The ClearOut

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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