The James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan - Incredible Leg Maneuvers

Episode Date: May 18, 2025

You can't see it in the podcast but I'm stretching my legs.Join the Patreon to read Wimbledog: https://www.patreon.com/jdfmccannHeadline comedy shows on sale now:www.jdfmccann.com/gigsCOLUMBUS, OH - JUNE 4TH - COLUMBUS FUNNY BONELIBERTY TOWNSHIP, OH - JUNE 5TH - CINCINNATI FUNNY BONEOMAHA, NE - JUNE 11TH - OMAHA FUNNY BONEDES MOINES, IA - JUNE 12TH - DES MOINES FUNNY BONEATLANTA, GA - JUNE 18TH - HELIUM COMEDY CLUBRALEIGH, NC - JUNE 19TH - GOODNIGHTS COMEDY CLUBPHILADELPHIA, PA - JUNE 24TH -HELIUM COMEDY CLUBHOMESTEAD, PA - JUNE 25TH, 2025 - IMPROV PITTSBURGH Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the James Donald Forbes McCann catamaran plan. If you'd like to listen to bonus episodes, go sign up to the Patreon. That's patreon.clom. Clom? Ah, we f***ed it. Anyway, you'll look, you'll find a way. Catamaran home! I'm working on my hamstrings at the moment. I see these men with these flexible legs. Oh, of course I see the women with their flexible legs legs but that's not what I'm here to talk about. I see these men on stage with their legs doing incredible leg maneuvers and it gives them a whole facet of comedy. The leg. So much is done with the hand, so much done with the face and the mouth but the leg. I'm not using

the leg to its full potential because sometimes I'll try a kick on stage or something and then my back hurts for a week so I've been very seriously attempting even now the elongation of what is an unfortunate hamstring. I've been mocked by physiotherapists in the past. I can feel that right in the bum, deep in the right bum. I have some of the worst hamstrings. It's always behind the knee and I start to work on it, I work on it for a number of days and then all of a sudden my back starts to ache, it's always in the back and people say well you know there are things you can do, there are proper maneuvers that will not hurt the back

and this time I'm doing a little of that but mostly I'm just pounding ibuprofen to get through the pain and I'm persisting with the leg stretches that's the main thing that's changed since last I've seen you here on the James Donald Fords McCann catamaran plan. Work on the legs and Wimble Dog's been coming out, Wimble Dog will make an appearance this week on the patreon the graphic novel Wimble Dog it's coming out one page at a time people have noticed that the dog hasn't appeared in Wimble Dog yet. That's Annoying me you shouldn't have to hear it. I shouldn't have to deal with it Wimble Dog is out on the patreon it's coming out now the dogs making an appearance this week. thank you to Peter Bedgood, that's tremendous, welcome to the James Donald Fools, we can't catamaran, play on the podcast where I, James Donald Fools, we can, and making a serious

effort to improve leg flexibility here in Seattle. I just finished a show in Seattle. I think it was good, I'm never really happy with how the show's gone. The audience seemed pleased and that's the one of the important things. And the night previous, prior, before. And Tay. I was in Portland last night and I caught the train today up to Seattle and it was quite beautiful. Man, I walked to the train station and it's been some time since I've seen someone smoking crack and I did see that on the walk to the train station. It does seem like they're trying to clean up Portland, ah, whatever.

The Pacific Northwest more generally. It's a beautiful part of the world. Seattle, I don't think anyone ever told me this before but it really does remind me of Melbourne. I'm in the, I think the homosexual district of Seattle. Lots of rainbow flags on the street. You know know, some cities you have a rainbow crossing, here they have about 50 rainbow crossings. It

does strike me as unusual that the LGBTQIA plus community does want people to trample on their flag. I think of the Japanese Catholic missionaries who were executed if they refused to walk on an icon of our Lord, you know, trampling on something, not usually a sign of respect, but here, with the gay flag, the rainbow flag, please have a step. Tread on me, as the common inversion goes. So much to talk about. So much has been happening. I'm on the road. I've started posting clips on the Instagram because I was told it was necessary and sadly it works. I was really hoping it wouldn't work but I just I took clips that other people had been posting of my stand-up that I hadn't been posting myself and within a week of doing I did five clips

and we got like 14,000 you some weird number 23 like 20% more Instagram it's like ah bugger if I do that you can you can have a career if you do that if you have clips that people like and you put Them on the internet you are allowed to have a career and very quickly sell out your two Pacific Northwest shows So that's nice. Thank you for everybody who was involved in that This I think will be the last time that I go on the road without an opener I Didn't I didn't know how financially this would work, I didn't know how well I would sell. Feeling that in the strings. So I didn't bring an opener this time. I'll be bringing an opener in the future.

I've had a conversation with a couple of people at the mothership. Necessary, necessary to have someone you travel with because otherwise you get sad. I'm alone in a hotel room. I didn't wear this on stage. I put this on to feel happier for the podcast. I will be dressing like this in the future for the podcast. Business man. It occurs to me that I'm a businessman and I'll be you know you don't see well actually nowadays you do see quite a lot of businessmen wearing especially this by the world the fucking excuse me the tech side of things a lot of people dressed up Mark Zuckerberg with his gold chains and entrepreneurs and turtlenecks and that sort of thing but I'll be wearing if not a suit because I I think to get a well-fitting suit you I need to find

one in an op shop with someone who has died in your size not easy much easier to mix and match separates I believe they call it on Project Runway. And it's I'm sorry. Look, I'm sorry. It's been so long between podcasts. Podcasts have been coming out on the petrol for the petrol people, but I know some people too poor for the petrol. So I mean, I've just been on the road and getting ready to be on the road and setting up our home and just grinding away at it watching Eurovision with

great interest. Oh writing some poems would you like to hear some of my new poems? I think you might like to hear some of my newer poems. I might as well read you my poems. What else am I going to do other than read you my poems? Play some of my new music? Yeah, you'll be getting that later on. Don't you worry about that. I think the new book of poems is called Disquieting Levels of Egg. levels of egg and I've been thinking a lot about the uh, that's what the next

year looks like. Comedy clubs are great, people are nice, you meet new people, they see you do comedy but I think after I put the next special out when I need a little time to develop the next lot of things I think it's finally time to get the family in a Winnebago and do a tour of independent bookstores and that's how people will see me I'll go to independent bookstores with my new book of poems tentatively titled disquieting levels of egg it's probably gonna be called something different but I thought wouldn't that be nice, you know, just to a 50, you know, 50 people out to a small bookstore and people have a little glass of wine and smoking out front.

Then I get up and I say here are some poems everybody. You know what I go off in the evenings and do that during the day. I mean at the moment my plan is to just do this on the west coast because it's so beautiful here. We start in San Diego, we go all the way up to Whitehorse, no probably Toronto, in a Winnebago. And it doesn't have to be Winnebago, just a big driving car. Hopefully my wife can drive by this time. And we'll just take a couple of weeks to see this part of the country. Go to the Redwoods, go to a lot of little independent bookstore. I mean, I can do that.

That's the sort of thing I think I'd like to do. I think I've been talked out of van life you want to hear the poems. Oh I wrote an introduction that's not gonna stick so I'll read that to you. I'm gonna get rid of this. It says dearest reader I have I have written this, my fourth book of poems for one reason and one reason only, because I have not yet seized power. Had I already seized power, I would have had no time to write a book of poems. I would be busy reorganizing society and meeting with various functionaries. In one sense, the sense in which I have had the time to write this book, it is good that

I have not yet seized power. But in several other senses, it is a terrible shame. Poverty, angst, traffic, obesity, heartbreak, fatigue, erectile dysfunction, bad sleep, faithlessness, environmental mismanagement, winter, addiction, the absence of miracles, mortality, chafing, divorce, hunger, sciatica, blindness, watching a movie that doesn't really go anywhere, betrayal, lactose intolerance, death, these are but symptoms of the disease, the diseases that I have not yet seized power. May these poems bring you comfort in these trying pre-revolutionary times, yours James

Donald Fawkes McHenry. And I decided that was rather a little impersonal and boastful. So that exists here on the podcast exclusively. This one's called the first draft Rodney Dangerfield. I'll tell you I get all the respect. My wife she's beautiful. I can't do a Rodney Dangerfield impression. I tell you I get all the respect. My wife, she's beautiful and she cherishes my powerful, sensual body and behold my son, blood of my blood, my biological product beyond all doubt. We both come from a long line of men who got respect. My father was respected and his father and his father before him. It's a poem about respect, ostensibly.

All scroll to the bottom, get to the new new poems. New new poems, none of these are good. I don't like any of my poems. Sell it, Jimmy. You don't need to eat your own cum to know yourself. That's quite a long poem. Everyone says thank you and everyone says please. Anyway, some men are eggs. This is probably this is potentially the last line of this poem is disquieting levels of egg.

And perhaps we could all say it together when we get there. Some men are eggs. Some men are raw eggs. Other men are hard boiled eggs. Some men look as though they're eggs, but they are actually egg shaped rocks. Look, maybe all men are eggs and I am being an egg shaped rock about it. Some men are eggs that do not look at all like eggs until you drop them and then they're obviously eggs. Way too much egg. Disquieting levels of egg. That's a poem I wrote about when I noticed that

about when I noticed that men are eggs. How long am I supposed to stretch this out? When I pull my feet together, it hurts more. Ladies and gentlemen, I tell you you I've been I don't like to go on and on about it but I've been a little glum I've been a little glum and I think I'm coming out of it now but there was just a couple weeks there where I would just Be a bit glum and I Think it's that I now that I'm lactose intolerant. I can't have a kitkat to feel better I was never so glum that a kitkat couldn't do some good work

But now it's like booze will go for walk, all my favorite snacks have milk in them. I think genuinely it's just sort of the American experience. What is the American experience and what is articulate sad men? But, you know, they're just feeling like the world's false and shallow. And I sort of snapped out a little bit when we got a new pope. And then the more I find out about this pope, the more I like him. Chicago trad pope? Maybe.

If you're noticing that this video looks better than normal maybe looks worse than normal because I've stuffed it up But sweet Tommy Pope over at stuff island when we finished that podcast he let me borrow one of their old cameras, so then I was Incredible very kind so this is that's why that's why I was able to read Off of my telephone because I'm not shooting it on the telephone I'm shooting it on a camera. Crazy, huge step forward. Then I you know I had to go and buy lens and batteries and stuff and it ended up costing quite a lot of money but not as much as if I

had to pay for the camera as well so I thank you Tommy Pipe very very much. as well so I thank you Tommy Pott very very much. These legs have to come down how I- whoa we can't leave the legs out I mean how long have the legs been up for? As long as I've been doing the podcast 14 minutes of leg agony. It's a weird doing show. I just put the feet back down. Put them back together again. Nah, I'm getting pins and needles. That can't be good. Can that be good? That's not even a real stretch. I spoke to a lonely lady called Grace who used to be a figure skater. Yeah. Oh no, I felt that in the back. Wow. Unpleasant. Whoah. And she said my problem might not be hamstrings. It might be the Ti joint. The Ti something. Like the wrapper.

I might be getting that wrong, but because I feel behind the knee it might be that. But we're just gonna keep working. Every day I tell you I've had such tight legs. I've been tell you, I've had such tight legs. I've been a man, I've had really, I've already said the word disquieting. I've had frighteningly tight legs. I think it causes all sorts of problems. And I come from a long line of men that with,

ooh, with tight legs. I think, well, I of problems. I come from a long line of men that with, ooh, with tight legs. I think, well, I don't know if my grandfather on my father's side had tight legs as he only had one leg. He was an amputee. And I suspect that that leg actually got pretty flexible because he had to do everything. With that leg, I don't know.

Certainly the other leg, wasn't anything down beyond the knee to stretch the hamstring. So I assume that one he didn't have. Maybe? I don't know. We never discussed his amputation. We didn't talk much about his time. We spoke more about his time in the war than what it was like being an amputee. Mack. his time in the war than what it was like being an amputee. Mac.

It's just, you know, it's obviously not great to have one leg, but I do find it. You could always say I could always say that about him. My grandpa's got one leg and people go, what? You know what what? And it's nice to have a sentence that you can say that does, it's interesting to have a grandpa with one leg, you know. My dad remembers going to the beach and seeing his father jumping, you know, up to the water and go for a swim. It's nice to have, you know, there are so many sentences that you can say that get people's attention and they're sad sentences, you know, they're unhappy. I was molested. I molested somebody. You know, these get the attention but something good and wholesome like my grandpa had one leg that's what it's about in conversation you want that in you want that grandpa has one leg in

and there are others i think like i was dropped on my head as a child people now people don't seem as interested in that as relieved they go oh yes no i was g Greg Smith. Like it's in big surgical scar. I'd like a sin again. Woo. Almost heaven. West Virginia. Blueberry Mountains. Shenandoah River. Oh, man. Yeah, I took my legs down before I felt that very much in the lower back. I think a lot of the flexibility issues I'm having here are lower back related. Are you a physiotherapist watching this? Will you help me with my back? Why won't you help me with my back? I don't know if you can hear that but this is... Would you help me with my back? Woohoo! Woo!

Woohoo! I don't know if you can hear that, but this is... Woohoo! Woohoo! Woohoo! Woohoo! Woohoo! Woohoo!

That only vibrates at that... Woohoo! This lampshade. I don't know if you can hear it. What are the odds that the one note that I would have picked would be the one note at which this resonates? Whatever the hell that I'm reading I've been reading I've been reading a real boring dull I'll show you I've been reading this I got it a bookstore I thought it would be interesting 19th century Germany politics culture and society 1780 to 1918 and it's a

series of academic is like a business university presses professors it's probably a university press as well for example John Burrilli is emeritus professor of nationalism and ethnicity at the London School of Economics. You know, a bunch of guys have written one chapter. Robert Lee is formerly Chattick Professor of Economic and Social History. Christopher Clarke is Regius Professor of History at St. Catherine's College, Cambridge. Roger Chickering taught from 1968 to 1993 at the University of Oregon. I was just in Oregon. Funny. Ute Fervet is director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin and the head of its Center for the History of Emotions week. Anyway, so I thought that's a good way to, you know, really get it, get into the nitty-gritty

of 19th century Germany, something that many times I've said I don't know a lot about 19th century Germany. So I thought good to know and read about 19th century, it's because it's professors writing for a, dare I say mass audience, but, I feel like, it's just like, they write like machines. They write this horrible academic style that I remember writing in, where you're just sort of like slotting the words into a sentence formulation. What do you mean, James? Give me an example.

Fine. Uh I'll go to uh the conclusions. Right this is from chapter two the German lands before 19- before 1815. 1915. Heinrich Hain, great name. Hain, Hain, that one seems to resonate as well. Heinrich Hain wrote that the Germans had become patriots and defied Napoleon because their princes ordered them to. That fails to do justice to the strength of anti-Napoleonic sentiment in many parts of Germany by 1813 to 14. But there was no national uprising or national crusade. There remained a world of difference between the nationalism of some intellectuals and the nation they aspired to lead. It's always paragraphs like that,

like on the one hand, you know, people are saying this, but it would be wrong to say something like this. The answer is something in the middle, a little more nuanced than this and this. Just over and over again, that's the sort of sentence you write in because they're evaluating a bunch of different historians and they want to say, well, see, I must be reasonable because I disagree with people over here and over here and that puts me here in the sensible position surrounded by loons. This is how academics and centrist politicians speak and act and it's unbearable because I remember having to write like that at university and that's, I'm sure they really know their stuff but that has, it has, writing in that style, I am so distrustful of people

who write like that rather than, do you know, there's got to be a better way to do it. Like the really influential academic writers do not write like that. Foucault doesn't write like that. Foucault is not going on the one hand, people say this. On the other hand, people say this. And I say, no, Foucault, you open up Foucault, and he says, is it wrong for a grown man to get interfered

with by a child on a farm? I don't think so. I think that's a good time. And you go, while I disagree strongly with what you're saying, Marcel. It's a more exciting sentence than anything in MSL. Friedrich Nietzsche is not going, well, the continental philosophers, they say this,

and the ancient philosophers they say that, and the British and the Kant, and all these and this and this, but I am in the middle. No, he says, death scares me and God is dead and I, I am a Superman who recurs infinitely. I'm covered in poop and my sister has to clean me up. That's what you're getting. I am dynamite. I am a hammer. That's academic writing as far as I'm concerned. I guess I narrative history, or it used to be called history.

You're like Herodotus is telling a narrative and he's incorporating sources and he's saying these guys and these guys, but he's really, he's trying to let you know, not just that he's a smity pants, you know. He's trying to let you know that guys from Sudan have black cum. He reports that like it's a fact. He reports that like it's a fact. Oh and then I got Salinger, I'm working through Salinger's short stories and they're great. Perfect day for banana fish, you know that sort of thing. And I'm re-watching The Young Pope, I'm watching that with my wife and it's so great. It's so, alright, this is how I'm watching The Young Pope, because the first time you

watch, it's funny, rewatching a thing, the stuff that grabs you the first time, sometimes you can ignore the second time around. Example, I watch Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon on a flight and I haven't seen that movie in a long time. And the first time I watched, however many times, this young man watching Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon on a flight. And I haven't seen that movie in a long time. And the first time I watched, however many times, there's a young man watching Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. All I could think the whole time was, oh, they're flying.

These ladies are strong. She's got a sword. Just taken in by all that stuff. But watching it this time, it's like, oh, this is a very delicate story about a promising young woman being pulled in all sorts of different directions who doesn't know what to do. And I, beautiful story.

Why does she jump off a bridge? There's something lost in translation there. Anyway, I'm rewatching the young Pope this time around. And so all the stuff about him being like a nasty trad and wearing the clothes and stuff, it doesn't shock the same way that it does this time around. And instead what I'm getting out of the young pope is that his saintliness extends beyond the doing of miracles. What I really am enjoying about the young pope is that he's every conversation he has with

somebody with maybe some exceptions once you get to episode 7 and he's working through his difficulties he seems to tell people what they really need for their salvation he's firm when he's got to be firm, he's tender when he's going to be tender it's as a study of pastoralism you know, of shepherding, of meeting people where they are and helping them go forward from the position that they're in. It's wonderful and a lot of the drama comes from people overhearing what he's saying to other people on their journey. And they think, oh, it's not a good thing to say, because it wouldn't be a good thing to say to them.

That's not the way he talks to them, but he talks to these other people very differently. So if you re-watch The Young Pope, I started thinking about it that way because in Brideshead it's that every character might be saved. There's a possibility that every character in their own way is saved in Brideshead. You know, we're all on a different journey and blah blah blah, same destination, blah blah blah, all that good stuff but it's yeah viewing the young pope through the sanctification of the individual characters and Lenny as Christ I mean this is what Christ does Christ really talks to different people in different

ways and how does he talk to me I hope it's not as a stern disciplinarian that would make me uncomfortable I hope I get one of the tender you do in your best chats. Which probably means that's not what I need. I need a firm slap on the wrist. As a child I remember thinking that if I believed, an angel would appear to me, or God would appear to me, and I would be able to have a vision. If I decided that I wanted to believe, and I remember thinking, that seems scary and I don't want that to happen, but I was like standing at a threshold and I thought, I could do that now. If I wanted to I could do that and I decided not to because I'm a coward. Now that's probably a nonsense

you would say. And yet it stays with me. Hey, James Donald, of course we can, get him around plan. with me hey James Donald for some can catamaran plan we'll keep you updated on the hammies I've been doing this one I don't know this will be in focus but I've been doing like put my leg up on like a high thing and then just trying No! No! Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, and a one. And then you see I take the other leg and I put it up somewhere high. This is probably totally the wrong thing to do. I just, oh, I feel that everywhere. I feel that everywhere. Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, I will 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 if I just keep doing that if I just keep doing things of this nature will the hamstrings loosen and I'll be doing so many glorious leg maneuvers in the future. Thank you for

watching this episode of the James Dottiforce weekend catamaran plan. I'm on tour next month I got a couple weeks off and then I'm boy I'm really on tour in June I'm all over the shop I love you I miss you I want you I need you catamarana. Goodbye.