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One step forward, one step back and I was a bit fatigued again today. Nothing compared to Monday, but I needed to go back to bed in the afternoon. Apparently just hoping to be back to full fitness is not enough, but overall everything is moving in the right direction.
Luckily I'd done a good bit of RHLSTP prep yesterday and so was ready for tonight's chat with 90s legend Dominic Diamond. I knew this was going to be an interesting one (I hadn't realised that DD had started his comedy career at Bristol University alongside Simon Pegg and David Walliams amongst others) and I was not disappointed.
I did feel a bit lousy at the start and wondered if I'd been foolish not to take a week off, but Dr Theatre works online too (if a little more slowly) and within ten minutes all tiredness was expelled and I enjoyed my second meeting with the Gamesmaster host (the first being on the Gamesmaster set over a quarter of a century ago) and comparing notes with how we have variously coped with the vacillations of show business. By the end I was buzzing like a 90s TV host at a showbiz party and felt fighting fit.
Our 90s experiences were very different. I eschewed all drugs, apart from alcohol (which I had way too much of) and didn't go to too many parties, whilst the 90s is a white dust smeared blur because he seemingly went to every party. He blamed cocaine for ultimately derailing his career, but I wonder whether my avoidance of drugs actually had an impact on my own career. I veered away from any situation where people would be indulging in stuff like that and thus missed out on networking opportunities (it was always the weakest part of my game because I was too self-conscious, but I guess had I been on cocaine I might not have been). Dominic talked about arrogantly knocking back the opportunity to host the BBC's football coverage because he wanted to do comedy. It's hard to imagine what impact a decision like that has on your life. In the noughties I got quite a few approaches to do things that I didn't follow up on. I remember being at a party in the early 2000s and chatting to ex Top of the Pops producer Ric Blaxill, who was now working at 6Music. I was a bit low and lost at the time, not sure what I should be doing next. He asked me how I'd feel about hosting a 6 Music show. I told him I wasn't really that into music and he said that that didn't really matter. He was interested in me as a host. I basically knocked back the idea there and then and that was the end of it. I had nothing much else going on so this was a ridiculous decision - the move could have completely established me as a radio presenter and from there on, who knows? Had I just been in a different mental place then I might have gone for it. And who knows where I would be now if I had. It wouldn't necessarily been in a better place. It might well have meant I never started podcasting. I might not even have returned to stand up. I’d probably not have met my wife.
I’m pretty glad with the route my life has taken, but the point is how our destinies can be changed by our responses to important moments in time. Dominic seems happy with the way things have gone for him too, but it’s still possible to look back on previous stupidity with a sense of resigned wonder. He’s a very interesting man and all the better a person for fucking himself over and learning from it.
RHLSTP with US comedian and actor Brian Regan is now up -
audio and
video. Catch Brian’s specials and sketch show on Netflix and watch Loudermilk on Amazon Prime.
