[Listen]
[Intro music plays]
Woman’s Voice:
This is Behind the Cut. The companion show to Not About Lumberjacks.
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Christopher Gronlund:
In the mid-80s, a friend had a cassette tape of the Dead Milkmen’s Big Lizard in my Backyard. Before long, I had one, too.
My introduction to punk rock mostly came in the form of humorous bands, with the Vandals and The Dead Milkmen at the top for me. A borrowed copy of The Vandals’ Peace Through Vandalism lived in my car’s tape deck, and that friend and I almost wore out our copies of The Dead Milkmen’s Big Lizard in My Backyard.
When the Dead Milkmen released their second album, Eat Your Paisley, I was ecstatic. To this day, I still love every tune on that album. The ninth song on it is called “The Thing That Only Eats Hippies,” a tune about a kid who makes a monster in his bathtub for a 4-H project. The monster breaks loose [in the middle of the night] and then, well…true to the song’s title, it runs around eating hippies.
There’s a lot to like about the song; it’s one of many by the band that still finds its way into my head, where I never mind the earworm. The concept of a kid making a monster in his bathtub stuck with me for years.
Jump forward some time, and that seed of an idea came together one day when I sat down to write. I thought, “What about a story about a kid making a monster in his bathtub to take on a bully…and then things going terribly wrong?” It wouldn’t be the thing that only eats hippies…it would be a lonely kid’s only friend. Then I had to think, “Why is the kid so lonely?” Well, he’s in a messed up, broken family. He’s tired of being picked on by a kid named Chad Earnst. All that, and face it: junior high school sucked!
Making a monster in his bathtub makes perfect sense! And so, Booger became more than just an idea.
* * *
I really released my inner twelve-year-old when it came to the sound design for Booger. I’d seen a video about the sound effects behind one of the Mortal Combat videogames. In the video, the sound designer showed someone at Vox just how gross chewing a banana close to the mic could sound. He showed him how ripping apart green peppers can sound like a chest cavity being torn open with the right surrounding sounds. It was enough to get me really thinking about the sounds in Booger when it came time to record.
One night while cooking dinner, the sound of stirring rice and beans caught my attention. I grabbed a portable recorder and recorded the sounds, but it’s not used in Booger because the ambient sounds of the kitchen really stood out. Still, I knew a similar sound needed to be in the recorded story.
And so, one morning my wife shook her head as I went into a quiet closet at the back of the apartment with some sound gear, a banana, a bowl of oatmeal, and a glass of water with a straw. (Now, my wife’s a very patient woman who often takes part in helping me create sounds, but it still cracks her up at times, the efforts I go to record what I hear inside my head.) I thought the resulting sounds were funny. I figured as ridiculous as Booger is, why not go all-out with vile sound design?
* * *
Sound is a strange thing. You can shoot a mediocre video, but if it has great sound, it’s watchable. But if you watch a strong video with terrible sound…well, most people will move on. Good sound design often goes unnoticed because it helps people lose themselves in a story…whether it’s an audio tale like those on Not About Lumberjacks, or a multi-million-dollar movie.
While I thought the sound design for Booger was simply fun and funny, it really got to people. I heard from more listeners about Booger than perhaps any story I’ve ever told on Not About Lumberjacks. One morning alone, several friends messaged me about how gross the story sounded. During a recent board game night with friends, one of them mentioned about how hard it was for him to listen to, and another friend admitted the sounds got to him as well.
I listen to every story on Not About Lumberjacks multiple times before I let them go online. The reward for me is listening with my wife. By the time we sit down together, it’s more a visual thing for me because I’ve heard the story so many times. I don’t like hovering when people read a story I’ve written because I know it makes them nervous. But watching my wife hear a story for the first time is one of the reasons I do this show.
Watching her listen to Booger, though…I realized what I’d grown used to really was really quite vile. Seeing her face twist into shocked expressions with each new layer of sound made me wonder if I’d gone too far. I don’t talk about it, much, but I’m in the process of querying agents with a “serious” novel. I almost didn’t post Booger in fear that, no matter how strong an agent might feel the accompanying sample of the novel was…if they did just a little bit of research, they’d find Not About Lumberjacks, click the top story, and think to themselves, “Oh…oh, no. No. This cannot stand…This is a very wrong person!”
At the same time, I often think about my life in these terms: would younger me like the adult I grew up to become?
I think younger me would be quite impressed to see that we’re finally skilled enough to pull off the kind of serious fiction we were never quite sure we could write, but aspired to nonetheless. Younger me would be happy to see that we still play Dungeons and Dragons and that we can finally play some musical instruments with at least a vague proficiency. And younger me would think the sound design in Booger is the greatest thing ever!
So, if Booger grossed you out, blame the awkward kid I once was…and, of course, The Dead Milkmen.
* * *
[Theme music fades in]
Christopher Gronlund:
Thank you for listening to Not About Lumberjacks and Behind the Cut. Theme music for Behind the Cut is a tune called Reaper by Razen. Visit nolumberjacks.com for information about the music, the episodes, and voice talent.
In two weeks, it’s the November anniversary episode in which I go beyond my normal promise to never – ever – tell a story about lumberjacks. Join Cynthia Griffith and me for a tale called…The Lumberjack of Williamsburg.
Until next time: be mighty, and keep your axes sharp!
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