Tom thanks da folks responsible for Sicko Shock 2
Allow me the indulgence of reflecting on this bigass project.
Hello Sicko fans.
Sicko Shock 2 is out! For a long time, it wasn’t out. For a long time it was mostly a series of tasks I needed to do and people I needed to pay. But now it’s out. Now it’s just a thing in the world that is done, and it will be as done as it is now forever. Wow!
I’m going to take this time to reflect on this and thank the people without whom it would not exist.
First, thank you to everyone who listened and especially everyone who tuned in to the premiere streams on Twitch. I was so scared these were going to be a big flop (X The Everything App sure did everything it could to make sure all our posts announcing new episode releases got buried lol) but seeing the fans’ reaction live on stream was more fulfilling than you can imagine. When you are so deep into a project for so long it’s so easy to lose perspective—is this good? Is this emotion genuine? Does this come across? I can’t tell, for me this has long since stopped being primarily an artistic work and is now just a building block of my big admin chore. The streams were just a non-stop conveyor belt of moments where I went oh shit this DOES hit! This DOES work! Oh, people DID notice that! Hell yeah!
Plus. it’s one thing to willingly spend your time listening to any podcast ever—the fact that anyone does this for our show never fails to astound me—it’s another to do so at a specific time six days in a row. Thank you!!
Here are some more thank yous we gotta hit.
Our audio editor Eric Garneau—for a while I thought this project was dead when Adam, editor for Modesty City, let us know the workload was not feasible for him at this point (totally understandable). What a miracle that we found a guy who not only had the chops to pull this off, but the willingness to actually do it! Working with Eric was an absolute dream.
Casey Toney, not only for playing Stack Overflow to perfection, but for his unbelievable work doing the sound editing for scene five of episode 6 (you know the one—where Sherry and the Ganja Gang confronts Jordi and destroys the red lightning cocoon). I took a lot of care to make sure, during the writing process, that I didn’t ask for sound effects that would put a ton of strain on the editor—last time we did an audio drama, I wrote so fucking many scenes where a crowd reacted with a specific emotion. Turns out it is very hard to find sound effects for that without recording a real crowd. Anyway, the point is, this time I was trying hard to keep the SFX doable without too much trouble. Except for one scene—the time came to write the climax, the big confrontation, and I thought to myself, hm. One second actually—then I sent a message to Casey saying hey dude. Do you want to do audio for a scene in our new audio drama? He said hell yes. I went tight that rules. I then returned to the script confident that I could go absolutely nuts and ask for truly unreasonable sound effects, knowing that Casey would not only meet my expectations but exceed them. I was, of course, right.
Chuck Rios for allowing me to write a story about a virtuosic artist fully confident that when the time comes to actually show her art, it will be as excellent as described in the fiction. The more I learn about music (still very little) the more I respect Chuck as a true genius. It’s one thing to consider his mind a black box that shoots music out using magic. It’s another to begin to understand the scope of the work he’s actually doing. Wow! Sherry’s character arc would not hit anywhere near as hard as it does if she was not a breathtaking artist...and she is! Thank you Chuck!
Thanks also to Philip Saguil for actually playing Sherry’s solo piano pieces! Midi renditions of sheet music are fine (that’s what her song in episode 6 is, after all) but for a solo piano piece whose narrative function is a howl of pure emotion, you need an actual person playing. Chuck referred me to Philip who again just nailed it. I have nothing but awe, admiration, and respect for his talent.
Geramie Causley and the entire team at Mystery Street Recording Company both for having a high quality professional studio we idiots were able to rent at reasonable rates, but also for getting into the story and laughing at the jokes. I can’t overstate what an absolute shock it was to make a guy laugh at his job and ask what was going to happen next in the plot. Really was an “oh shit...is this good?” moment
Chelsea Harfoush for showing us how to do a casting call (it is insane how hard they are)
Tom and Sara McHenry for listening to me moan about how I wasn’t sure if this project was doable, how it seemed too shaggy to pull off, etc, then offering useful suggestions that ultimately were directly responsible for making me write the script at all.
Aleks M for providing a sharp critical eye on the script. One of my weaknesses as a writer is once I finish a draft, I find it insanely difficult to revise and change it. Not because I don’t want to, but because I know so intimately the reason why I made every decision & thus everything feels exactly in its place. It feels like there’s nothing TO change, it’s all just what it needs to be! Of course this is insane—every time I spend some time away from a piece and then reread it I go “oh shit this should be so different!”. Aleks gave much needed perspective and their feedback bore a ton of fruit that made this entire series so much better.
The Sherry and the Ganja Gang cast (Bradley, Allie, Casey, Gwynn, and Lexi)! Holy shit did these fuckers kill it or what. I fell in love with these characters as I was writing them—they were my guys! What luck, then, that we were able to find the perfect actors to bring them to life. I can’t imagine them any other way.
Dylan is Jordi. Folks Jordi is one of the characters of all time. We hate Jordi but also we love Jordi. And part of why I can’t stop writing this idiot kid is that I know that Dylan will say the lines in the funniest way in the universe every time. Folks he does. It’s so annoying how I do so much work trying to be a public comedy figure and Dylan just effortlessly bodies me with everything he says.
The entire supporting cast was absolutely amazing—as tough as a public casting call was, it was so worth it to be able to find and work with real-ass voice actors. These people are so goddamn good at what they do. I felt so lucky to get to work with them!
Our extremely long list of cameo performers—I love knowing so many funny and creative people and I’m glad I was able to get so many of them to say a single dumb line.
And finally, and most of all: thank you to Joe da Sicko. He was with me every step of the way through this entire process. From brainstorming, basic structure outlines, script reviews, casting, recording, editing, promotion—I was never on my own. Working with Joe, not just on this but in general, has made me so much funnier and better. He inspires me and makes me want to up my game. I like to think I am such a cool guy for making this series. But I could never come up with the shit shoes joke. Folks, Joe is supreme.
OK thank yous are covered. Now to reflections on the release.
I find myself tempted to bemoan the small reach Sicko Shock 2 has. It is easy to blame Twitter (the reason: it’s Twitter’s fault) and get upset that the series is not having the impact it deserves numbers-wise. I look at the downloads and I frown. The numbies are just bad, folks. There’s no other way to spin it. Turns out it is hard to get people to listen to stuff like this.
I look at other podcasts run by big account people and see how their reach eclipses ours exponentially and I feel like becoming furious and resentful. In these moments, I like to tell myself: Tom, da internet is fucked. There is no world, no scenario, where we have reach commensurate with our quality. It just fundamentally is not possible. It’s not something I have power over and it can’t change. What matters, then, is the impact it has on the people who are there for it. And from that perspective, Sicko Shock 2 has been more successful than I’d ever dared to hope.
The people love the guys so much! They get so sad when they’re hurt! Part of my philosophy when writing these audio dramas is that like—these are comedies, yes. I want to write funny stories. But I do not want the genre to be an excuse to be lazy or glib. There is a place for that kind of thing—Eagleheart is basically exactly that and I love it—but for these projects I am challenging myself to write the best fiction I possibly can. That means that while there are jokes it is not a joke. There are farcical elements but it is not farce. The characters may be funny but they are not trying to be. Not to toot our own horn too much, but me and Joe can come up with laugh lines like nothing. Those are cheap. My real goal is to tell a real story with real characters experiencing real emotions that has a strong subtextual message. I want a story with a reason to exist. I want a story that will make you feel something and come out of it exhilarated and changed. The jokes, who cares, I can just plug those in wherever, we’re covered for jokes.
When everyone in the stream wept for Sherry, I was over the moon. When everyone started saying unprovoked how much they loved Nate, I punched da air (Nate is such a high-wire act...he has to be kooky and weird and eccentric but also real, grounded, and warm. Ray was such a fucking miraculous actor to pull it off so well. Jordi’s “you talk like an asshole, Nate” line was a direct quote from my own self-conscious brain reading Nate’s lines and feeling anxious they were too reddit-tier “ah salutations good sir, mayhaps I shall pour thee a delectable caffeinated libation in the form of coffee”).
I do not hurt these characters out of cruelty or spite or sadism. The story’s whole point is that the society the characters live in is inherently violent and evil and must be destroyed at its roots—we must feel, deeply and painfully, how vicious and destructive it is. We, as listeners, must hate it on a visceral level. I’m glad this came across. I’m glad you loved the characters. I’m glad you felt a wave of dread when Jordi (the avatar of capitalism) came on-screen. I’m glad when the characters were brought to their lowest points it felt as though your heart was being torn out. I’m glad it felt unfair and needlessly punitive. That was all on purpose! This kind of shit is what happens to people in real life every day lol!
One thing I am really glad seemed to pay off is Tor’s whole deal. So, we never say “trans” anywhere in the text but like...Tor wants to live as a cyber entity and feels dysphoria in their physical body. The metaphor is not subtle.
I felt really nervous about writing a trans narrative as a white cishet guy. I was like, this is so not my place, this is not my story to tell, I’m gonna get cancelled for sure. Well, I knew I wasn’t gonna get cancelled. But I did worry that I was gonna hit a sour note, get it wrong, expose my ignorance, some such. You know, “the straights are at it again—uh stick to stories about professors getting divorced!” But there really wasn’t any other way to give Tor an emotional arc that was anywhere near as meaningful, and you can’t really eliminate the trans metaphor without changing pretty much everything about Tor’s character and story.
I just decided to write it like any of the other stories—don’t think about that shit, just be true to the character and write it with as much emotional honesty as possible. It didn’t feel like it was me trying to be topical or anything. It was just what Tor felt! It was the only thing they could feel! I’m so pleased to see that their journey seems to have resonated with people. I was scared it was going to be hollow somehow because after all, I am faking it! But hell, that’s fiction baby. And even if I personally do not experience dysphoria, Tor is still me. They’re all me! (ED: Todd Kill is not me)
Finally, I gotta say I truly cannot believe there has not yet been anyone furious at the ending. I guess I can chalk it up to it being really unlikely you’d get to the end of episode 6 if you are not familiar with and a fan of our whole deal. The thing is that we are the Anime Sickos, and it’s our story, and we’re the main guys. Lol. God, this whole thing is giving me a big head. I can’t believe every reaction I intended the audience to have actually happened. I can’t believe the scenes I hoped were emotionally resonant actually were. I can’t believe it all happened. I told Joe way back during production that after this comes out I am going to start saying I am one of the best comedy writers in the country. As a sort of like, positive thinking visualization thing. But shit. Am I really? Hard to know but right now I’m feeling very confident lol. Someone hire us to write for something already geez
Anyway, thank you all for being Sicko fans. Thank you for listening to Sicko Shock 2. This is the coolest and best thing I’ve ever done! Wow!! I’m glad it means something to someone out there!