crazy? It was either what if I vomit in public or do something that'll create a spectacle? So I would be at a gig thinking, what if I went up and, and skinned, it was a Flaming Lips gig. What if I went up on stage and skinned Wayne Coyne? And then I'd get a panic attack. But

• 11:54Blindboy Boatclub?

  writing for me is therapeutic because when you're presented with that type of irrational anxiety and it can take over your threat analysis in your brain, a fun thing for me to do is to laugh at it, because that's kind of hilarious as well.

• 12:11Speaker 04

  I think that's why I try to write funny stuff. So I had a similar thing.

• 12:15Blindboy Boatclub?

  Because you're fucked in the head as well. You've, you've.

• 12:18Speaker 04

  Thank you. I take that as a compliment.

• 12:20Blindboy Boatclub?

  But you have mental health issues.

• 12:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, I do. I have an essay in my book called Brain Fever. And there's a bit about just that sort of thing. I had a thing in my twenties where I'd, um. I'd kind of imagine doing something terrible and then I'd go, that would ruin my whole life.

• 12:36Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 12:37Speaker 04

  And I'm going to, and then I would spiral and I could think about it for weeks and weeks and weeks.

• 12:40Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yes.

• 12:41Speaker 04

  And I had this thing where.

• 12:42Blindboy Boatclub?

  A touch of OCD as well, didn't you?

• 12:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, so I had this thing where um in, this happened in my late twenties. I kind of became obsessed with the idea, you know, in action movies where Steven Seagal or somebody just reaches over to a guard and goes.

• 12:57Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yes.

• 12:58Speaker 04

  And breaks his neck.

• 12:59Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yes.

• 12:59Speaker 04

  I sort of, like, it's funny now, but uh at the time I was going, what if I did that to my girlfriend?

• 13:05Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 13:06Speaker 04

  And then I.

• 13:07Blindboy Boatclub?

  That's him cancelled, that, that's Patrick cancelled now. Someone's recorded that now and they've taken it out of context.

• 13:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:15Blindboy Boatclub?

  And you're cancelled.

• 13:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:18Blindboy Boatclub?

  So, and I don't interview people who are cancelled, so.

• 13:22Speaker 04

  It was a very short interview, thanks uh for the opportunity. Um but I went on and I I started thinking about everyone I loved and I'd go um, what if I did it, I'd be with my mother and she'd be driving me somewhere and I'd go. What if I reached over and broke her neck like Steven Seagal? That would be awful, we'd probably crash and I might survive and I'd have to go to jail.

• 13:40Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 13:41Speaker 04

  And then I'd think about my sister and my brother and I ended up going to a councillor. And I was explaining this to them and the councillor said, um so. You've mentioned your mom, your girlfriend, your sister, your brother, your best friends, but you've never mentioned your dad. And I went, oh yeah, you see, my dad's a commando, so I wouldn't be able to do it to him.

• 14:04Blindboy Boatclub?

  But he trained in this.

• 14:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, and and the councillor went, you couldn't do it to anybody, that's impossible, that's like a TV trick. So. Uh it didn't quite end it, but that was the start to me going, oh right, the mad shit I imagine mightn't be real.

• 14:22Blindboy Boatclub?

  But you know what? These are the mental health conversations we need to have, cause I'm sick of going on to the late late and just saying, I'm sad.

• 14:31Blindboy Boatclub?

  You know what, what you're speaking about there is very real.

• 14:34Speaker 04

  It is, and it is funny.

• 14:35Blindboy Boatclub?

  But it's also hilarious.

• 14:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:37Blindboy Boatclub?

  So you can bring that into your creativity and then that irrationality then be, I call it making it my friend.

• 14:43Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 14:44Blindboy Boatclub?

  So the terrifying thing which can give me an anxiety attack, I can turn my creativity, because essentially it is creativity. It's the part of your brain that thinks laterally, except it's deciding to attack you.

• 14:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:56Blindboy Boatclub?

  Instead of it attacking you, you go, fuck it, I'm gonna, it's not real, I'm gonna put it on a page and turn it into entertainment. And then there's a healing around this. Like, I'm not worried about skinning people at gigs anymore.

• 15:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:08Blindboy Boatclub?

  Because it's now in a book.

• 15:10Speaker 04

  I found a lot of the stuff in my book writing about it. Like, some people that write, and my book is called Okay, Let's Do Your Stupid Idea. And it's a series of memoir essays, uh, some of which are funny and some of which.

• 15:21Blindboy Boatclub?

  My job is to say that, not.

• 15:22Speaker 04

  Okay, yeah.

• 15:23Blindboy Boatclub?

  No, no, no, no, that's me being a shit interviewer. That's me being self-critical. I'm supposed to come out and say, Patrick, you wrote a book called Let's Do Your Stupid Idea. Tell us about that. Rather than, I, I forgot to say it and now, now you have to say it yourself.

• 15:37Speaker 04

  I'm just glad you didn't skin me when I came onto the stage, so don't worry about it. Um, but I did find that writing about some of the more difficult things, what, like it's, I spoke to other people who've written memoirs and they go, ah, no, it's not catharsis, it's like my creative art. But for me, there was definitely a bit of psychotherapy involved in it. Cause the part of it is psychotherapy is re- retraining your brain to think of the.

• 16:00Blindboy Boatclub?

  Neuroplasticity.

• 16:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:02Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah. And also journaling. When you experience mental health difficulties, one of the problems is, is that these irrational thoughts are foisted entirely in your own brain. And they get in the way of nice thoughts like making your dinner. So I'm worried about skinning someone when I should be worrying about a stew. But once you put that, do you know what it's like? Do you know when your friend is having mental health difficulties and your friend tells you, this is what I'm worrying about recently? And then you go, that's fucking ridiculous. But in your own head, it's not ridiculous. But when you put it on a page, you go, actually, that is a bit ridiculous. When you first came out and I couldn't see your microphone and I heard your voice in my head. Like.

• 16:49Blindboy Boatclub?

  Fifteen years ago, I'd have to get offstage.

• 16:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:53Blindboy Boatclub?

  But instead, I just say, I named it, I took ownership of it, and now I know. No, I can see the microphone there underneath your beard. Like, you're not magically inside in my own mind.

• 17:03Speaker 04

  Although it would be a really good way to interview people, is if I just stayed over there and you heard it in your head, and you put it to the audience.

• 17:11Blindboy Boatclub?

  Here's my guest, distant, distant Patrick.

• 17:14Speaker 04

  You could have a little echo on the voice. Can we put echo on my voice?

• 17:18Blindboy Boatclub?

  Or just like a, a megaphone on my head that proj- I think some, I think someone took you literally there.

• 17:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, I know, I want to hear.

• 17:24Blindboy Boatclub?

  We don't actually need echo on Patrick's voice.

• 17:26Speaker 04

  Well, I could go over and see what it's like.

• 17:27Blindboy Boatclub?

  See, that's the thing, they, they ironically told him to bring cans, and now, we, we're ironically saying he needs an echo on his voice. We don't actually require an echo.

• 17:35Speaker 04

  Is it ironic?

• 17:36Blindboy Boatclub?

  We're sick of this darky shit.

• 17:41Speaker 04

  Yeah. I could go over and just see what it's like.

• 17:45Blindboy Boatclub?

  How do you mean?

• 17:45Speaker 04

  I ca- he could put-

• 17:46Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah, fuck it, actually, don't do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 17:48Speaker 04

  Can you put echo on my voice?

• 17:50Blindboy Boatclub?

  Go behind there, so that, there's, there's a burlap sack there. The audience cannot see beyond the burlap.

• 17:55Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 17:56Blindboy Boatclub?

  All right, Patrick.

• 17:58Speaker 04

  Hello?

• 17:59Blindboy Boatclub?

  Is Gerry Adams in the, you're, hold on a second, Patrick, you work for the I- you work for the Irish Times?

• 18:06Blindboy Boatclub?

  Patrick works for the Irish Times. A- as an Irish Times journalist, is Gerry Adams in the IRA?

• 18:13Speaker 04

  We can't quite know.

• 18:18Speaker 04

  I think it was good.

• 18:26Blindboy Boatclub?

  He is. He is in the IRA, and you heard that from Patrick.

• 18:31Speaker 04

  Irish Times. A lot of people under my TV column, my favourite comment, we don't have comments anymore, but my favourite comment was when I'd write something ridiculous in a TV column, and about three people would go, "Why is this news?" Which is, which I always thought would be a great name for a column, "Why is this news?"

• 18:51Blindboy Boatclub?

  Why isn't news, though?

• 18:56Speaker 04

  The Irish Times is a, but it's very-

• 18:57Blindboy Boatclub?

  Does news really mean north, east, west, south?

• 19:05Blindboy Boatclub?

  I should have can like this after, like this after the question, real deep question. Does, does no, does it though?

• 19:15Speaker 04

  No.

• 19:20Blindboy Boatclub?

  That's like golf means gentleman only, ladies forbidden.

• 19:26Blindboy Boatclub?

  That's real schoolyard shit. That's like fucking Prince removed his rib to suck his own dick.

• 19:33Blindboy Boatclub?

  So the PG version of that was, did you know that news means north, east, west, south and golf means that?

• 19:40Speaker 04

  I'm so confused.

• 19:42Blindboy Boatclub?

  It's called a backronym.

• 19:45Speaker 04

  I've been doing regular talk events, like where you kind of sit in and you're going, okay, we're gonna talk now about the future of the American culture war and for people, discuss it.

• 19:56Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 19:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, but this feels like, it feels like an upgrade.

• 20:03Blindboy Boatclub?

  But, did you know? If you mention, throughout any talk at the Darky Book Festival, if you mention five books, David McWilliams gives you a back massage.

• 20:17Speaker 04

  I didn't know that, is he here?

• 20:20Blindboy Boatclub?

  But actually, one thing I did wanna mention, cause, do you know what? I'm gonna give you a wonderful compliment. And, so I enjoyed your book.

• 20:29Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 20:30Blindboy Boatclub?

  And what I really like, your book is a memoir, but to me, you write it like fiction. It's the right of a fiction writer. It's the right of a fiction writer. Yeah, that's that literary stuff.

• 20:42Speaker 04

  You once said that to me.

• 20:43Blindboy Boatclub?

  It's the right of a fiction writer. But, your prose reminds me of Ernest Hemingway, in that, you have, the way that you do short sentences is beautiful. And Hemingway jumped out of the page when I was reading it, and one thing, the reason Hemingway's sentences are short is Hemingway first trained as a journalist, and he brought the prose of journalism to his literary prose. And do you see a parallel between those two things?

• 21:16Speaker 04

  So we've got Hemingway, we've got this.

• 21:19Blindboy Boatclub?

  It's someone who's, um.

• 21:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:22Blindboy Boatclub?

  You, when you write your memoir, you're writing prose, you're thinking about the sentence and you're thinking about the beauty of that sentence. But there's a brevity to your sentences that is beautiful. It's really short and to the point and you do it in a way, uh, who else fucking does it? That, that, uh, Carmichael McCarthy, that's the second book.

• 21:44Blindboy Boatclub?

  Carmichael McCarthy does it as well. He uses beautiful, short sentences.

• 21:47Speaker 04

  Does they, when you say the five books, does David appear on the stage with a mask on?

• 21:51Blindboy Boatclub?

  No, it's private.

• 21:52Speaker 04

  Okay, yeah.

• 21:54Blindboy Boatclub?

  Private, carry on. Inside that stone building.

• 21:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, okay.

• 22:00Blindboy Boatclub?

  McWilliams is, uh, he's capable of photosynthesis. Most people don't know.

• 22:06Blindboy Boatclub?

  That's a greenhouse purely for David McWilliams.

• 22:09Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 22:10Blindboy Boatclub?

  And he, he's got, uh, photosynthetic chemicals on his skin in the back. He had it done in Croatia. So he's able to lie down and the sun comes in through the greenhouse onto his back. And it, it, the plants take the sun.

• 22:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:25Blindboy Boatclub?

  And they turn carbon dioxide into sugars.

• 22:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:28Blindboy Boatclub?

  He, the sun goes into his back and he turns it into economics.

• 22:37Speaker 04

  I don't know whether to answer the question.

• 22:41Blindboy Boatclub?

  The question was, right?

• 22:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, you remember?

• 22:43Blindboy Boatclub?

  So the question was, I find parallels between your writing and Ernest Hemingway's.

• 22:48Speaker 04

  That's amazing.

• 22:49Blindboy Boatclub?

  You both use sentences in a brevity. Hemingway does it because of his history of being a journalist. How does your training and, and work as a fucking journalist, as someone who has to be concise? How does that inform your prose?

• 23:02Speaker 04

  I never thought about that before. So when I was, I, as a journalist, I never really wrote about myself. Like I used to kind of write, I do a lot of reporting, a lot of interviews. And I do a column every Friday that's about kind of telly or pop culture where I'm being funny. And the thing with. When I started to do the book, there was like loads of kind of personal stories kind of backed up. I'd never really, I'd never had a personal column. So I think you're probably right that like, one of the things when you're doing reporting is you kind of have to get out of the way of the story.

• 23:37Blindboy Boatclub?

  Mm hmm.

• 23:38Speaker 04

  Like, um, sometimes I love writers like John Ronson, who are kind of in there in the story.

• 23:43Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 23:44Speaker 04

  Um, and I can do that. I like doing that sometimes when it's a kind of lighter subject. But if you're interviewing people about really serious shit that's happened to them, you kind of want to do it in kind of as straightforward a way as possible. Um, so I definitely think it probably comes from that, but I never really thought about it in terms of the essays before. Um, and I like, so I think the reporting stuff is really good for me as a journalist. I think it's probably a good thing for people to do, like general curiosity anyway. Um, because it teaches you to kind of get out of the way of stuff. And there's a lot of the stuff we do that is a little bit more like this, like it's like jazz hands and uh being interviewed by Linebook, which is kind of cool. Um, so yeah, it's definitely connected.

• 24:29Blindboy Boatclub?

  And when, when you're reporting, like what, what is the number one skill of a reporter? Like, I'm, I'm up here as a person using a mic, so my, my number one skill is, I don't talk from back here. I make sure that I'm here. What, what is the journalistic or the reporting equivalent of that?

• 24:52Blindboy Boatclub?

  What's the basic trick that you learn in reporting school or whatever the fuck? I failed my leaving cert, I don't know.

• 24:58Speaker 04

  Typing is the basic skill.

• 25:00Blindboy Boatclub?

  Okay.

• 25:00Speaker 04

  Genuinely, the basic skill is uh being, trying to be genuinely curious. Cause there's this weird thing that happens when you're doing a, a job where you're kind of really con- conscious of the end product. And you're really conscious of, and you kind of need to be, but when I was a younger journalist, I was thinking too much about the article. I was like, I'd be interviewing people and I, I like. As well as doing kind of funny stuff or pop cultural stuff, I like to write about serious things. I like to write about, you know, social justice stuff.

• 25:31Blindboy Boatclub?

  So are you saying, Patrick, that when you're doing your research and your reporting, you shouldn't be thinking about the end piece?

• 25:39Speaker 04

  You kind of try and put that on automatic, which you can do after a certain point. And when you're sitting there talking to somebody, this sounds really highfalutin, but it's kind of simple and it's part of life. You can't have to be present with them. So if somebody is telling you something very, like I did some interviews over the years that I thought were kind of important because of the people I was highlighting, people who've been through care or refugees or undocumented workers. And when you're talking to those people, you've got a bigger responsibility than when you're talking to famous people. Like, to be honest, if I interview a writer or an actor or a politician, I'm not that worried about them, you know, but if you're talking to somebody who's vulnerable in any way, you kind of have to worry about the ethics of

• 26:24Speaker 04

  it. You have to worry about how they're going to appear, got to explain to them what it's all about because they don't really know. Like, as soon as you interview somebody who's media savvy, they understand everything. They understand that what they say is going to end up in an article. And the thing I've learned over the years is to kind of be, like, it sounds a bit hippie, but you have to be present with the person in the moment and you have to allow them to say what they need to say. And then you have to be brave enough to ask the following question that can be difficult. And it needs to feel to me like a conversation where there's some sort of connection being made.

• 27:00Blindboy Boatclub?

  So in psychotherapy, because I trained as a therapist years ago, that's known as congruence. So a therapist, when they're with a client, has three things that they need to have. The first one is, what is it? Empathy. So empathy means that you're genuinely trying to feel the other person's emotion. The second one is unconditional positive regard, which means that whatever the person says, their words are merely an aspect of their behaviour. So a therapist must never, ever judge somebody. And that's quite important when you were, I was speaking there about, I'm thinking of snapping my ma's neck. A therapist at that moment needs to not go, fuck off.

• 27:47Blindboy Boatclub?

  Seriously, that is one of the core conditions of, a therapist cannot do that.

• 27:52Speaker 04

  So is that the main skill of therapy, like the mic skill?

• 27:55Blindboy Boatclub?

  One hundred percent, one hundred percent. When someone presents with an idea that to them is irrational, a therapist must not give the social reaction, which is to go, that's mad, really?

• 28:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:09Blindboy Boatclub?

  A therapist has to go, oh, really? Tell me more about that. And what that does to the client is it allows them to go, fuck it. This person isn't judging me. This person isn't judging me the way I'm judging myself. I now feel safe. And then they explore, why do you think that? And then the third thing that a therapist has to have is what's called congruence. And congruence is what you're speaking about there when it comes to reporting. And congruence basically is, is that what you feel inside and the words that come out of your mouth are the one.

• 28:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:42Blindboy Boatclub?

  That you're not spoofing, you're not bullshitting. If you feel sad or you feel angry that this comes out in your voice, you don't pretend, because that creates an environment for the client that's unsafe. So what I'm hearing there from reporting, congruence is an important part of that job.

• 28:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, and the mistake you can make as a new reporter, a younger reporter, I think, is that you've got a list of questions and you're treating it very much as A, B, C. What you need to do, or what I feel, actually, it's more that for me, it makes it more authentic, which makes it easier to write about, is that it becomes a conversation. And some of that's about building trust.

• 29:21Blindboy Boatclub?

  Like, you interviewed me for my, my last book.

• 29:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:26Blindboy Boatclub?

  And we spent about four hours together. And I would say three of those hours had nothing to do with what ended up on paper. It was me and you chatting as a pair of human beings.

• 29:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, we talked about folks.

• 29:38Blindboy Boatclub?

  And we, we talked about our fucking lives and we had lovely crack. And by the end of it, I was like, yeah, I'll speak to this fella, he's sound as fuck. And it was lovely for me because that was great to have that in the Irish Times, because there was a second review in the Irish Times about my book, where they said, I don't believe in gatekeeping literature, but.

• 30:03Speaker 04

  Okay, now don't tell anyone I said this, but that's very Irish times.

• 30:07Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the examiner reviewed it and had to delete the review.

• 30:13Speaker 04

  Why?

• 30:14Blindboy Boatclub?

  Because some fucking cunt, some person in the examiner reviewed my book and they didn't read the book. Because they just assumed, oh, it's that fucking idiot with the bag on his head and this is just a Christmas book. So instead of reading the book, he assumed what I would have written. So he wrote a review of the book that he thought I wrote, which was, I didn't like this book. There wasn't enough female characters, one star.

• 30:45Blindboy Boatclub?

  Which I then went, actually, lads, it's mostly female characters. And I specifically got a female editor to avoid any internalized misogyny that I have, you pricks. And then they deleted it and it's gone and they pretended it didn't happen.

• 30:57Speaker 04

  That's a really interesting thing. So you got a female editor. So there's a kind of debate in books about sensitivity.

• 31:04Blindboy Boatclub?

  Which I a hundred percent agree with.

• 31:05Speaker 04

  They're a good thing.

• 31:06Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 31:07Speaker 04

  Like, it's really important. If you're writing something about which you have no experience.

• 31:10Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yes.

• 31:11Speaker 04

  It's important that you show it to somebody who has some experience of it.

• 31:14Blindboy Boatclub?

  Absolutely.

• 31:15Speaker 04

  So they can point, not because it's censorious or they're going to go, oh, you can't do that. It's more, you show it to them and go, is that realistic? And they'll go, no, that just never happens.

• 31:24Blindboy Boatclub?

  And I call that good writing.

• 31:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, me too.

• 31:26Blindboy Boatclub?

  Do you know what I mean? Seriously, if you're.

• 31:28Speaker 04

  Even Charles Dickens did it.

• 31:30Blindboy Boatclub?

  Did he?

• 31:30Speaker 04

  Charles Dickens used to show things to people who were different. I mean, he wrote about, I'm trying to remember the details, but he definitely.

• 31:37Blindboy Boatclub?

  So he went to Fagin.

• 31:42Blindboy Boatclub?

  He went to a Victorian prick.

• 31:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 31:46Blindboy Boatclub?

  I need to know now what did Dickens do, because all I'm thinking of, Oliver Twist.

• 31:50Speaker 04

  I'm just realising now, I'm being a bit of a modern jackass because I can't remember the details. But I know that it wasn't invented in the last two years. It's something good writers did.

• 32:00Blindboy Boatclub?

  That's good writing. And if, if a writer is to write about something that is deeply outside of their experience.

• 32:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:08Blindboy Boatclub?

  You want to portray that with care, sensitivity and realism. Like, I was speaking to, I was gigging in London there on Wednesday and I spoke to the podcaster Scrubius Pip. And Scrubius Pip is someone who has a stammer. And stammering is a huge part of his life and he's consistently reading scripts. And the script is written by a person who doesn't have a stammer. And Tipton, just, he turns up as an actor and goes, lads, this is not how a stammer works. So that's an example right there of higher people who actually have a stammer. Like for me, autism for me, when I read any fiction about autism that's written by a person who isn't autistic, I'm like, go fuck yourself, you silly boy.

• 32:52Blindboy Boatclub?

  This is not what it's like at all.

• 32:54Speaker 04

  Did getting the diagnosis make a big difference to your self-understanding?

• 32:58Blindboy Boatclub?

  So it's only two months ago, so it's like finding out I've had a big kick me sticker on my back for my entire life. Like, that's kind of what it's like. I mean, the thing is, all that's happened is I've found a new word to describe how I've been my entire life. So the weird thing is that I receive a diagnosis and it's kind of like, all right, I have a disease now. It's like, no, it's not a disease, it's not going to get worse. This is just how you are and here's some new words to describe it. For me, the one thing I'm struggling with is I failed my leaving cert. I did terribly in school. I was hugely misbehaved. My time in school was fucking rotten.

• 33:41Blindboy Boatclub?

  And I'm in my thirties now and I've squared that with myself. Up until this point, I'd said to myself, you fucked up school because you were unruly and you were a bald boy. Now, no, I was actually victimized by the system. And that's a different thing because now I have to go, shit.

• 34:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:01Blindboy Boatclub?

  I could have been a doctor, I could have been a scientist, I could have pursued things that I actually care about. These things, I did not have access to any of these things, so I had to become an artist.

• 34:11Speaker 04

  I interviewed some.

• 34:15Blindboy Boatclub?

  I didn't have to pass maths to get into art college.

• 34:19Speaker 04

  Well, that's.

• 34:19Blindboy Boatclub?

  But it's sad, it's genuinely sad. I love science. There's so many things I'm interested in and these, like you studied literature in Trinity.

• 34:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:27Blindboy Boatclub?

  I would have loved to do that. Not a fucking hope, man. I got two hundred points on my leaving cert. And I was demonised and I wasn't even allowed, I wasn't even allowed to repeat my leaving cert because I was so poorly behaved. I was expelled. I was fucked. So now I'm angry about that. I can't take ownership of that because it's because I was autistic and I was called bold, wrong, misbehaving, all of this shit from the earliest age. And that's not how it was at all. I just had a different brain. And I was, the system didn't accommodate it.

• 35:01Speaker 04

  And how did the, how, when you look back now.

• 35:10Speaker 04

  What were the things that they should have been doing in school to help?

• 35:14Blindboy Boatclub?

  Um, so the thing with being autistic is for me, so I'm what's called autistic spectrum disorder level one, which is I need, I required the least amount of support. So I present as someone who doesn't really appear autistic. But the thing with my autism is I will focus on an interest intensely, to the point that I'll forget to eat and oh, I fucking love it. To me, this is a superpower. This is why my podcast exists. I, I'll talk for one hour about pineapples. I'll go into the history of pine, I'll, I'll freak myself out about,

• 35:52Blindboy Boatclub?

  and that's my autism. I love it to bits. But when I'm in school and I'm being forced to learn about maths and this, I would be shit in school and then I'd go home and my focus that month would have been hip hop music. My focus would have been art. All of these things that I was deeply interested in, I was told that's disruptive. And instead what they should have done was, okay, if this is where your brain is going this week, let's figure out a way to incorporate that into what you're doing. Because what I did find in school, any teachers that were good with storytelling, they were the ones that got to me. And one of the things that used to break my fucking heart about school.

• 36:34Blindboy Boatclub?

  Do you remember punishment essays? Do you remember when you were really bored in school? What would happen is the teacher would say, "Oh, your job now is you have to come in tomorrow and you have to write about the inside of a tennis ball." I fucking want to write about the inside of a tennis ball.

• 36:54Blindboy Boatclub?

  So I used to get in trouble, so I'd have to write about the inside of a tennis ball.

• 36:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 36:59Blindboy Boatclub?

  And what used to, they then would get my short story about the inside of a tennis ball and they'd go, "I thought this fellow was thick. What's going on here?" You know, so all of that stuff is quite hurtful for me now, looking back, whereas it wasn't hurtful before. I was able to go, "You were bold. That's grand. You're an adult now. Now it's different. I'm a victim."

• 37:19Speaker 04

  So it, um, is, would autism be classed as a disability or is it?

• 37:24Blindboy Boatclub?

  So it is classed as a disability, but a lot of people who are autistic would disagree with that. I certainly don't experience it as a, as a disability at all. It's a disability depending on the environment that I'm in. So I once worked in a call centre and I was fired after one week for printing out ninety-two pages about CIA crack cocaine smuggling.

• 37:47Blindboy Boatclub?

  So if you put me into an office, then because of the environment, it's a disability. But if you give me a podcast or get me to write short stories or wear the bag on my head, then it is not a disability. So it's like, I, what I compare it to is, um, you know that swimmer, Michael Phelps? So Michael Phelps won a shit ton of gold medals. He's a great swimmer, but also his body, he's got unnaturally long arms. He happens to have very large lungs. These are things that made him a great swimmer. So for me and my autism, this is what makes me really good at what I do.

• 38:21Speaker 04

  So if you come across, so I interviewed some young disabled, disabled men, um, because of the lack of, um, they were looking for personal assistance. And there's a huge problem in Ireland with people who need personal assistance to get around their lives. They're just not, there's not enough of them. They don't get funded for it. And I was introduced to the idea that there's kind of different ways of looking at it. So there's the medical model of disability, which is, "Oh, it's all you." And then there's the sociological, political model of disability, which is why people who have. People who are disabled now prefer disabled to I have a disability. Because they see it as I am disabled by society.

• 39:02Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 39:02Speaker 04

  That's the kind of political way of looking at it, which is kind of what you, I'm not.

• 39:07Blindboy Boatclub?

  No, a hundred percent. It's, it's, uh, I am disabled if the environment does not suit my needs. So, and the other thing too is the severe social anxiety that I experienced, the depression that I experienced. My artistic brain didn't make me anxious or depressed. The pressure of society and trying to fit in and be normal, that's what caused that shit. So it's not me. It's, it is difficult for me to survive in a world that is designed for neurotypical people. But here's the other thing. Autism is, is referred to as neurodivergent. And it is estimated that forty percent of people are neurodivergent. So forty percent is fucking a lot of people.

• 39:49Blindboy Boatclub?

  So therefore that is not abnormal. And within neurodivergence, you have autism, ADHD, dyspraxia, dyslexia, Tourette's syndrome. All of this stuff. So instead of looking at it as a disorder, you go, no, there's people with different brains. And the person who assessed me, the way that they assess autism is they have to use a manual called the DSM.

• 40:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:11Blindboy Boatclub?

  Which is the American Psychiatric Association, and that's the only way to diagnose it. But up until nineteen seventy three, being gay was in that manual as a, as an actual mental illness, which is absurd. And the person who diagnosed me reckons in ten, fifteen years' time, autism is not going to be in that manual. It's just going to be, here's some people with different, there's no such thing as a different brain. There's multiple types of brains, but the majority of neurotypical brains have defined the rules of what society is. And everyone else has to try and fit in.

• 40:44Speaker 04

  And there's some things that should be in the DSM, like being a billionaire, that should be in the DSM. Like, that's a deeply fucking weird thing to be. Like, you're hoarding.

• 40:53Blindboy Boatclub?

  One hundred percent.

• 40:54Speaker 04

  You're hoarding stuff. Like, if you were hoarding, I've said this before, but if you were hoarding, like, pizza boxes or fucking cans or action figures, people would diagnose you as a hoarder. But billionaires are hoarding.

• 41:06Blindboy Boatclub?

  Not even billionaires. They're something that is perfectly normal in society, and that's a big problem. People getting themselves into personal debt because they need to have a Mercedes, because this Mercedes communicates something about them to other people. That's not healthy and it's harmful. But within capitalism, that's seen as, oh, that's grand, absolutely. Of course you have a Mercedes to tell everyone how great you are. Fuck that.

• 41:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's bad.

• 41:32Blindboy Boatclub?

  Here's an example I always use regarding neurodivergence. Let's take dyslexia as an example. So dyslexia has neurodivergence. A dyslexic person is someone who has difficulty with the written word. Okay. Three hundred years ago, most of society couldn't read. Okay. Do you know the way pubs are called things like the dog and duck or the horse and hound? You know that? The reason pubs are called these names is because many, many years ago, when people couldn't read, the pub literally just had a painting of a dog and a duck. And within an oral culture where people can't read, you'd say, yeah, at the pub, the one with the painting of the dog and duck. And that's why pubs are called the dog and duck today.

• 42:16Blindboy Boatclub?

  But within that society where it was normal to not be able to read, dyslexic people existed and no one knew. They just lived happy, normal lives. And then around the Industrial Revolution, we equated the capacity to read with intelligence. Now, all of a sudden, dyslexic kids are called stupid.

• 42:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:38Blindboy Boatclub?

  Because, you know what I mean? So that society has created that issue. I'm not saying we should all become illiterate, but I'm just saying that's an example. Society was more accommodating to dyslexic people three hundred years ago when writing wasn't equated with.

• 42:51Speaker 04

  Like the larger thing, like the sociological thing is, like, I get really kind of annoyed by general conformity.

• 43:00Blindboy Boatclub?

  Sorry, I had to check friend.

• 43:02Speaker 04

  Is there, what's that?

• 43:04Blindboy Boatclub?

  No, that's a fucking countdown timer, man.

• 43:06Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 43:06Blindboy Boatclub?

  It's like Gerry Adams has come in and planted a bond and it's, because you said earlier on in your capacity as an Irish journalist that he's in the IRA.

• 43:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 43:19Speaker 04

  Like, a lot of the problem is conformity, right? So, there's a society that kind of prizes everyone doing the same thing. So, like, another chapter in my, not to bring everything back to my book, but in-

• 43:30Blindboy Boatclub?

  No, do, you're here at the Dockey Book Festival.

• 43:33Speaker 04

  So, um, I have an essay about not having kids.

• 43:36Blindboy Boatclub?

  Patrick's book is called Normal People, you haven't.

• 43:41Speaker 04

  You should, you should have just called me Sally Rooney and I'd have come out and I'd have been Sally Rooney.

• 43:46Blindboy Boatclub?

  I saw Sally Rooney backstage earlier on, I didn't introduce myself because I referred to her book on a podcast as something very neurotypical. So I felt, but I didn't mean that as a, I was using it as, um, I love Sally Rooney's writing, but it is very neurotypical in that the thing with Sally's writing is that it's very much about human relationships. And me, as an autistic person, I don't give a fuck about that.

• 44:16Blindboy Boatclub?

  So, I prefer, but to take, but you know what, what I consider to be neurodivergent writing?

• 44:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:25Blindboy Boatclub?

  We both love an author called Ted Chang.

• 44:28Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 44:28Blindboy Boatclub?

  Have you heard of Ted Chang? Do you know that film Arrival? Where, like, who's in it?

• 44:35Speaker 04

  I don't know names.

• 44:36Blindboy Boatclub?

  What's your one's name? Jennifer Lawrence, is it?

• 44:42Blindboy Boatclub?

  That's a lot of American names all at once, lads, I'm sorry. But Arrival is that film where all of a sudden these aliens arrive and they're like these weird squid creatures and they have to try and translate. That came from a Ted Chang short story. Ted Chang is a science fiction writer who will write the most bizarre, hard to comprehend ideas. And then he will write it in as much detail that you fucking understand.

• 45:08Speaker 04

  And they're long, they're like 70 page stories.

• 45:10Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah, and he's spent 15 years writing it.

• 45:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, he writes like one of them a year or less. He has, he had, until recently, he had a day job. But the, interestingly about sci-fi, do you know Ian Banks?

• 45:20Blindboy Boatclub?

  Mmm.

• 45:20Speaker 04

  So I was a big fan of Ian Banks.

• 45:22Blindboy Boatclub?

  And Ian M. Banks.

• 45:23Speaker 04

  So, I asked him, because I, I got to interview him shortly before he died.

• 45:27Blindboy Boatclub?

  Ian Banks wrote The Wasp Factory, incredible book.

• 45:30Speaker 04

  And he wrote under two names, so one was-

• 45:33Blindboy Boatclub?

  Four books, man, we're getting our fucking massages.

• 45:37Speaker 04

  Could he do us both at the same time? Because we could be chatting.

• 45:40Blindboy Boatclub?

  I don't want that, I want, no, no, no, no, if I get David McWilliams, I'm getting him on his own.

• 45:46Blindboy Boatclub?

  But go on, Ian Banks.

• 45:48Speaker 04

  So, I asked him because I'm really interested, I mean, really interested in kind of genre snobbery as well.

• 45:53Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yes.

• 45:53Speaker 04

  Like, and there's snobbery around humour too.

• 45:56Blindboy Boatclub?

  This is how I look at the snobbery within literature, right?

• 46:00Blindboy Boatclub?

  It's, if someone says it's satire, what they mean is it's comedy but for smart people. If someone says magical realism, it's fantasy but for smart people. If someone says speculative fiction, it's science fiction but for smart people.

• 46:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:19Blindboy Boatclub?

  Fuck that.

• 46:19Speaker 04

  And they're not that smart.

• 46:21Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 46:21Speaker 04

  Like, so Ian and Banks, I got, he died a few years ago and I got to interview him before he died. He didn't know he was ill, which is very sad. But, um, he was, so the other thing is some of the best people I've ever interviewed, writers have been sci-fi or fantasy people. And that's partly because it's a kind of overlooked, looked down upon genre. And they are so appreciative of their fans. Like, I did, I spent with Neil Gaiman and he spent like two and a half hours signing autographs.

• 46:49Blindboy Boatclub?

  It's a bit like metal.

• 46:51Speaker 04

  It is kind of like.

• 46:51Blindboy Boatclub?

  Very similar, because metal within music is looked down upon, unless you're the Deftones. And you're like, oh, well, you're the radiohead of metal. But most, but most metal is like, this is not music, we have to rely upon these fans.

• 47:06Speaker 04

  So tying into what you were saying about not being interested in personalities, characters, what was it?

• 47:13Blindboy Boatclub?

  I'm, so what I don't like about, not that what I don't like, what I, what I find difficult to relate with Sally Rooney's books is it's all about human relationships. And as an autistic person, I don't see the world that way. I don't care about friends.

• 47:27Speaker 04

  Ian Banks put it really.

• 47:29Blindboy Boatclub?

  But that sounds awful, but like literally, I, I, I don't really have a lot of friends. I've got acquaintances. My friends are ideas. And I know that might sound lonely, but it's not. I fucking love ideas. I love music. And listening to an album for me is how other people, if someone else goes to a wedding and has crack. That's me alone with an album. And it's not lonely, it's lovely. I love it. That's my life.

• 47:51Speaker 04

  So he said, because I asked him because he did, he did both. He did kind of literary fiction as Ian Banks. And he did sci fi as Ian M. Banks. So he thought a lot about it. And I was asking him about the snobbery. And he said that. Um, the literary novel is the psychological novel.

• 48:06Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 48:06Speaker 04

  And the science fiction novel is the philosophical novel.

• 48:09Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 48:09Speaker 04

  Which fits right into what you're saying, because it's all about ideas.

• 48:12Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 48:12Speaker 04

  It's about like, imagine if I skinned a horse and.

• 48:16Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 48:17Speaker 04

  You know, like sci fi stuff is often about, imagine if the world worked this way.

• 48:21Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 48:21Speaker 04

  Or imagine like Ted Chang's stuff is like he's got.

• 48:24Blindboy Boatclub?

  If our knees were on the backs of our legs like ostriches, what would bicycles look like?

• 48:34Speaker 04

  And um.

• 48:36Blindboy Boatclub?

  It's my new science fiction novel. It's gonna.

• 48:40Speaker 04

  I'm trying to think about it.

• 48:42Blindboy Boatclub?

  I know. I so am I, man. I haven't figured it out. As soon as I figure it out, it's gonna be a story, but.

• 48:46Speaker 04

  Can anyone picture that?

• 48:50Speaker 04

  So you, I'm trying to see if I could.

• 48:54Blindboy Boatclub?

  But that's science fiction. That's, I, I'd love to give that to Ted Chang. Ted Chang would take that.

• 48:58Speaker 04

  Ted Chang would spend a year and a half on that. And he would work out, what would the world, so first, what would the bicycles look like? And then what would the world look like?

• 49:05Blindboy Boatclub?

  Tables and chairs, man. He.

• 49:07Speaker 04

  Who would be the political parties in a world where our knees bent?

• 49:11Blindboy Boatclub?

  That is Ted Chang in a nutshell.

• 49:13Speaker 04

  It kinda is.

• 49:14Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 49:14Speaker 04

  Yeah. Like, he's got one about, I'm, I'm really bad with names, but he's got an amazing one about a world in which. Kind of religious events happen all the time. You know, the one where like angels appear and then like. Some of the people in the audience here will be healed, but other people will like go straight to hell. And, and he kind of works through, what would the world be like? He obviously had a mad idea like you just had. And he went, I'm gonna spend a year and a half on this because I have a publisher that will publish this.

• 49:43Blindboy Boatclub?

  That's what he does. And yeah, read Ted Chang if that sounds. He's one of those people too as well though that snobs try to take him.

• 49:53Speaker 04

  I do, yeah.

• 49:54Blindboy Boatclub?

  When someone brings up Ted Chiang, you almost get someone saying, it's not science fiction though, it's like a little bit more, it's like the Deftones.

• 50:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's the radiohead of science fiction, they say, yeah.

• 50:06Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah, and I don't know, like, I just think it's Ted Chiang and he's fucking amazing and I love Ted Chiang.

• 50:12Speaker 04

  So how do you write like your stories? You start with something like that. How long do you work away at that?

• 50:19Blindboy Boatclub?

  So what I do is a huge part of my creative process is embracing failure. So what will stop you from writing is the fear of failing. The part of yourself that's like, I have to write a good story. As soon as I start thinking, I must write something good, I'm gonna write something shit. So the way that I get out of that is

• 50:42Blindboy Boatclub?

  then let's write something shit. So I will start with an idea, like for me, I was having a bit of luck, so I wrote a story, I said, what if Eamon de Valera had Holy Mary's Immaculate Woman as bowls? And Michael Collins had to get him pregnant in his arse so that they would give birth to these weird basketball skin children that will save Ireland as alternative history. That's a fucking terrible idea. Let's stick with it for 12,000 words. So that's what I do. Similarly, I have another story about, um,

• 51:21Blindboy Boatclub?

  what if a woman just goes to Barcelona and becomes convinced that her neighbour is actually Donald Duck, like actual Donald Duck? And this is such a terrible idea that I say, yeah, let's stick with that for fucking 7,000 words, man. And when I do that, I've begun with failure. I've begun with a terrible idea and now I have to work myself out of it. And that frees me up to write something which is about mental health, about the human experience, about the human condition, and then I'm thrilled with it. Whereas if I start off going, let's write something class, I just end up writing an episode of Peaky Blinders.

• 51:58Speaker 04

  Like, is there a problem? Like, one of the things I'm fascinated by.

• 52:02Blindboy Boatclub?

  We're supposed to do an interval four minutes ago. Gerry Adams said so, man, we're supposed to be in flames, blonde the bits right now.

• 52:07Speaker 04

  I didn't know it, I didn't know it.

• 52:08Blindboy Boatclub?

  Listen, these people need a pint.

• 52:10Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 52:11Blindboy Boatclub?

  Go on, have a little, before we leave, can we have a communal pint, a can opening, please?

• 52:18Blindboy Boatclub?

  Alright, get your cans out.

• 52:21Blindboy Boatclub?

  Three. Two. One.

• 52:27Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yes.

• 52:28Blindboy Boatclub?

  Lovely.

• 52:28Blindboy Boatclub?

  Alright, we'll be back in about fifteen minutes. God bless.

• 52:34Blindboy Boatclub?

  I'd forgotten about that there. I wish I'd recorded that in stereo. Um, I love doing that whenever I play a gig and the gig is, it's very rare, but sometimes, sometimes it could be playing somewhere and it doesn't have a liquor licence. So people are invited to bring their own drink. So what happens is you end up with, like, everyone in the audience has cans. And something I've found over the years is if I'm up there conversing with someone and there's cans being opened, my ears hear it as totting. It sounds like totting and that distracts me. So whenever I'm at a gig where everyone is drinking cans, I collectively get everyone to open the cans at once.

• 53:18Blindboy Boatclub?

  And it's actually a beautiful sound. It's wonderful. I wish I recorded that in stereo, you cunts. Okay, I don't have a, I don't have a, let's do an Ocarina pause, but I don't have an Ocarina. What I do have is a little Vicks Vaporub inhaler that I'm using for my illness. So maybe I'm just gonna sniff this. I'm gonna snort this wonderful eucalyptus and, and mental bam.

• 53:47Speaker 01

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• 54:15Speaker 00

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• 54:59Speaker 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.

• 55:14Speaker 05

  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.

• 55:51Speaker 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.

• 56:19Speaker 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.

• 57:03Speaker 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.

• 57:18Speaker 05

  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.

• 57:52Blindboy Boatclub?

  That's too much now. That's too much. Wait, is this Vicks or? No, it's Albus. Albus Oil. And there's actually a warning on the Albus Oil that you're supposed to do it every three fucking hours. And I've been hoofing into it nonstop all day, which apparently I'm not supposed to do. But it's the only thing that's given me a modicum of relief. All right, support for this podcast comes from you, the listener, via the Patreon page. Patreon.com forward slash TheBlindMyPodcast. This podcast is my full-time job, so I earn a living, so I rent out my office, and so I buy my Albus Oil when I'm unwell. It's how I feed myself. It's how I have multiple underpants. This podcast is, it's

• 58:34Blindboy Boatclub?

  my actual career and job. So if you listen to it regularly, please consider paying me for the work that I'm doing. If it brings you marked or merriment, enjoyment, distraction, whatever the fuck has you listening to the podcast, please consider paying me for the work. All I'm looking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee, once a month, that's it. And if you can't afford it, don't worry about it. Listen for free. You'll listen for free because the person who's paying is paying for you to listen for free. So everybody gets a podcast and I get to earn a living. It's a wonderful model. I wouldn't change it. And it's also, it's why I show up and, and put out a podcast, even though I need to be on the fucking couch right now. I'm really unwell. I, I'm gonna show up.

• 59:18Blindboy Boatclub?

  If I can show up and put out a podcast, it's going to happen. And it's gonna happen because gratitude. I'm so grateful, unbelievably grateful, thankful, and aware of how lucky I am that this podcast, that I can earn a living from this podcast, that I can earn a living from, from art and creativity. Cause I'm doing this for nearly 25 years. It's only the past eight years with this podcast that I'm actually earning a living, that this is my full-time job. So that's why I show up every single week regardless. Also because this is listener funded. I'm not beholden to any advertisers. Advertisers can

• 1:00:02Blindboy Boatclub?

  come on here and they play by my rules. They can't tell me what to speak about, what to talk about. They can fuck off. All right. Cause this is a listener funded podcast. Okay. I'm contractually obligated to, to call out the, the following gigs that I'll be playing in 2026, beginning at the end of, of January. I'm in Waterford in the Theatre Royal. Then I'm, I'm in Kildare, Nice, right? At a thing called the Spirit of Kildare Festival. Then I'm up in Dublin in Vicar Street in February, which is a Wednesday gig, gorgeous. Belfast, Belfast nearly sold out. Waterfront Theatre there in February. Leisure Land in Galway,

• 1:00:46Blindboy Boatclub?

  you glamorous, glamorous Galway cunts. Let's go to Leisure Land, Galway with your bloated footfall and tourism and working economy. We envy you down here in Limerick.

• 1:00:59Blindboy Boatclub?

  And then, what have we got? Kerry, Aineck. We envy Killarney as well, a lot of money down in Killarney. Very, very wealthy down in Killarney, all the fucking Yank tourists. The Aineck,

• 1:01:12Blindboy Boatclub?

  strange old venue there.

• 1:01:15Blindboy Boatclub?

  They don't have a dressing room in that venue that's close to the stage. They, they, it's either a hotel attached, so they're like, we'll give you a dressing room for the gig, but it's up in a hotel room, which means that in order for me to get to stage, I have to walk through the fire of the hotel with a plastic bag on my head, which I don't do. I refuse to do that because I can't assume that everybody in the fire of that hotel knows who the fuck I am. So, and this has happened, this has happened. You can have tourists who just see a grown man with a plastic bag in his head in the fire of the hotel, and then they start screaming because they think I'm ISIS or something. So if that happens, not that specific thing,

• 1:01:59Blindboy Boatclub?

  but when I gig in the Aineck in Killarney, because it's attached to a hotel, I never stay in the dressing room that they give me. So what I do is I stand upright in, in a fucking, a broom closet, basically, like a vampire. And I quite like the humidity of it. So every time I gig down there in that venue in Killarney,

• 1:02:22Blindboy Boatclub?

  for like a half an hour before going on stage, I'm just standing upright in a tiny broom closet with the door closed in the dark, pure Nosferatu. And you'd think that's shit, but no. Again, I enjoy the humidity of it. I like the, you think it's glamorous to be gone off doing gigs. You know, there's no glamour in, in standing up in a, in a dark broom closet with your head beside a mop and that, that.

• 1:02:53Blindboy Boatclub?

  The cheesy violence of a mop. A mop that's been used to clean wet floors and hasn't had a chance to dry. You know, so I look forward to gigging the eye neck there down in Killarney. What the fuck else have we got? March, Carlo. We'll deal with Carlo when it comes. Cork Opera House. Limerick there in fucking April in the university concert hall. Look loads of shit. And then I'm over in England like a mad cunt in October twenty six. Brighton, Wales, Coventry, fucking Guildford, London, Glasgow, Gateshead, Nottingham. All right, we're figuring out when it happens. A lot of those gigs are selling quickly.

• 1:03:38Blindboy Boatclub?

  Most of them are up at fifty percent are over because people are purchasing them as Christmas presents. All right, so don't be waiting until February to get a ticket. If you're coming to a gig in February, get your ticket now because some prick is gonna get it for their sister as a Christmas present, all right? Dog bless, back to the chat with the magnificent Patrick Freyne. This, this second half is just about, it's just me and him talking about art and having crack.

• 1:04:06Blindboy Boatclub?

  I had, I had a load of fucking questions, but there's no point. And

• 1:04:11Speaker 04

  Your ear.

• 1:04:12Blindboy Boatclub?

  Before you got into journalism or anything like that, you started off in a band.

• 1:04:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:04:18Blindboy Boatclub?

  Like, tell us about the music that you used to make in your twenties.

• 1:04:22Speaker 04

  So I was, so when I was in my teens, I was really into Dire Straits and middle of the road music. And I used to write, I used to try and write songs, but they were all from the perspective of a middle aged man going through a divorce, basically. Um, like I wrote, I wrote songs like about, I had one called like, um, Skies of Blue, which was about looking back. At your youth, from the age of fifty or sixty.

• 1:04:52Blindboy Boatclub?

  But you're twenty.

• 1:04:53Speaker 04

  I was fourteen. I had another one called, I could probably play it if I had a guitar, but it's, I had another one about.

• 1:05:01Blindboy Boatclub?

  Why don't you bring out your guitar and play it?

• 1:05:03Speaker 04

  I don't have it.

• 1:05:03Blindboy Boatclub?

  You have, you have it.

• 1:05:05Speaker 04

  I have a ukulele, but it's not, I have a mandolin, but I can't really play anything on it yet.

• 1:05:09Blindboy Boatclub?

  Okay.

• 1:05:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:05:10Blindboy Boatclub?

  You're welcome to if you want.

• 1:05:12Speaker 04

  But then, I, I formed a band in school and then I met my friend Dara, who I formed my later band with, who was really into punk. And he gave me, like, he was like, there was this thing, like, I was, oh, I'm into Eric Clapton, Dire Straits, Genesis, still into them. But he was like, oh, no, no, you can't be doing with that. And he was like, he gave me like, the Dead Kennedys and Crass and all these like punk bands.

• 1:05:35Blindboy Boatclub?

  What about The Fall?

• 1:05:36Speaker 04

  The, he wasn't into The Fall because he thought that was too arty.

• 1:05:39Blindboy Boatclub?

  Oh, for fuck's sake. Are you familiar with The Fall, Marky's?

• 1:05:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:05:44Blindboy Boatclub?

  Okay.

• 1:05:44Speaker 04

  It is a band. But, um, so we formed a band when I, when we were in college and we kind of started to release records when we were in our early twenties. Because there was a really good, uh, kind of DIY scene in Dublin. It was kind of, like, it's years after U2, so no one was trying to get signed anymore. Everyone was just trying to release records and be part of a community. And we couldn't play, which is the best way to start a band. And like, I strongly believe everyone should start a band, no matter what age they are. Like, I think you should all do it. Because.

• 1:06:16Blindboy Boatclub?

  Even if you can't play instruments?

• 1:06:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:06:18Blindboy Boatclub?

  Like, seriously, because what is an instrument? Just bang pots and pans and hop with something.

• 1:06:23Speaker 04

  It's just something that moves air into your ears. Yeah.

• 1:06:27Blindboy Boatclub?

  I was, yeah, because I was thinking about, what I love about music is, music is abstract art that uses symmetrical vibrations of air and time.

• 1:06:40Speaker 04

  That is what music is. Like, what I love about music now is it, like, music doesn't, we don't really know why music evolved, and we don't really know, like, there's theories about how it was used to bond people together, and that maybe it-

• 1:06:53Blindboy Boatclub?

  Well, it must be part of who we are. Ironically, this sounds like name dropping, but before you arrived, I was literally shouting at Bono.

• 1:07:01Speaker 04

  Was Bono-

• 1:07:02Blindboy Boatclub?

  Bono was backstage there, and I was sitting down with him.

• 1:07:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:07:06Blindboy Boatclub?

  And I was shouting at Bono about the, uh, the evolution of Gregorian chant.

• 1:07:16Blindboy Boatclub?

  He was into it. This, uh, this sounds like a joke, now, literally, Bono was there backstage, and I was chatting to him about Gregorian chant. But, one of the things that I love about, um, so, do you know I said there that music is symmetrical vibrations of air, right? So, are ye familiar with Gregorian chant? It's like what monks do. So-

• 1:07:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:07:37Blindboy Boatclub?

  So, Gregorian chant came about about the 1100s. And the thing with music and the human voice, it's very related to the spaces that we made it in. So, monks used to sing in monasteries in the 1200s, 1300s. A monastery back then was like a warehouse, just a very simple room with a roof, and the monks would sing in a way that they wanna hear their voice coming back to them. So, there's this big echo, and they'd all sing together, and how they used to sing in the 1200s and 1300s was-

• 1:08:13Speaker 04

  Long notes.

• 1:08:14Blindboy Boatclub?

  Long notes, because they're into the echo. Then, and this is fucking beautiful, they built, do you know Notre Dame Cathedral in France? So, Notre Dame Cathedral, the one that burnt down there a couple of years ago. Notre Dame Cathedral, the mathematics of its architecture went in fives. So, it's, here's the main church, then it goes up, and then it goes up and up in fives, until it goes into a conical shape. So, the monks started singing in Notre Dame, and what fucking happened was, they started to harmonise-

• 1:08:49Speaker 04

  Backseventeen, yeah.

• 1:08:51Blindboy Boatclub?

  With fucking mathematics of the fucking building.

• 1:08:53Speaker 04

  So, they'd sing a note, and it'd go, it would stay accurate, and they'd go-

• 1:08:59Blindboy Boatclub?

  But then, that doesn't work anymore in Notre Dame. So, then someone else goes-

• 1:09:05Blindboy Boatclub?

  And then someone else goes-

• 1:09:08Blindboy Boatclub?

  And it's the fucking mathematics of the building and no one told them because music is symmetrical vibrations of air. So why would it not correspond with the mathematics of the space? That is fucking amazing.

• 1:09:20Speaker 04

  So I love this shit. So what?

• 1:09:22Blindboy Boatclub?

  And Bono loved that.

• 1:09:26Blindboy Boatclub?

  He probably didn't because that was just me shouting at him.

• 1:09:30Speaker 04

  So what used to happen was they'd sing a note, but it would stay echoing.

• 1:09:34Blindboy Boatclub?

  Every time we mention a band that takes away from the book we mentioned. So you can end up getting a minus massage, which is just David McWilliams kicking you into the testicles.

• 1:09:44Speaker 04

  But I think Bono gives you a massage if he mentioned five bands. Isn't that what happens?

• 1:09:48Blindboy Boatclub?

  I don't want the massage from Bono.

• 1:09:51Blindboy Boatclub?

  I'll take a massage from David McWilliams because of his beautiful, uh, blue eyes, but I don't want Bono, who looks a little bit like a fly, giving me a massage.

• 1:10:02Speaker 04

  I hope he's here.

• 1:10:03Blindboy Boatclub?

  It's his, he wants to look like a fly. He did a whole tour where it's like, I'm a fly now.

• 1:10:09Blindboy Boatclub?

  That was his thing. I'm a fly.

• 1:10:11Speaker 04

  So the thing I, I did a course in music years ago and all this stuff was like psychoacoustics is part of it.

• 1:10:18Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yes.

• 1:10:18Speaker 04

  So if you, in western culture, what happened was they had these big cathedrals.

• 1:10:23Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:23Speaker 04

  So if you sang a note and somebody else sang the next note, your note stayed echoing. So harmony developed. And what happened in Indian music was they played outside a lot. So rhythm became more important and they have really, really complex rhythms. So all this shit, like the thing I love about art is it's a combination of people who are kind of non-conformist, but also working with the physics of space and the accidents of the real world.

• 1:10:51Blindboy Boatclub?

  It's kind of outside of the awareness. Like I find this with, um, east coast and west coast hip hop. So if you think of east coast hip hop from the nineties, like fucking Public Enemy Wu-Tang. It's, the beats are quite close. It's quite claustrophobic because this music was created in New York where they're debuting the music outside to their friends and there are tower blocks all around. So the music is quite close, but then you listen to like Dr. Dre from the west coast where they don't have high-rise buildings and now the music has all this space. And no one decided that. It just fucking happened.

• 1:11:30Speaker 04

  That's beautiful. That's really beautiful.

• 1:11:32Blindboy Boatclub?

  Isn't it though? Do you know? When you think about music from that respect. Yeah. And it makes perfect sense. It's symmetric vibrations of air. Like, I did a podcast before on the discovery of stereo sound. So, and this is hard to explain now because we take stereo sound for granted. Stereo sound is, is you have two headphones on and there's separate sounds coming from each headphone. This wasn't always the case. It used to be mono. Mono is, if you listen to it on your phone with no headphones, it's one speaker. So when stereo sound became a thing in the 1950s, one of the things that drove it was,

• 1:12:14Blindboy Boatclub?

  in New York, people used to live in the city of New York and they had access to live venues. So when you're at a live event, it's naturally stereo. It's the entire room and it's multiple instruments. But when people in New York moved to the suburbs, they no longer had access to live music. So now they started to want to recreate the sound of live in their own homes via two speakers. But the human mind had not figured out what stereo was. So the first ever stereo records that were released, they weren't music. Do you know what they were? Recordings of ping pong matches. Seriously, because if you said to a human back in the 1950s, what do you mean?

• 1:12:57Blindboy Boatclub?

  Like, they tried it with musicians. What do you mean stereo? Do you want me to get the guitar and move around stage? They couldn't understand it. So they would record ping pong match, bang, bang, bang, bang. And you go, wow, left speaker, right speaker. But what I compared it to was how humans also discovered stereo visuals, which is linear perspective. This one is hard to explain. Do you know that fodder Ted scene where?

• 1:13:28Blindboy Boatclub?

  These cows are in the distance. So that right there, that is perspective. But if you look at the history of visual art, we didn't have perspective only up until the 1300s. Humans have been creating art for 30,000 years and we only discovered those horses are small because they're in the background. And the first person to do it was an artist called Giotto. He was an Italian artist in the 12th century. Frescoes. And Giotto was the first person to paint a painting and it was a battle scene. And Giotto said, "Those horses are small, therefore they're in the distance." It took the human mind years to figure this out. Giotto figured it out because he lived in a city.

• 1:14:13Blindboy Boatclub?

  So because he lived in a city, there was architecture. And as soon as there were buildings, he was able to go, "Oh, linear perspective." The buildings helped his eye to go, "Things in the background are smaller."

• 1:14:28Blindboy Boatclub?

  This is, it's hard to understand, but I'll give you a beautiful example of it.

• 1:14:34Blindboy Boatclub?

  When the French were colonizing the Middle East in the 1700s. The French were trading with Islamic tribes. And these Islamic tribes were strict Islam, okay? And this was the 1700s. And these Islamic tribes also, they dealt with horses as part of their life. They lived and bred horses. Horses was all they gave a fuck about. But within strict Islam, you're not allowed to paint anything that God created. That's why when you see Islamic art, it's mostly just geometrical designs. Because within Islam, mathematics is the language of God. But you don't paint a man, you don't paint a horse, you don't paint a cow.

• 1:15:18Blindboy Boatclub?

  Because God created that, so it's a sin to paint that thing. So the French in the 1700s, the French were doing a type of art called neoclassicism. Which is a very realistic type of art. Is anyone familiar with the paintings of Jacques Louis David?

• 1:15:34Blindboy Boatclub?

  Okay, let's just say he was able to paint horses really well. If you, if you, if you saw a Jacques Louis David painting of a horse, you'd go, fuck me, that's a good horse. Wow, that is the best horse I've ever seen painted. When the French, they went to the Islamic tribes in the desert and brought them the gift of a beautiful Western painting of a horse. They couldn't see it.

• 1:15:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:15:59Blindboy Boatclub?

  They literally, here's a class painting of a horse, lads. Their brains could not see it as a horse. They saw it as just a lump of brown. Because they had never been exposed to a painting of a 2D representation of a 3D object. So that's the human brain.

• 1:16:16Speaker 04

  We've learned.

• 1:16:17Blindboy Boatclub?

  We need to learn.

• 1:16:17Speaker 04

  We need to learn how to see stuff. And when you're kids, you're, you're exposed to all this stuff and you think it's really natural. Which is where cultural differences come in. And then you kind of learn how to do it and then you can do it. But it's not natural. It's just.

• 1:16:30Blindboy Boatclub?

  It's not natural. It's, it's, it's learned and taught to us. That was a bit of a fucking tangent.

• 1:16:36Speaker 04

  No, it was good. Like, you were saying earlier about, like, you'd have loved to have gone to Trinity to do literature. But I don't think you lost anything by not going to Trinity. I think one of the, like, um. Like, one of the things, I was saying it to outside, like, one of the things I find fascinating is a lot of the people I, I knew over the years who did those courses, they kind of just stopped learning. I was talking to Simon Cooper about his book Chums here yesterday. And he is really critical of, say, the Oxford education. And he says, the problem with it is when you go to an inverted commas, elite school. And what happens is a lot of people leave at 21 and go, I'm done.

• 1:17:17Speaker 04

  You know, I've, I've learned everything now. And the thing that's, um, really important, like, I'm kind of fascinated with, what I was gonna say about everyone should start a band. Like, lifelong learning, lifelong creativity is not encouraged. You're encouraged to just kind of.

• 1:17:33Speaker 04

  Find your space, become that thing and then just work away at that yoke. But learning, being able to do creative stuff is something everyone is capable of.

• 1:17:46Blindboy Boatclub?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:17:46Speaker 04

  But it's kind of been bet out of us. Like, do people recognise that, like?

• 1:17:50Blindboy Boatclub?

  Do you know why it's been bet out of us?

• 1:17:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:17:52Blindboy Boatclub?

  Because, so every single person in this audience played with crayons or Lego as a kid, isn't that correct? Yeah. Then what happens is you go to school at about three years of age and the teacher decides you're good at crayons and you're shit.

• 1:18:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:18:10Blindboy Boatclub?

  And then some people go, oh, I guess I'm shit. And then you have the arty kids and the not arty kids. But the fact of the matter is creativity, and when I say creativity, I don't mean creating something, I mean the act of play. Cause that's what's, like, my job now, and I'm a professional fucking artist, my job is not to create good art, but to find myself in a place of playing. And if I'm playing, and the beauty of play means, when you're playing with Lego as a kid, you're not thinking about making something good, you're thinking about, I'm doing Lego and doing Lego feels amazing. If I can do that with a short story, with a podcast, it will end up good.

• 1:18:52Blindboy Boatclub?

  But if I start thinking, I need to make something good, I'm gonna write Peaky Blinders. Seriously.

• 1:18:58Speaker 04

  Do you not like Peaky Blinders?

• 1:19:00Blindboy Boatclub?

  Season one was good and then it turned into like a, just a perfume commercial. What I don't like about Peaky Blinders is in, if, instead of like writing a script, they go, why don't we just have people walking in slow motion to a Jack White song instead? And that's all they've fucking done. And now it's like, how about we sell our own brand of Peaky Blender, Blinders Gin as well?

• 1:19:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:19:28Blindboy Boatclub?

  So, I'm being a bit harsh now. And I know fucking Killian Murphy as well, so I shouldn't be talking about this shit, name dropping again. That's one point less from the David McWilliams massage.

• 1:19:37Speaker 04

  You're not gonna get that massage.

• 1:19:40Blindboy Boatclub?

  If you, if you name drop, you end up getting a massage from Fintan O'Toole.

• 1:19:45Speaker 04

  Yeah. I'm in the Irish Times, so I've had his massages and they're, like, he's quite an important thinker, but he's not great at massage.

• 1:19:57Speaker 04

  What I was gonna say-

• 1:19:58Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah, I don't wanna, yeah, yeah. I can't, I'm imagining Fintan O'Toole giving me, no, I'd have a chat with him.

• 1:20:04Speaker 04

  So when they, well, they've done studies, right? There's this kind of, I, um-

• 1:20:08Blindboy Boatclub?

  Studies in the Fintan O'Toole massage technique, sorry.

• 1:20:12Speaker 04

  I keep getting distracted from my point. But making art, they've done studies on people and so consuming art is good for, like, it's good to an extent. You kind of got solace from it, but they have done studies, they've put things in people's brains and when you're making stuff, it's properly good for you. And there was this kind of weird thing at the start of the 20th century when the Arts Council was being started in Britain, where I read a book called What Good Are the Arts by John Kerry. He was talking about this and you were-

• 1:20:42Blindboy Boatclub?

  It's the fifth book, lads.

• 1:20:46Blindboy Boatclub?

  Go on.

• 1:20:48Speaker 04

  And at the start, when they were starting the Arts Council in Britain and all the other kind of Arts Councils kind of copied it, um, they had a debate about whether art should be for the people, like, to improve them. You know, because the people, the people are idiots.

• 1:21:02Blindboy Boatclub?

  That's the CIA. Out there shaking up the can so you don't, you don't deconstruct society with your artistic message.

• 1:21:11Speaker 04

  So the debate was arts for the people or arts by the people? And they went with arts for the people, which is nice, but it's a bit patronizing and paternalistic. And the more I think about it, the more I think that it should have been arts by the people. Arts Council should have been about encouraging, like, people all over the country, the Arts Council is in, to do stuff and create and make stuff, not because they might be the best artist in the world, but because making art is, um, it feels good and it feels amazing. And there's this weird thing in our culture where it's decided that there are people up on stages. It's a bit of a self-destruction, um, and then there's the people who watch them. And the reality is art was never meant to be that.

• 1:21:54Speaker 04

  Like, the professionalization of art is like 20th century.

• 1:21:58Blindboy Boatclub?

  The proximity of art with power. So if you look at the 20th century Western art, you look at who were the patrons? So for most of, from the 1100s onwards, the patrons were the church. And the church's job was employ a lot of artists. Like, if you're kind of thinking, how come there's so many paintings about the Bible?

• 1:22:24Blindboy Boatclub?

  It wasn't necessarily a bunch of artists going, I'm into Christ loads.

• 1:22:31Blindboy Boatclub?

  Like, no, it's like, the person who's paying for this is a bishop, or a canon, or a pope. So I gotta paint some bible shit to earn a living. So that's why, and, and the thing with art in the Middle Ages is that people who were artistic were considered, it, it wasn't their artistic ability, God, it was God channeled themselves through a human being. Cause they didn't have fucking iPads, they didn't have photographs. If you could paint a painting in the 1200s, first of all, n- not many people would see it. The only people who would see it would be rich people. So they would find people who are artistic to go, God is channeling themselves through this person.

• 1:23:12Blindboy Boatclub?

  They're touched by God, and I am their patron, and here's the wonderful painting of this scene from the bible. And aren't I great that I funded this? And then you get to the Renaissance, and it moves away from the pope and the canons to bankers, the, the Medici family. And then you get Renaissance art, but at all times, art has a proximity to power. And what you have with that is the capitalistic relationship of.

• 1:23:38Speaker 04

  You're deconstructing the talkie festival.

• 1:23:40Blindboy Boatclub?

  I know, I know, I know. But you have, there is the art, you're the observer, and there is no fucking in-between. There is the art, you're the, the observer, and the art is something that can be bought with money. Whereas before that, if you look at the fucking Stone Age onwards. But seriously, art was participatory. Every member of society got together with art. The Soviets got it right. But they did. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, if you look at before it got really

• 1:24:21Blindboy Boatclub?

  toxic, when they were idealistic, the Soviets had the dilemma of, right, okay, we're starting a communist society here, which means that we need to get a bunch of people from the countryside to come and work in factories. So what they would do, they would stage plays in factories where every single member of the factory was part of the play. There's no such thing as being talented, there's no such thing as being an artist. Everybody participates. And the art isn't about one piece that you admire, it's process based. This is what I tried to do with, have you ever seen the shit I do on Twitch with Red Dead Redemption?

• 1:24:57Speaker 04

  I have, I've seen your Twitch stuff.

• 1:24:59Blindboy Boatclub?

  So over lockdown, I do this thing where I go onto Twitch, and the thing with Twitch is everybody can, I'm nearly knocked the poor old doggy wine. Everybody on Twitch can participate. Everybody is looking and everybody can comment. So what I do on Twitch is I play the game Red Dead Redemption. You know that game, yeah? So I play that game, but then I have a bunch of instruments with me and I have a looping pedal. So I write songs and record them in the moment to the events of the video game with people in the comments suggesting things to me. So therefore, there's no more artist and observer, everybody is involved collectively in the art.

• 1:25:42Speaker 04

  Have you ever come across Cornelius Cardu?

• 1:25:45Blindboy Boatclub?

  Four claps at the back there from the...

• 1:25:48Speaker 04

  He was like a really political avant garde musician in the 60s and he became kind of, he was, he was like a student of Stockhausen and he became a little bit disenchanted by how much it was controlled by the academics, the bourgeoisie, and he wanted to bring it to factories. So he decided that he started this thing called the Scratch Orchestra, which was, it would be made up of people like him who are like musically trained, but anyone else could be part of it. And then everyone was involved and the job of the musically trained people was to bring someone who wasn't musically trained along. So there could be an amazing fiddle player and there could be somebody banging stones and he, the fiddle player would go, yeah, yeah, good, that's good, that's good, on the, on the offbeat,

• 1:26:32Speaker 04

  yeah. And there'd be like this big collective endeavour.

• 1:26:37Blindboy Boatclub?

  Trained and untrained.

• 1:26:38Speaker 04

  Well, trained and untrained. Yeah.

• 1:26:40Blindboy Boatclub?

  The story of hip hop is similar enough to that because, so if you look at how hip hop emerged in New York in the nineteen seventies, so there used to be quite a lot of African American inner city artists in the fifties and sixties who were jazz players, they had instruments they would play, but also at that same time, there was actually funding for the arts within those communities. Then in the nineteen seventies, they removed this funding. So you had a group of kids growing up in areas like Harlem where they didn't have access to a fucking trumpet, they didn't have a trombone, it didn't exist, they'd taken the funding out of schools. So what happens is, there's no instruments, so what we do have is my dad's records, and

• 1:27:24Blindboy Boatclub?

  we, what we do have is a set of turntables. So they made that the thing that they use as an instrument. And what makes that revolutionary for me as well is, those artists were effectively stealing music from other artists before. When you sample, you're stealing someone else's work. But within the African American community, it's not really stealing, and here's why. Throughout the forties, fifties and sixties, especially with like doo-wop music or soul music, what used to happen with African American musicians is, some African American musician would create a song, then they'd go to a record label, and the label

• 1:28:05Blindboy Boatclub?

  would say to this person who's poor, "I love this song, here's a hundred quid." And the person who's poor is going, "Oh my god, a hundred quid, wow." They signed the song away, and then the record label steals it, and it makes fucking millions that the artist never sees. So that was happening with soul, funk and doo-wop. So when hip hop artists were sampling soul and funk from the sixties and seventies, they weren't stealing, they were re-appropriating shit that was stolen from their community.

• 1:28:36Speaker 04

  It's a-

• 1:28:37Blindboy Boatclub?

  Isn't that amazing?

• 1:28:38Speaker 04

  Yeah. It's, it's also how folk culture works. So, I, I, a few, maybe a month ago, I interviewed a really good folk band, Two Brothers, Y Y Vagabonds, they're a really good band.

• 1:28:50Blindboy Boatclub?

  Where are they from?

• 1:28:51Speaker 04

  They're from Carlow.

• 1:28:53Blindboy Boatclub?

  Okay.

• 1:28:55Speaker 04

  One person from Cardiff.

• 1:28:56Blindboy Boatclub?

  I couldn't have told if that was one person or one person who could make themselves sound like two people. It was like their vocal cords split.

• 1:29:03Speaker 04

  So what, what, um, so they got really into the traditions from where their parents are from and are in Moore and Donegal and they started going into the archive and what a lot of folk musicians do is they find older songs. It's not, the tradition isn't about writing new music. The tradition is about a new interpretation of an old song. So they'd be sitting in a folk session and they'd hear an amazing sound. And then they'd go into the traditional music archive in Dublin and they'd listen to all these versions. And the thing they realised is when you find the earliest version, and sometimes it's sheet music written by some guy in the 19th century, because there was always these collectors, the earliest version wasn't great.

• 1:29:43Speaker 04

  And what happened is every singer who sang that song added a twist, changed a verse, added a new verse. So it was like this cumulative collective endeavour. So when I was at a festival with-

• 1:29:56Blindboy Boatclub?

  So it's a consistent conversation?

• 1:29:58Speaker 04

  It's a constant conversation. It's collective. It's not, music wasn't owned, music was passed on.

• 1:30:03Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:04Speaker 04

  Which is how it used to work before things were commercialised.

• 1:30:07Blindboy Boatclub?

  Like recipes of food.

• 1:30:09Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:30:10Blindboy Boatclub?

  Because we don't, food is grand. It's like you can pass those things on and we don't try and take it.

• 1:30:15Speaker 04

  And we don't go, you just plagiarised that, the song?

• 1:30:17Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:22Speaker 04

  I want to ask you, like, music is kind of where you started with creativity, right? So is music at the bedrock of what you do? Like, it's still a big part of what you do. Is it different how you write?

• 1:30:35Blindboy Boatclub?

  So the first thing I actually started with was painting. So I started painting and then I got into making music when I was like 15. But when I started making music, I used to make music the way I used to paint. So when I used to paint, I haven't painted now in fucking years because I just don't have time for it. But if I was painting a landscape, if I wasn't great at painting a tree, I wouldn't call up my friend who's good at painting trees and say, can you paint this tree in my painting? I'd simply learn how to paint trees. So then when I started producing music. The concept of I can't play bass, let's bring my buddy in who's good at bass, didn't work. So I was like, I need to learn to play bass myself.

• 1:31:18Blindboy Boatclub?

  So I made music the way I painted paintings, which is I do every single thing myself. But now that I'm writing, I write short stories the way that I made music. And I consider a lot of the Rubber Bandit stuff to be short stories. Like a song like Dad's Best Friend.

• 1:31:35Speaker 04

  It's a short story.

• 1:31:36Blindboy Boatclub?

  That's a fucking short story. Not just the lyrics, the music, the music is it, there is not one snare beat or bass sound in that song. That doesn't mean something and that isn't in a conversation with another piece of work. Like Dad's Best Friend, it's half prodigy and half sepultura. Do you know what I mean? And if someone was to say to me, what about that hi hat? What about that noise? I could tell you straight away, that's exactly that album that came from, that's what that came from. And it was me bringing those influences in. So I, I, I write stories the way I make music and the way I paint. And I make music the way I paint. And this all makes total sense to me inside my brain.

• 1:32:20Speaker 04

  So do you feel differently when you're making a bit of music than when you write? Or do you have the same feeling?

• 1:32:26Blindboy Boatclub?

  When I'm, so the thing for me is, is the feeling of flow. And flow for me is when I literally leave my body and I exist as like a vibrational thing. It, it's, it's amazing. It's, it's the, that to me is the greatest feeling in the, in the whole world. And it's what I chase at all times. It's when I leave this world and I'm creating and I, I can't describe it. It's beautiful. It's wonderful. When I make music, the flow that I feel is bodily. So it's a bodily flow. It's not very cognitive. When I write, it's a cognitive flow. So music to me, I can't describe how it feels because it's a bodily vibration.

• 1:33:06Blindboy Boatclub?

  But when I write a story, it feels like I'm sitting in a cinema and I'm watching a film that's been made just for me.

• 1:33:14Speaker 04

  And humour, so I'm also fascinated, but so one of the things I really like about your podcast and like you generally, some people who make art don't like to analyse it. Like some people, I've interviewed people and they just go, I don't like to think about it. I've interviewed funny people, I don't like to think about it. I fucking love thinking about it and you love thinking about it, right? So with humour, where it does, were you always funny?

• 1:33:39Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:40Speaker 04

  And where does that come from?

• 1:33:41Blindboy Boatclub?

  (laughing).

• 1:33:44Speaker 04

  I'd love if you went, no, I was dead serious till nineteen and a half.

• 1:33:50Blindboy Boatclub?

  Um, I was always funny because that was my way of survival. Um, when I was in school, because I was called stupid, because I was called disruptive, I was thrown into the worst class in school. And the worst class in school in Limerick contained quite a lot of people who were heavily traumatised. Kids who came from environments where there was a lot of violence in their communities, or their parents might have been violent, or kids who came from, their uncle might have been in a gang. And I got thrown into these classes because I was, I couldn't be put anywhere else because I was disruptive and I was called stupid. And when I found myself in these classes about the age of twelve, I looked around

• 1:34:35Blindboy Boatclub?

  and I said, well, I'm not fucking hard. I can't fight and I don't want to fight. And within this community, violence was a language and there was a lot of fighting. So the one way around that is you'd be a mad bastard. So if I don't want to get picked on, I have to be funny. So I learned at a young age, be the person who makes everybody laugh and then no one will kick your head in.

• 1:35:01Speaker 04

  That's.

• 1:35:02Blindboy Boatclub?

  Pretty, pretty much. And from there then, I, I turned my creativity towards humour. So hu- humour has always been a thing for me and as well. Ah, humour is just amazing, like the feeling of, once you, laughing is a fucking orgasm of the brain. Like laughing and coming are quite similar, that they really are though.

• 1:35:23Speaker 04

  You should try doing both at the same time.

• 1:35:25Blindboy Boatclub?

  You can't, you can't unfortunately, you can't, you can't. But laughter is a form of emotional ejaculation. And it just happens out of nowhere, it has a lot of bodily release. You don't control it, you feel amazing afterwards. I can't wank out a laugh though, can I?

• 1:35:43Speaker 04

  I think that's worth pursuing.

• 1:35:48Blindboy Boatclub?

  That'll be my message from David Williams afterwards. Can you make me laugh, David?

• 1:35:55Blindboy Boatclub?

  Five minutes, alright. Oh shit, okay, we gotta put a microphone out into the audience now, so. Um, kindly, the R and B singer Usher has come all the way from Los Angeles to uh, hold a microphone tonight, so Usher is here. We do have a mic for the audience, don't we?

• 1:36:14Blindboy Boatclub?

  One minute, Usher, where's Usher?

• 1:36:20Blindboy Boatclub?

  I tried to get Cisco, but he wasn't available.

• 1:36:24Speaker 04

  Can I ask, did you, have you figured out when humour is useful and when humour isn't useful? Cause that's just something I found fascinating when I was writing my book.

• 1:36:34Blindboy Boatclub?

  Two seconds, Usher, I'm sorry, um. Um, humour is useful in diffusing tension.

• 1:36:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:36:42Blindboy Boatclub?

  Humour is useful when, um. Humour is useful in, in diffusing tension, humour isn't useful in any environment for solemnity as a rule. So solemnity, which is something I have serious problem with. Solemnity is the, is the outward performance of seriousness, and we see this a lot in society. You see it in the art world, you see it in the doggy festivals, you see it, you know what I mean? You see it in the literature world, you see it in religion, you see it in the monarchy, you see it in the military. Did you believe there recently? Fucking ridiculous.

• 1:37:19Blindboy Boatclub?

  Like, seriously. My great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather was a violent, violent bastard. And now I own everything. And the way to show you all that I own everything is I'm gonna wear this silly hat. And you have to act dead fucking serious. And you can't laugh. You can't laugh. That is solemnity. Monarchy uses it. Military uses it big time. So, any situation where solemnity is a given, you must not let laughter in. Art galleries. Go to a fucking art gallery, a modern art gallery, and you've got a plaster cast of someone's cock up on the wall with a big, long essay beside it.

• 1:38:02Blindboy Boatclub?

  "I was interrogating the mechanics of society and this is why I plaster casted my cock."

• 1:38:09Blindboy Boatclub?

  The one thing you're not allowed to do is laugh. So, the art world uses solemnity too.

• 1:38:13Speaker 04

  But surely that's where it's most useful, is like...

• 1:38:15Blindboy Boatclub?

  Oh, yeah. Go straight, go into it, like Marcel Duchamp of the Dada movement had the right idea. He said, "Go into a gallery with a fucking hatchet." Marcel Duchamp, Marcel Duchamp, when, he was the person who put a toilet in a gallery and called it art. So, he was part of the Dada movement and he went in and said, "All right, World War One is happening. Uh, this is mad. This is the first time we've ever seen industry involved in war. We have machine guns that can take down a hundred people at once. We've never seen this before. This is so profoundly irrational that art is useless. And the only rational response is to put a toilet in a gallery. And that's Dada, that's absurdity, that's surrealism." And, so humour is...

• 1:38:59Speaker 04

  I love the way, like, sporadic people really get certain things.

• 1:39:05Blindboy Boatclub?

  So humour is, uh...

• 1:39:09Blindboy Boatclub?

  Useless in any situation where solemnity is the rule.

• 1:39:13Speaker 04

  Is, so I, I find it really useful. I love funny stuff and I'm really defensive.

• 1:39:18Blindboy Boatclub?

  You use humour a lot in your columns.

• 1:39:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, so humour is a really good way of explaining things, I think, which you do a lot. So humour is a really good way of giving people an alternative framework for something solid. To just go, here's the insane version of that. And I think humour, I think humour is a teaching tool.

• 1:39:38Blindboy Boatclub?

  It's a teaching tool and also I use humour quite a lot when I speak about mental health. I use humour when I'm speaking about suicide because here's the thing with solemnity. Sometimes mental health conversations demand solemnity and all that solemnity does is it keeps us disconnected from ourselves. Here's a classic example. You go to your, your best friend's dad dies and you go to the funeral. And this is your best friend who you've known your whole fucking life. So you go to the funeral, you go to the front row where your best friend is sitting. Someone you know your whole life, you have a lovely intimate relationship with. And you're expected to go, sorry for your troubles.

• 1:40:19Blindboy Boatclub?

  That is solemnity. What you should be doing is having a hug. What you should be doing is having crack. But instead, sorry for your troubles. That's solemnity. So sometimes when someone says, I've got anxiety, I have depression, I'm suicidal. All of us go, oh, oh, it's really serious, better behave seriously. But that, all that does is it creates an unauthentic relationship with the issue. So what I do is let's, I can still be very serious about something while also being humorous about it. I can care deeply about something while also being humorous. And the example I use is that we do have a healthy relationship with injuries.

• 1:41:03Blindboy Boatclub?

  If your pal breaks their leg and they get a cast, what do we do? We fucking sinus. Like that's gas. You draw fucking cock and balls on their cast. That is amazing. Why can't we do that for someone's depression? Do you get what I'm saying? Um, let's put a microphone into the audience. You can ask a question about anything in the whole world.

• 1:41:26Blindboy Boatclub?

  As long as we do it for five minutes. And don't ask any questions about the massage in case we jeopardise it.

• 1:41:33Speaker 04

  Can I go first?

• 1:41:34Blindboy Boatclub?

  You need to go first.

• 1:41:35Speaker 04

  No, can I go first with the massage?

• 1:41:37Blindboy Boatclub?

  You, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Someone throw your hands up. What are we, in fifty or?

• 1:41:43Blindboy Boatclub?

  I see so, look, you know what, the person who reluctantly went like that. Oh, you're putting your jacket on, okay.

• 1:41:51Blindboy Boatclub?

  Come on, lads, has anyone got a, there we go. This gentleman, hold on, we give him a microphone.

• 1:41:57Blindboy Boatclub?

  You have to say it into the mic or else the people listening to the podcast won't hear it.

• 1:42:02Blindboy Boatclub?

  Are you left-handed or right-handed?

• 1:42:03Blindboy Boatclub?

  I'm right-handed. I seem like a left-handed person, but I'm right-handed. All right, any more questions?

• 1:42:10Blindboy Boatclub?

  Are you for real? How has this veil of dignity come across the entire room where you're scared? Why, why, I feel like we're back in school.

• 1:42:18Speaker 04

  We need to put a cock and bows on this cast.

• 1:42:21Blindboy Boatclub?

  You can ask it.

• 1:42:25Speaker 06

  So, just when you were saying, I forget the name and it was hard to pronounce anyway, but the artist who first came up with the, the distance.

• 1:42:33Blindboy Boatclub?

  Giotto, G.I.O.T.T.O. And another fellow is Paolo Uccello, yeah.

• 1:42:39Speaker 06

  And, and you said it was based on, because you live in a city and buildings.

• 1:42:43Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yes.

• 1:42:44Speaker 06

  But were we not looking at trees and mountains and stuff?

• 1:42:47Blindboy Boatclub?

  So the thing is, no, but the thing is, nature, nature is chaotic. So, nature, trees don't form in beautiful, perfect lines. Only human-made buildings do. So, human-made buildings that had to adhere to the mathematics of architecture, all of a sudden now you had a perfect line. Perfect lines don't exist in nature. So that's what caused that advance, that leap in thinking. Holy shit, there's a perfect line. And that's what caused the human eye to attach to this. Any more questions?

• 1:43:25Speaker 04

  There's a question on the front row.

• 1:43:27Blindboy Boatclub?

  We've got the three, oh yeah, over yonder here, hold on, we get them. Where's, where's Usher gone?

• 1:43:33Blindboy Boatclub?

  Thank you, Usher.

• 1:43:36Speaker 04

  There's someone in the front row.

• 1:43:38Blindboy Boatclub?

  I really wish that Timbaland produced some of your songs and he never, Timbaland never got a chance to work with Usher and I don't know why. Go on.

• 1:43:46Speaker 07

  So, when you were diagnosed with autism.

• 1:43:48Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:49Speaker 07

  Why did you ask the question? What were you looking to find out or?

• 1:43:53Blindboy Boatclub?

  I was sick of people calling me eccentric in my real life, in my non-plastic bag wearing life.

• 1:44:04Blindboy Boatclub?

  Everyone who knows me kind of just was like, oh, he's mad, he's mental, he's insane, he's mad. And not in a bad way, not in a way that's he's harmful or he's mean, it's just he's fucking crazy. And the thing is, when everybody says that to you all the time, it's not very nice. I'd quite like to be normal, especially at things like weddings. Like, one thing I found, weddings was a big example for me. Every time I get invited to weddings in Ireland, I would slowly begin to realise that. I'd go to the wedding and I'd sit down at the table and I'd look around and I'd go, where are my friends? I don't know you, I don't, oh, I'm sitting with every fucking lunatic, I'm at the lunatic table.

• 1:44:50Blindboy Boatclub?

  This man has a ferret. And, and literally every wedding, it's like, a dude with a ferret, I think this fellow's a fucking, a, a, a dissident republican. This person is clearly an alcoholic. And I realised slowly, every single wedding I got invited to, even my friends' weddings, I was separately at a table with a group of misfits. And I'd realise slowly what had happened when the person was planning their wedding. They're thinking of who sits where, and then when it came to me, it's like, can't sit him behind Auntie Mara, no, no. He's gonna start talking about art. No, you can't, you can't sit him but, no, no, no, no. And slowly but surely, I'm sitting at the lunatic table with every wedding.

• 1:45:33Blindboy Boatclub?

  And the more normal I tried to act, the more fucking insane I came across as. So, in my 30s, I just said, fuck it, maybe I'm autistic.

• 1:45:44Blindboy Boatclub?

  So I went and found out and it turns out I am. So that's, that's what did it. Just consistently continually being referred to as eccentric and me saying to myself, I'm not trying to be eccentric, I'm trying my best to be normal. I don't want to be eccentric. I can be eccentric with a bag on my head, that's my job, but not when I'm at weddings. I want to just be a nice, normal person. Um, I think we caught, yeah, we got to call it a night. All right. Thank you so much to my guest, Patrick Friend.

• 1:46:12Blindboy Boatclub?

  Thank you.

• 1:46:13Blindboy Boatclub?

  That was magnificent, Patrick.

• 1:46:15Blindboy Boatclub?

  That was lovely, yeah.

• 1:46:16Blindboy Boatclub?

  We didn't get to talk about your career at all, but we had a beautiful chat about art.

• 1:46:22Blindboy Boatclub?

  We did.

• 1:46:23Blindboy Boatclub?

  Thank you to all ye wonderful people from Doggy. This is the Blind by Podcast, God bless.

• 1:46:32Blindboy Boatclub?

  That was a bit of a long one, wasn't it? But that's the beauty of podcasts. You don't have to listen to that in one sitting. You can, you can dip into it throughout the week. That's what I like about a long podcast. All right, I'm absolutely fucked. I need to take some Panadol and be horizontal. I'm, I'm not well. So rub a dog, genuflect to a swan, wink at a snail. I'll be back next week, hopefully with a hot take. You glorious Christmas bastards. I'm not blowing kisses at you because I'm sick. All right, I know that doesn't make any fucking sense. Doesn't make any sense at all, but it just doesn't feel right. Doesn't feel right to blow kisses while I'm sick.

• 1:47:17Blindboy Boatclub?

  I'll hug the microphone. I'll bring you into my breast.

• 1:47:24Blindboy Boatclub?

  Although you don't want to be doing that when I'm sick either, I'm just gonna wave at you.

• 1:47:28Blindboy Boatclub?

  You can't hear that, but you can if I put my hand in front of my voice like that. Oh. That's the sound of me waving in front. You'd still get sick if I did that, wouldn't you? Cause I'm making noise.

• 1:47:44Blindboy Boatclub?

  All right, look, I'll catch you next week, dog bless.

• 1:48:00Speaker 05

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