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- Bobby's Snacks Vol. 39: We're All Puppets, We're All Marionettes
Bobby's Snacks Vol. 39: We're All Puppets, We're All Marionettes
Bob Raymonda
March 02, 2025
Happy #AudioDramaSunday Friends!
The past two weeks have been intense over in these parts, but also good. I got to cover my first show of 2025 for BrooklynVegan when Bartees Strange came through Bowery Ballroom to celebrate the release of their impeccable new album, Horror. I also got to play a Ghost Tour show at Unruly Collective with our friends Riese, Øff Guard, and Sean Nolan & the Heart Makers. And wow, I really cannot explain how much bringing music back into my life in such a big way has been good for my heart and soul. Not only because I get to make tunes with two of my best friends, or because I get to get back up onstage and play for a room full of strangers, but because playing in a band that fella part broke my heart so badly a decade ago that I sold my instruments, started Breadcrumbs Mag, and thoroughly convinced myself that that chapter of my life was done, and that the time to solely focus on being a writer had begun.
Now, I get to watch artists I adore in some of my favorite NYC venues from the balcony and have the privilege and the platform to document it for a publication that has essentially dictated my tastes for over a decade. I get to reconnect with people that I haven’t seen in years, and show them what a joy it is to be on stage again. And I get to tap into the spark of childlike glee that I feel when figuring out a new way to play a bass lick that’s both showy and in the pocket. Next weekend Ghost Tour heads to the studio to begin tracking not one, but five more tunes, one of which is one the first that I’ve written/arranged myself in ages. And the weekend after that? I get to head out to Boston to see one of my favorite bands of all time, The Receiving End of Sirens reunite for the first time in over a decade to play the 20th anniversary of Between the Heart & The Synapse, a concept record that legitimately changed my life when I discovered it in 2005, with a whole host of friends, from the pals I’d road trip several states to see the band in the early aughts, to the dudes I played in a band with in college that fully ripped off TREOS every chance we got, and more.
On top of that, the birth of my first born is literally right around the corner. Every single day that Sam and I go out in the world, and we see a kid, whether they’re a toddler or a pre-teen, I look at her and excitedly say: “Oh my god, we’re going to have one of those.” She laughs and responds, “Not right away!” And she’s right, I shouldn’t be wishing my kid’s life away, imagining all of the futures we’re going to have together, but it’s impossible not to think about everything that life will bring for our lil family unit. I’m so incredibly stoked to get her first pair of giant baby head phones and bring her to see me play, or to help her discover her own love of music, and books, and movies, and television, and food, and gosh... All the other joyous things that make living in this consistently terrifying and off-putting timeline feel even remotely worth it.
On that note, let’s podcast:
Well fuck, that was a gut punch, wasn’t it? The season one finale of this picture perfect Midst spin-off is officially here, and for much of the episode’s runtime, I was convinced that the crew was going to get back home from their trip relatively unscathed. Sure, maybe their captain’s switched physical bodies with their Bocular man, and their specific relationships to space and time has forever changed, but every one had something to look forward to. Whether that was catching up with their dad (shoutout to my forever favs Tzila and Sherman), or continuing on their journey and preparing for the next expedition, everyone seemed to have a pretty clear idea for what was next. Until, of course, the final moments of the episode when everything was turned on its head and they found themselves far far away from any reality they knew and understood, with potentially years of more adventures ahead of them. And by gosh? I’m so stoked for every single one of them.
Welcome to the final season two prologue! This time, we get to go with Bet to a job interview, and gosh, how refreshingly healthy it is. She’s able to advocate for herself and communicate fairly clearly why she thinks that working in a catering kitchen would be a better experience than her current job in a fancier restaurant, crediting her years as the family’s sole holiday chef, while also being clear about her disability and the challenges she faces in louder, more high stress environments. And of course, the gig’s got a named like Grin & Carrot, because could you really call a culinary venture a culinary venture without a naming convention like [Thing] & [Thing]. I’m so glad we get these bite sized morsels before the full season entree. Just the most perfect appetizers imaginable!
A Medium and an Ent stand at the edges of a party in the faewilds, telling fortunes to drunken partygoers as they depart for their homes in the evening. And when Leona realizes what’s happening, she’s sort of appalled at their behavior, because that kind of magic doesn’t actually exist. And how could it be ethical that they’re offering services that are hypothetical. But what they teach her is that imagining the kind of future that the revelers want to see for themselves does more good than harm, and gets her thinking about her own future, alongside fellow troupe member Fel, and MY GOD when they finally told each other about their feelings, I just about melted. Sure, they’ve both got a lot of baggage, to do with the ways in which their talents were wielded against people with less power than them in their previous lives, but they’ve got a beautiful present and future as well, if only they accept that they’ve changed themselves for the better. chef’s kiss
Episode 8 was just about the most sinister story that this show has ever told, and deceptively so at that! A lifetime supply of paperclips doesn’t seem entirely ominous. Unnecessary, and sort of inconvenient, but surely not dangerous, right? Wrong. The twists and turns that this one takes, with a brilliant script by Ben Wooding. It’s deeply unsettling the ways in which these paperclips begin to take over our intrepid narrator’s life, and force him to uproot everything he’s ever known in the pursuit of a life he never wanted anything to do with. Gnarly stuff. A fantastic listen!
I’m am finally almost all caught up to this show, now that I’ve caught chapter 42 and Welcome to the Horizon part 10. And what a two-fer it was! First, with Speedrun, I got to witness the diner take on a veritable boatload of rescue missions in a single episode, all with their own unique challenges and even more interesting solutions. But the real treat for me, was getting to stop and smell the roses for a moment with Deidre and Verge, as they spent a quiet moment together in Verge’s ship, right before trying to go off and save the world from the Teds. I’m so thrilled to get through these next three releases, but damn, will I be sad to see Verge & Deidre go. Such a true masterclass in chemistry from Cat Blackard and Tina Case. And a shoutout to fan artists Mad S on BlueSky for this fantastic tarot-inspired artwork of that moment!
I still have a chunk of the way to go to catch up to this one, but I have caught episode 2 and it continues to be a delight. The Re: Dracula team is consistently filled with some of the best people in all of fiction podcasting, and that’s proven no more true than with this miniseries. The yearning, the gothic horror, the themes! I was especially tickled to hear Karim Kronfli as Laura’s Father, especially after his massive and memorable turn as the original series’ titular vampire. Very excited to keep working my way through this! AND ALSO: even more excited to hear about this team’s upcoming reimagining of Frankenstein. Trans/nonbinary VA’s, audition!
There is a reason that KC Wayland is one of the pioneering producers of American audio fiction, and that is no more apparent than the second season premiere of this legacy sequel to his original series. The foley work alone, as our heroes are split between two different sized jets, flying through the air at astronomical speeds with less than the perfect amount of know how, fleeing The Boar and the horrors that their captivity with her offered up. I am going to be so, so sad when this magnum opus is finally complete, but I’m so glad that we’ve got two entire seasons ahead of us before we get there. There really is nothing else quite as viscerally cinematic as this team’s work. And it just gets better and better as it goes, every single year.
Started the day the other day with a jaunt through town with Ishani Kanetkhar’s delightful Frederick, before another full length join where Karo and Yvonne start to reckon with the fact that maybe there’s more to these sojourns to October than they first may have expected. Their quiet night in is interrupted when Yvonne realizes that these trips might become a bit more permanent than she originally thought. And while she’s absolutely loving the adventures that she’s gotten to go on, she isn’t quite certain an official residence outside of her home dimension is what she’s looking for. Side note: I still can’t imagine the cognitive dissonance series sound designer Caro Mincks must experience while working on this show. 😝
Oh, how I’ve missed my Collette, Telesphore, and Eisen in the last few months of this show’s hiatus, and my gosh, what a triumphant return. We’re treated to exactly the kind of drug trip that necessitates anyone’s 26th birthday, let alone a woman whose entire life has been turned upside down because of the magical and sought after crystal that’s become stuck in her head and forced her to take on a life of crime with two affable ne’er-do-wells who nevertheless are decidedly not the kind of prospects she’d expected to be chasing after at this stage of her life. Some really wonderfully trippy moments and delightfully empathetic performances from the entire cast. Plus! Some intense plot developments are still saved for the bitter end, as the walls around Ariadne continue to close in.
I’m not going to lie to you all: while I found that Olde English opening massively impressive, I breathed a huge sigh of relief when Jackie and Mia interrupted Kozlowski and asked him to make the story understandable for them. There’s a reason I could never get through The Cantebury Tales in high school, and I was not looking for that kind of immersion for an entire episode. and The idea that all of Arthurian Legend exists because Arthur and Kozlowski needed to skip a bar tab? Absolutely hilarious. The entire, barroom hijinks that came with the spinning of the tale, and the stabbing of “Excalibur” into Big Jim’s poor unsuspecting foot were hysterical. Another magnificent entry in one of our greatest ongoing series. A hearty bravo to everyone involved!
You know, it’s both remarkable, and distinctly human, to live in a world with terrors such as these and still have and absent father be the most detrimentally impactful experience of your life. And yet that is the world that KA Statz and Travis Vengroff have dropped us into this week, as Iffy gives a masterclass of a monologue about Graham’s disappearance (both from the world and her life) even in the aftermath of their escape from the homicidally infected Jason’s clutches. Lauren Tucker gave a tour de force performance here, and it tore at every single heart string, so much that I understood why she couldn’t be bothered to rush to find the safety of the cave, when what she really needed was some deep, deep cathartic rage.
BONUS SNACK
Look, I know I’m by no means saying anything revelatory here: but holy shit, is Severance season two topping its first season in every single way. The most recent episode, Chikai Bardo, was not only one of the most Twin Peaks: The Return-coded television experiences I’ve had in years, but also one of the most emotionally resonant and impactful. The thing that I’ve really appreciated about this season is that it isn’t afraid to answer our questions from the one previous. Sure, those answers may just spiral us down the rabbit hole of asking a thousand more questions, but at least it’s a puzzle box mystery with a distinct, clear path forward, and a team of creatives absolutely dead-set on getting there in one of the most visually interesting and spiritually resonant ways possible. Utter perfection.