Seth Harwood's Jack Palms II Podiobook

As if to show me I'm wrong about my last post (see below, bunnykins), I heard a portion of a new podiobook by Seth Harwood, Jack Palms II on Podcast411 episode something. Seth does a good job of doing two things: one, reading and two, writing. A lot of people who read are either overblown Dramatic with a capital D or monotone; Seth is neither. He hit it quite nicely in the middle. He also used special effects but only as necessary. He didn't go overboard. And the writing, for the most part, held my attention which, of course, is the point. There were a couple of points where I grimaced at a forced transition or two but generally really good. On Podcast411, we hear an interview with Seth and a 15-minute clip teaser of Jack Palms II which is scheduled to be put up on Seth's podcast starting June 3rd. The 15-minute portion on Podcast411 leaves us with a cliffhanger but that was to be expected. (Ah, got it, episode 203 of Podcast411. Two hundred shows? That's incredible, eh?)

This is all to say that Seth's podcast came across as a good old fashioned radio drama minus a lot of overdramatic music but without the different voices for all the parts; Seth reads all the characters himself with one exception.

This is also to say that I realized why a lot of the crime dramas on old radio shows were told in the first person. First, because that was the way crime novels (hard-boiled, Chandler, Hammett,- two Ms, two Ts - and pulp fiction) were written - Think Bogart in the Maltese Falcon. And because it sounds more like the character talking to you instead of someone reading to you or pretending to read to you. That said, I think I'm going to check out Seth's serialized audiobook.

In the next post on this blog I'm going to talk about a podcast called Behind the Black Mask, which looks like interviews with several pulp/crime/detective novelists. Should or could be interesting. (By the same people who do a podcast on film noir called Out of the Past.)

Eat in Peace.

Why Film Noir Is Like an AudioBook

AudioBooks are like old time radio dramas (see post below) and the film noir movies of the 40s and 50s were like the old time radio dramas (except with pictures.) So, I guess it stands to reason that those great old movies - White Heat springs to mind immediately: - "I'm on top of the world, ma! On top of the world!" - were what audiocasts, audiobooks, dramacasts want to be and, I hope, will be someday. I'd love to plug an earbud in and be swept away into a radio noir drama. (There's a singer who should be in a film noir movie, let me think of her name..... hold on....Got it: Bernadette Seacrest.)

What are the characteristics of a film noir film you ask: read on, my precious one.

• Cigarettes - everyone smokes, lots of smoke in the air bouncing off lights and fedoras.
• Fedoras - everyone wears a hat. To keep the smoke out of their eyes?
• Underdeveloped femme fatales - I'm not taking body parts, I'm talking characterisation, as in, one-dimensional female roles.
• Twists and convoluted plots - who to trust, who to trust?
• Flashbacks and Flash-forwards - the story is often told in a non-linear (remember Tarantino's Resevoir Dogs? Pure film noir except for the babes, lighting, ... okay. Nevermind.)
• Morally ambiguous - the good guy has bad traits, the bad guy has good traits; both try to live up to their own moral code; too bad sometimes it involves knocking someone else off occasionally.
• Voice-over narration - considered a weakness by modern day screenwriting gurus, voice-over narration is deriguer in film noir.
• No Hollywood ending - everyone loses, nobody wins,
• Banter. Lots of witty, clever banter. Lots of good one-liners. For all of film noir's negativity, there's a lot of humor in the banter. Love banter. Banter is my life. Banter like this:

You know you don't have to act with me, Steve. You don't have to say anything, and you don't have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and... blow

Bacall to Bogart in To Have and To Have Not (1944)

Bacall was 19, Bogart was 45 and the next year they got married. Altogether they were in four movies together, all film noir: To Have and To Have Not, The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947), and Key Largo (1948). Who can argue with a film style that produced not only the romance of the century (the last one - century, I mean) but also those four great flicks? Hmmm? Can you, punk? Well, do ya, punk? Do you feel lucky? (now, who said that?)

The whole point of this post is to make the following dare to myself: I'm going to attempt to write a film noir screenplay. I don't have a plot but I've got a title: Die Me a Genealogist. Pretty classy, eh? Picture the young Robert Mitchum embracing the young Gloria Stuart (the old lady in Cameron's Titanic) on a drizzly San Francisco street, over there, near the docks, a little bit away from the tourists, in the shadow of that empty warehouse. I only hope I can banter well.

Go in Peace, my lovely little ones, and fear no boogeyman.

Is Old Time Radio the New AudioBook, er...

Listening to a few audio books/audiocasts/drama on a podcast and am immediately reminded of what I used to do late Sunday night growing up in the metropolis of Olympia, Washington. Sunday night the local radio station used to broadcast radio dramas; murder mysteries mostly with cool sound effects, dramatic readings and eerie music. I loved 'em. Even as a small nerd with no appreciable social skills, I enjoyed the audio picture that they painted. A creaky door opens, footsteps, a male voice hushing someone, a gasp.. Cue the Intro Music. Loved 'em. Listened to them in the kitchen next to the speaker that was connected to the radio in the front room because nobody else wanted to listen. You can't, or at least I couldn't, listen to a radio drama and do anything else like read or watch TV or do my homework; talk with your parents. You had to Listen to the Drama.

My parents kind of laughed at me because many of the radio dramas I was listening to were the ones they listened to when they were young and radio dramas were the TV shows of the day.

Now there are audio podcasts that, rather then be a boring person talk about their life - wow, how exciting - are radio dramas. Except without the good sound effects. But with (sometimes) cool music. One thing I noticed, though, were the podcast dramas were mostly told by one person: a narrator. And sometimes a friend would drop in to add an additional voice, especially if the podcaster were male and needed a female voice.

So the question of the day is, Are AudioNovels the New Old Time Radio Dramas? (Of course they are, what kind of a question is that? But so far they're not as good, in my nimble opinion, but then my memory is probably playing tricks on me and making me think those old radio dramas were pretty good when in fact they sucked.)

Some audionovellas include: PodioBooks, Barfly, and Murder By Design. Among a rack of others. (If you noticed that Scott Sigler is not on the list, well, you noticed so you know about him. If you don't know about him and his audio empire, google him or traipse on over to PodioBooks and try to avoid his name.) And the ultimately famous librivox which has books swept from the public domain and read by a whole host of real people. You can listen to a person read Don Quixote to you, if you wish.

In any case, please enjoy your healthy eating habits, enjoy the new old time radio dramas and let me know if you know of any other audio novellas that I should be listening to. (For the record, I'm not a big fan of fantasy, science fiction, or fan fiction. Why? I guess I read too much of it when I was young.)

Peace, my little lambchops. Live Long and Prosper.