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Geoff Finan
154 Plays4 years ago
Geoff Finan was the Writer in Residence for Dublin City Council for the Dublin North West area in the summer of 2018 and again in 2019 and is currently lecturing in the National College of Art and Design on the module ‘Voices From The Margins’. Last year he had the honour of writing the 100 year commemorative poem celebrating the first Dáil in Ireland, titled ‘January 1919’. Geoff was recently commissioned as part of the First Fortnight Festival to write his most recent piece ‘Gloke’ after working with The Traveling Community for four months. Geoff has also been commissioned by the DCC’s Culture Connects project to write for the Local Heroes initiative and his poem 'A Letter To Leo' was chosen as the flagship piece for the My Name Is campaign, fighting against child homelessness in Ireland.
Geoff has written and performed a poem for the documentary Baristas, which has gone to number 1 in 8 countries, top 10 in the US and top 5 in Canada and the UK, in the documentary charts and is now streaming on Amazon Prime. He was also recently shortlisted for writing and performing in the short film ‘Taboo’. Geoff been featured on RTÉ, TV3, Today Fm, 98 FM, FM104 and Newstalk and in The Sunday Business Post, The Times, The Irish Times and The New York Times.
https://www.instagram.com/thepoetgeoff/
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing. Creator and host, Dan Vellante. Editor and producer, Peter Bauer.
Special Guest Introduction
00:00:18
Speaker
This is Ken Vellante with the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast. A special episode, a friend of mine from overseas, Jeff Finan, a poet, a playwright. You might recall in the past, we had a guest from Ireland, Rachel
00:00:33
Speaker
Lally and she did a six of one half a dozen of the other podcast with the philosophers and creatives and Jeff is a part of that troop and I gotta tell you both personally professionally for the podcast it's it's it's it's great to be able to chat with you Jeff
Appreciating Absurdity in Life
00:00:53
Speaker
Thanks so much Ken. It's really really great to get the chat to you. I love how the friendship has come about. I love the absurdity of life and sometimes I love realising that something absurd is happening at the time. And then one morning I just woke up and suddenly I'm on a
00:01:15
Speaker
an Instagram group with with you and some people and I'm like, and everybody's talking as if we're friends for like, you know, I was just I was kind of like, this is, this is absolutely beautiful. So yeah, it's been great. I'm really, really excited about doing this.
00:01:33
Speaker
Yeah, it is. And I really appreciate what you just said in the experience. But let's start off
Childhood and Early Influences
00:01:39
Speaker
first. The fun part is finding out what you were like when you were younger and we always kind of connected to creativity or words or books or what were you like?
00:01:49
Speaker
I loved reading when I was younger. My mom used to just give me books. We didn't have much money. When I was growing up, there was a massive recession on in Ireland. My family got hit pretty badly with that. My dad's business went under. So we were really, really, really poor. But one of the things that my mom was always focused on was that
00:02:15
Speaker
we would have education she was like like once you have education then like nobody can take that away from you and you can start again so that was a big part of me growing up was just the fact like my mom was dead set on giving us the best education that she could and uh so books were a massive part but like i was so shy you know i was like i was cripplingly shy up until i was about 17
00:02:41
Speaker
I just didn't, I was the kid that hid in the background, you know. And I didn't know I was creative because I think the shyness kind of dictated that I didn't have the confidence to actually presume that I was good enough to create anything. And it was only kind of a bit later on that that started to come out. And then like once it started, I just like embraced it.
Creative Journey and Poetry
00:03:09
Speaker
I started it was during that like when house music was big in Ireland or as big over in Europe and I started to DJ was my first real creative outlet. I became an underground house music DJ and was running my own clubs with my sister and kind of pop-up clubs they'd be called now and then from that that led me into like different bands that I was in. I was a singer in a few different bands and
00:03:36
Speaker
I've always loved hip-hop music, but I tried my hand at rap and I'm terrible, absolutely terrible when I constantly- What part of it, just to cut in, what part of it do you feel you're terrible at? I heard, you know, there's always the lyricism of the poetry and stuff like that. And maybe my head kicked in like some of the, like hearing that rhyme was, what was it for you that you said you're thinking now you're going to do it?
00:04:03
Speaker
I find there's two different ways when I'm writing. When I have the freedom to write poetry, it's exactly that. It's freedom. And I find that I find a truer version of myself in poetry.
Constraints of Writing to Music
00:04:19
Speaker
But when I'm writing to music, there's constraints with bars and rhythms.
00:04:25
Speaker
that are kind of forced on me. And I then, I kind of regress in the way I write and I write versions of myself that I think other people want to see.
00:04:39
Speaker
that are not true. And with anything in art, if you're not, in my opinion, if you're not creating for yourself, and if you're not creating to your truest version of yourself, then people can see straight through that. And that was the way when I was rapping. I wasn't comfortable on the beats. I couldn't find any of the pockets to come in on. I could kind of do it, but it just highlighted
00:05:05
Speaker
to me that I was full of shit, you know? That's the answer. Hey Ken, I was full of shit. That was the problem. I swear dude, that was the thing. It was like, I was writing all this stuff that, oh Jesus, like pretending to be cool and oh man, it just, it just wasn't me. You know what I mean? Like that whole attitude wasn't me.
00:05:33
Speaker
And I couldn't find a way to do it that would give you a sense of who I am.
Cultural Influences in Ireland
00:05:39
Speaker
Whereas I think I can do that in my poetry. I can be vulnerable in the poetry. I can talk about the struggles that I've gone through and come out of. And do it hopefully in a way that's kind of beautiful to listen to. Yeah, well, it certainly is. And you can definitely hear
00:06:00
Speaker
the struggle and what comes out of that. Jeff, and I say this in good humor, I'm going to have a couple of ignorant American questions for you. Since I know you well, I'm going to have a total lack of knowledge.
00:06:18
Speaker
You know, for me, I'm a, you know, I'm a literature guy, you know, a literature in philosophy. You know, those are all the books that I've read and studied formally at the university and such.
00:06:31
Speaker
I've always been drawn to the beauty of Irish lyricism and the famous Joyce and the novelists and the beautiful famous, so many famous poets that come out of Ireland. It seems to be a fascination with words and sounds. And I say that, like I said, in the ignorant American, it was such, at times, there's a lot of great American poets, but such a kind of
00:07:01
Speaker
The reverence for the word in the age of Trump is ... My main question is, what is it about Ireland or
00:07:15
Speaker
you know, with words in the poetry that comes out, there's something about the sensibility or the environment or respect for the word. We're an island, do you know what I mean? I mean, first and foremost, we're an island, a small island, and we're storytellers. Like, just you go anywhere in this country and you'll fall into somebody telling you a story or you'll fall into telling somebody a story. You can sit in any bar in the country
00:07:42
Speaker
where you used to be able to, you know, when stuff was open, but you could sit any place at any time and somebody would tell you their life story. People joke all the time. I mean, like, when you meet somebody, the first thing people say is, you know, what's the story? How's things? What's the story? What's going on? And we just talk, you know what I mean? Like, from when you're a kid, you're just brought up to talk. But there's also, in my opinion anyway,
00:08:07
Speaker
In our language, Gweilge, our language is still alive, barely. But there's so many rhythms and really strange translations from Irish into English. Irish as a language is very, very poetic.
00:08:24
Speaker
Like, you won't say in Irish, like, you'll never say there's no place like home. You say, ní lain tinn tom, or the hinn tom fain. So there's no, there's no fireplace like your own fireplace. Because the fireplace back in like, like, in Ireland was, was the heart of the home. It's where everybody congregated. It's where, it's where like the food was cooked. It's where, how you kept alive. So it's like,
00:08:48
Speaker
There's no place like home, of course there's no place like home, but it's actually it's the heart of the home that really matters. And there's so many sayings like that, you know, may the road rise with you. That's, that's an Irish saying of, you know, Gunnery and Beauregard. So the kind of poetic nature of language is in our own, you know,
00:09:09
Speaker
national language. And when you translate that into English, which was kind of forced upon us, that we still keep that kind of poetry running through our veins. And even like
00:09:22
Speaker
you know, like even on a day to day chatting to people that you find with Irish people that like, that they know what beauty is, you know, and they know how to make a story beautiful and interesting as they're talking away to you. And they know they're doing it, you know what I mean? Subconsciously, you know, and even consciously, it's like they know how they'll take an average story and just turn it and make it witty and funny. And, and yeah, it kind of comes from there, I think.
00:09:50
Speaker
Yeah, and I appreciate indulgence on that. It's just something I've been I was thinking of and I think in thinking back into a lot of, you know, literature and poetry that I've read over time and just seeing the influences in culture and the kind of openness to expression. And I like the way you described it, honestly, because what I've one of the things I've found here is that, you know, we're we're trapped into this kind of bizarre
00:10:20
Speaker
unhealthy ecosystem, echo chamber, social media, and there's like a lack of commons for people to tell stories or, you know, like a big commons to settle, settle disagreements, right? Like to be like,
00:10:36
Speaker
I believe this, you believe that. And, you know, there's no comments for the story or some sort of connection. And I, I really, I really appreciate your comments about that. Now, what, um, so, so, uh, talking about, talking about your art, um, in, in writing and now, um, have you, you know, talking about the pandemic, um,
Pandemic's Impact on Creativity
00:11:05
Speaker
What's changed for you? Has it helped your art? What does it cause for you? What's happened? For me, inspiration has been very hard to come by. Having a place to create is really difficult because I don't create at home. I get out and I...
00:11:26
Speaker
I would walk around a lot and kind of look at the city and listen to the city and let that kind of come over me to kind of get the first lines of what I want to say and then I would write in like, I would normally write in different bars around the city.
00:11:43
Speaker
hubs over here on a few different places, like little kind of nooks and corners and places. And I normally get just get a pint of Guinness and sit down and put my headphones in and just right. Whereas I can't do that now, you know, like that that's been taken away. So like at home, I was working from home, I'm sleeping at home, I was eating at home, you know, I was like, yeah, everything was at home. So like, I had no place to disconnect from that. And I did find that really difficult. No, I've written some stuff this year.
00:12:13
Speaker
And I'm starting to write again now. And the stuff that I'm writing for, for whatever reason is really positive, like it's ridiculously positive. And I've never written like that before. So it's, it's kind of, yeah, the stuff I'm writing is really full of hope. Whereas a lot of my work would be dark, you know, there's no other way to say it, but I've got like two sides, I've got like,
00:12:42
Speaker
Some people refer to me as like a social poet because I tackle a lot of issues that are what I think are wrong in society. And I'm still doing that now. I've still got a lot of projects on at the moment. And then the other side of me that I would it would be very autobiographical. But the stuff that I've done in the past has been very
00:13:06
Speaker
pretty dark yeah i kind of look and i'm like what the fuck jeff your life was shit but i'm really happy you know what i mean like i'm a really happy go lucky guy but i've just had this really kind of uh yeah challenges that i've that i'm happy that i'm overcome
00:13:22
Speaker
Well, yeah, and I think sometimes that can be the case. I could speak for myself. It's like you can have these experiences that, yeah, you look at it and you read what you've written and it's just heavy. It's like, holy shit, you know, how do you get through that? And then I think there is an element where you say there's a positivity or being the survivor or moving through things where you can be a little bit free about it, right?
00:13:44
Speaker
That shit didn't, that shit didn't kill me. I'm alive and I'm talking, right? So. Yeah. And actually the pieces that I've written, my last piece that I wrote was a letter that I write to myself from the future. I mean, it's not like science fiction at all, but it's kind of like advice that I give to myself that I've put away and I can pick it up at any stage in my life. And it's quite kind of
00:14:14
Speaker
hopeful and just telling me that, you know, no matter what happens, things are going to be OK and to trust in my decisions and stuff like that. So that was quite nice to kind of read afterwards, because I think there's something magical that happens when the pen hits the paper and you start to
00:14:33
Speaker
unravel your own subconscious and you don't necessarily know what's going to happen. So you get into, hopefully in this state of flow, which is a lovely place to be, and then all of this stuff just starts pouring out. And afterwards you get to read it and see, it's like, Jesus, that's who I am, you know, that's how I feel. The discovery and the language that comes out,
00:14:58
Speaker
Yeah. Thank you for that. I want to ask, I want to ask a big question. I want to ask a big question now that you're still fresh early on in the interview. I'm always fresh there. You're always fresh. Hey, why should I have doubted you? That's terrible, terrible that I doubt it. You're as good as 50 minutes is 15.
Art as a Lens on Life
00:15:17
Speaker
Um, what is art? What is art?
00:15:24
Speaker
I thought I knew the answer to this question before. I think for me, art is the way we understand our experiences. And you don't have to be an artist to get there. At any stage in our life, whether we're children,
00:15:46
Speaker
You know, education comes through so much song. Or, you know, as you're going through a teenager and all that angst, then you kind of connect to the books you're reading and the music that you're listening to. And, you know, as you grow older, then it's always there. Like, I mean, art is in everybody's life.
00:16:05
Speaker
Every single person's life and sometimes people don't realize it but like it's all around us and it helps us understand who we are and what this world and universe is I think Thank you Any change in the what art does Right now. I mean there's been you know part of a way of looking at the question is
00:16:34
Speaker
you know, reinforcing society or disrupting society. I mean, we're talking about art, you know, in a pandemic, right? And artists in a pandemic. Has the role of what art needs to do in general changed since things changed? No, not at all. Art is always there. So art will always adapt to whatever the circumstances are, because it's just a way of understanding them. So it's like,
00:17:06
Speaker
In the need for protests, when the world needs protest, protest music comes. And protest songs comes, and protest poetry comes, and protest films comes. And in the need, after great tragedies,
00:17:22
Speaker
There's poems and lyrics to help us understand the grief instances that are there, or the grief that we're feeling. And that's what happens. And this pandemic, there is a lot of, after a huge disaster that happens, it can be described as afterwards you go through the stages of grief.
00:17:41
Speaker
of you know ignoring like it and you know and refusing that that it's ever happens to becoming scared by it and panicky and hopefully going towards that holding of acceptance. And with art it helps you go through each one of those periods and so it hasn't changed but it will adapt to what's happening at the time. I know that's kind of
00:18:09
Speaker
I think I've been interrogating the question since the onset of the pandemic and now other ruptures in society that have occurred. I think it's always good to re-engage what it is, what's the discourse.
00:18:32
Speaker
you know, in the pressures, the pressures or whatever that's, you know, that's felt by artists to produce some art.
Poem Performance: 'No Takebacks'
00:18:40
Speaker
Jeff was speaking with Jeff Finan, a poet from Ireland, a writer. Jeff, do you have, as far as, you know, with this podcast, a lot of times I try to have
00:18:54
Speaker
little bit of, you know, kind of live performance or, you know, whether it's music or some of your poetry. I was wondering if you had a little bit you could kind of share with the listeners. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'd be delighted to. This piece is called No Takebacks. And I suppose I'll do this piece because it goes through a bit of like what I was talking about already, where I came from as a young kid and getting here. It goes like this.
00:19:23
Speaker
I come from a dub and that's old school. We're home through to newts and shiny tracksuits. I come from a place where the best haircut was the step. People got wrecked and we were just left round the streets freely. My gang was ten deep. We'd spend our days hanging around corners and when night came upon us we became night crawlers getting into trouble and running back to our mothers. Yeah, we were right little gurus. See, days were simple for us. Getting into trouble and getting out without much of a fuss. If we needed a ball,
00:19:51
Speaker
We docked her a card for a championship. Door-to-door chancellors. Eh, will you sponsor us, miss? Getting just enough money for a cup champion football and a few bag of chips. See, this is the innocence that I miss. I remember the first time when the lads had a dirty mag. I remember when Big I missed Halloween because he got sick from smoking fags. I remember being 15 and getting served and drinking cans with the lads. I remember when Chris told me he kicked a needle out of one of the lads' odine in the flats. But we were happy little chaps.
00:20:19
Speaker
her jailed upper eyes and their baseball caps. We'd slag off girls because we didn't want them to know that we liked them or that we were into them. We'd spent all night dreaming and kissing them and all day pretending that we weren't looking at them with the lads taking the absolute piss out of us because we wouldn't say that we wanted to wear the face off them. As nights had faded, they'd go back to me gaff, spend some time we'd die and watch TV for a laugh because ours was the house that was always full of laughter. Even when my brother died,
00:20:49
Speaker
Even when the banks are at the door, the man and the money are there to take our house. Me and the corner boys are now seeing this strange man shouting meow and giving out because the house was in her name and they got fucked right off. Times after that were tight. But my ma was a fight which she fought for all of us. When things were rough, she was there to pick us up. When I had to cover a hole in me running with cardboard, she said, once it doesn't rain, son, you'll be grand and that stopped making it awkward. This matriarch of incredible heart is to hear with this story. See, she once told me they could take getting some.
00:21:18
Speaker
They can't take your education. These are the words I've lived my life on, so when others were out gurrying, I was in studying. When I didn't get the exact exam results, I wanted to start worrying. She was there to comfort me, to encourage me, to keep on going. And every time I got hockied out about my life, or just taking my dad and his wife out, they didn't ring up their kids to feel sorry. And to never worry, because no matter what they take, if you have your education, you can take it back. And sometimes they think back to those lads in the flats with their hair gelled up and their eyes in their baseball caps. Think,
00:21:47
Speaker
What if they listened to the words from me, Ma? They could still be here. Instead, do they know they're dead? Or they're strung out on smack? Thank you. Dang. Thanks, Geoff. Cheers, man.
00:22:06
Speaker
I was going to, my next question, I'm actually not, I'm going to ask it, but you answered it. The next question is what or who made you who you are. Right. Right. Yeah. And it's a really great relationship with my folks. Like I go out drinking with my dad quite a bit and.
00:22:25
Speaker
Like he's old and early with you know the pandemic he's had to kind of isolate himself and stuff because he's in his late 70s and but no other fantastic relationship very different relationship with my mom and dad my mother would have
Family Influence on Art and Sports
00:22:40
Speaker
really encouraged the art in me and would bring me to museums around this around the city and would you know point at paintings and was like you know you own that you know and she she allowed me to have she allowed me to keep her keep art in my heart you know i mean she allowed me she allowed
00:23:00
Speaker
She kind of made it real for me. Art wasn't for the rich. It wasn't for people who could afford to buy it. And you didn't have to be educated in some fancy museum. You could just go into it.
00:23:16
Speaker
Yeah, just go into a gallery and just look at a piece. Do you like it? Yeah. Do you not like it? No. Well, now you understand art. Why do you like it? Well, I actually just kind of resonates with me because and that's all it is. You know what I mean? Like so artists for everybody and she allowed that. Whereas my dad would have been more of the like the. Really encouraged a sporty side of me and stuff like that. So it would have brought me to football teams and and we kind of watch soccer a lot with each other and talk about that. Yeah.
00:23:46
Speaker
Yeah, it's the beautiful game. The way the approach to football is for you over there is on an elevated status. It's an art, right? The fine game. The fine game. Yeah. But the stats, the whole thing about art, you can find it in my new parts of life.
00:24:12
Speaker
like sometimes I'd be in a bar in Dublin and I go down and it's like I love really kind of shit dingy bars that like haven't been done up in a long long time so you've got like the original tiles and the original decor from like you know 80 hundred years ago and you can go down to like the toilets and the toilets stink but you're like holy shit how enormous are beautiful you know
00:24:38
Speaker
Somebody put a lot of effort into making those things, you know, and it can be in anything. The timing, you know, it could be the way somebody expresses themselves and that can certainly be true through sport. Absolutely, yeah.
Irish Folklore and Superstitions
00:24:55
Speaker
Now, when I mentioned I said I have one or two kind of ignorant American questions about Ireland, you gave me permission on two, I think, maybe, or maybe I'm reading it. I got one. And I get asked this because, you know, part of this is curious. We get against the stranger. Are banshees real? Are banshees real, Jeff? Yeah, of course they are. Tell me about them. Like, what did they do?
00:25:24
Speaker
You're meant to see them, if you see a banshee, somebody's gonna die. If you hear a banshee, somebody's gonna die.
00:25:32
Speaker
Yeah. So sometimes a lot of people would say that somebody, you know, is this somebody you know, or is just somebody's died? Yeah. Okay. I have a friend and he said that he heard a bansheez whale one night in Dublin and then like him and his family heard it and the next day his aunt died. And so a lot of people would say the same thing that the night before somebody has died suddenly they would hear the bansheez whale. Yeah. All right. Is it like a scream?
00:26:01
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, it's a really, really high pitch screen. But then there's like, there's a lot of people in Ireland that would say, you know, they don't believe in fairies or banshees. But then when it comes to it, they kind of be like, Oh, I'm not like the Hawthorne free if there's a single in a field.
00:26:21
Speaker
that that's where the fairies live. There's like nothing around it, but it's a hawthorn tree that that's where the fairies live. And there was a road that was built between two of the big cities in Ireland, between Dublin and Limerick, I think. And as they were building the motorway, and this is only recent, like this is only like 20 years ago, as they were building the motorway,
00:26:40
Speaker
they came to a hawthorn tree, and people were like, oh, just demolishing, go through it. And none of the builders would, there was a protest. They were like, no, I'm not going to be the one to cut it down. Because if you cut down a fairy tree, a hawthorn tree, they'll come after your family. And it's bad luck for your family. There's a motorway in this country that was built like 20 years ago, 25 years ago, that goes down and then goes around the hawthorn tree until it comes back onto the roof and goes back down to the city. So yeah. Oh, goodness. Yeah.
00:27:10
Speaker
Yeah, I, uh, a friend of mine, uh, of course, uh, Tom- Tommy Riley. Tommy Riley, American.
00:27:17
Speaker
went over to the old country for a, you know, a semester or something in college. And he had heard all those stories. He came back with a couple of Banshee's stories, scared the shit out of me. And I was just talking to you right now, and I know you'd give me a little bit of license to, hey, you got an Irish person on the phone here asking a couple of these things that we don't understand on our side. So. Yeah, yeah.
00:27:45
Speaker
Um, so, uh, I got, I got a couple more questions for you, Jeff. Uh, one, one I was interested in, uh, is, uh, is about creating, um, and, and I know you were saying because of the change in the environment, uh, due to pandemic, uh, you know, you've had some difficulties, you know, uh, kind of creating or writing in the way that you would, but do you ever, um,
00:28:10
Speaker
Do you ever question the drive? Do you feel compelled to make art? How much do you have to...
00:28:20
Speaker
uh, you know, direct yourself to creating art. You know what I mean? Whether it's a chosen vocation or you're just cursed or however you look at it, you know? Like for me, it's, it's not chosen. It's like, there's sometimes I just have to do something otherwise I'm miserable. Like there's so many times in my life that, you know, I took a painting, um,
00:28:44
Speaker
after a really traumatic time in my life and I was like I just need to paint I don't know where it came from but like all I could think of like I was my mom and I were like are you alright so I'm like I just need to paint man I just need to paint and this was going on for weeks and until I eventually just bought some acrylics and some canvases and then just started painting and like it just like I had to do it there was no there's no other way I could have described to somebody they were like they thought that it was going to become obsessive and I'm like no I just
00:29:11
Speaker
it's a neat, it's an innate need in me, like it just bursts out of me. And it's the same with so many of my like, so many of my poems are not planned. They're just, they just explode out of me. You know, it's like, I get a first line and it's like, Oh, shit, that line is really nice. I like that. And then I sit down and then all of this stuff about my life just starts pouring out. So yeah, it's it's definitely something that
00:29:35
Speaker
I don't have any control. Well, I have some control over but but like more so than not, I don't know. There was times like I was there. I kind of bumble about life and get into these weird situations. And I was the the poet for the Lord Mayor in the city for a while. Oh, wow.
00:29:56
Speaker
Yeah, it was like it was pretty I didn't think it was strange at the time, but actually, like in hindsight, it was a bit strange. Like I would I would perform for ambassadors in his in his residence. And and then there was the. There was a hundred year anniversary of the first parliament, the first doll it's called in Ireland. So the first doll happened in 1919. And I was given the honor of writing the poem for that by the by the Lord Mayor.
00:30:26
Speaker
Wow. So that would have taken me kind of that would have been where I would have had a lot more control over the writing and I would have had to go off and research and.
00:30:35
Speaker
and learn as much as I can about the subject before I even attempted to write it. So that was pretty cool. But then it was so weird. I'd be on a night out in Dublin City with drinks. I know Rachel was on the show. Rachel's my girlfriend. So we'd be out with friends and stuff. And I'd just get a phone call. And people were like, who's that? I'm like, oh, it's just the Lord Mayor. He just wants me to go over for drinks. And the Lord Mayor wants me to go over to his house for drinks now.
00:31:05
Speaker
Yeah, I just sit up and talk politics and just drink Guinness until it's gone. And I just thought it was normal. I mean, I just thought that this was part of the process, but obviously it's it's not a lot of people do. Yeah. Hey, I was wondering, Jeff, and this is a question of mine. I really connected to when you were talking about
00:31:27
Speaker
you know, when you painted. And here's the reason why I really connected to this. I've talked about this on the show a bunch. I had never painted prior to about three years ago, and then somebody introduced me to it. And that was going through a very much probably a loss at that time that
00:31:47
Speaker
I could not articulate in any reasonable fashion. For the first time in my life, somebody showed me the basics of acrylic painting. I didn't know this world existed.
00:32:06
Speaker
It's it's all it's all I could do to express myself And for for a while and here's the interesting little bit and I was wondering your comments on this and and I'm talking about this in the sense of Being a painter and being a writer. Okay that dynamic group. Yeah, I started to develop a problematic relationship with my painting and here's the reason why and I'm gonna resolve this and
Compulsion to Create
00:32:36
Speaker
I believe or I surmise that the painting was an excuse for me not to write. That there was some aspect of exposure or process or writing it out that I refused to ask of myself or demand to myself. But I wanted to, so I can't paint. But I think it problematized my relationship with the painting because
00:33:05
Speaker
I'm meant to write more than I do. I see when I move. Yeah. I think you're being really overly critical on yourself there. Like the way my relationship with painting was, was that at the times that I was maybe struggling to write, I was able to go back to painting and I was still creating. I knew I was always going to go back to writing. Like that, that goes without saying, like that is my base. I love to write.
00:33:31
Speaker
But sometimes I just need to create in a different way so that I can go back and it opens up again for me.
00:33:37
Speaker
And so, yeah, I don't I don't think I don't think it interferes with my writing. I think, you know, if anything, it kind of frees me up to just be able to because it like I think so many times that we're told that we have to fit into these boxes, you know, to to for society to understand, it's like, well, what are you? Are you a poet? Are you a painter? Are you a musician? Are you like, I don't.
00:34:04
Speaker
No, you know what I mean? I'm just Jeff. I just do my thing, you know what I mean? Like I write sometimes and I paint a lot of times and just like I don't need to be absolutely unbelievably successful at every single thing that I do or at any every single art form, but I'm not doing it for that. Like I'm not doing it. Like none of my art is there to be successful. My art now, I'm confident enough to know that my art is there for me.
00:34:27
Speaker
I love to create and then that's it. And if people then connect with afterwards, great. But one doesn't stifle the other. I think it kind of complements it. Yeah, I hear that. Well, let me ask you before we get to the big something rather than nothing question that you know is coming. I have another question. And part of this recently, some of the questions I've been asking away from the conceptual have to do with my own journey and learning from others about, you know,
00:34:54
Speaker
how they move through things. One of the bigger questions, and I'm really fascinated in the answer to this question, particularly from writers, is how do you have the coverage to talk about yourself in words publicly? How do you do that? Oh, God, let me see. So I didn't.
00:35:22
Speaker
It's a process. I think I got to this stage where I was writing and I started to share it with some friends who I would look up to as artists. And they were... This was way after I'd done the music and the bands and tried hip-hop and stuff like that. I went back to poetry and I was writing a lot. As I was coming up towards 30, I started really putting the pen to page again.
00:35:53
Speaker
And I was sharing with friends and they were like, you really need to start doing some open mics, man, and start getting your stuff out there. And I just, I didn't want it. I was like, no, no, no, no, no. And I was making the excuse that it was, this is just for me. This is just for me. And then one of the guys said was like, if it's just for you, why are you reading it in a pub to me? And I'm like, what? Like, oh, oh, right. He's like, you want to share it. Don't be afraid of sharing it.
00:36:16
Speaker
and see how it goes like you don't like it it doesn't when i when i say to other people like that i'd maybe kind of help like get onto the stage for the first time it's like just do it see how it fits you don't like you you don't have to win anything you don't have to have every but people are generally there to support you no matter where you go if you're going to an open mic people want you to be good
00:36:43
Speaker
They want you to, you know what I mean? I've never been to an open mic where they've turned on people. And especially if people are there going for the first time, like, this is my first time reading my own poetry. That's fucking amazing. I mean, you've written something that has never been written in the entirety of humanity, even in the original. That's quite a kind of basic level to start off when you're going to go and share it.
00:37:09
Speaker
For me personally, I just ploughed through. I just kept on going. I was so nervous. I was so, so nervous getting up and reading. My heart would thump out of my chest. Sweats would come. All the usual stuff. Stereotypical things that everybody talks about. And then just kept on getting more comfortable. And I like the stage. And that's kind of where
00:37:31
Speaker
the alter ego stuff comes into it. I don't perform under my normal name. The poet Jeff is how I perform. And the poet Jeff is very different than who I am. He's much more confident. He just kind of owns the stage and prels it and
00:37:52
Speaker
you know, like loves it up there. But then once once my final piece is done, I like I just I don't like compliments. So I get off stage as quickly as I can. But in the moment when I'm up there, I've created this persona that's that's different. And it just works for me. Yeah.
00:38:09
Speaker
Well, and I appreciate your answer there too. And like I said, as part of some of these, you know, the questions kind of, you know, just kind of exploring how it is we create, right? Psychologically, what do we do? And I really appreciate your
00:38:24
Speaker
your personal, uh, comments about that, uh,
Courage in Sharing Art
00:38:27
Speaker
as well, Jeff. Uh, so well, you know, the, the title of the podcast, something rather than nothing, as you know, I've traveled the, the, the world at least, you know, with calls to Australia, Ireland, you know, we're going to keep going into Ireland for the answer to this question, Jeff. Why is there something rather than nothing? Oh my God. Why is there something rather than nothing?
00:38:53
Speaker
I think it's to go back to what I said at the beginning of the podcast. I kind of like the absurdity of it all. And maybe there's a reason for all of this, but maybe not. Maybe it's just a huge big mistake or that it's kind of got us here, that our planet is the exact distance away from a sun that we're able to spark life and conscious thought came from somewhere. I wouldn't be religious, you know what I mean?
00:39:23
Speaker
I've studied religion and I've studied some philosophy and stuff and I can understand why people want to gravitate towards it because they want to know that the answer is that there is something for a reason. But like, yeah, it's maybe it's to create art.
00:39:46
Speaker
to be a creator, right? Yeah, I mean, I actually I wrote I read a book one time and and I don't particularly like the book, but it's chant around. I know it's a very famous book for people who who do travel and especially around India. And I didn't really like the book because it's kind of like a criminal who's saying that he's almost like the second coming of Jesus Christ and he's here to save. But, you know, I don't like that blowing smoke away at shit. But in it, like about two tours away in the book, there's a Muslim
00:40:16
Speaker
guy who's head of the mafia over in India. And he says that in the book, it was saying that anything that you do that helps progress the world or helps progress the universe is a positive thing and adds to it. And the bad things kind of detract from it. So in life, the thing is to try and do more things positively that will help the universe progress than to take away from it.
00:40:43
Speaker
And that's a quite interesting way of looking at life. So maybe it's just here to us all moving forward. And we're just here to help it move forward a little bit more. Yeah, I like that. I like that. I like that because it feels wise. You see that, Jeff? That's weird.
00:41:04
Speaker
That's wisdom you're defencing over there, right? Yeah, that's it. Oh, man. I think it was a few people that think I'm wise, Ken. I knew I liked you, bro. Hey, you know, if you got to go to America to get, you know, to get your props, right? It's all right. Yeah, you can. You've been invited. Hey, Jeff, tell the listeners about
Where to Find Jeff's Work
00:41:28
Speaker
where to find you, where to find you, your writing. I know I've seen videos on YouTube. Where do they find you? So you can find me at like, I put up stuff on Instagram at the Power Jeff, GEOFF. I have some videos under the same name. I kind of don't put up that much stuff.
00:41:48
Speaker
like I'm not great at sharing my stuff online and maybe it's a generational thing with me. I know like there's like kids who are a lot younger are great at putting all their stuff up but I kind of love performing. I've been threatening to write a book for a long time and I'm kind of about a quarter of away into it. I have all the stuff there, I just need to sit down and take my time to do it and that will come out at some stage.
00:42:14
Speaker
yeah and that's kind of the places yeah youtube um we did a podcast that you kind of got me from which it was the um six or one and a half a dozen of the other we there's like 10 lines as well yeah i think we're going to try and bring that back at some stage too because it was really good fun to do um and yeah i'm also on a documentary um
00:42:36
Speaker
baristas, which is a really weird thing for me another weird thing of my weird story to be part of but it was like the went to number one in nine countries and was like top 10 in the charts in the US and top five in the UK and Canada. So you can see one of my poems on that if you I think it's on Amazon Prime, they were the ones that funded it. So yeah, I'm up on that too. What was the name of the answer but he catches it baristas.
00:43:01
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. And yeah, yeah, check this up on YouTube. And if anybody wants to like likes my stuff and wants to comment or hear more stuff, send me a message on Instagram and I'll reply. I like replying to stuff.
00:43:15
Speaker
Yeah, I really appreciate your visiting here and it's kind of like like like I said the connection we have to the show and I love watching you know, I mean Even on this show a little bit a little bit of cursing, you know this and that I mean compared to what I've heard on six of one half a dozen the other this is like watching a very nice children's program, you know, I mean Yeah
00:43:43
Speaker
I have heard and seen things there and it's just great. This is, I'm saying very positive things, but, uh,
00:43:52
Speaker
It curls my hair, you know. But like in Ireland, like we like we we curse very poetically, you know, there's no harshness about it. We just use them as kind of these beautiful adjectives that kind of enhance our point. You know what I mean? Like so we can, whereas if the same words were used in another part of the world, people would be really offended. But in Ireland, it's like taking us a term of endearment. You know, it's it's it's a it's a wonderful program. And I'm glad we all
00:44:21
Speaker
connected there. Jeff, deep thanks. I view this as a great joy to be able to chat with you, but also to be able to share this conversation with listeners. It's been a great thrill, brother. Thank you so much. I've really enjoyed the conversation. And as I said at the beginning of the show, I was really looking forward to just chatting to you, really, because it's the absurdity of
00:44:52
Speaker
finding this random internet friend through a podcast that we put out during the pandemic and then we got on so well and had such a good format and became a friend very quickly and then get to do your podcast. It's great and hopefully one day we'll get to meet in person and I'm sure we will because the other guys all love you too. We think you're a legend so yeah, it's great.
00:45:15
Speaker
It's a great partnership for listeners and those who enjoy it. A lot more to come. Thanks so much, Jeff. And hey, let's talk soon, all right, brother? Absolutely, bro. Thank you. Take care now. You are listening to something rather than nothing.