The ClearOut

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Games, Conditions, and Invisible Cruelties - Love According to Laing

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 16:27:09 GMT

In this episode, Dara is considering Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing's proposition that "love is a cover for violence". Informed by Game Theory and the work he did with twelve female schizophrenic patients in the 1960s, Laing came to believe the manipulative interpersonal dynamics that were playing out behind closed doors were effectively driving the Glasgow housewives mad. However, Laing concluded that the madness was a form of self-defence and arguably the only sane response to the oppressive nature of what the women were experiencing.

Dara leans into Laing's world of power and control in family relations and contextualises it within the terms of Game Theory - the idea that humans are endlessly strategising and hedging with one another as they try to achieve their personal goals while simultaneously understanding that the people they are dealing with are doing the same.

It makes Dara consider the nature of the human mind as evolved from the simian line as opposed to the canine mind which can be traced to wolves - the premise of the 2008 Mark Rowlands book - The Philosopher and the Wolf. Are humans simply evolutionarily devious and selfish? And what does that have to do with our relationship with cats and dogs?

Also in this episode, life as computer game, loving against the tide, and the spiciest toothpaste of them all!

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Listen, Think, Talk - The Deeper Connection Toolkit

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 18:31:35 GMT

In this episode, Dara is leaning into the power of conversation as a means cultivating deeper thought and connection, both with others and with the self. Bumping up against parts of ourselves we would rather weren't there at all, he argues for a radical humility that completely removes the ego from the equation. Aren't we much better equipped to assess ourselves if we can do so without the burden of ego and its expectations?

The consumerist mania of the modern world actively pushes human energy in a direction that is not conducive to thoughtfulness or connection. How are we meant to have time to think when we are desperately trying to buy our way to happiness? And how is that happiness possible if we don't have the resources to build our material world? Dara reflects on the time and energy he allocates to listening, thinking, and talking and concludes it is worth the effort, even at the expense of more material considerations.

Also, Sorkin's idealised presidents, the best Stephen King movie adaptations, the inseparability of politics and cynicism, puppy interruptions, and the compelling drama of The Pitt!

Philosophy as living practice and social engagement: https://www.hearlisten.ie/

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Dry Your Eyes, Mate - The Tears of Octogenarians

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 19:04:26 GMT

In this episode, Dara is thinking of the old men. Well, two old men specifically - Robert De Niro and Harrison Ford, both of whom just had very public displays of emotion. De Niro started crying on a chat show as he reflected on the state of the world and hoped for a better future. Ford made a very eloquent and emotional speech as he accepted a life time achievement award in Hollywood.

Haven't these two been onscreen hard men for much of their careers? What's with letting the mask slip? Dara reckons it's nothing more than the natural course of things - men get softer and more emotional as they age. He saw it with his father at a certain point and he recognises it in himself too. It has something to do with changing roles in life and being able to remove armour.

And this gendered shift in performance of traditional roles means that women start moving in the opposite direction - they get harder and tougher and more masculine as they age as they start 'doing femininity' in a way that has very little to do with conforming to social, or male, expectations.

Also, thoughts on Iran, useful enemies, Tottenham Hotspur as The Keystone Cops, and big things you want to stay in dark rooms...

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Don't Post That! - The Self-Sabotage of Online Misogyny

Wed, 25 Feb 2026 21:51:24 GMT

In this episode, Dara shares thoughts and reactions to the recent Tourette's Syndrome N-word debacle at the BAFTA awards. Rather than simply weighing in with his own perspective, he referred to Higher Learning, the Black culture podcast that he was sure would address the issue squarely and fairly. Whatever about the offence given, the discourse around both racism and Tourette's, and the N-word itself, the BBC emerged from the affair with very little credit.

The idea of objectification and being denied a complex full-bodied humanity ties in well with an article by a 15-year-old girl in which she lays out in stark terms the online landscape of sexism and misogyny that young women of her age are subjected to, both virtually and in the flesh. It has Dara recalling his recent episode on the Epstein files and the language he used as a teenage boy to describe and decry his female peers. He contextualises that before considering the current landscape and its impact on how adolescent boys regard girls. Is it possible the solution lies not with censorship or restricted access, but with older men cleaning house?

Ailie Nic an tSaoir, AKA alimcforever, the brilliant media and political analyst who posts excoriating viral videos on all things relating to institutional corruption and moral failure, had something very specific and typically well-researched to say about men who post unsolicited sexual messages at women online, and her own experience of dealing with same. Funny, sharp, and absolutely on point, she argues a disconnected life awaits those men who don't understand that women are more than their curves and orifices.

Guardian article on online misogyny experienced by teenage girls: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/feb/23/15-year-old-girl-misogyny-social-media-online-abuse

Alimcforever instagram profile: https://www.instagram.com/alimcforever/

Higher Learning podcast reaction to n-word BAFTAs controversy: https://www.theringer.com/podcasts/higher-learning-van-lathan-rachel-lindsay/2026/02/24/the-n-word-at-the-baftas-producing-r-kelly-and-gavin-newsom-backlash-fair-or-unfair

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Napalm, Keeping Quiet, and Sweet Country Music - The Lovely Career of Robert Duvall

Wed, 18 Feb 2026 23:58:01 GMT

In this episode, Dara revisits the careers and acting talent of two very special American actors - the very recently deceased Robert Duvall and Tom Noonan. Duvall had an amazingly long career from his breakthrough role in 1962's To Kill a Mockingbird, through the New Hollywood 70s and right on to this current decade. He was a performer of effortless and natural charm who was a master of quiet, deceptively unmannered acting.

Tom Noonan was much less of a mainstream star but no less an accomplished actor. He was utterly unique and idiosyncratic, almost impossible to pin down. An actor who always made unusual choices while fully inhabiting the characters he played, Dara recalls almost meeting him while in New York over twenty years ago. Alas, it was not to be.

Another Hollywood figure of less obvious renown also passed away this week. He was more accustomed to being behind the camera than in front of it, but his particular body of work was much less seen than those of Duvall or Noonan.

Dara shares his latest thoughts on the human condition before giving his unhappy review of Bradley Cooper's third directorial feature - Is This Thing On?

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The Spectre of Mortality - Getting Older Ain't No Fun!

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 22:56:19 GMT

In this episode, Dara is reflecting on ageing and mortality as he responds to his father's current health battles. His father, who has dementia, is in a particularly vulnerable state at the moment and though he is confident the situation is only temporary, Dara knows it is an undeniable sign of the direction of travel that will only end in one place.

Avoiding an overindulgence of morbid wallowing, Dara engages with his response to what's going on and how it is stirring things up in his psychic basement. He references the old Marvel comics that are strewn around the surfaces of the home studio and which were recently exhumed from a watery cellar in his parents' house. Careworn and damp, they reflect something of the memories and images that have been rising to the surface in Dara's mind. But he's not quite ready to go there yet.

Also, training the new dog, conversations by the shoreline, and sweaty bladders!

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Dogs, Dogs, and More Dogs! The Epstein Files 2.0

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 22:44:27 GMT

With the latest release of Jeffrey Epstein files, Dara feels he wants to weigh in on the latest revelations and the famous people implicated. What can be so powerful to cause people to utterly disregard the female victims of Epstein's trafficking operation? Is it a comment on the high society movers and shakers, or on the young women much further down the food chain? Or both?

Dara revisits his adolescence and honestly recalls the way he and his male friends used to categorise their female peers - the ubiquitous labels were very few and brutally unsophisticated. He mitigates their use by allowing for gross immaturity and broadly speaking, the sexual cluelessness of he and his pals. Over a few short years both sides of the gender aisle benefitted from a reasonable amount of growing up.

So if Dara and other boys like him could turn the corner before they left school, why were the men (and women) in Epstein's sphere of influence so singularly unable to do so? It has much more to do with power than sex.

The best kind of dogs have so much more to offer us than the human kind.

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Hamnet, Train Dreams, and the Dark Spells of the Natural World

Wed, 28 Jan 2026 22:45:52 GMT

In this episode, Dara reviews Hamnet and Train Dreams, two very successful films in which nature is integral to the experiences of the protagonists. Jessie Buckley lights up Hamnet as a child of nature, and in Train Dreams, Joel Edgerton's solitary logman carries with him an ineffable sadness and sense of guilt as he chops his way through North American forests in the first half of the twentieth century.

Both stories depict nature and the natural world as vast, unknowable entities that nonetheless have immeasurable repercussions when they are not given due respect and care. Both are stories from the past with resonant lessons for the modern moment. Warming to that theme, Dara considers the oppositionality of nature to modernity and the unsustainable aspect of cities that never stop expanding, becoming metaphors for capitalism itself.

Dara identifies a suspiciousness of nature in the comments of certain movie critics when they were reviewing Hamnet. Highly critical of their response, he recognises this as a New World anti-savage position, something that speaks to the fear of modernisation and civility being defied. He names some films that confront this tension head on, including two Australian classics - Wake in Fright and Picnic at Hanging Rock.

2016 ClearOut piece on the natural life: https://theclearout.com/advice-for-the-young-and-impressionable/its-only-natural/

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Giving Value to Invisible Living

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 22:31:32 GMT

In this episode, Dara reckons with the endless repetitions and circuits of day-to-day living - how can they be imbued with meaning? Or do we remain passive and wait for meaning to be conferred from outside? And can meaning really be found in the morning cup of coffee, or the daily stroll in the woods?

Dara worries about the distorting effect of meeting the world via online spaces. The performative, curated, and orchestrated nature of so much content is not to be trusted, he argues. He compares two very different pieces of content, one utterly contrived and manipulative, the other produced and structured, but absolutely natural.

The place of the natural is central to Dara's conception of being well. He adds to that the idea not of being happy, but of being satisfied with different elements in one's life. He positions satisfaction as being akin to acceptance of imperfection and therefore a more attainable goal than the mythical 'happiness'.

Nully the puppy is beside the microphone for the first part of the show, but is discreetly confined to quarters not long after. A more natural arrangement!

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One Film After Another - Movie and TV Review of 2025!

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 17:43:39 GMT

To kick off a new year of the podcast, Dara looks back at his viewing pleasure and displeasure of 2025 and drops some top tens for your consideration. Beginning with a wrap-up of last year's Oscar-winning and nominated titles, he goes on to list his favourite films of 2025, as well as his top films outside that group. There are some obvious choices there as well as a couple of surprises.

Dara includes a list of movies that he was catching up on from the last few years that he considers worthy of inclusion - these are nice ones that could well have passed you by. Rewatched movies and classics is the other main list, and there are some absolute crackers on it. Oh, and of course time is made to name the duds of last year. A quick round-up of TV, good and bad, brings things to a close.

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The 2025 Christmas Special!

Wed, 24 Dec 2025 11:29:40 GMT

It's the 2025 Christmas special! Dara presents his new seasonal story, hot off the press! In 'Early Service', an exhausted daughter sits down with her philandering father for their annual Christmas night out. Can they survive their oppositional tendencies? Will something magical help them transcend their differences? Why does the holiday mean such different things to each of them?

Good news for lovers of the ClearOut Christmas concert - Chiara is back! Forced out through illness the previous two years, she makes a most welcome return and succeeds in making Dara's singing sound slightly less clunky than when he is left to his own devices. Three Christmas favourites are given a serviceable run.

Happy Christmas and thanks for listening!

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Saving Christmas and Other Miracles - Interview with Musician, Singer and Songwriter, Aengus Devine

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 21:30:35 GMT

In this episode it is Dara's great pleasure to sit down and have a long overdue chat with his great friend and former college buddy, Aengus Devine. Aengus is a gifted musician, singer and songwriter, and has sustained a long career as a professional musician. At the end of their long and winding conversation, Aengus plays his lovely new Christmas single 'God Save Christmas'.

Before that, the conversation stays firmly in the world of music, with thoughts on 50s rock and roll and its influence on The Beatles and The Rolling Stones; the dubious impression of being seen in public carrying a Barry Manilow album; why Pet Sounds is no Sgt. Pepper's; actors who were also singers; separating art from the artist; favourite Christmas songs and much more.

Dara takes a quiet moment at the start of the episode to briefly share his thoughts on two shocking incidents that occurred over the weekend - the terror attack on a Jewish Hanukkah gathering in Bondi Beach in Sydney, and the killing in their home of the American film director Rob Reiner and his wife Michele.

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Mari Lwyd, a Sugar Mouse, and a Rake of Christmas Poems!

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 23:30:00 GMT

In this episode, Dara is wondering if the spirit of the season is upon you, or if you're still waiting for that festive feeling to announce itself. The price of beef isn't helping much. Nor is the price of Christmas trees, for that matter! And why does his daughter have so much to do?

Ignoring those sources of exhaustion and exasperation, Dara launches into a sheaf of Christmas poems from both sides of the Atlantic. Christmases exotic and local, Christmases lonely and loving, Christmases urban and rural, they're all represented. Just don't tell Dara that you knew what a 'garrigue' was!

Christmas poems from PoetryFoundation.org: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/collections/101692/christmas-poems

Christmas Crackers: https://www.candlestickpress.co.uk/pamphlet/christmas-crackers-ten-poems-to-surprise-and-delight/

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Roses, Tears, and Paying for Lunch - a Multi-Millionaire's Masculinity Hack!

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 20:41:39 GMT

In this episode, Dara has thoughts on December coming round so quickly and the accompanying temptation to collapse in a heap. Does the festive season differ in any significant way from the rest of the year? Christmas really did used to be something special and genuinely indulgent - but does that still land when the rest of the year seems to involve frequent indulgence too?

The popularity of a new masculinity book has Dara scratching his head - are the apparent insights remotely new or insightful? Does the millionaire author have anything substantively useful to share other than 'make money' and 'be kind'? At least he has learned how to cry at the ripe old age of 61! For some, the learnings come later in life. The masculinity crisis remains unsolved for now...

Dara is more concerned by growing wealth and opportunity inequality and he argues for a type of radical thoughtfulness that chooses not to focus on gender or identity, but rather on an understanding of shared resources and mutual consideration. What an idiot!

Maybe bartering is the way to go. Why did that nice man give Dara cakes in the car park? Positive impulses were followed and reciprocated (That's not a euphemism!).

Scott Galloway's masculinity tips: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/dec/03/scott-galloway-masculinity-crisis-notes-on-being-a-man

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Flipping the Script and Messing with Expectations

Wed, 26 Nov 2025 21:48:00 GMT

In this episode, Dara considers the power of defying expectations. Partly prompted by a conversation with his dementia-affected father, his thoughts are also informed by a New York psychologist who worked with first responders to World Trade Center attacks. Role-reversal can be both destabilising and disarming, but it rarely goes unnoticed, and it often provokes both consternation and resentment.

To explore it further, Dara looks at a handful of female-centred films where the protagonists fail to behave as expected, or in a couple of cases, the lead actresses don't conform to their previous character types. One such film is Jane Campion's In the Cut (2003), in which Meg Ryan gave a performance that obliterated her image as America's sweetheart that she had so firmly established in the romantic comedies of her earlier career. Films like Olivia Wilde's Booksmart (2019) and Emma Seligman's Bottoms (2023) present female characters who had historically been on the fringes of the story, not at its heart.

Also - the right to keep a flame alive, affirming unseen victories, men's need to speak, and decorating your internal house exactly as you see fit!

My 2023 Christmas story, which touches on the right to self-identify and defy expectations: https://theclearout.com/short-story/mrs-hennessey-and-the-womens-christmas/

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Hand Me A Tissue, Somebody Just Scored a Goal!

Wed, 19 Nov 2025 20:35:42 GMT

In this episode, Dara confesses to having had a very teary twenty-four hours. But what could have caused him to weep like a baby?

It wasn't Troy Parrott's match-winning goal (and raw and emotional post-match interview) that means Ireland still have a chance of going to next year's world cup, was it?

It wasn't Chase Infiniti's exquisitely vulnerable performance in Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another, was it?

It wasn't a Bosnian-born, New York-based milliner sharing her heart-rending story of bereavement, sickness, and recovery, was it?

It wasn't a written account of a historic football match between the two unrecognised states of Palestine and the Basque Country, was it?

Yes! Yes, it was all those things! Football and acting and hats (and babies) and more football!

But really it was about hope and pride and the unexpected.

It was about innocence and fear and defiance and love.

It was about friendship and tragedy and resilience and rebirth.

It was about solidarity and sovereignty and identity and visibility.

Dara tries to explain what it all meant and what it all means. It's an episode about sport and storytelling and small kindnesses.

Sid Lowe on an unforgettable night in Bilbao: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/nov/17/it-touched-us-from-the-start-palestine-savour-historic-night-in-bilbao

Behida Dolic Millinery: https://behidadolic.com/

Behida Dolic Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/behidadolic/

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Can Women Love Monsters? Guillermo del Toro says 'YES'!

Wed, 12 Nov 2025 21:00:00 GMT

After watching Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein, Dara finds himself wondering about the director's world view, and specifically his perspective on beautiful, sincere women and their superficially unattractive love interests. The Mexican director has an established sympathy with those considered ugly and monstrous by society - could a Freudian reading be applicable?

Following this idea of male directors and their presentation or objectification of women in their work, Dara considers female characters as featured in the films of Alfred Hitchcock and Quentin Tarantino - two very unstraightforward male auteurs. What do their heroines say about them? And does it have anything to do with how they have been treated or perceived by the opposite sex off-camera?

Finishing up, Dara considers how he has presented female characters in his short stories. Has he unintentionally revealed something about his own hidden desires? Or is he just painfully sincere himself?

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You Silly Girl! Gender Roles from 1940s Hollywood

Wed, 05 Nov 2025 23:03:02 GMT

A week under the weather had Dara running for the comfort of old Hollywood classics. In this episode, he reports his findings.

Influenced by the spooky season, he reached for a couple of Hitchcock staples of the older variety - 1940's Rebecca and 1941's Suspicion. Two very different but no less complicated love stories, one featuring espionage and seduction, the other - gulp! - murder!

He followed those with something altogether frothier - George Stevens's Woman of the Year (1942), the film that saw the first pairing of Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn. On screen sparring partners and off-screen lovers, the sparks fly as they first made movie magic.

Dara reflects on the gender roles permitted to female stars of the day and what would happen to them if they didn't conform to type.

Two Netflix productions are also reviewed - Black Rabbit starring Jude Law and Jason Bateman as errant brothers, and Kathryn Bigelow's latest nailbiter, A House of Dynamite.

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It's Autumn - Get Your A** in a Cave!

Wed, 22 Oct 2025 23:45:02 GMT

In this episode Dara argues that at a certain moment in autumn, the whole season starts to feel like a Sunday night, and not in a good way! The shortening days, the lengthening nights, it all combines to create a sense of nature closing in to usher us into a dark resting place. And isn't that what Mondays can feel like?

Warming to the theme, Dara once again finds himself advocating for more contact with nature and less contact with tech. He wonders if we're not completely losing touch with our instincts as we become ever more subsumed by the numberless conveniences and relentless stimulation of the modern moment. For him it raises the question of knowledge. What do we believe we know? What do we use to inform our existential navigation system?

To make the show a bit more high-falutin', Dara sources a handful of autumn poems, including a couple of classics from Dante Gabriel Rosetti and Mary Oliver. Watch out for the falling leaves!

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The Wisdom of Humanising the Enemy

Wed, 15 Oct 2025 21:59:57 GMT

In this episode, Dara is wondering who the enemy is. Finding himself symbolically shaking his fist at the clouds, he tries to work out who exactly he was angry with, and why. His wife used Jedi mind powers to flip the script which only stoked his fire further. The two choices available to him were obvious, and one was certainly not going to end well...

Reflecting on bad behaviour gets Dara thinking about accountability and personal responsibility - integrity is not possible without accountability. There can be no free passes. And if it can't be done in public, it surely must be done in private, which is where personal responsibility comes in.

Also in this episode, the Israel/Gaza ceasefire, another great father-daughter conversation in the car, and a furry new addition to The ClearOut family!

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AI Love Connections - The Charm of Asymmetric Ones and Zeroes!

Wed, 08 Oct 2025 22:28:35 GMT

Who needs women when you've got AI? That seems to be the position of AI porn providers who seem pretty confident of their feminist credentials. How could they not be when they're taking the messiness out of porn consumption. And while men are licking their lips over their fembot fantasy, female customers are enjoying committed relationships with AI partners. Welcome to love and sex in the 21st century!

Dara tries to get his head around this landscape without losing sight of the underpinning human need for connection and being the focus of somebody else's love and desire. He thinks he's doing well with a solid 'sex-positive' attitude, but then a tech bro gives an example of what you might freely say to an AI coquette, and he has to concede that something is very off. Is misogyny being normalised, or is that an overly moralistic position?

Time is set aside at the end of the episode to pay tribute to Manchan Magan, the Irish broadcaster, filmmaker, writer and passionate advocate of Irish language and culture who passed away far too soon last week. Dara reads some passages from Magan's wonderful book "Thirty-Two Words for Field" and it is striking how few AI creations there are to be found, described, or salivated over in the etymological delight. But there are cailleachs - women to be wary of - and maybe that's just what the AI porn consumers are trying to avoid!

Guardian article on AI girlfriends: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/06/rise-of-ai-girlfriends-adult-dating-websites

Guardian article on AI relationships: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/sep/09/ai-chatbot-love-relationships

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PTA - One Brilliant Film After Another!

Wed, 01 Oct 2025 20:33:53 GMT

This week's episode couldn't be simpler - it's an hour of Paul Thomas Anderson adulation. More specifically, it is sixty minutes dedicated to his new film, One Battle After Another. A propulsive story of revolution and retreat, of obsession and resignation, of manipulation and resistance. With stellar performances throughout a typically brilliant Anderson cast, it offers new and vivid highs for Leonardo DiCaprio, Benicio Del Toro and Sean Penn. They are more than matched by Teyana Taylor and Chase Infiniti as the women who are the catalytic converters of the story.

For a film that features government fascism, white supremacy, forced detention, betrayal and murder, it is infused with heart and humanity. Perhaps this is Anderson's offer to a chaotic and unjust world? Whether it is or not, Dara loved what was served up.

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Charlie Kirk, Christian Insulation, and a Lethal Amendment Cocktail

Wed, 24 Sep 2025 21:45:46 GMT

In this episode, Dara is reflecting on the killing of the prominent Christian Right thought leader, Charlie Kirk. Hailed by his followers as their Martin Luther King Jr i.e. a spiritual martyr and presumably, man of peace, it seems irresponsible not to discuss the tensions and contradictions that arise from the comparison. Kirk's documented racism, homophobia, transphobia and misogyny seem to fly in the face of Christian values, but that is allegedly what he represented.

Dara tries to figure out why Kirk's particular brand of faith seemed to have no issue with vilifying and demonising others. He also tries to establish what traditional family units look like and why other arrangements of family should be so threatening to some people. He's pretty sure he and most of his friends came from the type of social unit that Kirk would have valorised - why then does he feel so unmoved by Kirk's rhetoric?

Donald Trump's performance at Kirk's memorial service was a further reminder of his pantomime villain status. His unerring nose for what will further divide a fractured America is quite something to behold. Surely, as others have commented, it is a time for cool heads and empathy to prevail.

Also, a succinct diagnosis of the American political agenda on both sides of the aisle, an epitaph to remember, and why poultry should be afraid, very afraid...

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Robert Redford - The Meeting Point of Hot and Cold

Wed, 17 Sep 2025 20:00:00 GMT

In this very straightforward episode, Dara marks the passing of Hollywood icon Robert Redford by revisiting his career as an actor and director. From his true arrival as a Hollywood A-lister in 1969's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, all the way to his last leading role in The Old Man and the Gun (2018), Redford held the screen with an effortless charisma and presence, only enhanced by his matinee idol good looks.

The high points of his career came in the 70s, after which he made his much-lauded directorial debut with Ordinary People (1980) for which he won his only Academy Award. Dara makes a case for Redford's best acting work being attributable to his innate coldness and paranoia that, when deployed skilfully, brought out exceptional performances. In other words, he was most effective when he was playing not fully likeable characters.

Do you know which director he collaborated with most often? You might be surprised to learn the answer. Dara chooses one of those movies for his top Redford picks.

Dara also reviews the latest film from two other famous collaborators - Spike Lee and Denzel Washington, who have just released their retelling of Kurosawa's High and Low (1963), the exciting and colourful Highest 2 Lowest.

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What Are We Looking For? Warm Blood and Sensory Connection!

Wed, 10 Sep 2025 22:10:09 GMT

Embattled by consecutive migraines, Dara is reckoning with a system under pressure. He attempts to own the state he's in while advocating for a deeper connection with what lies beneath all the turbulence. This line of enquiry leads to thoughts on observing a month's mind for Pepper, the family dog. A phrase used by the Venerable Bede in relation to that tradition inspired a new poem, which is shared.

Dara wonders if we know what should and shouldn't be prioritised. He argues that only by doing our own internal work can we really meet the world with confidence and clarity. And when we do that, it is so much easier to connect with others. That connection is what many have been missing as technology encroaches more and more on our ability to separate the wheat from the chaff of our genuinely important concerns.

Dara argues that we are energised by both life and love and that in being interested in and caring for others we locate our humanity. Contact, in the flesh, with warm-blooded creatures is the key to our wellness!

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Leaving the Room - Cheating Death, Solving Life, and a Planet Where Nobody Dies!

Wed, 03 Sep 2025 21:00:00 GMT

In this episode, Dara is thinking about what comes next. Prompted by an article about Irish people signing up for their bodies to be preserved at death in the hope of waking up in the distant future, he finds himself perplexed by the desire to outlive a natural lifespan. While it is tempting to dismiss the participants as deluded fantasists, he recognises that something deeply anxious lurks beneath the aspirant futurism.

This type of scientific pioneering nestles very closely to conceptions not just of highly advanced future existence, but also to spirituality, faith, and the afterlife. Dara reflects on his own atheism and the tension that exists between it and his belief in a universal life force that animates us all. He also admits to praying in the aftermath of his dog's recent death. What was he praying for and to whom did he pray?

A funeral at the weekend had Dara recalling the impact of a very significant figure in his young life. He shares his thoughts on a natural end to a long life and the essential quality of a life remembered. He also talks affectionately about his father's grandiosity and how that informs a conception of a life well lived.

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Reaching for the Tourniquet, or How to Stop the Bleeding

Wed, 27 Aug 2025 22:00:00 GMT

In this episode, Dara admits to being a bit exhausted after moving house for the fifth time since the pandemic. It is not the most fun he has ever had and the ongoing grief ripples over Pepper the dog are adding to the load. However, the glass is (probably) half-full and at least the nickname for the new home has come very quickly and easily.

Dara found considerable solace from four different podcasts that he is happy to recommend - two movie-related, one about the psychology of grief, and the last about the very nature of being, knowing, and consciousness.

One of the film-related podcasts featured a clip from the Coen Brothers' No Country For Old Men (2007), and Dara found what was expressed so compelling that he tries to unpack its significance as a key tool of sustainable wellness and profoundly meaningful survival.

It's mortality, it's laughter, it's vulnerability - it's The ClearOut!

The Rewatchables do 'Witness' - https://www.theringer.com/podcasts/the-rewatchables/2025/08/25/witness-with-bill-simmons-and-mallory-rubin

The Big Picture 2000s series 'Mission Accomplished' - https://www.theringer.com/podcasts/mission-accomplished

Hidden Brain podcast on trauma, loss, and grief - https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/the-trauma-script/

Rupert Spira and Federico Faggin on consciousness - https://rupertspira.libsyn.com/episode-77-federico-faggin

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Surprised by Beauty, or The Art of Piercing Armour

Wed, 20 Aug 2025 21:30:00 GMT

In this episode Dara is reflecting on masculinity for a couple of reasons. One is the continuing aftershock of the death of Pepper the dog, the other is because of the continuing presentation of a narrow version of masculinity that seems somewhat inadequate for purpose.

Dara thought he was coping reasonably well on his grief journey, but he shares two unexpected moments that completely opened him up. It makes him think about the depth of feeling within all of us that can so easily be untapped.

Jason Wilson is a prominent men's advocate in the US, but he speaks about masculinity and its relation to femininity in very traditionally gendered terms that Dara finds himself resisting a little. That said, the fundamental struggle between male vulnerability and toughness is very recognisable and relatable. What is the path most likely to lead to a type of masculinity that can easily contain both?

Finally, a little acknowledgement of the late Terence Stamp and a further callback to the recently departed Michael Madsen.

Quentin Tarantino's tribute to Michael Madsen (including link to Madsen interview): https://thenewbev.com/blog/2025/07/pure-cinema-podcast-quentin-tarantinos-tribute-to-michael-madsen/

The ClearOut episode on Terence Stamp in Billy Budd: https://theclearout.com/podcast/billy-budd-russell-brand-and-the-dark-corners-of-male-desire-episode-122/

Higher Learning episode with Jason Wilson: https://www.theringer.com/podcasts/higher-learning-van-lathan-rachel-lindsay/2025/04/15/kyren-lacy-and-the-mental-wellness-of-black-men-with-jason-wilson

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Puppy Love - A Good Time, Not a Long Time

Wed, 13 Aug 2025 23:01:00 GMT

In this episode Dara is stepping carefully as he negotiates a painfully recent family tragedy - the sudden death of Pepper, the beloved family dog. Still too soon to fully unpack the depth of his grief, he nonetheless attempts to convey Pepper's importance and unique brand of loveliness.

Refusing to wallow in the horror of how she died, nor wanting to indulge maudlin reminiscing, Dara instead reads 'Hilary', a short story he wrote 12 years ago about saying farewell to a loyal companion. Naturally, the story takes on a resonance that was not expected when it was written.

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The Selling of Women's Bits, or Sydney Sweeney's Sassy Chest!

Wed, 06 Aug 2025 23:06:38 GMT

In this episode, Dara is looking at women's bits and how they continue to exert such a hold on so many onlookers, many with cash in hand, some holding other things. If the names Sydney Sweeney and Bonnie Blue are not instantly familiar to you, you have not been keeping abreast of things topical and pertinent this week. Sweeney is a Hollywood hot property who has made no bones about her need to make money to keep the show on the road. Blue is an English porn star who has just been the focus of a Channel 4 documentary following her facilitation of a jaw-dropping sex stunt.

What do they have in common? They are both blonde, beautiful, and buxom - and willing to trade on their physical assets. They have both found themselves at the centre of recent controversies, one invoking moral outrage, the other more in the area of identity politics and culture wars. Dara draws a connection between these young women, the commodification of their looks and bodies, and the experience of the Hemingway sisters - Margaux and Mariel - almost 50 years ago. The story doesn't seem to change. Young, beautiful and female equates to opportunities to capitalise or be capitalised upon, and usually for the sexual satisfaction of an eager male audience.

Dara questions the value of being morally dismissive of the women in question and wonders more about the damage being done by the ubiquity of sexualised imagery. He is certain the devices we carry with us everywhere are a huge part of the problem and advocates for putting them away and immersing ourselves in things more sensory and natural before we lose our perspective completely on what is and isn't real.

Also in this episode, two excellent words, recommended texts on the porn industry, and a brilliant book on parenting teenage girls.

Sydney Sweeney's 'racist' jeans: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/aug/05/sydney-sweeney-controversy

YMRT episode on the Hemingway sisters: https://www.youmustrememberthispodcast.com/episodes/2020/2/24/the-hemingway-curse-mariel-and-margaux-make-me-over-episode-7

Unherd discuss Bonnie Blue's recent Channel 4 documentary: https://unherd.com/watch-listen/should-we-morally-condemn-bonnie-blue/?lang=us

The Last Days of August: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/jan/11/the-last-days-of-august-review-ames-jon-ronson-podcast-porn-industry

Untangled by Lisa Damour: https://drlisadamour.com/books/untangled/

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It's Emma Thompson, Stupid! (She's a Dame, Don't You Know...)

Wed, 30 Jul 2025 23:01:00 GMT

This episode is as on the nose as a John Lee Hancock film! No ambiguity, no grey areas, it's a celebration of the career of Emma Thompson. After recently rewatching 1995's Sense and Sensibility, Dara was reminded of how much he has always admired Emma Thompson. So he decided to dedicate an hour to her (almost) entire filmography.

He goes through a selective history of her most prominent roles, identifying some personal favourites and some missed opportunities, including a relatively recent film that was quietly breathtaking and possibly underseen.

Sense and Sensibility occupies a particular place in Dara's memory for a very specific reason. He shares that story as well as biting back at a disingenuous take on Ang Lee's film by a critic who sometimes seems to misread female characters and their experience.

From The Tall Guy (1989) to the Ken and Em years, to a paycheck decade, to the prolific 2010s, up to the current output, Dara hopes he has done justice to a really special talent.

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The Assumption of Imperfection, or Where Are the Serious Men?

Wed, 23 Jul 2025 23:01:00 GMT

This week's episode is all about men and their flawed humanity. Reflecting on his childhood and adolescence, Dara is struck by the fact that he cannot identify a single serious, or substantial man. He wonders if this is a reflection of his unrealistic idealism or whether it is an indication that men embrace a certain model of infantilisation that is tantamount to self-sabotage.

Is there an argument that men are given too much room to be unserious and fallible, and that's what encourages their errant behaviour? Is it plausible that the burden of seriousness, of responsibility, then falls largely on women? Is that possibly a source of resentment?

At a certain point in his life, Dara realised that a significant number of women held the default assumption that all men will ultimately disappoint. He has always struggled with and fought against this terrible indictment of the male of the species, in spite of the endless presentation of evidence to support the position - the high profile Coldplay concert incident of the Astronomer CEO a great case in point.

Dara's question is what should men do with this context, this cultural frame, that they are given? His line of enquiry looks at where the battle lines are drawn between men and women and how nobody escapes the roles they are assigned.

He also wonders what constitutes a serious man - does the Coen brothers' 2009 film 'A Serious Man' have the answer?

Also, Ben Kingsley's Irish accent, Dara's hippie upbringing (again), and male support groups...

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Out of Sight, Out of Mind - The Cruelty and Arrogance of Power

Wed, 16 Jul 2025 23:01:00 GMT

In this episode, Dara has historical wrongs on his mind. He went to see In Plain Sight at the weekend, a striking and confronting piece of site-specific documentary theatre that addressed the history and legacy of the Mother and Baby homes in 20th century Ireland. He watched it with his wife and with his sister, who was born in one of the homes featured in the work. To say it was a powerful experience would be a gross understatement.

Having recently watched a couple of 80s comedies with his young daughter, Dara is alarmed by a particular term of abuse set aside for women that cropped up a bit too liberally in the name of humour. Not for the first time, he finds himself observing that there is no equivalent slight for men and recognises how political and gendered the word is. To his great relief, he did not have to try and explain it to his watching companion.

Finally, Dara shares his thoughts on the utterly brilliant American poet Andrea Gibson, who passed away earlier this week after a 4-year battle with cancer. Gibson, who identified as non-binary, was a truly singular voice whose work radiated a fierce intelligence nestled alongside a beautifully compassionate engagement with human frailty and vulnerability. As a small attempt at paying tribute, Dara reads their poem 'The Tears That Got Me Here - in praise of crying'.

Andrea Gibson documentary, coming to Apple TV+: https://andreagibson.org/come-see-me-in-the-good-light

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I Am Not my Thoughts and Emotions! Or Maybe That's All I Am?

Wed, 09 Jul 2025 23:01:00 GMT

In this episode, Dara picks up a point from last week and wonders if we can simultaneously be and not be our thoughts and emotions. He asks of what use our emotions are to others. Are we just being self-indulgent when we unload on others or is there room for more self-regulation? He also offers a way into better understanding relational estrangements and resentments.

The shocking death of footballer Diogo Jota last week brought expressions of sympathy well beyond the clubs and country he played for. A Liverpool-supporting friend of Dara's shared the response of one fan who posted his own reaction online. Dara was struck by how the young man epitomised the best aspects of football fandom and its peculiar parasocial norms of behaviour.

The actor Michael Madsen's death may have been less shocking but Dara reflects on his distinctive screen presence and some of his career highs, including his infamous scene that many couldn't stomach in Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, and the role he played in the remake of Sam Peckinpah's The Getaway.

Finally Dara shares thoughts on 1958's Bonjour Tristesse, which itself has recently been remade. A story of sex, desire, independence, and betrayal, it featured a stunning Jean Seberg in only her second film role as the mischievous teenage daughter of David Niven's scarcely believable playboy who is all too easily led away from Deborah Kerr's virtuous old flame.

You Must Remember This season on Jean Seberg and Jane Fonda: https://www.youmustrememberthispodcast.com/episodes/2017/8/22/jeanandjanearchive

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The Comfort of the Familiar, or Your Brain Would Like a New Pathway, Please!

Wed, 02 Jul 2025 23:01:00 GMT

In this episode Dara is trying to disembed some of his thinking in an attempt to do better. The well-worn pathways in his brain contribute to narratives that he can't stop regurgitating and which are no longer serving him. Time for change - but that's easier said than done.

He explains why understanding is so central to his concept of wellness. He argues that it is a counter to anxiety and opens the door to greater calm. He also believes that it encourages more successful alignment between the internal and external worlds that we dwell in. The idea of rightness and being justified - in a geometric sense - are part of this existential alignment.

Dara proffers that we instinctively recognise what is right and natural in the world and that recognition consequently produces greater joy and ease in our lives. He talks also about 'craving the absent' which is a simple way of understanding areas of incompleteness in our lives.

Reflecting on the dangers of dichotomous thinking, Dara holds up Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken as Exhibit A for the prosecution, indicting it for oversimplifying the myriad choices and encounters that we never make or have. As a counterpoint, he recites the poem My Father Speaks of His Father by Bro. Yao (Hoke S. Glover III).

Also, thoughts on actors Willem Dafoe and Kevin Kline.

My Father Speaks of His Father - https://rattle.com/my-father-speaks-of-his-father-by-bro-yao-hoke-s-glover-iii/

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Stop Laughing at Me, I'm a Very Important Person!

Wed, 25 Jun 2025 23:01:00 GMT

In this episode, Dara is concerned about egos getting out of control, and he has two specific case studies in mind - one playing out presently in the Middle East, and one that played out a long time ago on a little Japanese island.

He talks about lessons in humility from the world of martial arts and learning how not to take things personally. He also lays out a simple way to think about conflict and what one's particular disposition might be in that area. He imagines a fanciful scenario where Israel took a very different course of action in response to the October 7th attacks.

Responding to a film treatment of an infamous conflict that rocked the world of Irish football, Dara revisits his own experience of that drama before recommending some alternative sports movie choices.

Finally, Dara tries to pay tribute to a good friend who just passed away and who epitomised the absence of ego and the possession of the ultimate anti-ego weapon - humour.

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The Intimacy of Male Connection, or What Do Men Need to Talk?

Wed, 18 Jun 2025 23:01:00 GMT

Dara kicks off this episode celebrating the extraordinary story of Tina Turner and how she overcame the worst adversity to reinvent herself as an iconic figure of 80s and 90s popular music. Having recently seen the astonishing stage musical based on her life, he has renewed enthusiasm for Tina's inspirational girl power narrative.

After that, it is all about men and Dara's experience, both historical and very recent, of men talking. He challenges the stereotype of the non-communicative male because his experience with his male friends has always been one of forthright and open sharing. In many ways, it has been the defining feature of his friendships and one which he believes continues to serve he and his friends extremely well.

So what is required for male talk to thrive? Dara argues that it is largely about safety and trust that may or may not also need space and time. He talks about side-by-side communication as opposed to the potentially more confronting face-to-face model. And he also reasserts his conviction that most men are sensitive beings who bottle up their thoughts and feelings because compassionate ears and sympathetic shoulders have never been offered to them.

A couple of new British comedy film recommendations round out this edition of the pod. Where else would you get it?

Ep35 of The ClearOut (January 2022) - Scared Women, Damaged Men, and the Crisis of Broken Masculinity: https://theclearout.com/podcast/scared-women-damaged-men-and-the-crisis-of-broken-masculinity-episode-35/

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Fathers' Day Episode - Stopping the Rot and Staying in the Lovelight

Wed, 11 Jun 2025 23:00:59 GMT

In this week's show, Dara talks about his experience of fatherhood and his ever-evolving relationship with his daughter. He continues to fall at the same hurdle on a regular basis - will he, or can he change? He shares a personal father moment that made him cry and wonders why it can be so difficult to cry for oneself.

After laying out some movie role models for his daughter, Dara turns his attention to his own father and reads a short piece he wrote about his father's embodiment of a type of masculinity that has had a lasting positive impact. He realises he overlooked his father's sense of humour and to redress the balance he relays a recent exchange that shows there's dog in the old life yet...

Finally, Dara reads three poems about fatherhood that he thought were particularly lovely. The poets featured are Galway Kinnell, Ross Gay, and Carl Dennis.

The ClearOut episode on the American father - https://theclearout.com/podcast/big-bad-daddies-from-tony-soprano-to-my-father-in-several-easy-steps-episode-20/

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Monkey? What Monkey? - Catharsis, Fandom, and the Owning of Self

Wed, 04 Jun 2025 23:01:00 GMT

This episode has something for everyone. Dara kicks off with an acknowledgement of the show's 4th birthday before breaking down his fandom of Tottenham Hotspur in the wake of their recent Europa League triumph - the trophy monkey is finally off the collective backs of long-suffering Spurs fans. Thanks be to the Gods of Football!

The brilliant The Poetry's Dead Podcast just featured a poem of Dara's which gives him the opportunity to sing the praises of that show and its lovely presenters, Ryan Duggins and Leon Dunne. Making poetry accessible and fun, their openhearted advocacy is as infectious as it is unpretentious.

Something raised by the lads prompts Dara to think about where he locates the strength of authenticity and what that feels like. He is surprised to identify a correlation to his experience of depression.

Another questionable wellness article raises at least one of Dara's eyebrows. Why is so much airtime given to people with so little to say? And does Dara secretly wish he was one of those people?

Finally the episode comes to a close with a brief appraisal of cold and warm men. Guess what? Dara's favourite actor from childhood is exceptionally warm!

The Poetry's Dead Podcast (featuring Dara's poem 'Time') - https://thepoetrysdeadpodcast.buzzsprout.com/2322959/episodes/17256354-talking-gargoyles-partying-in-world-war-2-berlin-and-being-inspired-by-young-poets

Guardian interview with Melissa Febos - https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/ng-interactive/2025/jun/03/melissa-febos-memoir-celibacy

Terry Real on male lonleliness and vulnerability - https://www.goloudnow.com/podcasts/modern-love-1000/why-boys-and-men-are-floundering-according-to-relationship-therapist-terry-real-528752

Jim Hamilton's excellent interview with Keith Earls - https://www.theringer.com/podcasts/the-big-jim-show/2025/03/07/keith-earls

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'Sinners' and 'Moonstruck' - Movie Pleasures of the Old and New School

Wed, 28 May 2025 23:01:00 GMT

In this week's episode, Dara reviews Ryan Coogler's rip roaring 'Sinners', a movie that defies easy categorisation but is infused with the director's characteristic heart, immersive world-building, and brilliant lead performances. Of particular delight was a thread of Irishness that leant the movie an unexpected and resonant depth. There's also an Irish connection to the movie that Dara recommends as a double bill partner for 'Sinners'.

Next up is Norman Jewison's 1987 romantic comedy 'Moonstruck', a film Dara was delighted to revisit. Most striking is the ensemble playing which garnered Oscar wins for both Cher and Olympia Dukakis, and is simply note-perfect. The tempo and space deployed by the director deliver an end product that is rooted in something truly moving and memorable.

A 1997 movie about brothers and food is the pairing of choice for 'Moonstruck', and the co-director and co-lead of that movie is more and more unashamedly flying his food flag almost 30 years later.

Finally, Dara slaps his forehead in a moment of true ball-dropping forgetfulness as he realises he failed to revel in two most significant occasions. Oh well, maybe next week...

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Minimising, Maximising, and Getting the Balance Right - How We Deal with What Challenges Us

Wed, 21 May 2025 23:01:00 GMT

In this episode Dara is thinking about challenging moments and situations and the places we put them to help us cope better. After a very unpleasant accident that sent him to hospital, Dara laughs at the way men can fail to offer care, depending on their assessment of the urgency involved - everything can be laughed at until it can't.

He draws a connection between his eye emergency and a prison visit to his brother last weekend. One a situation that demanded an immediate response, the other a slow-burn unfolding of personal pain and missteps over a prolonged period of time. They are each sources of anguish and concern, but they are dealt with in very different ways, and stored in very different places.

Dara argues that while this ranking of uncomfortable things is central to how we negotiate getting through life with our sanity intact, it is really important that we don't relegate things that are central to our sense of personal wellbeing and emotional and psychological health. And just as he warns against minimising important things, he rolls his eyes at those who indulge in maximising every little thing that bounces across their field of vision.

Also, impressive doctors, stalwart brothers, faces from the past, and pre-match nerves.

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Have You Done Your Homework? Oppression, Conflict, and the Pursuit of Truth

Wed, 14 May 2025 23:01:00 GMT

In this episode Dara tries to thread the needle between domestic and personal crises and those of a much larger, humanitarian nature. Taking in current events in Gaza as well as historic instances of grievous abuse by Catholic institutions in Ireland, the question of truth seems to be of primary importance when a larger power treats others with such callous impunity and indifference to the consequences.

Consequences are also on his mind when he considers the impact of his particular performance of masculinity on how his daughter will regard men and potential partners later in life. It's not the stuff he's paying attention to that concerns him, it's what he's not giving thought to!

Reflecting on the admirable courage and integrity of those who endured unthinkable trauma, Dara still advocates being wary of relativism when looking at one's own burdens. While being a mere spectator to the catastrophes and horrors around the globe, the battle closest to home, metaphorical or otherwise, will always feel most pressing.

Chrissie Tully's heartbreaking story (New York Times) https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/05/world/europe/ireland-mother-baby-home-tuam-galway.html

Michael O'Brien, clerical abuse survivor, addresses Questions and Answers panel, May 2009: https://www.rte.ie/video/id/24674/

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This Is Not a Performance (It's My Life!)

Wed, 07 May 2025 23:01:00 GMT

A hiatus imposed on Dara by life's steamroller has reminded him how non-performative the podcast continues to be. He reflects on the circumstances that rendered him incapable of recording over the last few weeks and reiterates his conviction that being judiciously transparent is of more use to his listeners, and to him, than jazz hands and soft shoe shuffles.

Recalling Bruce Willis's boxer in Pulp Fiction who chose not to go down in a fixed fight, Dara wonders if one of his challenges is pride, and whether he should just put his hands up and admit defeat. While he tries to work that out he first considers how much juice he has left for his current path before turning to what can be learned from soothing babies. The lesson is valuable in relation to how we treat ourselves.

As AI creations gather more purchase in online spaces, Dara is bemused by users' willingness to engage directly with seductive fabrications. The fembots are here boys, and they want to play...

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"And Then I Ran Away to Call the Watch!" - Ten Shakespearean Monologues, Live!

Wed, 16 Apr 2025 23:01:00 GMT

In this episode, Dara goes hard at Shakespeare! Following an urge to wrap his mouth around some Elizabethan verse, he stumbled across a perfect collection of Shakespearean monologues to quench his appetite. So, with thanks to Rachel, whose curation it was, and apologies to enemies of The Bard, the greasepaint was applied, the voice warmed up, and the curtain raised!

Drawing from the histories and tragedies, Dara represented spurned sons, grief-stricken widows, vengeful queens, frantic lovers, traumatised children, heartbroken mothers, dodgy politicians and more. Following his own advice, he tried to stay out of the way and let the language do the work, but it was hard not to chew just a little scenery...

Pace, Amore, Libri - the source for the monologues featured in the episode: https://paceamorelibri.wordpress.com/2021/03/19/favorite-shakespeare-monologues/

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Bulletins from the Frontline of Now! Reflecting on 200 Episodes of Existential Flailing

Wed, 09 Apr 2025 23:01:00 GMT

In this episode, Dara quietly reflects on 200 episodes of this thing that he does and tries, for the umpteenth time, to define what the podcast is all about. After all this time on the microphone, it's funny and fitting that he still isn't really sure. Is it a glitch or a feature?

All he knows is that he has continually tried to be honest and authentic, and appropriately transparent, about where he's been at at any given time over the course of the show. Whether the subject matter has been movies, philosophy, psychology, politics, martial arts, or simply events and dramas from his own life, he has always strived to share something relatable and real. It's how he understands wellness - it's owning the mess of imperfection!

This episode is no different as Dara attempts to contextualise doing the podcast throughout one of the most personally challenging periods of his life. Is it time to call it quits? Is this the end of the road? He knows changes are coming, he just doesn't know what they look like.

Thinking about his daughter and the changing landscape that her pre-adolescent world is presenting provides an opportunity for Dara to laugh at his own devolving reality.

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'Adolescence' - Harrowing, Topical, and No Easy Answers

Wed, 02 Apr 2025 23:01:00 GMT

In this episode, Dara shares his response to the compelling drama series 'Adolescence' that recently launched on Netflix. Covering the harrowing events around a 13-year-old schoolboy murdering a female schoolmate, the show is an extraordinary dramatic and technical achievement that has found itself at the heart of the dark side of the zeitgeist - namely, the changed social landscape that shapes the minds of boys and young men in insidious online spaces that are ubiquitous, ever-accessible and distressingly persuasive.

Through his involvement with What Does He Need? - the long-running community arts project exploring contemporary masculinity in boys and young men, Dara feels like he has a foot very firmly in the world of 'Adolescence'. He discusses the work and his own experience with the young people he has spent time with. He also talks about performing masculinity, and how he was very clear from a young age about the type of masculinity he was not attracted to.

Further to that, Dara advocates for placing love at the centre of male engagement. He remains convinced that the confident expression of love is key to building the safety, trust and vulnerability that will allow men of all ages to thrive. His vision is one of collaborative leadership rooted in caretaking - men and boys taking care of themselves, and caring for those they share this world with.

Finally, Dara recommends an interview with Delroy Lindo on Marc Maron's WTF podcast as a complement to this discussion of masculinity.

Celena Ribeiro article on Adolescence from Guardian Australia: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/mar/29/the-adolescence-alarm-if-theres-a-problem-with-boys-behaviour-its-because-of-us

Delroy Lindo speaks to Marc Maron: https://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episode-1630-delroy-lindo

What Does He Need? masculinity project: https://www.whatdoesheneed.com/

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I Object! Three Movie Treatments of Desire

Thu, 27 Mar 2025 00:01:00 GMT

In this episode, Dara is recalling an early cinema experience that only succeeded at the second attempt - but it was ET, so it was totally worth the wait. At that time, all his objects of desire were heroic archetypes and it would be another few years before an actress on the big screen stopped his breath. The year ET came out, 1982, also saw the release of Robert Towne's Personal Best, which placed Mariel Hemingway as the focus of longing in the world of aspirant Olympic athletes. Former athlete Patrice Donnelly was cast as the older athlete who competes with Scott Glenn for her affections and her chemistry with Hemingway jumps off the screen.

There are also palpable sparks between Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift in 1951's A Place In The Sun, a nasty treatment of social climbing and complicated pasts that leaves one in no doubt about the privileged lives of beautiful people. The moral of the story? Don't presume to desire something that's not meant for you.

That's one of the problems facing Marlon Brando's repressed army officer in John Huston's Reflections In A Golden Eye (1967), also featuring Elizabeth Taylor. Dara recalls seeing that peculiar and slightly kinky film when he was a teenager and being surprised not only by the messy sexual themes of the film, but also by Robert Forster's pivotal role in proceedings.

Finally, why does a song from the Robert Towne-scripted Days of Thunder (1990) hold such particular resonance for Dara?

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All the Damaged Boys - Where's the Love At?

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 00:01:00 GMT

In this episode, Dara is trying to get his head around the obnoxious appearance of Conor McGregor at the White House over St. Patrick's Weekend. Trump's presidency seems to function as a magnet for a particular type of male performance, greenlighting as it does a validated version of masculinity that revels in belittling others, trash talking enemies, and leering, swaggering braggadocio. It is definitely connected to a particular understanding of straight maleness as being under attack and needing to reassert itself as aggressively as possible. But is it also a product of the tech age when the perception of consequences has been skewed by the amount of time spent in online spaces?

Billy Corgan, the frontman of The Smashing Pumpkins, articulates something very insightful about his personal experience that resonates deeply with Dara and confirms his belief that success and professional fulfilment are no guarantee of contentment. It gets to something extremely important at the heart of masculinity that could go all the way back to infancy and relates to the male need for love, connection and validation.

Dara identifies that need in two prominent entertainment figures from the mid-20th century - Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. are the focus of a brilliant podcast series that explores their lives and careers and their proximity to and partnerships with contemporary stars like Frank Sinatra and Jerry Lewis. Men of a certain time and age, they encapsulate a masculinity that permitted little room for manoeuvre, but their frailty and vulnerability was visible in everything they chose not to show.

Dara concludes the episode with sharing some love and care input from a group of young boys he is working with at the moment. Perhaps the future of men is in good hands after all...

Karina Longworth's You Must Remember This podcast where you can find her excellent treatment of Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin: https://www.youmustrememberthispodcast.com/episodes/2021/12/sammydinoarchive21

Billy Corgan being interviewed by Leah Rose on Broken Record: https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/broken-record/billy-corgan

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Hackman, Ingoldsby, and Toth - Masters and Medium

Thu, 13 Mar 2025 00:01:00 GMT

In this episode, Dara is reckoning with great creative men, two real and one fictional. The world has recently lost the bodily forms of Irish poet Pat Ingoldsby and Hollywood actor Gene Hackman, but their work remains indelibly with us. Ingoldsby was a beloved figure in Ireland whose sparkling and deceptively profound poetry arguably never received the credit it was due, although its accessibility ensured it reached legions of appreciative and dedicated readers, many of whom have expressed their grief and gratitude since he passed.

Hackman was a movie icon whose performances always seemed effortlessly real and fully belonging to the world in which they appeared on screen, even when playing comic book villains or the head of a quirky New York family. The unusual circumstances of his death, and that of his wife, seemed a million miles from the litany of fierce characters he played throughout his long and varied career.

Dara attempts to pay tribute to both men by sharing a couple of Ingoldsby's poems and by taking a potted journey through the highlights of Hackman's filmography.

Brady Corbet's award-winning film The Brutalist, reckons with another unique talent, - the brilliant Hungarian architect Laszlo Toth and his dependency on imperfect patronage from a clumsy and spiteful benefactor. Adrien Brody and Guy Pearce excel in the respective roles in a fictional story that is many-layered and uncompromising in its depiction of artistic compulsion and torment. It is also a commentary on the migrant experience in post-WWII America and the uneasy relationship between the host nation and those it deigned to accommodate. Dara gives his verdict on a film that isn't easy to pin down.

Pat Ingoldsby website - https://www.patingoldsby.org/

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Underestimating Resilience and the Communication of Important Things

Thu, 06 Mar 2025 00:01:00 GMT

In this episode, Dara is looking at the value of letting others know what's important to you. How else are the people in your life meant to know what you care about? He argues that this can not only help to strengthen the relationships that matter most, but also mitigate against disappointment and unmet expectations. However, it is useful to keep those expectations fair and realistic.

Resilience is something Dara frequently cites as being essential to grounded wellness and coping with life's slings and arrows. He equates it with toughness and durability, as well as being a key agent in maintaining a positive outlook. So he was intrigued to hear an extreme athlete dismiss resilience as being one step from defeat. Is that a fair indictment, or just a very different perspective?

Finally, Dara has a look at the recent Oscar winners and shares his thoughts on the films and performances he has seen, including Anora, A Real Pain, Conclave, and Emilia Perez.

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Abdicating Duty of Care and Living in the Age of Comedy Evil!

Thu, 27 Feb 2025 00:01:00 GMT

In this broadly care-centred episode, Dara moves from inside to out. He wonders about the sense some people have of the world owing you something and decides a more worthwhile and potentially fruitful query is to ask what you might owe yourself. He reckons care, forgiveness and love are a good place to start. But they can be particularly difficult to effectively embed in one's internal landscape.

There are highly visible figures in the world who seem to not struggle at all with this dilemma. In fact, it would seem they have such high regard for themselves that it comes with a surgical shutdown of empathy or care for anyone else. Coincidentally, these figures are enormously successful and wealthy businessmen of one stripe or another who behave with an almost medieval impunity when it comes to the adverse impact of their decison-making on those far below them. Dara sees an unsavoury connection with one of the darkest figures of 19th century colonial brutality.

Also, the trickiness of finding a moment's peace to stop the madness of overwhelm. How do dogs, daughters and Beethoven feature in this conundrum? Finally, why should Dara not be happy to be called charming? Ask Janet Malcolm!

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Reckoning with a Hustler, or What a Lucky Guy!

Thu, 20 Feb 2025 00:01:00 GMT

In this episode, Dara is totting up the wins in his life. There aren't many, considering his age, but maybe more than enough. A cat on a wet shack roof is not one of them. Nor is revisiting 'Bridget Jones's Diary', which he did in stealth mode. But the wins he does list are pretty cool, and some are just about the most important things in his life.

Reflecting on the ways in which he could be considered lucky, Dara identifies two things that seemed to just dwell inside him that are definitive proof of his theory. He realises this mode of thinking has been prompted by a recent conference he participated in on Boys in the Making - a long-term masculinity project with which he has become very involved. Just how important is it to listen to boys and men?

His daughter has recently changed how she addresses Dara, and he doesn't like it. But another sign of upheaval though it is, he seeks solace in a couple of other podcasts that offer a little tonic to his troubled soul.

Dara's post on the Boys in the Making conference - https://theclearout.com/reaction/caring-for-boys-caring-for-men-caring-for-myself/

What Does He Need? website - https://www.whatdoesheneed.com/

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Speaking for Myself - The Challenge of Maintaining Focus

Thu, 13 Feb 2025 00:01:00 GMT

In this episode, Dara reflects on abandoning his recording session last week and admits to a loss of faith in the podcast. He reminds himself of a couple of the motivations behind starting the show 4 years ago and cites Bob Rafelson's brilliant New Hollywood film of 1972 - The King of Marvin Gardens - as being one of his sources of inspiration.

Currently back in therapy for the first time in over two decades, Dara is feeling a bit stirred up as he submits to the process. All things point to a reckoning and he considers the centrality to his life of creativity and performance. He shares his thoughts on 'Sing Sing', the excellent 2024 movie about a real-life theatre program that runs in the U.S. prison system. The film features several ex-prisoners who participated in the rehabilitative work and their performances carry something deeper than mere acting.

Karla Sofia Gascon, the trans actor who plays the title character in 'Emilia Perez', has found herself mired in controversy over some offensive social media comments she made in the past. What are the implications for being the face of representation? How realistic are the expectations placed on a person who becomes the symbol of a specific identity and experience? And are we living through a time of peak intolerance of imperfection?

Also, chaotic movie characters, Jack Nicholson's best mode, and ageing acting pals.

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Lucky to be Here! Thoughts on Privilege, Doppelgangers, and the Unwieldiness of Emilia Perez

Thu, 30 Jan 2025 00:01:00 GMT

In this episode, once he has sorted one Deirdre from another, Dara is reflecting on the idea of privilege after attending the Holocaust Memorial Day event recently held in Dublin. He reckons it has something to do with gratitude and being permitted entry to a special group at a special time, even if it is just as a visitor.

The film Emilia Perez is on Dara's mind after it received a huge number of Oscar nominations for this year's awards ceremony. He is a bit mystified by this level of acclaim and talks about how the movie has not been received especially well in Mexico, where it is set. It also raises some questions about the depiction of transition stories and whether representation is a good thing when the experience is over-simplified or romanticised.

Finally, Dara has to accept he has nothing to say. And that is okay. In fact, it might be an excellent existential approach to the shrill screeching of the Digital Age.

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Probing the Ancient Dark - Interview with Children's Author Eilish Fisher

Thu, 23 Jan 2025 00:01:00 GMT

In this episode, Dara has an in-depth conversation with Eilish Fisher, the author of the brilliant 'Fia and the Last Snow Deer', a novel for older children. Written in blank verse, Fisher says it's the story she wrote for her ten-year-old self. A gripping adventure that sets the young Fia on a dangerous quest to save her small tribe from endless darkness and hunger, the closer she gets to success, the more she realises her triumph might cost her her closest friend - Solas the Snow Deer. Mythical, haunting, and beautifully written and illustrated, the book is a compelling read.

Dara and Eilish discuss her background in medieval Irish history and how that informed the writing of the book. They talk about the hero's journey and the ubiquity of certain archetypes across different mythological traditions, and the examination of ancient authorship in a context of patronage and religious influence. Regardless of origin, they agree that the archetypes still prevail that inform the heroes and villains of many contemporary stories.

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A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Exhibition, or The Ether has Spoken

Thu, 16 Jan 2025 00:01:00 GMT

In this episode, Dara recounts a series of unexpected events, incidents and coincidences that all occurred in a relatively compressed period of time. Something was obviously in the ether.

Amongst other things, he talks about a key moment in the journey of What Does He Need? - the long-running community arts work exploring masculinity with which he has been very involved. An exhibition of a key strand of the work - Boys in the Making - has just opened in the National College of Art and Design in Dublin. Being there gave Dara a chance to enjoy a quarter of the city that is a welcome contrast to more popular areas in the capital.

The episode ends with some thoughts on the appeal of Pamela Anderson and Colin Farrell at this stage of their respective journeys.

Only one question remains - who sent Dara the mystery postcard? He thinks his daughter doth protest too much...

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New Year's Inventory - Clearing Out the Stockroom!

Thu, 09 Jan 2025 00:01:53 GMT

In this episode, Dara is reflecting on the year that was and acknowledging the tendency many have to do New Year's accounting. For him it is not only the start of a new year, but also his birthday - another prompt to do a stocktake. 2024 wasn't kind, and as he looks down the road of 2025 he wonders what tools are going to serve him best.

Last year felt like a negation of many of Dara's principles of wellness and life philosophy, so he considers what he might do differently from here. Even though the last twelve months left him reeling, he realises he has a body of evidence that offers a counter narrative to how he feels - did somebody mention 'units'?

Ultimately, while there are areas of his life that need confronting levels of reexamination, he has to conclude there are a few positives that are probably more important than anything else. Which is no small thing.

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The 2024 Review - Top Movies, Documentaries, TV and Podcasts!

Thu, 02 Jan 2025 00:01:31 GMT

To kick off the new year, Dara starts with a 'listy' episode, recalling his top 10 movies of 2024. He follows this with a list of his top old or previously seen movies, including 1954's Rear Window and 1982's Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

His favourite TV experiences involved a stunning central performance by the Irish actor Andrew Scott, and an actress who featured in two of his top movies of the year - can you guess who it is? Here's a clue, her name rhymes with 'Senbaya'!

Documentaries next, all movie or entertainment related, followed by podcasts, which ranged in theme from movies and TV to murderers, economists and Oxford philosophers.

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The 2024 Christmas Special!

Tue, 24 Dec 2024 02:44:03 GMT

It's the 2024 Christmas Special!

Pulling it out of the bag at the eleventh hour, Dara presents a very short, but somehow shaggy interview with his daughter Maeve, who gives a shout-out to Harry Styles, of all people.

This is followed by this year's new Christmas story, 'Arrivals'. It follows a father who tries to honour his faith in his missing son by being at a certain place on a certain day every year. Will his faith be rewarded? A quiet and quietly rewarding story for the season that's in it.

Finally, the episode plays out with an acapella version of a traditional Christmas carol. Listen, if you dare!

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Dara, Meet Dara – The Story of How I Met My Sister!

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 08:12:45 GMT

In this episode, Dara is speaking from a position of powerlessness thanks to the after-effects of Storm Darragh, which ripped through many parts of Ireland last week with an unforgiving ferocity.

Dara wishes there was more unforgiving ferocity for FIFA, the football organisation that continues to embrace sportswashing with disturbing immorality. In other areas of concern, he celebrates Arundhati Joy’s indictment of Israel’s ongoing perpetration of war crimes in Palestine. Not for the first time, Dara argues that to be critical of Israel need not make one anti-Semitic.

Moving on to more cheery subjects, Dara relates the story of how he met his sister for the first time only eighteen months ago. Coincidences abound as he recalls their first moment of contact and the ensuing sharing of information. Most memorable was their first meeting and a hug that will never be forgotten.

Also, yet another making of the case for 1944’s ‘Meet Me in St. Louis’ being the ultimate template for the sitcom format that would become ubiquitous in the years to come.

The ClearOut episode on Ann Lovett and Joanne Hayes - https://theclearout.com/podcast/the-cost-of-neglect-or-for-whom-will-you-wear-a-yellow-flower-episode-101/

Guardian review of Dan Stone's The Holocaust: An Unfinished Story - https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jan/15/the-holocaust-an-unfinished-history-by-dan-stone-review-a-timely-corrective-to-a-shifting-narrative

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The Most Wonderful Time of the Year? Ask Me Sponge Balls!

Thu, 05 Dec 2024 00:01:16 GMT

In this episode, Dara is warming up for the festive season by acknowledging how stress-inducing it can all get and how it really isn't for everybody. In his own household a new permutation is longed for by some, which doesn't entirely suit him.

He's also concerned for his daughter, who has reached the age where the magic of Christmas and Santa Claus is no longer as real to her as it once was. He is not planning to shatter her illusions any further and in fact will lean in even more to prop up the suspension of disbelief. And where better to start than with a box of snowballs! Not those ones, the other ones...

Speaking of other ones, Dara selects three left-of-centre Christmas poems for something a bit different. They each have their own qualities to recommend them, but he particularly liked the poem that featured 'squamous' and 'mingeless'. Where else would you get it?

Mollie Guidera's brilliant Irish advocacy - https://www.instagram.com/irishwithmollie/

Conchobhar Ruadh's beautiful mix of Irish language, history and culture - https://www.instagram.com/sli_na_ruadh

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Men Need Not Apply - Women Who Leave Men Behind

Thu, 28 Nov 2024 00:01:26 GMT

In this episode, Dara looks at the idea of psychological defeat and the metaphorical hills we are determined to die on. Fundamentally an issue of faith in one's own psyche and worldview, what happens when our confidence in that vision begins to crumble? Can faith be restored?

A recent interview with Isabella Rossellini raised the spectre of women who no longer need men. Dara feels like he has been encountering this notion more and more and wonders if it is related to women's post-fertility years. Without reducing the female of the species to menopausal cliches, he asks if men and women swap sensibilities as they age - do women become more masculine, and men more feminine? He also pushes back against the idea of women being 'such emotional creatures', as he recently heard them described - yes, by a man.

After acknowledging his own emotional fluency, and that of many of his male friends, Dara shares thoughts on two Hollywood documentaries he just watched - one on Elizabth Taylor and one on Christopher Lee. He is caught out by a connection with Taylor that leaves him a bit uncomfortable. He also reviews The Apprentice - the story of Donald Trump's emergence as a major player in 80s New York - and We Live In Time, the full throttle romantic drama starring an exceedingly charming Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield.

Finally, the show is interrupted by a very unexpected guest just before wrapping up...

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The Anticlimax of Megalopolis, or What Would You Do With Coppola's Money?

Thu, 21 Nov 2024 00:01:31 GMT

In this episode, Dara is spurred to reflect on Francis Ford Coppola's latest film, 'Megalopolis'. In the great master's wild and not-so-wonderful saga, one brilliant man carries the burden of saving society from itself, but must contend with a rival who epitomises more mundane aspirations. Is the film about Coppola himself, or is it his thesis statement of whose visions are worth following? Whatever about its intention, the execution is an unwieldy mess.

Having financed the movie himself and made clear how much it was a labour of love, Dara wonders what other deserving projects might benefit from Coppola's alleged $120,000,000 budget. He argues for public spaces dedicated to the safe expression of personal concerns. Quiet, non-judgemental spaces where thoughtfulness and consideration could be facilitated.

Sometimes it takes work to identify what really concerns us. Dara offers a simple mental exercise to help drop down through the gears to engage with deep listening.

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The Humble Art of Reading the Room, or It's Not All About You!

Thu, 14 Nov 2024 00:01:24 GMT

In this episode, Dara shares final thoughts on the US presidential election and speculates that the Democrats still haven't shaken the patronising habit of belittling those who disagree with them. He argues that if you take this attitude in the world of martial arts, you are setting yourself up to fail - the assumption of superiority is a dangerous flex of ego that can result in complacency and abdicated diligence.

Dara thinks the skill of reading the room is a primal instinct connected to threat identification and normalcy barometers. He explores what that might look like at a macro and interpersonal level, before turning the reading toolkit on oneself. Doesn't it all come back to senses and feelings? And what role does the passage of time have to play in reading the interior landscape?

In considering shared spaces, Dara wonders what kind of jigsaw piece a person might be. He identifies his own leanings very quickly and not for the first time reiterates the raison d'etre of the podcast in relation to that. It is definitely connected to the tension between ego and humility...

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Four More Years! Trump Restored and Gore Vidal's Presidential Writings

Thu, 07 Nov 2024 00:01:44 GMT

In this episode, Dara reacts to the re-election of Donald Trump to the US presidency. Did the Democrats and Kamala Harris once again fail to take seriously Trump and the Republican voter base? Whatever the cause, politicians of the liberal centre or centre-left have not been convincing enough to get themselves back into power. Four more years of Trump is a worrying prospect for the larger wellness of a very divided nation.

Admitting the limitations of his own political analysis, Dara turns to an incisive commentator of yesteryear - the brilliant Gore Vidal, whose sardonic voice spoke comprehensively on American public life, among other topics. In 1968, the liberal Vidal memorably featured in televised political debates with the conservative William F. Buckley, which descended into a barely controlled slanging match by their conclusion, choice epithets being volleyed back and forth with ever increasing venom.

Dara reads in full two of Vidal's pieces of writing on the US presidency. The first, The Real Two-Party System, is a short article written before the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. It questions the very idea of representation in US politics. The second, Armageddon? was written at the end of Reagan's second term and is a skewering of the president's shared and widely-publicised belief in a Christian end-of-the-world consummation. The unforgiving cynicism on display is a testament to eyes that were in no danger of having the wool pulled over them, especially by an 'Acting President'.

Vidal vs Buckley documentary, Best of Enemies - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3518012/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_5_tt_4_nm_4_in_0_q_the%2520best%2520of%2520enemies

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Staying with the Female Experience of Violence and the Power Imbalance - From Looking for Mr. Goodbar to Woman of the Hour

Thu, 31 Oct 2024 00:01:34 GMT

In this episode, Dara considers violence against women and the recent clear-eyed responses to it by Hollywood regulars Anna Kendrick and Saoirse Ronan, as seen in Kendrick's impressive directorial debut 'Woman of the Hour', and as heard in Ronan's bulletproof interjection on the Graham Norton show. After reviewing Kendrick's chilling movie and contextualising Ronan's comments, he recalls a key moment of Rachel McAdams' character in the second season of True Detective which laid out with absolute clarity the power differential between men and women.

Dara anticipates self-defence instruction for his daughter in the future and talks about the significance of power and strength imbalances in karate when a male and female practitioner face each other, which was often the case between him and his last instructor. He looks at the male responsibility to think about how they are perceived by women in different contexts and how easy it is to make small changes in behaviour to minimise negative assumptions. Regarding how he thinks of himself as a male of the species, he revisits memories of boyhood and adolescence where he certainly was not seen as threatening!

A key corollary of women being preyed upon is how often they are not listened to, ignored, blamed for their own misfortune, deliberately misinterpreted or otherwise dismissed. It begs the question - when will sexual or violent assaults of women be treated with the seriousness they warrant? And how is it, almost 50 years after the harrowing ending of 'Looking for Mr. Goodbar', that a female treatment of violence against women is still somehow niche or novel? As Marina Hyde in The Guardian said, women are no longer in the mood for joking about this stuff.

Marina Hyde on Saoirse Ronan's comment: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/29/chatshow-saoirse-ronan-graham-norton-women

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I Felt That, or Emotional Travelling with Fictional Characters

Wed, 23 Oct 2024 23:01:03 GMT

In this episode, Dara talks about the characters we respond to in the art we consume. Having been very stirred by 'Joker: Folie a Deux', he stays in the world of movies and finds himself thinking about Jungian archetypes and the shadow self we can see reflected at us from the big screen. Speaking about that film, which has heavily promoted Lady Gaga as the joint draw of the story along with Joaquin Phoenix's compelling title character, he argues that it is what transpires between the Joker and Brendan Gleeson's prison officer that really unlocks the film and its grim depiction of human damage.

Further to that, Dara reasons that the film is really a stealth social realism movie in the style of Ken Loach or Mike Leigh, exposing as it does systemic failure and the impotent rage of the discarded. 1991's 'The Silence of the Lambs' is also discussed in psychological terms with particular reference to the 'daddy issues' of Clarice Starling as brilliantly played by Jodie Foster in her relationship with Anthony Hopkins' devious Hannibal Lecter. What makes Lecter such an attractive character to us, and why did audiences not feel the same way when Brian Cox played him five years earlier in 'Manhunter'?

Dara talks also about meeting earlier versions of yourself and whether change is just a nice story we tell ourselves. Part of that line of enquiry includes coping mechanisms and calming measures connected to seeking insights and encouraging curiosity, and importantly for him, resisting fatalistic thinking. Finally, there's time to quickly mention a moment of public sharing in connection with masculinity and demonstrated vulnerability and openness that was hopefully a moment of value.

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What the Hell Is That! The Audacious Grotesquerie of 'The Substance'

Wed, 16 Oct 2024 23:01:03 GMT

In this episode, Dara is still reeling after watching Coralie Fargeat's astonishing film 'The Substance', a scarifyingly vicious body-horror satire on the pressure that results from the extreme demands of celebrity and the beauty expectations inflicted on women. The film is centred around a TV fitness personality whose middle-age renders her undesirable in the eyes of the network. In a ferocious performance by Demi Moore we bear witness to the lengths a woman will go to to preserve her looks and corresponding status.

Dara argues that the film is not really there to ask questions. Fargeat is a director with an extraordinary visual style and a willingness to assault the viewer's taste and senses, witnessed both in 'The Substance' and in her earlier film 'Revenge', which also uses female sexuality and the male gaze as the key ingredients in her tinderbox. As a female director who has no problem objectifying the female body, it arguably changes how we view her protagonists.

Also in this episode, thoughts on 'The Sisters Brothers', a quirky 2018 Western with two unlikely cowboy brothers negotiating their fraternal bond; hen night t-shirts to make a parent blush; and the dubious equivalence of clothes and character.

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You Have It So Easy! Resentment, Ease, and Reaching for the Good

Wed, 09 Oct 2024 23:01:38 GMT

In this episode, Dara considers the elements that contribute to our resentment buckets and shoulder chips. He believes time and the ease of others are two key ingredients in the mix. He confesses to giving voice to some very uncharitable resentfulness around the time he became a father. He also speaks carefully around a significant source of resentment in his marriage.

Prickliness can accompany resentment, and Dara recalls someone he knew who disinvited everyone from his party because they hadn't RSVP'd in time! He considers his attitude to parties and hosting and shares how it's connected to the management system in his childhood homes and why his kitchen overflowed with goodies once he got out in the big bad world.

Also in this episode, an analysis of an 18th century painting of Penelope, she of Greek myth, and a review of the documentary Will & Harper, which Dara found to be a beautiful testament to friendship, and to male friendship in particular.

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Too Old for This S**t, or Try Harder, You Silver Foxes!

Wed, 02 Oct 2024 23:01:21 GMT

In this episode, Dara shares his gripes about the utterly mediocre buddy movie Wolfs, starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt as two fixers reluctantly obliged to work together through a night of yuk-filled capers (SPOILER: THERE ARE NO YUKS!). The film is an ode to laziness, self-satisfaction, complacency and vanity, and has the gall to pay tribute in its final shot to a truly great buddy movie of yesteryear, the inference clearly being that Clooney and Pitt are a contemporary equivalent of two past greats. No such luck.

Dara offers a selection of alternative movies that deal with successful partnerships in terms of their chemistry, as well as sharing a thematic link of ageing disgracefully. The first film that comes to mind is another flimsy reunion of two leading stalwarts from Hollywood's golden age - do you remember Tough Guys (1986) with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas? It might not be worse than Wolfs!

Other more credible offerings are the original movie that gave us "I'm too old for this s**t!", as well as possibly the best ever version of the outlaw picking up their gun later in life. Robert Redford and Paul Newman teamed up memorably for two very successful outings, both over 50 years ago, but Newman had another screen partner with whom he acted much more - his wife, Joanne Woodward. Dara shares his thoughts on Ethan Hawke's excellent docuseries about the legendary couple and their complex lives.

Also, unfit security guards, lived-in love, reasons to be grateful, and autumnal restoration.

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How Does That Sound? - Testing Opposing Belief Systems

Wed, 25 Sep 2024 23:01:31 GMT

In this episode, Dara reflects on a weekend spent with an old friend and his resultant fatigue, both psychological and intellectual. It prompts an interrogation of his belief and value systems and whether they are more or less valid than those of his friend's. He argues that it is healthy, and perhaps even necessary, to have someone you regard challenge you with love.

Dara shares his response to a wonderful interview with the fantastic Miriam Margolyes and confesses to finding her an absolute tonic after the combative intellectual jostling he engaged in with his friend. He is full of admiration for her unapologetic sincerity and forthrightness. It leads to a consideration of what he frames as 'heart and gut' versus 'facts and figures'. Is either better than the other, or are they just different comfort zones for different types of people?

A recent job interview resulted in no job offer, but Dara still regarded the experience as a great success. For a couple of weeks he lived with altered energy as he anticipated a changed future and the positive challenges it would bring. Digesting the disappointment of rejection, he recalls another bittersweet memory of a much more personal nature.

Also in this episode, considering the joys of ASMR, Dara is hopeful listeners won't be bothered by the very audible raindrops that fall throughout the episode. And a couple of minutes on the dreadful 1998 action movie, 'Armageddon'.

Adam Buxton interviews Miriam Margolyes: https://www.adam-buxton.co.uk/podcasts/rhwkafw2z2x3xe6-6ysb3-pfp9n-6xxa2-jnpn5-2cacw-6cz8f-gx8fb-nkb87

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What Do You Do If You See a Space, Man?

Wed, 18 Sep 2024 23:01:52 GMT

This episode is all about the presence of absence. How are your comfort levels with empty space and dead air? Do you struggle when the void isn't filled with something to stimulate? And more importantly, with what do you fill empty spaces and awkward silences?

Dara reflects on his own tendency to default to anxiety and negative beliefs when uncertain spaces make themselves felt. He wonders how difficult it would be to project confidence and calm as alternative fillers. Examining his own hardwiring is definitely part of the solution.

Considering the pitfalls of comparison, Dara argues that more space is involved when we look at what others have that we don't. He sees a connection between presence and contentment on one hand, and disconnection and the perception of lack on the other.

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Things Living and Dead, or The Strange Inertia of Nicole Kidman's Upper Lip

Wed, 11 Sep 2024 23:01:24 GMT

In this episode, Dara is looking for a pulse. After he and his daughter watched Adam Sandler's 2004 romcom, 50 First Dates, Dara was reminded why he wasn't a fan of the comedian's factory line movies - there were too many moments and gags that were completely devoid of life.

He found something similar in the character played by Nicole Kidman in this year's A Family Affair, a film in which Zac Efron's manchild action star falls for his personal assistant's mother, with 'hilarious results'.* The insistence on Kidman being presented as a middle-aged woman who could be mistaken for being twenty years younger was more than Dara could bear. And why does Kidman's upper lip epitomise the problem of the Female Beauty Industrial Complex?

Seeking a life-force elsewhere, Dara found it in two other films, both strong genre offerings. The first was Ti West's retro slasher movie 'X' (2022) which was bursting at the seams with character and vibe and horrific thrills. The second was a brand new Netflix release, Rebel Ridge, a tasty corrupt cops thriller with two really good central performances from Aaron Pierre and Don Johnson, who gets better and better with age.

Dara continues pitting life against death in a concluding reflection on the connective tissue between acting and teaching. He wonders about the stakes, the idea of service, and the pain of 'losing the room'.

*(Not hilarious at all. Dara forgot to mention Efron and Kidman's first onscreen pairing in 2012's The Paperboy, a much more successful serving of gaudy southern carnality and madness from Lee Daniels.)

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Readings from Brando and Durcan - Slimy Slugs and Penile Compasses!

Wed, 04 Sep 2024 23:01:22 GMT

A very simple and straightforward episode this week - Dara reads a lengthy unabridged extract from Marlon Brando's autobiography - Songs My Mother Taught Me, published in 1994. Brando's voice is frank and accessible and he shares his thoughts on acting, fame, and various female lovers during the time of his emergence as America's most captivating actor. He also speaks about being a damaged child and the difficulty he had trying to shake off feelings of worthlessness.

Another distinctive male voice is that of the Irish poet Paul Durcan. Perhaps most commonly connected to his comic surreality, there's still an unmistakable humanity to Durcan's writing, especially in his confessional and vulnerable masculinity and his no-nonsense rebuttals of Catholic hypocrisy. Dara delights in concluding the episode by reading three of his poems.

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Assembling the Broke Existentialist Army, or Who I Am is Who my Child Is!

Wed, 28 Aug 2024 23:01:10 GMT

In this episode, prompted by his cat and dog, Dara is considering the idea of essentialism. He talks about core dispositions and the perennial pitching of nature against nurture. He argues that there is very little that is not in the mix when it comes to how our identities emerge. He shares his thoughts about his daughter on this stage of her journey and wonders about her essential leaning.

Along the way, Dara reflects on trauma and demons, the relativising of same, and the importance of doing the work early on to save trouble later. He wonders about the relationship between material gain and credibility and presents his case for the value of the examined life, self-understanding, and bringing the most resolved version of yourself to bear on life's challenges.

As for his own essential inclination - is it defiance? Dara thinks it might be, because it requires a certain bloody-mindedness to stay on a path whose material rewards have been so few! But that's part of the pact he has made with himself. He reveals the pact he has made with his daughter - and the clause he hasn't shared with her...

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What's So Great About It? - The Dubious Value of Nostalgia

Wed, 21 Aug 2024 23:01:11 GMT

For the second time in the show's history, Dara is considering the questionable value of nostalgia. While allowing that there are wellness benefits to understanding the connection between nostalgia and loss, and the stark reality of nostalgia's relationship to ageing, there is something offensive about a particular brand of generalised nostalgia that regularly raises its unoriginal head on social media.

Prompted by the palpable fragility of the new recording location for the podcast, and the coincidence of this week's episode taking place during stormy conditions, Dara's mind is cast back to a scene from The Blues Brothers (1980) in which Elwood's apartment is shaken within an inch of its life because of its proximity to a city train track. Considering that movie, he reckons it belongs to a special trinity of favourite childhood comedies that were untouchable. But is that just his nostalgia talking? How well have they aged, really? He tried to show his daughter one of them and she walked away after five minutes!

Dara also takes a moment to accuse the positive living/wellness sector of quackery while arguing once again for his own understanding of self-care, something that involves the real work of personal inventory and facing one's historic demons.

The first nostalgia episode from August 2021: https://theclearout.com/podcast/the-nostalgia-shark-is-coming-for-my-squirrels-episode-14/

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Yes, Chef! - The Brilliance of The Bear

Wed, 14 Aug 2024 23:01:44 GMT

In this episode, Dara doesn't know whether to eat the food or make love to it. He talks about all three seasons of The Bear, the brilliant TV show depicting the trials and tribulations of genius chef Carmen Berzatto and the colourful people who populate his messy, damaged world. Like the extraordinary food that leaves viewers in a state of mouthwatering wonder, the other elements of the show are beautifully sourced, prepped and composed.

Dara discusses different aspects of the acting and staging of key scenes and episodes and expresses admiration for the cast, amongst which there are no weak links. Special mentions are reserved for Jeremy Allen White as the titular Bear, Ayo Edibiri as his frustrated No.2, Ebon Moss-Bachrach as emotional cousin Richie, and Jamie Lee Curtis for her exceptional work as the demented and haunted Donna Berzatto, as realistic a portrayal of toxic maternity as you will ever see.

At the top of the episode, Dara reflects on his own connective tissue to The Bear in the form of self-doubt, being wrong, and avoidance of the uncomfortable.

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Set Down Your Honourable Load - Finding the Clear Path Ahead

Wed, 07 Aug 2024 23:05:02 GMT

In this episode, Dara is reflecting on the good fortune of finding a new place to live, but he is wondering how to refer to The ClearOut's new home. His daughter has rejected his suggestions so far as being 'too cringe'. Hashtag Blessed is no more! What to call the new abode...?

After a week off to facilitate the house move, it's back down to business. Dara considers the idea of 'rightness' and the natural state that best serves our happiness and fulfilment. He wonders what our lives would look like if we never faced any obstacles on our path. What would that self look like? And can our true self still emerge and thrive in the face of life's tribulations, rejections and other expressions of adversity?

The Buddhist position of life being suffering flies against Dara's proposition of unbridled advance. Do the contradictory positions have something valid to offer in tandem, or are they mutually exclusive? How do you consider the burdens that you carry - do you have the opportunity to put them down, or are they perpetually obscuring your field of vision?

To conclude the episode, Dara presents some core concepts from the philosophy of karate-do that pertain to larger wellness strategies including, self-respect, integrity and evocative images of mindfulness.

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Horizon, Other Recent Movie Turkeys, and Recommended Alternatives

Wed, 24 Jul 2024 23:01:15 GMT

In this episode Dara is giving out about recent bad movies, and not the 'so bad they're good' kind. Kevin Costner's Western opus Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 starts the party with its bloated scale, turgid pacing, and on-the-nose representations of archetypal stories and characters. Far too earnest and self-serious, Dara recommends at least half a dozen alternatives, including Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate and Costner's own Open Range.

Ticket to Paradise, the George Clooney-Julia Roberts rom-com is next and its generic and self-congratulatory tone are a painful reminder of the earlier Clooney-Roberts crimes as seen in Ocean's 12 when we were all meant to be tickled by their being in on the joke of Roberts' celebrity. Dara advises a revisiting of Pretty Woman instead where Roberts' screen presence and beauty were not to be denied.

The recent animated movies IF and Inside Out 2 are compared - one of them had Dara squirming in his seat, but not for the reason you might think.

Finally there's a word for the execrable The Beekeeper and the joyless gurning of its muscular star, Jason Statham.

And in case you're worried it's all doom and gloom, there are at least three recent movies that Dara is more than happy to recommend for their aesthetic pleasures and assuredness of tone.

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Unifying Events, Sensible Ripples, and What If Trump Had Been Taken Out?

Wed, 17 Jul 2024 23:01:25 GMT

In this episode Dara is looking at two significant news stories from the big nations to Ireland's east and west. At the weekend just gone, Donald Trump, Republican presidential candidate and bete noire of liberals and humane humans everywhere, survived an assassination attempt. In Germany not long afterwards, England's national football team contested the final of the EURO 2024 tournament, and lost.

The US and England in recent years have become more and more troubled states with huge social unrest and unconvincing politics and leadership, leaving their respective citizenry highly agitated and discontented. Dara wonders if both countries would have benefited measurably more if the outcomes of both news stories had gone the other way. Would Trump's removal and England's triumph become unifying events for their embattled nations?

Exploring both alternate realities, different things are considered: how can an Irish person be okay with their old oppressor enjoying sporting glory? Why does the England team's uncertain identity reflect that of the country it represents? What dark spell would be broken if Trump was no more? In what way would his supporters awaken and greet the new dawn? Wouldn't people rather get on with their neighbours? Or never hear them?

Further to that last question Dara knows he would much prefer if the US and England were quietly and boringly going about their business.

Also in this episode, doing your best, the ripple effect, the sensitive human race, and the ugly egos of powerful men.

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The Existential Toolkit to Approaching the Unknown

Wed, 10 Jul 2024 23:01:41 GMT

In this episode, Dara is wondering about what comes next. We can never truly know what lies in the future so how do we cope with that uncertainty? Are we willing to step into the unknown without the security of a plan? Do we trust we have the resources to deal with what we find?

Contextualising this dilemma in a world that seems to be spiralling out of control, and acknowledging the philosophical belief that the human experience is endlessly and exhaustingly repeated, Dara comes back to elemental grounding and deep listening as key components of the existential toolkit.

Part of this approach includes knowing what to let go of and knowing what to let pass through us. Holding onto things for too long can define us in ways that leave us trapped and unable to grow. We have to step out of suffering and give ourselves permission to be free. If the keys to our liberation are placed in the hands of others, we might be waiting a long time.

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Scene from a Garden - Tall Trees, High Kicks, and Low, Low Wages

Wed, 03 Jul 2024 23:01:12 GMT

In this episode, Dara is taking time to express thanks to a place that has served him well over the last few years, and he's so determined to do so in a special way that he moves the podcast to the location he's honouring! At the end, when a certain flying creature appears, it's time to bring things to a close. No, it's not a dragon...

Dara sets up to record in his garden and he explains why it has been such a special place for him over the last three and a half years. That said, it hasn't all been plain sailing. Just ask his chickens! It makes him wonder about the duration of a moment. Can a moment really last a lifetime?

Once the natural world part of the pod is over, Dara discusses a couple of shows he watched in relation to the radically different iterations of femininity they present and prioritise. One of them, a sports documentary about the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, is troubling in the version of womanhood it valorises. The other, True Detective Season 4, has at its heart two ferociously tough and uncompromising female cops who don't care who they offend. They're remarkably unapologetic characters who make clear how seldom women on screen are written like that. Written like what? Like men!

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You're a Man - Do You Care About Women?

Wed, 26 Jun 2024 23:01:01 GMT

In this episode, Dara looks at the Natasha O'Brien case which saw a young woman beaten unconscious in the street by a young man who wasn't known to her, and that same young man been given a suspended sentence so as not to jeopardise his career as an Irish soldier. There is nothing that isn't problematic about these events, but as ever, there are larger social questions to be asked beyond the ugly specifics of the case in question.

Dara considers the messages that are sent by the outcome of the case. Why isn't a higher price put on women's suffering? Why are violent men rewarded by the courts with their careers being prioritised over their abhorrent, life-ruining behaviour? Is the law a male-centric instrument, designed to protect male interests? Is the average man in any way benefiting from this adjudication?

Dara argues that both men and women are done a huge disservice by the ruling. A victimised woman is cast aside by the law, and all men are implicated in a decision that normalises male violence by giving it a pass. It prompts the question - if you're a man, do you care about women? Do you care about those who historically hold less power in society? Do you care about the assumption of male violence? How do you demonstrate that care?

Also covered in the episode - the relationship between fear and hate, the need for positive rites of passage, the importance of men doing deep work on themselves and more.

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If You've Nothing Good to Say, Maybe Think About Shutting Up!

Wed, 19 Jun 2024 23:01:06 GMT

In this hot and bothered episode, Dara tries to address the issue of racism in Ireland in the wake of the hate and racist abuse directed at Rhadisat Adeleke last week after her triumphant performances at the European Athletics Championships. A topic covered on the show before around the Emer O'Neill/Tommy Tiernan story, it seems to need speaking about again.

As part of his anti-racism strategy, Dara advocates a very simple policy before going online. It is a rule that would serve everyone well in all areas of their lives, and one that is antithetical to everything the internet wants us to do. If you put this rule front and centre before jumping into the online cess-pit, a lot of harm could be prevented.

Thinking less reactively to the situation, Dara considers issues of anger and the sense of being owed something and how they might feed into the hatred of others. If a wellness lens is to be applied to the expression of hate, it surely connects to personal suffering of some kind, and possibly the unwillingness to take responsibility for it.

Also in this episode, the magic of Irish summer green, hate for hipsters (again), and exhausted puppies!

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Character Identification and a New Short Story: David Has Been Great

Wed, 12 Jun 2024 23:01:57 GMT

In this episode, Dara reads a short story that is new to the listener but not to him. The story has a female protagonist and when he shared it with a female friend a few years ago, he was told that not all women felt the same way as the character he'd written. In reply he said he'd never thought that would be the case.

In yet another example of the way assumptions and conflations are all too easily made, Dara pushes back against the idea of identifying creators too directly with their creations. He argues that other things are more readily identifiable, such as themes, trends, and tropes.

He hopes that his story, 'David Has Been Great', can be enjoyed without anyone thinking that the character's thoughts, feelings and prejudices are his own.

Guardian article on sigma masculinity (2024): https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jun/12/the-sad-stupid-rise-of-the-sigma-male-how-toxic-masculinity-took-over-social-media

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What Is a Man, Anyway? Part 5

Wed, 05 Jun 2024 23:01:30 GMT

In this final part of his series on masculinity, Dara tries to bring things to a reasonable end. He talks about his lifelong attempt to embody a particular type of masculinity that was a direct response to sexist and reductive attitudes to men that he was exposed to in youth and early adulthood.

In the context of the current trends in public discourse, Dara once again pushes against the idea of a single person being representative of their designated identifying group. He argues for personal responsibility, self-reflection, and understanding oneself as a social animal. To that end, he examines the connection between a social and moral imperative and the implications for men.

Related ideas include the burden of responsibility, the expectations of others, the question of approval, and the need for greater consideration of the complexity of masculinity. Dara attempts to lay out a definitive description of ideal masculinity that could appeal to everyone. Amongst other things, this ideal includes an admission of uncertainty and the presence of vulnerability, as well as comfort with others, especially women and children.

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What Is a Man, Anyway? Part 4

Wed, 29 May 2024 23:01:05 GMT

In the fourth part of his series on masculinity, Dara tries to point out the hierarchical nature of masculinity when the idea of manhood is being discussed. The legacy of Western European colonial domination has resulted in the idealisation of white, straight, middle class masculinity. In other words, for many people when they're asked to consider men and masculinity, they will default to the aforementioned model. But where does that leave other iterations and expressions of masculinity?

Looking through various 'othering' lenses, Dara considers men of colour, Blackness, queer men, disabled men, and men identified by class and feudality. Arguably, the idea of true equality amongst men is fantastical and utopian, but is there an optimal place to start looking at who gets to be a man and what that means?

Dara asks himself to whom he would deny manhood and finds himself arguing for a 'post-gender' world, again opening up the utopian debate. His own socialist and Marxist leanings inform his viewpoint, raising the issues of power, equal opportunity and economic equity. But he wonders if it is naive to pretend that discrimination and categorical relegation can be so easily bypassed.

Also this week, received cues and signals, the importance of context, and LGBTQ-affirming Eurovision vision!

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What Is a Man, Anyway? Part 3

Thu, 23 May 2024 12:33:17 GMT

In this lachrymose episode and further exploration of masculinity, Dara is talking about the benefits of crying. He confesses to being a crier anyway, easily shedding tears over any number of things, but goes on to share an extremely recent loss that knocked him sideways with the tears it provoked. He argues that there is a ranking system that qualifies the when and how much of crying.

For Dara there is a strong connection, verging on causality, between problematic iterations of masculinity and male behaviour and the invalidation of the emotional lives of men. He believes this begins very early in male lives with the three words: boys don't cry. In the past week he was on his knees crying big fat tears. He's a boy. He was crying. What's the problem?

The problem is the conditioning that men receive for most of their lives that tells them it is unmanly to cry. Unmanly to show emotion. That crying is weak and feminine. Dara pushes hard against this rhetoric and performed masculinity and asserts that the emotional richness and vibrancy of men's lives needs to be given licence to express itself. And that includes crying!

Aeon article (2015) on men and crying: https://aeon.co/essays/whatever-happened-to-the-noble-art-of-the-manly-weep

Medium article (2024) on cultural attitudes to male crying: https://medium.com/the-no%C3%B6sphere/real-men-do-cry-why-in-some-cultures-its-actually-manly-to-cry-33ab44023635

Michael Kimmel article (2023) on toxic masculinity and male characteristics: https://iai.tv/articles/toxic-masculinity-is-not-a-useful-description-michael-kimmel-auid-2466

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What Is a Man, Anyway? Part 2

Wed, 15 May 2024 23:01:46 GMT

Continuing his exploration of masculinity and maleness, Dara turns his gaze to movies and how men's stories, especially but not exclusively, straight men's stories have played out on screen. He looks at three totems of masculinity as the main discussion points - potency, violence, and morality.

Dara kicks off with the controversial Straw Dogs, Sam Peckinpah's 1971 examination of neutered masculinity being refused permission to remain inert by sinister and attritional male forces. That movie's star, Dustin Hoffman, embodied a new, sensitive version of manhood that chimed with the times - men in movies no longer had to recall the unambiguous heroic modes of earlier eras. But 70s directors recognised there was a tension that made good drama when these new men were pitched against iterations of manhood more resistant to change. John Boorman played this out to terrifying effect in 1972's Deliverance, for example.

Male cowardice is often a propulsive element in movies, and Dara looks at From Here to Eternity (1954) and the different faces of masculinity presented therein. Key to the piece is Montgomery Clift's Prewitt, the military trumpet player who refuses to box for the army. What does he do when faced with Burt Lancaster's male swagger or Ernest Borgnine's loutish bullying? And what happens to plucky but skinny Frank Sinatra when he sticks up for his pal? Clift's sensitivity and vulnerability, also essayed by Marlon Brando and James Dean, embodied another masculinity shift that paved the way for the male stars of the 70s.

The 80s were another thing completely, and the truly dominant stars of that period reflected a hyper-confidence in American consumption and bloated pride. Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger wore their alpha masculinity as explicitly as possible and audiences loved them for it. But another 80s actor couldn't have been less like them and enjoyed enormous success himself playing characters who were cerebral, sensitive, and importantly, non-violent. In fact, in one of his most acclaimed roles he played a cross-dressing gay seducer of a straight roommate, a subversive expression of masculinity that fascinated Dara as an adolescent.

Also, a couple of Kenny Rogers songs, father-son movie dynamics, modernity as identity eraser, and sneaking nerds into leading parts.

2023 article deconstructing the term 'toxic masculinity': https://iai.tv/articles/toxic-masculinity-is-not-a-useful-description-michael-kimmel-auid-2466

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What Is a Man, Anyway? Part 1

Wed, 08 May 2024 23:01:20 GMT

Dara knew when he started recording this one that one episode was never going to cut it. So it is only the beginning of a conversation about being a man and trying to unpack what constitutes a man.

Before getting into more specific experiences and perspectives, Dara tries to sketch the current landscape, so heavily influenced by the tech age and social media, in which many men feel they have been pushed aside. There appears to be a huge hole in society, and in the discourse cauldron, that men are very unsure how to fill. This uncertainty has been capitalised upon, or catered to, by male figures all too willing to say 'this is how you should be'. But are they really helping?

Dara has embarked on a course of Men's Studies, and that in part is what has prompted this exploration. He discusses in detail his own primary model of masculinity and recognises how much it left a mark on him. He also looks at the centrality of martial arts codes and philosophy in his own conception of masculinity.

Finally, what cartoon figure popped in his head when thinking of a good male role model?

To be continued...

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Caring Enough to Act, or Do I Really Need to Laugh at That?

Wed, 01 May 2024 23:01:46 GMT

In this episode, Dara has an update on the fox situation at Hashtag Blessed and admits he views the surviving chickens differently since last week’s attack. Is it just him, or do they seem to be grieving?

After thinking he was almost out of fuel during an excursion to the mountains, Dara reflects on the benefits of slowing down and lays out a couple of mindfulness exercises to encourage the illusion of stopping time. He looks at the relationship between care and action and acknowledges his own resistance to trying new things. It begs the question – what do you care about enough to take action?

Staying in the area of care, Dara discusses a couple of movies he watched with his daughter over the weekend. The obvious homophobia in one was a stark reminder of how gender politics have evolved since the 90s, when the film was made. Tolerance of homophobic slurs was accepted then in a way it simply isn’t now.

A comment from his daughter raised the issue of the dominance of straight male values in movies in the past. As a corrective, Dara put on a movie with a strong female lead to offer something different, but his daughter didn’t care for it!

Also this week, movies as provocation and social critique. Better than those that moralise?

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Life Interrupted, the Comfort of the Familiar, and the Dangerous Habits of Avoidance

Wed, 24 Apr 2024 23:01:32 GMT

In this episode, Dara is reflecting on the overnight passing of two of the animal members of the Hashtag Blessed family. It reminds him of a key moment from the iconic TV show The Sopranos which centred on the idea of a changing world that couldn't be controlled. The idea of chaos and disorder prompting a desire for control feels like a very present concern.

A local death in the community spurs Dara to further examine the idea of the familiar and the habitual, and to look at the strength and reassurance we take from known quantities and knowable entities. He talks about the importance of the social space made for grief and is grateful that it is something that Irish culture is very good at.

Habits of thought and behaviour are also discussed, and Dara acknowledges how in an area of his own life he has allowed habitual behaviour lead him away from difficult situations. He pitches the idea of difficulties and challenges, and their avoidance, against the finality and true reality-altering nature of death. Perspective and proportionality are healthy things to bring to bear on the things that unsettle us. Can we find a way to deal better with interruptions to normal service? Can we break the pattern of our habitual responses?

Also in this episode, the humble offer, 1983's Risky Business, and the absence of bad influences in Dara's past.

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How To Make a Raspberry Cheesecake - From the Kitchen to a Religious Sect to 90s Hollywood Misogyny

Wed, 17 Apr 2024 23:01:01 GMT

Dara begins this episode by sharing his go-to recipe for making cheesecake, raspberry cheesecake, specifically. Don't ask why - it just felt like the right thing to do. Perhaps he was trying to flaunt his 'new man' credentials in advance of discussing male attitudes to high-profile, successful women in the not-so-distant past.

Before he gets to that, Dara revisits Peter Weir's 1985 romantic thriller, Witness, which he rewatched to see if it was appropriate for his 10-year-old daughter to see. He found himself seduced by the chemistry between the two leads, Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis. The film has aged extremely well in its depiction of the culture clash that occurs when Ford's savvy city cop has to hide out in McGillis's old world Amish community. The cultural and sexual tension ratchet up as the stakes get ever higher. Why is that chemistry so hard to find, and why is it often the linchpin of many TV shows?

Dara has been listening to an excellent film history podcast that he just discovered. Listening to its creator and host, the film critic and writer Karina Longworth, discuss erotic movies of the 90s, and quote various contemporaneous publications including Playboy and Gloria Steinem's Ms, it is extraordinary how blatant and unapologetic the sexist backlash was as directed at actresses like Sharon Stone, Demi Moore, Drew Barrymore, Alicia Silverstone and more.

Discussing his own thoughts on casual misogyny and the fear and hatred of women that some men experience, Dara recalls his own experience of watching the movies and performers in question, and tries to understand why the rhetoric of women being the enemy still has little trouble finding a male audience.

After consuming all that bile and chauvinism, Dara turns to a late 90s girl-power movie to provide a cheesy and satisfying antidote...

Karina Longworth's excellent podcast on the history and forgotten stories of Hollywood's first century: https://www.youmustrememberthispodcast.com/

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Intentionality, Clarity, Self-Care, and The Belief in Positive Change

Wed, 10 Apr 2024 23:01:48 GMT

In this episode, Dara is doing what he thinks he should have done last week; namely, reflect on the throughline of one hundred and fifty episodes of the podcast. His mission statement from the original blog iteration of The ClearOut in 2013 remains just as relevant over 10 years later - Decluttering. Clarifying. Connecting. Those three imperatives continue to assert themselves on the weekly attempt to offer something of use to the listener. They, attached to an eye-rolling scepticism about toxic positivity, are at the heart of the podcast's subheading - Wellness with Attitude.

Dara recognises a certain amount of nominative determinism in his relationship to clarity. Why does he so badly want to be clear? He equates clarity with calmness, both of mind and emotion, but is quick to acknowledge that clarity in his case does not mean brevity, as he demonstrates on a weekly basis! He discusses the place of intentionality in this mix of wellness and self-awareness, identifying the complexity of intentionality that operates on a more subconscious level.

Thinking about his belief in the human capacity for change, Dara tries to accommodate the horror and depravity that humans can visit upon one another. He believes that terrible pain and trauma can be overcome, but only in the presence of patience, time, love, and forgiveness.

Finally, the new series about Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley is looked at in the context of clarity, intention and calmness. Why is that beautiful black and white cinematography so pacifying?

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40 Years of Winning and Grinning - The Tom Cruise Episode!

Wed, 03 Apr 2024 23:01:08 GMT

In this 150th episode, Dara decides not to lean into what makes the show what it is, but rather opts for the easy entertainment of the career of Tom Cruise. A recent rewatch of Top Gun Maverick prompted the question - what is it about Tom Cruise that audiences continue to buy? What is it about that smile, and that ever-young body?

Dara looks at the Cruise filmography and identifies 1983 as his breakout year. That means it is a neat 40 years to last year's Mission Impossible instalment. So, which half of Cruise's career would you take over the other? The first 20 years, or the second 20? At exactly the halfway mark there is a 2003 film that Dara reckons red-flagged the beginning of a Cruise wobble and save for a few notable exceptions, laid the groundwork for dialled-in performances far beneath the leading man's capabilities.

Dara wonders who would represent Ireland if there were an acting Olympics. He argues it wouldn't necessarily be the best actor, but perhaps the one that does the best job of representing what we want to believe about ourselves. He thinks Cruise would be the US choice and considers representatives from other countries too.

It was in an early Cruise film that Dara responded to two disparate iterations of masculinity - one that he knew was very far from his own natural leanings, and one which he hoped he might one day embody.

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Is That What You Believe? The Thoughts That Shape Our Reality

Thu, 28 Mar 2024 13:02:07 GMT

In this episode, Dara once again finds himself considering his mental health battles. Emerging from a very recent depression, he examines the difference in his thinking when he is embattled versus when he is well. Why would he choose to believe one reality and not the other? Why, in spite of very persuasive negative thoughts, does his 'better' self prevail? And why does he compare these differing states and beliefs to acting reviews?

A relevant aspect of self-care is how we indicate healthy habits to ourselves. How we communicate to ourselves that there are habits of wellness in place can insulate us from true despair. Dara reflects on the current Irish government and argues that they are failing to communicate these signs of care to the electorate. He further argues that that is partly the reason the recent referendum was so conclusively rejected.

Speaking of Irish politics, Dara sees a connection between the retirements of Leo Varadkar, the Irish Taoiseach (prime minister) and Jurgen Klopp, the Liverpool manager. There is something in their retirement announcements that clearly validated their inner lives and their emotional energy, something that seems relatively new in male leadership. Having spoken in the UK last week at a male-centred public presentation, Dara talks about the need for the demonstrated care, love and validation of men as a counter to what people identify as 'toxic' masculinity.

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Is It Okay to be Vulnerable? Yes, it is!

Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:01:05 GMT

In this episode, Dara wants to know what vulnerability looks like. He talks about his own sense of feeling vulnerable at this time in his life and tries to contextualise that feeling in terms of age, time spent, and time left. He also reflects on fear, threat identification, and the conviction that one can be 'got'.

Having started watching the provocative 2019 series Euphoria, Dara recognises that spending time in the company of beautiful people doesn't do much for his sense of vitality and relevance, but he has a lot of time for the central performance of Zendaya. In spite of her excellence, he wonders about the next generation of Hollywood actors and whether they're all that.

Responding to the scenes of debauchery played out in Euphoria, Dara thinks about parenting fears and what dangers lie in wait for his daughter a few years from now. He shares his approach to preparing for those threats and hopes he isn't kidding himself. He also mentions a recent viewing experience with his daughter that was less than perfect.

At the end of the episode, Dara reads something he has just written in response to a very enjoyable photoshoot he took part in with the excellent Sharon Smith. Sometimes, things just work out beautifully.

Find Sharon's work here: https://hippyandbloom.ie/

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That's Not My Life! or, The Elusive Human Study

Thu, 14 Mar 2024 00:01:40 GMT

In this episode, Dara is looking at life stories. Prompted by a project of his own that he is working on, he acknowledges the difficulties he finds himself facing before discussing several different lives that he has just consumed in artistic form.

Before he gets into that, he spares a happy thought for the Oscar success of Cillian Murphy, rewarded for his turn as Robert Oppenheimer in Christopher Nolan's eponymous film, and recalls seeing the actor in a stunning stage production over 25 years ago. For the benefit of non-Irish listeners, he attempts to break down the unique character and confidence of Cork people.

The character studies that Dara looks at in some detail are mostly biopics, but there is also one documentary and a theatre piece. He shares his opinion about how successful or not he found them, and gives his reasons why. The people in question are as follows:

Leonard Bernstein in Bradley Cooper's Maestro

Enzo Ferrari in Michael Mann's Ferrari

Danny O'Mahony in Brokentalkers' Bellow

Jon Batiste in the documentary American Symphony

Rudolf Hoss in Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest

Five very different approaches to capturing a life or a life's work, or simply a key moment in a life. All very definite and considered, each with its own particular flavour. No spoilers, so feel free to listen if you haven't seen the works in question.

Also, Dara's favourite 'brother moment' from a movie...

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Understanding Brotherhood, or Why 'Bro' is not a Dirty Word!

Thu, 07 Mar 2024 00:01:59 GMT

In this episode, Dara is scratching his head over the idea of brotherhood. One of four sons, he feels he has a reasonably reliable perspective on his own experience of brotherhood, one he admits was not, nor continues to be, straightforward.

In the online space at least, 'bro culture' seems to be thriving, and certainly in the world of podcasting there is a prolific number of shows hosted by male friends and featuring largely male guests. Many of these shows are extremely popular and successful in a market that is over-supplied with options, but in spite of that success, or perhaps because of it, bros and their shows are dismissed with sneering condescension.

Some of that criticism comes from female voices, and Dara wonders if this is a point in history when it has never been more acceptable for women to express their anger, justified or not, at the opposite sex. He argues that the world is changing fast, but that many women of a certain generation have warranted historical anger towards men and patriarchal injustices.

Dara lays out his theory of healthy brotherhood, rooting it in pre-conditions of safety and non-judgement. He believes many men thrive in environments where they feel validated, unthreatened, and free to be open and vulnerable without shame. He proposes that men who can access safe spaces where they can express their fears and struggles and be supported by other men, will be far less likely to take out their anger on their loved ones or the world around them.

He refers to different television and movie iterations of brotherhood, both good and bad, and gives special mention to Sean Durkin's The Iron Claw (2023), which he believes to be one of the most beautiful depictions of brotherhood ever put on screen.

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Was That Absolutely Necessary? or, Keeping Calm in an Age of Chaos!

Thu, 29 Feb 2024 00:01:44 GMT

In this episode, Dara is rolling over some recent themes. He is convinced that cultivated internal calmness is a key part of responding healthily to the chaos of the world. When he talks about the importance of a 'proportional response' to whatever afflicts us, he acknowledges the connection of that idea to the philosophy of traditional martial arts practice. The implication of control is central to that idea and it is why Dara doesn't have a lot of love for UFC competition, where that restraint is often disregarded.

Kenneth Branagh's 'Belfast' garnered a lot of attention and Oscars buzz when it was released in 2021. Having just watched it, Dara offers his own opinion on what does and doesn't work about it. He wonders if the Troubles in Northern Ireland are simply too dark and tragic to be softened by a romantic childhood reverie. He accepts though that it is both Branagh's vision and his life, and he is entitled to represent what he wants.

That idea of representing a life is currently at the forefront of Dara's mind as he is working on a written project that has him looking back at his own childhood. He tries to grasp what is needed to make sense of a life in terms of context, reflection, and intersection.

Also - yet another rainy day, garden-traversing chickens, Colin Farrell brilliance, and the survival of the core self.

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Take Me To Church, or The Honesty of a Good Punch

Thu, 22 Feb 2024 00:01:32 GMT

In this episode Dara tries to understand the connection between the advancement of AI-generated images and his desire for the simplicity and austerity of certain places and practices. There is something about the ornate and ostentatious perfection of AI images that reminds him of the roots of the Protestant movement as a response to the grotesque greed and riches of the Catholic Church.

Thinking of the aesthetics of traditional Protestantism puts Dara in mind of the stripped-back design of karate dojos and martial arts training halls. He sees a connection also in the empty spaces of theatres. These spaces accommodate human endeavour and creativity and vibrate with the energy of that collective effort and yearning to make the ideal tangible. AI has no such vibration.

Dara starts the episode with thoughts on the death of Alexei Navalny and the desire of Vladimir Putin to silence his critics. He's not sure how Putin's strong man politics will connect to his critique of AI, but the connection reveals itself before he signs off.

Amongst other things touched on are the honesty of a punch, the benefits of occupying your own space, being a lone traveller in the universe, shark hunts, and trying to move thoughtfully through life.

Article on sea swimming and the vagus nerve by psychotherapist Conor O'Leary: https://conoroleary.ie/sea-swimming-a-refreshing-dive-into-well-being/

Shark Drunk, the book about life, seafaring, and hunting sharks: https://booksfromnorway.com/books/130-shark-drunk

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Identifying The 'Write' Voice - The Joy of Creative Luxury

Thu, 15 Feb 2024 00:01:55 GMT

In this episode, Dara reflects on a few days spent at a writers' retreat and his attempts to slip into a writing flow. Among other things, he talks about identifying his preferred voice, the subject matter he finds himself drawn to, and trusting that his own process would reveal to him what he should be trying to write. He describes as luxurious the gifts of headspace and optimal conditions for creativity.

While away, Dara rewatched for the first time in many years 1968's royal melodrama, The Lion In Winter. A hysterical and historical account of a family Christmas going to hell, it features two fantastic performances from Peter O'Toole and Katharine Hepburn, as well as stalwart turns from Anthony Hopkins, Timothy Dalton and others in their earliest screen roles. But what is it about Hepburn and O'Toole's raging husband and wife that reminds Dara of his own parents?

Also touched on - Valentine's Day thoughts, vagus nerve topicality, departing guinea pigs, Ireland problems, men giving nothing away, and the return of The Receptive Mind!

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One Movie, One Concert, One Show - The Ineffable Magic of the Offer and the Receipt

Thu, 08 Feb 2024 00:01:44 GMT

This episode does exactly what it says on the tin. Dara settles in to discuss a film he just watched, a concert he just attended, and a theatre production he recently saw.

The film was Paul Thomas Anderson's underappreciated 2002 dark comedy, Punch-Drunk Love, which was notable at the time for giving Adam Sandler a leading dramatic role. Upon rewatching, Dara realised how much like a musical it was, and also a layered love letter to other movies and genres. Having a male protagonist who can barely control his emotional distress and lifelong anguish was part of the appeal, as was Philip Seymour Hoffman's unforgettable mattress salesman.

The concert was the 2024 Peace Proms, a once-a-year touring event that Dara's daughter was participating in as a member of a 2,000-person children's choir, singing alongside the Cross Border Orchestra of Ireland. Dragging himself reluctantly to the RDS in Dublin to 'be supportive', Dara was blown away by what he experienced. He couldn't have been more wrong about what was on offer.

The show was Dublin's Gaiety Theatre pantomime, which this season was Cinderella. A family outing, the palpable buzz and connection between the performers and the audience was like electricity in the air. Dara can only conclude that there was something similar at work to the Peace Proms - a total absence of cynicism, and an enthusiastic revelling in that absence.

Peace Proms 2024 - https://peaceproms.com/peace-proms-2024-tickets-on-sale-from-1st-november/

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Innocence, Sex, and Sophistication: Who Do We Connect With and Why?

Thu, 01 Feb 2024 00:01:15 GMT

In this episode, Dara responds to a music podcast he found surprisingly moving by exploring the idea of connection. Why do certain things or people connect with us more powerfully than others? What is it that speaks to us about a particular individual, or their work? And what is it about music and musicians and movies and actors that can so enrapture us?

Dara argues that it is all about relationships and a lot depends on when you meet and what's going on for you at that time. He turns his focus to three music icons that struck deep chords with him as a young person, and lays out how each one spoke to a different part of him. This connects to how he saw himself and also how he thought about the opposite sex.

The power of the moving image in the world of cinema is another area of connection, but Dara realises he has always liked to consume life and the world visually, not just in movies. Movement, and the body in motion is a central part of this aesthetic dynamic, which may be part of Dara's attraction to martial arts.

Also in this episode is a coda to last week's mental health-themed edition, as well as a review of Alexander Payne's The Holdovers.

George Michael episode from '60 Songs That Explain The 90's': https://www.theringer.com/2024/1/24/24048661/60-songs-george-michael-freedom-90-podcast

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The Absolute 'Ick' Episode - Going Granular on My War with Myself

Thu, 25 Jan 2024 00:01:40 GMT

WARNING: The content of this episode may be confronting and/or triggering as it contains detailed references to suicidal ideation. The subject is treated respectfully and carefully, but unambiguously.

In this very personal and occasionally difficult episode, Dara decides he can't not examine his near four-decade-old impulse to destroy himself. A follow-on from last week's episode in which he spoke more generally and euphemistically about a recent onset of anxiety-fuelled depression, this time he wants more transparency, more openness, more keeping it real. He understands that for some people this type of sharing gives them the 'ick', hence the title of the episode.

In considering the motivation behind such public exploration of such a private experience, Dara concedes that it is part of how he processes and makes sense of the resultant discomfort and destabilisation. But he also makes clear that he is trying to demonstrate what he believes, which is that the sharing and examination of personal mental health crises can be extremely beneficial to those who may feel isolated in their suffering.

Among other things, Dara talks about generational damage, projecting outward what we believe about ourselves, the connection between suicidal ideation and the collapse of self-worth, recovering from parenting fails, and the deep chords struck in him by the actions and words of his daughter.

Relevant Irish services and charities:

https://www.samaritans.org/ireland/samaritans-ireland/ - supporting individuals at risk of extreme duress and suicide

https://www.pieta.ie/ - supporting those with suicidal thoughts, self-harming, or those bereaved from suicide

https://grow.ie/ - support service for those dealing with mental health issues

https://www.textaboutit.ie/ - text-based service for those encountering mental health struggles

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Existential Framing: Pathways, Destinations, and Empty Spaces

Thu, 18 Jan 2024 00:01:48 GMT

In this episode, Dara tries to remind himself of the existential power of understanding life as an unending path that leads to endless unknown destinations. In relation to a recent rough mental health episode, he is also happy to be reminded that the path of life will continue past the present moment, no matter how challenging it might be.

Dara discusses destinations, end points, and arrivals in the context of conventional capitalist-materialist thinking. He wonders if we're not better off accepting that one place and one moment can only ever lead to the next place or moment. He argues that we are perpetually moving into empty spaces and empty moments in which we have very little true control.

Citing Darren Aronofsky's 2017 nightmarish Mother!, Dara recounts his experience of having to deal with uninvited guests. He decides that though unwelcome, that these guests must have been invited after all. But what can be learned from such unpleasantness?

Also, a couple of other podcast recommendations that Dara connected with, the independence of traumatised children when they grow up, and a cat in zen mode!

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Turning 50 - If I'm Calm, It's the Jedi's Fault!

Thu, 11 Jan 2024 00:01:50 GMT

Dara has just turned 50, and in this episode he lets his mind hover over the moment in an attempted stocktake. Even as he argues for gratitude, he acknowledges how challenging the world is right now. This leads him to consider whether enough weight is attached to softer impulses and emotions. In these times of fracture and isolation and estrangement, should we attach greater significance and worthiness to love and positivity and connection?

Reflecting on his life to date, Dara talks about the importance he places on honour. But does trying to live an honourable life mean anything? Is it just a self-administered high-brow ego-boost?

Taking a photo at the weekend of an iconic figurine triggered something in Dara that returns him to his childhood. Perhaps he has been trying to emulate something that he first tapped into as a little boy...

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2023: The Year in Screentime - Fantastic Plastic and Artistic Brutality

Thu, 04 Jan 2024 00:01:30 GMT

Dara reviews his year in watching on screens big and small over the last twelve months. Some of the obvious big 2023 releases are covered, including Oppenheimer, Barbie, Killers of the Flower Moon and Anatomy of a Fall, but also mentioned are older movies that were watched during the year at home - Anthony Minghella's The Talented Mr.Ripley, for example, or Paul Schrader's Hardcore.

Dara also looks back at TV and documentaries he took in, as well as the considerable number of children's films he watched with his daughter, the most recent of which was Wonka. Did he prefer Timothee Chalamet's chocolate maker to Gene Wilder's? Listen to find out!

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Maestro! Bradley Cooper's Bravura Take on Bernstein

Thu, 28 Dec 2023 00:59:17 GMT

Following the previous episode's last-minute production, Dara does another late night recording, this time in the wind and rain, with at least two interruptions from a sleeping dog. He's determined to maintain his line, and that means he refuses to put out another delayed episode.

This week it's all about Maestro, Bradley Cooper's biopic of the American conductor and composer, Leonard Bernstein. Dara enjoyed the film so much he watched it back to back. He tries to explain why he found it so beguiling, but it is very much about the film's aesthetic pleasures, particularly how it sounds and how it is shot.

He wonders if Cooper is trying to render them as a proxy first couple of American beauty and success, a la the White House Kennedys of Camelot.

He also has thoughts on the weighting of female characters in movies like this, and the policy of an Irish supermarket on broken bottles of alcohol.

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The 2023 Christmas Special!

Sun, 24 Dec 2023 01:28:20 GMT

In this hard-fought-for episode, Dara soldiers on alone to deliver this year's Christmas special.

Coming in at the eleventh hour, Dara presents a brand new story that he completed only a day before recording. An old woman lies stricken on the floor of her hallway. Who will come to her aid, and will she welcome their assistance? A meeting of minds old and young that reveals an unexpected commonality, it is a nice alternative tale to more conventional fare. And also funny, although that depends on what you find funny...

Dara's usual team on the special have been laid low by illness, so he has no Hashtag Blessed Christmas Recital to share. Stubbornly, and honourably overcoming his disappointment, he plays out the episode with a solo Christmas song - just one man, a voice, and a humble tilt at a festive windmill!

Happy Christmas everyone, stay safe.

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Sappy, Silly, and Sombre: Three Tales for Festive Consumption

Thu, 14 Dec 2023 00:01:44 GMT

In this episode, Dara jumps in feet first to Christmas tales of yore. Reading from a compendium of Yuletide tales, he selects two contrasting entries that brought some balance to proceedings. The first is A Christmas Inspiration, a sweet and somewhat sentimental tale by L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables) of a group of young women coming to the aid of a lonely cohabitant of their boarding house.

The second moves as far and fast as it can in the opposite direction, depicting the bloodless revenge of a persona non grata on his over-privileged and self-indulgent relatives. Bertie's Christmas Eve by the great short story writer Saki is evocative of a time when the idle beneficiaries of the British Empire had very little to concern them other than the prospect of talking livestock.

Finally, Dara includes a story of his own that, while not specifically connected to Christmas, seems to somehow fit with the general theme of rounding out the year. One On One takes the listener on a journey in a city where three very different people are each engaged in very particular activities that are uniquely connected.

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The Value of Human Life, or A Strange Form of Diplomacy

Thu, 07 Dec 2023 00:01:00 GMT

In this episode, Dara has further thoughts on the ongoing Middle East conflict after listening to the concerns of a good friend who has a certain amount of skin in the game. He wonders if a peaceful end will ever be possible when key combatants on both sides are so determined to eradicate each other. It raises the existential question of what value one human life has over any other.

The deaths occurred in the last week of a great Irish songwriter and iconic performer, as well as a German-born US diplomat who was instrumental in shaping US foreign policy in the mid-20th century. Dara shares his thoughts on Shane MacGowan and Henry Kissinger, with particular focus on the former's Fairytale of New York and its recently acquired status as lightning rod for the culture wars and woke revisionism, and the latter's infamous directive in relation to the deployment of a relentless bombing campaign in Cambodia that began in 1969.

Ending the episode on a lighter note, Dara argues that David Fincher's recently released 'The Killer' might be the best comedy of the year, with a Michael Fassbender's central performance embodying a jet-black humour that infects the entire film. He also review's Grant Singer's 'Reptile', a cop thriller that is distinguished mainly by an excellent Benicio Del Toro as the world-weary protagonist. He celebrates Fassbender and Del Toro's uniqueness as actors at a time when many American actors feel interchangeable.

Note: No chickens were harmed during the making of this podcast, but maybe they should have been!

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The Dublin Riots: The Denial of Dignity and the Rage of the Unloved

Thu, 30 Nov 2023 00:01:16 GMT

In this episode, Dara tries to get his head around the riots that took place in Dublin recently after a violent knife attack on young children outside their school in the middle of the day. The subsequent outpouring of shock and anger escalated into a night of destruction, rioting and looting in the city centre, fuelled by anti-immigrant rhetoric.

Dara wonders about the bad actors involved in inciting the riot, the larger connection to the rise of populism and ultra-nationalism that seems to be prospering the world over, and the pre-existing conditions that lead to such a powder keg volatility amongst those who wreaked such wanton havoc.

An assessment of the situation by online comic personality and musician, Garron Noone, was so impressive that Dara features part of it here. Clear-eyed, passionate and fair, Garron's thoughtfulness about what happened is a great contribution to a very complex subject.

Finally, Dara looks at the socio-psychological implications of the rioters' actions. Where does that desire to lash out come from? What is the genesis of that violence and anger? Is it ultimately an indictment of generational and systemic neglect by Ireland's national institutions? Is it connected to a denial of dignity and pride? And is it possible to express love for swathes of angry men who tore apart the streets of Ireland's capital?

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Don't Come Out Until You're Sorry, or To Whom Do You Need to Atone?

Thu, 23 Nov 2023 00:01:54 GMT

In this episode Dara admits he didn't realise it was International Men's Day, and a tweet suggesting what men should be reflecting on for the big day triggered something defensive in him.

Before examining that reaction, Dara talks about a recent night in with his cousin and their respective daughters that didn't go quite as he anticipated, but was arguably the better for it.

In the context of sexual politics and the male perspective, Dara revisits and very much enjoys the 1971 Mike Nichols film Carnal Knowledge, which he argues has aged very well, conveying as it does a very believable depiction of how straight men relate to and talk about their objects of desire.

The second half of the episode is an examination of the idea of atonement, which is Dara's response to the aforementioned tweet. He questions the value of atonement and wonders if anybody should be entitled to expect that of anybody else. Contrition, guilt, punishment and forgiveness are connected concepts that are also considered. But the real question is - what do we owe anybody?

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Zionist Intransigence, Pop Star Isolation, and the Power of the Originating Wound

Thu, 16 Nov 2023 00:01:05 GMT

In this episode, Dara reflects on some Jewish insights into the Israel-Palestine conflict which he found both helpful and inspiring. He posits that in the act of dehumanising Palestinians, Israel ends up dehumanising itself, which is its own kind of tragedy.

Dara considers the interpretations of the phrase 'our shared humanity'. He argues that it could be taken as good or bad, but explains how it informs his own essentially positive outlook. He connects it to the idea of where we allow our energy to be directed or absorbed, and cautions that we need to be very mindful of the places our energy can dwell.

Having just watched the new Robbie Williams documentary, Dara draws comparisons between it and another recent TV appraisal of a 90s icon - David Beckham. He recalls living and studying in England in the mid-90s and how palpable the feelgood factor of the zeitgeist was. He identifies a connection between Robbie Williams and Israel that speaks to an originating wound that neither have found a way to successfully transcend, leaving both the pop star and the country in comparable states of denial.

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Don't Turn Off the Lights! or, Have You Made Room for Romance?

Thu, 09 Nov 2023 00:01:51 GMT

In this episode Dara reveals that he is unaccustomed to the comfort of pajamas. This fact is relevant to a very recent late-night incident that he shares. That same incident concluded with an inherent contradiction relating to the presence of both love and rejection.

In acknowledging that tension, Dara begins to talk about romance as a form of idealism. He argues that the conscious demonstration of love, regardless of the recipient, is an act of romance that is tethered to an idealised concept of love.

Romance has arguably fallen out of fashion at the movies, but Dara just watched two very accomplished romantic films and found himself moved in very different ways by each. The Tom Cruise vehicle Jerry Maguire (1996) and Celine Song's exquisite Past Lives (2023) may not seem to have much in common, but they are hugely successful love stories on their own terms.

And what happens when love is not part of one's foundational experience? Ask Sylvester Stallone, who leaves no doubt as to where his deepest wound originated.

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Killers of the Flower Moon - a Haunting Tale of White Evil

Thu, 02 Nov 2023 00:01:11 GMT

In this cultural episode, Dara is in awe of two recent Shakespearean recitations he caught on small screens, delivered fifty years apart in almost identical settings by two masters of the form. He makes an effort of his own and is embarrassed by the resulting evidence of his lesser skill.

Before that, he briefly shares last thoughts on the final of the Rugby World Cup, which was won by a dogged South Africa last weekend. He expresses particular admiration for the eloquent Springbok captain, Siya Kolisi, who consistently speaks of the impact and symbolism back home of the success of his team.

Dara spends the second half of the podcast reviewing and reacting to Martin Scorsese's latest film, Killers of the Flower Moon. He left the cinema feeling sick, depressed and exhilarated at what he had just seen. A film of sneaking and insidious power, Dara isn't sure he has ever seen such a successful depiction of systematic and dehumanising white racism.

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Getting the Words Out, or The Things We Find Impossible to Say

Wed, 25 Oct 2023 23:01:01 GMT

In this episode, Dara is exercised by the things we don't say. Why is it so difficult to express how we really feel to those we have known longest? Why do we communicate so tangentially and clumsily? What intricate layering process happens to put truth so far out of easy reach?

Dara presents a theory he calls relational dislocation, in which we can find ourselves occupying very different areas of a landscape to someone we think we know intimately. He likens it to moving to a new part of an ecosystem, leaving others behind. While arguing that it is connected to self-preservation and a certain amount of complacency, he is concerned that it is also where hurt, resentment and judgement thrive.

Truth gets buried so deep that real work is required to excavate it. Only then can we communicate something from our base state that can't be spun into a half-truth or an interpretation of truth. Revisiting a recent theme, Dara wonders if men are particularly bad at this.

Looking to the outbreak of war in the Middle East, Dara tries to get a sense of Jewish perspectives on the conflict. He also looks at how criticism of Israel's extreme response is being met with highly reactive condemnation, and in some cases, cancellation.

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Collective Heartbreak and Tears of a Clown, or How I Baptised my Baby Daughter

Wed, 18 Oct 2023 23:01:14 GMT

In this pendulum swing of an episode, Dara is dancing between joy and pain. It is a journey that takes him from Ireland's expulsion from the Rugby World Cup last week to the birth of his daughter 10 years ago.

Raking over the rugby loss, Dara tries to understand exactly why it hurts so much. He knows it has something to do with a peculiar mixture of national pride and insecurity. He also discusses the sense of injustice connected to a team that felt so 'right', so destined to succeed. All the good vibes and positive energy, aligned with unprecedented excellence on the field of play, raised expectations and rendered the defeat almost beyond belief. It has been a dizzying height from which to descend.

Before moving on to other matters, Dara reviews a couple of recently-watched movies with interesting female protagonists at the heart of the action. Fair Play, written and directed by Chloe Domont, is an edgy drama that looks at how improved status and power in the world of finance can have a divisive impact on dynamics at home, especially when it is a woman who is suddenly a rising star. Last Night In Soho is Edgar Wright's latest film and it is a psycho-sexual thriller that transports a young woman back to the swinging sixties in London where all is not as cool and groovy as it first appears.

The last part of the episode is dedicated to Dara's daughter, who has just turned 10. He recalls his experience of becoming a father and reads a piece he wrote a few weeks after that moment in which he lays out his hopes for his baby's future life. It is an undiluted expression of love and relief. Ten years on, he is still feeling grateful.

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The Receptive Mind and Men Who Don't Talk

Wed, 11 Oct 2023 23:01:24 GMT

In this episode Dara looks at dynamics of giving and receiving in relationships. He argues that having a true exchange with someone is impossible unless that dynamic is present and healthy.

Talking about an upcoming project, Dara explains why he has called it The Receptive Mind and concedes he could try to access more of that mindfulness in his parenting.

Do men really not talk, or is that just a stereotype that they blithely accept? After a recent conversation with a friend about his troubled son, Dara thinks about what he would say to the young man in question. He recalls how helpful his own male friends were when he was a teenager.

Also featured this week are phony wellness aesthetics, toxic positivity, empty buzzwords, and the energy-sapping effects of device vortices.

The episode concludes with a poem about the shapes we form to deal with life.

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Sins of Omission, or Whose Stories Don't Get Told?

Wed, 04 Oct 2023 23:01:59 GMT

In this episode Dara is agitated by an interview with a US politician that he has just listened to. He is frustrated by the public representative's combativeness and disingenuous line of argument. He wonders why politicians are so incapable of being honest.

Dara looks at Lawrence Kasdan's 1983 film The Big Chill, considered by some to be a key generational text, in a context of racial politics and cultural representation. As fond as he is of the star-studded 80s fest, he concludes it may be the whitest movie ever made. Continuing the theme, 1992's Into The West is briefly discussed as a movie that served its subject - Irish Travellers - very well.

Responding to a recent social media post showing screenshots of news headlines about abusive or criminal men, Dara proposes a complementary idea that would showcase the normal everyday achievements of men. He calls it Real Men Headlines and tries out a couple of examples to see what it sounds like.

Higher Learning episode featuring interview with Larry Elder: https://www.theringer.com/2023/9/26/23890614/white-supremacy-black-fatherhood-with-larry-elder

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A Hat is Not a Personality, or The Fear of Not Being There

Wed, 27 Sep 2023 23:01:17 GMT

In this episode Dara is looking into the void and trying not to feel frightened. Thinking about the construction of identity and personality, he is curious about how comfortable or not we are with what lies beneath. He asks if you can handle being left alone with yourself.

He argues for coming to peace with oneself and entering into a state of acceptance of what he calls the unnamed being that may lurk under the surface. He acknowledges that he is not speaking from a position of blissed-out serenity and discusses his strategic template for negotiating his lifelong skirmishes with depression.

Dara posits that titles, careers and professions are things that we do, but even if vocational, are not necessarily an indication of who we are. He explains why someone's job is often the thing he finds least interesting about them. In the most extreme cases he suspects that the removal of role or occupation results in the erasure of self. So what can be done to fill that void?

He lays out the value of the subjective perspective as a means of personal assertion and validated separation from the white noise of 21st century existence, but is quick to add that it is an individualistic strategy that is not an individualistic philosophy. Ultimately, if the battle within can be won, the battles without will be that much less daunting!

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Billy Budd, Russell Brand, and the Dark Corners of Male Desire

Wed, 20 Sep 2023 23:01:49 GMT

In this episode, Dara goes on a deep dive into Peter Ustinov's 1962 film of Herman Melville's Billy Budd. He recalls being struck by Terence Stamp's remarkable performance and beauty when he first saw it over 25 years ago. A naval setting provides the battleground for innocence vs evil, but what was most memorable to Dara was the gay subtext and the grim denouement that it provoked.

Staying on that theme, Dara looks at other film iterations of thwarted male desire and especially the depiction of closeted lust. He wonders about the relationship between violence and the inability to consummate desire. Speaking further to that theme he references a recent NY Times article that contained an observation that was chilling in its nakedness.

Dara argues that the recent allegations made against Russell Brand are hardly surprising - not specifically about Brand, but rather that yet another man in a position of power and influence has allegedly abused his status at the expense of sexual victims. He also refers to the death of Barry Bennell, a convicted child abuser from the world of English football and asks how many blind eyes have to be turned for sexual predators to thrive. Not for the first time, he rails against the dire implications of the relentless objectification of women, the violence in porn, and the disproportionate and confused emphasis of female sexual utility.

To bring the episode to a less confronting conclusion, Dara reads in full the very particular prose of Bosley Crowther's 61-year-old review of Billy Budd.

NY Times article on one woman's experience of male sexual aggression (paywall): https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/15/style/modern-love-pinned-under-the-bodies-of-men.html

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Why You Shouldn't Bring an Axe to a Party, or How to Sit Down with Others

Wed, 13 Sep 2023 23:01:43 GMT

In this episode, Dara argues that in the process of 'othering', many are guilty of thinking only in monolithic terms, i.e. attributing unchanging characteristics to all members of the othered party. This reduces people to stereotypes and cliches, and robs them of both their individuality and the presumption of no bias. He wonders if this isn't a huge part of the problem with discourse around identity politics, woke culture and gender wars.

Dara equates assumptions and prejudices with weapons and makes a case for the benefits of disarmament in the service of engendering trust and openness. He also stresses the imperative of non-judgement as part of a safety template that allows people to feel they don't need to defend themselves.

The idea of service interests Dara and he sees parallels between the world of martial arts and conflict resolution that are informed by Platonic Idealism. Are we interested in serving ourselves, or a higher, more altruistic objective? He relates a story where in order to push towards a better artistic and creative outcome, he had to consciously not care about how he was being perceived.

Stepping tentatively around the subject of domestic violence, Dara claims that there is nobody in that situation who is not a victim. He looks at damaged masculinity through the lens of a collective wound to try to understand better the expression of male anger. He recognises that many people feel wounded and struggle to present that side of themselves in a functional way.

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Critical Reaction and the Bestowal of Credibility

Wed, 06 Sep 2023 23:01:50 GMT

In this episode, Dara responds to a confronting conversation about the podcast that raised issues of self-worth, purpose, and the validity of the podcast itself. He looks at the specific criticism levelled at the show and what he does on it and makes a case for the defence. In a broader sense he looks at situations of personal conflict and how to remove emotion from the equation in order to view things more dispassionately.

Drawing on his martial arts background, he talks about embracing the contradictory impulses of hyper-vigilance and total ease. He describes the process he works through each week on the podcast as being akin to a longitudinal study. It's a rolling experiment with the terms of which he is very comfortable. Part of that comfort means making an accommodation with vulnerability and feelings that have the potential to lead him astray on any given week. He advocates for 'following the thought' as a means to deepen understanding of impulses and reactions.

On the subject of credibility in general, and his in particular, Dara looks at his personal philosophy of committing to patterns and routines, and the credibility that is tethered to functional consistency. While not a contrarian, he admits to the questioning of institutions and conferring bodies and explains why that is the case. Ultimately, his belief resides in the doing of things that come from a place of authentic intention. The value of how that is received by others is not for him to say.

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Chucking Original Sin in the Bin and the Pernicious Effect of Lifestyle Culture

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 10:22:13 GMT

This power-cut interrupted episode picks up where last week's episode left off - with no clothes on! Dara wraps up his thoughts on nudity by addressing some omissions from last time. He briefly looks at a couple of male movie nudes before talking about his life modelling experience while in acting school in England in the mid-nineties. An article on a new photo exhibition that replaces Helmut Newton's chilly women with male models raises questions of conditioning, objectification, and the dominance of the male gaze.

Switching to the notion of shame around nudity, Dara recalls the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. The idea of being sullied with original sin enrages him and he rails against its perversity. He reflects on childhood shame and the impulse children have to seek approval and affirmation. Yet again, he examines his own parenting patterns and hopes he is being sufficiently vigilant to ensure shame is not in the equation.

A recent protest at the Burning Man festival gets Dara onto the subject of the wealthiest stratum of society having a disproportionate influence on the cost of major events in the cultural and sporting domain. He argues that too many 'normal' people are getting shut out of collective experiences because they keep getting more expensive. Should events like these be for the rich alone? Lifestyle culture as endlessly presented on social and popular media has a lot to answer for in this area.

The episode finishes with a review of John Boorman's lovely movie memoir, 'Conclusions'.

Hani Hape's Helmut Newton treatment: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/aug/28/pornographic-chic-helmut-newtons-sexist-nudes-gender-switching-hani-hape

Burning Man protest: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/aug/28/burning-man-protest-climate-change-environment

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Naked As The Day You Were Born, or A Question of Exposure

Wed, 23 Aug 2023 23:01:15 GMT

In this episode, Dara realises he omitted to mention three things in relation to the theme of nudity: shame, Viggo Mortensen's willingness to bare all, and a ridiculous story from his acting school days that featured nudity, singing, and money! Things he may have to return to next week...

What you will hear is a discussion of nudity and nakedness in different contexts. Dara thinks the idea of being naked, or exposed, has been a core element of the podcast since it started as he has leaned into being open and honest about his own life from the very first episode. He explains that he does so in service of authentic and relatable self-examination that he trusts will be of interest and use to listeners of the podcast.

The idea of trust is very central to Dara's relationship to his body as he got to know it in the context of his first sexual relationships. As far as he was concerned, relationships were safe spaces of mutual approval and respect. In that atmosphere, he was far more interested in what his body could do as opposed to what it looked like.

The naked body is looked at in other contexts and Dara argues that restricting it to sexual desirability not only does it a great disservice, but also diminishes the experience and scope of the beholder. Moving from the literal to the figurative, he claims that there is no greater courage or honour than standing before someone emotionally or psychologically naked. To remove all barriers is to embrace a profound vulnerability that while potentially terrifying, can also speak of a surprising strength and confidence.

Time is also found to mention naked garden running, hospital bodies, and Bono's singing voice being the catalyst for this week's topic!

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Stop Laughing, This Is Meant To Be Good For You!

Wed, 16 Aug 2023 23:10:05 GMT

In this episode, Dara is perplexed by the moral ending of Jennifer Lawrence's new comedy, No Hard Feelings. What is the purpose of such moralising? Does the audience benefit from the character's personal edification? Should we care about a dissolute character's redemptive arc? He compares the sexual politics of that movie to Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot.

A contrasting comedy voice is that of Wes Anderson, whose new film Asteroid City Dara also watched recently. He admires the lack of morality in Anderson's movies, but confesses to being very much unmoved by this latest effort. He asks whether Anderson is more of an aesthetician than a moviemaker.

Should we be looking for morality tales in sex comedies? Are movies the place to find affirmations of our own goodness? If not there, where? And where do we obtain our own morality?

Dara also shares some abandoned podcast topics, and takes a moment to applaud the women's football teams of Ireland and Australia, who just competed in the Women's World Cup. What makes them so much better than their male counterparts?

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Keeping Up With a Changing World, or Why Seahorse Dads Made Me Uneasy

Wed, 09 Aug 2023 23:01:16 GMT

In this episode, Dara shares his thoughts on the late William Friedkin, of whose films he has long been an admirer, particularly The Exorcist and the lesser-loved Sorcerer, his 1977 remake of 1953's La Salaire de la Peur. Those movies are discussed along with a general appraisal of Friedkin's voice and greater artistic significance. Dara considers the changing astronomy of the world as more and more creative giants of that generation appear to be coming to the end of their time.

Following a clash with his daughter in a library, Dara shares another parenting fail. He continues to try and own his far from perfect fathering and explains why he couldn't let his daughter go on a playdate until the air was cleared. He reveals a recently-discovered piece of parenting advice that he is finding extremely useful.

A photo-article on seahorse fathers - pregnant trans men - gives Dara pause for thought. He examines his reactions and tries to follow the thread of where his first thoughts lead him. Uncomfortable ideas come up relating to control, nature, intolerance, and most worryingly, dehumanisation.

Time is also found for custard runs, and encouragement to play the long game...

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The Voice of Truth and Anguish - Saying Farewell to Sinead O'Connor

Wed, 02 Aug 2023 23:01:28 GMT

In this episode, Dara takes his time to say goodbye to Sinead O'Connor and speaks of her relevance to him from the early days of her career right up to more recent times when life presented her with a terrible burden to bear. He includes a clip from Ep 34 of the show when he spoke about the death by suicide of her son in January 2022.

Before he does that, Dara talks about his own recent mental health skirmishes, including being in the middle of a bad one while recording last week's edition of the show. He argues for ongoing dialogue around mental health and self-care as a way of countering social discomfort in the face of mental unwellness.

Returning to movies, Dara discusses at length and in a spoiler-free manner, Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer and Todd Field's Tar, two exceptional character studies of singular figures, one historical and one fictional. He is left in admiration of the talent involved, the assured storytelling of the respective directors, and the films serving as an antidote to the superhero saturation that has taken over cinema.

The episode concludes with Dara attempting to do justice to one of his favourite Sinead O'Connor songs, In This Heart from her 1994 album, Universal Mother.

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July Miscellany! Movies, Weddings, and Reading the Signs

Wed, 26 Jul 2023 23:01:51 GMT

In this episode Dara reviews some recently watched movies, including William Friedkin's To Live and Die in LA (1985), and Sidney Lumet's Prince of the City (1981), two much-lauded cop thrillers that each have their strengths and weaknesses and are very much products of their time.

Once again Dara finds himself interrupted by strangers just as he is about to get in water. What exactly is the energy he's giving off? Why can't he repel curious people when he is half-naked?

A wrap-up of recent events include a couple of weddings, a throng of new chickens, and a reflection on flow and integration inspired by a qi gong class.

In the area of mental health and self-care, Dara looks at how we can easily miss things that are right in front of us because we are so determined to place our focus elsewhere. Citing Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook, he makes a case for reading the signs and picking up what life is putting down for us.

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The Importance of Orientation, or Why the Loss of Bearings is No Joke!

Wed, 19 Jul 2023 23:01:36 GMT

In this episode, Dara's aged cat has gone to the toilet in the wrong place, and the cause is not feline terrorism but dementia and disorientation. The loss of bearings is a very difficult thing to negotiate because it can result in dislocation. Dara argues that as fundamentally relational beings, we need landmarks and touchstones to position ourselves in the world.

From institutions to abstract emotions to spiritual concepts, as well as innumerable people, we are rooted in connectedness as a means of making sense of wherever we are at any given time. Dara believes that one of life's ongoing challenges is to adapt to the existential turbulence that comes when parts of our world stop making sense to us. He wonders what the best strategy is to surf the wild ocean of life.

Arguing for the state of 'being in the zone', Dara makes a case for that mode been more easily accessed from the heart rather than the mind. Talking about facing fear and owning one's own challenges, he refers to martial arts, depressive onslaughts, the Yugoslavian Nobel laureate Ivo Andric, and the 1952 classic western High Noon, which he reframes as a metaphor for depression.

Time is also found to consider Erich Fromm's psychology, Fran Drescher's activism, and to get to the bottom of why the Lego smells so awful!

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Riding the Gere-Stick to the Worst Poem in History!

Wed, 12 Jul 2023 23:01:49 GMT

In this episode, Dara wrestles with the conundrum that is Richard Gere. Self-satisfied narcissus or instinctive, id-driven sex animal? Is he a good actor? Is he just a fantasy figure beloved of Generation X moviegoers? Is he forever the man who rescued Julia Roberts from the streets? Dara examines Gere's legacy through some of his most memorable performances and discusses in detail Breathless, the bizarre 1983 Hollywood remake of Godard's A Bout de Souffle with an uncontainable turn from Gere at his most overtly sexual.

But a person's entire career can be summed up, and even dismissed, in a single line of criticism, and Dara has never been able to shake a particularly astute sketch of Gere by the great film writer David Thomson when discussing Pretty Woman (1990), the Pygmalionesque story of Julia Roberts's hooker with a heart of gold being shown the way to respectability by Gere's wealthy playboy. Thomson brilliantly identifies something at the heart of the actor's persona that is more than mere smugness. In a Vanity Fair profile from the same year, Gere is gently skewered by an ex-girlfriend whose insight into actors Dara thinks is spot on.

Spurred by the use of the word 'pasha' by Thomson, Dara goes in search of pasha-centric poetry. While far from successful, two poems are considered worth sharing, and Dara even dares to read one of them in a barely tolerable Scottish accent - but he hopes the accent might compensate in some way for the awfulness of the poem. The piece in question - The Tay Bridge Disaster by William McGonagall - is often cited as the worst poem ever written. Listen here and make up your own mind!

Time is also found to discuss The Bard of the Yukon, Paul Newman's uneasy relationship with his good looks, and Dara's Julia Roberts agnosticism.

The worst poem ever written - https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/tay-bridge-disaster/

Richard Gere Vanity Fair profile (1990) - https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/1990/5/high-gere

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Don't Mind if I Do! Helping Oneself to Moral Failure

Wed, 05 Jul 2023 23:01:53 GMT

In this week's episode Dara is bothered by the current controversy in Ireland's national broadcaster, RTE. He is bothered, but not surprised by it, because it is simply another example of institutional corruption and moral complacency. He looks at why people continually fail to rein in their greed and dishonesty.

He believes a culture of 'permission granted' must be the default setting in institutions where such blatant abuse of power and privilege takes place. He argues that a grossly distorted sense of entitlement contributes to the behaviour as well as institutional tendencies as observed in the Stanford Prison Experiment and the Milgram Obedience Experiment.

Dara discusses the television program at the heart of the controversy, The Late Late Show, and argues that it is nowhere near as relevant to Irish cultural life as it once was.

The question of self-control feels central to the individual moral failure of the personnel involved in the scandal. Dara looks at self-control in the context of personal morality and martial arts philosophy. He concludes that personal responsibility is one of the most important elements of resisting institutional failure.

Time is also found to quote Shakespeare's Hamlet and to look at the lines we know we shouldn't cross.

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In Pod We Trust! Trying to Find Something to Depend On in Unreliable Times

Wed, 28 Jun 2023 23:01:31 GMT

In this week's episode, Dara is trying to work out who he should trust. After watching the current Arnold Schwarzenegger documentary on Netflix, he finds himself unsatisfied with the Austrian bodybuilder's account of past indiscretions, but what would satisfy him? A little more honesty and insight would be a good place to start.

The online world, where so many of us spend so much time, is particularly untrustworthy and Dara recognises his own contribution to the charade of 'let me show you', or in his case, 'let me tell you'! But he does stand by what he considers a dependable core ingredient of each episode of the podcast to date. He believes that ingredient is a valuable counterpoint to much of what is offered online.

Looking at what others have said about trust, Dara is skeptical about a recurring moralistic tone that appears to heap censure and damnation on those who dare to break trust. But there is an excellent quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson about the nature of self-trust that is very appealing and underlines many of the wellness positions expressed on the podcast.

Time is also found to discuss angry swallows and killer kittens, to pitch a foxglove origin story, and to read a poem about trust that Dara wrote at the start of the pandemic.

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Blips on the Grid - The Randomness of Human Interaction

Wed, 21 Jun 2023 23:01:51 GMT

In this episode, Dara considers the randomness and unpredictability of human interaction over a lifetime. He argues that we simply never know what is going on with another person when we encounter them, even if we have had a relationship with them for years. We never know what they're bringing to that particular moment, which means that if anything close to harmony or connection occurs, it is almost miraculous!

Inspired by the thought of chance encounters, Dara reads the opening pages of Dostoevsky's The Idiot, which he claims is the 'spirit animal' of the podcast, primarily because of what Prince Myshkin represents. He also takes it as an opportunity to recall the only stalker he ever had - there is a connection.

After being on the Warsaw-St. Petersburg line with the Russians, Dara remembers how much he loved his childhood journeys to London to visit his grandmother. It took a long time, but he loved every bit of it.

The episode concludes with a sketch of his Father's Day weekend, which included watching the director's cut of Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven (2005) - Dara has notes for those who cast callow actors in the role of pre-battle motivator.

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Survival, Transcendence, and the Myth of Whatever Doesn't Kill You

Wed, 14 Jun 2023 23:01:23 GMT

In this episode, Dara talks about the affection for survival narratives and considers the respective legacies of the recently deceased singers and songwriters Tina Turner and Christy Dignam. He wonders whether we should be defined by what we've overcome in life. He also questions the value of legacy and argues for the need to be more concerned with our present-tense impact.

Is surviving enough, or should we aspire to thrive? Dara argues for the pursuit, or recognition, of momentary joy as a viable alternative to the questionable concept of happiness. If we can appreciate the temporary nature of joy, it might help us become comfortable with the temporary presence of other experiences such as anger, sadness, grief etc.

Dara struggles with the cliche 'Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger'. He believes that it is often the case that whatever doesn't kill you can have long lasting negative effects on your wellbeing. The challenge is to retain your humanity, your compassion, your positivity even though we all have different burdens to carry.

Time is also found to offer a late take on HBO's Succession (no spoilers).

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Retreat! The Places We Escape To, For Better or Worse

Wed, 07 Jun 2023 23:01:13 GMT

In this hazy episode, Dara seeks solace in mindful summer moments and solitary swims. He discusses the idea of retreat and running away to the places we find most comforting and tries to identify which ones might be better for us.

He shares memories of summers past and realises that most of his recollections are located in the Irish countryside, with special mention given to summers working for his father as a teenager.

Dara also talks about the fetishisation of alcohol in Ireland, a famous row in a local pub, yet more parenting fails with his daughter, and the spiritual purity of maintaining personal discipline.

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The Process Before The Prize: The Qualitative Approach to Life

Wed, 31 May 2023 23:01:05 GMT

In this episode, Dara shares the realisation that he is not goal-oriented. He is all about the process. It's not the destination, it's the journey, man! He argues for the stabilising properties of having a process in place and tries to understand why it is that stability appeals so much.

After being on the receiving end of someone's anger, Dara takes a moment to consider reactions, responses, and patterns. He argues that the ongoing examination of one's beliefs and habitual framings is extremely worthwhile in the quest for improved resources.

Dara discusses three brilliant works of art he has just consumed - the TV series Succession (no spoilers), the film version of the beloved Judy Blume book Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret (2023) and the epic plunge into 1960s corruption and venality that is James Ellroy's novel, American Tabloid. He considers the very different characters presented in these different forms of storytelling and wonders if liking coming-of-age stories makes him sentimental.

And then there's the buttercups...

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Safety First! - The Benefits of Safe Places, Safe People, and a Safe You

Wed, 24 May 2023 23:01:10 GMT

In this episode Dara looks at the idea of safety as a keystone of wellness. In particular he concentrates on environmental and interpersonal safety. This pertains to the places we live and the people we share our lives with. Are they safe? How do we understand and recognise safety? And why is it so important, anyway?

Dara argues that the presence of safety allows trust to be built, and from trust friendship and love can follow. He explains why, above all, he prefers the unique conditions of a one-to-one relationship, and he confesses that it has something to do with control.

And what about how we treat ourselves? Is safety relevant to our relationship with ourselves? Dara believes it is essential, and he shares the ways in which he hasn't always had a safe 'friendship' with himself.

Looking at a bit of very recent drama with his daughter, Dara scrutinises the safety levels in their relationship and is happy to conclude that they're staying on the right side of the line. His daughter has some very interesting suggestions as to why he is so cranky.

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hugs, Threats, Non-Transferable Skill Sets, and a Day Told in Reverse

Wed, 17 May 2023 23:01:49 GMT

This week's episode begins and ends with a hug, because we all need a hug sometimes, right? Dara thinks so, and he looks at the idea of self-soothing in a wellness context, arguing that it is a particularly useful practice when aligned with mindfulness.

A group that Dara suspects are not feeling particularly well are those that are protesting the arrival of asylum seekers in their community in rural Ireland. It raises the question of perceived threats and how we deal better with such things when our resilience is in a good place. That resilience is connected to a greater capacity for tolerance and compassion and coping in general.

Talking about his limited skill set in the area of construction, Dara recalls being a lot younger on building sites in London and the dubious rites of passage he was subjected to. He describes it as a 'Jungle of Competence' and remembers one incident in particular where he had to take a stand.

Following a friend's suggestion, Dara tries out a brain exercise that is supposed to have a calming effect at bedtime. It involves going back through your day in reverse order and Dara can't help but wonder if it will put the listener to sleep before him!

Also this week - annoying students, butt-scratching kittens, and a Proustian Madeleine...

Website: https://theclearout.com/

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We've Been Waiting Such a Long Time, and It's Still Not Here - Ireland's Eurovision Drought

Wed, 10 May 2023 23:01:37 GMT

In this week's episode, Dara looks at Ireland's storied relationship with the Eurovision Song Contest, a competition in which Ireland were once utterly dominant but has long since become an arena in which they are serial losers. He recalls his own experiences of watching the event as a child and how it was a source of great national pride and fascination. Ireland was a different country then, a different entity in a very different stage of its development and one that was about to change beyond all recognition.

When Riverdance exploded onto the national consciousness during the halftime entertainment at the 1994 Eurovision, it was a line drawn in the sand between old and new Ireland. Dara argues that as Ireland entered the Celtic Tiger era, a national confidence blossomed in a way that rendered our Eurovision successes less significant than was once believed. It is a theory of cultural insecurity and low self-esteem that can be placed in a small nation context - especially when the small nation lives in the shadow of a large nation.

Dara discusses the colonial footprint on the Irish national psyche and how that may have informed our Eurovision triumphs. He draws a comparison with Australia and its relationship to sporting excellence, particularly when playing the 'mother country'.

Regarding last week's coronation of King Charles, Dara explains why he dislikes the fallacy of humanising the royal family. Also included this week: GAA controversy, Dana epitomising Northern Irish safety, and why the sweaters worn by Bucks Fizz were so special...

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

May the Nerd be With You!, or Is That a Literal Lightsaber?

Wed, 03 May 2023 23:01:54 GMT

It's been 40 years since Star Wars was the most important thing in Dara's universe. He recalls his relationship with the original Star Wars trilogy and says why he thinks it was so successful - clean storytelling and clear characters. He argues that those two things got lost in the subsequent movies.

Dara compares Star Trek with Star Wars and concludes one was far sexier than the other. Having listened to a recent conversation with William Shatner, he is amazed at how young he sounds.

Despite his love of Han Solo, Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia, as well as a host of Marvel comics, Dara insists he is not a nerd, and he lays out why in very clear terms. If further proof were needed, he sets himself a nerd test, which he fails.

As well as that, there is looking for real life heroes in his childhood, innocence as a pre-requisite for the success of fictional idols, and the unbelievably beguiling smell of Star Wars figures!

Website: https://theclearout.com/

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Cost of Neglect, or For Whom Will You Wear a Yellow Flower?

Wed, 26 Apr 2023 23:01:18 GMT

In this episode Dara moves from very light to very dark. Recorded on his 20th wedding anniversary, Dara feels duty bound to reflect on that special day in 2003, and he revisits some of the standout moments, including an unlikely mode of transport for the first night of his honeymoon.

Not prompted by those memories, Dara speaks about the impact of neglect and how being overlooked is more painful than being ignored. Something his daughter said to him reinforced his conviction that there is a real danger in failing to pay attention to people close to you. He recalls aspects of his own childhood in this context and considers how approaches to parenting have changed.

From the intimate and familial, Dara journeys to the social and political and revisits two of the most distressing episodes from Ireland's modern past. In 1984, when he was only 10, two stories captured the nation when they exposed a terrible darkness and hypocrisy in cultural attitudes to women, and in particular to young women who found themselves pregnant outside the 'sanctity' of marriage. Ann Lovett and Joanne Hayes were the individuals whose tragic circumstances became a flashpoint that rallied Irish women in a fierce outcry against the misogyny of a repressive, patriarchal society that felt it had the right to police female bodies.

Dara shares his own impressions of the time and how he perceived girls he knew in comparable situations. He wonders who the equivalent victims are today of society's neglect.

Joanne Hayes and the Kerry babies: https://play.acast.com/s/in-the-news/kerry-babies-theres-no-good-end-to-this

Ann Lovett's tragic story: https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-womens-podcast/episode/ep-206-she-was-ann-rose-lovett-mother-to-pat-54022329

Journal.ie article on Ireland's 1983 abortion referendum: https://www.thejournal.ie/abortion-referendum-1983-what-happened-1225430-Dec2013/

New Irish film about Ann Lovett's final day: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10648908/?ref_=tt_mv_close

Website: https://theclearout.com/

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The 100th Episode Stocktake, or Stick Your Teachable Moment Where the Sun Don't Shine!

Wed, 19 Apr 2023 23:01:54 GMT

In this, the 100th episode of the show, Dara permits himself a stocktake. He reaffirms the recurring themes he has continued to weave through the podcast and examines what wellness with attitude means.

He shoots down 'teachable moments' and what he calls the 'cutesification' of our lives. He leans into messiness and uncertainty and unknowability. He surmises that the podcast is offering a vibe and a non-pressurised space to hang out in once a week. And what's wrong with that?

Ultimately, Dara doubles down on what he does here on The ClearOut because frankly, it's working for him. Anything beyond that is a bonus.

He reads two of his previously unshared poems at the end of the episode, each connected in different ways to items on the agenda. One of the poems was written for a friend, and the other was written for his wife, with whom he's about to celebrate 20 years of marriage. And that's only one of a few significant numbers Dara is thinking about at the moment...

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Foundational Beliefs of Identity and Gender-Neutral Parenting, or How I Got Cool With Being a Girl-Father!

Wed, 12 Apr 2023 23:01:52 GMT

In this episode, prompted by Spike Lee's He Got Game (1998), Dara examines his convictions as a parent, and recalls how an ill-fated Irish journalist helped him get comfortable with the idea of becoming a father to a daughter. He identifies a pillar of his parenting approach that he hopes he will manage to keep intact. He also looks at the idea of gender-neutral parenting, something he tries to adopt with his daughter.

Talking about peculiar sources of inspiration, Dara argues that there is much to feel positive about if we can draw inspiration from unusual places. He looks at the subjectivity of memory and wonders if objective reality is actually impossible.

Discussing the emergence of his beliefs and values, Dara shares some core convictions he had about his capabilities and aspirations that can be drawn back to his childhood. He recognises the importance of control to his concept of personal wellness and how it enables him to be softer and more vulnerable.

Finally, he asserts that positive and negative beliefs about self can co-exist within us - life is not a zero-sum game!

Website: https://theclearout.com/

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Embedding Gratitude, Controlling Sensitivity, and a Cult of Nullification

Wed, 05 Apr 2023 23:01:20 GMT

In this episode, Dara starts off with thoughts on what defines us as individuals. Is it a higher power? Or is it just what wins the battle for our identity? He believes it is strongly connected to nature, nurture and genetic legacy.

After acquiring a new patron for the podcast, Dara feels it is necessary to express gratitude. He recalls a former workplace being surprised and impressed by a message of thanks he left. He concludes that it is not only good manners, but also excellent karmic practice.

A recent article discussed the categorisation of a particular personality type known as HSPs - Highly Sensitive People. As a self-declared sensitive person, Dara feels well qualified to weigh in on the label and its main characteristics. But he cautions against the expectation that the world should make special dispensation to accommodate the needs of these super-sensitive beings.

Finally, Dara veers off the main drag to look at a religious sect from 18th Century Russia that achieved spiritual purification by removing certain parts of the anatomy - not for the fainthearted! Now, what would you like with that smoothie...?

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Curiosity, Aesthetic Engagement, and the Expression of Self as Anti-Fascist Statement

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 23:01:19 GMT

In this episode Dara wrangles with the purpose and direction of the podcast. He wonders if he's doing the pod all right or all wrong. Before he makes any radical changes though, he remains clear that he doesn't want it to be perfectly curated content that becomes bland and generic. He tries to work out who the podcast is for so he can better understand his target audience.

A clip from a George Orwell documentary gets Dara thinking about fascism and oppressive regimes and the influence of Orwell's dystopian 1984. Responding to Orwell's exhortation to resist brutalist government, Dara wonders how someone can do that in ways that aren't connected to direct political action. He concludes the path of resistance is connected to art, aesthetics and self-expression and the ability to be led by one's curiosity.

To demonstrate his theory, and to challenge the fascism of his own unending monologues, Dara reads four poems that he has never seen before, with surprising results.

Elsewhere in the show, time is also found to romanticise a couple of men working in a field. Unprepared, unscripted, and unpredictable, the podcast rolls on!

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The Vulnerable Idealism of Living With an Open Heart, or There's One Born Every Minute!

Thu, 23 Mar 2023 00:01:10 GMT

In this episode, Dara examines the centrality of heart to his own personal philosophy. He recognises that his concept of the metaphorical heart is suffused with his natural idealism, and how that can lead him into situations where he can be easily wounded. He argues against the interpretation of open-heartedness being equal to naivete.

He talks about a recent incident that he believes was the catalyst for this line of enquiry, and then realises his subconscious had been directing him to things heart-related, including a couple of films featuring heart-battered male leads - Alexander Payne's The Descendents (2011) and Noah Baumbach's Marriage Story (2019), as well a friend's Instagram post about Claddagh rings.

On the lighter side of heart offerings, Dara and his daughter sat down to watch Penny Marshall's Big (1988) which, apart from the enjoyment of a definitive Tom Hanks performance, gave an exciting glimpse to Dara of his daughter's evolving cineaste brain.

Finally, Dara nails his colours to the mast and says why he'll continue facing life with a full and open heart, in spite of the risk-reward ratio sometimes feeling stacked the wrong way. You'll have to decide if he's a sucker or not...

Ian O'Malley's Irish culture tips and English as it's spoken in Ireland Instagram page - https://www.instagram.com/ian_english_language/

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The Cost of the Great Internet Giveaway and Why We All Need a Little Ronald Reagan in Our Lives

Thu, 16 Mar 2023 00:01:11 GMT

This episode looks at the problem of having access to too much information, material and opinion in the online space. So much content, and so much for free, and such ease of access, creates an imbalanced relationship that offers dubious benefits. Dara looks at his own internet consumption habits and questions the merits of unearned offerings.

Connected to that theme is Dara's experience of movies that have unearned climaxes which founder on the poverty of the character development and story arcs that preceded them. As a case in point, he cites and discusses in detail Darren Aronofsky's The Whale, for which Brendan Fraser was just awarded the best actor award at the Oscars. Staying with the Academy Awards, Dara argues that Everything Everywhere All At Once is the purest internet age movie that has yet been made. Having watched it twice, he remains unconvinced by its alleged merits, Michelle Yeoh's lovely performance notwithstanding.

Apparently there are women who are sick of men with podcasts and 'podcast bros'. Dara presents a case for the defence and feels pretty confident that he is not one of the bros in question.

The episode concludes with a look at a key aspect of former US President Ronald Reagan's persona and how it might be utilised in a self-care regime. Unlike his predecessor Jimmy Carter, Reagan was a natural radiator. He may not have liked his politics, but Dara recognises the need for a little positivity when times are tough.

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Singular Cinematic Visions - The Darkness of Polanski vs The Light of Spielberg

Thu, 09 Mar 2023 00:01:47 GMT

In this episode Dara shares his thoughts and responses after a movie mini-binge. He is struck by the hackneyed plotline of CODA (2021) but thinks the film is saved by the acting and warmth of the main cast. He compares it to a couple of other movies that didn't take flight, including the risible Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), and the glorified Apple commercial that was Ben Stiller's The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013).

Bouncing to the other end of the artistic spectrum, Dara discusses the two other films he watched - Roman Polanski's nightmarish English-language debut Repulsion (1965) and Steven Spielberg's somewhat rose-tinted The Fabelmans (2022), which is a thinly disguised depiction of life growing up in the Spielberg family in the 50s and 60s. He argues that each director's worldview is the opposite of the other's. Polanski's informed by a horrific Holocaust-scarred childhood, Spielberg's by being allowed to document his childhood on camera. An admirer of both, Dara recalls highlights from their filmographies that have stayed with him and point up their differing perspectives of the human condition.

Time is also found to wrap up thoughts on Dara's recent return to the stage, a bad reaction to bad dog behaviour, a chilly spring, phoney Apple advertising, and a tentative writing project.

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Elastic Time and the Love of Two Cities

Thu, 02 Mar 2023 00:01:02 GMT

In this episode, Dara is brushing up against his past and walking the fine line between nostalgia and sentimentality. Spending a lot of time in Dublin recently has provoked a host of memories from over 20 years ago and Dara feels like he keeps bumping into his younger self around every street corner.

He talks about being able to really appreciate Dublin's architecture for the first time and how he used to consider Trinity College students sworn enemies. He recalls his own university experience and shares what priorities trumped the need to attend lectures and become a better student.

Having just finished watching Joanna Hogg's fascinating 80s London-set drama, The Souvenir (not before abandoning it midway to take in John Carney's more easily digestible Dublin-set musical, Once), Dara talks about his relationship to London and how it began in the 80s with the many visits he enjoyed there as a child when visiting his late grandmother.

He discusses the idea of digesting or assimilating memories and experiences at different rates, and the dangers of believing there's nothing new under the sun. He recommends the borrowing of a martial arts concept - beginner's mind - to help keep cynicism and jadedness at bay.

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Assassination Fascination and the Gun as Symbol of Cultural Psyche

Thu, 23 Feb 2023 00:01:21 GMT

Inspired by a podcast about Julius Caesar, Dara realises he has long had a fascination with assassinations, particularly those that have played out in movies. In this episode he looks closely at the celluloid executions that most impacted him, paying close attention to Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde and Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather, amongst others.

Warming to the theme, he considers Mark David Chapman and John Hinckley Jr. and their attachment to the works of art spurred their actions. Dara sees a connection between a very American relationship to fame and public image and how that can bleed into a wilful embrace of notoriety.

Staying in the US, the four seismic assassinations in the 60s of JFK (1963), Malcolm X (1965), Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy (both1968) raise the question of the primacy of the gun in the US psyche and whether the driving energy of American confidence and conquest is essentially phallic.

In conclusion Dara wonders if a wellness analogy can be extrapolated from the idea of assassination and he comes up with mixed results!

The Rest is History podcast Julius Caesar episode - https://shows.acast.com/the-rest-is-history-podcast/episodes/304-the-murder-of-julius-caesar

Assassination at the Movies, excellent 2012 Guardian article - https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/oct/04/assassination-movies-michael-newton

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Bent On Being Happy: Interview with Musician, Singer, Songwriter, and Music Therapist, Chiara Clear

Thu, 16 Feb 2023 00:01:54 GMT

In this episode, Dara finally achieves a long-term goal of the podcast - he gets his wife to sit down for an interview at Hashtag Blessed!

Chiara Clear (nee Browne) is an Australian who fell in love with music almost as soon as she first heard it. She didn't know then that it would become and remain a defining force in her life. From school through university to being an in-demand session singer in 90s Sydney, Chiara was led by her fixation on improving her craft as a singer and getting instruments under her hands to help her hone her songwriting skills.

She talks about a publishing contract with Warner-Chappell that brought her to Nashville but came at the wrong time in her life. She speaks of her love of Aretha Franklin and Billie Holiday and the other great singers that have inspired her. Her musical quest eventually convinced her to leave Australia and pursue music further afield, ultimately settling in Ireland.

A return to Australia saw her achieve a long held ambition to become a music therapist, training at The University of Melbourne in one of the most acclaimed Music Therapy departments in the world. Back in Ireland since 2020, Chiara now practises and advocates for music therapy in the Wicklow and Dublin region.

Amongst other things, Chiara talks about the first music a baby hears, having stigmatised hands, and what song Dara is!

Chiara's website: https://www.safeandsoundmusictherapy.com/

IACAT (Irish Association of Creative Arts Therapists) website: https://iacat.ie/

Brokentalkers' Manifest: https://projectartscentre.ie/event/manifest/

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Pillars, Pathfinders, and Dodging Space Trash

Thu, 09 Feb 2023 00:01:53 GMT

Dara is not in the mood for this week's episode. He simply doesn't have the headspace. But he talks himself into it and soon warms up as he mentions how a recent football podcast planted the seed for what he wants to talk about - touchstones. What are the reference points that help us negotiate the world in which we find ourselves? Who are the pillar-like figures that we feel we can lean on? Who remains unchanged?

Talking about change leads Dara to reflect on his belief in essentialism, that is, the idea that we all have an elemental, immutable core that lies at the centre of who we are no matter how old we are or what we are doing in our lives. He talks about how internal change can be so profound for the individual while potentially going totally unnoticed by the outside world. He wonders if this essentialism can survive being paired with his fondness for pragmatism.

There is also time to talk about mood changes, tragic parenting, socialist solutions, and the politics of Pink Floyd's Roger Waters.

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Stirring the Masculinity Pot and Countering Dubious Male Voices

Thu, 02 Feb 2023 00:01:38 GMT

In this episode, Dara is all stirred up as a result of the theatre production he is currently working on. The subject of the work is masculinity and the nurturing and shaping of boys into men. Dara admits that the process of examining this subject closely is leaving him exhausted but also inspired and full of almost uncontrollable thought processes and emotional impulses around what masculinity means to him.

He slows things down to calm himself and revisits his adolescence and the attitudes towards women he and his male friends shared. Coming back to more recent times, he talks about some young boys he cautioned to think more about caring for and supporting each other rather than taking each other down. He's not sure he reached them.

He wonders about the popularity of certain male speakers with huge followings of boys and men, specifically Andrew Tate, Jordan Petersen, and Joe Rogan. Has their success and extraordinary traction got anything to do with the influence of the internet and social media? Dara asks where the other voices are that might challenge some of the less palatable rhetoric from these figures.

Finally, there is time to briefly talk about the child within and whether it is forgotten, neglected or honoured.

My episode last year on the crisis of broken masculinity: https://shows.acast.com/theclearout/episodes/scared-women-damaged-men-and-the-crisis-of-broken-masculinit

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Laughing at the Wrong Things, or Why Cat Stevens is So Funny to Me

Thu, 26 Jan 2023 00:01:08 GMT

In this episode, Dara looks at a couple of recent news stories in Ireland that have raised some confronting questions about where we're at as a society.

The first was an ill-conceived joke at one of his gigs by the stand-up comedian Tommy Tiernan that left Emer O'Neill, a woman of colour, feeling intensely uncomfortable. When she went public with her experience, the racist backlash she received was staggering in both quantity and nastiness.

The other was a bizarre service and related advertising campaign from a spa resort in Northern Ireland that showcased the dubious combination of bikinis and balaclavas. The tastelessness and insensitivity of the use of that particular headwear in that context, in that location, is astonishing to Dara.

Both incidents beg the questions - how short are our memories? What prompts these wilful acts of collective forgetting? Of disingenuous thoughtlessness and 'accidental' provocation?

But before chewing on any of that, Dara takes his time describing a great day he recently enjoyed, the flow state he found himself in, and why he was laughing so hard at the songs of Cat Stevens. And there's also a moment to agree with aspects of an article proclaiming the death of 'wild swimming'.

Emer O'Neill interview on RTE Radio 1: https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/22200176/

Eva Wiseman article on wild swimming: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/jan/22/rip-wild-swimming-natures-cure-all-has-thrown-in-the-towel-sewage

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The Attraction of Certain Instruments, or Oh, What a Lovely Wand!

Thu, 19 Jan 2023 00:01:12 GMT

After hearing his wife listening to a selection of different piano pieces in preparation for a class, Dara realised he wanted to talk about motifs. He discusses motifs in the work of film score composers before warming to the idea of motifs in one's life - what themes and fascinations have recurred over a lifetime? What has been circled back to? What has been underscored and reiterated?

A friend points out to Dara ideas and inclinations he has been talking about for 20 years and it provokes a reflection on the attraction of those things in the first place. Dara opens up about his personal code and what nudged him in that direction as he emerged from adolescence.

Expanding the discussion to include leitmotifs, famous theme music and notable characters from the movies are looked at. They prompt the question - what would your leitmotif be?

Also included this week: the head-banging composer from Sesame Street, wands and knobs and other phallic innuendo, and thoughts on Paulo Sorrentino's 2013 film, La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty).

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Notes From a Funeral, or The Power of the Collective Experience

Thu, 12 Jan 2023 00:01:03 GMT

In this episode Dara shares his experience of a recent family funeral that seemed to succeed in channelling a profound communal expression of love and grief. Because of his role in the service, he had to wait to express his own feelings.

He reflects on the idea from Frank Capra's It's A Wonderful LIfe that one person can have an impact on many different lives and the hole that might be left had they not been around.

Talking about the Feast of the Epiphany, the three kings of biblical fame are looked at, and Dara finds himself questioning how welcome Myrrh would be today. Speaking of the Magi raises the question of what constitutes wisdom. Prompted by a heartening quote from a prominent 20th century rabbi, Dara wonders if the podcast space can accommodate kindness or if it is better suited to cleverness and aggression.

The episode concludes with an examination of nourishment, which Dara feels he needs after consuming too much social media content. But he stresses the importance of not advertising how nourished you are!

'Girls Who Slay Monsters' - Irish goddesses book: https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/girls-who-slay-monsters-daring-tales-of-irelands-forgotten-goddesses-ellen-ryan?variant=39763714408526

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Goldfish Memory and the Things We Get Used To

Thu, 05 Jan 2023 00:47:18 GMT

If last week was the wrap-up of the year, this week is assessing the landscape of the year to come. Dara acknowledges the generic themes he has embraced for the moment that's in it and tries to contextualise his own attitude to the beginning of another year. Part of that attitude is informed by his birthday falling in January, something that has helped him cultivate a lifelong affinity for the month and what it can represent.

Before he gets into any of that though, he quickly goes through some notable omissions that were conspicuous by their absence in last week's film review of 2022. After that, he takes a moment to reflect on the recent passing of a family member and attempts to articulate his relationship to loss, faith and what lives on after someone has died.

In talking about new year plans and resolutions, Dara lays out his ideas connected to fulfillment, achievement and sustainable happiness. He argues for looking at what you've got and making the best of it. He emphasises the importance of gratitude and warns of the perils of complacency. And he finds himself, not for the first time, singing the merits of the tiny, daily victories of a mundane, invisible life.

Happy New Year everyone!

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A Year of Watching - Reviewing 2022 from The Beatles to The Ring to Rule Them All

Thu, 29 Dec 2022 00:01:41 GMT

An attempt to wrap up the year that was becomes a review of stand out movies and TV taken in over the last twelve months. Somewhat symmetrically, Dara realises he began and ended the year watching the work of Peter Jackson - he took in Jackson's Beatles documentary in January and is finishing the year by revisiting The Lord of the Rings trilogy. There have been plenty of other memorable productions along the way.

Dara stays away from public life - politics, tragedies, the world cup etc. - and remains instead with his own travails and challenges, the benefits of which he believes are very positive and empowering.

There is also a follow-up interview with his daughter Maeve, who was keen for a return visit to the podcast after last week's appearance. This one wasn't quite as smooth.

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The 2022 Christmas Special!

Thu, 22 Dec 2022 00:21:49 GMT

Dara ain't gonna lie - this was a monster effort to produce! A little recital with his wife, an unexpected but most welcome interview with his daughter, and a new story for the season that's in it, all pulled together on the day of the episode. And done while sick.

So it's a bit rough in patches, but the sincerity of effort comes through. If you're looking for polish, go to the household aisle!

Dara's daughter surprises him with a willingness to chat at length and reveals her surprising position on the conflict in Ukraine. She also shares how she felt when she met Pepper the puppy for the first time.

Chiara, Dara's wife, accompanies him on three festive songs before playing a lovely Christmas song of her own, inspired by emerging from the pandemic last year.

A new Christmas story about a man who needs rescuing from himself features a wheelchair-bound saviour who has a half-blind cat as his co-pilot.

It's the Christmas Special - get it into you!

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The Zero Sum Game of Loving Christmas

Thu, 15 Dec 2022 01:40:08 GMT

In this Christmas shopping list of an episode, Dara has a look at the festive season through the lens of Christmases past. He also considers the pressure people are put under to partake of all things yule.

He reads two seasonal poems, one from Robert Louis Stevenson and one from Robert Frost, both of which evoke something bucolic and poignant.

He also includes a Christmas story he wrote last year that tries to capture the innocence and wonder of a small child immersed in a very bust adult Christmas experience.

The episode was beset with technical and animal interruptions which threatened to derail it completely. You may detect a note or two of distraction as things proceed...

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Calling All Pamphleteers! What's the Big Idea?

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 00:01:23 GMT

In this episode Dara has a flea in his ear about what he sees as the shortage of social and political ideas to cater for a world that is outrunning itself.

Before getting into that he takes a moment to breathe with you, the listener. He follows that with an apology of sorts for last week's half-baked episode. He also shares the reaction of his wife and daughter to meeting the new addition to Hashtag Blessed - Pepper the dog.

The main course though is the worrying absence of a social and political revolution inspired by a sufficiently complex vision for an improved world for all. Where are the equivalents of The Communist Manifesto or Paine's Rights of Man or Hobbes's Social Contract? Where are the visionary ideas and templates that lay out workable methodologies of social transformation? Where is the contagious desire for change that informed the best of the 60s counter-cultural movements?

Has the advent and acceleration of the tech age morphed the world and its inhabitants into something post-political, post-social? Are we stuck with egomaniacal blowhards masquerading as thought leaders? Are they not simply opinionated flotsam borne aloft by the swirling waters of malcontent? Have we lost our ability to listen to reason? Have we lost our ability to even be interested in it?

Underneath all the white noise and distraction of the boons of technology, Dara argues that basic human needs remain the same. If we lose sight of that, we haven't a prayer.

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From Puppy Love to a Big Pash via the Front: A Mish-Mash Zig-Zag of an Episode!

Thu, 01 Dec 2022 00:01:36 GMT

In this pinball machine of an episode, Dara bounces all over the place and is none the wiser at the end of it whether things held together.

He starts with strange bodies in 1983's Terms of Endearment before sharing some information about positive brain chemicals that he gleaned from social media. From there he reveals a surprise he has planned for his wife and daughter, who are returning home after 5 weeks away - he's expecting a big reaction...

A sharp left turn takes Dara to the WWI poet Wilfred Owen and his last letter home to his mother. Amongst other, more conflict-based themes, it raises the question of whether the art of good letter writing has completely ceased to exist. Postcards and epistolary style seem a thing of the past.

There is time to briefly discuss James Kirk and James T. Kirk and James Cook - but what do these Jameses have in common?

Finally, two teenagers ensnared in a passionate kiss strike a compelling pose on Dara's drive home, and they help to bring things full circle. Just about!

Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time podcast on Wilfred Owen: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001df48

Paul Daley on Captain Cook's Cottage: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/postcolonial-blog/2020/mar/02/captain-cooks-cottage-the-place-he-didnt-ever-call-home

Wilfred Owen's Last Letter to his mother: https://advancingpoetry.blogspot.com/2013/10/his-last-letter.html

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The Trickiness of Tone, or Do You Ever Put a Knob of Butter in Your Porridge?

Thu, 24 Nov 2022 00:01:20 GMT

In this episode Dara discusses the importance of tone. Considering tone as the ultimate mood setter, he looks at it in the context of movies, public ceremonies and vocations. He also considers tone in the auditory sense, recognising it as a vibration, and recalls how thrilled he was as a child to hear and feel the rumble of the engine of the car ferry that he travelled on several times on journeys to London.

Discussing a funeral he recently attended, Dara observes how well the officiating priest did in putting the congregation at ease, and how comfortable the priest was with his faith and vocation. News of another recent death gives cause to reflect briefly on grief.

Finally, more thoughts on the debacle that constitutes the FIFA world cup in Qatar. Is anyone striking a worse tone than Gianni Infantino, the hapless president of football's governing corporation?

Time is also found to look at the impact of its resident menagerie on the domestic tone at Hashtag Blessed, and the very particular tone of butter in your oatmeal...

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Speaking From the Heart: Three Righteous Preacher Men

Thu, 17 Nov 2022 00:01:13 GMT

In this episode Dara finds himself concerned about the upcoming FIFA world cup in Qatar. What blind eyes were turned and what palms greased to award the tournament to such an unlikely host nation? Footballers heading to the competition want to express their reservations about human rights abuses and the exploitation of workers, but FIFA wants them to 'stick to football'.

In explaining why that infuriates him so much, Dara stresses the need for voices of protest to be heard. Staying in that area, he reflects on Bruce Springsteen's Broadway show, which features the rock and roll frontman looking back at his storied career and preaching a mantra of uplift and togetherness as an antidote to the divisive times in which America finds itself.

A rock and roll man as preacher. Ireland's equivalent? Bono of U2, whom Dara admits being greatly irritated by as a young man. Now however, even though they are not cool, Dara professes his admiration for both men and their consistent speaking up and speaking out. Grandiose and self-indulgent though they may be, their righteous rhetoric is coming from a good place.

Dara also looks at the incendiary director Spike Lee, and his most explosive film, Do The Right Thing. Lee is another preacher of sorts, speaking truth to power and laying bare the tensions and hypocrisies of racial politics and posturing in his America. What these three artists have in common is a willingness to nail their colours to the mast in a bid to move and engage and provoke. Their modes might be different, but they are all speaking from the heart.

The question is, is their faith and passion and bigheartedness tantamount to a truth worth valuing, or is it just artistic ego and posturing?

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Heading Fear Off at the Pass, or Oh No, Not Another Catastrophe!

Thu, 10 Nov 2022 00:01:38 GMT

A mental health-focused episode partly inspired by Blindboy Boatclub's ongoing commitment to sharing his own mental health and wellness journey.

A free rolling, some might say freefalling, edition of the tell has Dara reflecting on his university days and the persona he leaned into then. The context is identity and authenticity and what face we show the world.

Dara discusses his recent tendency to catastrophise his concerns when he is in bad form. He looks at that through a self-defence lens to help modify his perspective and considers strategies to help deal better with the perceived threat. Not for the first time, he finds himself advocating response over reaction. He expands by asking whether we can assess choices in terms of helping or hindering us.

An upcoming appointment with a new dentist has Dara concerned about what secrets his teeth will reveal.

The Blindboy Podcast - 'Why I'm going Back to Therapy' episode: https://play.acast.com/s/blindboy/why-im-going-back-to-therapy

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The Helpless Gobshite Episode! A Defence of Men

Thu, 03 Nov 2022 00:01:58 GMT

In this free-roaming episode, Dara attempts to thread the needle from poor mental health to perceived male incompetence and on to a celebration of non-toxic men.

The launch pad is an account of some very recent mental health challenges that Dara had to face. As part of his recovery he listened to some psychology and counselling podcasts which, though very helpful and informative, perpetuated a certain idea of infantilised masculinity that Dara felt didn't reflect his experience of men. He talks about the male friends in his life and how they represent a powerful counter-narrative to lazy stereotypes of male immaturity and toxic masculinity.

He also looks at certain equally lazy stereotypes that some men have about women and explains why he hates the phrase 'happy wife, happy life' so much. He believes, amongst other things, it contributes to the characterisation of men as 'manchild doofuses' or 'helpless gobshites' - iterations of masculinity that Dara is determined to challenge.

He concludes with the question of whether we can be of value to people who don't know us. This line of enquiry was prompted by a participant in one of Dara's Holistic Self-Defence classes who confessed to wanting to be liked and struggling badly with setting boundaries. Where do we locate our sense of value?

Dr. Abby Medcalf relationship podcast about what (hetero) women need to know about men, with special guest Shana James: https://abbymedcalf.com/bonus-the-5-things-women-need-to-know-about-men-with-shana-james/

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How Fitching! The Fetishisation of White Beauty and the Erosion of the Black Face

Wed, 26 Oct 2022 23:01:14 GMT

After semi-bingeing on Netflix documentaries set in the USA, Dara has some chewy meat to digest in the areas of race, beauty, identity, representation, status and opportunity.

The retail clothing companies Abercrombie & Fitch and And1 promoted expressions of whiteness and blackness respectively in their bids to dominate their chosen markets. They each enjoyed enormous success before pushback, politics and hubris sent their shares plummeting. Two Netflix documentaries look closely, but not closely enough in Dara's opinion, at the rise and fall of these two very successful brands and what they represented to the owners and consumers alike.

A third Netflix show turns the camera on a brilliant young basketball team and their collective effort to become state champions under the leadership of an inspirational coach. Dara found the arc of Last Chance U: Basketball moving and thought-provoking in its depiction of black talent and aspiration struggling to overcome poverty and generational disadvantage.

The connective tissue of the stories relayed in these shows is how blackness and whiteness can be exploited in different ways in service of capitalism and the bottom line. It has so much to do with race and identity, but do CEOs and business people really care about such things when all they want to do is turn a profit and walk away with a huge payout?

SFGate.com article (Sep 2022) discussing Netflix And1 documentary: https://www.sfgate.com/streaming/article/netflix-untold-and1-documentary-17413889.php

BusinessInsider.com article (Aug 2022) discussing Netflix Abercrombie & Fitch documentary: https://www.businessinsider.com/abercrombie-and-fitch-rise-and-fall-lawsuits-controversy-comeback-2022-8?r=US&IR=T

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The Insanity of Being Unable to Tolerate a Different Opinion to Your Tribe, or What Exactly Did JK Rowling Do Wrong?

Wed, 19 Oct 2022 23:01:19 GMT

In this episode, Dara wades into the murky waters of the discourse around transgender identity and language, and who is or isn't a woman. The focal point for the discussion is the recent Twitter row that erupted in the wake of Graham Norton's framing of cancel culture, the support he got from Billy Bragg, and the anger it inspired in JK Rowling.

Looking at the history of the apparent controversy, Dara concludes that Rowling was extremely unlucky to find herself in the crosshairs of a woke-think armageddon. It is another issue that centres on subjective versus objective realities, and epitomises everything that is broken in public discourse. Dara wonders if it is a generational affliction and what role the internet has played in facilitating a particular flavour of violent misogyny.

Before any of that, Dara talks about the impact on him of Rob Delaney's recently published essay on personal grief after the death of his 2-year-old son. He looks at his own thoughts around becoming a father and the intensity of fear and love connected to that experience. He follows that with a brief segue to bizarre seaside conversations with strangers that seem to only happen when he's in a state of undress.

JK Rowling 2020 piece defending her position on transgender language and issues: https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reasons-for-speaking-out-on-sex-and-gender-issues/

Glamour.com article from October 2022 detailing the history of the controversy: https://www.glamour.com/story/a-complete-breakdown-of-the-jk-rowling-transgender-comments-controversy

Suzanne Moore 2020 article explaining her experience of being shut out over her trans commentary: https://unherd.com/2020/11/why-i-had-to-leave-the-guardian/

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Going Down in Flames - The Fall and Fall of Marilyn Monroe

Wed, 12 Oct 2022 23:01:25 GMT

In this episode Dara assesses the recently-released Marilyn Monroe biopic, 'Blonde'. Written and directed by Andew Dominik, and based on the 2000 Joyce Carol Oates book of the same name, the film has been widely panned by critics and Marilyn fans, but Dara found a lot to recommend in the performance as Marilyn of Ana de Armas. He argues that de Armas imbues her characterisation with such sympathy and emotional honesty that she effectively insulates herself from many of the less subtle aspects of the film's storytelling.

Dara wonders what it was about Monroe that fascinated people so much and he can't help coming to the conclusion that misogyny and sexual obsession were key elements in how she was treated by Hollywood, the media, and the men in her life. He goes further to argue that many flailing female celebrities are pounced on by media and fans alike with a violent fervour that is almost primal in its compulsiveness.

There's also time to spare a thought for the community of Creeslough in Donegal and the terrible explosion that occurred there last week; a laying out of a couple of mental health/wellness touchstones, and a celebration of the Ireland women's soccer team and their succesful qualification for next year's world cup.

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The Hateful Power of Hipsters, or Today's Letter is 'H'!

Wed, 05 Oct 2022 23:01:36 GMT

In this tonally-light episode, Dara weaves a thread through 4 apparently unconnected words to create (what he hopes is) meaningful content. As they like to say on Sesame Street, "today's letter is 'H'. What begins with 'H'?"

Well, 'hipster' begins with 'H' and Dara has a look at why hipsters bug him so much, a feeling he has had since he was very young. He reckons the answer has something to do with both sincerity and insecurity.

There are other 'H' words considered for different reasons, but the overall thrust of the episode takes in the idea of power and who or what we allow to wield power over us. The things we can do to change those power dynamics may involve having a confronting conversation with ourselves.

Dara talks about his concept of holistic self-defence, a course of which he is about to teach, and lays out the fundamental connection of self-understanding and self-protection.

There is also time for silly voices, Freudian slips, and brilliant rappers.

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Fractured Faith and Religion as Instrument of Terror

Wed, 28 Sep 2022 23:01:08 GMT

In this episode, Dara doesn't think he's going to talk about Mahsa Amini, the Kurdish woman who was killed in police custody in Iran in recent weeks, but that's what he does end up doing. He questions the strength of a faith that feels it has to police itself so viciously. He argues that when religious teaching becomes dogma, it weaponises itself and betrays an inherent insecurity.

Dara nails his colours to the mast in terms of his own attitudes to faith, belief, tolerance and sex. He draws a comparison between the prohibitive interpretation of Islam in contemporary Iran and the repressive Catholicism that afflicted Ireland through the mid-twentieth century up until the relatively recent past. Institutionalised misogyny, shame, guilt, distorted sexuality, and hypocritical morality are all in the mix.

Time is also found to discuss: habits of self-interrogation as a means to ongoing personal evolution; neurotic apex predators; and very 80s, very white, Hollywood movies.

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Looking Adversity in the Eye, or The Things That Make Us Stronger

Wed, 21 Sep 2022 23:01:25 GMT

In this episode Dara talks about the importance of cultivating resilience and positivity, especially in a world that appears to be falling apart at the seams. He discusses the idea of understanding the potential of our response to be a stabilising element in the reality in which we find ourselves.

Looking at the aspects of life that we may find confronting or triggering or overwhelming, Dara argues that we have more resources than we may appreciate. He also looks at how woke ideology is analogous to fascism and how it works against resilience and toughness. He also considers the cliche of 'whatever doesn't kill you, makes you stronger'.

Also in the mix: the pinch of time, owning your own sh*t, the ability to move forward, and the astonishing screen presence of Peter O'Toole in David Lean's 1962 masterpiece, Lawrence of Arabia.

Roger Ebert's Lawrence of Arabia review from 2001: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-lawrence-of-arabia-1962

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The Death of a Queen and the Power of Totems

Wed, 14 Sep 2022 23:01:29 GMT

In this week's episode Dara reflects on the passing of Queen Elizabeth II last week and examines his own feelings about the extraordinarily long reign of the deceased monarch. He looks at the fractious history between Ireland and Britain and pays particular attention to the different identities on either side of the Irish Sea and how very different levels of historical experience and education inform them.

He wonders about the implications of the Queen's death for the United Kingdom and especially for Northern Ireland, in relation to the finalisation of Brexit and the future of the monarchy. He wraps up the episode by looking at how the Queen has been depicted in songs and poems, including Leon Rosselson's satirical 'On Her Silver Jubilee' and Simon Armitage's 'Floral Tribute', which is the Poet Laureate's gentle and judicious eulogy to his employer.

Also covered: the horrors of goulash, the brilliance of Anthony's speech to the Romans, and the rights and wrongs of dinner-table rhetoric.

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Honing the Eye, the Hand, and the Mind: Interview with Illustrator and Sculptor, Alan Clarke

Wed, 07 Sep 2022 23:01:44 GMT

In this choc-a-bloc inteview, Dara enjoys being taken to art school by the accomplished illustrator and sculptor, Alan Clarke. Alan and Dara were in primary school together a million years ago and this is their first time to sit down for a proper chat since then.

Alan discusses growing up in an artistic household before commencing a degree in architecture upon leaving school. From there he followed his love of drawing and illustration to do further training in Cornwall in England. He talks about his evolution through art, moving from illustration to portrait sculpture and how he has tried to channel more of his soul into his work.

Along the way, Alan speaks eloquently about what art is and isn't, the importance of good training, and his belief that art should always have the capacity to astonish. Among his many other achievements, including teaching a portrait sculpture masterclass in Moscow, Alan is the illustrator of the hugely popular Ross O'Carroll Kelly books.

Check out some of Alan's work on his instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/mralanclarke/

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Running Like Clockwork, or The Challenge of Slowing Down

Wed, 31 Aug 2022 23:01:48 GMT

What if we were all made by a toymaker and that toymaker set our internal tempo? Would that explain why some of us are so anxious while others remain calm? Is it possible that we all have a base setting that dictates how we interact with the world?

Dara argues that the Digital Age, with its inundation of technology and devices and information platforms, has accelerated our propensity for anxiety. He wonders about our inner clockworks and how they can be altered to help us feel calmer and more in control. He offers a simple exercise to help bring energy and heart rate down so a feeling of connection is more accessible.

He takes a few minutes at the end of the episode to pay tribute to Mikhail Gorbachev, the former leader of the Soviet Union, who just passed away. He recommends a brilliant sports documentary for those looking to revisit the Cold War and the ideological battle between Russian Communism and American Capitalism.

Also Flora margarine, Clint Eastwood as calmness guru, and sneaky selfies!

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The Face We Meet the World With, or The Pressure of Presentation

Wed, 24 Aug 2022 23:01:22 GMT

In this episode Dara looks at two English sportsmen - the boxer Anthony Joshua and the cricketer Ben Stokes - and their recent public displays of personal crisis and compromised mental health. He lauds them for their candour and for their ability to face the public with their vulnerability showing. Dara discusses the pressure that many of us feel to present a functional and successful face to the world.

He also talks about the contradictions of self and how confronting it can be to accept that no matter how much we change, we are always an iteration of the same self.

Dara reads from the podcast letter bag and recalls enjoying a legendary Irish broadcaster doing the same on the radio when he was a child. The issue raised is one of finding joy, even on the darkest of days. Further to that, Dara describes the specific conditions and patterns of his own depressive episodes and explains why he feels comfortable managing them.

Finally, on the occasion of his father turning 80 this week, Dara reads a newly composed poem in his honour. Happy birthday Louis!

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When the Vibe is Gone, or Peace and Love and Dollar Bills, Man!

Wed, 17 Aug 2022 23:01:47 GMT

In this episode, Dara finds himself stirred up after watching Trainwreck, the Netflix documentary series about the ill-fated Woodstock festival of 1999, an event that went off the rails for a variety of reasons, not least among them the driving motives of the organisers, one of whom was Michael Lang, who was behind the original festival 30 years earlier.

Before revisiting the key factors of what went wrong, Dara recalls the circumstances that informed the first Woodstock festival and why it was inspired by a much more coherent counter-cultural movement that was a response to an America that desperately wanted change after the promise of the early 60s had been extinguished by bloody assassinations of epoch-defining figures and an overseas war that very few wanted.

Looking at the dominant demographic in attendance at Woodstock '99, Dara examines the idea of changing zeitgeists and the inevitability of generational clashes around what is and isn't cool. Into this mix he adds the issue of flawed father figures, young men at war, and the absence of meaningful rites of passage that signify a maturation to be proud of.

Throughout the episode Dara tries to weave a thread of disparate quotes from historic orators, thinkers and writers which he uses to illustrate some of his observations. He concludes with an extended piece from Joni Mitchell that he expects will impress.

Adam Buxton talks economics with Mariana Mazzucato: https://play.acast.com/s/18dcd5db-f898-42c6-ab31-3a1853c1a645/62ecd5e8e3ba3b00135d1dc1

Firsthand account of attending Woodstock '99: https://screenrant.com/woodstock-99-documentary-accuracy-real-life-experience/

Joni Mitchell sings her song 'Woodstock' live on BBC in 1970: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRjQCvfcXn0

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Power Women On Screen, or What Does a Feminist Look Like?

Wed, 10 Aug 2022 23:01:09 GMT

After watching Paul Mazursky's An Unmarried Woman, a film hailed upon its release in 1978 as a groundbreaking feminist text, and celebrated for the central performance of Jill Clayburgh as a cheated-on spouse, Dara wonders about the legacy of strong female characters on screen and asks who of today's actresses best represents ideas of female power and strength.

It is essentially a question about feminism and feminist representation in the movies, and Dara questions the language that is typically used to describe a particular type of female character or the woman portraying them.

After discussing the Mazursky film in some detail and confessing not to have loved it, Dara recalls some iconic actresses of yesteryear who belong to the discussion at hand, before focusing on the brilliance of Frances McDormand and some of her key performances, including her recent Oscar-winning turns in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and the profoundly moving Nomadland.

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Turning Travel Into Art: Interview with Sean Whitehill

Wed, 03 Aug 2022 23:01:12 GMT

Dara presents an interview with his friend Sean Whitehill. Sean is a dedicated traveller and artist, among other things. He talks about what travelling means to him and what some of his favourite places are.

Sean turns his travel experiences into beautifully hand-drawn and hand-coloured mandalas which capture the travel moments and memories that have meant the most to him.

They ask the question - no matter how individual we think we are, can we ever disconnect from the social animal within?

Also touched on: dirty water, lone wolves, and women footballers showing the men how it should be done.

Check out Sean's work here: https://travelmandalas.com/

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YouTube: The ClearOut Podcast

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Imprintable Human Clay, or The Challenge of Never Changing

Wed, 27 Jul 2022 23:01:34 GMT

Dara is thinking about imprints, specifically the ones left on us in our formative years. He argues that our sense of wellness is very much connected to how successfully we negotiate or accommodate those imprints in our adult selves.

He shares some scenarios from his own childhood to try to illustrate his point, including watching The Muppet Show in a bar while a fight broke out above his 8-year-old head.

He talks about the Pixar movie Turning Red and how its menstruation-based story raised some issues for him. He looks at the cultural setting of that tale and wonders if Western culture's modernising zeal has completely eradicated the idea of rites and rituals.

A final word is given to another Pixar film - Wall-E - as Dara expresses admiration for its central character, the Chaplinesque garbage droid whose significant imprint is one of love and innocence.

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Wiggly Bits, Jiggly Bits, and The Dangers of Penetration!

Wed, 20 Jul 2022 23:01:34 GMT

In this episode, Dara discusses some hot potatoes that are being passed from hand to hand in Hashtag Blessed. Beyonce's new album art raises some concern, as does Marilyn Monroe's appearance on the screen on Dara and his daughter's scheduled movie night. Are these icons of female beauty and performance actually problematic? Is there a radically different experience in how they are perceived by men and women?

Also on the table are ideas of resilience, self-care, and what we allow to affect us. Dara wonders if we get less or more resilient as we age, or if we just lose the energy to fight. He reflects on a recently departed family member on his wife's side who decided her time was up.

Other points are made about divergent parenting styles, how material is generated for the podcast, and a causality that makes Kim Novak responsible for Sharon Stone's character in Basic Instinct.

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Two Twisted Love Stories and Dismantling Man-made Erections

Wed, 13 Jul 2022 23:01:58 GMT

In this episode, Dara takes a deep dive into two very different on-screen depictions of what the French call 'amour fou', or 'mad love'. 1986's Betty Blue (37.2 Le Matin) and Hitchcock's 1958 classic 'Vertigo' are the two texts in question.

Dara recalls the impact of Betty Blue on his 18-year-old self and how it's sexual frankness was a mind-altering experience in terms of what he felt movies could show. Rewatching it for the podcast he found it less surprising but still quite compelling.

After a friend confessed to being nonplussed by 'Vertigo', Dara found his enthusiasm reinvigorated for the tale of obsession and manipulation and male crisis. He discovers an extraordinary revelation from Hitchcock in relation to one of the film's most memorable scenes.

Having discussed both films in some detail, Dara wonders about the validity of regarding them through a misogynist lens. He argues for checking one's morality at the door when it comes to a certain type of film. He advocates the importance of individual critical thinking, not only with regard to provocative art, but also in the face of cancel culture and the reductive discourse of woke posturing.

And then there's the significance to the themes of both movies of the chimney Dara is currently demolishing. What does the chimney represent? And why did Betty Blue come in his head when he was taking it apart one brick at a time? What's the connection?

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The Pebble Girl Part 2: Interview with Author, Artist, and Abuse Survivor, Aisling Creegan

Fri, 08 Jul 2022 09:33:52 GMT

Dara presents the second of two parts of an in-depth interview with author, artist, and abuse survivor, Aisling Creegan.

Aisling grew up in the 1970s as the youngest child of a large Dublin family, but hers was a harrowing childhood that played out in a chaotic and violent household. Alcoholism, one ailing parent, and the other with severe mental health problems meant the young Aisling was never safe. Her refuge lay in her imagination, her relationship with nature, and her love of art.

In her brilliant and ferociously honest memoir - I Am Someone - Aisling shares her story of survival in the face of extreme adversity and persecution.

In Part 2, Aisling talks about the power of a single person to offer hope to an embattled child. Getting older, she finds herself redefining her relationship with her mother while also negotiating her own sexuality. Discussing her partner, Aisling lays out a definition of intimacy. Dara and Aisling also discuss her art and the significance of horses in her work. They conclude by looking at Aisling's aspirations for her book, which returns them to the motif of pebbles.

Warning: Some of the subject matter covered in this interview may be triggering. While avoiding anything too explicit or gratuitous, child abuse, both physical and sexual, is part of Aisling's story.

Aisling's book - I Am Someone: https://www.gillbooks.ie/stories/stories/i-am-someone

Aisling's New Irish Art page: https://newirishart.com/irish-artists/aisling-creegan-artist.htm

Relevant Irish services and charities:

https://www.cari.ie/ - therapy provision for victims of childhood sexual abuse

https://www.rcni.ie/ - rape crisis centre

https://www.oneinfour.ie/ - supporting victims of childhood sexual abuse

https://www.belongto.org/ - supporting LGBTI+ young people

https://www.samaritans.org/ireland/samaritans-ireland/ - supporting individuals at risk of extreme duress and suicide

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YouTube: The ClearOut Podcast

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Pebble Girl: Interview with Author, Artist, and Abuse Survivor, Aisling Creegan Part 1

Wed, 29 Jun 2022 23:01:45 GMT

Dara presents the first of two parts of an in-depth interview with author, artist, and abuse survivor, Aisling Creegan.

In her brilliant and ferociously honest memoir - I Am Someone - Aisling shares her story of survival in the face of extreme adversity and persecution.

Dara discusses the events that informed the book in a candid conversation with Aisling, leading up to a significant figure in Aisling's youth who made her think life was worth living after all.

Aisling's book - I Am Someone: https://www.gillbooks.ie/stories/stories/i-am-someone

Aisling's New Irish Art page: https://newirishart.com/irish-artists/aisling-creegan-artist.htm

Relevant Irish services and charities:

https://www.cari.ie/ - therapy provision for victims of childhood sexual abuse

https://www.rcni.ie/ - rape crisis centre

https://www.oneinfour.ie/ - supporting victims of childhood sexual abuse

https://www.belongto.org/ - supporting LGBTI+ young people

https://www.samaritans.org/ireland/samaritans-ireland/ - supporting individuals at risk of extreme duress and suicide

Website: https://theclearout.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theclearoutpodcast/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theclearoutpodcast/

YouTube: The ClearOut Podcast

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why Idealism Matters and the Proximity Principle of Enmity

Wed, 22 Jun 2022 23:01:46 GMT

Dara begins this week's episode by looking at the Irish discomfort with self-approval and putting it in the context of small-island, village mentality. He argues that it is a product of a damaged national psyche that leaves many Irish people with a pathological self-deprecation born of superstition and distrust of success.

Reflecting on the too-seldom declared mission statement of the podcast, Dara reminds himself what he's trying to achieve by putting out the show once a week. He has to conclude that it's connected to something idealistic.

That leads him to discuss the words and work of Mohamed ElBaradei, the Egyptian diplomat and Nobel laureate who for 12 years oversaw the international agency responsible for the safe management and use of nuclear energy. He was part of the team who inspected Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction post the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He also had a role to play in 2011's Arab Spring and the subsequent coup d'etat which briefly placed him as Egypt's interim vice president.

Responding to ElBaradei's thoughts on how to achieve a peaceful, unified world, Dara ends the episode discussing the complex similarity of sworn enemies.

Podchaser token: oSNcU0jOX1l1yiAMpyvH

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The Art of Disarming Oneself, or How to Live with Defences Down

Wed, 15 Jun 2022 23:01:17 GMT

In this week's episode Dara reflects on a week in recovery from Covid and realises he enjoyed dropping down to his slowest gear. It prompts him to think about the benefits of living with one's defences down. He argues that it makes us more receptive and more capable of seeing positive things in the world.

From a self-defence point of view, he argues for the cultivation of calm and embracing the artificial idea of minimal threat. He believes we cannot fight effectively if we are too wedded to a rigid defence. Dara lays out the benefits of being defenceless and wonders if that vulnerability doesn't make us view the world in a more benign light.

There is also discussion of some good movies taken in while in covid isolation, with special affection expressed for 1980's Urban Cowboy, a gritty John Travolta vehicle that also starred an excellent Debra Winger and Scott Glenn. Dara concludes with a new book recommendation.

And even if you don't listen carefully, the chickens can be heard making a nuisance of themselves in the background!

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Barbaric Yawps and Righteous Howls - Cries from the American Poetic Heart

Wed, 08 Jun 2022 23:01:36 GMT

Compromised by a cold-induced fogginess of brain which precludes his normal freestyling approach, Dara decides to recite some American poetry from the Confessional School, and cautiously takes on Allen Ginsberg's Howl as the closing piece of this verse-drenched episode.

You will hear the following poems:

Song of Myself, 52 by Walt Whitman

Daddy by Sylvia Plath

Red Roses, Barefoot and 45 Mercy Street (a fragment) by Anne Sexton

Howl by Allen Ginsberg

A little bit of background and reaction will accompany each piece.

Check out Sean Whitehill's beautiful and intricate artwork here: https://travelmandalas.com/

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Blazing Baby Blues and a Killer's Grin - Saying Goodbye to Ray Liotta

Wed, 01 Jun 2022 23:01:50 GMT

Dara kicks off this episode with a revelation from his daughter, follows it with a plant the size of three Manhattan islands, and then discusses a black actress getting hate online after appearing in a new Star Wars tv series.

All that out of the way, the remainder of the episode is essentially a love letter to the late Ray Liotta, one of Dara's favourite actors. By the time he finishes, Dara finally understands what it was that Liotta meant to him as a young man. To get there, he discusses in some detail Liotta's acting career and electric screen presence, with particular focus on 1986's Something Wild, and 1989's Field of Dreams.

Talking about the latter movie leads to analysing Kevin Costner and the place he occupied in American movies at that time. Dara was a big fan but argues that Costner represented a conspicuously white, Baby Boomer ideal of American masculinity which isn't quite so appealing nowadays.

This week's extras: Ray Liotta interviewed by Marc Maron in 2018 - http://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/repost-ray-liotta-from-2018

The Rewatchables does Field of Dreams - https://www.theringer.com/2019/4/19/18508201/field-of-dreams-with-bill-simmons-chris-ryan-and-mallory-rubin

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The 1st Birthday Episode! - Receiving Transmissions of Joy

Wed, 25 May 2022 23:01:58 GMT

In this episode Dara is very pleased to be celebrating a year of The ClearOut. He revisits the last twelve months and talks about some of the other ways he was spending his time.

After last week's serious and rather confronting subject matter, Dara turns his attention to things joyous and joyful. He wonders how joy is transmitted and whether we shouldn't be actively seeking it out, or at the very least tuning our 'life balance radio' to try and catch the positive signals that are out there.

He argues for the joy of connection and being present, and marvels at the generous spirit of a grumpy rock star. He discusses the power children have to be present and observant and in thrall to the moment, and how as adults we would do well to open ourselves to such innocence and wonder. He also looks at the resounding positive impact an adult can have on a child, simply by seeing them.

Also, coffee, football, pop-singing trolls, Latin lovers, and grotesque narcissism.

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Dispensable White Men, or Who's Coming to Replace Me?

Wed, 18 May 2022 23:01:44 GMT

In this episode Dara thought he was going to keep it light and stay firmly in the positive psychology territory of inspirational quotes and personal motivation, but he ended up being led by the recent mass shooting in Buffalo to look at the ideologies of hate and division that are currently enjoying a disturbing level of popularity amongst certain demographics.

After looking at a couple of interesting quotes from the composer Arthur Sullivan and the French cleric Jean Baptiste Henri Lacordaire, Dara begins to see some connective tissue between their advocacy of self-determination and the radicalisation of unhappy young men.

Digging deeper, he discusses White Replacement Theory, an insidious ideology of racial hatred that can be traced back to Hitler's Mein Kampf. WRT has become a central tenet of radicalised and hyper-violent white men who commit mass shootings in the name of white pride. It has also gained traction in some areas of mainstream media.

Critical Race Theory is looked at as a rebuttal to the very idea of race and racism, and Dara finds himself needing very little encouragement to endorse it. He talks about his own relationship to and understanding of racism through the lens of American movies and the civil rights movement, Irish history and political cartoons.

Throughout it all, the chickens at Hashtag Blessed keep crowing!

This week's links:

The ClearOut Episode 27 - https://shows.acast.com/theclearout/episodes/acting-out-in-the-extreme-or-when-private-pain-becomes-publi

On White Replacement Theory and mass shooting: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/15/buffalo-shooting-white-replacement-theory-inspires-mass

On the legalisation of fascism in USA: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/22/america-fascism-legal-phase

On Critical Race Theory: https://theconversation.com/why-does-critical-race-theory-make-people-so-uncomfortable-176125

Emma Dabiri on Blindboy podcast: https://play.acast.com/s/blindboy/thereturnofemmadabiri

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Stepping into the Breach, or The Quandary of Heroes

Wed, 11 May 2022 23:01:10 GMT

In this episode Dara is thrust back to his childhood by a concert of John Williams music, and specifically the music of the Star Wars films. That event, and his recent watching of Matt Reeves's The Batman, gets him thinking about fictional heroes and what role they fulfil in our lives, and why in his late forties he is still happy to consume these heroic tales.

Spurred by his daughter being disappointed by the end of a playdate, Dara recalls similar feelings of 'micro-grief' when he was a child, and asks if fictional heroes don't in some way act as a compensation for the disappointments of real life. He dismisses the idea of adults having conventional hero figures in real life and posits that heroism can be located in much more mundane things like survival and positivity and resilience.

There is also time to expound on joined-up thinking, killable roosters, uncanny valleys, and one of Dara's all-time favourite comic book characters - The Fantastic Four's Ben Grimm, also known as The Thing, whose orange-bricked exterior concealed the tenderest of hearts.

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Conscience and the Stand Against Puritanism, or The Journey from Dip-Dabs to Hitler

Thu, 05 May 2022 09:07:31 GMT

Episode 50 is here and we're going long! It is an absolute whopper of big ideas and small confessions. Dara informs on himself and his lifelong relationship to sugar and how a recent flashpoint with his daughter raised for him ideas relating to addiction and puritanism and the absurdity of righteousness.

He looks at the imposition of rules and regulations on children and questions the value of the performance of gatekeeping order and standards in a teaching context. Aren't we all in on the joke of the chaos and uncontainability of life?

Dara shares a story about a prison conversation with one of his brothers and begins to understand it in a new light. He wonders if he might be a puritan, and the embodiment of pious self-seriousness.

He discusses at length Arthur Miller's The Crucible and what it has to say about moral panic and the hypocrisy of those who pass down judgement on others, all the while suppressing their own venality and human impulses. Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds is also considered in the context of persecution and collaboration and the cost to one's conscience.

Dip-Dabs, Sherbet Fountains, Mark Twain and Sigmund Freud also feature - where else would you get it!

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Life Above and Below the Surface, or Listening to the Deep Respondent Self

Wed, 27 Apr 2022 23:01:16 GMT

In this mental health-focused episode, Dara reflects on a recent spell of bad form and speaks openly about some of the personal trickiness he has faced over the last couple of years. He talks about his marriage and his skirmishes with depression and presents an argument for being okay with a range of emotions and perceptions that are conventionally considered to be negative.

He argues for perspective-shifting as a tool of detachment and re-setting. Rising out of ourselves and above our predicaments can facilitate a clearer reading of where we're at. Dara also advocates a deeper form of listening and looking that helps us contact a more informative internal base state. He names this base state the Deep Respondent Self, and he believes by becoming better acquainted with it we can launch ourselves into improved areas of self-protection and personal evolution.

Time is also found to look at chi exercises, steaming knobs, personal approval ratings, and facing our fears.

2017 piece on listening from theClearOut.com: https://theclearout.com/2017/03/05/listen/

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The Merits of Tolerance, or The Wisdom of the Two Johnnies

Wed, 20 Apr 2022 23:01:07 GMT

In this episode Dara is prompted by a recent homophobic hate crime in Ireland to examine tolerance in a social context. He wonders whether the moral good of tolerance is as effective as the moral good of intolerance. He asks if the dogmatisation of the good can succumb to conspiracies of silence, and looks back at Ireland when it was in the grip of Catholic authoritarianism.

He shares his own beliefs about homophobia and refers to the work of English liberal philosophers John Locke and John Stuart Mill to reflect on personal freedoms, moral responsibilities, and social cohesion.

Dara also looks at Irish politics and governance, and reveals his contribution to the time capsule in Ireland's recent census. He further discusses media mono-narratives and argues that cancel culture is a juvenile form of intolerance.

Website: https://theclearout.com/

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YouTube: The ClearOut Podcast

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The Four Agreements of Don Miguel Ruiz

Wed, 13 Apr 2022 23:01:54 GMT

In this episode Dara has a good look at the bestselling 1997 New Age text, The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, the Mexican spiritualist and New Age thinker. The four agreements in question relate to how we speak or use language; how we receive the actions of others; the limitations of what we can know about anybody else; and the commitment to always trying to use the best of ourselves. Easier said than done, but Dara tries to examine them in a context of personal responsibility and everyday behaviour, and recognises how they can be applied in his own life.

He recalls when he worked in the book industry in the early to mid-90s and how New Age literature, audio product and advocacy seemed to be booming and how at the time he was quite sceptical about it. Thirty years later, he thinks he understands why New Age thinking, positive living, and non-theistic spiritual practice is more appealing at a later stage in life.

There's also octogenarian coughing, endless rollies, an apology to Dara's daughter, and a new poem about understanding that giving doesn't necessarily cost as much as we think.

A Lesson from the Winter Solstice at Newgrange - a new poem up on theClearOut.com now: https://theclearout.com/2022/04/11/a-lesson-from-the-winter-solstice-at-newgrange/

Website: https://theclearout.com/

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YouTube: The ClearOut Podcast

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The Attraction of Protagonists: Three Singular Selves on Screen

Wed, 06 Apr 2022 23:01:44 GMT

In this episode Dara reflects on a recent conversation he had about where and in what way the self should feature in the pursuit of happiness. One argument emphasises total immersion in self as a mode of psychic excavation and rebuilding, whereas an alternative, more Eastern approach, is a wilful eradication of self as the pathway to radical acceptance of what is. Neither is easily achieved, but the discussion is worth having.

Regardless of philosophical and psychological musings on self, Dara argues that we love to consume accounts of individual selves in the arts and history - we're wired to seek the human experience reflected back at us via the lives of others. In this context, he discusses the last three movies he just watched, which were brilliant examples of stories built around fascinating individual characters: a sociopath from 70s New York, a beguiling aristocrat from 18th Century France, and a desperate and loving brother from contemporary New York.

And for the chicken-fanciers, an account of why the rooster at Hashtag Blessed is so sinister...

Pauline Kael on Taxi Driver: https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/movies/taxi-driver-underground-man-review-pauline-kael/

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The Slap That Wasn't Mine, or The Puppetry of Persona

Wed, 30 Mar 2022 23:01:55 GMT

In this episode, Dara lets the topic be led by the Will Smith slapping incident at last Sunday's Academy Awards ceremony. He unpacks some of the possible lines of analysis in the current climate of identity politics and culture wars. He also looks at his own history of being slapped and breaks down the gendered implications of the open-hand slap, particularly when it is called a 'bi**h-slap', looking at how it can be used as a tool of emasculation.

Dara discusses the idea of being one's own diagnostic tool in the pursuit of wellness and contentment. He argues that we can only attempt to diagnose our needs in the world with which we are familiar. He uses that idea to contextualise Smith's slap and how it was arguably linked to a public persona that Smith has cultivated over a lifetime in showbusiness and being subject to the exposure pressure cooker that is Hollywood.

Time is also found to reiterate the mission statement of the podcast, to explain why the chickens at Hashtag Blessed are currently so noisy, and to own up to some recent forgetfulness.

Hadley Freeman on Hollywood omerta after the slap: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/mar/28/dont-mention-that-slap-why-no-one-was-talking-about-will-smith-and-chris-rock-at-the-oscars-after-party

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Where the Magic Happens, or Winning in the Empty Spaces

Thu, 24 Mar 2022 00:01:42 GMT

In this week's episode, Dara is set off by a tweet from a female account that first explicitly requests pictures of beautiful men - 'rides' is the term of desire used - and then disclaims accusations of objectification. Is objectification of men by women better, or less loaded, than objectification of women by men? Dara isn't sure...

He reflects on the nature of attraction and thinks back to how he viewed his own body and how that played out in his early romantic relationships. He feels lucky in that he came to a reasonably healthy conclusion and allowed his insecurities to roam in non-physical realms.

On the back of a recent bout of depression, Dara discusses a theory he has about where we locate our victories. He posits it as a counter to capitalist-influenced frames of success and winning that are typically equated with accumulation and material gain. He offers something more akin to a Zen decluttering which draws attention to what we have removed from our lives to allow us easier access to accommodation and acceptance and yes, happiness. In other words, what isn't present could well be an indicator of where we have won on our journey to the present moment.

Before any of that is touched though, Dara wonders if we shouldn't talk to each other like babies. And he has time to race down the track on a train of thought about some mysterious soap in his household. Where did it come from? And how on earth did it get in that bottle?

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Platonism and Sport, or The Impossible Pursuit of Perfection

Thu, 17 Mar 2022 00:01:11 GMT

In this episode Dara presents his thesis that all sports fans are embroiled in a philosophical engagement with the team or sportsperson that they love. Namely, the relationship of our desire and emotional investment to a higher aspiration - the symbiotic realisation of sporting perfection. Dara argues that this desire is in essence a Platonic impulse to contemplate not only the ideal sporting moment, the physical and psychological expression of something exquisite that elevates fan and player alike, but also to be part of the collective good character of a club. When realised, therein lies the possibility of a moral edification.

As his case studies for the best and worst of this, Dara discusses Marcelo Bielsa, the recently sacked Leeds Utd manager, as well as three other English Premier League Teams - his own team, Tottenham Hotspur, and Chelsea and Newcastle Utd. To round out the analysis of sporting magic, he looks at the late Shane Warne, the mesmerising Australian cricketer who passed away last week at the age of 52.

There is also time to bid farewell to the actor William Hurt and to look at some provocative comments made by Jane Campion, the director of the Oscar-tipped The Power of the Dog.

Original Guardian article on Shane Warne's 'Ball of the Century' - https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/mar/04/from-the-archive-the-guardians-report-on-shane-warnes-ball-of-the-century

Article on Marcelo Bielsa's integrity - https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/jan/17/marceo-bielsa-spygate-powerpoint-leeds-united

Article on football's double standards - https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/mar/11/shouldnt-someone-in-football-also-care-about-the-war-in-yemen-just-a-little

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A Musician's Life - Interview with Gavin McCaffrey

Thu, 10 Mar 2022 00:01:35 GMT

It's the dawn of a new era for The Clearout as Dara hosts his first interview on the podcast.

Musician and actor Gavin McCaffrey first made money in the arts as a child performer as one of Ireland's legendary Billie Barry kids, gracing stage and screen in professional appearances. Many years later he and Dara shared a dressing room together when they were cast in Shay Healy's The Wiremen, a colourful musical about Ireland's rural electrification scheme in the 1950's.

Gavin talks about plying his trade as a professional musician and being grateful to be able to earn a living doing commercial gigs and getting to work with and learn from excellent musicians in the process. An easy flowing conversation takes in reflections on humility and success, apocryphal tales of famous actors, the collaborative give and take of making art, and integrating the life with a family and all the reponsibilities that come with that - first priority: get home from the gig alive!

Get to hear Gavin's latest track 'Boy' at the end of the show.

Gavin's website: http://www.thehumofficial.com/

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Lovely Horse, Shame About the Tool on Top

Thu, 03 Mar 2022 00:01:30 GMT

In this topical episode, once he's dealt with a Hollywood actor's less than enthusiastic response to Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog, Dara gets straight into the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He discusses Putin and looks at his possible motivations for such aggression, and also considers the larger geopolitical implications of the conflict.

He tries to contextualise how people in the west have responded to the conflict, and argues that the limitations of its analysis in the popular media negatively impact our perceptions of the combatants. From there, Dara moves on to look at the word 'stakeholder' and explains why he doesn't care for it outside a business context, seeing it as manipulative, disingenuous, and evocative of Orwell's 1984.

Finally, Dara offers some counsel in relation to getting overwhelmed and unduly anxious by all the bad news in the world - controlling what and how much we consume is central to maintaining a healthy degree of wellness.

Apart from that, there's Western recommendations, Strontium Dogs, and 'mowldy' days...

Marc Maron talks to Sam Elliott: http://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episode-1309-sam-elliott

Dara's article on identity politics, featuring the use of 'stakeholder': https://theclearout.com/2021/08/30/wishing-others-away/

The ClearOut episode on the comfort of ignorance: https://shows.acast.com/theclearout/episodes/getting-comfortable-with-chickens-and-ignorance

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The Cartography of a Small World, or It's Lovely to be Here!

Thu, 24 Feb 2022 00:01:15 GMT

In this deceptively positive episode, Dara is emerging from a fortnight of disruptions and disturbances that have laid him low. Over the course of the show, he examines not only the necessary compromises and recalibrations that must accompany a successful recovery, but also the contradictions that can occur in normally reliable wellness strategies.

He discusses the cartography of our inner world and argues for the strength to be gained from pursuing a deep knowledge of one's emotional and psychological terrain. That strength derives from self-knowledge and self-understanding empowering one to negotiate these varied landscapes with greater success.

He looks at the perspective-giving benefits of removing oneself from the centre of the frame and introduces the idea of a significance scale that can remind us of a healthful anonymity. This also involves recognising the positive aspects of making your world smaller.

Finally, Dara reflects on the current construction of his own life and talks about how he has consciously tried to build something around the things that keep him well. Maintaining the belief in what he has chosen requires tremendous focus, discipline and faith.

Bonus material this week is a charming children's poem that is recited to the background noise of hysterical chickens overreacting to the resident dog at Hashtag Blessed. You couldn't make it up!

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The Things We Shouldn't Stomach, or The Violent Wellness of Expulsion

Thu, 17 Feb 2022 00:05:09 GMT

This week's episode is all about getting rid of the bad stuff in your life, and it starts with having a good old vomit! Having had that unpleasant experience recently, Dara decides to hang this episode's theme around the body's singularity of purpose when expelling something evil from the gut.

He foregrounds the discussion with a scattergun look at poison and how it speaks to a primal dread in us. Poison is looked at in the world of reptiles, historical figures, literature, songs, and of course, movies - fancy a bite of Snow White's shiny red apple, anyone?

The second half of the episode looks at poisonous or toxic elements in our lives and how they can feature centrally in our emotional and psychological landscapes. Dara argues that, like poison, they infiltrate and invade our sense of wellness and peace, and that perhaps they should be removed with the same emetic violence that the body deploys to expel gut-based invaders.

Also, but not only, blocked drains, suspect dinners, and last minute deliveries!

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Defiance and the Autonomous Self

Thu, 10 Feb 2022 00:01:08 GMT

In this episode, Dara looks at defiance as a central attitude and strategy of wellness. Understanding defiance as an expression of personal conviction allows it to be utilised in the service of personal autonomy. It can inform and be informed by one's certitude, but that certitude is best deployed with an understanding of imperfection and flexibility.

Also discussed is the idea of ownership and authorship of self and narrative. Using Roland Barthes' theory of the Death of the Author, Dara asks whether the self can be understood as a text, and if so, what happens when we present ourselves to the world? How are we interpreted and understood, and what is the impact on our agency?

Conformity and convention are also considered, and an argument is made for the power of stepping outside the tide of consensus without embracing contrarianism for contrarianism's sake.

There is also the discomfort of being forward-facing, the attraction of anonymity, and contrived aesthetics!

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Girls in Love, Sex on Screen, and the Female Gaze

Thu, 03 Feb 2022 00:01:53 GMT

In this episode, Dara starts off by looking at our need for light and also our desire for novelty. These ideas are both connected to how we are visual creatures and how the internet has capitalised immeasurably on this aspect of human behaviour.

Celine Sciamma's brilliant film Portrait of a Lady on Fire, a film very much concerned with the power of seeing, is discussed in this context, but also prompts an exploration of female sexuality, and specifically lesbian sexuality, as presented in film. In extending the scope of the discussion, Dara refers to other films and looks at the difference between male-directed and female-directed sex and intimacy. Power, male desire, and female objectification are central to the differences found.

Staying with the theme of watching, subjective viewpoint is raised as a key mechanism of worldbuilding and our relationship with both reality and ourelves. When that reality is compromised, do we lose sight of ourselves?

Also, Martian interviews and self-sabotaging the podcast with topics too bleak to be tolerated!

Ep24 of The ClearOut (related): https://shows.acast.com/theclearout/episodes/the-fallible-smotherboard-and-the-fear-of-being-seen

Celine Sciamma Vox interview: https://www.vox.com/culture/2020/2/19/21137213/portrait-of-a-lady-on-fire-celine-sciamma-interview

Billy Connolly interview on Adam Buxton's podcast: https://www.adam-buxton.co.uk/podcasts/13

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Snowflakes, Pain Storage, and the Power of Subjectivity

Thu, 27 Jan 2022 00:01:47 GMT

In this episode Dara delves into the places we carry and store our pain. He looks at how unaddressed wounds can wield a disproportionate amount of power over us and how that relates to our fear of uncomfortable places.

He wonders if how different generations have evolved with access to different vocabulary and frames of reference for emotional and psychological wellbeing has shaped their resilience and toughness differently. He uses 'Snowflake' culture to refract this theory.

He discusses the usefulness of reconditioning our memories to help us better manage our traumas and the benefits of self-knowledge and self-possession in exercising more control over our power and agency.

Finally, the question of subjectivity versus objectivity is raised in the context of survival and self-care. Dara argues that greater understanding of our subjective reality can boost our wellness and resilience, and make us less vulnerable to the subjectivity of others.

theClearOut.com article on natural behaviour and trauma: https://theclearout.com/2016/10/10/its-only-natural/

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Scared women, Damaged Men, and the Crisis of Broken Masculinity

Thu, 20 Jan 2022 00:01:08 GMT

I want to write this week's information in the first person because I want to unequivocally own all the ideas and opinions expressed in the episode. As a response to the murder of a young Irish woman in Ireland last week, I discuss at considerable length the topic of male violence against women as an expression of broken masculinity, and I offer a defence of my experience of masculinity.

I also look at the discourse that has arisen in the aftermath of the murder, and how in my opinion, in spite of the justified outrage and intense emotionality of the reactions of both men and women, there has been insufficient nuance brought to bear on the discussion. I look at how male crisis can express itself either as self-directed violence or else as violence towards others. And I make a case for greater empathy for male suffering and argue for more collective responsibility in society from anyone who cares about the issue of both traumatised masculinity and the victimisation of women and all vulnerable members of society.

Disclaimer: I won't have covered every single aspect of this, and the aspects I did look at won't have been covered comprehensively. There will be oversights and blind spots, but I think I have avoided being tone deaf. I hope it is clear I spoke from a desire for an improved dialogue around masculinity and how to help women feel safer.

Thank you,

Dara

2019 article on why men are more violent than women from the New York Post: https://nypost.com/2019/01/16/the-scientific-reasons-why-men-are-more-violent-than-women/

2014 article on male aggression from Psychology Ireland: https://www.psychologytoday.com/ie/blog/homo-aggressivus/201409/male-aggression

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Living in the Human Zone, or Liminality isn't Criminality!

Thu, 13 Jan 2022 07:46:01 GMT

In this week's episode, Dara is very much focused on zones and spaces - not physical ones, but experiential ones. He argues that we are always entering and taking our leave of different states of mind and emotion and how we behave in different spaces depends on where we are at in ourselves at any given time.

He looks at how the human brain recognises different zones of behaviour and interaction and at how those zones can be made toxic and dangerous by people who betray the understood rules of engagement that are fundamental to everyday human transactions.

He discusses different stages of life in terms of growth and maturation and the rites of passage that may attend them with the resultant change in status. Dara asks if we might not benefit from observing and acknowledging our changing states in a demonstrated and formal way. He also talks about liminal zones and the vulnerability of being in a transitionary stage.

Finally, he concludes with a few thoughts for a recently bereaved mother and wonders what changes we have to make as a society to help prevent similar future anguish.

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Restructuring Time and the Pursuit of Evolution

Thu, 06 Jan 2022 00:19:36 GMT

In this episode of the podcast Dara has a good look at why the arrival of a new year makes us feel change is both possible and something to which we have all been conditioned. He argues that we shouldn't have to wait a whole year before we try to effect change in our lives.

He discusses his own relationship with recording time through an almost lifelong diary-keeping habit - a habit that has been frustrated this January. Dara reveals his own goal for change this year and accepts that it is no small task. He makes clear that he does not wish to achieve happiness, merely evolution.

There is time at the end for a quick discussion of the sci-fi movie Soylent Green, which made a dire prediction of what 2022 would bring. Thankfully, that particular vision has not come to pass.

Happy New Year everybody!

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A Quiet Moment to End the Year, or The Wag of a Dog's Tail

Thu, 30 Dec 2021 01:51:47 GMT

In this episode Dara takes a very chilled look at the year that was, touching on some specific moments, but being more focused on the end-of-year energy that he considers to be contemplative and calming.

He refers to Frank Capra's 1938 movie You Can't Take It With You and discusses some points raised by the movie that seem relevant to this moment.

And Dara's tail is wagging and he would like you to know why.

The episode ends with a meditation on emerging from burnout that Dara created earlier this year for Aura, the sleep and wellness app. He thought it would be a nice way to bring things to a conclusion.

Link to theClearOut.com article on the repetitive nature of the human experience: https://theclearout.com/2019/06/16/the-pinnacle/

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The Christmas Special!

Thu, 23 Dec 2021 00:01:47 GMT

This week's episode brings you a brand new Christmas story written by Dara. What happens to the little girl who runs away from her mother in a posh department store? Will she be taken away by the in-house security team? Will her mother regain her Christmas spirit? Will she accept the help of a stranger? Find out when you listen to 'Caramel'. The story can also be found in written form on theclearout.com, where Dara's other Christmas stories can also be found in both written and audio formats.

This episode also features a little Christmas concert that was recorded live at Dara's home in Wicklow. There are first time appearances on the podcast by Dara's wife Chiara - a musician and music therapist, and his cousin Fionn - also a musician, as they accompany him - not a musician, on renditions of four beloved Christmas songs.

Finally, and most unexpectedly, in another first for the podcast, Dara's daughter Maeve gives the teeny-tiniest of shout-outs to the listeners of The ClearOut. Which made Dara's Christmas!

Happy Christmas everyone, stay safe.

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The High Stakes of Great Christmas Movies, or Why I Love George Bailey

Thu, 16 Dec 2021 00:01:57 GMT

It's an unmitigated movie-fest this week as Dara goes deep into his love of Christmas movies and of watching movies at this time of year. He revisits his childhood exposure to Hollywood classics and reflects on how the unlimited access to content and devices nowadays means that the home movie watching experience has lost its allure for modern children.

He argues that the best Christmas movies require a genuine threat that results in the highest possible stakes for the characters we are being asked to invest in. Dara believes Dickens's A Christmas Carol set the template that has been adhered to for better or worse over the subsequent years and that the best Christmas movies tap into crises of faith, love, compassion, status, credibility and humanity. Redemption hard won is all the sweeter! The worst Christmas movies on the other hand, are clunky contrivances designed to accommodate forced and barely believable sentiment.

Dara takes you through his list of cherished Christmas movies, which he divides into lesser and greater categories, and peppers the titles with lots of background information that will enhance your viewing pleasure. The episode concludes with a beloved Christmas song that he hopes you'll enjoy.

If you don't like movies, this episode isn't for you, but if you do, you'll love it!

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Three Female Texts, or Art as a Response to Erasure

Thu, 09 Dec 2021 00:01:58 GMT

In this episode, Dara goes all in on the expression of the female voice and the assertion and reclamation of female identity. He explores his own views of and attitudes to women and speaks honestly about his upbringing and his marriage and how they have informed and enriched those attitudes and views.

As the main vehicle for this discussion, he looks in depth at three recent female works of art that he found compelling, challenging, and inspiring - the films The Tale (2018), written and directed by Jennifer Fox, and Little Women (2019), directed and adapted by Greta Gerwig, and the book A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ni Ghriofa. In their own ways, they are each powerful, fearless, and brilliant iterations of female voice and vision and experience.

In conclusion, Dara is left wondering about the nature of female texts and whether they should be any less compelling than any other text.

The clearout.com article on the spaces we live in: https://theclearout.com/2014/11/30/no-fixed-address/

Doireann Ni Ghriofa talks to Roisin Ingle on The Irish Times Women's Podcast: https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/the-women-s-podcast/the-irish-times-women-s-podcast-ep-444-a-ghost-in-the-throat-doireann-n%C3%AD-ghr%C3%ADofa-1.4394778

The History Chicks Podcast on Louisa May Alcott: http://thehistorychicks.com/episode-142-louisa-may-alcott-revisited/

The Tale: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4015500/

Little Women: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3281548/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_6

A Ghost in the Throat: https://tramppress.com/product/a-ghost-in-the-throat-by-doireann-ni-ghriofa/

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The Hard Sell of Christmas and the Triumph of Diogenes

Thu, 02 Dec 2021 00:01:38 GMT

In this episode Dara has a good look at his own feelings about Christmas and goes on to explore a brief history of Christmas, and why it is something not everybody feels thrilled to celebrate. He wonders if the forced observance of anything is ever a good thing. But ultimately, he can't shake the feeling that a little Christmas magic stirs something very deep in our collective psyche.

Reading some poems by Seamus Heaney, the great Irish poet, presents the opportunity to discuss Diogenes, the ancient Greek philosopher, and the father of cynicism, his encounter with Alexander the Great, and the relevance of cynicism to the pageantry and paraphernalia of Christmas.

Dara concludes the episode with a chilly extract from Dickens' A Christmas Carol and a preview of Christmas themed episodes coming up this month.

The ClearOut.com article from 2013 on Christmas and the continuing lessons of the Nativity story: https://theclearout.com/2013/12/24/look-to-the-stars/

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Acting Out in the Extreme, or When Private Pain becomes Public Tragedy

Thu, 25 Nov 2021 00:01:49 GMT

In this episode Dara is prompted by the recent violent attack in Waukesha, as well as other car and truck attacks and shooting atrocities, to reflect on how we view the individuals who perpetrate such acts. His train of thought takes in cultural stereotyping, systemic social failure, and the expression of pain in both positive and negative ways. Newton's Cradle - the metal ball office toy - is offered as a metaphor for profound pain and alienation finding its equal and opposite expression in extreme acts.

The necessity for strong and positive leadership is posited, and cited as examples of leadership gone wrong are Hitler's Nazi vision and Trump's presidency, which are presented as two different versions of extreme pain and pathology being acted out at great cost to others.

There's also time for a shout out to an Irish businesswoman doing what she can for mental health advocacy; Dara's need for moisturiser; and a brilliant movie recommendation to tie in with the overall theme of misdirected pain and trauma.

TheClearout.com article on the poverty of political leadership: https://theclearout.com/2020/03/11/convince-us/

Irish business - mental health journals: https://www.sisterhoodjournals.com/

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Love, Wellness, and Creativity, or Getting Violent with your Process

Thu, 18 Nov 2021 00:01:52 GMT

In this episode, before getting to the main topic, Dara observes how disconcertingly warm it is for November, and argues that things being not quite right can be extremely disruptive. He commends teachers for persevering amidst the unending Covid disruptions. The first part of the episode concludes with why his daughter felt the need to say "I hate you" to him.

The main meat of the episode revolves around creativity and what conditions are most conducive to its thriving. Dara offers a theory of creativity that sees it as an expression of love and wellness. He factors in honesty, authenticity and vulnerability as being central to fear-free creative flow and bold risk-taking.

He also looks at the art vs artist debate, paying special attention to Picasso and how two very different artists perceive the man and his work.

He shares the thoughts of others on the creative process which includes Flaubert, Philip Roth, and Fanny Brice, of all people. A movie recommendation is popped in at the end to leave everyone feeling warm and fuzzy.

Post on Hannah Gadsby's Nanette and truth-telling: https://theclearout.com/2018/08/01/simple/

C.A.N. Projects Podcast interview: https://www.spreaker.com/user/14946997/wellness-with-attitude-the-clearout-podc_1

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The Bridges of Wellness and Bounty

Thu, 11 Nov 2021 00:01:18 GMT

In this episode Dara waxes lyrical about bridges of many kinds. He starts off with Lloyd, Jeff and Beau Bridges before turning his attention to the usefulness and aesthetic pleasure of actual bridges.

But what he really wants to talk about is the idealistic symbolism of bridges and how they help us get to other places and how they help us transcend things we wouldn't otherwise be able to get over. He puts metaphorical bridges at the centre of a theory of wellness, arguing that we build bridges in our lives to the things and people that keep us well.

Along the way there is time to reflect on the natural pace of evolution and environmental adaptation and to contextualise those changes in a discussion about the contemporary debate around gender and pronoun assignation.

Finally, the episode is wrapped up with a quick breakdown of cherished bridge scenes from the movies. Don't like bridges? Get over it!

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The Fallible Smotherboard and the Fear of Being Seen

Thu, 04 Nov 2021 00:01:15 GMT

In this episode, Dara discovers the word 'haecceity', which stems from the Latin word for 'thisness', and is used to describe the quality that makes a thing or a person uniquely themselves. He argues that this is something we cannot hide, no matter what we do.

He discusses the vulnerability of state change and how it might inform social anxiety or a dread of being seen. That leads to asking in what ways being seen benefits or threatens us. He looks at how being embattled is a very particular state that does not permit reflection or mindfulness until the state has passed.

Dara also looks at how social media makes us objectify ourselves and how that becomes a distancing dynamic that keeps us further from our true selves. He believes that many of us have become compulsive consumers of our own narratives, and that has placed us in a state of permanent presentation that we instinctively understand to be transactionary.

He wonders about what we are attracted to and what we attract, and how what we see in the world is often a reflection of how we view ourselves.

Time is also found to throw in some movie references and to give a shout out to both the new Spurs manager and an eccentric musical entertainer by the name of Earl Okin, whose memorable 1981 desire to be treated as a sex object is a distinct childhood memory of Dara's!

A Word a Day - https://wordsmith.org/awad/index.html

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The Unloved Child, or Wielding the Blade of Creation

Wed, 27 Oct 2021 23:01:57 GMT

In this episode, Dara is inspired by Denis Villeneuve's Bladerunner 2049 (5:55) to go on a wide-ranging exploration of identity, consciousness and origin. He wonders if the leaders of Big Tech inspired Jared Leto's portrayal of the designer in the Villeneuve movie (10:37) before asking what level of thought and feeling is possible for AI entities (14:26).

A related digression leads to a heavyweight boxer's grandiosity (17:35) which in turn leads to one of Shakespeare's great villainesses who Dara argues is a template for objectified misogyny (29:45). Returning to the broader theme of identity, ideas of meaning, fulfilment, purpose and completion are discussed (34:57) before raising the question of how our perception of our limitations is a source of pain (42:59).

The quest for belonging is looked at in the context of other fictional creations - Pinocchio, David from Spielberg's A.I. and Frankenstein's monster (48:51) - which Dara sees as involving profound vulnerability (53:42). He concludes with a wellness argument for becoming a parent to oneself (1:08:06).

The ClearOut.com piece on unburdening our psychic load and giving ourselves peace: https://theclearout.com/2019/11/01/good-enough/

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You wanna peace of me?, or The rocky road to reconciliation

Wed, 20 Oct 2021 23:01:51 GMT

In this episode, once he's finished breaking down, and being revolted by, the animal dynamics at Hashtag Blessed, Dara launches into a deep dive of conflict (20' 43"), taking as a first reference point an article on anger by A.C. Grayling (27' 31"). From there he ponders the concept of dehumanisation (36' 24") in the context of conflict.

He argues for the necessity of truth (45' 37") and its bedfellows, honesty and courage, as vital components of conflict resolution. That leads to a look at forgiveness and contrition (52' 48") and whether they are codependent.

Dara moves on to look at the outcomes of attempted reconciliation in the historic Northern Irish and South African conflicts (56' 56"), before finally returning to a central tenet of sustainable wellness - the forgiveness of self (72' 25").

Along the way there are references to Pixar's Finding Nemo and Up, as well as Wolfgang Petersen's epic, Troy, and Alfred Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent.

The Rise (and Fall?) of Reconciliation in Northern Ireland - Peace Research article by Duncan Morrow 2012

The Truth and Reconciliation Report - South Africa (PDF)

A.C. Grayling, philosopher and writer

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Walking in the shadow and keeping her light

Wed, 13 Oct 2021 23:01:17 GMT

In this episode Dara stays firmly in mental health territory and discusses at length our fear of the dark side of ourselves. He talks about the unexpressed and the uncomfortable and argues for disciplined, non-hysterical acceptance of the parts of ourselves that make us turn away.

He reflects on the aspects of his own behaviour and personality that concern him and falls back once more on embedded positive practices as the cornerstone of his coping strategy.

Finally he wonders about social dark areas, cultural blind spots and conspiracies of silence. It all sounds very dark, but he tries to keep it light!

My piece on darkness: https://theclearout.com/2016/02/15/whos-afraid-of-the-dark/

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Big bad daddies! From Tony Soprano to my father in several easy steps

Wed, 06 Oct 2021 23:00:13 GMT

In this episode Dara explores the American father as captured in TV sensations The Sopranos and Breaking Bad. He also looks at Arthur Miller's theatre masterworks Death of a Salesman and All My Sons before briefly visiting old Hollywood depictions of idealised fathers, both with and without collars!

He resists the sentimentalisation of fatherhood and critiques his own patterns of behaviour as a father before moving on to discuss a disturbing revelation about the abuse perpetrated by the Catholic Church in France. This leads to an examination of institutions as proxy fathers and the implications of their failure.

The episode concludes with Dara talking about his own father and reading a poem about him that is an exploration of ageing, memory loss, agency and erasure. And of course, also love.

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The thrum of the machine, or The beautiful irreducibility of character

Thu, 30 Sep 2021 05:22:32 GMT

In this episode Dara explores the concept of character and how its uncovering might lie at the heart of true strength, happiness and resilience. He places it in firm counterpoint to the litany of reductive names, labels and titles and other identifiers we have put on us. That prompts a reflection on the tyranny of the word 'Mother'.

Drawing inspiration from Joan Didion and a key principle of traditional karate, Dara argues that character enables us to be better, more selfless human beings.

There are also some thoughts about what we hang our personalities on, Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, the importance of saying goodbye and An American Werewolf in London - even though he was convinced he hadn't referenced any movies!

Joan Didion's essay on Self-Respect: https://www.vogue.com/article/joan-didion-self-respect-essay-1961

Karate dojo kun: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C5%8Dj%C5%8D_kun

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Such big feelings!, or Learning masculinity from the movies

Thu, 23 Sep 2021 05:19:43 GMT

In this episode Dara asks the question - what movies really do it for you? Before giving his own answer, he explores the types of masculinity that he has been attracted to on the big screen since he was a child. From the days of Spencer Tracy, through the Star Wars and Indiana Jones era, to the modern emotional landscape of 'men's movies', he covers a lot of ground and a lot of movies that all capture a certain type of bruised masculinity.

He explains what he means by the 'male chick flick' and concludes the episode by homing in on the male-centric stories of 5 particular contemporary directors - James Gray, James Mangold, Scott Cooper, Gavin O'Connor and Taylor Sheridan.

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If I can't get love, I'll take acceptance

Thu, 16 Sep 2021 07:54:20 GMT

In this episode, Dara reflects on body image and the objectification and commodification of female beauty and sexuality. He discusses the sexist rhetoric and dynamics that he has always found pervasive among many of the men he has known. Along the way, he revisits his own introduction back in the day to the sexualised female iconography of Playboy magazine.

He talks about the destructive and warping impact of shame and realises it is an aspect of his own parenting that concerns him because he recognises it from his own childhood.

Finally, he looks at depictions of shame on the big screen via particular actors and movies.

Todd Sampson, creator of Mirror Mirror: http://toddsampson.com.au/

David Thomson's The Big Screen: https://www.bookdepository.com/Big-Screen-David-Thomson/9780141047126

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The weight of expectations and accepting loss of control

Thu, 09 Sep 2021 06:04:16 GMT

In this episode, Dara gets stuck into expectations and how imposing they can be if they are too rigid. He draws a connection between unmet expectations and the loss of control, and the anger that results from that.

He points out the flawed thinking of anthropomorphising the family chickens, who have been giving him a particularly annoying day.

A moment is taken to acknowledge two actors who recently died - Jean Paul Belmondo and Michael K Williams, better known as The Wire's Omar.

And last but not least, a rant about a type of hyper-wellness that Dara considers to be missing the point.

Marc Maron - WTF - Michael K Williams: http://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/remembering-michael-k-williams

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