Bedroom Max Update and A Brief Encounter with Stewart Lee

Hi folks,

Bedroom Max has travelled far and wide over the last week. Big thanks to everyone who has read it, shared it, left comments, reviewed it, got in touch about it etc. And a bigger thanks to Sue Jones over at Politics & Insights for putting it up. I was a bit unsure of how it would go down because I wrote the first draft a couple of years ago and had to switch from my comfort zone of relatable poverty-stricken everybody to one of the worst types of bigots in the UK. It drove me nuts having to write it. But now it’s out there and whenever you hear somebody banging on about being a hardworking taxpayer, you can call them a Bedroom Max and link them to the story. In the future I might have to provide footnotes for people like Maxwell in order to point out what it’s about in the hope that it’ll bring them back to humanity.

On to other matters. Me and my brother went to watch Stewart Lee on Wednesday in Liverpool. Long story short we were put on the fourth floor of the hotel we were stopping in. Around 6ish we were back at the hotel, getting ready for the show. We got in the lift with the plan of eating at the Mediterranean spot across the road before going to the venue. Then the lift doors opened at the third floor and stood before us was Stewart Lee.

For the second time in my life I did a convincing impersonation of a bewildered fanchild, only this time repeating, ‘It’s Stewart Lee,’ over and over. I remembered I’d taken a copy of How I Escaped My Certain Fate to get signed alongside a copy of The Rebel’s Sketchbook just in case I was presented with the opportunity of getting it into his hands, hoping that he’d read it.

So when that opportunity actually did present itself in the confines of a hotel lift, the timing was perfect because I’d already had a few beers and my GAD was kicking in. I went into auto-pilot mode and scrambled round my bag with words just falling out of my yap. I managed to get him the copy of The Rebel’s Sketchbook and, with no context, no introduction or explanation as to who I am or what I was giving him, I said something like: we’ll let you get on to the venue because if I continue chatting to you, I’m only going to carry on behaving like a complete spanner.

We let him continue down in the lift, and me and my brother were left on the third floor wondering where the fuck we were. We took the stairs to the ground floor while I kept repeating ‘It’s Stewart Lee,’ and then we saw Lee again over at reception. Feeling like a pair of nuggets, we sneaked passed him and on out of the building.

To be fair my brother was unfazed, but I was an embarrassment to the family. The only other time I’ve behaved like that was about 10 years ago when I watched the alt-country band Murder By Death and got talking to them afterwards as they were lugging stuff into their tour van. Nobody in the UK really knew who they were back then (and probably don’t now) so there was about 10 of us at the gig. I decided to make up for their lack of UK audience by telling them how much they mean to me rather than just saying something adult or doing the sensible thing of not even bothering. I hope I never do it again because you never really recover from it.

Anyway; the show, Content Provider, was blinding. If I had taken a notepad and pen and remained sober, I would’ve written a review for Scisco Media. That can’t happen now so the slimline blog review is that it’s hilarious and in the usual style that transcends stand-up comedy. The first half had a lot of material on Brexit and the second half is hard to go into without just spoiling it for you. I got my tickets back in May so it’s probably sold out now, but if you get the opportunity then go along.

Finally; I’ve just found out that Trainspotting is getting a film sequel. The original book is fantastic. So was the film and so was the prequel Skagboys. Daren’t I say it, but, after watching the trailer, I’m apprehensive about the sequel. The ‘choose life’ pitch tried too hard to resonate with the internet nerd herd. The original story is set in the ‘80s and caught something of that time, taking us away from the mundanity of such things as the internet. Unless the reviews are reliably glowing then I’ll probably avoid it and savour the memories.

And that’s it for November. I’ll give you a final update of the year in December, summarising the ups and downs of 2016 as well as where I’m at with various projects.

Meanwhile, stay safe.

R.D