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Bobby's Snacks Vol. 27: Even if it Feels Like it Might Kill Me
Bob Raymonda
September 01, 2024
Happy #AudioDramaSunday y’all!
It’s been another whirlwind two weeks. The weather at home is… fine this weekend, but not what I would typically hope for the last gasps of the summer. I know that, living in New York, we’re experiencing false fall and that there’ll still be plenty more hot days to get through in September… but the pool that Sam and I are members at officially closes for the season tomorrow, so we’ll be without our respite from the heat. In the meantime, we’re getting our butts over there every day regardless of the weather, shocking the system with the too-cold water, spending time plying Walter & Lillian, the 70+ year old couple whose table we always sit next to, with sweet treats from our favorite bakeries, and generally trying to shut our brains off for a while. It’s always a huge gift to be able to have this dedicated time in the water, and it’s incredibly bittersweet every year when it ends. Maybe this time we’ll actually keep our promise and take our friends to dinner.
Things are mostly dead at the day job right now, before a torrent of work that will start in the upcoming months as we gear up to open not one but two brand new locations. I’ve taken great advantage of that since we last spoke, dialogue editing work for Cole Burkhardt, Jeff Van Dreason, as well as not one but two upcoming Forgive Me! episodes. I’m going to keep my cards close to the chest with these ones for now, but let me tell you: there are some really exciting things coming out over the next few months. Plus, my band Ghost Tour wrapped up our time in the studio recording our first single with our official full band line up, and are already making plans to shoot a music video later this month. I’m honestly just feeling really grateful right now, to be able to make art in so many different formats with the help of so many people that I have such an enormous amount of love for. It’s truly a gift.
We’ve got a lot to cover this week, so let’s dive in:
For a minute here, you’ll have to excuse me while I gush about the brilliance that is my friend Jeremy Ellett, who runs Good Pointe Podcasts with their (also brilliant) wife Danyelle Ellett, and also just so happened to celebrate their 40th birthday this weekend. Jeremy has been a staunch supporter of independent audio fiction for years, and so to see them release a brand new sci-fi & horror anthology using their fantastic production talents to showcase other writers in this medium is a no brainer. It’s a brilliant mix of The Twilight Zone and Black Mirror, with a dash of Masters of Horror thrown in for good measure. The first two episodes are live, which have already given us a journey alongside the unknown things that lurk inside your home, just outside of view, and an Alien-inspired story that saw the doomed crew of a spaceship torn apart by literal brain slugs.
Continuing the Jeremy Ellett-love bomb, the next thing I listened to this week were the first two episodes of Dead Ass, the newest story in Bloody FM and The George A. Romero Foundation’s zombie anthology written by my pal! This four-part series follows the outbreak as it unfurls inside of a comedy club in LA. It’s a hilarious, bleak, and action-packed story that becomes all the more sweet when you hear Ellett’s bittersweet dedication at the top of the second episode, to the childhood best friend who first introduced them to Night of the Living Dead and the magic that is Romero’s universe of slow-shambling and always hungry killers.
I’m behind! But I’m so happy to finally be catching up to fiction podcast royalty Mischa Stanton’s brand new techno-magical actual play with a adventuring party that consists of Bex Taylor-Klaus, Lyn Rafil, Ian McQuown, and Mayanna Berrin. This YA-adventure takes us a New Prosper, a magical metropolis with big Midgar in Final Fantasy 7 vibes, where everyone is encouraged to practice the skills that they excel at. To the surprise of no one, the production and sound design are masterful on this one thanks to GM Stanton, and the chemistry of the party themselves is immediately apparent. I can’t wait to catch my way up to the rest of the adventure!
The shit has hit the proverbial fan as we near the end of Bloody FM’s entry into this spacebound horror universe. Journalist Emmaline Ayuba has gone further than ever before with her investigation into the Church of Unitology, and at this point, doesn’t expect to survive her brush with the monstrous horrors they’ve been turning both their faithful and questioning parishioners into. She’s assuming that the only way this record of what’s going on survives is if her partner can retrieve her corpse and tear the recording device directly from her head. It’s gruesome stuff, and Jordan Cobb continues to (as always) deliver.
Things have been quieter on this front in the last year, as our team has taken some much needed rest after completing the behemoth that was season 4, and continued to work on the short story collection that serves as our final Indiegogo perk. That being said, that isn’t to say there isn’t some wonderful stuff on the horizon! Not only has the caliber of the stories we’re bringing to you been incredibly high, but we’ve officially begun production on a new batch of minisodes and holiday specials that are going to be fantastic. Alexander Danner finished up sound design on two scripts he’d written that I dialogue edited a few months back, and let me tell you, they’re both charming as all get out. Not to mention, spoopy season is right around the corner, and we’ve got a bunch of new Red Line themed horror tales coming your way to celebrate!
You just can’t tell me that there are any shows out there that are this packed to the brim with hilariously unhinged glee. This month’s update follows the mythical Lolly Pop Ladies, a legion of armed crossing guards ready to defend their charges against the vengeful reign of speeding motorists… and their history with Agnes, a mythical cow whose supernatural and angelic appearance has presaged many an accident across their tenure. It’s so deliriously stupid, and it is so committed to the bit. If you’re not listening to this show yet, I just don’t understand how you’re happy in your life.
It’s been a minute since I’ve listened to an original, super hero-themed audio drama, and three episodes in? I can tell you that this one is an absolute delight. Following the exploit’s of the show’s namesake, we’re introduced to a world chock full to the brim with super powered villains and the legions of heroes who stop them, even if they aren’t willing to always listen to his advice. Because Vigil? He isn’t a street level hero, no, in fact, he’s a support hero who does his best work from the computer lab in his secret lair. He gives me massive Barbara Gordon as The Oracle vibes from the Batman comics, and for that I’ve fallen immediately in love. Can’t wait to catch up with season one and be ready for the upcoming second batch of episodes!
If you had told me, last year, right around the time that Unwell, a Midwestern Gothic Mystery was ending, that Audacious Machine Creative would already be starting the third season of their follow up show by August of this year I would’ve laughed in your face. But that’s exactly what they’ve done, with a new batch of episodes about Jamie & Malik’s journey through the post apocalypse written by J. Gregory Moran. This week, we learn about how becoming a werewolf is not transmitted through blood as was once readily assumed, but actually as a quick-spreading virus instead. We get some great early COVID parallels exploring the ineptitude of local governments to deal with a pandemic, and lots of well earned dismay at the American healthcare system. Can’t wait to see where this batch of episodes goes next!
Hannah and Cali are in the midst of discussing the impending arrival of the next Great Zombie Hoarde, and surprisingly? The major feelings aren’t immediately ones of fear. Instead, they’re of excitement: Hannah will maybe, finally have her chance at finishing what she started by giving all of the zombies shambling across the wasteland a place to live together. But Cali brings up some great points like: where the hell will we fit them all? And what if they aren’t coming here to join us… but to start a war. Meanwhile, Ashley and Mel have a long overdue conversation about the nature of their relationship and we get some delightful sapphic joy. I know that there’s likely some horror just around the corner, but boy do I love an episode where things are mostly happy!
Legacy Vaughn is one of those characters that will always stick with me. He’s a brilliant teenager, marooned in time, and introducing a 15th century version of Arthur to the majesty that is a cold Coke. This is another one of Imploding Fictions’ delightfully fantastical episodes that allows itself to be both rooted in the history that Season 5 has continued to explore, yet introduces a new concept to the world like time travel. Kiba Walker does an incredible job, and once Arthur realizes what historical figure that he is supposed to become, now that he’s stuck in time? It’s an absolute chef’s kiss. I also LOVED the intro, where Arthur and Kozlowski had a practice sword duel for fun, and the epilogue, which perfectly sets up my episode for this season… which will be premiering in two weeks! I’ll have so much more to say about that next time, but I’m still just so continuously in awe of the brilliance of this show and the people who make it. What a gift.
A new noir from Good Story Guild, the creators of Josie’s Lonely Hearts Club, I’m only one episode into this one but I’m already loving it. I’m truly obsessed the way it leans into history to explore the kind of third spaces where women had to escape to in order to create a new life for themselves, out of the grasps of their often abusive husbands. The cast is fantastic, the sound design is top notch, and the mystery’s got me on the edge of my seat. Can’t wait to marathon the rest of the season!
This month, Cecil’s back, and we get another classic adventure in this strange little desert town. With a title like Instructions for folding, one could assume that this would be a relatively sleepy and safe update from our favorite radio host… but one would be wrong. Folding, like anything else in Night Vale, comes replete with its own dangers and hyperspecific requirements that put the foldee in more danger than you might expect. Fantastic stuff. Also this week: I’m 2/3rds of the way through the second Night Vale novel, It Devours!, which came out during a period where I was taking a break from the landmark series, and I’m happy to say, it’s delightful!
Last, but very much not least, we’ve got to talk about the finale of Realm’s newest murder mystery. This pulse-pounding adventure wraps up in the kind of way where, while the initial culprit may be captured and behind bars, the conspiracy is only just beginning to reveal itself, and hopefully for us listeners? There’s the possibility of so much more in a potential season 2 (and beyond!) To celebrate the milestone release, I spoke with series creator AP Quach about making the show, writing about Christianity through the lens of a cult, and what the future may hold for Loro and Ruth.
A headshot of AP Quach
It was clear from the jump that Chinook owes a lot to HBO's True Detective, but what I love about this series is that it pairs an obsessed FBI agent with a local sheriff with deep ties to the community at the heart of the series, instead of two partners with a shared personal history. Can you tell us a bit more about developing the dynamic between Sanaa Lathan's Loro and Kelly Marie Tran's Ruth?
To tell the truth, there honestly wasn’t a lot of time to “develop” a dynamic. We were casting this production up to the last minute, and we began production with our two leads not even in the same city. Fortunately, the dynamic that’s on the page was already present in these two actresses. I saw it in the way they approached their process—Kelly is a careful reader when it comes to a project. She asks a ton of questions, she pushes back, she digs deep into motivation and really wants to understand the choices she’s performing. Sanaa is much more enigmatic. She arrives with her character folded into herself. She does her work in private. It’s funny how that tends to happen. I think you pick up on a person’s energy when you’re casting, and you end up favoring actors who remind you of your characters.
Kelly Marie Tran on her last day of recording.
Chinook is about the very real impacts of a cult on a small community... a cult that also just so happens to be run by a massive network of Evangelical megachurches. What was it about this kind of institution that inspired you to use that kind of community as a backdrop for your murder mystery?
APQ: This is not an easy question to answer, but it’s pretty simple. I grew up in the Bible belt, and for a good long while—from high school through college—I went to an evangelical church. The thing about churches… it’s kind of like community theatre. The level of intensity varies wildly from place to place and person to person, and you can’t tell from the outside. You might go see a local production of Guys and Dolls in the hollowed out husk of a sports bar and think, “Huh, I guess they couldn’t afford to repaint the set from Fiddler,” and never know that backstage three marriages are on the brink of ruin because everyone on stage is in a passionate, star-crossed yearning love affair.
When I saw the original True Detective, I chafed a little at how spooky Christianity is used as a set piece without much interest in the real nuance of that danger. The thing that makes a certain brand of Christianity so scary is the intensity of the belief and the way that belief does not communicate with our reality. The evangelical church I went to said you could heal people, you could raise folks from the dead, you could create miracles if you shut out the world enough and focused only on the cross and turned your faith all the way up to ten. What you get is that Marina Abramović art piece Breathing In/breathing out where you’re just breathing into each other’s mouths and dying from carbon dioxide.
There was one person in particular I went to church with who became fixated on some of the ideas we’ve seen play out over the last ten years—the idea of the Christian man needing to be a “protector”, a cave man, a seeker of justice with a gun and a baseball bat. I absolutely checked every January 6th photo for his face, certain I would find him. He started collecting weapons in 2006. That’s how long these things have been brewing.
The finale wraps up all of our major dangling plotlines in a satisfying way, yet leaves room for there to be much more. Sure, Ruth & Loro may have their murderer charged and within custody, but there's still the promise of a federal conspiracy case against Amos Laseur. Could you give us any teases for where the story might go next, should you have a chance to continue it?
APC: Okay, I don’t think it’s spoiling anything to say that Chad is where I’d be headed. Chad is the most interesting, underrated kind of powder keg in a religious community. He’s a true believer. So often, new religious movements don’t start from scratch, they start with a person within a religious community acquiring power or a following and setting out new rituals. Chad also has so many fun little breadcrumbs in this season. We get hints about his past, but we don’t get to see the full portrait.
Of course, Ruth is moving up the ladder. Valvik is on the run. Beth is going to be wildly untethered now that her church and her husband have skipped town. I can’t say much else about our other characters because that would get into major spoilers.
Unused concept art from Chinook
Your other big claim to fame in fiction podcasting comes in the form of the slice-of-life romcom Deck the Halls (With Matrimony), and while some might see a project like Chinook as a big departure for you, I personally don’t. In a medium typically replete with sci-fi/horror/and fantasy story vehicles, you’ve continued to create worlds rooted within the possibilities of our own. Would you care to elaborate what it is about real life that motivates you to tell stories?
APQ: Gosh, I’m not sure. My fantasies have always been grounded in the banal. As a kid, I was most enraptured by stories of normal people in extraordinary situations who rose to the occasion. I dreamed about kicking a soccer ball over the school. I’d go to a first aid class and spend most of it fantasizing about saving someone from drowning, which is not a great way to learn CPR. I read books about WWII and imagined being in the Resistance, but then I got a little older and learned what spies actually do for a living and the distance between the childhood fantasy and the Hardback Nonfiction reality arrested me. That’s the driving force of how I write: I’ll get obsessed with something and read a lot about it, then spend a lot of time galloping around with the new furniture in my imagination and forgetting the reality of what I read.
Beyond that, I think we tend to write the stories we need. I tend to either write because I’m wallowing in something or because I want to make myself laugh. Usually, it’s as simple as that. I’m too serious in general, so tragedy and drama tend to find their way in without too much fuss. The last play I wrote (besides Chinook) was a terrific little farce called Suitor Princess Thief—it was the pandemic, and I simply wanted to talk to myself in a silly English accent and make a lot of intense, romantic declarations. Sometimes that’s all you really need to get through a project.
BONUS SNACK
Look, I’ve included the trailer to this movie because that’s how I always format things… but if you’re up to it, I’d skip watching it and go into the theater experience as blind as possible. I knew the basic set up of this story when I walked in and little else: a man and a woman have a one night stand, and then she ends up running from her life. Has she just opened herself up to the clutches of a serial killer?! Who knows! But what’s really special about this flick is the non-linear way in which it’s presented, which allows for twists and turns that you’ll never expect. Brilliant stuff. Absolutely worth catching on a big screen if it’s playing near you.