A fictional podcast
I used to work as a barhand for a crazy Argentine named Assaf. He had all these wild ideas about life and living, and every night he’d relay these to me as I sat on top of the freezer while he cleaved away at dozens of heads of iceberg lettuce (he was obsessed with salads).
One of those nights he asked me what I wanted more than anything in the world. I responded ‘to make money with my writing’. He whacked a head in half and suggested I write horoscopes.
“Everyone has a sign!” he shouted.
A-whack!
So I started writing monologues in the voices of the star signs. I based the voices off of characteristics I researched on blogs. Then I started putting these voices in scenes together. I gave them goals and motivations. I made them violent, relentless. The tone intensified. The style became rabid, borderline preposterous. The whole thing metastasized into one, gigantic hyperbole.
When the dust finally settled, I realized I’d written a novella about twelve Zodiac Women who go to a wedding – only to be electrocuted by the same stroke of midnight lighting.
Audio fiction was getting big at the time, and I was lamenting my turn away from acting, so I decided to publish the novella as a fictional podcast (performing all the voices myself).
An insanely ambitious idea, I know. I had no audio production experience, no booth or studio, no money to hire anyone to help. The result, though, was a turning point in my artistic development because it taught me the art of failure. I learned that that was what success was, really. Just failure refining itself.
It was a long slog of a process (and I’m still not done recording it), but now, when I look at myself, I see an artist who isn’t afraid to fail. This lesson was an indispensable necessity that continues to define how I approach everything in my life.
Not to indulge in melodramatic cliches *but* as my biggest failure, this project is my greatest achievement.
It was written to be read, so you can experience it that way. But it becomes another thing entirely when you listen to it. My recommendation is to read along as the voices toss and tumble, and to let go of your silly hunger for singly packaged truths.
I created everything associated with this project EXCEPT that green circle thing in the logo (thanks, Nikki). I painted the backgrounds. I did all the episode art. I made the website. I designed the typesetting. I was the sole sound designer. Producer. Performer. Writer. Everything. Calling this project a hobby would be insulting: it consumed a good four years of my life before I was finally able to let it idle in the background.
Typesetting and E-Book
The story was originally written to be read on a smartphone. I wanted it to dance visually as you scrolled…
Vocal Performances
No performance is as emblematic of the vocal idiosyncrasy I was trying to achieve than the character of Aries. Her personality and voice is based off the tendency of Aries to be an instigator, a starter, but not necessarily a finisher. Her semantic delivery, therefore, is clipped to the point of words barely finishing themselves before their sequels begin.
In Chapter One, I recorded all the voices of an episode together. This wasn’t the best choice, as separate voices sometimes gelled together within a scene and you couldn’t tell who was speaking. But I improved upon this in Chapter Two when I decided to record all of one voice at once (including where it guest starred in other episodes) and then move on to another voice, which I would record all at once, before moving on to the next, etc. times twelve. I finally got the voices sounding sufficiently distinct by Chapter Three and gave myself one Zell of a back pat.
Chapter Three coming Fall 2024
Inconclusive
I’ll be adding to this page, as there’s way more that went into this journey than what’s here. There’s a shape to the story. More to come.
For now, you can listen to all published episodes anywhere you get podcasts (except Itunes*) or by going to the story’s website. The website also has the e-book available to download, as well as all published video performances (also on Youtube).
*Apple doesn’t even hide the fact that they feed every podcast in their directory into their AI language learning whatever models. Not my vibe.