The James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan - 2025 return ft. Dad

Episode Date: January 6, 2025

DENVER: Sunday, January 12, Comedy Works DowntownMILWAUKEE: Wednesday, January 15, ImprovCHICAGO: January 16-18, ZaniesCLEVELAND: January 19, HilaritiesHERE IS WHERE YOU CANCome to the gigs: https://www.jdfmccann.com/gigsBuy the book: https://www.jdfmccann.com/booksListen to the album on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2AmTKUd2n9VwRgzQHfr7rAJoin the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/jdfmccann Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the James Donald Forbes McCann catamaran plan. If you'd like to listen to bonus episodes, go sign up to the Patreon. That's patreon.clom. Clom? Ah, we f***ed it. Anyway, you'll look, you'll find a way. Catamaran plan! Well, the first thing that we want to talk about today is, on the James Donald Forbes McCann catamaran plan, is that I'm on tour. If you'd like to see me come and do comedy, I be in Denver Sunday January 12 at the Comedy Works downtown and then on January 15 I'll be Milwaukee at the Improv. I'll be in Chicago at Zany's on the 16th to the 18th. I think there are two rooms there and in Cleveland January

19 I'll be at Hilarity's. Tickets are on sale at JDFMcCann.com slash gigs and it would be such an honor and a privilege to have you there. Seeing me do stand-up comedy. I drove home from Houston last night because I had gone to a basketball game with my friends Sam and Riff and they're both in town. Well they were both in town, now they're in Houstoniff, and they're both in town. Well, they were both in town. Now they're in Houston. I think they're on their way to New York, but they had been in A town, and then last night

we were all in H town watching the basketball. And that's the second NBA game I've seen, I do believe. Man, the Houston Rockets game was a whole other thing to the Spurs game. The Spurs game was a lot of sensory overload, you know. They have a mascot come out with a gun and shoot t-shirts at people. Everything at the Houston game was that times ten. There are ten cheerleading women.

Cheerleader doesn't seem the term. Sex dancers. So many sex dancers at the Houston game anyway and they they come out and they're all like firing the guns into the crowd and throw it they were actually throwing t-shirts they didn't trust the ladies with guns at the Houston show they had the ladies throw them and other people with guns but then the mascot comes out and he had a t-shirt Gatling gun and they just spun it in the middle in the center I

guess of the is it a stadium is an arena the big room I guess arena and like fired guns out fired not sorry fired a gun so I'm very tired fired shirts out this is not the way that I wanted to come back on the James Donald Fools McCann catamaran plan I thought that I'd take a big break and come back with a real razzle dazzle high production quality very well thought out podcast and that hasn't happened but it's the first Monday of 2025 so we've just got to come back anyway. I'm sorry I took a break I do feel refreshed in some ways but obviously today I'm a little tired because Sam had booked a hotel room there were enough beds at the hotel and although I did get to have a nap on one of the beds very kindly and

it's only two and a half hour drive so I said they will you know there was a moment was like oh three of us are we gonna do two beds are we gonna we're gonna do that and I said the gentleman just let me have a little nap and I'll do the drive back and I did and I drove back safely from Houston last night. Safely is not the word. Without incident, I would say. Safe, safely would make me, I think that formulation of a sentence

makes it sound like I was safe. I was not, the wind came in, the cold wind came in and I could feel my car getting blown around while driving. And thankfully not many people were on the highway, but it was, I, we dropped the speed right down. came in and I could feel my car getting blown around while driving and thankfully not many people on the highway but it was like we dropped the speed right down while we were driving along there and listening to Dan Carlin's new hardcore history about Alexander the Great as he takes on the Thracians and then Alexander said no! It was a great evening. Sorry, I think what I was talking about was

that gig, the basketball, excuse me. The basketball was a lot. It was a great game of basketball from what I understand about basketball. And the spectacle was overwhelming. Sometimes the basketball game felt like it was getting in the way of the spectacle and at some point in the future when we can dispense with the expense of Basketball, I think we'll all just go to a big room while they play pump up the jams and fire t-shirts at people for two Hours and these sex dances Very sexy dances, you know big fake boozies very sexy dancers, you know, big fake buzzy's, you know, little shorts, erotic moves, children everywhere watching this, I don't get it. And then, you know, at the halftime show they

get a school and they get, you know, obese school girls to come out and do very similar dance moves and it just... That's a weird America thing, is having something uncomfortably sexual happen and all sort of pretending that that's not happening. Cheerleaders, halftime shows with the gymnastics. I'll come up with a third example. Billie Eilish when she was young. Britney Spears when she was young. I don't want to go into it, it's not really something that I want to think or talk or put my name to right now, except to say it's weird you're eating a pizza with your friends surrounded by children watching a basketball game and then

there's just you know 30 enormously enormously chested blonde women like come hithering. And then there's kids doing it in the half-time one, not as provocatively, but, you know, can't they come out and do some, I don't know. Even the Charleston at this point, I'm sure the Charleston would have been considered a very sexualized... I just don't really... I don't like the sexualization of the children. It's there, it's part of American sport, and I... We'll move right on! Excuse me. Sure, a lot of people have switched off there. I'm gonna go back to the start of this podcast now, in case people didn't want to hear even

a refraction of that and talk about the dates. So you will have already heard that. I'll talk about the tour dates. Hold on. And now that I'm done recording that thing about the tour dates, I can get back to a theme that's close to my heart. Railing against the sexualization of children. I was on X,

the Elon Musk website. I don't have the app on my phone anymore, but I just have the, sometimes I'll log into X. And the reason I got rid of the app, because I was increasingly unhappy on there. I'm not like opposed to the political argy-bargy or the free exchange of ideas but like I'll log on to X and now I just get Elon Musk I don't follow I don't think maybe I'm wrong I don't think I follow Elon Musk on X but the whole feed is just things Elon Musk is saying it's a little bit like the king buying the newspaper and you know and he's railing against Bacha Bazzi and he's putting up videos of Bacha Bazzi and I don't want to see that. I know about that. I don't like

that. You know and he's attacking people in Britain and he's getting behind Tommy Robinson and whatever and it's like it's no longer something that I feel like I can look at the Twitter X thing. This is well-worn territory, a lot of people are saying that, but you used to get some sense of what the zeitgeist was, what was really happening in the world, and then you got, you know, you got a sort of a lefty version of that increasingly as Twitter became more and more curatorial. and now the whole website is just what Elon feels you need to see that in a minute. Which maybe that is the zeitgeist now, maybe we've moved into, you know, has that weirdly come full circle? Have we gone from democracy to

aristocracy to tyranny? I don't think that's the order in which those things are meant to happen. Hey, welcome to the James Donald Fools, McCann, Cameron Plan 2025. Shows really coming together. I had hoped the show would come together in a new, exciting way. And it will, but I'm just going to have to keep putting the show out while that transpires. We're going to move house. We're organizing moving house at the moment. We've had some strange behaviors happen around our house and we're moving to a safer neighbourhood so that my wife will be... I'm on the road a lot and we've got young kids and despite the fact that that is a

slog and an ordeal to move yet again, gee it would be nice to be at one house for one year. To make it to a year, that would be something. But there we go, we're moving house and we're very excited about the place we're moving. Will you have a garage at that house Jimmy that you can sit in the car of and continue doing the podcast in the garage? Sure will. Thought I'd have an office but that's gonna get turned into a guest house immediately. We have too many people coming and staying for me to have an office. And I understand that and I'm at peace with that and then the breaks. I love it.

I love life. I was a big fluffy dog in the park. Some, uh, some reflections on being in America for a year. I did kill Tony's new year's Eve show. I was on the panel for that night. A great time. Well, I mean, I was terrified. And then for about an hour in the middle of a four hour show,

I stopped thinking about doing it and then had a great time. And then immediately after that hour was over, I was back to, wow, it's big. So hopefully I was entertaining for at least that hour in the middle. And it was very freaky because exactly one, it was the exact one year anniversary of me having landed in America and being taken to that same show at that same arena that Shane Gillis and Matt McCusker were on the panel that night. And this time it was me and Joe DeRosa who were

trying to get on the podcast this week. Hopefully, I think he has a sandwich shop if I'm thinking of the right guy I'd like to ask him some questions about that yeah I mean that's one year one year from turning up and no one knowing me and stumbling around backstage sleep deprived to knowing really most of the people there and being on the panel. Bizarre. Only in America. Only in America. It was yeah if the goal for 2024 was to crack the American comedy industry I think as good a job has been done of that as I was able to manage. Um... Oh! I did a special! That was the other reason I took a break was so I could work on my special.

And I shot the special. And Yoni, who runs Kill Tony's, uh, sort of the... He's the running around man. He gets things done. He holds cameras. He gets things done for people. He got that done for me. I do find it funny that a man called Yoni works for Tony Hinchcliffe. Yoni and Tony. I didn't realize for about six months that it was Yoni and Tony. Mario Wario. My friend Ruby has a great joke about that so I'm not going to go on and talk about it.

It's not about Tony and Yoni. It's about Mario Wario. Obama Osama. Oh ladies and gentlemen ladies and ladies and gentlemen I think the special went well I can't tell I haven't seen the footage yet people told me it went alright so we'll see how it comes out thank you for everyone who came thank you for everyone who helped make that happen. Thank you for Adam Eagert for letting me do it at the Comedy Mothership and for Joe Rogan for building that big beautiful Comedy Mothership and presumably also giving a thumbs up. Oh, it's a wonderful time.

I have so many people to thank. I have so much to do. I'm so tired. It's so cold. It's not that cold. It's apparently blanketed in snow in the rest of the country and it's just sort of okay feeling here. I'm wearing a fur coat.

I wish you could see it, but I couldn't get my ass into gear to do a visual element today. I apologize that won't mean anything to the the lads in the warehouses getting it done and listening to this while they're keeping this economy moving, keeping the world spinning. But for those of you like to sit and watch visually, no, not today. Oh man, I was zonked, wiped flat after recording a special. It was very nerve-racking and I was a little nervous

on the first performance and the second show I... people said well you've got that one in the can that was you know eight and a half if you have to have that one come out you can just go have fun with it and I did and I think the second show was a lot better so we'll probably do the second show. I Thought I had 25 minutes of material. I Ended up having 40 in the first show and an hour 10 in the second one. So we'll Maybe maybe it only felt good in the room and I'll go back and watch it and I'll go there's a lot of fluff But

It was very nice to have have that done to have that done. To have that done! And now I get the fun of going on the road and doing stand-up comedy and starting to work on some new jokes that will be a new hour at some point, but I've got some time. I've got some time. I don't think you have to have a new special out every single year. If I have it, I will, but I seriously doubt it and I think two years years might be a good but how long will you live for James? How long will? Hmm. What if you don't live long enough? I don't have any conditions that the doctor has told me about that would make me think I would

die but I Tell you that is I don't think I would have come to America if I hadn't had the covert vaccine Well, they wouldn't let me in but if I hadn't had the COVID vaccine, well, they wouldn't let me in. But if I hadn't post-vaccine started to have heart flutterings, which have gone away, but I really did just think for a long time, oh, I'm dying. I'd better quickly do this America thing because I'm gonna die soon.

And I just keep living. So that's nice. That's a good kick up the bum to keep moving, keep grooving, doing it, you know, like a sex machine man ow Canada one two three four I can't tell you how over-the-top the basketball is and how that has really shaken me it's it's a lot it's a lot of lights it's a lot of moving it's a lot of moving, it's a lot of grooving, it's a lot of uncomfortable child dancing and children watching grown-up dancing. It really, they go both

ways. It's a two-pronged attack that the enemy has set up for us. Dad's here, Dad's here at the moment, he's been on the Patreon a couple times, I've got some podcast episodes that I have to record with that, I got a lot of podcast things to line up, but I just wanted to have this one come up. Come up and come out so I could keep having them come out on Mondays. And it's the first Monday of 2025. So it's time to do it. All right. So I'm in the car. I'm in the core, which has some problems. And I might get the steering wheel looked at because that drive back in the, in the height and winds was a bit spooky but uh my kids were watching the Disney Plus and I stopped and I watched a little bit it was about a mouse who was

the godfather but he was like a good mafioso mouse you may know what I'm talking about you may not I don't really know what I'm talking about I watched it I watched it I think it was a short film and I watched it for I watched the end of it I was the last like minute and a half and I cried as I cry every time. And I realized I've seen the ending of the first Cars movie about six times and I cry every time and I haven't seen the rest of the Cars movie. You know, you pop it on and you take that, you need two hours. You're watching Cars?

Daddy just bored himself 90 minutes. And then I come in and I cry at the end. But I took a nap while playing Cars for my children and I could hear through my nap I sort of had a dream about cars and overhearing things I didn't realize it was a movie about middle America and the working class and how the elites need to learn to love the working class it's sort of a Fritz Lang's Metropolis. No? No, I don't remember seeing that in the reviews. I don't remember reading the reviews. Cars came out just as I stopped paying attention to Pixar movies. And then Cars

2 is I think about localism versus... something about internationalism is happening in Cars 2. There's a lot of Disney movies. Moana 2 was about the importance of internationalism. How many Disney Pixar movies are secretly about internationalism? I don't want to become a conspiracy theorist. I'm just seeing patterns. I assume planes is about... Is there a planes one? Is that the same universe or is that a plane world? I can't believe they all make me cry. I don't know what secret recipe Walt Disney cooked up that his movies are capable of making me cry but I just weep. Wreck-It Ralph, is that by the same people? I weep. Up, obviously. Weep pretty early in that one.

Ratatouille. That's been on the last couple days. I weep. Little Mermaid. Pocahontas. I didn't realize Mel Gibson was in Pocahontas. That was sick. Oh, I watched Mad Max 2 on a flight. I'd never seen Mad Max 2 before. That's a great, weird movie. Just about a perfect movie. I loved Mad Max 2. I started watching Mad Max 1 years ago and I couldn't get through it. It seems kind of depressing. Mad Max 2 is much more... yeah, the series gets going with Mad Max 2 and now I'm looking forward to Mad Max 3. High octane V8 power! Man, Mel Gibson's a good actor. He's such a good actor. I know there's trouble there, but a good actor is

a good actor. Boy, oh boy, wowee. Oh, I wanted to take this opportunity once again. I don't think I flogged it hard enough, but uh, go watch The Blondie Way, B-L-O-N-D-E-Y, The Blondie Way on YouTube. It's a serious recommendation, it's the best show... It's the best. It's really great, it's the best show to come out of Britain since Toast. And uh... also watch Toast. Those are my recommendations. I loved The Blondie Way, it's just up on YouTube.

Just made it and popped it on YouTube and I hope to go and interview Blondie soon. He's wonderful and if I can get more people to watch the Blondie Way I would consider that an apt use of my platform. I'm planning a trip to the UK. There are just enough UK personages on the radar now that I think it's time to go over the UK and do some podcasts in the UK and build up a UK audience so that I can go over and do stand-up comedy in the UK. Although it's very nice having built it up and being able to do stand-up comedy in the UK. Although it's very nice having built it up and being able to do stand-up comedy in America and Australia and it's happening. Something weird is happening. I get recognized now. I've done Killtoni. That's my third Killtoni panel and I go and I walk around the mall and a security guard goes, hey! And I go, ah! And he goes, will you want to kill Tony? I say, yes. Hey Dad!

Hey Dad! Dad might come over and be on the podcast very briefly. Hold on. Dad, do you want to come on the podcast for a bit? It's just audio today. It's just only audio. Dad's gonna come with me to Chicago. He's been with us for a little bit. As Dad climbs over the gate and slowly, slowly walks the long way around the car. A very long road he's taking to get to the microphone. I should, I've wound down the wrong window. Oh, dad's getting into the car. Very good. Hello, Dad! Hello, James, how are you?

I am good. I'm just having a bit of a ramble for this podcast, but we've got to have something come out. I'm gonna get the window back up because it's frosty. Now, when we're in Chicago, I think we're going to begin a series of videos. We've spoken about this on the Patreon, but this one's going out to the masses. On the history of the 20th century, and I thought you don't need notes but I might need some notes as jumping off points to talk

about yes you probably do well I was looking at what actually happened in the 1900s because there's not a lot compared to the next decade the next decade really gets going is that my water oh no what what fell down no nothing uh not necessarily true Jim Boer War uh that is an interesting yet slightly minor point but what we have do you want me oh sorry in the 1900s we have all these empires that are just going scramble for Africa yeah that has happened and everything well a little bit, everything looks like it's going to be European imperial sentry. Everything is nice.

Nice? The poor people of the Congo is the Belgians. The Belgians were awful, so I'm not in favour of empires. I said by nice I mean everyone was feeling it was nice. People in Europe felt it was nice. They felt it was very nice. The Opium Wars were concluding, were they not? The Opium Wars, 19th century, though the Boxer Rebellion is not.

Excuse me, excuse me. 1900, the Boxer Rebellion. I would love to talk about the Boxer Rebellion, because I know it's a religious type movement, no? Yes, people, the Chinese believed that if they did special martial arts, their bullets could not penetrate their body. How did that pan out? Not as successfully as they had envisaged.

I'm looking forward to talking about that. I think we're gonna have a great time. And I'll do some preparation, we'll just get your brain and we'll share that with the beautiful, and that'll be hot content. I love history podcasts, I'm do some preparation. We'll just get your brain and we'll share that with a beautiful and that'll be hot content I love history podcast. I'm listening to an Alexander. No, no each No, you'd be on you're chewing some gum And I'm just finishing off a lovely meal that we've just had

We'd like to say what today is Monday, so it's Monday very cold But not the skies blue. How? Well, it could have been a poem from just after 1900. 1930s, 40s type feel. And you got to watch some Disney movies

with the kids this morning. I saw that and had a little cry on my way through with that mouse who's a mafia don. Yes, and we went three hours without television. I'm proud of you. I slept in. I did that big drive back. I thank you for coming and looking after the children this morning.

That three hours was great. We went outside briefly in the middle, but as I said, the wind chill factor is high or low, whichever is the coldest. Everywhere else in America, I think is blanketed by snow. It's just here and here. Oh my goodness, I just had an American R there accidentally. Here. Apparently it's gonna be very cold here.

I don't know if James has told everyone that it's actually Christmas up to New Year's was quite warm, very strange. Wasn't it? People were walking told everyone that it's actually Christmas up to New Year's was quite warm very strange Wasn't it people walking around going it's winter Yeah, and I left I left the little I let one of the children have the little heater on just because we were all comfortable on the sofa and It was wrong because it was already why was that wrong because it was already so warm that day. It's amazing to think how warm it is.

Oh yeah, but today it's okay to put the heater on. So James is sitting in here. We have this heater and it looks like an electronic... It's one of these heaters that has a fake fireplace dance with lights on it. Dance? Dance? Dance. I do have a too movable an accent.

I've gone back and watched all the videos of myself. I have no voice of my own. People have pointed this out more and more as my speaking changes. I just want to say to the Americans... No one could accuse you of this. Of having what? Of taking someone else's way of speaking. You've really got your own thing going on.

So I just want to say Americans are so great. Um, so friendly, so extroverted. Um, we Aussies are the cousins of Americans, even more, I'd say so than Canadians, not criticizing Canadians. Step brothers to the British or the child? Distant, slightly distant. Canada would be first or second cousin, closer or further away. Have you been to Canada? No, I would say American, I don't want to

judge, but Americans are the closest to us, except for New Zealanders that I've ever met. Do you know there's a family in New Zealand who's gone missing. There's a man who took his three kids into the bush. He's been gone for three years and they spotted him a couple weeks ago and sometimes he robs a bank to get cash and they think they're a little rural communities helping him. Helping him. Helping him. Helping him. And the police don't want to go in and do a big manhunt in case because he's got a gun and they don't know what he's gonna do. But it's also a lot of people online are on the dad's side. So he's taken his three kids and he's disappearing.

They're young kids. I think the youngest is like five. He's got like a five or seven and an early teenager. And I think it's that as the oldest one hits puberty, there might be some problems. And they say, I wanna get out. You can't keep me here anymore. And, but yeah, a lot of people online are on his side

going, he's giving them a good upbringing without social media. As the mother weeps on television saying, please bring my children back. Well, I don't want to take one side or the other, but I'm reading this book by Kevin Roberts, very important, Heritage Foundation President. How was Gattis?

You took my, I bought a Gattis book and you started, you flipped through it and you read it in like one day. Yeah, well as a former English teacher, you know, the full stop run on sentence, I would probably have to... I think it's been done. I think I have to put a red pen through a lot of it or a purple pen. And you do a purple pen so it's less hateful for the children, they don't feel as bad? 100%. Is that a real thing? Yeah, purple, oh no, whoa. See, she said what about a purple pen so it's less hateful for the children? They don't feel as bad? 100%. Is that a real thing? Yeah, purple. No, well...

So you're just, what about a green pen? The purple pen is a good... Purple pen is good, red pen is cruel. Purple has sort of a royal connotation, so at least this is regal advice coming down to the children. Well, yes, yes. My punctuation skills, if nothing else, are strong. Not the way I'm speaking now,

but when I'm writing, absolutely. I understand. Yeah, yeah. So, what were we saying about the, oh yeah, I'm reading this book by Kevin Roberts, and many things I disagree with, many things I find very interesting. And may I just say one thing I find?

Yes, I'm going to hand you the microphone so this is easier. So, hello Western world. We actually have some Eastern listeners as well, we've got 10 people in Japan. Well, Japan is part of the West in my opinion. It's a complex story, but they are. And I love Japan. So, one of my big thoughts is how come everything, in all of us, in all our different jobs, in all our different situations, how come we're getting more and more authority going to the

center telling us what to do? The same in Australia, same in America. Legislation, COVID was a good telling point. And people call it safetyism. And it's well and good to have Trump winning the election. But now we have to wind this back. And how do we do it when we're all part of all of us, well not all of us, but many of us are part of these companies, corporations, societies that are so driven from the top, top down. How do we get back to being in charge of our lives? I think we get in the car, we drive up to Steubenville, Ohio and we get something started there. I have not heard a better argument than you have to just start again. But even then I guess the military comes in at some point if it gets too successful.

The Amish seem to have been left alone. I think the, are you saying Amish? Amish? I think there's a lot to be said for them that you run your own life, a lot to be said for them that you run your own life, you govern your, you know, you make your own food, you're in charge. This is the Ameri-, this is original American dream, the yeoman, isn't it? Isn't it? The yeoman. I think that's one of the American dreams. I don't know if the Bostonian people in the city were yeoman when they signed the Declaration of Independence. The traders, the tea people. Certainly the slave-holding southerners who signed up, it doesn't look like a normal peasant

yeoman type setup. Yeah, I'm against slavery. Well, that's as strong a place as anywhere to end the podcast. Thank you you Dad. Dad will be on the road with me. He'll be in Chicago. I'm in Chicago, Milwaukee, Denver. What's the last place?

Cleveland! Thank you Dad! Come to Cleveland. Son of that Patreon. Splish splash, Book of Poems is out now. I love you, I miss you, I want you, I need your work is being done on a card game and there's an episode on that that was recorded that's going to come out now. I love you, I miss you, I want you, I need your work is being done on a card game and there's an episode on that that was recorded that's going to come out soon as soon as we can figure out how to get the t-shirts that are coming out that are

going to pay for the work on the card game to be coming out. Got to do a call about that and I think I'm going to have a nice lie down. No, I'm not going to be having a lie down. I'm going to take the children out and give my wife a break in this midwinter before we move away. I'm gonna take my children out to a playground somewhere and encourage my son to do the monkey bars. I love the monkey bars. Can't do them very well myself anymore but it's I got my my eldest who's a girl it took it was a long road to her feeling comfortable doing the monkey bars. And then she could do the monkey bars, but she needed me standing very close by

in case she fell down. And I tell you the day that she was doing the monkey bars on her own. My heart did swell with pride. And if I can teach them how to swing themselves on the swing, then they'll be ready for university. That's the last thing that I feel I need to teach them. I love you. I miss you. I want you, need you. Kata Maranjo. Happy 2025!