James Donald Forbes McCann | HEY AMERICA | Stand Up Comedy

What this episode is about

The content explores the humor and absurdity of experiencing American patriotism at a San Antonio Spurs basketball game, particularly focusing on the national anthem and the cultural quirks surrounding it. The narrator contrasts his affectionate yet critical perspective on various countries' anthems, revealing a blend of personal introspection and observational comedy about national pride and identity.

Key takeaways

• The Spurs may be struggling, but a massive flag and anthem can reset your spirit.
• Why sing your own anthem? Because the listener's version is just too darn 'professional' for us mortals.
• America's brand of freedom: where you can witness an artful dance of human resilience—unless it's under a bridge.
• Homelessness in America: A circus of vibrant stories and riddle-speaking characters, a stark contrast to serene sidewalks abroad.
• Australia's anthem has potential—let's swap it out for a real banger, because we all deserve some Olympic swagger!

Who speaks in this episode?

• James Donald Forbes McCann (Guest) · 17 min speaking
• Matt (Guest) · 1 min speaking
• Shane (Guest) · 1 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 3:00: San Antonio Spurs, Great Britain
2. 3:00 – 6:00: Australia
3. 6:00 – 9:00: Catcher in the Rye, Water Burger, Kurt Cobain, California
4. 9:00 – 12:00: Stubenville, Ohio
5. 12:00 – 15:00: Chris Benoit

Notable quotes from "James Donald Forbes McCann | HEY AMERICA | Stand Up Comedy"

• Eyes at the flag just me staring transfixed at the flag at the San Antonio Spurs game surrounded by 18,000 morbidly obese Hispanics just feeling that flag and that song pulse through oh [ __ ] it was good you don't sing your own.

  about San Antonio Spurs · at 0:34

• Crown euthanize all of us oh I tell you my own Anthem again I'm disgusted with myself my are there Australians in the room we got a terrible Anthem it's.

  about Australia · at 2:19

• And yet you have tremendous homelessness people you know what I'm talking about California you've seen a lot of it the you got great homeless people our homeless people they're…

  about California · at 6:10

• You got to have a good attitude or you are just I didn't understand why you banned catcher in the Ry have you read catcher in the Ry you had right and they banned it and I read…

  about Catcher in the Rye · at 7:30

• Don't have to go along with them you don't have to be happy about it I'm just saying you're all much more comfortable with Dave Gro smiling Dave Gro jial Dave Gro doesn't write…

  about Dave Grohl · at 8:43

• Great it's great it's really no it is I don't know how to put into words it's beautiful and there are more street prostitutes than you can imagine it's not hot either it's not they're sad The Bleak Midwinter Midwest.

  about Stubenville, Ohio · at 11:40

• Was the most upsetting part of the whole thing I got on the bus I was sitting next to a man who was on speed and I knew that cuz he opened with I'm on speed you know and then…

  about Chris Benoit · at 13:37

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Dave Grohl — Person · Referenced cultural figure (foil/comparison) · 2 mentions
  Presented as the more socially acceptable, upbeat counterpart to Kurt Cobain in the speaker's commentary about American preference for positivity.
• Kurt Cobain — Person · Referenced cultural figure (contrast point) · 1 mention · first at 8:35
  Used as a provocative example in a rant about American optimism/attitude; the speaker contrasts Cobain's perceived negativity with Dave Grohl's upbeat persona.
  Economy and culture is built on is self-belief I'm glad Kurt cabain is dead he was dragging this country backwards these are my opinions you don't have to go along with them…
• Chris Benoit — Person · Referenced figure (anecdote subject) · 1 mention · first at 13:41
  Mentioned in a story about a Greyhound bus passenger justifying Benoit's murder-suicide, used to illustrate the unsettling characters the speaker encounters.

Books & papers

• Catcher in the Rye — Book · Referenced work · 2 mentions · first at 7:32
  Mentioned in the context of discussing banned books and attitudes in America.

Companies & orgs

• San Antonio Spurs — Company · Setting · 2 mentions · first at 0:05
  Mentioned as the basketball team the speaker watched, highlighting American cultural experiences.
• Water Burger — Company · Incidental · 2 mentions · first at 6:56
  Mentioned in passing as a fast-food chain where a homeless person raps.
  World that man would be doomed he'd have no hope whatsoever but in America today he's wrapping out a water Burger next week he's wrapping at an Olive Garden who knows he's…
• Olive Garden — Company · Incidental · 1 mention · first at 7:22
  Mentioned in passing as a restaurant chain where a homeless person might rap next.
  World that man would be doomed he'd have no hope whatsoever but in America today he's wrapping out a water Burger next week he's wrapping at an Olive Garden who knows he's…

Places & events

• Australia — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at 3:20
  Discussed in the context of national anthems and cultural identity.
• California — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at 6:13
  Mentioned in the context of discussing homelessness in America.
• Great Britain — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at 1:52
  Mentioned in the context of criticizing national anthems.
  Zealand I'm sad to say is also Great Britain is appalling God save the k can't God save the people in that country from their [ __ ] terrible Anthem God save our.
• Stubenville, Ohio — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at 11:33
  Mentioned as the speaker's initial location when moving to America.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:02 I had an existential crisis at the basketball I went to go and watch the San Antonio Spurs it's what they deserve is two quiet Woos and a single clap you're not having a great season but I went and I had a beautiful time that I turn up I think just as tourist experience just to see how it is then the flag comes out and the flag is the size of the whole basketball court and then the anthem begins and I went full manuri and candidate my hat came off my hand went up here I just locked eyes at the flag just me staring transfixed at the flag at the San Antonio Spurs game surrounded by 18,000 morbidly obese Hispanics just feeling feeling that flag and that song pulse through oh [ __ ] it was good you don't sing your own Anthem I found that very weird you silently listen to somebody else say you go no we've paid lady to do it we're going to listen to the way she does the anthem we're not going to waste our

1:05 energy on singing our own Anthem which is frankly quite hard to sing and requires a professional singer and you can't even sing along if you want cuz she's doing all the funky stuff with the anthem I love it such a good Anthem best bit of the anthem is the paes right at the end and the land of the free and everyone goes [ __ ] I'm so afraid I hope she says home of the brave cuz I've been feeling pretty brave lately and the home of the brave yes bang bang bang bang it's good that's a real Anthem it's one I spent a lot of time on Wikipedia and that's one of the best ones Luxembourg is great New Zealand I'm sad to say is also Great Britain is appalling God save the k can't God save the people in that country from their [ __ ] terrible Anthem God save our gra God I wish I was dead I'm a slave to the crown euthanize all of us oh I tell you my own Anthem again I'm disgusted with myself my are there

2:34 Australians in the room we got a terrible Anthem it's embarrassing let's let's show do any of the Americans know our Anthem [ __ ] you don't pay any attention to the rest of the world and it's bizarre you're running the show and you couldn't give a [ __ ] you're invading places you've never even heard of before we had our boys in the Sands of Iraq and Afghanistan what Anthem come on Australians all let us rejoice for we are young and free with Gold and soil and wealth for toil it just keeps going like this when we win at the Olympics it's very embarrassing cuz other people have to hear our anthem we got to change it to thunderstrike as quickly as possible that's what I I do believe that would be so sick that would be so nice if we win the gold medal and our girls up there for the diving on the number one platform and the flag comes down and everyone starts going then we'll have a little

3:45 self-confidence then we'll get some nuclear weapons then we'll be a real country that's what I'd like to see that's what I do believe is humanly possible for my country it's a good country you should be proud it's an equal country America it's very equal black white asian Mexican everybody's homeless everybody the sheer numbers are a problem but you got the spread it's not like that elsewhere I want you to know if you travel they don't have free range homeless people the way that you have they they have a small number of homeless people and the police chase them away with sticks from the concentrated areas in America you could be the richest man in America walking down Madison Avenue there's a guy there threatening to eat your wife there's he's and that's Freedom you got to be free and brave if you're going to be that free you got to be pretty pretty brave this is a land of opportunity and

4:43 that opportunity is to do heroin under a bridge you have human trolls living in Austin you are troll people they're living under bridges they're violent they talk in riddles and their riddles are not especially difficult to answer it'll be like what are you looking at and you go oh I was looking at you you're a 75y old woman with a tits at calling me a f i was 100% looking at you I I can't look at anything else I look at the stars I look at the trees I still see her burnt into the back of my brain what are you to do what is the answer to the homelessness crisis in America you just had a huge election people didn't bring it up once anyone could have run on that anyway anyone could have stood up and said I'm going to fix the homelessness thing they would have won that election and they we got nothing we got nothing we can't build them more houses we can't kill them dead in the street so I I don't know what we

5:41 can do is there a third option I don't know I don't know you got lots of beautiful opportunities for charity I've started doing what you do I've gradually started when I first got to this country I was treating homeless people like they were human beings cuz I didn't know you weren't I didn't know you weren't meant to do that and now slowly I learn your ways you got to look through them like they're made of mist like they're human Mist people you don't want to look at them you don't want to look away you just keep moving and yet you have tremendous homelessness people you know what I'm talking about California you've seen a lot of it the uh you got great homeless people our homeless people they're over there they're sad they're quiet they're in a corner they're tired your homeless people up and about doing things getting involved they got a story they got a plan they got some reasons why they

6:29 homeless that they're going to share with you right now they got a light behind their eyes and that's beautiful and I know that's the crack but still you got to crack is where the light gets in you got to you got to you got to stay positive in this country you got to have a good attitude boy if you don't have a good attitude you got nothing there's a I think he's I don't know if he's homeless or just schizophrenic but a couple blocks from here there is a guy who wraps at a Water Burger for like 8 hours a day he's rapping at an okay Texas Burger chain through traffic microphone plugged into nothing there's no amplification he's just going straight if he didn't have the microphone it may be a seizure but he's working hard any other country in the world that man would be doomed he'd have no hope whatsoever but in America today he's wrapping out a water Burger next week he's wrapping at an Olive Garden

7:26 who knows he's going places he's doing things you got to have a good attitude or you are just I didn't understand why you banned catcher in the Ry have you read catcher in the Ry you had right and they banned it and I read it I was like oh juicy strange book it's American Psycho you go oh this I don't know why this got banned it's because it's about a businessman who murders people and it makes everyone very unhappy and then you read catch you're catching the right and it's just a he's a sad guy he's got a bad attitude and he's in New York and he thinks about if [ __ ] a prostitute and then he goes Noah I'm not going to do that and then he gets pneumonia and the book is over did I miss a subtext or something in this book that had to it's just that he had a bad attitude and if you have a bad attitude in this country you are [ __ ] if you work at Denny's and you have a bad attitude you can't live if you got a

8:22 good attitude and big tits and you work at Denny's you can pull home $1,000 a week if you can smile if you can bring razzled dazle they had the band Catcher in The Ride that's what your whole economy and culture is built on is self-belief I'm glad Kurt cabain is dead he was dragging this country backwards these are my opinions you don't have to go along with them you don't have to be happy about it I'm just saying you're all much more comfortable with Dave Gro smiling Dave Gro jial Dave Gro doesn't write very many good songs Dave Gro but he's highp spirited I have struggled to keep a good attitude sometimes in this country because everybody's trying to [ __ ] you all the time not [ __ ] you in a pleasurable way that's one of your pilant trying to [ __ ] you over I guess is the other to like you'll be driving along and you'll hit a toll road and they you'll go can I get off the toll road and they'll go

9:21 no you're ours now you belong on the toll road you're going to get a letter in the mail it's going to be $8 AR going to pay it back it's going to be $85 in a couple of weeks they're always trying to get you you go and you buy a plane ticket and they go did you want to buy a credit card no at the end of buying a plane ticket they go are you sure you didn't want to buy a credit card I go this is really not what I had in mind when I was going to Cleveland then you're on the plane to Cleveland and there's after the drinks there's a lady who walks down did anyone miss out and get one of our credit cards that they want no the airlines in this country really compromise the American dream they're awful every other country in the world you want to buy a plane ticket here's what they do they figure out how many seats there are on the plane and then they sell up to that many tickets and then they stop it's a wonderful

10:19 system it works really well in America they go there's 150 T 150 seats on this plane what if we sell 151 and then maybe one guy won't show up and we will still have his money oh no he did show up I cannot believe this has happened again as it has happened every single day at every single airport in the United States of America we have no choice but to conduct a human auction I thought we will finish with human auctions in America but here at Southwest Airlines they are back and then I have to play a miname when they do the human auction and that's called am I the poorest person who was going to get on that plane and the answer is yes every single time I okay I should wait for more money but they go anyone not getting on for $75 I go whoa yeah oh I didn't need to get to Cleveland that fast it's great City when I came to this country I had nothing year ago I had I had no social security number I had no bank account I

11:33 had no car I had no job I had 3 months on a house in Stubenville Ohio which is great it's great it's really no it is I don't know how to put into words it's beautiful and there are more street prostitutes than you can imagine it's not hot either it's not uh they're sad The Bleak Midwinter Midwest and street prostitute is I thought they'd have like little skirts on and it's just a 50-year-old woman angry waving at do you want sex I'll give you sex money set and you go I got to see Pimpin I thought pimping he'd have a big hat and he'd be walking around like this it's uh it's just a lady's brother it's just a lady's brother pushing her into a small car and uh it doesn't look especially difficult pimping I find sort of bring a dampen it to the evening but all the rappers is talking about how pimping doesn't look easy it looks so you don't need to go to university to pimp anybody can pimp pimping ain't easy

12:44 is just big pimp having good PR trying to keep us out of the pimp game I seriously I I've seen it I've I've enjoyed the beautiful underclass of America I got on the Greyhound bus has anyone never been on a Greyhound bus before we've all done it you haven't done it well you shouldn't be allowed to vote because uh you don't know what it's at let me tell you it's the worst place in the world it's the the Graham bus terminal is the worst place in the world there are children in Gaza right now G well we're not in a Greyhound bus terminal so you know you got to look on the sunny side where you can all right the T man there's holes in the walls where vending machines used to be back when you could try trust people people are spitting on the ground there's [ __ ] on the walls young Sheldon is playing at full volume on a television I don't know why that was the most upsetting part of the whole thing I got on the bus I was sitting

13:41 next to a man who was on speed and I knew that cuz he opened with I'm on speed you know and then he just proceeded to tell me about how Chris benoir only killed his family to send them to God and you can't judge a man for that and the restrooms were labeled ladies and gentlemen which was hugely inaccurate Scoundrels and [ __ ] would have been Clos to the Mark I do believe I'm weirded out by the restrooms I don't know why you call them restrooms the shits I've been having on your diet have not been especially restful it's an emergency or a tragedy every single time I thought I had Bale cancer when I moved to this country and got on your diet and then there is a weird you got a weird thing in the toilets where in the public toilets there is a bit of the seat missing you don't know what I'm talking about ah you have not you're looking up me with such Splendid incredulity it's uh have you never noticed that public toilet

14:39 seats are different to the domestic variety think about it think about it how are they different you've been here your whole life there's a trunk missing brother the front of the seats not there this has never bothered you I spent months going why why is it a Hospitality thing of people like the front of that seat is for friends and family only we don't trust members of the public with the front of the seat I couldn't get it I thought it was like a men's room thing so that we didn't piss down the front of the seat and then I found out in the women's toilets when I went to take my photographs that that also you're also missing a bit down the front of the seat does anybody know why well something should be done to find out why I did find out why I kept talking about it on stage until somebody told me why it's cuz you're too fat it's cuz you're too fat so our toilet seat in public has to sustain a

15:45 weight of at least 600 lb a circle will snap and a u will bent so they don't Gro it's your country do something about it listen in my country I'm very fat I'm a seriously fat man in my country in your country I look fine I look state by state I'm looking okay in America that's the diet I got on you've got a real fat chuner type issue going on you've got fat people infrastructure I've been going to the Walmart and riding around on the fat people scooters so I have a good time that is beautifully American is you don't solve a problem you find a work around and you keep going you know people are too fat to consume are we going to help them lose some weight no we're going to buy a machine we're going to buy a big machine that makes a noise and makes it hard for everyone else to get around so all the big Debbies can go and get their little Debbies and we'll just keep on truing it's all the time we got too

16:49 many homeless people can we give them a home no we'll give them fentel we'll get all fenel and they'll sort it out amongst themselves I love I do enjoy the super I go to the shops a lot I go to we call them shops the store I go to the store I go to buy eggs and there I have one complaint which is when you take your eggs to the self- served checkout it doesn't really matter if it's eggs it can be anything for me it's eggs and I'm going to buy the eggs and then they go did you want to give us an extra dollar to help save the bees no not at all do I want to do that you're a multi-million dollar Supermarket Corporation and I am buying the cheapest eggs I'm not buying the fancy Freer range eggs where the chickens get massages and to sing opera I'm buying guantan Bay eggs and you have the audacity to ask me to cough up an extra dollar for a whole different animal that's not even involved in the egg process and I pay it

17:54 every time I give them the extra dollar to save the bees cuz I got an ex-girlfriend who's allergy and I love knowing that the bees are out there wrecking her picnics forever

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "James Donald Forbes McCann | HEY AMERICA | Stand Up Comedy"?

James Donald Forbes McCann (Guest), Matt (Guest), Shane (Guest).

What is "James Donald Forbes McCann | HEY AMERICA | Stand Up Comedy" about?

The content explores the humor and absurdity of experiencing American patriotism at a San Antonio Spurs basketball game, particularly focusing on the national anthem and the cultural quirks surrounding it. The narrator contrasts his affectionate yet critical perspective on various countries' anthems, revealing a blend of personal introspection and observational comedy about national pride and…

What is mentioned in this Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast episode?

11 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Catcher in the Rye, Dave Grohl, Australia, Kurt Cobain, San Antonio Spurs, California. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "James Donald Forbes McCann | HEY AMERICA | Stand Up Comedy"?

The episode runs 19 min; the transcript is about 3,163 words in 18 timestamped sections.

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