The James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan - Quality Ambassador ft. Alessio Carducci

Episode Date: April 16, 2023

Tickets to come and see Alessio Carducci and me do stand up: https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1045698Get your commemorative plate by signing up to the Patreon before the end of April. After that, I'm sorry, you won't get a commemorative plate. Not from me, at least. Maybe from somebody else, commemorating something something that isn't my love and respect. Here is the link: https://www.patreon.com/jdfmccann Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan. If you'd like to listen to bonus episodes, go sign up to the Patreon. That's patreon.clom. Clom? Ah, we f***ed it. Anyway, look, you'll find a way. Catamaran Home! This episode is brought to you by Google Pixel. I'm Jessie Crookshank. I host the number one comedy podcast called Phone a Friend.

I also have three kids. I need help making every day easier. So I switched to Google Pixel. It's a phone powered by Gemini, your personal AI assistant. Gemini can help you summarize your unread emails, suggest what to make with the food in your fridge, and it helped me achieve a family photo where everyone is smiling at the camera. I didn't think it was possible, but it is with Google Pixel 9. Learn more at store.google.com. Hello, and welcome to this episode of the James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan, coming to you live from Perth, where I'm doing some gigs this weekend. And I've been stationed, the manager's done me dirty.

To save money, he's put me up in East Perth. And I knew when I was in East Perth... You know, there's a lot of hotels in East Perth, alright? But East Perth overall has a certain, shall we say... What's the PC word for violent drug addicts who are homeless? Character. Oh, it's character. But not just any hotel in East Perth.

He's got me in the quality hotel Ambassador Perth. Which... It's not quality, and I doubt an ambassador has ever stayed here. Hotel Perth is closer. People who I've told I'm staying at the Quality Hotel Ambassador Perth have let me know it's been in the news of late. News, news, news. Some people say it's because of the

murders that have happened here, and other people say it's because prostitutes book out entire floors and turn it into a sort of um air b and brothel jimmy you've still got it anyway those ladies must be on a different floor because my neighbors i have it on good authority are the fijian women's rugby team and there's no mistaking the two. Ladies and gentlemen, there's so much to discuss on today's podcast episode, Play-D-A-Palooza. We're going to talk about Play-D-A-Palooza. If you sign up to the Patreon, I'm going to send you a commemorative plate. And there's a bit of

a scandal that I have to address. I thought about whether or not to address the scandal, and I will address the scandal. But first, by the way, it's not me doing a scandal. Someone else has potentially done something scandalous. I don't know. I wasn't going to address it, but I'm going to address it. Anyway, first, however, Alessio Carducci. I did an interview over the telephone with Alessio Carducci, who's my client for the new talent agency that I'm starting to make money. It's just quite hard to go on tour and do gigs is what I'm finding.

Much easier, I think, to get a client, be their manager, send them overseas to do comedy, overseas or interstate, or even just to a different part of the state, for all I care. You make money that way. You know, maybe you get 15% of the income, but you do 0.5% of the work. Anyway, here's my interview with the wonderful client, Alessio Carducci. All right, I'm joined now by Alessio Carducci. Alessio, you've been a comedian for how long?

Six years. Six years. Six years grinding away in the business. And I think you're one of my favourite comedians in Melbourne. You're one of the few that I will tolerate to have open for me, even if you insist on getting your friend up there with you. And I want to say, I love... I think you're a great comedian.

And so you know the podcast I'm doing, I'm trying to buy a boat. Mm-hmm. You don't have a manager? No. I'd like to manage you wow the big leagues we're getting it here only the finest uh catamaran talent our slogan will be we have one client brackets our client is alessio carducci and i'm not gonna lie to you I had the idea one night out with Louis Dowell and I said, Louis, do you want me to be your manager? And he said, I don't know, man. And I went, you're out. I'm getting Alessio Carducci. I think because I've been a bit disenfranchised with what some managers are capable of doing for people. I look back at my life and I see what the

managers have done. And a lot of it is just having the relationships and building up self-confidence, you know? Yes, yes. Booking someone in, saying, be here at this time, do a show. And you could do that. You could do that. I have always been disengaged

with the manager process. Oh, you don't believe in it or they don't want you? No, I've just never been engaged in it. But which, who's not engaging? Is Token banging at your door saying, please sign doors? Yes, yes, actually. All the agents, yeah, they're all at my door.

Just like similar to this one. They've all called me up and said, hello, we're going to start a podcast where we're going to be your manager. That'll be the story arc. I think you're a good enough comedian to be headlining all the comedy clubs around the country. You're at the level. That's great. For someone who's only ever seen me do five minutes, you're really looking enough comedian to be headlining all the comedy clubs around the country. You're at the level. That's great. For someone who's only ever seen me do five minutes, you're really welcome back. Sometimes I can tell that you can string that five together.

Now I've got a good feeling about it, people say. I mean, what is headlining other than doing five minutes six times in a row? It's also you could just tell one long story about how your dad got cancer. Is that what you do? No. Thank goodness because I was thinking I've made a terrible mistake. What we'll do, we've really booked you in for a run in Adelaide. So you'll come

in Adelaide. Yes. Basically so I don't know if I've outlined this properly. I'm going to be your manager. I won't manage myself. I'll have a manager. Don't you worry about me. Yes. But I'll manage you. I'll have a manager. Don't you worry about me. But I'll manage you. I'll take shall we say 15%. I'll just skim. I'll just take the 15%.

And I'll organize all the stuff. So all you have to do is show up and do the show and I'll take 15%. Go for it. Take 20. Okay. Alessio, as your manager, I'm going to not only take that, but I'm going to ask that you don't do any more negotiations.

I would like you to leave all negotiations to me, and maybe I will take the extra percentage. Now, as your manager, I can book you in. I've had a conversation with some people in Perth. I think I can get you some gigs here. Yes. It won't be much money, but I think I can do it. Yes.

Brisbane is going ahead. I've got a call to make today about Brisbane. Yes. Sydney, that clip you sent me was great. And I'm going to see what we can do about Sydney. Yes. How do you feel about going to New Zealand? Let's do it.

All right. Wonderful. And now- Do I need a passport for New Zealand? Yes I would think you would Do you not have a passport? Nah but I'll get one So you're telling me I can go to New Zealand

And get worse Centrelink But I Actually after three months I think they do let you on Their Centrelink But I need a fucking passport Man I believe in you I believe in you. I believe in you. As your manager, I'm sure I can help you with the paperwork to get that passport.

My definition of Australia is lined by the A-League and the weird rugby one. Where there's the New Zealand team. You know? You got what I mean? Are you counting Papua New Guinea then? As part of Australia? I mean, I'll count Samoa. How do you feel about doing some gigs in PNG?

I can't guarantee your safety. I'd be down for all of the islander countries. I'm down. All right. Now, when are you leaving for the greatest island of all? They call it the no security world tour. I'm bouncing all over the place. When are you going to the UK?

I see what you've done there. Yes. You get it? You get it? Don't scaffold under the pressure. Now, when are you going to the UK? When are you going to the UK? That's a bit rough.

You're moving to the UK. Like either August or September, depending on if I do Edinburgh. If I can. Like either August or September, depending on if I do Edinburgh. If I can manage you until August or September, now what's the demands on your time? What do you mean the demands on my time? Like if I say you're doing a week in the Gold Coast, can you just go? Yeah, I'm down.

So you're free to travel. So what are you doing for money at the moment? I'm screen printing. Take this opportunity. This podcast is probably brought to you by Sensebrothers Screen Printing. Screen printing in Victoria that we can really get anywhere, get it fast, you know. And it's surprisingly cheap.

If you hit me up, you'll be like, wow, so cheap. And you're like, yeah, it's pretty good. And a lot of people are happy with it. Just sometimes I give it to them two weeks late. But that's... Yes, I was going to say, we were meant to have some merchandise for a show of mine in Adelaide. That was different. That was under two days.

And then I realized, oh, he needs this tomorrow. I'm like, I can't do this. But yeah. I think some, you know, it's those practical skills that I have that I'm willing to impart as your manager. Yes. And look after you as my client. I also work four days a week at a place I thought I got fired twice. So, you know, I...

Are you still working there? Yeah, I'm still working there somehow. I've been rocking up... I'm rocking up, you know, Rich, yeah? The Canadian guy from a podcast? Yeah. Yeah, he got me a job at this IT place. And then I rocked up like two hours late a bunch of times.

And then they were like, he keeps rocking up two hours late. But then they didn't realize I was doing it every day. So you know what I mean? Like you got to work the things you got. I don't understand. It just sounds like slovenliness. And if you show up late for these gigs, I'll kill you. I'll come down there.

I rock up for the gigs. I don't want to kill myself when I do a gig. I want to kill myself when I write the email to do the gig. No. Oh, see, wonderful. I love, I've gotten to a place where I'm really good at picking up the phone and sending the email. And I'm happy to do that for you.

Some other things we're going to get done. So you've got a podcast at the moment, which you have in a factory. It's my favorite podcast to do in Melbourne, is where you just go and you sit in a forklift and you get abused by a strange little Turk. Yes. So it's a great podcast. Yes, Gallipoli Simulator.

Everyone loves it. People pay good money for these simulators. It's an escape room. But the important thing, so you've got a podcast. I think we need to get you a special. So when you're in Adelaide, we're going to film you on stage for how long can you do? I'll find, look, that's actually a good thing because I'm going to do four hour shows.

I'll do actually three hour shows within the next seven days. And so I'll have a really good idea of how long I actually think is good. Okay, so you'll be hot coming in. of how long I actually think is good. Okay. So you'll be hot coming in. Is it the same hour three times? I'm going to do the same hour three times. And then the last one was I had this idea to do a show, but then I crumbled under the pressure of organizing it.

But now I've realized I can organize to do it for one night. It's where I do a set with the drummer and I've got a Samoan guy who's going to read poems. All right. No, I actually like that. That's cool. I think it's going to be pretty good, but I get to film it once, then see how dumb it was, and if it was good,

and then if I come back and do the festival again, I'll do that show. All right. But you'll come and you'll record your hour here after you've run it in, in glorious Adelaide, where everyone wants to film their hour, and we can either clip that up and, you know,

grow you on the socials. You can drop it in. You can do a full special on YouTube. If you want, if you want to just burn it all, you do whatever you want, but we're going to grow it. We're going to use that.

We're going to get you the gigs. Oh, and there's going to be, I can't believe I'm getting 20%. You've let me have that. That's an honor. That's a blessing. I'll take it.

You're doing all the work. Well, not really. I'm doing like an hour of admin in the afternoon. Oh, that's a lot of the work for me. I don't have to think about it anymore. That's a lot of the work for me. I can't believe it.

What did you get? What did you get though? You got 20%. What did you get? Like $16? Oh, this Adelaide run is not looking lucrative for me in terms of, but I guess once you build up a roster, right? Once you're doing that and it's

the same amount of admin basically but you've got 10 comedians flying around well that's when you buy your audi but my manager at the moment let me tell you he's put me in east perth i don't know if you've been to east perth it's an unpleasant part of the world it's a nasty natty whore-filled violent strange hotel. And I'm actually furious about it. So I can't wait to put you here in the quality hotel ambassador purse, which I assume is very, very, very cheap. Now, we'll do couches where we can.

Let's start this beautiful journey together. Boy, you reckon you can team me up some labour hire work as well when I get to Adelaide? That's not what we do, but maybe. I'll ask my... What am I going to do in i'll ask my what am i gonna do in the day what are you gonna do in the day what am i gonna do in the day i might as well do labor hire uh what about i've got we've got a podcast set up we could get you doing uh some some quality content to go viral sure or would you like to do some business meetings that's a big thing sure we could do it content to go viral. Sure. Or would you like to do some business meetings? That's a big thing. Sure, we could do it.

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Whatever, I'm going to say, your job is you have to come up with stuff for me to do that makes it... No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, job is you have to come up with stuff for me to do. No, no, no. No, no, no, no, no. You have to come up with, if you come up with these little bullshit, tedious little business meetings. What, am I getting 20% of them too? Whatever. Take 20% or whatever.

But if you can't figure that out, I will be doing labour hire work. I'm taking 20% of your labour hire. Let me tell you. If you go get me the job, oh, that's sweet. What are your skills? I don't see, I'm very middle class.

I've never done labour hire. Middle class? I've seen how you live. What are you talking about? All right, I'm sort of like some bohemian type thing, but I've certainly

never used my physical skills to make money. That would be insane. Which is boring because you're three times the size of me. I'd be very good on the work side.

I'm strong. I'm like a horse. I'm like Boxer in Animal Farm. A massive thanks to Alessio Carducci for having come on the podcast. We'll be doing that show with Alessio Carducci in Adelaide in May. The ticket link will be below. I'll be doing some new jokes I've got a new one

about the voice it's very strong and Alessio Carducci will also be doing some jokes he'll be doing a special we'll record that it's going to be

absolutely wonderful and now I'd just like to quickly take a moment to talk about Play-Doh Palooza and I have really nothing to add except that if you go

to the James Donald Forbes, McCann, Catamaran, Plan, Patreon and you sign up before the end of April well Margot and I will make you these hand-drawn plates hand-painted they're so beautiful paper plates hand-drawn paper plates we had a video come out this week that's driven even more people we're very close the $400 mark and your support will help me

get a little bit closer to boat ownership. So that's it. Play the Palooza. Join the Patreon. Thanks to everybody who did. Play the Palooza. Now the next item of business

is a scandal. I don't really know how to talk about this. I don't want to do it in a way that gets anyone in trouble. I've been on this podcast for about a year and a half and over that time it's been downloaded tens of thousands of times by people just like you,

including you, and I'm very grateful. And the purpose of the podcast is that money will go towards me buying a boat. It will go on the journey toward me buying a boat. So a lot of that money gets reinvested. Sam Clark gets paid some money. Margot gets paid some money. I bought this laptop so that I could record podcast episodes with less bother. But it's all oriented towards eventually having a boat. And so as a part of that, the podcasts have advertising. And I noticed a couple months ago that I had not been paid any advertising money that was running on the podcast which seemed odd because once you're running into the tens of thousands of downloads you go even if we're charging a very low rate for the ads that are

automatically put on the podcast I think there probably should have been some money by now I couldn't figure it out because we monetized the YouTube and I can see how much the YouTube gets. And YouTube is well known for having a very low rate for their advertising. And we've got way more downloads here than we've had on the monetized YouTube. So I thought, what's going on? And there's an intermediary, basically, between the company that hosts this podcast

and this podcast. There's someone who should have been getting invoices. This is not a person who's been on the show. It's not someone's name. You should bother. I don't think you can find it. I think I've removed all trace, but just in the middle, someone I think should have been getting invoices for this show. I couldn't get in touch with that person. I got that person's phone number, the phone rings,

it goes to message bank, they don't answer. The company which hosts this podcast has also tried to get in contact with the intermediary and can't do that either i've chased up this person's friends i'm getting nothing and uh listen i've been called by debt collectors before and at some point in the process i realized that's what I had become. I can't, I don't know how much money I've missed out on from the advertising, and I don't think I'll ever get it back.

It's probably only a few hundred dollars. At most, on my most generous estimations, it's a little over a thousand, but I think it's probably in the mid-hundreds of dollars range. But I don't know how much it is. I'm increasingly certain that it would be something. And I just, I don't...

I had bad debts, right? So I don't... My debt collectors called me while my daughter was being born they called my neighbors they called my parents neighbors i grew to have long friendships over the phone with my debtors my debt collectors i had i had like a 40 when i was in sydney with my wife i took out a personal loan to get us set I was in Sydney with my wife, I took out a personal loan to get us set up there. She wasn't my wife at that point.

Living in sin, having a good time. We were in Sydney. Basically, it all went wrong. We had to come back to Adelaide. I racked up a... I had a debt before then. I racked up a much larger debt. And it was somewhere in the 30 to...

It was like... It was $30,000 to 30 to 40 000 by recollection might have been more than 40 000 but in my mind it was only between 30 and 40 000 that was uh and it just happened slowly over time and then all of a sudden i couldn't make any of the payments and it went to debt collectors who would just then harass me all the time on the phone so i by the eventually as well by way, I managed to sort that out. And I've got to stand up a bit about how I managed to deal with the debt collectors and put that behind me. One day I'll talk about that too.

The point that I'm trying to make here is I don't harbor any ill will towards this person. I don't think the person who has the money is a bad person. From what I can tell, I don't think the person who has the money is a bad person from what i can tell like i don't think this is happening on purpose uh might have fallen on hard times they might be sick again this is i don't know i can't actually reach the person who i think has the money but because their phone rings and it goes to voicemail i know that they're still alive and charging their phone rings and it goes to voicemail, I know that they're still alive and charging their phone and just not answering those specific detailed texts that I'm sending. So I don't know what's going on.

But I do know how it felt when people were chasing me for money and I didn't have it and I didn't know what to do. So I'm wiping the debt. This debt is forgiven. Obviously, that person can't be the intermediary anymore. Okay, I need to buy a boat. So whoever it is, who's, I mean,

this is a Sid No More situation. I'm not, you know, I understand where you're at. That's no good. But also, you can't keep getting checks from the James Donald Forbes McCann catamaran planned podcast so I've contacted the people who are hosting the podcast sidestep to the intermediary and I'm told that from now on invoices will be coming directly to me and that will be excellent and they will not again tell me how much it was or

whatever but I'm just if it wasn't a podcast about me buying a boat and the whole conceit wasn't you're listening to the ads so that I can have money to buy a boat, I wouldn't talk about this. I would just have sidestepped it and moved on so as not to cause a scandal, so as not to have the risk that anyone would have an unpleasant time of it basically but you as the listener have sort of a unique relationship I feel with this podcast in that I'd say over and over again I'm going to be a good custodian of the money and I just wanted to let you know this is what I'm doing with this. This is the money and I just wanted to let you know this is what I'm doing with this this is the money situation that's presented itself and this is the way that I am choosing

to respond to the money situation too it's not a huge amount of money that we've lost that we're writing off as a debt here we're going to sidestep it we're going to move on we're going to make money from the advertising in a clean direct way and I think we remember the life lessons so I don't know what the life lesson is there but I just felt like I needed to I felt like if I didn't say it that would also be bad I think saying it's bad

not saying it's bad it's a bad situation but let it come to light sometimes that's all you can do is just try and be as honest and open as you can i wish i'd picked this up a long time ago i wish i had i mean i don't i just thought the podcast wasn't doing well enough to earn money i thought maybe you've just got to be in the hundreds of thousands of downloads before you see a penny for your podcast. I mean, I don't imagine that there's going to be a lot of money

coming in through advertising at the moment, but moving forward, there should be some. All right, let's move on. Let's put that behind us. I'm recording this now at the end of my time in Perth. I'm going to go off to mass at the cathedral and then I'm going to have a brunch and then I'm in Perth. I'm going to go off to mass at the cathedral, and then I'm going to have a brunch, and then I'm on a plane. But the gigs are over, and the gigs were very nice. And I've had a good time with the gigs. I can't wait to record that material in Adelaide

with Alessio Carducci. Can't wait to send Alessio Carducci out here to Perth to do these gigs. Can't wait to have Alessio Carducci staying at the Quality Hotel Ambassador Perth. A perfectly agreeable hotel. Not to stay in, but to have somebody else stay in. I have learnt the deceptions and cruelties of my master, and I pass it on to my willing servant. Catamaran Talent. Currently just one client. Let's see how we go with Alessio.

Didn't know he didn't have a passport. He's a great talent. Can't wait to book him in. Well, I've got him booked in Adelaide, and you can buy tickets to the show now. I want to say a big thank you to Margot, hard at work, on the plates. I want to say thank you to First Mate Sam Clark. I'm building a team, a beautiful team.

I want to thank the people who host this podcast, who have, with relatively little struggle, pivoted to a new process by which I will get paid my due. Justice is to each as he deserves. And I think I deserve a boat at this point, don't you? I know you do, and that's why you're here. I want to thank each and every listener that we have. Man, I want to thank my family, my wife looking after these kids.

I'm just going, I went away for two nights. That's what I currently do on tour for stand-up comedy, so I'm not away for too long from my family. I'm away for two nights and I yearn for my family. I miss my family very much. I just lie in bed this morning aching for my family. I miss my family very much. I just lie in bed this morning, aching for my wife. I miss the screams of my children. The first night I was here, I actually missed the baby screaming

and I felt uncomfortable because I thought I haven't heard a scream in so long. I can't wait to be home. Can't wait to be on that plane. Can't wait to thank all of you. I love everybody. It is an insane way to continue to hit the pocket. I love everybody. I affirm that I'm going to keep growing this team,

treating people right, feeling delight all through the night. Baby, I love you. Baby, I need you. Baby, I want you. Baby, I miss you. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan.

I'll be there to see you soon, no matter where you are, no matter what you do. Keep it real, baby. Woo! Catamaran Ho! If you're looking for flexible workouts, Peloton's 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 locations. What matters is that you have something there to adapt with you,

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