The James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan - having swum too far

Episode Date: July 28, 2025

Join the Patreon to read Wimbledog: https://www.patreon.com/jdfmccannHeadline comedy shows on sale now:www.jdfmccann.com/gigs Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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've fucked it. Anyway, look, you'll find a way. Catalan home! I saw something that really upset me, and I'm going to say it here at the beginning part of the podcast.

It's actually the last thing I'm recording for the podcast, but I'd forgotten it while I spoke for the ensuing 38 and however many minutes. It upset me so much that I thought. We've got to get that news right to the front of the podcast. I'm speaking very quietly because the family's asleep, and I'm about to have to pack up the Airbnb. Anyway, you'll hear all about that. I'll do all the introduction about that. I ate Carl's Jr. recently.

And I was in the drive-thru at the Carl's Jr. And at the moment, I think it's the woman from Call Her Daddy, who is the temporary spokeswoman for Carl's Jr. And, you know, she's filming her softcore, erotica with her big buzies and eating her hamburger. I'm there, I mean, I'm looking at this. It just takes over the menu. I'm trying to see what they have at Carl's Jr.

I don't have the Carl's Jr. A menu. I don't know the difference between a Western star and a star supreme and a whopping big star, the big star. What about the chicken ones? And it all keeps disappearing, and it's this woman and her big tit.

And I got to try and make my order. The woman disappears for long enough. And I speak, a robot voice at first, which is becoming more and more common. You go to the McDonald's and they go, hello, have you got your app today? I go, no, I don't have the app. I want to talk to a person, and then the person comes on next. But at this, Carl's Jr., they go, hey, may I take your order in a very roboty voice? Not even that robot. I could tell it was a robot, but it was really the only way I could tell it was a robot because it was too

together and professional for a 10pm Carl's Jr. employee in rural California and when the real voice came on after this interaction let me tell you it didn't sound like that how did it sound Jimmy you're going to give us an impression no but I will say he used the word

a shake instead of shake and that was really nice is your shake anyway it was an AI the full order was meant to be taken by AI Carl's Juniors pivoted to that you meant to talk to a robot I'm buying my

poison listen you can have I'm going to say two of these three things but once you get all three of them together it's dystopian you can either two of the three softcore pornography

on a screen, okay? Erotica on a screen. That's number one. Number two is ordering poison and number three is doing it, just talking to a robot. I'm talking to a robot while I order my terrible food and they're showing me porno. It's a black mirror episode and it's happening in rural California. I'd like to say I won't be eating at Carl's Jr. again, but I will. But I mean, can Carl Sr. have a word about this? Can Carl Sr. come along and say, this is not the kind of institution that we want to be running? Fast food places used to have a clown and a big purple man,

a colorful interior decor and a anthropomorphic bird who got your breakfast. There's a little man trying to steal it all. There was a king of the burgers. Hey, man, you go to a Henry Jacks, which is Burger King in Australia, There'd be a jukebox and pictures of Elvis Presley. And now what is it? A porno and a robot? Give me a break.

I didn't realize it was that bad. Until afterwards, I drove away and I thought, I think I just spoke to a robot while they showed me porn. Disgusting, evil, wrong. Welcome to this episode of the James Donald Force for Kent Canmran Plan that I've already recorded. What's up? James Donald Forbes, Smacken, Catamaran, Pran. You know, there's a trope in movies.

I don't know if it's a trope, or it just happens in Gattaca. But it felt like a cliche. But that thing of, you know, you go out swimming, and you swim as far as you can. And then on the swim back, you realize you don't have the energy to get back to the shore, and you drown. Again, maybe that just happens in Gattaca, but it felt like a trope. when I was watching it in Gattuck. Like as soon as the boys go out swimming into the ocean,

I thought, oh yeah, they're going to swim out too far. One of them's not going to be able to make it back. Oh, it's the one without the fancy jeans. Whatever. Ah. It's a metaphor. It's a metaphor for hubris. Took my family on this road trip, and it's been great.

And I will, in a moment, talk about some of the ways that it has been stunning. But at the moment, as we have started, on the retreat. Dare I say return? No, I said retreat. I ran out of steam. As we're coming back, excuse me.

It's such a big, it's a big, bloody country. It's too big. It's too big. Break it up into smaller pieces, please. For the dignity of road trips. It'll be, I don't know, it's like 28 hours left to go.

We saw Yosemite yesterday, and that was great. What I'm trying to say is, I can make it back. I'm not the drowning, boy. I'm going to make it back. The family will be fine. I'm doing fine.

I'm a little... I'm tired. I am very tired. But I'll get a nice sleep tonight. The kids will now go down. We'll whack up in the morning. Crack of... I don't know.

Nine. At the crack of nine. We'll be out of here. We're in Mammoth Lakes, which was the cheap place that I could find near Yosemite. We went yesterday. And Yosemite was a choice.

Oh, actually, a number of things have happened. Should I do it chronologically? Nah, we'll go backwards. Reverse chronological. Yosemite is so beautiful. I mean, is there more to say? I realize there was a hotel inside the National Park, and it's a very expensive hotel.

And one day, post-boat, you know, when I'm money in search of purpose, I think I could very happily just spend two weeks in Yosemite just walking around and going, wow, trees, big, nice, with bears, I can't see any, I think they're here, I believe there are bears. It's so beautiful, beauty is very important. That and other pearls of wisdom from James Donald Fourskegonne on this episode of the James Donald Fourskemegan, Catamaran plan. It was, I didn't think we'd spend as long at Yosemite as we did, because we were pretty tired by the point we got to Yosemite, but,

We were restored by El Capitan, amid others. I think people base jump off of the mountain, cliff face, big, big, big, big, big, sharp hill. Whatever, I don't know what it's called. But whatever El Capitani is, I think people base jump off there and sometimes die. And I'd heard that, and then I saw El Capitan, and I thought, oh, yeah, if you're going to maybe die jumping off something, you'd want it to be that. That's good. That's very big. The sheer bigness of it has really, man, these natural,

America's national parks are so, there's so little signage, there's so much freedom, there's so little oversight from park people. I'm sure people disappear there all the time. So much of it is not being overseen by, you're alone, you're in wilderness. The government says people need a place to get in. the wild they need a big fancy hotel in there as well but but for most of them for miles and miles and miles just nothing good place to bury a body well maybe not because there's people trampling through there all the time you can probably find a better forest but yeah you just got this

is how many guys are trekking off into yosemite and doing terrible things anyway my point was it felt very free and of course when something is free uh i don't know the what is Lucidius? I don't think Lucifius is the word. What's that word that means inclined to? It's not Calipidgian.

That means of large bottom. Dang, there's this great word that means wanting to sin. Hold on. It starts with a sin. You probably already know it, do you listener. But for those of us who don't know it, we'll all have it together.

Oh, I'm going to have to look it up. Concipient. What? a good word that is. I knew that way. I didn't want to talk about concupisian. I was just saying I felt very free. And I had all these thoughts, but I was restored by beauty. Maybe people go to do terrible things at the National Parks of America, and then they're so beautiful. They go, I'm turning it around. I'm not going to do something dreadful. I'm going to look at El Capitan. I didn't hear a lot of people talking like that in Yosemite. It was a lot of, well,

dude, California accent's real. Well, we were. for then Sacramento. Oh, I quite like Sacramento. Mixed reviews on Sacramento. A lot of people going, Sacramento is great. And some people go in, Sacramento, I quite liked it. It was sort of, it's like New Orleans slash the Rust Belt, despite being very much so neither of those places. I think we just had a midtown. And a lot of people looked like they were, GTA, excuse me, GTA five characters. You know what I mean? you can extract from that what you want but i saw a lot of people who looked like gta five characters in the midtown of sacramento and the shows were great and thank you for everybody

who came out to the singular it was only one show actually who came out to the show we packed it out it was very packed packed like a sardine packed so the if a sardine tin had just one very small section with nothing in it we almost sold it out i think it's like we got 200 and something And it's, anyway, it's slightly more than that was close. Ooh, it was close in a town where I haven't been before where I don't have an audience. On a Tuesday, they all seem very, and I'm very happy to everybody came out. And I guess that's the point I got to in my career in America where I can show up to a random town of under a million people and do a show and be with a check. I mean, that's nice.

I spent years trying to get people to come. out to show in Adelaide where I lived and was from and knew a lot of people and I couldn't do it. And so now just to show up randomly in Sacktown and have people there. It's a great honor. It's a great blessing. I'm very grateful. I'm very blessed. I'm very honored. Anyway, before then, oh, we picked up our friend Ruby and well, actually she was already on it. Ruby was on the last spot. She's not with us now. She's in Sacramento with her mother. and we drove on and then Yosemite and then, well, I guess that does catch everybody up. I don't even know. I don't even know. I don't even know what we did in Sacramento.

Yes, I do. Come on, Jimmy. It's all blank. I mean, what's the point of going out on the road and making these beautiful memories on tour and on a vacation with your family if you cannot remember any of them because you become so tired? And also if sometimes you become, I mean, sometimes, oh my goodness. Ah, the kids are at a very beautiful age today. We went to it. So we got we made it to a ski town after yosemite because it was too expensive to stay in yosemite and my plan of booking somewhere at the last minute i did not work again it's twice there's two failures about six successes in my uh just book family accommodation on the day and you'll get it better and cheaper anyway it's sort of worked in the ski town it's uh i think this is i don't think this is

obviously it's the ski town it's the middle of summer this is the off season i know this is the off season and they've got all the they've got all the they've got you know, the paltry, the paltry consolations for it being summer in a ski town to just try and keep it going until the cold comes back again. And they weren't so very paltry. They were by the expensive and that made me very upset. My wife bought her, I think it was a strawberry milk and an apple juice. It was $19. And she felt embarrassed that she made for. It was very sweet. She said, I was going to get us all food, but these two cost $19. and I was embarrassed, so I bought them, but I think we have to go.

And I said, yeah. And I didn't go in and have a word with me. You can't be judging $19 for some juice or some strawberry. I just said, all right, we didn't forget out of you. But we did do two activities. Why didn't? I mean, I did one of them with my boy, my four-year-old. He has wanted to go on a roller coaster forever.

And there was a sort of a luge. It wasn't a roller coaster. It was a downhill luge type, not skiing type replacement. And I got to take my daughter on those, about a year ago in Branson, and he was very upset that he didn't get to go on because he was too short, but he has grown tall enough to go on this one. And so I got to take him on that, and he was, he was a little scared. He was a little scared, but he came right.

He goes, oh, this is all right. And I go, oh, yeah. I go, see, he's got, because there's a break on it. And I said, you know, you've stopped asking me to hit the brakes. And he said, hit the break. Like, he'd just forgotten that he could have the brakes. And once I'd reminded him, he really, he did want them applied. But he was a very brave.

He's a brave boy. You know, if bravery is being afraid and doing the thing anyway, he is a brave boy. Oh, my goodness, it's going to be a, it's going to be a mental drive back. But that's fine. I also feel like we've seen all the stuff. It's nice to come back a different way, but we lost something in one of the hotels at the start of the trip. I mean, I lost my bag in Las Vegas, and we lost something just before then. It was a rough start.

And the Las Vegas police still have not figured out my bag. I'm going to have to find some excuse to go back to Las Vegas. I'm going to join the Blue Man Group. I've got to head back to Las Vegas and get my bag at some point so expect to see me at a show in Las Vegas in the coming months exclusively for the purpose of retrieving a bag I'll enjoy doing the show I'm sure and it'll more than cover the fly of the tickets if I'm very blessed

but yeah I just and I want that it's got my favorite shirt it's got a horse on it I've done the rest of the trip with two pairs of socks Oh, oh, anyway, you can do a ride trip with you. You can do it. Here's the thing. People told me, they said, oh, you can't do that. And you can do it. I mean, it's not done yet. I think the hardest part is to come, which is driving back a place you've already been. It's not novel anymore. You're not going, oh, the petrified fur, the painted desert. We stop in and see that. We go, we've seen it. It was beautiful. It renewed our spirits. We're going on. We're moving forward. Oh, we might get to see a couple. We can stop in slightly different places on the way back.

Spend a little longer in Albuquerque. Listen to the Weird Al Yankovic song again. Thank you to everybody who are. A lot of people send in music recommendations. I've run out of music to play on Spotify on the car. Does not do random properly. I figured out how, I think I know. Someone could tell me why I'm wrong, but I think I know how to make an algorithm.

them random really easily and someone please listen to me please i'll tell you right now because i think what's happening is it must just it must just go we're skipping ahead by 150 songs or whatever must have a set number i don't think it can generate randomness for the shuffle well use the time and the date multiply all the integers in the time and the date and that'll give you a random number and then the time's always updating so you always get a different number and always jumps ahead by a different number each time and you know if you don't have maybe that adds up to like 7,951 I don't think I have that maybe that's a prime number I've made myself into a fool and did I say adds up to him and multiplies up so I've been watching I'm not good at maths I used to be okay at it but now

we're watching number blocks with the kids don't watch a lot of telly but when we're on the road and you've got a, you know, the wife and I are flat as attack, driving all day, looking after the baby, and you just fill an hour, it's like, all right, bang that number blocks on. They're numbers who have, but every number has a different personality, and they live in numberland, I think, and they get, you know, they confuse, there's some weird things. I'm sure someone's gone into depth on it, on the law and the, uh, the interior physics of numberland, but, you know, two ones can come. together and they merge together and they form a two and then a two has an entirely distinct

personality and three has a distinct every number has it every number is unique every number has a distinct personality you know the seven is i think a rainbow eight is no nine a seven eight's a rainbow nine is gray and then is that what's kind of nice is the ten you see um ten is like a older version of one. And then a hundred is a very, very mature, middle-aged, number one. And then a thousand, sometimes they get up to a thousand. That has a very ancient, you know, it's like a titan, sort of like a half-god type number, sort of transcendent.

But then the numbers don't seem to experience. any existential dread when two ones come together to make a two they don't miss having been ones I don't think they I think there's enough if number blocks that I've seen they actually don't really remember being what they just continue on as two with two's personality and two's memories they don't you know like in severance where there's the two people and they're fused into one you know one person is split into two people and fused back into one person they feel great anxiety about it. There's a whole show about, well, you know, you've been lifelong than I have.

You've, all memories that I have. What if I only exist as a small component of you? And the number blocks does not explore that theme at all. No, no. And there are multiplication tables, which are sort of hovercrafts, and I don't know if the numbers eat, or if they have love or friendship. they're not you know it would be easy to say that these were anthropomorphic numbers but they're not they're a distinct form of life with its own concerns and sometimes they overlap with who's that down there what are you doing after bed honey after bed I mean, what child could resist that would actually be, if it wasn't for the fact that that

child needs to be in bed. Oh, it would be good to get some of the insights on it. She's in more number blocks than I, she'll know. That's functioning, but there's something, uh, something for, it's human, it's not a bad show. I can, some of the songs drag on for a bit, and I don't like it when they bring in the letter blocks. I think they're called the, uh, maybe they're not called the alpha blocks, excuse me. and that's a block

that's, you know, there's the T block and the H block and there's a U block and an M block and a B block and when they all stand together a thumb happens and it could also happen with different blocks and different things

and if they jumble around that's how they influence their universe and that's as Ruby was pointing out it's something more unsettling about letters in happening a plane of existence because there's something that we've generated culturally. Numbers exist before us, we can name them, but I think you'd have to be a real...

I mean, I'm sure somebody out there, I'm sure there's an academic school where they think that we've devised, we've thought up numbers, numbers are not really existing and discovered, but also a cultural phenomenon. That just seems so dumb. obviously ordering them into units of 10 but number blocks also covers that well I mean they live in an ordinal is that the term I'm looking for

an ordinal universe in 10 but they do explore what if it was binary or what if it was three they get some sometimes sometimes number block let me tell you I'm wondering how push they get they haven't how far can they push this number box thing I think there are 10 seasons and they increase in complexity

can we get the I mean the free episodes are sort of entry-level stuff but if I would be interested to see what sort of songs they write about differential calculus I don't think they've yet explored an idea that they didn't seem you know at the moment it's a lot of two and two is a four but a one and three at them together that's a four too and a four and a zero well that's four they haven't gotten to my negative numbers yet I don't think they have an easy way to... There was one song I did about negative numbers where, you know, we're imagining if we went underground

what that would be like. You know, zero is the ground and one is above the ground. What about them? We'll get under the ground, negative one. But negative one doesn't see any songs. Maybe that could be some sort of enemy. No, but they're all this unity. You know, and there are intellectual challenges

for the number blocks to figure out. But... They don't seem to have too many disagreements with the one. Sometimes they'll go for a race. Sorry, this is really probably, I mean, for some people who have been subjected to a lot of number blocks, this probably feels, maybe they feel heard and seen. But for those with their children, I'm sure people are just going to stop talking about the number block. You've got to pick.

When you're a parent, you've got to pick. Some people go, my kids are watching, no. screens at all, you know, as though they were tribal persons on that island just off the closed, the coast, close, the island close, close to injure. You know, those guys with the spears who kill you if you try and help them. Not sure I like them. Not sure I like those guys. I might have to go over there and have a word with them. Anyway, I'm not keeping up on the news. I'm mostly keeping up on the number blocks. I think it would be more advantageous for my comedy career if I was keeping up on this, whatever, Epstein, files,

and Trump seems to be in real trouble. But I've just got my dumb phone and intermittent internet connection. I, there was a, I was a young, I tell you, when I, when I, when I, ladies and gentlemen, when I, mostly gentlemen, when I, hello ladies, when I was a young man, I really kept up with specifically Australian politics, I followed America, American politics as well. But Australia, you know, I knew who people's chiefs of staff were, the state and federal, what was, who's the local, whose protege, what are the factions doing? Who's got dirt on who? And now, now it feels like it's important. When I was following it, it didn't seem especially, didn't see, you know, even at the time, it felt like

fiddle around with, maybe it did feel important at the time, and I'm being, I'm being ridiculous and I'm fabricating a memory, but certainly they did not feel like impactful times the way these are impactful times. People used to talk about budget surpluses in Australia, you know, and getting rid of all the national debt. Now, there's no sense that that's even, something people would want it's gone out of control but it's gone out of control because we're dealing with big you know

things are big big things to be dealing with excuse me I maybe now's a good time to mention that the this is usually what the Patreon sounds like so if you if you're listening to this

going to man that's no good oh keep your ass off the Patreon unless you want to see Wimbledog We've got Wimbled Dog out there as well. No, I can feel a second wind coming. Can you feel it? I can.

Maybe it's a third wind. Oh, over the course of this road trip, there might be wind number 56. I finished a book of poems on the road this week. It's been proofed. I'm having the proof copy sent to me so I can see how it looks on the page and the cover is being worked on.

So we'll have a new book of poems in a couple weeks and that'll be a big wheel to break my back on. Is flogging a new book of poems. and that'll just be self-published once again i think i need to sell someone once told me you need to sell 5,000 copies before you get a proper book deal and you get into a store and uh you know i make like 10 bucks are less than that i mean but Australian currency um nine i feel very happy being open with everybody about it when i'm making on the book you know i'm making slightly less than half the cover price but i think if if a publishing company brings it out you get like

percent. And so once, you know, if I'm making seven, if I'm making seven dollars, seven American dollars, and I'm selling 5,000 of them, and I'm making a new one every year, that's, well, I'm making 35,000 America, I'm not. But if I was, and I got to that point, why would you want a bloody, why would you want the book deal? Anyway, well, I'll tell you why you want the book deal is because you want to sit down with Stephen Colbert in the time. that he has left. And you want him to go, oh, it's a very funny book of poems. No one's watching.

No one's watching. No one's buying them off the back of these. But you sit down with Stephen Colbert. And he says, I love you. And you're wearing a suit. You don't usually wear a suit, but you're Stephen Colbert's theirs. You wear a suit. And you say, thank you, Stephen.

That means a lot. And he goes, you know, he goes, have you been on any road trips in America? So you've briefed him before. admit on a road trip, you ask me about a road trip and I'll be able to tell a funny story. And so he goes, just a pro-po of nothing after going, how much he loves you? He goes, a road trip. Have you ever been on them? And what I think would be funny would be to do a fake pre- Tonight Show interview where you go,

I've got a story about road trips, a story about airplanes, I've got a story about opening up a can of beans. And you sit down the night show and the guy goes, you have a, you're a big fan of beans? And you go, no? They go, oh, I thought you might have been, or maybe you're angry with beans because of how hard it is to open the can. And you go, you just use a can opener. What are you think? This is a very strange thing to be saying. I'm sure someone has done that before. I'm sure people won't have the opportunity to do that again as these shows, fizzle out one by one. One by one by one. Oh, jelly roll was so good as a host. Well done. Jellyroll. Anyway, that's why you do it, because it's nice.

And then your family, they see you go on the Stephen Goldbearing. They go, you got the toy, look, we saw that. It is working out for you. You could make more money on the internet. You can have a bigger audience on the internet. But grandmother doesn't understand what's happening on the internet. You know, when they all get together, the family gets together for Thanksgiving dinner. We were in Australia.

We were just, we were probably just a Christmas lunch, but everyone's gathered around at the Thanksgiving. And Grandma, you know, she's there going, you're big on what? The TikTok and the only fans? I don't know what that is. You know, but if you're even, even a low-level, a pornographer, then Grandma probably says, oh, yes, I remember deep throat, that's incredible. Star of the Silver Screen.

silver peen excuse me it's really late something silly i don't want to have to start packing up this air bambi but if i pack up the air bambi we can leave bright and early we have failed to leave bright and early most days on the trip and that is a failure for me as a father it's important i think i think i seldom get to do because of the comedy i'm to bid very late and then to get up before the children extremely brutal unless I become a little of a man who divides the day into sections we have two or five hours sleeps which I have done before and I don't really want to do again

but getting up before the children puts them on edge you know let's them know hey I have any business dad's already been awake he's waking me up imagine what that must be like to wake them up I'm sure they'll happen at some point it's never happened yet that children and old people, they get up so early. I don't know why old people get up so early.

Maybe they don't need as much sleep because, you know, it's not as they have as many things to do. Maybe because they don't have so many things to do. They like to get up early just to see if there's anything. Is there anything happening? Is there anything, I want to miss the worm. Oh, dear Lisa. I feel like I'm at a weird moment where I'm waiting on a comedy special to come out.

The coming month, I'm going to go off into a bunch of people's podcasts and bank them and hopefully have them on this podcast, a nice big relaunch with a famous guest. Relaunch is not the word. I'd just add that to the Uvra. Oh, don't worry, there will still be the episodes where I'm very tired and rambling about nothing. But anyway, that hasn't happened yet. I haven't done those interviews yet. And the special has not finished editing, it's been recorded.

I'm writing the new material for the news shows I'll be doing after it comes out of yet, but that's not out yet. And I've written all the books upon them, that's not how you. I'm taking all these meetings to hopefully make a movie, and they're going really well. We might get to make that movie, but that's not out of you. I'll start working on another film, start to work on another film script. That's not that yet. When does the dopamine come?

When do I actually get to, oh, it'd be nice to release these things, and just have them fail at least and then I don't have to go, what if it's a failure? I can just go, ah, a failure. Good. I think that is one of the issues with the, one should get accustomed to that, right?

Good things take time, good things have time and effort. Well, some good things. I think the Comtown might be one of the best pieces of art to have emerged in the last. decade at least and uh i think that was just them talking but for every one of those there's a there's a thousand others oh there are some good pods of people talking

but a man talking therapeutically oh no no no no no he's got to think about that first turning to stand up otherwise what i'm effectively doing here is improv comedy and that's it's not something anybody can enjoy i tell you what i did enjoy is i've I started, my daughter is six. And I tried teaching her chess a couple years ago, and it was slow going. I couldn't really communicate the concept of diagonal, which is quite important. But she understands all the pieces move now. And I think we're going to press on.

I think I'm going to really get her to be good at chess. And then I have to, well, I don't know that. I mean, we'll get at least playing and knowing how to play. I'll play some games and I will destroy her and that's a delicate moment because I'll win I'll win the games

I should I will she's so smart but I'll still win because I'm in my mid-thirties who's down there I said I'd destroy her and I worry if that's ended like a threat

if she was listening on the stair Oh, I really go and find out because I didn't mean. I meant destroy her in chess. I might have sounded like that he said a weird, scary thing. Excuse me, one moment. Nah, it's all good. It's all good. It's all good.

She was, listening. She wasn't. I think she understood it in context of being about chess. And then she asked if we could play chess now. And I said, go to bed. Okay, so when you start playing chess with a child or any game, you know, and you can really whoop them. You don't want to, like, lose on purpose.

Well, you just don't. I won't. I will. You don't want to lose on purpose. Because then you're not taking you seriously, and then you're taking away, and then the thing of actually getting to beat you. You know, that's good.

That's a beautiful thing, that one day you will actually get to bear me. But you don't want to just come down on, like, a ton of bricks over, over again. This is what's nice about, I mean, there are some games like Go where you can have a handicap and then you get to beat me at 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4 handicaps. Can you do handicaps in chess?

Maybe I'll start with, take a knight off. Can you beat Daddy without a knight on the board? Can you beat Daddy without either of his knights? Okay, he's got no knights, no bishops, no queen, I'm just a heckin out of pieces with the rooks and fantastic porn formations. Nah, we'll see. We'll find out. I'm going to start doing so. I'm going to start researching pedagogical chess.

It would be nice to have one person in this family who would play me. My wife does not play board games. She's opposed to them. She finds the... She says, I do not play games. And so I says, would you like to come play a monopoly? She goes, no, I do not play. games. She's very mysterious. She's very mysterious woman as to why she doesn't play games.

I think it's because she's hyper-competitive and she's closed that part of herself down for our own sanity. And we must all close parts of ourselves down for our own, anyway. You know, that's sort of thing. That's the sort of thing. Oh, I think I'm getting very fat. I will say this. I've not been eating. all that healthfully on the road, it's quite hard to find things for people to eat. I've gone with that dairy, more or less. I've been slowly reintroducing it, and we're getting a bit. I've made it to cheese.

I've made it to small amounts of cheese with that too much difficulty, but my wife's gotten gluten-free. You can't have gluten, and you've got to have gluten, and you've all got to eat something. I'm going to get through a drive there. I mean, are we really going to go to Carl's Jr., and you have a lettuce-wrapper burger? and I don't get the shake again it's very difficult you've got a plant you've got to if you're going to have

silly dietary things you've you've really got to be you can't be a gypsy with a gluten intolerance there's no time to add that to the new book of poems it'll have to be in the book of poems after that I'm afraid oh hello Stephen he goes I love this poem about

gypsy gluten intolerance I said oh I thought you would Stephen. I don't think I know him well enough to call him Steve. But that's what I was trying to say, that's why you get your book deal, you know? You get the writers, festivals and people. Give you a garland, you get a little ward, a little trophy. I was reading about poetry book sales. And I thought, well, yeah, what's a good book sale for, you know, a good book of poems? How much does it sell? And it said, I mean, for a top award-winning poet, I was really, yes. Someone in the entire

poetical Institute and Academy gets behind yes yes yes yes

yes yeah it's a couple hundred no no no and they go

but some poets do sell a lot I go oh who and they go this lady

I go not this lady I got this yeah this lady she got it's real bad poems

and pops them on the Instagram I go oh what does she sell more than

all the Good poets combined, actually. You go far around. There's any point to getting a book deal and getting in there and being championed? Does poetry's cause celebrate? No, mate. No, there's not. I found that interesting at least.

I think fiction's still going. Literary fiction. Obviously can't be a straight way man and write. that, throw all these articles out on how straight white men are not allowed to write literary fiction anymore and, you know, I think that's fair. We've had our time. We wrote all of the good novels ever. Well, I want to be fair. Some of them were gay, but, uh, why do we, Why do we pretend? Like, there were great hidden women geniuses.

Maybe there were. Hey, maybe, of course there were. Excuse me. But we don't know who they are. They've been lost to time. I mean, I, by the way, I'm not saying women can't do it. Incredible.

Women, obviously, great novelists. George Elliott, Virginia Woolf. J.K. Rowling. Big fan. I've got a list. Some of my favorite novels are written by. Thank you very much. Some of my favorite novels and poems are written by women.

Actually. What I'm saying, you know, within classical music, though, they're always trying to get Clara Schumann to happen. I was trying to say, well, you know, Clara Schumann, some people say she's even better than Mr. Schumann. And to that I could only say, but I don't even like Mr. Schumann. They're both, if anyone can help me, have any positive feelings at all about the Schumann's. At the moment, that is a, that is a, I can't, it's like I've been blinded, I can't, I can't, I can't, give me Brahms, give me Marla, I think they liked each other, but independently, Marla's got at least one good song, Brahms, just belting it out, hit after, hit after hit, well done, Mr. Brahms, academic overtures, this sort of business, I love Mendelssohn, a list of Chopin, go away, I don't mind Schubert, you know? Wagner, go the other direction. Wagner, it doesn't do it for me personally, but I know a lot of people get around, get behind a Wagner.

Well, let's not pretend Kossama Wagner was writing better things. Mozart's sister. That's one they like to bring, they go, well, Mozart's sister. She had some of the... Where is it? How hard is it to write a keyboard sonata? If you know how to write music. Well, there was a culture.

The women didn't. Just do it privately for your own Emily Dickinson style. You didn't get a couple, you know, you didn't feel the urge to compose so vividly that you banked off a couple of sonata. Excuse me, I thought someone was knocking on the door, but it's an ice machine. I don't usually stay in places that are fancy enough to have an ice machine, and the sound was alien to me, but now I have identified it as an ice machine. Oh, I had a terrible experience. You know what? I'm going to go back and say it at the start of the podcast because it's something that really upset me and that can be good.

So you've already heard me talk about the Carl's Jr thing, but I'm going to go and do that at the start of the podcast now. And I'm going to end the podcast here. I think that'll, oh, look at that, look at that. Do you mean to tell me we got 38 and a half minutes of blather? I'll put a ribbon on me and call me Suzanne. I have to go to sleep. Who's that downstairs?

Oh.