The James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan - Bad Kicking

Episode Date: May 1, 2023

Tickets to the May 3 show in Adelaide this Wednesday: https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1045698?fbclid=PAAaZVivrmlaPXWdNqJHAA5MsNpZVbVgxDD7OIEbVfNYacWMpybSnY2e4Gzk0Tickets for next week at the Sydney Comedy Festival: https://www.sydneycomedyfest.com.au/event/james-donald-forbes-mccann-mccannifesto/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.com. Clom? Ah, we f***ed it. Anyway, look, you'll find a way. Catamaran Home! Well. Well, now's as good a place as any to start the podcast, I do believe.

Hello, and welcome to this episode of the James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan, coming to you live from my Volvo. This is the podcast where I sit in my Volvo, and I work hard to try and generate $500,000 for me to buy a boat. And today I'm sitting in the Volvo against my will. I was actually hoping to relocate, but sadly my car battery has died in town. So I now I'm waiting for the jumpstart man to come along. I did have the insurance that allows you, you know, like four roadside assist visits per year, but that had run out. I don't know if my mum was paying that.

I don't know if I was paying that and I just didn't do it. I don't know, but I've just bought 12 months of glorious roadside assistance and I will be waiting for approximately the next hour for the jumpstart man to arrive. And I'll be with you. Gee, I don't know if you can hear it, but I am frustrated. It's been a frustrating couple of days.

Last night I went to the football and got on it. I was standing up on the big, beautiful hill at Adelaide Oval, watching the Crowboys fly. Some context, my team, the Adelaide Crows, has been pretty dreadful for, what would we say, six years? We played in the grand final, and then it was all downhill, downhill, downhill. And this year, there have been some strong signs of us coming back. And last night, we were playing the best team in the competition, Collingwood. I would say that they're top two, top four teams in the competition.

And we played so well, but we kicked very inaccurately. And as they say, bad kicking is bad football. And I know that they say that because about nine people have looked me in the eye and said it over the last 24-hour period as though it were a stunningly original and brave observation. Bad kicking is bad football. Well, there was some bad football last night. We lost by a point happened to be quite an important 22 seconds. Yes. Yes. Anyway, good to be here with you while I wait for my jumpstart in the middle of town in a hot car with people walking around. Elderly Asian man looking at me. He's in front of

me. He's getting into his Honda. Boy, he didn't know why there was a man talking into his microphone in his car. Sometimes I don't know either. But, um, oh, I'm hung over is the other thing. I keep, I'm so sensitive. I keep going, oh, I feel terrible. I might, do I have a psychosomatic illness? Is my brain having some sort of growth? Oh, no. And then I remember, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You just got on the piss.

You had drink after drink after drink after drink. And then at the end of the night, when things seemed like they were going well for the Adelaide Football Club, one of your mates said, how about we have one of those cheeky Japanese lemonades with all the booze in it? And you said, oh. Very honorable. Japanese lemonades with all the booze in it. And you said, oh, very honourable. And I had that lemonade and now I don't feel very good. And my team is a losers. But I'm back in Adelaide.

That's nice. I've been touring a lot of late. And we begin now the process of having other people tour on my behalf. Alessio Carducci is coming to town tomorrow and he's got a gig on Wednesday in Adelaide. There'll be some tickets, so you can buy tickets. Tickets are already selling, so don't worry about that. Ah, do worry about it. Please come along.

It's going to be a great show. We're going to record it. What else? I've got shows next week in Sydney. I'm going back to Sydney. I've got a show on a Wednesday that no one really is buying tickets to. The Friday night will be great, but the Wednesday, oh boy, wowee, golly gosh, oh boy. Look, lots of exciting, beautiful things are happening. There's an art auction coming up. There's a book of poems

coming out. Never before has the prospects of my owning a boat in the immediate future seemed so strong. Are prospects strong? Are they clear? Are they vital? Well, they're all of those things. I'm sorry, I'm just in a terrible mood because the Volvo car battery has broken down. No, that's not true. I was in a bad mood anyway because of the football and the hangover.

And I was in a bad mood before then. I'll tell you one thing that's really been lifting my mood recently, the thing that I've been holding on to for dear life, opera. I am really getting into opera in a big way. My last day in Sydney, I moved out of that pub and I went to a hotel. And what a sad, nasty little hotel it was. With one window that opened up onto a brick wall. Great to have your own bathroom, but none of the charm and dignity that the pub had.

None of the bed bugs either. You know, sometimes you just take the least bad option in this life. Anyway, in the afternoon before checking into that hotel, I decided I'd go and see a movie. Sometimes you just take the least bad option in this life. Anyway, in the afternoon before checking into that hotel, I decided I'd go and see a movie. So I went off to the cinema and all the movies looked terrible. They're just to the last. Really, there's two kinds of movies now that they show in a la-di-da cinema.

They show your real lowbrow, bang-bang-bang type Marvel superhero. You're a fucking idiot and we fucking hate you. You don't know anything. Shut the fuck up, you dumb cunt type movie. And there's the other kind of movie that's slow French heroin needles. Couldn't do it. Couldn't sit. Couldn't sit through one of those. So instead, I took, again, least bad option, I thought available to me was, there was a live-streamed opera.

And I'm one of these people who doesn't really go in for opera very much. Classical music, perfectly fine. No big complaints there. But the warble, that operatic style, you know, that sort of vibrato-nious nonsense. I don't go in for that, but I thought, all right, well, I'll watch like the first hour of this three-hour opera. I think it was about three hours. Turandot by Puccini. And look, with some key complaints, Ciccini, and look, with some key complaints, it was one of the best things I've ever done. It transferred, I kept going, three acts, two intermissions, halfway through the first one, I was like, ah, look, I only have to be here until my hotel opens in like half

an hour, so we'll just, you know, I'll be ready to walk out whenever I start getting bored, except I didn't get bored at any point. I came back after the intermission, and in the second intermission, I was captivated by this opera. I love Turandot, if that's how you say it. It was a tremendous opera. Now, the whole story hinged on Turandot, the Chinese princess. It really hinged on her being very beautiful.

And I must say, in this particular version, perhaps she was beautiful at one point in her life, but it was a big old lady. And the hero, who I think is meant to be very brave and powerful. It was a very slender Korean man. He was half the size of this woman that he was in love with, but it didn't matter. The story was so powerful. The music, so beautiful. Turandot. I loved it. A very strange story. I actually wrote a poem a few days later because I've just been watching opera after opera, Puccini, Puccini, Puccini, and some other ones. So here's a little poem that I wrote about opera. I will say before I read the poem, someone got in touch with me last week and they said, I really like listening to your podcast in the car with my son. He's a young boy and we listen to it together and you know you don't have the swearing and it's a relatively wholesome podcast. Thank you for that. And to

that man I'd just like to say definitely skip this poem which is called Opera is All About Pussy. Opera is all about pussy. Good opera is all about ruining your life for the very best pussy that you ever had. Turandot, that's about pussy. Figaro, that's about pussy. Cavalleria Rusticana is sort of about Easter, but mostly about pussy. I mean, you go to the opera thinking you're in for a high-minded time, when actually it's an Italian hornbag's most feverish dream about ruining his life for incredible pussy.

And sometimes they'll try, you know who I mean, to bring out an opera that's not about pussy. It's about racism or about building a nation or it's about some sort of nonsense that's not about everything falling apart in pursuit of some pussy you're not meant to have. And none of those non-pussy operas are worth a goddamn. Life's about pussy.

Life's about opera, about yearning for pussy. Pussy you're not meant to have. Puccini. Whoa, baby. Hot. Hot, hot, hot, hot, hot. And it's getting hot in this Volvo too, and I can't lower the windows because there's no battery to do that with.

Gee, I'm disappointed with myself. Quite a lot of poems coming out this week, though. I'm writing a lot of poems. I should be focusing, I know, on the work for the podcast. I should just be, you know, putting the effort into making the best podcast possible. But I can't. It's all about the poems. Here's another poem that's not especially suitable for young people. Sorry about that, loving father. Might want to skip this one too. This is a poem all about love. Whatever happened to making love? Holding hands and going to the cinema

Dressing up nice, a kiss on the cheek Paying a compliment and watching her blush Small talk! The smell of her hair Winning a smile that makes you feel like you've won a million dollars Paying for the meal and dropping her home by nine But with the kids these days, man, it's all hittin' and spittin' and shittin'.

Hittin' and spittin' and shittin'. Hittin' and spittin' and shittin'. That's what they do, these boys and girls. If you can call them boys and girls, some of them take offence if you try to call them girls and boys. Well, they're certainly not gentlemen, and they're certainly not gentlemen. And they're certainly not ladies. They hit and spit and shit.

And they call that being in love. They're choking each other out and they're putting it on TikTok. They're dressing up like animals and sniffing amyl nitrate. Well, I don't know about you, mon frere, but me, I don't much like it. This hitting and spitting and shitting. This hitting and spitting and shitting. I'm more of a box of chocolates kind of fella. We'll see you next time. got you covered. Summer runs or playoff season meditations, whatever your vibe, Peloton has thousands of classes built to push you. We know how life goes. New father, new routines, new

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At UBC, our researchers are answering today's most pressing questions. To learn how we're moving the world forward, visit ubc.ca forward happens here. You know, I'm devastated this week because Barry Humphreys died. I was a big Barry Humphreys fan. I was a big Barry Humphreys fan. I remain a big Barry Humphreys fan.

I love Barry Humphreys. And I will pray for the repose of his soul. I met Barry Humphreys once. I wrote a speech for the Minister for the Arts. It was like eight years ago when he was... Barry Humphreys was in town as the... He was heading up the Adelaide Cabaret Festival. He was in charge of it.

And I was commissioned to write a song parody from Anything Goes for the Minister for the Arts to work on that with a friend. And Barry Humphreys, at the start of his speech, he just attacked it. He just said that was really very poor. she just attacked it he just said that was really very poor and uh i love barry humphries there's my favorite barry humphries thing is uh at the end of his autobiography his 1992 i think it is autobiography more please there's a little post script at the end where he's been uh he's been an alcoholic for

many years and his marriages have fallen apart due to um ceaseless philandering and he's just been unhappy for a real long time and he goes and he sees a friend who's painted him and as he leaves the studio he he feels uh very strange and he has to sit down on a stoop and people are talking to him and and they're organizing an ambulance to come and look after him and he realizes that he just felt joy for the first time in about a decade and he feels very embarrassed and he walks away barry humphreys was maybe the only, like, important Australian. I don't want to over-egg that. I don't want to overcook it. But in terms of interesting people to come out of this country, there's probably been others, but no one that I can think about at the moment. Barry Humphries everyone else is very replaceable barry humphries

not at all uh i miss oh oh and the people in melbourne they treated him so badly i've had a number of it's become a little bit of a scandal this week that because the melbourne comedy festival was on and barry humphries died and bar Humphreys felt as though he was badly treated by the Melbourne Comedy Festival. He helped to start it. The biggest award was named after him. And a bunch of people complained when he said he had some comments about trans people. And they took his award away. And they took his award away.

And this week, all these soft cock Melburnians have either been like walking back their condemnation of him in a measured way so as not to offend anybody or trying to explain away that, well, that was actually appropriate to remove him even though we don't want to, he's dead and that's sort of awkward for us. Man, I've f***ed a lot of them. Barry Humphries was great. And yeah, these people, these parasites on the thing that he started,

kicked him to the curb in his older vulnerable years. It's poor behaviour. It was very poor behaviour and it doesn't really matter in the great scheme of things because no one will remember it. Nobody will remember that an arts administrator chucked a tizzle and changed an award. They'll just remember Barry Humphreys and how great his work is. Oh, I've gone back and I've watched a lot of the interviews this week. Australians and British people will need no reminder, but I think Americans don't know Barry Humphreys.

There were a couple attempts to penetrate America. None of them especially successful. There's quite an awkward Conan O'Brien interview you can check out. And the sense of humour just doesn't really work for an American panel show. There's a lot of pauses and context and disapproval. And American panel shows, the talk show is so choppy. There's not really room for a thing to breathe. Do you know what I mean? Well, you might not. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong.

Maybe it was just not a great talk show appearance. Everyone's allowed to have a not great talk show appearance, even if you're really good at comedy. But if Americans don't know about Barry Humphreys, watch Dame Edna on Parkinson. The Dame Edna Parkinson ones are so good. Treat yourself. Enjoy.

It's bittersweet. It's bittersweet for me having Barry Humphreys die. Because, again, I really love and respect Barry Humphreys. Only having met him very briefly. His work is staggering. But sweet in that I am now easily the best living Australian comedian. There's no competition. I'm number one.

I sort of feel how Prince Charles must feel having his mummy die. You don't want mummy to die. But at some point, you've got to take your rightful place. King of the mountain. Possibly a little grandiose, but if I haven't learnt humility through all these humbling experiences, I just don't think I'm ever going to learn it. The car's been fixed. The RAA man came. He jump-started the car. I've had the car running for a while. I've just driven home in the rain with a foggy windshield because the air conditioner's broken, and it hadn't really occurred to me that while a broken air conditioner in summer

is uncomfortable a broken air conditioner in autumn when things get foggy is a genuine threat to your life i was driving blind in rush hour and i've managed to wipe away a little i've arrived out in front and i've wiped away a little gap in the windscreen. And dear listener, if only I could tell you how beautiful it was. The sun is poking through the clouds. Everything is wet. The light is shining brilliantly. The trees and their few remaining leaves are golden, lit up against a drab grey sky. It's the most beautiful light that ever happens.

And in Adelaide, you get this light for a few months every year. And it's one of the great consolations of living in Adelaide, is this beautiful autumn, wintry light. It really helps console you when your football team, during those very same months... Ah! Bad kicking is bad football. Bad kicking is bad football. I just want to say thank you for listening to this.

What is really the episode of the podcast. If I had one in reserve, I'd release that. And I wouldn't release this one because I feel pinched and upset and all sorts of unpleasant. But, ooh, it'll be shimmering, shining, all good and all positive for the show on Wednesday with Alessio Carducci, who's coming to town, who's staying at my house, ostensibly. He's staying here for the first night, and then I anticipate that the noise of my screaming children will be sufficient to drive him out into some sort of low-class pub-type arrangement. And the margins of these gigs will become razor thin. I'm in Sydney next week. Tickets on sale now.

I'm in Adelaide this week. Tickets on sale now. Oh, I love you. I love you. Ah! Ah! it's on sale now. Oh, I love you. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. A hundred days have made me older Since the last time that I saw your pretty face A thousand lies have made me colder

And I don't think I can look at this the same But all the lies that's different I'm here without you baby But you're still on my lonely mind I think about you baby And I dream about you all the time I'm here about you baby, and I dream about you all the time. I'm here without you baby, but you're still with me in my dreams. And tonight, it's only you and me. The miles just keep rolling As the people leave their way to say hello I've heard this life is overrated

But I hope that it gets better as we go Go But all the miles that separate They look so dead now And I'm dreaming of your face I'm here without you baby But you're still on my lonely mind I think about you, baby And I dream about you all the time

I'm here without you, baby But you're still with me in my dreams And tonight, girl, it's only you and me Yeah, I'm here without you, baby I'm here without you, baby, come on You're still with me in my dreams Oh, I'm here without you, baby But you're still on my lonely mind

I think about you, baby And I dream about you all the time I'm here without you, baby But you're still with me in my dreams And tonight, girl It's only you and me