Going Pro

Why yes, I did actually get paid to play the Director of the British Museum on a radio drama that is basically the Creationist version of Johnny Quest.  Why do you ask?  More importantly, do you need someone to do voice work?

Comments

  1. Angelico Nguyen, Esq., OP says

    Demand nothing less than a 5% voting partnership.

  2. Angelico Nguyen, Esq., OP says

    How’s your Russian? If you’re interested, a friend of a friend of a friend may have some work for you on a sort of Lysenkoist Land of the Lost.

    • Matthew Lickona says

      All I have to do is travel to INSERT RANDOM BALKAN STATE HERE and ask for Ivan, right? Lots of good vodka and hot girls?

      • Angelico Nguyen, Esq., OP says
        • Matthew Lickona says

          Precisely. Probably explains why we haven’t heard from him in a while…

          • Y’all I am typing from an Eastern European small town formerly of the USSR (with the statue of Lenin bedecked with flowers across the way to prove it!), and I know *now* why vodka is so popular. This is a hard life. Some very nice people, but a hard life. I would be a lousy immigrant.

            • …and for the record, my Russian is stinkin AWFUL. I can’t handle all the “y” sounds next to consonants. It’s tough to pronounce. I could only do voiceover work as the stupid American trying to pronounce Russian. On that note, dos vedanya.

              • Matthew Lickona says

                Come to America. The streets are paved with gold, and people are very generous about the quality of Russian accents. And God be with you while you’re over there.

              • Angelico Nguyen, Esq., OP says

                Truly doing the Lord’s work, IC. Bless you and your family (including, let us hope, Alex!).

              • Angelico Nguyen, Esq., OP says

                And thank you for checking in: The thought of Korrektiv being read on the eastern side of the former Iron Curtain cheers one immensely!

  3. Angelico Nguyen, Esq., OP says

    I just hope we don’t have to wait 40 years to see the Creationist version of The Venture Bros.

    • Matthew Lickona says

      Shhhh…there are grown-ups in the room. Not everyone will understand the magic of the Brothers Venture.

      • Matthew Lickona says

        By the way, I am totally working on this right now.

        • Angelico Nguyen, Esq., OP says

          ‘Totally working on this right now’ is my new favorite euphemism.

          • Matthew Lickona says

            I would say I don’t know why I even bother trying, but the hell of it is, I do.

            • Roll on thunder, shine on lightning,
              The days are long and the nights are frightenin’,
              Nothing matters anyway,
              And that’s the hell of it.

              Winter comes and the winds blew colder
              While some grew wiser, you just grew older
              And you never listened anyway,
              And that’s the hell of it.

              Good for nothing, bad in bed
              Nobody likes you and you’re better off dead
              Goodbye, we’ve all come to say goodbye (goodbye)
              Goodbye (goodbye)
              Born defeated, died in vain
              Super-destructive, you were hooked on pain
              And though your music lingers on
              All of us are glad you’re gone.

              If I could live my life half as worthlessly as you,
              I’m convinced that I’d wind up burning too.

              Loved yourself as you loved no other
              Be no man’s fool and be no man’s brother
              We’re all born to die alone, you know,
              And that’s the hell of it.

              Life’s a game where they’re bound to beat you
              And time’s a trick, it can turn to cheat you
              And we’d only waste it anyway,
              And that’s the hell of it.

              Good for nothing, bad in bed
              Nobody liked you and you’re better off dead
              Goodbye, we’ve all come to say goodbye (goodbye)
              Goodbye (goodbye)
              Born defeated, died in vain
              Super-destructive, you were hooked on pain
              And though your music lingers on,
              We’re all of us glad you’re gone.

  4. Angelico Nguyen, Esq., OP says

    I did have a notion for a sort of hard-boiled drama that could veer between muckraking vérité and pulp sensationalism from episode to episode, or even scene to scene, or moment to moment. Might work well as a radio drama — maybe online, with Korrektiv Press as the sponsor. Stop me if you’ve heard this, but:

    It would be about a tough, unloved ‘hatchet priest’: think ‘sacerdotal internal affairs’ on a good day, ‘clerical Continental Op’ on a bad day (and there would be lots of bad days). Philip Marlowe after the Order of Melchizedek. Archdiocese of L.A. Confidential.

    ‘What are you prepared to do?’

    ‘Anything within canon law.’

    And here’s how it would work: People listen to the episode; hear the ad for Korrektiv Press; click on over and buy House of Words or Bird’s Nest in Your Hair or Fear and Trembling in New Orleans; and then K-Press rolls the profits from those sales into production of the single-volume full-color Alphonse — which you then advertise on the show. It’s like the serpent Oroboros eating its own tail, but in a good way!

    • Matthew Lickona says

      We talked about this already, right? I already pitched this series to my friend in Hollywood, who is no longer in Hollywood, back during the Scandal Days. Based it on a friend’s stories about a guy who did just this sort of work for the LA Archdiocese back in the day. He’d show up at a school, chat with the priest, tell him he had ten minutes to pack his bags and come along, and that, pray God, would be that. Of course, nothing came of it.

      But I like where your head’s at.

      • Angelico Nguyen, Esq., OP says

        We talked about it for maybe a minute or two: I mentioned having an idea for a serial story about a priest with anger issues (right on the edge between righteous fury and deadly-sinful wrath), whose superiors use him to ‘take care of’ problems within or impinging upon the Church. Part guard dog, part hunting dog, part attack dog — complete with a collar. And then you said you’d come up with a rather similar idea years before (based on a real-life L.A. priest) and pitched it, to no avail. The phrase ‘hatchet priest’ and the comparison to internal affairs were yours.

        I still like the concept a lot. Yesterday was the first time I realized ‘radio drama’ might be a good medium for it.

        Not that creating a Cathsploitation Internet radio drama pro bono is an especially prudent use of resources. But in terms of the kinds of stories a ‘hatchet priest’ might get into, I do think audio would be as good a medium as any, and better than most.

        • Matthew Lickona says

          Speaking a child who grew up listening to Suspense, The Shadow, and Inner Sanctum radio dramas, I wholeheartedly concur. I could even do it maybe, if it weren’t for this sloth.

          • Matthew Lickona says

            “What do you think, Father? You think this is some sort of game? You think you can just play around with the Mass – the thing that forms Joe Catholic’s basic idea of heaven and how to get there – like it’s some kind of divine Play-Dough? ‘Oh, we can mash it into whatever shape we like; it’s still the same basic stuff! So many pretty shapes and colors to choose from!'”

            “Actually, that’s precisely what I think. The GIRM leaves me a great deal of wiggle room, and I have powerful allies in the folk-felt community.”

            “Yeah, the GIRM is wiggly. But that’s the GIRM. I’m the cure.”

            Kidding.

            • Angelico Nguyen, Esq., OP says

              ‘Kidding’?

              As in, ‘I’d sure like to meet Tony Hopkins…. Kidding!’

              That ‘kidding’?

              • Matthew Lickona says

                Tony Hopkins? You mean old Doc McLean’s friend Tony Hopkins? You never let up, do you?

                ‘Kidding’ as in, ‘This is parody, not proper Cathsploitation.’ I know what you have in mind, and it’s fifty shades of gray darker than what I just wrote.

                • Angelico Nguyen, Esq., OP says

                  When I found out that the good Doctor was a Matt-basher from way back, I lost whatever guilt-feelings I may once have had about the sport. It’s like hitting a piñata, only instead of candy, jagged, brittle chunks of bitter self-loathing tumble out — and when one reaches a certain age, one rather loses the taste for sweet.

                  But back to the hatchet-priest story: Yes, you’ve got it. If, please God, I can ever make it 1/3 of the way through the current list of obligations and pending projects, I’ll get to work on this story. And if I do so, and if ‘radio drama’ still seems like the way to go, I’ll check in with you and see if you’re interested/able to participate. This hero is a role you’d very likely play very well.

                  • I’m game.

                    JOB

                    • Angelico Nguyen, Esq., OP says

                      Excellent!!!

                      If I ever do start up this project, I will let you know. It won’t be in 2012, that’s for sure.

                      Still… be thinking about what kind(s) of role(s) you might be interested in playing. If and when!

                    • Matthew Lickona says

                      Oh, he’s got to be the seemingly righteous but also schemingly seamy Cardinal who gives me my marching orders…

                    • Angelico Nguyen, Esq., OP says

                      On His Eminence’s Secret Service

                      I was thinking JOB’s affable, voice-of-reason voice would make for a great amoral sociopath.

                    • Angelico Nguyen, Esq., OP says

                      ‘Mother Church has some… dirty laundry, Father. As you know all too well.’

                      ‘No sh–, Aquinas. What’s your point?’

                      ‘Let me put it this way, Father: How do you think the Pope keeps his whites so white? And why do you and I wear black?’

                    • Matthew Lickona says

                      Oh, this made me happy.

            • Angelico Nguyen, Esq., OP says

              I’m hoping one day to publish a story where the main villain is a ‘folk-felt’ magnate — the head of an outfit called Omni Catholic Products.

              .nofoolin

          • Angelico Nguyen, Esq., OP says

            Speaking of sloth, I’m envisioning the Seven Deadly Sins as a theme throughout the series. The hero would be always in danger of succumbing to wrath. The initial target of his wrath — the victim of a well-earned beating that would bring the hero to his superiors’ attention — would be a pedophile, a thrall of lust. The superiors, in sending the hero on missions that will tempt him to wrath — and the hero himself in consenting to go — will be giving into pride, second-guessing God’s command to avoid occasions of sin. The hero’s main critic, though a voice of conscience, would also often be open to the charge of sloth, for unholy apathy toward problems that need fixing. And along the way, there’d be plenty of gluttony, envy, and — most assuredly — greed.

  5. Jonathan Webb says

    I didn’t click the link because I just can’t handle it right now, but I know that you were absolutely incredible. The Lickona family is extremely talented.

  6. Jonathan Potter says

    So you’re pimping for the creationists in order to support your papist booze habit. I’d like to be a fly on the wall at your next visit to the confessional.

    • Matthew Lickona says

      Actually, I want to support my papist booze habit. The money I got from the Creationists I spent renting a hotel room for the family during our first-ever trip to Disneyland – an expense with which I suspect you are well acquainted.

      Trust me, by the time I’m done confessing, all flies on the wall have been incinerated. Scorched earth, baby. You don’t want to be there.

  7. Jonathan Potter says

    The narrator sounds like JOB.

  8. Lickona will be on Focus on the Family tomorrow morning and then on the Ed Schultz show on Friday.

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