The James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan - Splish Splash - Full-Blown Poetry Recital

Episode Date: April 14, 2025

Hi, this is audio of me, James Donald Forbes McCann, reading my 3rd book of poems 'Splish Splash'. There's also a video here: https://youtu.be/ohvoAgiqxBIShout out Paul Gallasch for filming it so beautifully and Ern Malley in Adelaide, South Australia, for putting the recital on. U can buy the 3 books of poem, including Splish Splash, here: https://www.jdfmccann.com/booksHop on the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/jdfmccannHeadline comedy shows on sale now: www.jdfmccann.com/gigsPORTLAND, OR - MAY 14TH - HELIUM COMEDY CLUBSEATTLE, WA - MAY 15TH - EMERALD CITY COMEDY CLUBCOLUMBUS, 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 plan! Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. James Donald Forbes McCann. Thank you guys. What a happiness it is to be here. Can everybody hear me? Alright, that'll do.

Okay. Nah, seriously folks, thank you for being here. I can't tell you what a huge privilege and delight it must be for you to be here, to hear the new poems that I've written. I splish splash, I've gotta read them all out so that I have recordings of me saying them to put on Instagram reels so I can sell copies of this book.

And I mean, this one, I'll read you the preface. We'll just start at the start, we'll keep going. And when the bar needs to make more money, we'll have a break and then we'll keep going. How do I, we're filming this? The back of these heads are visible. And you, all right. Years ago I was visited by a pale and spectral figure

who offered me great fame and success in exchange for my soul. Came as something of a surprise. I'd always assumed that the whole Mephistopheles at a crossroads thing was a metaphor, but here was an actual Mephistopheles offering me an actual Mephistophelian bargain. Admittedly we weren't at a crossroads we were indoors on a suburban street so the crossroads part of it might still be a metaphor but otherwise the encounter was appallingly literal you would do very well he said the financial things can be taken care of it's very simple very sensible and all you have to do is

fill out this form I was saved I believe by two things the first is the grace of God the second is a profound aversion to any paperwork, even straightforward paperwork. The filling out of any form really upsets me. If it had been a handshake deal, who knows? But having to read and sign any document, be it a tenancy application, be it a time sheet, a pay slip, a contract guaranteeing fame and success, in exchange for my soul, that's just not my bag. I can't tell you how much I've been hit with in late fees, just because I can't bring myself to suffer through the very minimal paperwork required to sort out having driven on a toll road.

to sort out having driven on a toll road. All of which is to say I have no reason to believe this book of poems will bring me fame and or success and that on the off chance it does, anything you may hear about that fame and or success being the result of a Faustian bargain is a baseless rumour. If this book of poems does somehow shoot to the top of the bestseller list it is only because I have been blessed with unprecedented poetical gifts. A generation has found its voice. Western civilization has at long last stumbled upon something worth doing with the English language etc. May Satan and all his millions, may Satan and all his minions, all the world's bureaucrats choke

on their precious impossible documents. Alright, we will now begin the... I'll do it like this, this field, and maybe I'll pick them up one at a time. I don't know the way to... What do you reckon? Could you feed these to me one at a time? Alright, thank you.

Alright, yeah. Alright, thank you. Yeah, it's... This poem is called Splish Splash. It is the name of the poetry collection and thereby, I reckon it's pretty good, all right. I'd like a little kiss and I'd like a little cuddle. I'd like a little pudding and a splish splash in a puddle.

But more than anything, there is one thing I'm yearning for to drive my car off of a cliff and into a deep ravine where the car explodes on impact and I die immediately. I'd also like a haircut and a sandwich and a bigger TV but overwhelmingly it is the car death that I want I want it every day and I have wanted it forever but I want it slightly less than all the other things put together that poem is called splish splash now hold on there's one I've got it here we need to hear now I will there are so many poems and if you're clapping after all of them, gee, you'll feel embarrassed when some of them are bad.

So just if you really feel great, first of all, thank you for coming. Should open with that. Thank you all for coming down to Earned Mallies. Isn't this a beautiful establishment? Okay, give it up for the Earned Mallies boys. That's what I'm talking about. Thank you Stan, thank you Paul. And this poem is, anyway.

Yeah, this will work, this will be all right. This will be good. I think we're gonna get to the end. I think we're gonna have a good time. All right. I think I'd like to go to the nation of Japan. Not as a big white tourist, but as a little Japanese man. Who has grown up in Japan and who is biologically Japanese who resents his

Japanese life and acquaintances and desperately wants to leave the country I yearn to ride on a bullet train that means absolutely nothing to me except that it's the easiest way of getting from point A to point B where point A is a wretched office job and point B is the singing of a snappy karaoke song and partaking in upskirt photography is only dimly perceived as being sick and wrong as though upskirt photography were a visual apple pie made with mushrooms and not apples. Nuclear mushrooms in the sky. Oh, to be a Japanese in a nation I find disenchanting. Oh, to be a Japanese with fear and hate and understanding.

Oh, to be a Japanese and carry all the nations hurt. Oh, to see it Japanese style from the inside up the skirt yeah yeah so that was a good I think that was a perfect level of applause this one's called the dream the American dream are you familiar with dreams nice the American dream is that with hard work and a good attitude everybody can become a success. The Australian dream is that even lazy and unpleasant people should be allowed to own a modest suburban home. The British dream does not exist. In Britain dreams are illegal. Alright, next one. This one's called The Great British Bake Off. Have you seen The Great

British Bake Off? Wow, okay. I mean, but everyone is sort of vaguely aware what that show... Television. Bake Off. They bake. Have I got a lot of stuff on my moustache? It's being filmed. Yeah, it is being filmed. These will be, oh, can you feel the power of these reels already? Potentially even TikToks? A YouTube short if we're feeling very energetic? And is there a fourth one? Nah seriously folks

it's great to be here I might even drop a couple of new gags nah I probably wouldn't do that it's very serious it's very serious poetry time if I I go quiet, am I still audible? I'll be more quiet. No, did someone say no? Give me any reason to shout. This season on the Great British Bake Off, the contestants are all white men. Able bodied straight white men, none of whom are enormously fat, none of whom are crippled or particularly unfashionable or octogenarians or northerners or poor or from poor families. We've been trying to find something, anything to be diversity, an extra toe, asexualism, addiction to drugs of any kind, an interesting pair of socks, shred of neanderthal

DNA, there's absolutely nothing. And we don't know how this happened. We got caught up in the baking. We are deeply, deeply sorry. This poem is called Disabled Husband. disabled husband. I'd love to be your disabled husband living off the stake in a great big fancy wheelchair going on wheelchair accessible dates and getting lifted into bed with a special bedroom crane. I'd love to be your disabled husband if it meant I could be your husband again. Splish splash out now!

Alright thank you. This is going fine. Alright. Gentlemen, something has gone terribly wrong. Nobody talks about atheism anymore. None of our books are on the bestseller list. The podcasts don't chart. The algorithm has stopped suggesting videos of Hitchens being nasty. What happened? What changed? Fellas, we did thousands of TV debates. It was non-stop debates for a decade and

we won every single one of them. We were on some Undertaker, WrestleMania 2012 type shit. It was sublime and perfect, it was dignified and strong. It meant absolutely nothing. There was nothing at the end of it. Shouldn't it mean something? Wouldn't that make a lot more sense? Laughter Maybe one in four poems we could all clap so I feel better about it. No, it's fine. Don't feel you don't have to. I'm not saying don't clap.

I'm saying don't feel like, don't stand on sit, don't be like, oh, I have to clap even though that disabled husband poem was pretty unpleasant. This one's called Illuminati. Ah, the Illuminati are onto me. I was about to tell all their secrets. Nah, seriously fuck.

If the Illuminati exists, why haven't they given me a call? Why won't they even give me an opportunity to do their bidding? I'm not so strong a character to be immune from their temptations. In fact I bet I could successfully get tempted for pennies on the dollar. Keep your freaky sexual entanglements presumed illuminati for 72,000 dollars a year before taxes. Who knows what I'd be capable of? Aren't you even interested to see how debased I could be for a mid-sized company car, four weeks annual leave,

and three work from home days of Fortnite? No, I'm not, see that's, I'm not feeling that one. That one might get cut from the book. A great artist could go outside only once, could see a single apple, go inside again and produce an entire octopus. I was trying to write opus, but then it auto corrected to octopus

and I decided that was a stronger poem. I actually this one's about tennis you like tennis? How Good's tennis? Wow I mean top top game. I'm not very I'm not much for tennis. Anyway this one is called Free. Do you know that quote about free verse poetry is like playing tennis with the net down? Do you know that? You know, someone said that.

And free verse poetry is like playing tennis with the net down, anyway. Does anyone know who said that? Anyway, someone said that and I actually enjoy playing tennis with the net down. I'm much closer to winning even against people hitherto good at tennis. I'd never score a point against Sisypast in old fashioned net up tennis, but in this new updated net down version I'm going to a tie break every single set. He keeps on crying and saying something about the God of Damarung.

Do you know who The Rock is? The Rock is calling me a candy ass and making me look weak and foolish before these splendid, obese midwesterners. What's your name? He asks. Eyebrow ex machina. I can smell what he is cooking. It doesn't matter what I say between Dwayne and the proverbial hard place.

It doesn't matter what my name is sure I can imagine Sisyphus happy can he do the same for me pushed by the rock off the top turnbuckle through the Spanish announcers table for eternity and that poem is yeah all right I'm glad because when you sit down to write a poem about the WWE and Albert Camus You don't know what the Venn diagram is gonna look like Bigger than I'd ever possibly hoped alright Do you like the monarchy?

All right, that's one and one that's all we need to hold under power If Prince William was with me, he would know what I should do. If we could sit together, just us two and maybe Kate in the corner by the fire, being reassuring, then I'd know how to carry on. That's why Americans are so often deeply unhappy. It's a country full of people who in agonizing times cannot envision our quiet evening of grace and dignity. That's what poetry is all about.

Anyone from Bangladesh? This one might be a bit awkward then. Oh Bangladesh, how is it that you have so many people? So very many people in your itty bitty country. Thank you. Thank you. We're selling books of poems afterwards on the desk there. There's also a brick for sale. I signed a brick. It's my worst selling piece of merchandise. We'll sell the brick for... That's the brick. Stan's got the brick. It's a good brick. It's actually worth way less for having been signed.

$10. Oh man, it feels weird reading the poems. You know what I mean? I can stand up, I just get to talk to people and cut loose and really live in the now and I'd be doing crowd work and you know like what's your name sir? Adrian. Top quality name. Adrian what do you do? Social worker. How long you been doing that for? Few years. A few years? Man, that guy must be fucked up. Anyway, that's... I can do this all, I can do it all.

Hey, buddy, what do you do? Disability support worker. Disability support worker? How long you been doing that for? Man, that guy must be broken. You know, it's just that sort of thing for... What do you do, mate? Painter? How long you been painting for?

Yeah, a while. A while, big house, alright. This one's called last meeting with the first manager. A French guy saying, not necessarily. There's nothing you've done here that's better than that. Once you do something as good as a French guy saying, not necessarily, get back to me Jack, okay? I've been to restaurants, I had massages, I've been to court and been real nasty charges.

I've been to Italy, I've been to China, I met a smoking hot lady and been inside of her. There is no pleasure, not one, verily, remotely comparable to a French guy saying not necessarily. Boy if we had a French guy right here and right now listening to me say this, holy dooly holy cow, can you just imagine if he was regarding me warily and from his sensitive French lips, cigarette hanging precariously, imagine right now if he said, not necessarily,

I'm telling you Jack, I would shit my fucking pants. All right, thank you. That feels good. This one's also about a manager. More specifically, this one's called Difficult Manager. Am I hard to work with? Am I the problem here? Is it my fault we're arguing and are you, I'll start again, hey! Am I hard to work with? Am I the problem here? Is it my fault we're arguing and are you now afraid of me?

When I point my finger and tell it like it is, is that not being taken in the spirit of goodwill? An amicable spirit of fraternal understanding? Am I to understand that you're not just mediocre but that you are in fact a little bitch? All right, scattered applause. That's what we're all about. There's not that many of these, I promise. I'll do a little gag for you.

I'll do a little tap dancing. Yeah, let's get the energy. Well, hold on, what's one of my new jokes? I've got one, I've got a good one. This one's get the energy. Well, hold on, what's one of my new jokes? I got one, I got a good one. This one's a bit racist. The... Um... Um...

Um... Um... Um... Um... Yeah, why not? The... Uh... Uh...

Nah, nah, no, I... Nah, but which of the many racist jokes I've got would I like to recount? Nah, none of them are, they're all full of love. It's the, you know, I was in New Zealand and the white people there, they're referred to as Pakeha. Does anyone know this? Great. That's the Maori word and I'm saying that correctly. It's very hard to say Maori unless you are married to a woman who... Pakiha! Anyway it's beautiful that white people would call themselves the First Nations word for themselves. What a beauty. You know what I'm

saying? It's like a reflection that brings people together. That they would... white people call themselves Pakiha. Wow. Anyway in Australia I've started referring to myself as a white dog. Now the important thing... No, it was... Alright. This one's called Stylish Hispanic. I saw a stylish Hispanic lad almost bowl a perfect game. He wasn't taking it especially seriously. There was much dancing and it was neon disco bowling night.

And I don't think he bowled all that much in the past. He seemed surprised by how well it was going. It was as good a thing as I have ever seen. I showed up at the bowling alley bright and early the next morning, no neon, no disco, no merriment at all, just lots of fat children in what appeared to be a bowling league for very fat children indeed. I bowled alone, I bowled 58, I blew out my elbow, it continues

to hurt. A tire that doesn't go flat, a phone that does not die die a piece of ice cream that remains cold next to perpetually hot pie thank God for the summertime God for the springtime God for the autumn time too and while I don't understand it myself if wintertime is necessary then who am I to judge you these aren't all laughy poems. Some of them are just going to sit with you and do nothing. This is a... yeah, alright. This one's true. A woman who was heartbroken asked if I had ever written a poem about heartbreak to help her, but that sort of thing is not my bag. Just realized I also put not my bag in the preface. That might be too many uses of not my bag. Can't tell you the amount of times I had to control F for the word beautiful and

take that out of this collection of poems. I find it's a very powerful word and it was every poem. She's not really poetry at that point. That's just... Anyway, so that thing is not my bag. So I sent her one Rosetti wrote. I think it's about a kind of tree. I don't read or enjoy poetry. And I've only been heartbroken once.

Went on for about three months. I got into Russian novels and going for long walks. I'd walk across suburbia for hours at a time, looking at little statues, little fences, little vines, little columns from Greek or ex-Greek houses, and little strips of shops. Seemed like it would never end. Eventually it stops.

That one will not be read aloud ever again, so congratulations. Oh, this is a strong poem. This, boy, this one's a strong, man. You can, oh, I'm so excited. If you're joining us just now, if you have just woken up, we have reason to believe last night

you had a beautiful dream. It featured an aquatic creature with a tremendously long mouth. Everybody had that dream. Everybody, everywhere. In Fiji and New Zealand, where they've been awake for hours, early reports would indicate it was a Yangtze River dolphin. The goddess of the Yangtze River. That's what it's called in China. No word from China yet, and we'll let you know when they wake up. If you had a different dream last night, we'd love to hear from you.

Please call the number on your screen. If you did not meet the dolphin, shortly we'll be speaking to our resident sleep expert and every marine biologist we can get our hands on but a warning now! Some of the pictures we're about to show you are distressing. This is just some of the footage coming out of North and South America. Millions of people there have heard about the dream oncoming and taken to the streets. They are refusing to go to sleep.

Cafes are being looted and aquariums smashed in. They're going to feel quite silly once the beautiful dolphin dream begins. One of the very few times I allowed myself to use the word beautiful in this book of poems. I can't tell you the discipline. Yeah, I'll take it. Wow. Wow. Pussy mysterious. Pussy mysterious. Pussy too frightening. I play by the Mike Pence rules.

What sort of man can be friends with a woman? I'll tell you what sort of man. A gay man. And I haven't been a gay man for some time. Splish splash, out now! Alright, thank you, I think I really appreciate it. Boy oh boy oh boy oh boy, oh yeah. This one's another. Verily the penis is a place of weeping and of death and gnashing teeth until there's very little penis left.

This one's a little more serious. Jua Lipa is the only pop starlet. I'm going to start again because I sounded drunk, but I'm not. Jua Lipa is the only pop starlet who sounds like she's having a nice time. Beyonce has forever been slighted. Nicki Minaj has forever been slighted. Nicki Minaj has forever been slighted. Miley Cyrus has become abandoned to the world. Taylor Swift is only ever a bee's dick away from frowning

and pointing and telling it like it is. Billie Eilish has definitely thought about flying to Canada for euthanization. But Dua Lipa's jeans cry out, huuzzah! We are not meant to be here. We're meant to be in Albania, picking at scraps and huddling together with the rest of the Albanian peasantry. We must savour every grape. We must dance at every disco. We must remember how it feels to sleep in this real, genuine bed. Cherish the splendor, Dua Lipa.

That it might give sucker when the horrors return as they surely must. This poem is called NFP, which stands for natural family planning, which is when you don't have sex with your wife. I mean there are many instances where you wouldn't have sex with your wife but that's anyway the point is you never have to use a condom that way and you just do it at certain certain times usually times when she doesn't really want to

you can pretty much time when a woman is fertile by when she wants to have sex. And if any woman here is going... Yeah, I'm only really horny about six days anyway. That's probably... Also, Mozgiel is a city. I'm looking to Stan who's from New Zealand, Mozgiel is in New Zealand because that's where I was. From the Mozgiel laundromat the hills look like a woman's breasts as though an enormous green woman has laid down and is arching her back and the laundromat is nestled in the pubic area and one can look up at the breasts from the warm damp throb of the laundromat and one of the breasts it must be said is much larger than the other one so

much so that conceivably yes I can see how they might not look all that much like breasts to other people but viewed another way they might not look all that much like breasts to other people. But viewed another way, they very do look much like a woman's breasts. As indeed all things in a set of two at least sort of look like a woman's breasts. Perhaps a woman with profoundly asymmetrical, non-breast shaped breasts. And yes, even one thing all on its own does not infrequently also look like a breast. Skinny little marijuana woman! Big fat nicotine man!

95 year old trans with a bottle in hand and an itty bitty child doing heroin. God help, God bless America! God help, God bless every other place too and Coke and coffee and hot water bottles and the virtue that lives inside of you! Next poem, let's just push on through. Oh gee. This poem is called First Time Mum. The tests are coming. Anyone here got kids? How old are your kids? Three. Small kids! Yeah, 3's a lot. 3 year olds is a lot. 3 of them is a lot. Just one? You big pussy. Seriously. Seriously much respect. The tests are coming back fine, which is absolutely what we want to see. She's a healthy, gorgeous baby.

Yes you are. Just look at you. Now make sure you get that skin to skin contact. It's really important, important for bonding. And here is the number for the breastfeeding hotline. You're doing really well, but if you want you can call them. And that's about it. Oh, you might start to notice that you don't really care about Gaza anymore.

We've been seeing that a lot with the first time mums. All right. Here's another one about mums. Beautiful young mums at the Science Museum. Gee, I'd like to see them with a good night's sleep and the respect they deserve. Beautiful young mums at the Science Museum. Gee, I'd like to see them with a good night's sleep and the respect they deserve. I don't know if everyone can tell,

but that's the part about wanting to have sex with young mums at a science museum. Life is full of suffering, like when you buy overalls for your children and the overalls are in the dryer and you're trying to go to sleep but it sounds like there's a million fucking coins in the dryer. There are other kinds of suffering as well I suppose, like when you drink two big spicy margaritas on a very hot day. And then when you're trying to sleep your tummy feels weird.

You know, suffering. Couple people being undone by the spicy margaritas themselves. Well hey, how you doing? Good to see you. All right. And we've got a seat over here. There's two seats here if anyone wants to sit down. Yeah, great. Well I'll hit you with some of the poems I've written more recently.

I've written two poems last night and they won't be in the book but let's... Nipples come in many different colours, shapes and sizes. Nipples can be fountains. Nipples can be prizes. Nipples are a mystery and nobody has figured out what it is that exactly nipples are all about. That one, yeah, it's not in the book. It's important to see the full, you've got to appreciate the ones that are in the book. So I've got to bring it down, bring it back up again. War used to be about wearing beautiful costumes and raising sabers in the air and flags and boys playing the drums. Nowadays war is all about being a homosexual dad coming home from a long day using AI to make AI type things to a hot meal that your husband made and your son calls you a gay boy.

You send them to his room and open up light beer number two. War used to have big horses and parades and lovely death. An unenthusiastic hand job doesn't make you feel much better. You can't sleep so you walk the dog around the neighborhood, you walk past a new wine bar and you'd like to go in but alas, the dog really does not like getting tied up outside. War used to be about great monuments. Huge monuments with names all etched in gold and

grouped by town. You take the dog back home and sit on a lime green sofa, a brand new sofa made in the style of 1990s sofas that were made to look like late 60s sofas, made to look space age. Your son comes out of his room and gives you an apology. Anyway so that one's we're working on that one we're working on it. There's a little more taste to the poems to come but not in this book of poems. Let me tell you that. No sir, upside down. We'll do three more and then we'll let people you know have a drink and decide if they want to leave

and not hear the end. But gee, we end on some very strong noises. This one's called freedom. Does anyone know what freedom is? Isn't that always so beautiful? Anyway. Freedom is an attitude. Freedom is a game. Freedom is a big red stamp and putting respect on your name.

If you have actually saw freedom you would have a heart attack and freedom would come to caress your corpse and kiss your dead neck and dead back. Freedom is an albatross. Freedom is a goose. They want you to think that freedom is an eagle and maybe it is, fast and loose, sweet compatriot. Freedom is a magical number! Freedom is a knife in your hand! Freedom is jumping from a tall, tall building without a safe cushion upon which to land

for the man who has freedom is in terrible danger and the man without freedom is already dead and the man without, oh sorry, and the, ah and the fuck now do we have to start all over again now we'll just change the angle and get it you audio together freedom is jumping from a tall tall building without a safe place upon which to land for the man who has freedom is in terrible danger and the man without freedom is already dead and the man with a fraction of freedom is both and the man who doesn't care is retard dead. Do you value your freedom, amigo? Can you see it up there on the hill? Would you like to go see it? Old sport, mon amie, do its vast freedom titties excite you? Suckle upon freedom, suckle harder and keep on

the suckling until freedom takes its most untimely leave just before you have sucked up your fill of its tit cream and you're all so alone in your shackles wearing nothing but nothing at all and so where did your precious freedom get you and whom if not freedom shall you call fucking think No, alright, that's very gracious. Here's a... I'm not going to stop saying big man ting until you can prove to me that it's wrong. I want data, I want figures, I want facts and analysis. I'm not going to settle for it makes you uncomfortable. It makes you uncomfortable. It makes you uncomfortable as a small man ting. It is a smaller man ting as I've ever heard, aromina. I think I remember that Wi-Fi was free for both flights domestic and overseas.

Now you have to pay something like eight bucks. Am I right? What's going on with that? It was the pandemic that did it somehow and these new stewardesses are uncomfortably young. Tom Wo's stewardesses were foxy old hags but those ladies have been fired, retrenched and retired and these noticeably young, entirely unsexual new stewardesses must get paid a lot less. It makes you sort of sad to have them as your stewardess.

How did all that come from a Chinese disease? I'd like to look it up, but the wifi is not free. Let's have one more, let's have one more, let's have one more, let's have one more. How many more have we got to go, Margo? I'll count the ones. I mean, we may as well, can we just blast on through the end and then I'll do something after the break? All right great we'll just finish it because I'm

clearly in some sort of zone. This poem, I look, I write this poem I said to a friend who runs a literary magazine along with a bunch of, no I didn't even say I sent it like a manuscript years ago and then I sent him all these poems I said you could publish these in your magazine and he went I don't want any of them, I want this one from years ago and it got in the magazine and it wasn't, it's no good. So I fixed it and if you get Agony Volume 3 there's a version of this that's way worse but I'm not saying this one's great, but I tried harder at it. Not that that's always a sign of something being better.

You're all very patient and very kind. Does this work without the jacket? Yes. I don't know. Do you think I should put the jacket back on? Yes. Who said yes? Who said yes? Who said yes?

Who said yes? Nicole? I trust Nicole. Thank you. Will you just take the shirt off? No. No. No.

And it's so fucking nice to be back in Adelaide. Let me tell you that, I've been traveling for a lot, most of these poems were written, I was snowed in in a place called Steubenville, Ohio, which is where Dean Martin's from and there's a whole lot of street prostitutes and nothing. There's a beautiful... Margo, you've been. I'm not wrong. It was depressing. Yeah, it's very depressing. But they're really trying to turn it around and anyway I was there

because I got three months free rent there because I got fired when I went to I haven't written any poems about this because it feels real and maybe not a great poet that's what I'm starting to wonder is like you know when you have like really big feelings you got there's no way to put that into words I'm starting to like I'm starting to think that might be the job. I'm starting to think that might be what poetry is for, instead of like, having a small feeling and go, I can definitely manage that one.

So I've got nothing to say about it, except that it was a very strange and beautiful time. Oh, I met my first black lady at a Taco Bell in West Virginia. I'll talk about that for a little bit if I may. Only black person in the room seems to not be too offended at the moment. But you know, I've met black guys before who have come over playing basketball. Like a black American.

Obviously I've met a lot of African people in Australia. Mostly South Sudanese, either Dinka or very anti dinka and that's really the two you've got to choose from and a lot of Aboriginal people but like African American black people I've never met a African American black lady before and I met her at a Taco Bell, yes, and they laughed at my accent, they all found it was very funny and she said, where are you from? And I said, I'm from Australia and to try and be funny I was like, are you from Australia? And she said, I'm black! Do they treat black people nicely in Australia? And I said, no.

And I drove around to the second window because I thought we were done. She was pretty sure we weren't done and she held my food ransom at window number two. She was very confrontational, which I had heard about before and she said, you really don't like black people? I said, I love black people, love them, but the country has a problem and she said, that really don't like black people in Australia? I said, I love black people, love them. But the country has a problem. And she said, that's what's up, and gave me a fist bump. It was the best day of my whole life.

It was the happiest I've ever been. I've joined the team. I don't think Bill Cosby did it. And I've been attempting to keep it real. Anyway, frankly, the fact that you liked it is the only really important part. Not, you know, we're all... Has anyone played chess? Yeah?

Oh, a couple of books. Alright, this part's about chess. Very important that the people who know about chess like this poem. Nothing's really important. Nah, a lot of things are important. That's another thing about poetry is you've got to figure out what's important and what's not important. And I'm not, I'm not heaps great at that.

Thank you for coming. I shouldn't just talk about how bad I am at poetry. I read somewhere that the church banned chess, which is crazy. unless you've ever really played chess in which case obviously chess is pornography. Yeah, chess boy likes it. It's fantasy for pleasure and we should get rid of it. In chess there are rules and you know what they are and you can think out a plan and understand what is possible and you know what they are and you can think out a plan and understand what is possible and you know what winning would look like.

When is life ever like that? When does it start out even, Stephen, and submit the sage analysis? Life's nothing like chess. Life's nothing like checkers. Life's nothing like tic-tac-toe or connect four. Life is throwing two dice against the wall and drinking a 40. Life is backgammon in a weird Turkish room full of Turks. Life's eight ball.

Life's horse racing, dog racing and the claw machine. Life's darts and you're throwing darts into the wall and it's very embarrassing and you just keep on doing it and people are watching pretty girls are watching and you regret that you never grew up with a dart board let's finish this book of poems all right thank you no, I appreciate it. That's what I'm, I'll get the mullet to do a little. Writing an ABC book for babies is all fun and games until the last three letters. But at the start, oh baby, baby, you can be adventurous.

Brave, courageous, different, exciting, flamboyant, gregarious, having infinite jest constantly. I've written constantly with a K. Until the vacuous spot that marks X where it all goes wrong. Will you puss out with X-ray? Will you puss out with xylophone? Will you puss out with xylophone? Will you puss out with axe or fox? And in doing so, lay waste to credibility before rounding the corner head first into yacht zebra

like an absolute coward. Yeah! Alright. Thank you. Hello, my name is Anthony Keenis. I'm going to start again. Hello, my name is Anthony Keenis. I'm going to start again. Hello, my name is Anthony Keenis and I write songs about my penis and songs about being a Californian man and about the dear friends who are in my band and songs about heroin too. I write these songs as a

gift for you. Anthony Keenis is the lead singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I don't know if people know that. I don't know if people know that band. We're really rounding the, oh yeah, here we are. Can you love too much or can you love too little? What is the right amount of love to feel for different kinds of people? My wife, my parents, my grandparents, my son,

my other son, my daughter, the woman at the cafe who smiles when she takes my wife, my parents, my grandparents, my son, my other son, my daughter, the woman at the cafe who smiles when she takes my order, the president, the penitent, the bum with a sign in the street, the co, the soldier, tinker, salary man, the mango farmer Sweet juicy mango farm employees whom I have never met Cambodian mass graves Giving up on that poem Oh Adelaide, sweet Adelaide, sweet fragrant torrents pond Sweet fragrant torrents pond. The graduates abscond and crowboys threaten to bounce back eternal. Sweet number one, sweet royal show, sweet snow town murder trial.

Sweet premier everyone's uncle calls a homosexual pedophile. Up in the hills there's something happening with grapes. I wish that there was one nice thing to say about Mawson Lakes. Ah, it's nice. There's one nice thing about Mawson Lakes is that the Japanese were going to take it over. Stan, do you know about the multi-function policy? Isn't that an excellent...

The Japanese were going to build it. Anyway, this one's called Australian Communists. I miss Australian communists with angry little faces selling badges and newspapers at events and public places. I miss their flannel shirts and their grey skin and their glasses. I miss those passionate men and women and their unmaintained moustaches. The chanting, oh the rainbows and the aboriginal paraphernalia. I'm sad I took it all for granted when I lived in Australia. Now I'm back, I see him and I don't care for him personally. But at the time it was some real stuff. Let's move right on through do you know about the housing crisis this one's called housing crisis a

couple of hombres that's what it takes a couple of hombres and a little piece of land and less know-how than you would believe is what the YouTube videos seem to suggest might It might be more difficult than they're letting on. But fuck man, if grandpa got it done, we can. Just build a house with the hombres and a happy little valley. That's the way it's been done since time immemorial. The zoning and planning and poofters at desks, it's not really working out for the hombres collectively. It's not exactly as though land is in short supply. Admittedly this might not work for a country like Japan.

They might need a war or a multi-function policy or something they haven't already tried before. But in the land down under we don't want for land and some of it is good. heaps of it is sand. But there's genuinely pleasant land going on for days and days and that's what lies awaiting for Australian hombres. We could turn that land into a bold and charming slum

where not all the ceilings hold and the sewage, forget it. But we'll own it, it'll be ours and we won't have to pay a ransom and the children will do whatever children used to do when we bring the standards down to where the standards used to be. All right, those years, five, sorry. I'm out. The Outback Steakhouse in Sydney

is serving cheeseburger spring rolls, an American meal pretending to be an Asian meal pretending to be an Australian meal at an Australian restaurant pretending to be an American restaurant pretending to be an Australian restaurant served by an Indian pretending to be happy serving the meat of a cow with cheese from the milk of another cow deep-fried in the fat of cow number three Splish splash out now! We're nearing the end. Thank you. All the leaves are brown and the sky is brown. Everything is brown.

There's something wrong with my eyes. Let me tell you about nice warm legs. Let me tell you about being in America. Let me tell you about Rocky IV where he hits the guy who killed his friend. Let me tell you about being in America. Let me tell you about Rocky IV where he hits the guy who killed his friend. Let me tell you about nice warm legs. You've got to keep your legs nice and warm. If your legs get cold then mercy me it's a punishing slog to get the legs warm again. Rocky IV is an excellent movie about standing up for amazing America. Rocky made his legs extremely cold and

that's the price he paid for nationalism. Do the kids today have what it takes to fight for a country of nice warm legs even if that means suffering through some of the coldest legs we have ever imagined? Really that's more of a Rocky Five question. November is the time for a US election. And sometimes it snows on the voting day. That's the number one way that legs get cold. And the candidates are very old. But which of the nominees do you trust?

To be like Rocky. To be like Rocky. To be like Rocky and suffer on through cold legs with a deep blue hue. America! America! Rocket Four! Warm legs! Next one. America, America, rocket four, warm legs. Next one. No, don't even bother about it.

Here we go. What would your life have been like for my friend Sam McDonough? What would your life have been like for my friend Sam McDonough? All right, it's called McDonough. It's a bit niche for a book of poems. Could have just put it in a birthday card.

What would your life have been like had you gone to New York City drowning in sad arts degrees slam poetry vagina? Would you still be a lawyer or would you have gotten AIDS? It's not easy getting AIDS as a heterosexual man but I reckon you'd have managed it had you gone to New York City. You would have done too well there like a light bulb at hubristic voltage but New York is more than women turned on by the reading of heavy books. Fuck man you at the symphony Carnegie Hall and all that shit that Annie Hall Manhattan shit and human shit out in the street. My friend thank God you never went thank God God

kept it from you thank God they never got their nasty bookish, AIDSy hands upon you. I know you'll disagree when you come to visit me next year, I see your face as it will be, gazing upon the typeface that they use on subway signs and oh brother, when you see that font, you're going to want to jump right out in front of the very next subway train to punish yourself for half a life in exile from that tenderness sustained only by test cricket, jurisprudence, real hard living, ethnic women, profession, I mean it's too specific, professional superlativity, familial love and ethereal spastic disappointing football, that fun. You're going to absolutely love it, I dream about that day, let's get to the very end. Oh yeah, now we get to two very, very strong attempts at poetry.

I really appreciate it. Thank you all for coming out. You know, it's so hot in this jacket, Nicole. You are a magnificent automobile moving at high speed with the power to change course, but that power is illusory because at the rate you're going, turning the wheel would result in death. Freedom is a binary, straight ahead or suicide. I guess the third choice but that would be a pussy move. Um, nah, it's cool. And, uh, thanks Margot. Margot, you've been great. Yeah, give Margot a round of applause.

She's been wonderful. What time is it? Twenty past 8? Poor. You've got to let me do it. You've got to let me come back and do that other thing after the break. People will want to leave, but it will be a real strong crew of people who... Can I do it?

Alright. This one's called Dead. Too many of the poems about sex or killing yourself? Oh, we need a couple more, all right. Oh man, it's not been a bad year, but fuck. I drove across the country. I had to move from Steubenville to Austin. And we left Margot's place.

She was in Notre Dame. And we just drove all the way across the country. It was beautiful. And at one point during the drive across the country, I saw there was a place. It was Abe Lincoln's birthplace. That's a memory that really stands out. I turned off.

I drove 10 miles off course to go to Abe Lincoln's log cabin. And they built this huge, beautiful temple. It's unbelievable. It's like four story high marble temple, no expense spared, built in the 1910s and that beautiful. Americans didn't really worry about World War I monuments, like that big statue pushing a, you know, the big angel just rubbing his dick against a sword on North Terrace. Yeah. Anyway, they don't have a lot of stuff like that for some reason because they got in that war late but for this, all the money, they spent it all on that. There was no, I think it's quite cool that in public we have an angel pressing his dick against a sword. Not enough really said about that. Imagine that. Imagine you come

to the unveiling of a statue because your son died in war. Ah yeah, I guess that's how we all feel. And anyway, they built this big temple to Abe Lincoln's birthplace. You go in there and it's like Disneyland for Abe Lincoln. And then on one tiny, tiny little plaque next to the log cabin which is inside of the temple. There's a little thing that says in the 1930s we discovered this was not actually the log temple. It was a different house and we can't figure out which house it was but anyway it's still pretty cool symbol. Isn't that...

Yeah, I was just wondering if that was a poem, but it's not. I wish I could talk to my friend, but alas, my friend is dead. And so I have to substitute talking to one of our mutual friends instead. And together we can guess at what our mutual dead friend would have said. And never, I suspect, get remotely close. Doesn't matter that I fumbled the last word on that because we don't need people knowing that's in the book. That's too sad.

All right, so we're gonna have a break now and then we'll come back and there'll be a little table here and then something very exciting we'll have. I just can't say thank you enough. Thank you so much for coming. I'll see you all in, I don't know, 15, 20. I really appreciate it. Yeah, all right. I feel vulnerable. I'm

sorry. Is that all right?