The James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan - treading water

Episode Date: March 18, 2024

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Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Are you ready to join the catamaran plan? Hello ladies and welcome to the catamaran plan for another week. This is your host, James Donald Forbes McCann, coming to you from my attic, where I am preparing, once I finish this, to drive to Pittsburgh, have my laptop repaired, more on that in but a moment, and do a gig. Last week's gigs went so well in Pittsburgh that they have agreed to have me back this week. I'm looking forward to it. I get to feature.

I don't know how it all works financially. I'm just, it's not about the money. It's about getting in the car, driving for an hour, listening to a podcast about history's greatest monkeys, performing for 20 minutes, doing okay, driving back home and listening to a podcast about the history of chocolate. It's so good to be here with you today.

I'm having a lot of feelings, and that's why I'm talking like this. My dad left last night. He walked out on us because it was his time to go, not because he was making a point or abandoning us. He has to leave Australia. He'll leave for Australia. So he came for the – you're allowed to be here for three months. He's been here for almost three months, and at his last little time of being in America, he got on a train last night to Chicago

and he's exploring by rail more of this great country. So Daryl McCann, big shout out. Very, very grateful for all the help my dad gave us and all these wonderful appearances on this podcast. All the help looking after the kids and the house and we miss him we had a bit of an emotional one last night we went out to the italian restaurant we first went to when we first came to steubenville and we had our big coca-colas and our wonderful garlic toast not garlic bread but it was very good and i didn't know until that dinner that he wasn't coming back that there wasn't he my wife didn't know either, which made me think that my dad had not explained it in a way that we could comprehend.

Anyway, it's sad. It's sad. And he went, I thought you were all taking this a bit cavalierly that I was going. And we said, we didn't know. So Daryl McCann, Daryl McCann online for his top professional writing, check that out, and he's in the Spectator, I miss my daddy, I miss my dad, and I'm going to miss everybody in Steubenville soon, because we are leaving, we've got another

week and a half here. And then we are driving over to see Margo in South Bend, Indiana. And we're meeting Anna Freer there. She's coming over and we're doing a drive down with all our stuff. I have to get a roof rack for the big Toyota. And we're driving down all the way down to Austin. I need to find a place to stay in Austin. That's proved quite difficult.

They're having a solar eclipse and property hard to come by at the moment. Airbnbs all gone. Many people coming to Austin to witness the solar eclipse. I'm personally looking forward at staring directly into this. I'm looking forward at. I'm looking forward to looking at. Anyway, I'm going to look at the eclipse with my bare eyes and risk blindness. I'm not a coward. Nah, I might risk, I might get, I won't, ah, my vision is too important. Where would we be without vision? I'm sad that my dad's gone. I'm going to get my NASA space glasses. They've got special NASA approved space glasses and they've got a lot of billboards around middle america letting people know that the eclipse is coming and people are flocking to that narrow

strand of the country where the eclipse will be at its most full so i'm looking forward to that looking forward to showing that to my kids oh my sweet children so much is happening we're going back to australia in may and we're booking in the tour at the moment we're booking in the venues quite big venues actually bigger venues than I have ever sold before across the country and we'll see how that I mean I can see from the listenership that the listenership has increased and hopefully I'm a hot little potato when I go back to my native Australia you got to go away to come back. That's what people say.

I don't know if going away for three months is sufficient to qualify as going away. Well, it's more than that by that point, Jimmy. It's four months. Actually, I went to New Zealand first. Five months away. Five long, difficult months away from my native land where I join the impressive colonisers. Oppressive? As we, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Impressive and oppressive, I think. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I miss Australia. I miss the trees. I miss the meat pies. I miss the football. Footy's back. Crows will have had their first game by the time this comes out.

Check out the replay. We're playing the Gold Coast Suns. Big forwards are out. Big Tex Walker's done his back. Big Riley Thorpe's done his knee. And so hopefully big Darcy Fogarty can get the job done there at full forward. Although we then lose him from half forward, and he's a beautiful set shot from 55 metres out. Here's Darcy Fogarty with his big legs and his absolute lack of pectoral area. Huge. He's trees-like. Legs.

Legs like trees. Do you know what I'm saying? I miss my dad. And I've missed a lot in Australia. I've missed the Australian summer. We'll go a year and a half without a summer because of our touring schedule. Actually, longer because we'll miss the American summer while we're away. Yeah.

Yeah. What's that? That'll be like maybe two years without a summer. Sad. Ah, I'm missing Australia. I'm going to be happy to be back. I'm then happy to be back in America after that. But, boy, it'll be nice to be back, I'm then happy to be back in America after that, but boy, it'll be nice to be back in Australia, oh yes, doing the speed limit for a change, riding a bicycle with

my helmet on, unable to buy zins, I'm continuing with the quitting smoking, I did have a, I quit quitting smoking for two to three days, the last podcast but I'm back on the zin the desperately unsatisfying zins which are making me tired one of the reasons I was happy to quit smoking yeah this is not interesting this is not important for boat ownership but I'll tell you anyway cigarettes have been making me tired the nicotine is making me tired these pretzels are making me thirsty these cigarettes are making me tired. The nicotine is making me tired. These pretzels are making me thirsty. These cigarettes are making me tired. My wife thinks it's because I have ADHD, unmedicated.

I'm having a contrary response. I've missed the Adelaide Fringe. I've missed my first Adelaide Fringe Festival. It's wrapping up now. I've missed the first one that I've missed in a long, long time. It's been, I did like 15 back to back and I've missed this year because I was over here. Boy, I mean, to some extent, I don't know why I did so many Adelaide Fringe festivals. I lost money on most of them. And the ones that I did make money as I take this in out,

the ones that I did make money, I didn't make very much money. But it's not about the money, these French festivals. It's about the cocaine. It's about doing cocaine with people and being sexually interesting because you're a part of a festival, neither of which is especially helpful or interesting to me as I do not partake of the cocaine, although I do have a very muddled sinus and perhaps whiffing a powder up the nostril would actually help me open that up. But I've never done cocaine.

I've never smoked a marijuana cigarette. I'll stick to painkillers, thank you very much. Oh, mercy me, I miss it all. It's nice to be sexually interesting. You know, that's how I met my wife. Was at a comedy festival. Would she have fallen for me had I not been in a festival and been very sexually interesting? We can only hope.

But it is when you are in the festival and the festival time's on. Boy, you seem more impressive than you actually are as a fella. Potentially as a lady. Hello, ladies. Welcome to the catamaran plan. We've got so many new woman listeners after our previous woman-centric episodes. Women are joining the Patreon. Thank you, women, for joining the Patreon.

I appreciate that. I'm sorry, I'm emotional. I've become upset thinking about my dad going um so much to do we're driving to south bend when we leave steubenville with all that stuff on a roof rack i have to get a roof rack i have uh 15 16 14 i have some number of mystery merch parcels in the car but I have to go and send off tonight on my way to Pittsburgh to do a gig. Oh, here's the thing. I'm not a good festival act.

You know, I struggle to write the themed hour and when I do write a themed hour, it's not the one I've advertised. And then people go, this show is called Aussie and Proud but it's about aesthetics. And then the next year I go, right, I'm going to tidy that show up call it aesthetics then it's about a friend dying and it's called aesthetic and you go well that's also unhelpful so this time I think I'm just I'm calling my upcoming tour of Australia either take me home

or Australia tour hard to stuff that one up with the writing if I called it Australia tour James Donald Forbes McCann presents Australia tour unless I accidentally tour Nova Scotia which I wouldn't put that past me I'm a chaotic little mess of a person excuse me that's not what I wanted to talk about I don't know this is the catamaran plan this is the catamaran plan I'll tell you what I've been working on of late two things new stand-up comedy I've got about four ideas that I want to stand in front of a room and say to see if any of them work and I've been working on a film on a new film script Wimbledog I have been working I've been working on a film, on a new film script. Wimbledog.

I have been working, I've been, Wimbledog has been in the brain for a long time, waiting to come out, and my hope was that I could just write a movie like Air Bud, which I watched some of with my kids yesterday. That was up on the projector. We got the cheapest projector they had. It came with Roku.

It's like having a television. You can just dismantle very easily and move into another room and you can't really watch when the sun's out it's the best of all possible worlds excuse me excuse me i'm getting sleepy from the scene i yeah i thought i would write wimbledog i thought what i would write was just a classic. I mean, I think in the very first episode I talk about Wimbledog. I thought I could just write a Disney-style movie about a dog that played sports. And I have many essays that I've written about this, and just writing a G-rated, family-friendly movie. And I've started writing about it, and I can't do it.

The things that keep coming to me are very inappropriate. There's long scenes set in Japan now where the people of Japan demand that Wimbledog commit ritual suicide. Let's see how that goes, because he refuses to shake hands. Anyway, I thought it would be funny if they taught him how to play tennis and they forgot to make him shake hands, and then the Japanese, when he's there for a tournament, are very upset that he won't shake hands. I don't even know if handshaking is a big Japanese thing.

But, you know, no other country in the world can you demand somebody commit ritual suicide for their shame. Oh! Anyway, Wimbledog's all over the place. I just wake up in the middle of the night and I have an idea about what could happen to the dog playing tennis in my movie, and I write it down, so we'll see if anything ripe comes of that, if that's the thing that's going to break through and get me this damn boat, we've got to think strategically about the boat, I am thinking in terms of personnel, so when I'm back in Australia, I'll be able to record lots of things with Sam Clark. I've got some sketches ready to go. He's working on editing the special tour thing. So when I'm there with Sam, I'll be able to make

beautiful first mate Sam. I'll be able to make things. And also, I've got some other people in the work who might be able to, you know, there are great people in Texas who might be able to help me make stuff. So much in life is knowing your limitations and having a crew. I'm not a cell solo across the Atlantic, man. I need a team. And my wife is doing an absolutely stunning job with the family. She's so beautiful, my wife. So beautiful. She bought a new dress. She had a panic and she cut her hair, and it actually looked pretty good, well, it looked pretty good, and it looks good now, so she's doing well, I mean, we're all sad that Daryl's gone, Daryl McCann online, check out that beautiful top professional writing, but we're doing okay, everyone's doing okay,

and we're going to do okay there, and we're going to do okay back here, it's a scramble, okay everyone's doing okay and we're going to do okay there and we're going to do okay back here it's a scramble it's a non-stop panicky scramble and i keep thinking that that will have to come to an end at some point but i can't presently see the end and you know maybe there's no end and that's good hey here's a little advice for you um not that anyone asked for this advice but it's the advice i'd like to give myself. If I was coming to someone right now and looking for advice, I'd say, I'm exhausted. Where's the end?

And the advice that I think I'd like to give back is, I think just there I combined the word give and get, which actually was what I was trying to express. Give it back to where I once belonged is there is no end. Just enjoy the beautiful dance. Trip the light fantastic jimmy magical things are happening magical things are happening so mad and we're enjoying it but i think if i if

i can just fully get off nicotine and not feel so sleepy when i'm having it i'm just in a i'm just yo-yoing between cranky and sleepy at the moment, trying to get off the nicotine. And that's a mistake. I should have the three milligram nicotine mouth patch rather than the six. This can't be interesting to anybody. Can I just... I wanted to express how happy that I was that I missed the Adelaide Fringe this year.

That was a big thing for me, to not go to the Adelaide Fringe. And I don't know how much I've spoken about it in the past. And I love the Adelaide Fringe. But, that was a big thing for me, to not go to the Adelaide Fringe, and I don't know how much I've spoken about the past, and I love the Adelaide Fringe, but I think it's a big enough thing that it took up a lot of my mental career ideation, I just always think about the fringe, and how to do the fringe, and now people always said, oh you'll get out, you'll see the big wide world Jimmy, you'll see how much world there is out there. And it really is confirming for me, there's a boy, there's a lot of, I mean, America's huge. Britain, also pretty big. Canada, even larger than both of them put together, I think. Not in terms of population, but in terms of bigness. And what about all the other countries?

All the other countries. Jimmy James, do you have a list? Do you have a list of all the other countries? All the other countries. Jimmy James, do you have a list? Do you have a list of all the countries where people have been listening to the podcast? I do. Let's go to Kids in America, a recent episode. And I can see all the people who have listened there. United States, almost 800 listeners. Australia, three and a half hundred listeners.

364, to be precise. Canada, 62 listeners. UK, 32 listeners. And I'm very pleased with this. Ireland, Dublin, used to have two listeners. Now, eight. Eight Dublin listeners. Imagine that.

Imagine going to the sweet city of Dublin and being mobbed by all the women who find me very sexually interesting and having to say, I'm not interested in you. I'm interested in my precious wife. New Zealand even. We're growing in New Zealand. Seven listeners. And then we get to those wonderful, and I know you're holding out these countries for me to talk about you, and I will I will Japan six listeners in Japan possibly when my movie Wimbledog comes out should it ever come out I'll get to go to Japan and perform for you and then the movie will come out and you'll say hold on a minute

we don't like this this is very hateful I say it's not hateful. It's playful. I love you, Japan. Very honourable country. Costa Rica. Did you know I have four listeners in San Jose, Costa Rica? I know nothing about Costa Rica except that I don't think it's the same as Puerto Rico. There you go. France. En Francais.

Magnifique. Four listeners. Sweden. We've had listeners from Sweden for some time. I love Sweden. I love the Swedish people. I love Abba, Ikea, so many Swedish things. Nokia. I never had one, I don't think. Sweden. No, I did, very briefly, after it was uncool when I was trying to have a dumb fun. Thailand. Three listeners in Thailand. Thailand. I will never say anything against your beautiful, splendid king. We've got two German listeners. I don't know why we're so much more

popular in France, twice as popular in France than Germany? I guess it's my playful laissez-faire attitude. I don't believe the Germans have a word for laissez-faire. I actually don't know how laissez-faire directly translates, to be honest. Slovakia, couldn't pick it out on a map. Happy to have you as a listener. Or two of them, indeed. Are you from the same place in Slovakia? Yes, you're both in

Bratislava. Again, didn't know that place existed until just now. Wow. South Africa. We have two South Africanese listeners in Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. A big jambo to our South African listeners. Spain, two. Hong Kong, two. And then we get down to the solitary ones. The lonely listener in Belgium, Brazil. We've got a Colombian listener. I wonder if it's a lady. I wonder if she wants any advice. We've got a Finnish listener. We've got a Georgian listener. Hello, Georgian listener. It's nice to have you still listening all the way over in Georgia. I did some Wikipedia-ing of Georgia this week, as intermittently I fall into a Wikipedia wormhole, and I found out you've got your own script over there. Isn't that very exciting? India, one Indian listener. Italy, one Indian

listener. Mexico, I'm just noticing now that the Italian and Mexicanese flag, very similar. and Mexicanese flag, very similar. The Philippines, Slovenia. I know that that's different to Slovakia. Slavov Zizek is from one of them. Switzerland, Taiwan. Didn't I already say Taiwan? No, that's, oh, I have a listener in Taiwan and two in Hong Kong, different countries indeed. Zambia, Jersey, Singapore. That's everybody, that's all the listeners from right around the world, I mean, I just, I love having time, man, it's around the world, and we've broke, I mean, we haven't finished breaking America, but we're breaking America, America's breaking wide open, did you know, I think I'm more popular now in Chicago than I am in Perth, let me check that, no, still slightly more popular in Perth, but pretty popular. We've got 25 listeners in Chicago. That's so close to me being able to go and tour Chicago.

Houston, 20. New York in the 30s. If you combine all the different boroughs, you can all come out to a show. We've got 17 Denver listeners. Hello, Austin, 12. Dallas, 12. The great state of Texas, can't wait until we're living there. Washington, Atlanta, Los Angeles. It goes on and on. And I tell you, the biggest city, despite all the negative things that I say about it, the biggest city in the world for us is Melbourne. We've now got over a hundred Melbourne listeners helping me get that catamaran. And so I want to say thank you to Melbourne for putting up with all my negativity about Melbourne. I don't dislike all of Melbourne. I just dislike the parts of Melbourne that I suspect you dislike as well, sweet Melbourne

listener. Oh, Mr. Worldwide. It's happening. It's weird. weird it's weird it's all happening and i'm so it's just been days of weird fatigue and problems there's an engine light come on on the toyota sienna i took it to a mechanic he said ah sort of sent me away at that point so i said all right i guess we won't worry about that i guess that engine light will just stay with me like an old friend what else happened oh the laptop broke i've got to take the laptop in now to get repaired and that's why i'm recording this podcast a little earlier in the week is the the uh the uh the the trackpad and the keyboard have stopped functioning.

And so they're going to try and fix that. And they say that if they find proof of water damage, they're just going to charge me 900 American dollars, at which point I should just buy a new laptop. But if there's no water damage, then they will fix it for free. Oh, I'm scared about that happening. I don't believe there's been a spill. Maybe someone has snuck in late at night, given me a little spill.

So we'll find out. We'll find out if I'm going to be absolutely financially ruined by that. Hopefully not. Fingers crossed. Sadly, all of those listeners are also on Earth. Thus far, no listeners in the space stations or on the planet of Arrakis. I saw the movie Dune this week, Dune 2. And I watched Dune 2 in the IMAX. Wow. Better than watching Dune 1, which I watched at night on an iPhone screen. So much night.

You've got to see it in the cinema. You can't. You can't just be watching it. It's a real experience. And they were right. I mocked them. I thought if a film is good, you should be able to have it be good anywhere. It's not. You watch it on your phone screen to your peril.

I'm a silly boy. I'm a silly man. I'm a silly mess. I'm a silly mess. I'm not writing any poetry. I'm just writing Wimbledog. I wish I could a silly mess. I'm a silly mess. I'm not writing any poetry. I'm just writing Wimbledog. I wish I could, I wish, oh, what have I done there? I wish I could write poems. Would you like to hear my most recent poem? Let's have a look. I don't even know when the last time I wrote, oh, I wrote a poem about the rock that I posted to Instagram and then quickly took down.

I'm going to read you my poem. Here it is. The rock is poking me in the chest and calling me a candy ass. I look weak and foolish before these beautiful obese Midwesterners who have come out on a school night for an evening of sports entertainment. What's your name? Asks the rock. Behold the telltale eyebrow. I can smell what he is cooking. It doesn't matter what I say here in the proverbial hard place. It doesn't matter what your name is. Yes, I can imagine Sisyphus happy, pushing a rock for

eternity. But can he imagine me happy, pushed by the rock off the top turnbuckle and through the spanish announcer's table that's the closest thing to a poem that i've managed to write of late it's all crap it's all crap it's all crap. It's all crap. It's all crap. I'm just looking through my poems here. 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 still be allowed to own a modest suburban home. The British dream does not exist. In Britain, dreams are illegal. And there's that poem for you. I'm looking forward to having the crows playing. I'm looking forward to get up at five in the morning and watching my beloved crowboys fly.

America's team. Oh, I'm looking forward to so many things. I'm watching Australian Survivor with my wife at the moment. And there's a woman named Kirby on the show who... Now, don't tell me any spoilers about Australian Survivor. We have so much of it left to watch. But Kirby's great. Mark's great.

Caroline's a great villain. The older midwife. She'd be so comforting in a midwife capacity, but they're casting her as a villain really, really beautifully. I mean, who went to the... A man named Winner. He's just... He's...

But that's the episode I'm up to. It's Winner's big episode. I don't want to spoil anything for anybody else. And Ferris is one of the most charismatic people I've ever seen. I really think if I'd been on this year, I mean, I would have missed out on so much. I wouldn't have been able to be here with you in America. Damn it, I want to get on Australian Survivor so bad. But maybe it's that same old thing where I can't make it in Australia

and I've just got to shoot for the United States. Maybe I put in a United States Jeopardy audition. Maybe it's time for me to put in an audition for an American survivor, win that million dollars. Gee, I'm not looking forward to having my shirt off on national television. That'll absolutely ruin me. Anyway, listen, I've been prattling on for long enough.

I love you. This is sort of a return to the manic episodes of old. Shout out my daddy, shout out my wife, shout out the crowd boys, shout out the kids, shout out all the beautiful ladies listening to the podcast, and hey,

I'm not going to forget about the men, maybe I should double down, we've done some work getting the ladies, time to get the boys back in town, maybe it's just time to organize your damn life, Jimmy. Anyway, I love you, I miss you, I want you, I need you. Canamaran Ho. Goodbye.

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, whether you need a challenge or rest.

And Peloton has everything you need, whenever you need it. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca.