The James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan - up and down

Episode Date: July 7, 2024

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Hello and welcome to this episode of the James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan. The program where I, James Donald Forbes McCann catamaran plan the program where I James Donald Forbes McCann am trying to raise enough money to buy a boat. We're looking at about $500,000 if possible we can get to $500,000 I will be absolutely thrilled. That's a good boat Some people they write to me during the week and the direct messages on the Instagram and they say Jimmy Some people, they write to me during the week in the direct messages on the Instagram and they say, Jimmy, what about taking some sailing lessons? What about starting with a cheaper boat and seeing how you go?

No, sir, we won't be doing that. We'll be getting the good boat that I need. I was about to say want. Need is maybe also not good. Ah, the boat that I am called to possess. I'm in Adelaide. I've been back in sweet Adelaide. I don't like this start.

I don't like that as a start. I think it's over the top. It's unnecessary. I'm starting again. Love. Hey. Ah, I guess we'll just keep on going. I've been in Adelaide for a week. I've been back home in Adelaide for about a week

since we did just a brutal flight from Austin to LA, LA to Fiji, Fiji to Sydney, Sydney to Adelaide. And it's taken me about a week to get back on track. It's taken me about a week to realize that that flight just happened. Like I'm waking up now and looking at the colour and going, Oh, holy do, it's been a week. It's tough. The days just melt into one another. I am become unstuck in time. It's very strange. I've only got about three weeks left in Australia.

I should definitely open talking about it. Alright, this is my last starting again. This one for real. This one for real. This time for real. Welcome to this episode of the James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan. The show where I, James Donald Fools McCann, am trying to raise enough money to buy a boat. And I'm back in sweet Adelaide, sweet beautiful Adelaide, my home, home base, for what is

a very soon to be a tour of Australia, a stand-up comedy tour of Australia, a five-city tour that went on sale last week. Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth, Sydney, Melbourne. The dates are all available. I don't remember the dates off the top of my head, but it's in a couple of weeks. And I am very pleased to announce that almost all of those shows have almost sold out. We're getting very close to them all selling out like at this point that I'm recording this right now I believe that there are a mere seven tickets is that a plane hold on oh I reckon that's a Jetstar to Bali. That's seven tickets remain in Adelaide.

Gee, I wouldn't mind a trip to Bali. I've never been to Bali. I reckon in Bali I'd feel comfortable. I'd wear a bintang singlet. I would never usually wear a singlet. It highlights all my problem areas, but I would. Being in Bali, it's a bit, I hear they say, same, same, but different. Oh, man. I was always so jelly when I was a kid. The kids would come back from Bali with like 400,000 DVDs. They'd have all the coolest DVDs, but there was always something a bit wrong with them.

Like you couldn't turn the subtitles off. I never, my parents didn't love us enough to take us to Bali to buy pirated DVDs. And it's sort of, I think it's a bit weird that I still yearn for that, right? Like I'd still like to be in Bali getting those DVDs. I can watch any movie I want any time. I'm living in the future. But still, they would come not in proper DVD cases. They'd be in like little plastic sleeves.

I don't know if there's an American equivalent. I don't know if a beautiful American and British... I mean, if you're British, gee, you're very far away from all the places, I think, that you could go to get illegal Asian DVDs. That's just a beautiful merit of our culture that you do not have the fortune to possess. Anyway, excuse me, I got off on a tangent. I'm going to try and keep myself on a leash. We have very important things to talk about on this episode.

About seven tickets at this point in time remaining. I mean, I can check. Adelaide's the only one that I can check how it's actually going. We had, at the start of this podcast, we had seven tickets remaining, meaning we were... Oh! No, it remains seven tickets remaining. Sorry, it's got a battery change. Oh, that's all right.

We'll start again. I wasn't happy with that. Sorry, it's You better believe it. It's great to be with you here once again announcing, well, actually, I already did the announcement. I did the announcement last week that I'm doing a tour of Australia and that tickets are on sale now. Quite happy to announce now that tickets are virtually not on sale, which is to say that they are on sale, but there's not very many left. I think by the time this comes out, some of the shows may be sold out. I'm doing shows in Adelaide and other cities too. Sydney, Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane.

That's it. No Canberra, no Hobart. All these people writing to me from Hobart saying, oh, can you come to Hobart? It's like, yeah. I've looked at my analytics. There's four of you. You know, I would like nothing more than to come to beautiful Hobart, which visually, it looks like Sydney if they hadn't ruined it.

And it was a little less blessed with, you know, your heartbour's great Hobart, no disrespect, but Sydney. Anyway, the tickets have almost sold out. Sydney's almost sold out. Perth should be sold out by the time this comes out. I think Brisbane's going to be sold out as well. I can't believe the love and support and kindness. Adelaide's got seven tickets remaining while I'm recording this. Wow. I don't know if we'll get to add extra shows. I'm looking into it. It's a whirlwind trip. I'm doing like a Brisbane show, then I fly to Melbourne, then I fly to Sydney, then I've got to go home. So we'll find out if we can do an extra show on the same days, but we'll find out and I'll give you an update.

Oh, ladies and gentlemen, it's been a week since I've been back in Australia, since I landed at this very airport and returned home And I've lost the week. I don't. I've seen some friends. That's been very nice. And I'll get to go to mass tomorrow. Back at my old parish. Where I will no doubt weep hysterically.

And people will go. He's having a religious experience. And in a sense you could say that I would be. He's having a vision. Well, maybe I'll be having a vision of all the time lost. It's so beautiful to have a community. We should really all be in a community. I'm so sorry if this podcast for you is a substitute for community. Take the headphones out. Stop supporting my plan for boat ownership. Go and join the nearest religious community near you.

Hopefully it's one that'll get you into heaven rather than one of those Yazidi devil-worshipping communities. I don't want to go too hard on the Yazidi because people keep trying to kill them. But also, the more I read about the Yazidi, the more I think maybe actually they do worship the devil. So much to talk about. One of the things I wanted to talk about is the Australian media.

I have been in America. We've been doing the American media. We've been doing the podcast circuit. We did the Kill Tony. We did the Matt and Shane Secret Podcast. We did the American media. We've been doing the podcast circuit. We did the Kill Tony. We did the Matt and Shane Secret Podcast. We did the Stuff Island. We probably did other podcasts. We did the Panties in the Mouth Podcast.

Ah, Cameraman Sam flinches when I say that one. Yes, it's Nathan LeMaire's podcast, and that is regrettably what it's currently called. It was a nice podcast. I did the New Polity podcast. That hasn't come out yet, but that was good. Anyway, so I've done all these American podcasts, and now, as a result, there's Australians who know about this and are coming. By this, I mean me. And they're coming out to the tour but wouldn't it be good if i could transcend cult status in my own country wouldn't it we wouldn't it be nice to go mainstream that's what i'm shooting for i mean i think the cult status can only get you so far yeah maybe you can fill out the comedy club but if we're going to elevate this tour if we're going to get so popular that we sell so many

tickets that they go whoa we better move it out of the comedy club and get that into the Sydney Opera House lickety split. And there's Elton John going, but I'm booked to play the Sydney Opera House that night. Get out of here, Elton John. We don't need you anymore. We got the new hip grooving cat. Me. Excuse me. I'm all over the place.

Big spikes and dips of energy at the moment. Anyway, my point is that I think it would be good to be mainstream. I think if we're going to have boat money, there's nothing wrong with going a little mainstream. So how do you go mainstream? Mainstream media. Mainstream. So how do you go mainstream? Mainstream media. So this is an open letter to the mainstream media of Australia.

Can I please come on? Mainstream media of Australia, can I please come on your shows and talk about this upcoming tour? If you let me do that, it would be easier to add the additional shows if we do indeed sell out and i'm not going absolutely mad uh q a that's a show on the abc where uh you know a couple politicians and sometimes an academic and usually like one silly person i don't need to tell you that i'm auditioning for the role of academic on that program. Anyway, there'll be like four or five people sitting around,

and then they'll discuss the issues of the day. You know, it'll be something like, Sammy, what's a big issue of the day? I haven't really been following our news. Which one? Changing the climate. Right. They'll be talking about climate change and they'll say isn't climate change terrible and then the lefty politician says oh it's so bad we're trying to do something about that and then the right-wing politician goes yeah it's very bad because they

pick a right-wing politician who's also talking about they they often get someone who's sort of on the same page. It's a very inner-city, lefty audience. Inner-city means something different. Did you know inner-city means something a bit different in America, Sam? Yeah, it does. Their inner-cities are very violent. Although they don't like to use the word violent in America. They're vibrant.

Oh, the CBD oil that they've all been having. But our inner cities are full of like, you know, tight pants and yoga studios and very safe, relaxing, groovy places. Anyway. So they have the politician there on the right and he's like, yeah, we should do something about climate change. But we should do it responsibly. And then they'll have the silly person go, well, why can't we all just sort this out and do the right thing?

And then the audience... Yes! Anyway, I think I could do that I think on virtually any issue I could take the soft left populist line That doesn't really make sense But that the audience could totally agree with And then I'd sell a lot more tickets to my show Sam, what's another issue of the day?

Any other? Which one? You've been out of it? I reckon you've got your finger on the pulse and you just don't want to say. Oh, my God. Like, oh, Biden. Cognitive decline. All right, so what will happen there? You know, they're talking about cognitive decline.

And they'll have the lefty politician from Australia. And they'll go, listen, we don't know who's going to win this election. And it would imperil our standing with the United States if I was to pass comment on that at the moment. So that's an internal matter for them and their voters, and I will respect the decision of the American people. And no matter who they decide, we will continue to have a beautiful, strong relationship with the Americans. And then the right-wing politician, he'll say something like, I absolutely agree. I just, I couldn't agree.

Obviously, I couldn't agree more with what the person over there from the party that's just hauntingly similar to the one that I'm in has had to say. I wouldn't be passing judgment. But I would say, and then maybe he'd say something a little bit jolly and a little bit sassy, you know, like, but I would like to say that I note that myself and my counterpart over there, we're about half the age that they are over there in America. It does make you a little proud to be Australian with the vitality that we're bringing here to the Q&A stage. And then I get to be the populist going, all these men are too old. What about the youth?

Aren't the children the future? Jimmy, he's called it like he is. That's exactly how it is, Jimmy. Thank goodness someone has had the courage to tell it like he is. That's exactly how it is, Jimmy. Thank goodness someone has had the courage to tell it like it is. And then I sell out the Sydney Opera House. So Q&A, if you'd have me on, that'd be real sweet. Oh, so many other programs I'd like to get on. Have you been paying attention? That's a show where five comedians sit in sort of staggered podiums,

and they're asked questions about the news, and they give silly answers. But then if they get the right answer, they get points. You know? You don't get points for being funny, but everyone's still trying to be funny. But they still... I mean, I could do that. I could do silly answers.

You know, that'd be like... Prince Charles was embarrassed this week. What do you think Prince Charles was embarrassed about? And I'd say, he s*** his pants! No, I could say something cleverer than that. Prince Charles is embarrassed. What's Prince Charles embarrassed... His weird swollen hands from his heart condition.

No, I wouldn't say that either. I wouldn't say that either. Look, producers of Have You Been Paying Attention, let me tell you this. I absolutely will do a top professional job. If you let me come on Have You Been Paying Attention, I promise that I will do a top professional job of being on have you been paying attention and saying funny answers about things in the news. I know a bunch of people who've been on have you been paying attention.

Dane Simpson, Georgia Carroll, Aaron Chen, Emma. Emma's been on have you been paying attention. Emma. Emma's always gone on Have You Been Paying Attention. Bron! Can't get enough Bron on Have You Been Paying Attention. And there are others. And I, you know, Guy Montgomery. Ray! Sweet baby Rays.

But I know so many. I'm on such. I mean, I see these people backstage sometimes, and they're nice to me. I'm on such, I mean, I see these people backstage sometimes and they're nice to me. I mean, I would feel awkward reaching out to them actually and starting like an Instagram group message saying, Hey, you know, I like or I respect all of you. You all seem like great people. Is there a chance you could have a conversation with the team working? And have you been paying attention to get me on that show? I think I could do a good job on that show.

Please let me go on that show. I think I'd do a good job. All right, but there's so much to talk about today. It's not just about that. Those are really the two shows that I'd like to go on. I'm sure there are other media mainstream things. Hamish and Andy, are they still going? I'd love to go on Hamish and Andy. Carl and Jack. I'll tell you about my favorite, because Americans won't know. So Carl and Jackie O. Carl is our, like, Howard Stern.

What if Howard Stern was an Anglo? All right? What if Howard Stern was an Anglo? All right. What if Howard Stern was a tubby Anglo? I love Kyle. I don't want to have a go at him. But what if Howard Stern was a tubby Anglo with weird hair? All right. And they'll do segments like this.

This is the only segment that I really remember. I really enjoyed this segment. And they go, we've got Lady Gaga tickets. And we've got Sally on the line. Hello, Sally. Oh, hello. And Sally, you want to take a friend to Lady Gaga? Yeah.

Yeah, my friend has cancer and she's dying. And she loves Lady Gaga. And I can't wait to take her to Lady Gaga. And the guy goes, all right, well, you're taking your friend to the Lady Gaga concert unless anyone from Sydney calls 13 10 60 right now, in which case they will steal the tickets away from you. You've got 30 seconds, Sydney.

Do you all want to let this, I mean, it's like this, it's like that scene in Batman, where they've got to push the button, you know what I'm talking about, I don't even know if that's a correct metaphor, anyway, someone calls up and he's like, hey, I'm taking, sorry, ladies, I'm taking the, oh, no, no, we wanted to see more, oh, and then,l goes do you even know do you are you a big lady gaga fan and the guy's like nah but it's free hey so you gotta do it yeah i mean that's radio you're on your way to work you're on your way to a big office block i mean forget for a second the fact that i mean hopefully it was fake hopefully they gave that dying lady some lady gaga

tickets anyway but what beautiful what doesn't that say something about society and the self and love and neighbor as you're driving into work and that gets you fired up for the day as you sit at like a drone at your computer at least thoughts about like what is selfishness what is dare i say capitalism what is lady gaga that's provocative radio i reckon going on that show that had been anyway excuse me i've gone for too long i've gone for too long and too tediously i'd uh i had i had a few thoughts this week that I'd like to share. Ah, man. You know what? I'm back in Adelaide. I'm back with my buddies. I went down the bar, all the Latin Mass crew, and it was great, but it's been a few months since somebody told me.

Excuse me, I'm stumbling over the words. It's been a few months. I was burping on the last podcast. It's been a few months since someone told me I was a sanguine. And it's starting up again. Which is fine. I was a sanguine and it's starting up again it's it's just fine it's this

it's this thing that people do particularly in traditional Catholic communities of using a personality test

that was at its high watermark I believe it was the middle ages that people were divvying up personality tests like this. And it's that there are four humors, four excesses of some sort of bodily liquid.

I think they're all liquids. You've got phlegm, black bile, yellow bile, and blood. And what you have too much of warps your personality in a certain direction. So you've got the sanguine, who has too much blood, and they might be very gregarious and flaky, and have all these big feelings and then move on to something else. You might have a flaky person who doesn't seem to have a lot of feelings at all.

Might be very stubborn, though. You might have a choleric who is all about achieving. They've got too much yellow bile. Phlegmatic was phlegm, by the way. Yellow bile, ew. I mean, none of them are very nice. Sanguine's obviously the best one. That's the only life-giving.

Anyway, they all say I'm a sanguine. The choleric is all about achieving, dominating, power, getting out there. And the melancholic with too much black bile is... Well, not always great company, by my experience. Anyway, they've got too much black bile, and maybe they're a depressed person, tortured, worried, thinking about things. And my friends in Adelaide, in the traddy scene,

they've all identified each other and me as having a certain, one of these four personality types. And I think I'm the only one that gets identified as a sanguine. You know, so I... I mean, in some ways that's nice. It means people think I have a lot of energy and I'm pleasant.

But the flaky, you know, ah, and they'll say, no, James, that's very you. You're always coming up with a project and then losing enthusiasm and moving on to something else. Or, ah, you know, James, you're always late to things or, I mean, how much of this is an excess of blood and how much of this is an undiagnosed ADHD, whatever? Do I lose this personality trait if I finally break and I get on the drugs? Anyway. Anyway, I was just thinking about that on the podcast because I think I've started talking about and then stopped talking about a bunch of different things

here's a poem I'd like to read you a poem it's called Can You Love Too Much and it will be in my upcoming book of poems Splish Splash which sadly is taking a lot of time away from my new book of essays

and my album of songs by women, Cover Up. And of course the two screenplays that I'm working on at the moment. Maybe I am a touch flaky. But all those things will get done. Oh, and the stand-up comedy special. And the tour. Did I mention we're on a tour, Sam? Yeah, great.

Can you love too much? or can you love too little? Excuse me, I touched a button on my phone and the keyboard popped up and I lost my place. I will begin again. 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 order, the president, the penitent, the bum with a sign on the street, the soldier, tinker, celery man, the mango farmer, sweet, juicy mango farm employees whom I have never met. Cambodian mass graves, cafe woman, dripping wet.

Men who are clean-shaven, high school students with moustaches. The referee, the hooligan, the man the hooligan bashes. Is love limited to people? Is love limited to breath? Is love limited to anything? Is love limited to breath? Is love limited to anything? Is love really all that spish? If I feel like loving everybody, everywhere, and everything, then is that something other than the phenomenon of loving? If love is that which wills the good for the other and the other alone, then what is this feeling fulfilling I feel for the saxophone, human growth hormone, Sierra Leone, Manhattan brownstone? Is love a virtue or the will?

Is love light or is love blessing? Is love something that we need or is love unnecessarily distressing? Are we happy or are we poor? Are we clean or are we sweaty? Do we know where we are going? Are we petty or recalcitrant? Have we got the strength to look at ourselves and say, it is important that I stop coming to this cafe? That's my poem about falling in love and different kinds of love. It will be in my new book of poems splish splash if i ever get around to finish i've got i'm trying to get it done before this tour so i can sell copies on tour it would be good to have merchandise on tour merchandise is very i'm thinking because i need a haircut of cutting my hair and putting it into bags and selling bags of my hair. Sam, how much would you pay for a bag of my hair? I mean,

if you didn't know me and you just listened to the podcast, if you're a fan, how much would you pay for a small bag of hair? You pay 75? I was thinking 30. 75? Happy medium. $47? I don't know. I'm not good at maths, eh? I do fall in love too easily. I mean, not real lasting love. The kind of which I have for my wife and my family.

But I fall in love with a song.. But I fall in love with a song. Very easily I fall in love with a song. I just listen to it a hundred times and then I really fixate on that. I fall in love with trains. I've had to stop listening to this Sabrina Carpenter song. Sabrina Carpenter is the woman... Carpenter? Carpenter song. Sabrina Carpenter is the woman, Carpenter? Carpenter. She's this blonde lady who the algorithm and show business wants us to fall in love with at the moment. And I don't know, I saw her in my algorithm feed for months and I was it was get this broad off of the feed continue showing me maps continue

showing me maps about how good australia the united states europe and japan are compared to the rest of the world those are the kind of maps i like to see but they kept showing me this lady and then uh i don't know i heard this song song, I looked, oh, it's that lady, and the song is called Please, Please, Please, and it's just an absolutely terrific song, and it's, oh, oh, oh, are we off, are we going, are we going, yes, yes, Yes! Go, go, go, go, go. Go, you good thing.

Is that taking off or is that landing? Landing? Well, welcome home. Welcome home. Anyway, there's this song called Please, Please, Please, and I have to stop listening to it welcome home anyway there's this song called please please please and I have to stop listening to it because it's

I just get weepy and nostalgic and it's hard oh I had a thought about sex this week

because people were talking about chastity and not having sex before marriage, which is something that I'm on the record as supporting, despite absolutely having failed to live up to it myself. I think that this is really a do what I say, not what I do thing. And someone was having a crack at me and they were going like, well, what if you're not sexually compatible? What if you don't try the pudding before you buy the dessert? Do you know these sayings? Anyway. And I remember what they used to tell me at like evangelical youth group, where they would tell us not to have sex with

each other it didn't work i mean it worked for me i hadn't i had a very late puberty but i think everyone else there might have been having uh the sex but i didn't have this anyway so it's like well what if you're not sexually compatible and then you're with someone for life and you just have bad sex and i remember his answer this guy, well, the great thing is if you haven't had sex with anybody else, you don't know. You don't know how bad the sex you're having is. And I got to say, when you've got a room full of teenagers and your answer is, nah,

just you won't know how much pleasure is out there that you're missing out on. Not a compelling argument at all. But I realize what the answer is. And once again, the tradition gave us a beautiful answer on, yes, you should get this. It's good to marry someone that you have a sexual interest. And you should enjoy having sex with your spouse. But also you shouldn't test out whether you like having sex with your spouse before you get married.

Here's the answer. Dancing. That's what dancing was for. That's what old-fashioned partner dancing was all about. That's why it feels weird when a stranger wants to dance with your girl. That's why the daddy-daughter dance isn't great. Dancing, a certain kind of partner dancing is a sex audition. And now, of course, no, but no real. I've seen the people dancing in the clubs it's a lot of solitary performance to look at my body look at how i move but it doesn't really show how do we move together unless there's

a man you know he's standing up straight and the woman is literally throwing that ass back into him there's not a whole that's as close to partner dancing as you see in a nightclub nowadays but good old-fashioned uh jane austen styley partner dancing that's what it was for and that's what we've lost anyway that was a that was a thought i had this podcast is a lot of thoughts i had sorry about that tour on sale now something about being by the busy road has put me in a I was in a real good

reflective mood last time and now these cars going past all the time has got me agitated thought I'd get a haircut this week and I didn't get around to it thank you for buying tickets to the tour I thought I'd get a haircut this week and I didn't get around to it.

Thank you for buying tickets to the tour. I'd like to say something at the end that could cut up into a reel. That would be nice, wouldn't it? Just to have something that could be in a reel and be very successful. That's important for growing the podcast is having a reel. A real good reel. I've got nothing off the top of my head. catamaran ho everybody catamaran ho

thank you very much as a fizz member Thank you.