I Don't Even Own a Television

Big fun in this big episode about Big Apple Takedown! Your hosts and exceptional guest Kefin Mahon get in the ring to take on a brief story by Rudy Josephs that reads like the world's least creative marketing executive using some extremely branded action figures slash dolls to reenact a half-remembered and very boring episode of your second-favorite TV show. Taste the thrills that only come with a book whose entire reason to exist is to remind you of things you like! Hear the confused joy of J. and Kefin as they endure the important question "Hey, are the 'characters' in this book actually the ones that are supposed to be there?"! Smell the the baffled despair in Collision's voice as he explores "who the pants are the dolls this 'writer' is playing with, anyways?"!

We may not know why this book exists, but we do know that if it's gonna go ahead and exist, we need to bag on it—hard. And that's exactly what we do. Because that's the I Don't Even Own a Television Pledge. That's what we bring to you, and that's what this dumb book earns. So slip into your tights and get ready to wrangle with a champion-level pile of garbage. NOTE: win or lose, you're gonna need a belt (of strong brown liquor) to deal with this one.

(p.s. "Shimmering Warlock" is J.'s weird wrestling-related rap project so all the bumper music in this episode is made by him and available for free streaming at soundcloud and http://shimmeringwarlock.com)

Recommendations:

• Perdido Street Station, China Mieville
• Have a Nice Day, Mick Foley
• Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë

Music:

• "Wrestling Still Rules" by Satellite High
• "Work the Angles" by Shimmering Warlock
• "Machka Udrya" by Shimmering Warlock
• "Too Flamboyant" by Shimmering Warlock

Money. Pizza. Respect. Two of these things are probably okay, but all of them will leave a bad taste in your mouth when they come from a "book" by Joshua "The Fat Jew Joke Thief" Ostrovsky. And we sincerely hope that Joshua got none of those things in exchange for cobbling together this somewhat book-like object for whatever hard-to-imagine audience he might once have had.

Yes, this episode, J. and Collision are delving deep into 2014's most second-tier memes, from "saying 'someone drinks rosé' is funny" all the way to "saying 'beef jerky' is funny". Except these memes are packaged with way more offensive epithets, racist commentary, and lazy page-occupying filler than you'd expect. Enjoy J.'s most vibrant anger yet! Snicker at Collision's least convincing high points segment ever! But most of all, sigh at the society that has made a talent-free joke thief like Ostrovsky very nearly successful.

NOTE: we expect that Joshua will respond to this the only way he knows how: by stealing somebody else's ideas. So, when he launches his own podcast about bad books, probably called "I Don't Read I Only Own a Television", with segments like "Dramatic Passage", "What Would They Choose?", and "What Is the Best?", please help us denounce this twerp's thieving ways.

Recommendations:

• The films of Amy Heckerling.
• Bee Season, Myla Goldberg

Music:

• "Shoop" by Salt-N-Pepa
• "No Scrubs" by TLC
• "Crazy B*tch" by Buckcherry
• "Refusing to be a Man" by Propagandhi

Wow, what is there to say about John Steakley's Armor? Strap on your favorite defense mechanisms and join J. and Collision as they try to answer this difficult question about a novel that dares to answer the less difficult question "what if Starship Troopers were incredibly stupid and repetitive?". Yes, we take on Armor, the book that should have been called A Constant Reminder of Better Books: The Book. As a read, Armor is a terrible slog that looks you square in the eye and shows you atrocities while growling "war...is heck" before bafflingly pivoting to whimsical wisecracking and brief interludes of rough sex. This read was not the smoothest ride, is what we're saying.Anyway, lots of fun this time around, as we reminisce, we rant, we rave, we riff, we just in general rue the day we read this wretched collection of strenuously brutal action scenes and quarter-baked philosophical musings. Yes, this is one of those books where, when you're struggling to say something nice, you end up saying "there was this literally one joke? that I didn't hate?". Enjoy the proceedings as we wrestle with a book that's not just mediocre ... it's very mediocre. Protective plating and safety eyewear recommended!

NOTE: our first post-Patreon episode, this one features excellent new microphones! Unfortunately, due to the unforeseen obstacles of life, there was some construction going on outside, so there may be a little extra buzzing and banging in the background, over which we had zero control and for which we have all the apologies.

Recommendations:

• Bible Adventures, Gabe Durham
• The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark

Music:

• "Turnstile" by Hot Water Music
• "War Pigs" as performed by Cake
• "Wargasm" by L7
• "Ants in My Pants" by James Brown

LISTENER ADVISORY: it is okay to like the Smiths, who were good; it is defensible to like Morrissey, because there's no accounting for tastes; but if you like this book, there is something seriously wrong with your Literature Appreciation Module. This episode, we're taking on an oft-anticipated "novel" by former Smiths frontman and one-time cultural icon Morrissey. It's a slim volume of overwritten truisms and underedited sentences going under the pointless title List of the Lost. Buckle in, friends, because this might be, sentence by sentence, the worst-written book J. and Collision have endured.

Thrill to: more singing than normal! Be amazed by: Collision's vast, weighty knowledge of hip-hop! Slog through: a book whose only reason for existing seems to be that ol' Mozzer isn't convinced you've heard quite enough about animal rights, sexual repression, and the dismal, deleterious effects of ... television news. Collision apologizes for his limpest approach to Plot in 60 yet. J. gets deep into personal, political, and pre-post-hardcore history. We all have a really good laugh at how Morrissey seems to think heterosexual sex acts work.

Also! We are extremely pleased to announce a way for our friends to help us keep this show rocking hard and mocking bad books: we now have a Patreon, and anything you can do to help us out will be much appreciated! No worries: the show is free and it always will be, but there's loads of cool extras available, so if you like the show and want to help us do it faster, harder, better, hit up the page and see what you can do. Thank you all, and we love you!

Recommendations:

• Diary, Helen DeWitt
• Big Brave

Music:

• "This Charming Man" by Braid
• "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want" by Deftones
• "There Is a Light" by Ghost Mouse
• "Girlfriend in a Coma" by El Mariachi Monterey

Say what you will about Led Zeppelin and the average rock bio,

Actually, I quit cocaine this morning," this book doesn't begin.

NOTE: the most notorious element of this book is a story about

Special bonus show notes!

Hi! Normally Collision writes the episode descriptions, but he's

Anyway, on this one, we talk about the book "Hammer of the Gods

We also talk a lot about Led Zeppelin and I am definitely not

Recommendations:

Music:

Spring is sproinging, and that means it's time for your favorite topic and ours: baseball! Scratch that: metaphysics! Written by a baseball player! In this episode, J. and Collision take the field with standout former catcher Darren "Dutch" Daulton and his mega-tome If They Only Knew to learn how to tune our vibrational frequencies to jump! jump! and ASCEND to new dimensions and tiers of consciousness, like the rainbows in the dark we all are. (This book is the first inaugural winner of the IDEOTVPOD Ronnie James Dio Prize for Lyrical Total Coherence.)

A great episode for anybody who wants to know about manifesting in the 4th dimension multi-dimensional universe, warfare in the spiritual realm, their pineal gland, or the human light body — also known as the Mer-Ka-Ba. Prepare to be turbo enlightened; pierce the veil; enjoy a lot of references to movies. (If you want to get a little high and crank up the Music From Hearts of Space, that would probably be a good idea.) We also cover the correct way to say "dudes sex macarena", if that's the kind of thing you're interested in. Play ball!

Recommendations:

Music:

For the show's big, blooming second anniversary, we're getting super-seductive with Harris O'Malley's most book-like object yet, New Game+: The Geek's Guide to Love, Sex, & Dating, with special guest Rachel Millman! Once again we confront a self-help book that falls on the wrong side of the Ice-T Twitter Account Quality Line (ICTTAQL, for short). Seriously: save a couple bucks and just follow Ice: he's got 'way better insights than any guy calling himself "Doctor" "Nerdlove".

In this episode, we — and you — have to deal with advice like "spray vodka on your couch to kill the smells" and "send texts like this to ratchet up the sexual tension: 'Hold on, you just gave me an interesting mental image... Okay, back now.'" That will definitely help your couch and suggest to someone that you're not a fifteen-year-old virgin. This is an episode that is guaranteed to thrill and delight in equal measure, or anyway to teach you what the saddest of our nation's dweebs are trying to do to get laid. Enjoy!

Recommendations:

Music:

Wilder than Wild Animus. Weirder than Necroscope. Wronger than Scruples. Surging it comes in from the sea off the coast of Wales, so J. and Collision must wade into ... Night of the Crabs! This is not a drill, people, this is a book by Guy N. Smith and it's definitely the best bad book we've gotten our hands on, and there is something (giant crabs invade Wales) here (tons of sex) for everyone (plot holes you could ride a giant crab through)! (Prose you will legit not believe.) (Death scenes all over the place.)

Recommended a long time ago, this book goes sideways almost instantly, and even though your hosts claw away at it, cracking wise as best they can, the whole thing is guaranteed to steam you — or leave you shell-shocked.

Ride the crab.

Recommendations:

Music:

Feel a great disturbance in the force, as though a huge number of voices cried out "this book bites!" and were not silenced, ever. This episode, IDEOTV makes the jump to hyperspace with our first live show! It features singalongs, audience readings, and all the hilarity and hate that come with a hastily-produced tie-in cash-grab like Alan Dean Foster's Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Enjoy J. and Collision and a crowd of literally dozens as they rule the galaxy* and rue the day they decided to read this tepid mess.

So hit DOWNLOAD on the ONLY podcast episode that is GUARANTEED to beam you up! – by putting a big, beaming smile on your face, of course! Polish your droid and keep one hand on your blaster as we join the "characters" in this book in asking, plaintively, "What's going to happen next?"

*Or at least the great Stage Werx Theatre in beautiful San Francisco.

Recommendations:

Music:

Webster's Dictionary defines Scruples as "HOLY CRAP THIS BOOK IS INSANE." The Wikipedia entry for "trashy book" says "Scruples; see also: Webster's Dictionary." This legendary Judith Krantz book, suggested by Contest Winner Sarah Nolastname, tells a long, raunchy tale of incredibly rich people solving non-problems and having anatomically described sex.

If you ever wondered what it would be like to live in an Eagles song for roughly 600 pages, this is the book for you. If you remember Dynasty or Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous fondly, but always wished they had more hardcore descriptions of sex acts, then this is the book for you. If you really loathe gay people and wish books never included black people, then this is the book for you. And if you like a hell of a good time, then this is definitely the episode for you!

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