The James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan - Viral

Episode Date: May 15, 2023

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CBC News. I think we're all familiar with the concept of a viral video. You mean? More information. Oh, there are so many kinds of viral video that you see. People falling over. Cute cats and dogs. Skateboarding excellence.

Almost a nipple. But this week you might have seen a different sort of viral video because this week the video would have featured me, possums. I had a viral video from a piece of stand-up comedy that I uploaded. I want to say hello to all my new largely unvaccinated listeners. Yes, it was a bit about getting vaccinated and complying with the state. Well, I'll tell you the story. I'll play you the bit first.

How about that? Just in case you haven't seen it. It goes for one minute. Here is the stand-up comedy bit that I uploaded this week that went viral. I regret having gotten the vaccine. I really regret having gotten the vaccine. I'm sure it's fine, but I just wish when the state told me to do something, I'd be the sort of person who said no. But it turns out I'm the sort of person who says, fine. I don't understand what's going on. You're telling me it's important. Okay. And all they had to do was say, you won't be allowed to go into pubs for like

a month. And I was like, put it in me. That's what I'm upset about is that I had a principal temporarily oh if I was in Nazi Germany I would have stood up to the regime I wouldn't stand up to not being able to go to a pub for a month I would have been like Anne Frank she's in that attic there I saw her it doesn't matter what the point of principle was. The point is I would have been a chill. And I have to live with that for the rest of my three or four more years before I have a heart attack. Ooh, I like the music underneath. Well, the music wasn't in the viral video.

I just thought I'd add that for some pizzazz in case people had seen the viral video. That little texture. You don't want to just listen to a version of a thing you've already seen. And I assume you have seen it because this video went viral. It's currently had 1.3 million views on the Instagram. It's had a quarter of a million on the TikTok and on the Twitter. I can't even keep track of it because people just started posting it to their own timelines.

I didn't even put it on Twitter. And it's got hundreds and hundreds of thousands on Twitter. So maybe 2 million people have seen this by now. Every time I look down at my phone, I've got a new message kicking off. I could do it now, actually. I'm on airplane mode now. And look, all I do, I click, I open my phone. I turn off the airplane mode.

I regret having the airplane mode. I regret having gotten the vaccine. There it is. It's already, it's already open on the gram because it's what I'm checking. And I refresh the feed. And then immediately, yes, one man, the most recent comment was, fuck the government. Okay. And what's the comment that was before that one glad i didn't get it screw everyone for making me feel guilty about it it's one of those every excuse me that

was a gavin wangen mean meme coming on afterwards roughly every uh seven minutes someone is commenting and roughly every three minutes someone is following. And it's overwhelmingly a schadenfreude from people who didn't get vaccinated. I mean, I wrote the bit trying to say, you know, not really taking a position on the efficacy of the vaccine one way or the other, because I'm not a scientist, I don't know, but just saying, well, I realized something about myself. It's that I would comply to state pressure no matter what the issue was because so weak-willed am I. And some people, when it came out, seemed to have liked the bit for that reason.

And now a lot of people are liking it, saying I'm a pure-blood f**k, everybody. One guy said, I hope this guy, wouldn't it have been good if he dropped dead while performing? But overwhelmingly, people are being very positive or gloaty. Those are the two. And you know what? For the people who didn't get vaccinated, now that it's all over, more or less, fine. Have a little gloat. Goodness knows that enough people were gloating at you while it was going on.

I don't think that happiness ever comes from gloating, long-term happiness. But, gee, it probably feels very, very nice. And I'll tell you this now. If that's the mechanism by which I get a huge number of followers online, and then I convert that into a big listenership for this podcast, and then I buy a boat, then hello and welcome aboard to all my new non-vaccinated listeners to the James Donald Forbes McCann catamaran plan. This is a podcast where I'm trying to raise enough

money to find a boat. Now, many of you will say, James, this is a fool's errand. You're going to be dead lickety split. And to that, I say even more of a reason for you to hastily give as much money as you can. We have a Patreon and a book of poems you can buy and so many other plans coming up. So good to have you here. The advertising from the podcast going towards my journey to bone ownership. Oh, I feel good about it. We've got some big, big, big, big things coming. I mean, listen, this video has been pretty big as well as all the follower increases and presumably all the people who will now be listening to this podcast. Hello. Someone sent me a video of a guy in Sweden.

Sanity for Sweden is his name. And he has a YouTube video talking about me. And it's had 13,000 views. Here's a little clip from the sanity for sweden man talking about me and then i saw this uh this morning a comic james donald forbes mccann from adelaide australia i checked out his twitter account and i know this guy is funny. The text said, I'm trying to buy a boat. This is funny to me. regrets that he didn't say no to the tea. He said he will probably be fine, but he wants to be one of those who said no. He understood something about himself. When the authorities put pressure on him, he caved in and was weak. He wanted to be one of those who said no. It's very good, I'll post a link to it.

And he realized this about himself. He said, if I was living in Germany, I would help the Nazis to find Anne Frank. He didn't want to be this person. He wanted to be the other one who said no. That's good stuff. There's some other stuff in that video. There are some studies about what happens to the eyesight of people who are vaccinated and things like that.

But the important thing for my purposes is that he knows about me, he likes my comedy, and he's aware that I'm trying to get a boat. This is the key message that we're trying to get out to people. Thank you, Sanity for Sweden, for guiding people to my work. And it's caused me to think existentially. This wave of support and some people wishing death upon me.

It's made me think about how we grow from here. I'll tell you, I only put that video out because I was in a very, very bad place. I was going to edit that video better. I was going to have it come out in a longer format. And the only reason that I put it out on Instagram and TikTok is because I needed the dopamine. I just thought this would get a few likes and I need the dopamine. And I tell you why I need the dopamine because I was out there in Sydney and I was in the worst hotel I've ever been in in my entire life. And it's saying something. I do nothing but complain about the hotels that I'm in on this podcast. But boy, oh boy, this was a budget hotel. It was located in the car park of a KFC. hotel. It was located in the car park of a KFC. I don't know how that's possible. To save money, it was, I had walked to it. I'd bought the room that was closest, but it was equidistant between the gig and the airport. So I got out of the airport, I walked to the hotel, and then I would

walk to the gig every night. And I was, thank you to everyone who came out and saw me in Sydney. I didn't think I was great. Some people thought I was great and they were very nice to me. And we caught up for a drink afterwards. And we spoke. I just, the gig went sufficiently badly that when one of them said that he was a ropey, which is I think someone who cleans the windows on skyscrapers, even though I'm not very strong and I'm bad with heights,

I thought maybe let's get me cleaning skyscrapers because I've got no future in comedy. Boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. I was sad. I was, this hotel room was dreadful. How do you get black mold on linoleum? It should just come right off. And the, oh, the smell and the itchy sheets and it was in St. Peter's where I will hopefully never go again it was in a place called St. Peter's oh St. Peter's in Adelaide it's a it's a charming suburb there's nowhere nicer St. Peter's in Sydney the excrement of the inner west, if you don't mind me saying, it was, oh, it was, it was just no good, it was just no, it was like a cell, except it wasn't a long walk to freedom, it was a long walk to my gig each night, at which I was no good, and because it's near the airport, and it's a, there's a, it's a freeway, it's on a freeway. And so I would just have to walk.

It was a freeway. I didn't know I would be walking along a damn freeway to get to the gig and back. And, oh, I couldn't even buy flip-flops for the shower. I went to Kmart, and Kmart now just do seasonal produce. They don't have, it's like a fancy fruit and veg. 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. Breaking news happens anywhere, anytime.

Police have warned the protesters repeatedly, get back. CBC News brings the story to you as it happens. Hundreds of wildfires are burning. Be the first to know what's going on and what that means for you and for Canadians. This situation has changed very quickly. Helping make sense of the world when it matters most. Stay in the know.

CBC News. In the know. CBC News. They only do seasonal produce. You can't buy flip-flops at a Kmart anymore. Thongs, we would call them. Sandals. They had like one pair of sandals and they were $30 sandals.

And I was like, I'm not paying $30 for sandals. I might pay $100 for sandals that I wear all the time. I might pay $10 for sandals that I wear once or twice in a shower to preserve my feet. I'm not spending $30 on sandals that will fall apart and not be comfortable. And it's $30. This is madness. But I was like, I'm not standing in that shower because this is a grotty, grotty space that grotty, grotty people have been in. And so I ended up buying a wicker basket lid that was on special. It was some sort of wicker tray, wicker basket. It was $5. And I put that in the shower and I stood.

And I had thought while I was there doing these big walks along the freeway, am I ruining, do I have a foot fungus? Or is this a sharp wicker basket pressing into my feet? Because the other option I thought was to just buy some cheap slippers and just have them be soaking. Maybe I could buy some shower socks is a real thought that I had. And as I was walking back to my room each night after doing my not very good show and having other professional difficulties in being away from my family I just thought if this is it we're quitting we're quitting comedy uh we're not going forward like this this is dreadful Jimmy this is not and then the video goes viral, and I thought, oh, maybe I should do more of that.

Maybe I should spend less of my time and energy walking along a freeway and doing a not very good show and disappointing the few fans that I have in Sydney, and that's it. Everyone always said, James, put more of your stand-up. You haven't clipped your bits. Clip your bits and put them on the line. On the line. Clip the bits and put them on the line, they say. And I say, but I do. I do put a little bit out.

And they go, you do almost nothing. Daniel Muggleton, Luke Kijal, men you've had on your podcast, they have hundreds and thousands of followers and they're selling out tours all over the place. And James, you're just as good as them, if not the best comedian in the country. Now that Barry Humphries is dead, they say. And I go, oh, come on, it's not please. dopamine and I put it up and I did very well. And I'm now thinking, what in like, holy dooly, goodness gracious, what have you been doing this whole time? Why have you been making it hard for yourself? That bit that I did, I said, I wrote it. That's not entirely true. It was a riff, man. That was a riff in the room about something I'd thought about while I was shooting someone else's comedy special. I was shooting a special for Alessio Carducci, my client,

and I was just emceeing. And that was just something that I happened to say. Not a very professional bit of crowd work, I've got to say. Maybe more impressive from a stand-up comedian's point of view that I decided to split the room with the vaccine gear as the emcee. I don't necessarily need that piece of information getting out there. Won't get too much emcee work in the future. But goodness gracious, holy dooly, that's all I have to do.

I think I just have to have a show routinely and record it and slap it all online and grow the audience. I mean, why fight the current? Why try to go big in a way that no one else is going big? Hmm? By doing a Sydney Comedy Festival show? Hey, thanks for having me at the Sydney Comedy Festival. Great comedy festival.

Very, very expensive. If I had taken the money and the time, if I just said, honey, I'm going away for three days and I'm just recording stand-up comedy in a basement. I don't know. That's actually not an equation that wouldn't work out one for one. But it's like if I said, honey, I'm taking one and a half grand and three days and I'm just making online content. I think we'd have more to show for it.

And I wouldn't have to be in an... I won't say the name of the hotel, but a very bad hotel in St. Peter's in a KFC car park in Sydney. So the lesson I'm going to take from this experience is record more stand-up comedy, put more stand-up comedy out there in a format that is going to grow, and then bring people back here to the podcast to make the money. That is, it's not the first lesson I drew from having a vaccine video go viral. The first lesson I thought I'd drawn from it was disregarding everything else I was working on to start a new sort of festival or dance night or something called like Pure

Blood A Palooza. A lot of the people in the comments here saying they're pure bloods and i thought hey that's a cool name jk rowling and that's an identity i mean that's obviously in harry potter it's not good to be a pure blood have you seen this that people are calling themselves pure bloods if they didn't get the vaccine i didn't know anyway so my thought was uh not that i would be able to run it personally, but that I would get, it would maybe be a catamaran talent type enterprise. We would have like a festival or a day or a talk or a comedy show just by non-vaccinated people and you would have to prove that you weren't vaccinated to get in.

Just in the same way that you had to prove vaccination to get in places like pubs, I thought you could do this thing where you put on a show, you know, say it's a comedy show and I get some unvaccinated comedians, of which there are a couple, not very many, but I can think of, oh, let's say two, and they could come and do a show and I would promote it as, if you're vaccinated, you can't come in. I won't be allowed to go in on account of my being vaccinated. This is for pure bloods only. And I thought you'd get a lot of press with that, wouldn't you? You'd send that press release out to the advertiser and to the ABC.

And I'd, wouldn't that be interesting? That was my thought. My thought was that would be interesting. And you could probably charge quite a lot of money. Because I don't know of any event like that that is exclusionary towards the vaccinated. And then maybe even there would be a legal challenge from vaccinated people. And that would be so exciting. And to have a legal challenge for discrimination.

You know, because people tried to legal challenge it the other way and it didn't work. And now she was on the other foot and you're having a legal challenge. I thought, yes, I'll call Alessia. I can't be your manager anymore. I'll cancel my plans for the art auction coming up. Next book of poems, forget about it. All I'm doing now is entertainment events for people who didn't get the vaccine. I'm going to need to hire some intermediaries to run it for me.

We're going to court controversy and blow up that way. And then I thought, maybe just do the comedy. And I thought, maybe just do the comedy. Maybe the thing that was successful was not talking about that one issue. It was, I mean, also, it's not the first viral bit I've had blow up on reels. I had another joke where I spoke about being fat. And fat people really like that. There's a lot of communities out there. There's the pureblood community.

We've got them now. There's fat people. We've got them. We've got conservative Catholics and friends and relatives in Adelaide and people who heard me on the Shane Gillis podcast. Shout out to Shane. Shout out Matt and Shane's secret podcast. One of my favorite podcasts of all time. So maybe that's it. Maybe that's the growth is just doing stand up and having it go viral rather than fixating on just one idea and trying to get people to sue you. In hindsight, trying to get people to sue you is not. I haven't heard anyone else describe that as their business plan. And maybe that's where they're going wrong. So that's what we'll do. We'll maybe set up a monthly night

and I'll just write some new... Stand up, won't take it too seriously. We'll get some people coming to town and then we'll just have a steady, constant churn. Maybe even a weekly night. Maybe I'll do it every night. Nah, look, we'll just maybe release more. We'll write and release more low effort stand-up comedy since that seems to be resonating. And that's the plan I'll move forward with for the time being. One of the plans I'll move forward with to make money and grow the audience and buy this boat. Although I haven't forgotten some of my earlier plans,

including but not limited to Susan Boyle electronic dance music. Here's I Dreamed a Dream. Big shout out, Sam Clark Studio. I dreamed a dream in time gone by When hope was high and life worth living I dreamed that love would never die I prayed that God would be forgiving

Then I was young and unafraid And dreams were made and used and wasted There was no ransom to be paid No song, no song, no wine untasted But the tigers fought a fight With their voices so disdain As they tear your bones apart And they turn for me for shame

Till I dream he comes to me And we will live years together There are better things that cannot be And there's only better weather I had a dream my life would be So let me promise you I'm living So let me promise you I'm living Now life is killing the dream All that they promised me I'm living All that they promised me I'm living

Now life is killing dreams I dreamed you