The Cult Of My Inadequacy

This is Bill Nye and this is ill-advised by Bill Nye and just before we begin with questions

or playlists or any of the other features that I hope you enjoy, I just like to get something off my chest, yeah, I said to her chest, it's the fact that I'm on the run from fine dining, which I think of as an alibi for overcharging. Worst of all is where they come up between the nine courses and tell you how the tiny piece of food you've just been presented with was prepared and what it contains.

That's when I feel a combination of wanting desperately to go to sleep or to buy a gun, one of the two, and I had an American friend, in fact, Autumn De Wilde, the celebrated film director and photographer and music video director. We were in the environs of London and I was trying to introduce it to English, you know, food,

“and we kept being trapped in fine dining situations where you have to sit up straight”

and there's an air of gravity about, you know, and people move very quietly and speak in a lowly tone as if something religious was happening. I love going to restaurants and I love food, but I'm also on the run it occurs to me from fine writing, which I think is the same as what I heard a publisher refer to once as window pane prose, and I think what window pane prose means is that it's so spare

that the writer runs no risk whatsoever of being busted for anything. It's sort of neutral, it's also a blueprint for a television series, it's just like a treatment for a movie rather than anything actually literary, and it's just long form cowardice. There's a difference between successful sparse prose and prose where you're just trying not to get caught.

I only put those two things together because they've got the word fine in them, they have no other connection. Anyway, there you are, my chest is, if you're pardon the expression, I've said it again, my chest is clear, thank you for that. I needed it, I don't suppose you did, but it made me feel a whole lot better.

“Hi Bill, it's Elizabeth from Toronto, I think men should embrace manicures.”

What do you think? Love to hear your thoughts? Hey Elizabeth, where do I stand on manicures? I'm all for manicures, and I'm all for pedicures, and they become a regular part of my life, and I don't mind saying it out loud.

I never used to have manicures, rather than manicures, what I used to do was bite my nails

savagely, and I bit my nails long after you're supposed to have stopped biting your nails. I would sit on the sofa next to my mum watching TV, and I would unconsciously start to bite

“my nails, and my mother would, without even looking at me, would just backhand me in”

the face, to stop me doing it, and my sister, forgive me, and I for saying this, my sister used to chew her hair, so she'd be on one side of my mum, and I'd be on the other side chewing my nails, and intermittently, my mother would backhand my sister in the mouth, and backhand me in the mouth, in a loving way, just to discourage us. But when I got to about 50/7, and I was still biting my nails, which is obviously embarrassing,

and I tried all that painting stuff on it, and doing that which didn't taste any good, but I didn't mind that it didn't taste any good, I just still wanted to bite my nails, but I had to play a romantic part, and I had to be romantic with a very, very, very beautiful actor who I was quite uneasy about even being in the room with, frankly, without having to simulate any kind of passion with her, and my nails were a disgrace, so I said to

the makeup designer, what can we do, and she said, "Well, we'll get you a manicure with what's left, and we'll manicure the remains of your nails, and they did that, and

the young lady who did it, she put on some clear varnish, which was thrilling. I'd never

had respectable nails before in my life. I started to bite my nails as soon as, you know, I could find my hand, and I had these slightly shiny nails, which was just great, and I loved it, and it did actually work, and then I took to having manicures regularly, because

should have a pedicure, and I was a caveman, and those days, and I imagine that pedicures

were something that only women did, and I always avoided it, but then eventually I did

have a pedicure, and it was one of the greatest things, and so I happened to me, and now I have what I'm going to risk calling a mani-pedi. I know, my team of highly-paid, highly-powered professionals are open mouths that I've used the expression "mani-pedi", which is apparently on the band word list, or if it wasn't on the band word list, it's like me as no, but

“that's what they call it. That's what it's called in my diary, anyway, I have a mani-pedi,”

which is like being a prince of a small country, where you have one person doing your hands

and one person doing your feet, and it's one of the greatest things that ever happens, and

I love when my feet are beautiful, because my feet are left to themselves, they're nothing near, beautiful. Anyway, so I like having a manicure, and if I was a girl, if I was a woman, I would have every color of the rainbow, because I love that shit. I love, I'm not for me to have colored nails, because I just feel terrible, but I do like the whole phenomenon of it. So, yeah, I'm all about a love, a mani-cus.

Dear Mr. Nye, I've been playing the egg at home myself as an actor, since my early teens,

and I quite naturally play left-handed. But when I decided a few months ago to learn to play

the guitar from real, without thinking about it, I bought a right-handed guitar, and my progress can only be described as patchy. But I was at a gig the other night, in the front row of the stalls, I quite naturally played a guitar, and I quite naturally played it left-handed. In fact, I didn't play it really rather well, but I'm wondering whether my so-called real guitar career may have been held by playing right-handed, and I wonder whether you or any other ill-advised

listeners have had similar issues in their own air guitar careers? You're very sincerely indeed, Tim Wright, London. Tim, pull yourself together? No, but I don't quite understand, is why, if you're right-handed, when it came to egg guitar, you chose to play with your left hand.

“That's what's thrown me, slightly. I believe the answer to your question is, yeah, change your”

guitar and get a left-handed guitar. If, in fact, you're left-handed, I can't think of any other reason why you would egg guitar left-handed, unless you were. If you're a right-handed person, who's if you're a right-handed person, who for some reason, egg guitars with his left hand, then it's kind of unsettling, but you know, you could get over it, but if you're left-handed, get a left-handed guitar, that's all I know. But given that the egg guitar doesn't exist, let's just get that straight.

I know it's painful, but it's not really there. I forget too, because it's so real to me in the process of playing, that it's easy to forget, that it's an imaginary guitar. So it doesn't really make a lot of difference, but a good luck anyway, one way or the other. Hi Bill, this is Reba from California, and I'm wondering how to deal with anxiety, particularly when I've had a conversation with someone I will walk away and replay the conversation in my mind and discover all sorts of horrible things

“I probably should not have said. The only thing I can think of other than going back and apologizing”

and embarrassing myself is to just not speak to people and that in itself would cause its own anxiety. Do you ever have this problem and how do you deal with it? Thanks. Reba, I'm no stranger to the replaying of everything I said, am I okay? Will I be punished? Will the sky fall? I used to be much, much worse than I am now. My colleague has suggested that that's a function of getting older. How dare you? Nobody's true, it's probably because I don't know if I'm

wiser, but I'm certainly older, but I don't pretend to have the answer to this Reba, but I do know a

long periods of my life I only had negative thoughts about myself and everything I did was in defiance

“of endless negative propaganda in my mind against myself, all turned out to be lies, cruel,”

lousy lies, designed to undermine me and were not true. There's nothing particularly wrong with

me and then never really was. I mean I'm an average person and you'd imagine I was a serial killer

the way that I've treated myself. I ran my head and my life like a fascist state. I would never do it to anyone else. It's that thing where you would forgive anyone else for lots of things but you would never forgive yourself. Or apparently I'm no good in that area or in that area or any area in my life. In fact, I thought to myself a while back that I've left the cult of my inadequacy. The idea that I'm inadequate mysteriously or vaguely or even specifically in every area of my life and one of the

things that kind of helps is that the writing is so bad. The writing in my mind is so bad because

it's always negative. There's never any good and in the end you just get exhausted. You go come on.

There must be something other than bad news. You can't all be bad news and therefore it's kind of exposed for what it is which is a form of self harm and it's got nothing to do with the truth. It's got nothing to do with you. It doesn't describe you in any way. It's obviously it's neurotic but it's cruel and unkind and you wouldn't wish it on anyone else. I mean it's just possible rebar that you go out into the world meet people and say really really really regrettable things

to them all the time. Maybe offensive you know terrible things that hurt them and then go home and

“re-run them and try and decide whether you should go in a apologise. If you did think you have”

anything to apologise for, go in a apologise. A apologiseing is not humiliation. If people say the magic words I'm sorry, that's the opposite of humiliation. That's victory. That's you know, the tallest angel sits. When anybody says sincerely says I'm sorry or even not that sincerely says I'm sorry you know the air changes and you know any offenses can be wiped off the board because it takes guts to do that and it's an act of love and respect. So I wouldn't worry about

if you have got anything which I doubt, if you've got anything to apologise for, just apologise. It's easy said. It's very easy sitting here saying these things. You know when you don't have to do it in real life but I did get quite good at apologizing. My new year's resolution for well it's perennial every year. I don't bother to make any other new year's resolutions because this one sort of covers everything and the resolution is shot the fuck up because I worked out that

any kind of anxiety or any kind of unpleasantness or not because I say terrible things but just because I talk too much but everything that's regrettable is the result of something I've said

“and then of course there's the third cup of coffee which I think we've discussed before”

and if I do walk away from some exchange thinking why did I say that? Why would I what

possess minutes is usually the third cup of coffee? There's no attractive reason for the third

cup of coffee. If you're me again this is just for me. I'm not insisting that the world doesn't drink a third cup of coffee but for me I can't survive it. My radar doesn't survive the third cup of coffee. So do you drink too much coffee, Reba? Come on. Come clean. Anyway I don't know if that helps but I from the sound of you I prefer to think that you're just you're not a bad person and that you're not saying terrible things. If you want us to check you could email us at contact us at ill-advised

by bill nine.com and we will comment because we don't have to be clever we just have to not be you. Emeline. Hi. What to do on a rainy day? Well get out into it. I think. I know it's strange

California before the climate started to change so dramatically it never rained and then it rained

“like once when I was there and everyone went into a kind of panic. I remember houses sliding down”

the hillside so they were kind of sat beside the edge of the road of the freeway. She's because they've been built without foundations because it never rained I guess. People were kind of quite disturbed by the fact that it was raining in California but now it's a regular occurrence. What to do in California I don't know if I was in London town I'd get a really big black brolly and go and walk by the river because the combination of the water the rain and the river

is a wonderful and the trees obviously you need trees but there'll be some equivalent I'm sure in California get under the trees with a brolly near some water near a lake this rivers I'm sure in fact in California you could be sitting by the sea in the rain and the sea in the rain is fabulous especially in California because if you don't you get big fat rain you used to get big fat kind of tropical rain but now as the climate changes the last few times I was there it was raining

and it was just good old fashioned like European rain it wasn't tropical in any way I haven't been for a little while so I don't know how things are developing but take a book take a big coat I'll take a flask of something get some coffee take some sandwiches and hung it down and meditate it will be good with the brolly because you'll get that sound of the rain hitting the brolly which

is always good by you it renders me philosophical which is a good thing because for the most part

my mind is like a cheap magazine but the rain seems to stop the static the kind of trivial static that takes place in my mind most of the time it's like looking at the sea which renders you

“philosophical but take a really good book and I can recommend them because that's what we do here”

we recommend books so I suggest you take whatever book I recommend this episode buy it keep it handy and as soon as it rains get out there get out there in the middle of it apparently my grandmother said it's good for your skin that's all this certainly a lie my grandmother lied a lot but you know so nice thought in fact it's come to that point where I recommend a book so I'm gonna recommend the book that I suggest you take out into the rain how about that and that book is The Neon Rain

by James Lee Burke about that and this is a detective rubbish show thriller and detective Dave rubbish show is James Lee Burke's most frequent hero and there if you like the Neon Rain there's a whole sequence of them there's at least a dozen of them and they're all very good value I'll read you just a little bit I pretended to be a pragmatist a cynic a jaded war veteran a vitriolic

“drunk the last of the Louisiana bad asses but like most people I believe that justice would be”

done things would work out somebody would show up with the constitution in his hand that after the new and I kept the phone on the deck table while I washed down the boathouse polished the brass and windows and sanded and re-barnished the hatch I put on flippers and goggles and cooled off in the lake diving down into the yellow green light feeling the power in my lungs and chest

that were now free of alcohol bursting to the surface with a ringing in my ears that was never

the telephone. I invited Annie over for late supper and we cooked steaks outside on my Hippachi and eight under the umbrella in the cooling evening the western horizon was a flame with the sun's after glow then the clouds became pink and purple and then finally you could see the city light the night sky and this is time for our regular feature by don't think you understand I'm late with the band which is where we invite people to send in the name

preferably embarrassing name of their early band as teenagers and some embarrassing preferably lyrics from one of their signature tunes and today from Cape Town South Africa yep it's an international affair we have Andrew and the name of his band was Zugma Zee you

please do not feel obliged to share this highly regrettable title with your listeners

“what it's too late now Andrew because we already have we had a semi regular gig at the near”

vana jaz and blues lounge in Darwin Australia where we got paid in hard cash and mangoed decories our signature song was called "I really like your ankles" and the chorus went they were so petite above your feet supporting your legs they made me want a bag whoa I really I really like your ankles and life won't be the same until I see you again you you caused me so much ranker it started with your ankles okay well and his and he

quips I hope you enjoy the lyrics as much as we enjoyed those mangoed decories what we do enjoy them very much Andrew I think you probably go straight in at number one for the worst rhyme in the history of rhyming probably with ranker and ankles it's so bad it's good I think is probably what we'd conclude thank you that was this week's contribution to I don't think you understand I'm like with the band and now it's time for this week's playlist

“and do remember that you don't have to remember any of these tunes they will all be listed”

in the show notes and there will also be a link concerning them to Spotify and Apple music so you can find them there and this week's playlist is called I used to be philosophically opposed

to Bob Dylan covers but I'm not like that now and the first track on the list is from Brian Ferrie

who is a fabulous interpreter of Bob Dylan songs and this is from his album Dylan Esk which is the album that changed my whole attitude to Bob Dylan covers I heard his interpretation of of Bob Dylan songs and it just felt good it felt okay and just like Tom Thum's blues is a really witty and terrific reimagining of the song and it kicks in after the first couple of verses really satisfyingly if you happen to be behind the wheel and then there is Betty Levette and Betty Levette

made a whole album like Brian Ferrie of Bob Dylan covers which was called things have changed which is the Oscar-winning song that Bob Dylan wrote and which she also covers on the album but I've chosen don't fall apart on me tonight which is a terrific song and she does it brilliantly and then a kind of unpleasant song which not unpleasant but kind of you know you'll see when you hear it

it was never a big song in terms of Bob Dylan's performance and I'm not sure he has recorded it

“I think it was a single and the song is called if you got to go go now it basically means if you're”

not gonna sleep with me you better leave and anyway this is reinterpreted by the cowboy junkies who are a band I came to about 20 years to late not too late but just late and they do it very well and then there's a terrific version of it's all over now baby blue by them in other words by band Morrison which is a wonderful performance there's also just I didn't put it on the list for obvious reasons but Brian Ferrie also does a great driving version of it's all over now baby blue

then there is one of my favorite Bob Dylan songs going going gone by Greg Orman who made it part of his final album when he knew that he didn't have a long time to live and he not surprisingly chose to sing going going gone which contains the line I've just reached a place where the river don't bend and it's therefore more than usually moving given the the circumstance and then a sensational Bob Dylan song a late song called Not Dark Yet and it's covered by

Shelby Lynn and her sister Alison Mora and it's a wonderful rendition and it's just one of the great songs of all time and then a song that is also a wonderful song about heartbreak

long time hurt which you know is never going to leave you but as he sings most of the time

I'm okay meaning some of the time I'm in agony and then a song by the Rolling Stones Bob Dylan's famous song like a Rolling Stone done by the Rolling Stones on an album of kind of their version of Unplugged it's not very unplugged but it was their contribution to

“that genre and I remember I drove I had a lunch hour and I got my driver to drive me to a”

record store the day it came out and I put it on in the car and like a Rolling Stone came on

and the Mick Jagger is a great harmonica player he does a harmonica solo in the middle and I just rolled around in the back of the car just happy to be alive at the same time I was just roaring with laughter it was just perfect don't ask me why but it was just perfect that Mick Jagger should be playing the harmonica on like a Rolling Stone by Bob Dylan and then wild man Beck and War Child Records which is a charity for obviously for the the child victims of

war which is fronted by lots of people notably by Kerry Mulligan and this was Beck's contribution to one of their albums and it's his version of another great Bob Dylan song called which could actually be on the adultery list but anyway it's called leopard skin pill box hat which is a very witty blue song and he really tears it out anyway that's it that's called I used to be

“philosophically opposed to Bob Dylan covers but I'm not like that now and I think you might have fun”

Thank you for listening thank you for all the questions and for your contributions to our features we're coming up to the end of season two of ill advised by Bill and I don't panic we are off over the summer but you can still scorn to time with us on our new subscriber channel on atrium the back room there will be exclusive bonus content new features and early access to new

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on the app and then download it later all the information you need is in the show notes those who make it to the background will get access to me reading between the acts by Virginia Wolf so you could listen on the beach and the song on listening in the evenings with your clothes on so see you you know ill advised by Bill Nye D is produced by alleys Williams and Kiyara Grigory with a assistant production by Anjaliq Sermas pronounced Sermas and Charlotte Ross pronounced Ross

and it's an iPod Studios production