The James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan - Airport Interfaith Quiet Room

Episode Date: November 26, 2025

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Thank you for listening to this episode of the James Donald Forbes-McCand-Catamaran plan. If you'd like to listen to bonus episodes, go sign up to the Patreon. That's patreon.com. Clom? Ah, we f***ed it. Anyway, you'll, look, you'll find a way. Catalan home! I want you. I miss you.

I love you. I need you. Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to this episode of the James Donald Forbes-Macon Cadamaran Plan coming to you live from the Austin Airport. quiet room, often these are labeled prayer rooms or, you know, multi-faith spaces. I think it's basically so Muslims can go and do a prayer somewhere. But usually there's a little more Muslim stuff. Like they go, it's for everybody. Because they don't want to, if you go, like,

there's a Muslim prayer room at the airport, people go crazy. Not the Muslims. Muslims probably saying, thank you very much. That's what we're about. But this one, you know, it's just, I don't know if you can see, these, it's not enclosed. It's, there's nothing here. There's no books here.

There's a fake plant and a table. And it's not especially quiet. But, oh, and by the way, I will keep going for as long as I can without getting in trouble. I've tried to secure myself. It's sort of a inconspicuous corner. You can see over there the window to the prayer room, presumably because they don't want people jacking off in here.

Never mind, intent to masturbate in the quiet room. Just do the podcast, because I haven't done a podcast this week, because it's been very busy. I'm doing my last gig in America for this year. I'm on my way. It's sold out. Thank you for everybody who's coming. James, isn't it good of you to have been?

sufficiently organized to have gotten to the airport early enough to record in the Austin airport quiet room no I actually got here barely on time but my flight it we started taking off and then he slammed on the brakes and everyone was pretty spooked and they said something was wrong with the plane so now a new plane is being sent from Houston and I'll be on that plane anyway the important thing, we're all having a good time. We're all having a good time in here in the nooks and grannies. It is nice being in one of the parts of the airport that doesn't get a lot of care and attention. When you find a secret to an airport, one of my favorite things, sometimes there'll be a little museum tucked away. Sometimes, as in the case of the Denver airport, um, full conspiracy

theories abound for that particular airport. A, I'll do a little administrative work here off the top of the dome, uh, on Patreon, the very special comedy special slash documentary slash ambient thing slash, um, I guess garage mixed, excuse me, I had an orange juice. It was all I got on the flight before I left was, it was an orange juice and a slam upon the brakes. Uh, on the Pedro. It's called Island of Strangers. And it's, it's just, it's me hanging out with Sam Clark doing gigs in the UK. And it's a great time. Island of Strangers.

It's out on the Patreon. If you want to join the Patreon, that'd be great. If you don't, I understand. Hey, James, is it just Island of Strangers on the Patreon? Or is there a bunch of other stuff? No, there's heaps of stuff. There's so much stuff. You've got Wimbledog.

You've got lots of, you know, almost as many episodes of the bonus podcast as there are of the actual podcast for this. And, you know, the public facing the one that you're, this one. I think you'll love it. James, do you ever record a bad? episode of this podcast and then put it just on the Patreon so that fewer people see it. Yeah, of course. James, do you think you might do that with this one because you're feeling a little more

self-conscious in the quiet room than you had hitherto presumed you would be because you thought it was a room and not a, uh, it's just an office cubicle. I mean, I'll show you. I mean, look, look, look, I mean, you can see if you've got the visual component out on the YouTube, there's no roof, right? This, it just, I've been reading Alexander Pope. he's pretty good I'm reading the

rape of the lock and to say I'm enjoying it would be an exaggeration but I do feel like it's you know it's important to put in some of the work if one is going to keep talking like a toffee elite there are just certain things one must do

like read ostensibly for pleasure what else am I mean, boy, I finished Final Fantasy 6. As a member of the elite, I finished, no, I don't know, man. Yeah, I played Final Fantasy 6, I finished it, I didn't think it was very good. I've been on the road a lot, and I've been, um, I tell you, I get, I'm, I'm dumber. I'm dama for having moved around all the time. The jet-setting lifestyle is very bad for deep and reflective thought.

And you'd think that you'd be able to pull on reserves intellectually to cope with just the staggering boredom of being in airports and being pushed around like, you know. And then being in hotels, gosh, they're depressing places. I tried to write a joke about hotels and airports. and I said, yeah, there's no airport that I wouldn't, there's no airport I've ever been at where I didn't want to kill somebody. And there's no hotel where I haven't wanted to kill myself. And people just looked at me concerned. I don't think that's everybody's feeling about airports and hotels,

but that's, you know, I don't feel those things especially strongly. I'm just working on my, you know, we're just working on ourselves. I'm looking forward to being home for a bit. And being in one place. and in that one place you know perhaps learning to cook a meal I'll never do this

this is like when John Lennon and you know says I'm having a home life I cooked some bread I bake bread now that's what John Lennon ran around saying when he wasn't having records my dad was always very snarky about that

my dad who has an encyclopedic knowledge of the life of John Lennon he would go he braked bread like one time there's one instance of his baking bread is very negative about it but I do like I mean I've been on the road enough that I think

oh baking a little bread having bread giving it to people it's weak it's grotesque is this a form of prayer that I don't think they said no podcasting on the sign out front

I don't know that that's a problem yet for the airport clearly there's no special hunger for people do anything in this quiet room. It's turning into a bit of an ASMR type podcast. Oh, mercy me. Mercy me.

Mercy, mercy me. Oh, we are turning it into a kind of prayer. Mercy me. God, take mercy on me. Mother Mary, take mercy on me. Sweet Lord, have mercy on me. A sinner. Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, take mercy on me a sinner.

Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, take mercy on me a sinner. Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, take mercy on me a sinner. Take mercy on me or have mercy on me? I don't remember, and it's from translation, so it's probably not. Do we take mercy? Do we have mercy? Have mercy on me? Makes me sound like a table that mercy is a, some sort of brunch that's being used.

eaten off of. Perhaps I'm hungry. Take mercy on me. Take on me. Take me on. Have mercy for me. Be merciful toward me. Look after me and stop me from suffering. Orient my suffering if I must suffer in a way that it is bearable and meaningful and that I have what little understanding I require to continue with it. I do quite like going on the road. I can plan a lot. I'm going off to Washington. Did I tell you? Did I tell you I'm going off to Washington, D.C. today?

That's going to be very exciting. I was going to get in early and have a walk around, but now I will get in just on time, and I will go straight to the gig, and then I will record a podcast with Ben Domben Inch, in between the gigs, and then I will, and then I will do another gig. Then I will go home to bed, and then I will fly back home, and then I will be at home.

Oh, dear, sweet. You know what I've been doing? I, other than this now and the gig tonight, I think two Sabbaths in a row, I managed to keep it holy. That was nice. I don't know what I'm going to do today. It's Sunday today. It's Sunday day, and I thought I would get in early enough. to go to an afternoon mass.

I don't want to be in a state of mortal sin. I don't. I mean, this is why one must... I won't be booking shows on Sundays in the future. How's that? I should not have said yes to this one. I think I will get in with enough time to go to a mass and then quickly go to the gig.

I don't have to be at the gig exactly at the start time. of the gig. I just have to be there by the time I have to go on. I mean, would my audience be happy if people... And now the show must pause for 10 minutes while James sprints over from the cathedral. Now, I think... I mean, does one have an... One only has an obligation to be there for a very specific part of the mass.

I think one can probably leave before the blessing. I, when I'm on the road, do... And I'm ashamed to say this. I find myself leaving before the blessings, quite. often because I am angry because I don't want to be there because it's not my parish and something has made me upset. We become less open-minded the more of the world we see. I just I could I could I could rattle off liturgical abuses that had really upset me, but I want you to know. I know that's my, it's, you know, obviously the abuses are bad, and to some extent it's good to have a proportioned anger at that.

But, it's mostly me, and sometimes it's not an abuse that gets me upset. It'll be like, friggin, you know, guys looking at me a bit too much during the sign of peace. homily was a bit waffly. It feels a little sterile in here. And I would like to do some work on that. It's hard. You try and fix one thing about yourself and you open up new bad things about yourself. And there's something to be said, not something I'm going to fully endorse, but I will say there's something to be said for just having your pet problems and just maintaining them. so you can control the way that they impact other people. You know, rather than trying to fix that problem

and making all sorts of new problems that are going to hurt other people in ways you can't even imagine. Example. Nicotine. Nicotine's bad for me. That's a problem. I have the zins. They get in the way.

They upset people. I was smoking before that. You know, the kids would never smoke my cigarettes, though, but I worry that sometimes the kids, what if they steal one of my cigarettes? zins. So I'm off the zins now. I'm on nicotine patches, which are crazy. I don't know if I'm on the right amount. It feels way more degenerate than the zinning because I just feel a huge rush. I'm on step two. I'm feeling this like massive nicotine. It's like, it's simultaneous.

They feel like I'm not getting enough and I'm getting way too much because with normal nicotine consumption, you spike and you dip, but this is just permanent. Boom, boom, boom, boom. I'm pumping into me. I like it at the moment. I think I might stay on the patches, even if I go back to the sigs and the zins. Or just imagine that. Puffing on a vape, puffing on a sig.

Zin, zen, zen, zin. Patch, patch, patch, patch, patch. Overdose, death. No more suffering. Or a lot more suffering. Who knows? Ha! I just mean to say,

I'm on the naked. and it's got problems because it's shortening my life and it's a, you know, it's a mess or it makes me stink or it hurts my gums. There's all these problems with nicotine. But then the bigger, you know, you go, I'll fix that. I'll get off the nicotine and then I'm just being rude to everybody. And I'm mean and at least I know when I'm having nicotine all the time. I'm being nicer to people. I'm being nicer to my wife and children.

And I feel like they deserve a father who is nice to them. I keep thinking I'm about to get taken out of here. here. I've visited, I've always wanted to do a podcast in a prayer room, and this is not a prayer room, this is a quiet room. It is quiet a form of prayer, is prayer a form of quiet? I'm going to pick up a big pitchfork and I'm a start a write. My poems are not getting any better. But I do have the next one finished. is the pat oh oh i'm an oaf i try to show off my patch and i hit whatever this is i'm an oaf and sometimes i forget that sometimes i have delusions of grandeur about like i'll start my own airline

that's a frequent one is i'll start my own earring i've just got to the point where i have enough money for food in the fridge for everybody for a couple of days and very quickly I've gone to so stop my own airline um James can you capability get organized enough to pack a bag with the things you need for two days no I have to buy a toothbrush when I get there do you think you're maybe not the sort of person who should be running an airline or if you did run an airline it would go really badly and how are you getting the finances with it shut up I'm getting my hair I have real, just enormous delusions about what I would be capable of. What I would want to do.

And sometimes I think, oh, my hope and ambition is gone. I'll just eke out a mediocre little living. Not a mediocre, I think I'm... I'll just eke out what had been my wildest hopes and dreams six months ago. mediocrity But then I I get a little flash of

You know I don't know at this point Oh what is some I want to open up a bookstore I want to sell socks I want to find the greatest socks in the world I would like to get a book deal I would like the Nobel Prize for my poetry

I'd like to make a movie I would like to stop plans for for skyscrapers being built that I disapprove of. I would like to be, as I enjoy doing things with my hand on the video camera. I'm ending the podcast in the sense that I'm going to take it in a new direction. It's going to be the same thing, but I'm going to have a team around me. I've built the team.

I have built the team. There's a team, and the quality is going to go, shoo! January. January, I will take my, as is. is customary. I'll be taking December off. I think the podcast tends to peak around September October and then I have two bad months and I go, give me some time off. And then it takes a while to get back into the flow. But I think from January, what are we doing here? What are we doing here? I have learned the lesson. I am just loving doing things with this hand. I didn't sleep very

well I got up at five to get here early and then the plane had to hit the brakes and we all said oh no what will we do now what will we do now I'm ending the so the podcast is just the season you know if this is season maybe season one is before I go well this has all been season one season one is a man basically trying to figure out on his own and trying to do something new and not doing a very good job season two is a man taking all he's learned I've said this about eight times on the podcast, I've declared this is the end. And it's a new beginning. And it's never been true.

I hope it's true. January, very strong visual element coming. Very strong organizational element coming. Two Sams will be getting to work. Can I say it like that? If you know, you know. And it'll be regimented and good and beautiful. and that'll be starting in January

I was going to record my stand-up comedy at this show in D.C. I've decided not to do it. Because I only have... Anyway... This damn orange juice, heartburned, do these patches do something? Yeah, look, it's all administrative stuff.

No one, some people care, and I love you for Kieran. I appreciate that. I thank you all for joining me on this beautiful journey along the way. No, we're fixing the podcast, and that'll start in January, and I'll take some time off. But the podcast will keep coming out, but I'll be taking time off, because I've got these other episodes recorded. So I'll have the interviews with people, so they'll come out, and that'll fill up December for you all nicely. but the podcast and also the Patreon will keep every week you know something will come out on the Patreon but um yeah I'm just I'm interested in it's been a lot of work to

I work hard I get up work hard here's my problem I just uh man we put out two three Man, I hope this isn't the last episode of the podcast I ever do because this is the last episode of the podcast I ever do because this plane goes down. That was spooky. I'm a little shook. And they did give me a $20 meal voucher. They said, well done, you got a $20 meal voucher because we kicked you off the flight.

$20 doesn't buy you all that much at the airport. I'll tell you that. Oh, you got a $20 meal voucher? What would you like, half a banana and the smell of an oily rag? No, I'll just take the half of banana, please. Keep your rag. You're shorts? Very nice oil.

The smell is fantastic. Man's allowed to buy shoes if he wants. I work hard I should be allowed to have shoes That'll First of all that'll go away I think I've joined the middle classes Touched the lives of so many young people

All this You know I suppose one is meant to read Tia Siliate And go my goodness What a I am so small and little by comparison I could never be as good as him But you know Reading the wasteland

I go Yeah he's my colleague they will be boarding my flight soon wish me luck with these dang patches don't we all need a little extra love in our life i welcome your suggestions on this something you know what i'm saying like really like move over morbidly obese Hawaiian man I never want to eat another taco again it's all tacos here you've been so good to me I keep seeing shadows pass across there. Yeah, yeah, it's time to go.

It's time to go. If we miss the flight and missed the gig because we were here in the quiet room, that will be... All right, God bless you. I love you. I want you to need you. Catamaranhoe. Goodbye.