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- Bobby's Snacks Vol. 26: Enhanced Combat Mode
Bobby's Snacks Vol. 26: Enhanced Combat Mode
Bob Raymonda
August 18, 2024
Happy #AudioDramaSunday Friends!
I can’t believe the end of the summer is already almost here, and honestly? I’m ready for it, which I wouldn’t normally expect. That said, I’m a fall baby, so Libra Season is when I’m in my absolute element and I am so here for slipping back into my layers and feeling the crunch of dead leaves under my feet. In the meantime, though? I’ve been honestly having a god damn blast. Sam and I started this week off by seeing Coheed & Cambria and Primus at Saratoga Performing Arts Center, a massive, beautiful outdoor auditorium that just so happens to be the same place where I saw my first ever concert (Sting) all the way back in 2000. The next day, we brought our nephew Mason, who is mere days away from leaving for college, to get his very first tattoo from our beloved Ray Hauer. Then, on Thursday, my band got to open for The Color Fred (formerly of Taking Back Sunday, currently of Say Anything), a musician whose work I’ve loved for over 20 years, which was so surreal I can’t even begin to explain it. We had an absolute blast and truly made so many memories that I’ll cherish for the rest of my life.
Friday, we spent the day out at my cousin’s lake house in New Jersey with her, her husband, their son (who is officially way taller than he has any right to be, given the last time I saw him was 5 years ago), and my mom and step dad. Today, Ghost Tour is heading into to the studio to record our first single with our official three-piece lineup. I’m really excited because we’ll be working with Billy Mannino at Two Worlds Studio, who has made incredible records with bands like Oso Oso, Saturdays at Your Place, Macseal, and Short Fictions. It’s the perfect fit for our sound, and I am beyond stoked to finally be able to get to lay down bass tracks for the first time in over a decade.
And tomorrow? Well… I can’t really tell you about why tomorrow is super exciting just yet. But it’s fiction podcast related, and has me feeling incredibly sure of myself as a writer and creator in this medium, no matter what ultimately ends up happening. The simple fact that I get to [REDACTED] because of the work I put into [REDACTED] is a gigantic enough win to me. And that… is all I’ll be saying about that.
And now: it’s time to podcast!
We’re almost to the end of this creepy, cultish murder mystery and wow, am I not ready for it to be over. Casting Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan as the Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey archetypes from True Detective season one is so inspired, and the binaural sound design is so impressive there were multiple points where I was convinced something stressful was happening outside my headphones, rather than just in the show I was listening to. It’s eerie, it’s confounding, and it’s written so beautifully by AP Quach that I can’t help but hope that we get not one, not two, but like, seventy more seasons of this show. C’mon REALM, announce a renewal sooner than later, please, the world deserves it!
I was so stoked coming into this weekend, because I finally caught up to the adventures of my favorite time, space, and dimension traveling diner-ites… and then they went ahead and released a-whole-nother one. Granted, I’m still technically caught up to the general public feed with my Fable & Folly+ subscription, so that’s a win regardless. Getting to visit The Paradise movie theater this week was so fun. It was a surprise, for sure, given all we know about the adventures of Leif and the rest of the Midnight Burger crew, and one that might raise some eyebrows of folks that are sick of the mutliversal nonsense so prevalent in the current media landscape, but for me? Chef’s kiss I love any reason to see a character talk to an alternate version of themselves. Can’t wait to see where the rest of this brilliant Pasadena bound season goes!
It should surprise absolutely no one that this week’s episode is one of my all time favorites, considering it’s written by my best friend and writing partner Jack Marone, but even still, it deserves to be said. When the two of us were coming up with pitches for the Imploding Fictions crew, we had an absolute blast, but as soon as Jack sent me: Rocco, Michaelangelo’s model for the statue of David, I knew that we’d struck gold. And as soon as we heard back from the team, and they felt the same way? I knew we’d be in for something special. The entire bit about collectible mini-statue action figures was inspired, and the idea that someone would like to fake their own deaths because they’ve become too famous to just lounge around and live an easy life is hilarious. Go listen to it ASAP!
We’ve reached the end of the second batch of Audacious Machine Creative’s newest show, which is a bummer… but we also now know who will be writing the next two batches! I must admit, I’m unfamiliar with the ~mysterious~ J. Gregory Moran who is in charge of Chapter 3, but I can tell you that I trust Eleanor Hyde and Jeffrey Nils Gardner implicitly with the task of hiring fantastic people to get the job done… and bringing on the incomparable Gabriel Urbina for Chapter 4? Perfection. In the meantime, Malik throws Jamie a curveball by switching up this week’s topic at the last minute in order to further explore whatever the hell it is all the birds are suddenly speaking to each other about. Beautiful stuff, as always, and I am chomping at the bit for more.
Emmeline Ayuba is still in deep with the Unitologists, as she uncovers even more of the horrors they’re hiding just beneath the surface. And at this point? She’s got no preconceived notions that she’ll be getting out of this alive. All of her messages to her colleagues are increasingly despondent, as she fears what will happen at the end of her trip down this horrifying rabbit hole. I love me some Jordan Cobb forever and ever and ever, so this show was always going to be for me, but the entire cast is firing on all cylinders.
Sometimes, a community radio station like Night Vale’s is going to have to dip into a half an hour of paid programming in order to keep the lights on... and that’s exactly what happened this week! Loved getting a chance to spend some extra time with Meg Bashwiner while Cecil Baldwin took the week off (save for one extraordinarily ominous interjection at the very end), and especially loved getting to see Symphony Sanders’ Tameka Flynn and her new batch of teenage Librarian Hunters.
BONUS SNACK
I have to give all props to my friend Andrew Sacher over at Brooklyn Vegan for turning me onto this one, but WOW does it scratch every single itch in the world for me. It’s a big, ambitious, loud concept album by a new emo band based out of Baltimore with all the recurring lyrical themes and multi-part suites that my nerdy concept band loving self could ask for. Honestly? It wasn’t my plan to write about this record, since I just so happened to put it on while writing this update… but over the last hour and a half it’s already endeared itself to me beyond belief, and I know for a fact it’s about to be in constant rotation for the rest of the year!