Witness… The Wrong Number

At last, here we are. The end of Season 4. And I wonder how many of you who are reading this after listening “The Girl on the Phone” are ticked off by the ending. I know I said I couldn’t care less in the coda, but come on, that’s just my snarky host persona! Of course I care! That doesn’t mean I’m going to apologize, though, hehehe. However, I will explain why I went ahead and dipped into that infuriating cliche as I recap the process of bringing this episode to life.

The writing process is a peculiar one, or at least it is for me. Sometimes I’ll go into a story, be it prose- or script-style, knowing every single detail, all the ins and outs, character motivations and how things end up from point A to point B with no immediate observable flaws in sight to obstruct that journey. Other times, I’ll know just bits and pieces, like how something is going to start and end but the meat in the middle is of the mystery variety, or I won’t find the ending until I’ve gotten, say, a quarter of the way through and everything has begun to take shape. Then there are those times where I just dive in without a parachute and hope I find the net meant for my landing somewhere on the Earth’s surface.

With the scripts for Witness if You Will…, they are often split between examples two and three. As I like to approach these stories like improv scenes, I often don’t like to have too many things in mind before I start typing; usually it’s just a title, a genre, a list of character names but no idea what their full roles or personalities will be, and maybe just the beginning, like a visual image of how the thing would start were it to be on a screen or stage.

For “The Girl on the Phone,” I had a few character names and a basic idea. I didn’t even have a title, or at least one I was happy with: it was originally going to be called “The Likely Scam,” but seeing that at the top of the first page always irked me when I opened up the file. That wasn’t catchy; it was barely even an in-joke for a story where the main antagonist is actually named Scam Likely. It was only after the whole thing was finished that I landed on the title it has now, as a sort of homage to the summer beach read genre with either “Girl” or “Woman” in the title that ran rampant several years ago.

Anyways, beyond the general conceit of the mystery over whether or not Scam’s call was a legit one or not, I had no clue what was going to happen even as I was writing it. Alessandro the waiter didn’t even have a name to start off with because I didn’t anticipate his role would keep getting larger or more central to the plot; he was just “Waiter” and was meant to be a simple and funny nuisance. Almost everything, from the mobster element to all the talk of mean girls to even the overarching theme of apathy, was discovered in the moment.

Then I arrived at the point where Scam’s true intentions are revealed and everything seems to conclude. And yet… it didn’t feel over. I didn’t have the sensation I often feel when something feels completed. It wasn’t like there were any loose threads that were left untied, and the script was a decent enough length at 39 pages when all of that goes down. But as an ending, it just seemed lackluster, underwhelming, DULL, worthy of a sad trumpet noise.

So, I kept going. I explored the aftermath of such an evening with Rita and Naomi returning home. And from there, it became clear what would happen: all this talk of Vinnie DiBruzzi and we hadn’t met the man yet? Come on! So that brought a new character into the fold, right out of the ether and into the frying pan (I know that’s not the exact saying).

However, even with DiBruzzi’s inclusion, as well as the added twist of our heroes being abducted and threatened with a watery grave, I didn’t know how things were going to wrap up. I wasn’t going to kill off these characters in such a manner (and we know I don’t mind killing characters in graphic ways, sorry not sorry). So… what? They’re dumped into the bay and then…

I honestly don’t remember where the idea for giving the story an It Was All A Dream twist came from. But I do remember that it just made sense. As angry as that thought made me, it was the best conclusion for this story. Not to mention, it tied very well into the theme of apathy and not caring about others, because what’s more apathetic than telling your audience, “None of that mattered and you just wasted your time.” So in a sense, it’s meant as a meta-joke. But maybe I shouldn’t be the one to dissect my own intentions when they are just as nebulous to me as they may be to you. Still, this is the best explanation I’ve got, and, I don’t know, as infuriating as it is, I still think it’s kind of funny. Oh well.

Recording for “The Girl on the Phone” took place on March 30, 2024. Reva Grimball (Rita) recorded via Zoom as she lives on the East Coast. Reva’s name you might remember from several episodes’ Special Thanks mentions. That is because she has been a very good friend and collaborator, reading some of my stuff and giving me very constructive feedback in order to make them better. The short story I read in “The Bonus Episode” was one of those things that she helped me fine tune, so I’m very indebted to her for a lot.

As has been the case with lots of these recordings, there were some attendance issues. Adrian Ruvalcaba (Alessandro and DiBruzzi) would be arriving late, but I apparently misunderstood how he would be recording, because his arrival took place on Zoom rather than in person. Obviously, no biggie. And then Sarah Bucher (Scam Likely) wound up sick a couple of days before recording and lost her voice entirely, so even she couldn’t do it via the interwebs unless we changed it up so Scam was a heavy smoker. So, Kari McCullough (Naomi) turned out to be the only one in the room with me during recording, with Reva and Adrian both fitting onto my laptop screen. I guess that makes sense for a story about phones? Even though they weren’t on the phone per se? Whatever. Sarah and I, meanwhile, did a separate Zoom recording session once her voice had returned, and that resulted in the silly bird moment you hear at the end of the episode.

Kari McCullough (Naomi) engrossed in the script.

When it comes to summing up what Season 4 as a whole was all about, my first inkling is to say, The way we interact with and treat others. So often, no matter how much we care about them or spend time with them, we’re going to be irritated by those we love at best and absolutely infuriated by them at worst, and in turn, we will do the same things for them. And I’m not saying I’m saintly here; of course I do it, too. And then we complain about them to other friends, who for all we know are irritated or infuriated by our supposed self-centeredness and inability to live in another person’s shoes and see things from their perspective, which is likely something along the lines of not trying to be irritating or infuriating. I believe we all strive to be empathetic towards others, but a human survival instinct is, of course, to put ourselves first. What better way to take care of ourselves than never even consider the possibility that we are in the wrong?

Often times, though, no one’s intent is to hurt another person. And yet, there are those who do set out to put others down, to never even acknowledge that they have lives of their own and deserve to be treated humanely. Why, though? Why hurt somebody? No one ever hurts someone for a selfless reason, but that doesn’t mean we need to hurt them at all. We often forget that we are sharing this planet with one another, and continue to live as the walking, talking mistake machines we’ve turned out to be.

I don’t have a moral or solution to this ranting; I’m just observing. And there’s no better way to summarize this observation than this: being a human is weird. That’s all.

The faces (or backs) of weird.

I guess I’m in an introspective mood because as I write this, it’s three days since the 2024 election, and things didn’t turn out the way I had hoped. We’re back with the melting pumpkin as President, and I have no idea what to expect other than more unhinged and abominable behavior from a man who continues to skirt every consequence for his heinous actions.

I went to bed Tuesday night feeling absolutely hopeless, but when I woke up Wednesday morning, I was surprised to find that the previous night’s depression level had not grown stronger. It didn’t necessarily shrink, but whatever level it was at, it felt manageable. I wasn’t drifting through a fog as so many intense depressions have forced me to do. Sure, I spent the first part of the day giving into some version of wallowing, deciding to forgo my usual schedule and stay in bed till 12:30 in the afternoon, but when I did get up, shower, and get prepared for the day, I realized, as angry and upset as I was, there was this weird determination in me. Not just an urge to continue fighting, but a determination to not let the dark forces win. To appreciate the people in my life; to tell them that they are appreciated and loved. To make art and express myself without fear, to maybe change minds along the way. I take a strange comfort in all that. Of course, cut to next year and ask me again and we’ll see what I have to say.

ANYWHO!

That’s Season 4. Season 5 is already in production, so hopefully it won’t be as long a wait in between seasons. But while I’m speaking about S5, I have an announcement: it will be the last regular season of WiYW. I originally intended to go to Season 6, and I have plenty of other story ideas that I hope to produce in some form at some point. But as much as this podcast has been some of the most creatively fulfilling work I’ve done and how fun it has been to create these dumb little plays with my friends, the fact is that it has become somewhat difficult and time consuming to pull off a six episode batch within an idealized frame of time. Not to mention, I’ve neglected other projects of mine in favor of this one; I’m long overdue in trying to get a full length screenplay bought and produced, and I’d like to do that before I’m fucking 40. The clock’s ticking, y’all.

So, after all six episodes of S5 have dropped, that’ll be it… for a while. Time permitting, I’m sure I will wind up writing a script and fast tracking it as a special one-off, and time permitting, I suspect that will happen many times. In a sense then, it’s like nothing will change, considering there’s been so much time between seasons, so the frequency between these hypothetical bonus episodes won’t really matter at all. That’s another dose of strange comfort, hm?

For now, thank you for listening to Season 4. Now go make some art. The world needs it.

—Andy