The James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan - a replacement pod

Episode Date: November 5, 2023

the new book of poems is out now: https://www.azonlinks.com/B0CMDFHP91join 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, look, you'll find a way. Catamaran Home! This episode is brought to you by Google Pixel. I'm Jessie Crookshank. I host the number one comedy podcast called Phone a Friend.

I also have three kids. I need help making every day easier. So I switched to Google Pixel. It's a phone powered by Gemini, your personal AI assistant. Gemini can help you summarize your unread emails, suggest what to make with the food in your fridge, and it helped me achieve a family photo where everyone is smiling at the camera. I didn't think it was possible, but it is with Google Pixel 9. Learn more at store.google.com. Breaking news happens anywhere, anytime. Police have warned the protesters repeatedly, get back. CBC News brings the story to you as it happens.

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I'm Jessie Cruikshank, and on my podcast, Phone a Friend, I break down the biggest stories in pop culture. But when I have questions, I get to phone a friend. I phone my old friend, Dan Levy. You will not die hosting the Hills after show. I get thirsty for the hot wiggle. I didn't even know what thirsty meant until there was all these headlines. And I get schooled by a tween.

Facebook is like a no, that's what my grandma's on. Thank God Phone a Friend with Jesse Crookshank is not available on Facebook. It's out now wherever you get your podcasts. Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. A-Cast.com The first thing that I've got to say is that my new book of poems, My Monkey and I Have Something to Hide, Unpleasant Poems with Limited Appeal, is out now. Now, don't be thrown by the title.

Even though these are titularly unpleasant poems with limited appeal, I think that limitation really only applies to people who wouldn't love greatness. And if you are a listener to this podcast, the James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan, the show where I, James Donald Forbes McCann, am trying to buy a boat, then I think you probably love greatness. Excuse me. Lost my voice there for a second. There's no time to edit it out. Donald Forbes, McCann, I'm trying to buy a boat, then I think you probably love greatness. Excuse me.

Lost my voice there for a second. There's no time to edit it out. There's no time for any editing at all today. I'm recording this on Sunday morning. Mass is just, it's 9.15 right now. They're starting to ring the bells. I'm going to have to go to a mass later in the day. Ah, let me tell you what's, I don't know where it all started going wrong this week. It started going wrong. Probably Halloween was the first sign that something had gone. Ah, it went,

actually it went wrong before Halloween when I wrote a poem and published it that offended young women with canes. I won't go into detail. I've moved on. I hope they've moved on. I hope there's love and positivity for everybody. But suffice it to say that that was a bit of a distraction earlier in the week. And then Halloween, and boy, my kids wanted to do Halloween. They were so excited about it. My daughter, she said, I want to be a witch with pink hair. And I said, fine, that's great. And then she said, I want to be a witch with pink hair. And I said, fine, that's great. And then she said, because the witch who lives in my head needs me to dress up like a witch. And I said, pardon me? And my wife said, oh yeah, witchy. Witchy is the witch who lives in

our daughter's head. And my daughter said, yeah. Witchy says she wants to be a witch, but I can choose the color of the hair, and I choose pink. And it has since been made clear to me that lives in my head is the way she's describing having an imaginary friend. But look, I'm not so hardcore and uptight that I will get a priest to do a soft, jolly, friendly exorcism just in case. And my son wanted to be a ghost train. He loves trains. He wanted to be a spooky ghost train. And we managed to make that happen. My wife made a beautiful ghost train costume for the boy. And my daughter was a

pink witch and we went out Halloweening. And it was a really wonderful experience. I know some people, some Catholics I know are against Halloween. Many Australians I know are against Halloween. And it was tense getting it done, you know? Anyway, I wrote a thing about it on Instagram, but suffice it to say, it was a lot. Just getting the costumes and the trick-or-treating and the organizing of things. And I thought you were doing the costume, honey. No, I thought you were doing the costume. It was nutty. It was a nutty time. We come to the crisis, which is today, which is the all saints picnic at church, where you have to dress up, or the kids dress up like saints. And we had plans to do something about that. And then again, just like a series of, a friend unexpectedly came to town. I had to be

in Bendigo and drive back. There was a crisis yesterday afternoon, and at the end of last night, you know, I got back in from a gig, having had a couple of drinks at 11 p.m., and I've gone, oh, bugger, we don't have costumes for the children, I said, can we just go to, can we go to mass anyway, my wife said, oh yeah, we can probably, we already did. We did a dress up earlier in the week and all saints is obviously more important. It's the church, but I think we can just go. And then this morning, my wife wakes me up with the, she says, I think we're damaging. We've, we've done some damage. I think we may have damaged our daughter's relationship with God. She said something like that. It probably wasn't as dramatic as it sounded just waking up, but my daughter was apparently like, she was very upset. And then I think she's four,

but she's smart enough to know that she can religiously blackmail my wife and was, I think, saying things like, well, I guess Halloween is just more important than All Souls Day. Halloween is just more important than All Souls Day So we can't So here's what's happening now We're going to have to go to mass in the evening The after mass picnic Well that's after the mass We've got to go to the picnic and we've got to have everybody dressed up

The costume shops Because I am doing really the most basic costumes we can. My daughter is so small that I think if I get her an adult, you know, like a sexy nun costume that's short on a woman, it'll actually be of a perfect hem length for her and come down to the ankle and then I'll just chop the sleeves. That's my plan. And children's heads are basically the same size as adult heads. That's why they look so funny with their great big bowling ball heads. So she'll be able to wear that and then, I don't know, we'll give her, we'll get a nun costume and we'll get something in the hands

so that she's a particular nun. And my son, I don't know. I said, what? He's two. And there's a lot of pushback this morning from the boy. I said, what saint do you want to be? He said, a shark. I said, you can do you want to be? He said, a shark. I said, you can't be a shark saint.

There are no shark saints. And he said, I want to be a shark. So while I, so I'm going to record this podcast one take. All right. At 10, which is in 40 minutes. So, I mean, 15 minutes from now, I go home, put the kids in the car, take them to the costume shop,

buy the costumes, go to Mass, thankfully, because it's a Latin Mass and it's being said today, the High Mass with three priests. It'll go for a long time. We'll swoop in at the end, catch the picnic, have a great time, and then come back for the Low Mass in the evening

to fulfill the Sunday obligation but it's man, it's what a great day I mean it's what has to be done I mean also what has to be done is shamelessly self-promoting my new book of poems

my monkey and I have something to hide and if I I feel, I mean I could be there at home right now shamelessly self-promoting my new book of poems, my monkey and I have something to hide. And if I, I feel, I mean, I could be there at home right now making life easier for everybody. And maybe that's what I should be doing. But there is no time later today to do a podcast. And the podcast has to come out at midnight Adelaide time because I'm on a good, I'm on a run. I'm on a roll.

And frankly, if I miss it, I won't do another one for a month. And it's, you know, some might say, James, it's a Sunday. You're recording this on a Sunday? That's work. You've been going on and on about your Roman Catholicism. Now you work on a Sunday, you big crumbum. This I could only say, that I don't consider doing this podcast to serve our labour I consider this podcast

catching up with a good friend so I'm always happy to come and do the podcast more than happy compelled it's a compulsion and it's wrong and I did

I'll tell you this I'll tell you this for free I recorded a different episode of this podcast earlier in the week, and it was really well done. Man, there was so much editing in it. As you may have picked up, there is no editing.

Well, let's have just a small amount of editing in this podcast. Here we go. I hope that has satiated your need to hear me do some editing in the podcast. You will have no more. Oh, mercy. I did this whole podcast and then I decided that it was, I was, you know what? I was picking fights and I've been in a bit of a fight picking mood. I've been, I had a, oh, I had to have a big conversation with a friend this week who I was really rude to.

big conversation with a friend this week who I was really rude to. I won't go into detail, but suffice it to say, yes, I was rude. And I had to talk, I wasn't, I didn't just get off the hook for that rudeness, we had to talk it out. And it was a really good talking out, followed by some hugging. But boy, oh boy, I'm stretched a little thin at the moment. I've got a gig tonight. Ah, it's great. It's so good to have all these comedy shows. And I'm seeing all these people. I haven't had my coffee yet.

That's right here. Let me tell you. My monkey and I have something to hide. This is really the point of the episode is to push my monkey and I have something to hide. Boy, oh boy. If I had any choice in the matter, I'd delete everything we've done so far. And I would... Oh, but we're going to push on.

Because there are things to say. Listen, I know this is a hard pivot. I'm sorry. We're going into the... We're going to go into the nuts and bolts now about the poetry book and how that slots into me buying a catamaran. Because maybe this is the only episode of the podcast you've heard. Maybe this is the first time you've heard the James Donald Forbes McCann catamaran plan. And you're saying to yourself, this doesn't sound like a catamaran plan. This sounds like a, well, it sounds like a loon having a hard time and not putting in very much effort. And to that I say, hey, some of the other episodes are not so bad. So anyway, I'm trying to buy a boat. I've had a series of plans to buy a boat. And last year, I brought out a book of poetry, Marlon Brando, 9-11, beautiful poems that everybody

will love. And not everybody did love that book of poems, I must say. and not everybody loved every poem in the book of poems. Some people just liked a few. And you know, fair enough. Fair enough. Did I say fair? Well, we're not going to go back and fix it. Okay? We're going to push on. Fair enough is what I meant to say.

But fair enough. I don't know what that means in some language, but it probably does represent what I mean. Which is, oh! Man, you scratch the surface and you go into a weird mood. I did this gig last night. I did a gig last night with Daniel Muggleton. Lovely. I opened for Dan, then he does a show, and then there's a Q&A at the end. And I was just thinking beforehand, I've got no new jokes. I've got nothing. But then in the Q&A, I couldn't stop talking. I was just rambling and rambling. And I realized that all the things I want to talk about are things that I'm not like, oh, I spoke about. So my childhood home is being auctioned this week. And I'm a little emotional about that. And someone said

something about his parents. He's got two wedding rings because his parents are divorced and he wears their respective rings on different fingers that don't touch so that they stay separated, which I thought, it's fun. It's funny. Someone in the room knew that. She'd been spending a lot of time on the Daniel Muggleton Wikipedia page. And I said, my parents aren't living together at the moment. They're getting rid of their home. And I said, the main thing I'm worried about is what's going to happen to the remains of the dog in the back garden, Sooty, who I buried there when he died five or six years ago, because it was a very dense soil and I couldn't get down very far. And if they ever want to do any work in that garden, they're going to find a tartan sleeping bag with a once morbidly obese

poodle inside of it. That's, man, brought the house down. Wouldn't have thought that would be the killer material to bring the house down. And yet there it was. So maybe once I'm in America and I'm away from all the bonds and restrictions of being in Adelaide, South Australia, and also the beautiful bonds and the ties and the community, I'll be creatively let loose and then also emotionally let loose. And then also emotionally I'll be in a big puddle. I don't want to go. I don't want to go. People keep saying, are you excited to go to America? No, is currently the

answer. There are things about America that will be exciting. Adelaide is so unbelievably beautiful at this time of year, and I've got it just the way I want it. My friend Paul has just opened up a fantastic new bar. I'm spending too much time making amends with people who I've been rude to there. The Christmas pageant was yesterday. I took my children to the Christmas pageant. It was spectacular. They were entranced. There were so many people there.

It was so glorious and Christmassy. We had a nice spot in the shade. We live so close to town. I was able to have us bus in, you know, and it wasn't too unpleasant on the way in. On the way out, boy, it sucked, but we could have walked in. We're close enough to walk, and I guess everyone's close enough to bus in. Close enough from Spain! Excuse me, my monkey and I have something to hide, my new book of poems. That's the job I have to get done today, is talking about my new book of poems that's that's the job i have to get done today is talking about my new book of poems maybe i should tell you a little about the book of poems it's um

pages it's a cover it's uh it's just the poems i've written over the last year this is my theory this is because the we'll see we'll see if it works but if it holds i'd be so happy so last year we sold something like 38 books of poems in the first month. And that was through no advertising. That was just through I went on my podcast and the Instagram, the free means of distribution. And I said to everybody, here's my book of poems. And we sold 38. And then throughout the next 11 months, we sold overall 90 copies of that book,

which is 700 and something dollars I made. Wow! Is that enough for a boat? No. Is that enough to replace one week's work? Yes. These are Australian dollars, by the way, so they don't buy much in your currency,

unless you're one of our wonderful Tanzanian listeners in which case I remain a prince I should look up the economy of Tanzania I was just plucking an African country that wasn't South Africa where the economy is strong the economy is strong and maybe the economy is not strong in South Africa that's just what people say anyway anyway my hope is that this new book of poems You know, I've just taken all the poems that I've written over the last year And put them all together And then I put them on And just the same way, I put it on the Instagram

I put it on the sub-stack Sub-stack Oh, we're sufficiently tired that we're pulling out the New Zealand vowels, are we? The sub-stack Ah, the substark. Samstag. The substark. Anyway, the substack. I'm just going to put it on all the free things. The threads. The X. I don't have Snapchat, but if I did, I'd be Snapchatting. Charity. Snap. don't have Snapchat, but if I did, I'd be Snapchatting. Charity, snap. We'll see how we sell this time. Anything over 38 is a boon. I put it out on Instagram yesterday. I don't know how many we've sold. And I don't know, frankly, from this, oh, let's have another little bit of editing

from this really not very thoughtfully put together podcast. I don't know how many we'll sell either, but I'll come back next week. I mean, again, there is an episode of this podcast that is so, so nicely put together. Can I give you, I'm going to give you a little taste of it, all right? I'm going to give you a non-problematic, this was the start. We've got to rise above. We've got gotta rise above we gotta rise above damn it we're gonna rise above when they go low we go high when they go high we go very high indeed

i affirm that i'm not going to be ground down by some petty shit i just want you to know I did put in the, there's a whole episode of that that's had to go. I lean into and enjoy the self-righteous rage and it's something I'm trying to address. It's something I'm going to go to confession about and it's something I've written a poem about. Actually, I wonder if it's in this copy.

Did I write a poem about? Hey, I did. It's a poem. Enemy. I haven't had a new enemy in almost a year. This is a poem. I haven't had a new enemy in almost a year. So if you want to kick off, I'm ready. It's time. My life has become unbearably cluttered. I'm giving people lifts. I'm working three jobs. So if you want to come at me and simplify things, okay, I won't. Thank you, because

you'll be out. You'll be my enemy, but it will be a tremendous relief. I will welcome you not being my friend like a friend. That's one of the poems in the new book of poems. There are so many wonderful poems in there. I don't know how many we're going to sell. Genuinely, last time I would vacillate on the first book of poems if it was going to suddenly become a mass hit and be the first viral book of poetry in a century. I don't know. I don't know when the last viral book of poems was, but I thought, hey, maybe this will be it. Viral book of poems, sell 100,000 copies. But it didn't happen.

I sold high 30s and there was no marketing budget. So that's fine. So basically, if we sell more than 38, 36, whatever it was, copies this time around in the first month, I'm happy. I am glad. You honor us with additional ladies, sir. I am glad I got rid of that other podcast episode.

I am glad that I only have to speak for another 50 seconds before putting my children in the car, driving them across town to buy costumes, driving them back to mass, pretending like we were there the whole time. Yeah! It's going to be a great day. I hope you're doing well.

I love you. This has been helpful for me. I know I shouldn't be using the podcast as therapy, but I feel a lot better and more centered and calm having spoken into the microphone. It's going to be a great day. I'm going to have my coffee. I'm going to go home.

I'm going to get my kids. We're going to get those costumes. I don't know what. I'm going to talk my son into being. At no point was he pulling back from wanting to be a shark saint. There are none. It's not street sharks. St. Joseph is, I think, the patron saint of being bitten by a shark. That's it. I was trying to swing him on. I mean, it's just things in the costume shop I can do. So Gabriel's in he, well, we're not Gabriel. Who is it? St. Michael, right? Give him a sword,

give him wings. That's two things they'll have. Excuse me, Marlon Brando, that's not the book of poems. Excuse me. My monkey and I have something to hide, unpleasant poems with limited appeal. It's out now. I now have to end the podcast. God rest ye married gentlemen and ladies. Have a good one. I love you. I miss you. Goodbye. Have a good one. I love you. I miss you. Goodbye. Have a great day. Whew. Thank you. Hey, it's Mitch from SideNote Podcast, and I'm here to tell you about the new Google Pixel 9 powered by Gemini. Anyone who knows me knows the Pixel has always been my favorite out of all the phones I've ever had. Now with Gemini built in, it's basically my personal AI assistant. Since I'm truly terrible at keeping up with emails, I use Gemini to give me summaries of my inbox, which is a lifesaver. And if I'm

feeling stuck creatively, I just ask Gemini for help and bam, instant inspiration. You can learn more about Google Pixel 9 at store.google.com. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. I'm Jessie Kirkshank, and on my podcast, Phone a Friend, I break down the biggest stories in pop culture. But when I have questions, I get to phone a friend. I phone my old friend, Dan Levy. You will not die hosting the Hills after show.

I get thirsty for the hot wiggle. I didn't even know a thirsty man until there was all these headlines. And I get schooled by a tween. Facebook is like a no, that's what my grandma's on. Thank God, Phone a Friend with Jesse Crookshank is not available on Facebook. It's out now wherever you get your podcasts. ACAST helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere.

ACAST.com Thank you. so so Thanks for watching!