I Don't Even Own A Television

Hi, all. Probably this won't come as a giant surprise, given our erratic schedule and limited output the past couple years, but the time has come to make it offical: We're ending the show. There's no beef, there's no stress, but there is some sadness, and we recorded an episode to announce the end of the show and talk through it a bit. The goal is to keep the archive available, but the Patreon will be shutting down by the end of April, 2023, so download anything from there that you want to hold on to. It's been a lot of fun making this show for you all, and we encourage you all to ride the crab, keep reading crap, and try to make the world a little better any time you can. Recommendations: Start your own fuckin' band! Music: "No Regrets" by Dramarama "History Lesson, Part II" by the Minutemen  

No, it's not a new made-up term for a sexual position—as far as we know!—it's the new Lucy Foley joint, The Paris Apartment! It's darker than a wine cellar, twistier than an alley in your favorite arrondissement, but, unfortunately, about as eventful as an afternoon sighing with ennui over a couple of Gauloises and a well-nursed café au lait in a Left Bank café. Pat your new Karen O. fringe into an appealing dishevelment, make your best face to express that you have the darkest of dark secrets and make sure you've got a skeleton key for all your neighbors' places, because it's time to take a trip into what some people are calling ... la'part-a-ment Parisienne, but what we know to call The Paris Apartment. Recommendations: Paul Tremblay, The Pallbearer's Club Jane Peck, The Verifiers Diane Duane, The Door into Fire plus The Worst Bestsellers Ep on it! Mood Music: "Heads Will Roll" by Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Bastille Day" by Rush

With tramps like these, hoo boy, do things get real and stay there in a hurry as your humble hosts pop their clutches and tell Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon's Born to Run: A Novel of the SERRAted Edge to eat their dust! It's another novel of the urban fantastique, with an Irish pub described as "straight-edge", a couple battle scenes where you can really see the graph paper underneath the characters, and some of the most improbable radio playlists imaginable, and, as a novel of (sigh) the urban fantastique, one of us slides right off it and the other digs his eldritch fangs right into it. But not like that, the other way. NOTE: This novel, while mostly lighthearted, does traffic in material related to child sexual abuse and exploitation, in way reminiscent of a particularly tawdry episode of SVU. NOTE 2: Clsn now realizes he missed a good opportunity to pronounce it "elfs" throughout the episode and regrets the error. Recommendations: Upright Women Wanted, by Sarah Gailey Everything Everywhere All at Once

Well, friends, it's surely time to put on your red shoes and dance the blues, this time along with us as we lace 'em up and see The Playmakers Series series of hockey romance novels, in this case Gauging the Player: A One-Night Stand Sorts Romance by G.K. Brady. Believe us, to see the Playmakers Series make a scoring rush, the bright colors of the prose flashing against the milky e-reader screen, is to see a work of art in motion. As one character's beloved grandmother says, this is "No chickenshit crap, now, you hear?" It's a ton of fun to watch the will-they (again) / won't they (again) after they do, bigtime, and we invite you to drop your gloves, pick up your earbuds, and skate a shift with us as we watch two crazy kids try to escape the penalty box of life—together. It's the only book you'll ever read that nudges the entrance!   Recommendations: Elden Ring Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner Music: "Fuck the Pain Away" by Peaches "So Into You" by Climax Blues Band "work hard, play hard" by Palace

No know Jack? No, know Jack! Jack Reacher, that is, as we for some reason decide to experiment with CBS-grade Reacher-adjacency with Diane Capri's series-starting Don't Know Jack. This is a gaiden, in which the titular Jack is most present in his absence, as a wise-cracking pair of FBI Human Resources Detectives are looking to reconstruct a series of events more or less clearly laid out in a book available at any airport bookstore. NOTE: this is probably not a gaiden, but either way, absolutely do not @ us. Anyway, if you want to hear some serious airport positivity, this is the episode for you! So grab your earbuds and make sure to leave early for your flight, because by the time this episode is over, you'll be saying "I Know 'Don't Know Jack'!".   Recommendations: "Nancy" comics by Olivia Jaimes "My Dark Vanessa" by Kate Elizabeth Russell Music: "Happy Jack" by The Who "jack shit" by Teen Angels "Atom Jack" by Drive Like Jehu

We're off the dang map here, folks, because we don't know where we are, but we do know that here? there be monsters! Just in time for spooky season, we're taking on one of the giants of the bad-book genre, Hannibal by Thomas Harris. This book is a big, corrosive bummer, with lots and lots of moments where the words on the page seem to rearrange themselves into concrete poetry of the author's middle finger extended, straight into the reader's face, and even more moments where the narrator is calling you "we" or being very, one might say scrupulously, careful to mention the race of every character (except the white ones) and the attractiveness levels of every lady-type character. Come for the shopping sprees, but STAY for the choppin—you know what, I don't even have the energy to finish this one. It's a direct sequel to Silence of the Lambs. You think you know what you're in for. You don't. That's why...you need us! Take our hands and join us through a whirlwind tour of hog farming and new love. Recommendatio

Homefolks, we came to party, and your eyes were looking at ... Nöthin' but a Good Time: The Uncensored History of the '80s Hard Rock Explosion by Tom Beaujour and Richard Bienstock and it is well and truly time to push the opening acts off the stage and get ready for the *looks down at padded codpiece under spandex trousers* main event, if you know what our book's subjects are talking about AND I THINK THAT YOU DO. That's right: we're heading to the Sunset Strip of Los Angeles, California, USA, circa 1985, and we're just investigating the plain HECK out of the local flora and fauna. Or at least asking the local flora and fauna to tell us what was on their minds 'way back when. And when it gets boring we set off flash pots and / or whang the switch that makes the drum kit start chugging down a long set of railroad tracks it's attached to—it'll all make sense by the end, we promis, so please! put your lighters in the air and get ready for two hard-rocking slabs of hard-rocking rock, followed by one semi-explic

Since it's been a while, and we're currently slogging through a very long book for the next episode, we decided to give ALL of our listeners a chance to hear the new episode we just released for our patreon donors. It's not about a book. Most of our bonuses episodes aren't, really. But it is a lot of fun! This isn't going to be a common occurrence, but we missed you. And we hope you missed us, so here it is -- We ease back into the podcasting game with the early-aughtsiest slice of cinema we could find, the unexpectedly successful film Resident Evil!  But is it merely a box-office success, or is there artistic success there as well?  MASH THAT PLAY BUTTON AND FIND OUT, WHY DO YOU NOT? A movie so early-2000s you expect it to have stories about Woodstock '99, Resident Evil is a serious-faced attempt to honor the, ah, let's call it a "mythos" of the games, with plenty of atmosphere, some not entirely expected pacing, and some brutal moments, some of which it turns out we've seen before. So hitch up your JNCOs

It's time to get what an old boss of Clsn's used to call "choiceful" in these all-too-choice-free times, so we break format a little bit (and break out laughing a lot) with a "Which Way" book, in which we try and mostly fail to become the titular Champ of TV Wrestling. Do the elegant diversions of a more innocent age hold up in today's bustling, hugger-mugger world of screens and Tik-Tok and whatnot? We invite you and all your friends to choose to find out! Click on in and try your luck with the champs of ... The Champ The Champ of TV Wrestling, that is! Recommendations: The Murderbot Diaries, by Martha Wells Enjoy the things that make you happy! Music: "Theme to Greatest American Hero" by Mike Post "Theme to Rock and Wrestling" "Freewill" by Rush

We live in a world that has hippos, and those hippos have to be ridden by people with weapons. Who's gonna do it? You? These people have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for victims of hippos, and you curse the hippo riders. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what we know. That hippos eat people, but that probably saves lives. And our existence as a podcast, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves time. You don't want the truth, because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want us reading these books, you need us reading these books. We use segments like "High Points, Low Points", "Dramatic Readings", "What Would They Do". We use these segments as the backbone of lives spent reading stuff and talking about it. You use them as a way to kill some time between other activities, or during them. We have neither the time nor the inclination to explain ourselves to listeners who rise and grind under the blanket of the very enterta

For SO many reasons, it's time to get out of town, and so we're hitting the road to check out some of those hot Atlanta Nights we've been hearing so much about! Atlanta Nights is a truly bizarre artifact, so strange that it forces us to break our own rules and stretch our own format, as we take a deep dive into the churned-up waters of "bad on purpose" and find ... well, okay. Look. You know that one friend of yours, here, deep into 2020, who still thinks "my pants are suddenly tighter" is still a funny way to describe an erection? (In local podcast terms, we call that one friend "The Clsn".) This book has probably five of those jokes. Accompany us, won't you, as we step into restaurant after restaurant to indulge our ... appetites—but ONLY after dark, because this is not a daytime affair, friends, no, no, no. This is an affair of ... Atlanta Nights. Want to check out Atlanta Nights for yourself? You can do it so at HERE. We love you! Recommendations: Sun Don't Shine movie The Murderbot Diaries by Marth

It's a tradition like no other, as our friend Stef Gray joins us to discuss our second consecutive book entitled...Dachshund Through the Snow! This time through, we get substantially increased Dachshund quantities, more flashbacks than is probably reasonable, and an amiable lope of a story of a few women passing through some extremely family-friendly challenges. Regardless of the challenge, however, we're pretty sure these Dogmothers are down for anything and up to the task! If your dogs are barking, come on in and take a load off! Pound that download button, because it's time for Greek to meet Irish and this is the episode that will finally let you get your Yia-Yia's out! Recommendations: Swing Time by Zadie Smith Paper Mario Eating food in Astoria, Queens Listening to the Dogmother Music: "Jingle Bells" by Barking Dogs "Memories Can't Wait" by Living Color "Charity, Chastity, Prudence, and Hope" by Hüsker Dü EDITOR'S NOTE (JWF): Apologies for the audio quality, the late release, and the lack of a

Here on IDEOTV, it's Christmas in ... okay, August, but still it's time for some wintry festivities as we read—and talk about!—Dachshund Through the Snow: An Andy Carpenter Mystery! It's a murder mystery, a searing portrait of small-down power, corruption, and lies, a thrilling tale of corporate malfeasance, and a legal procedural, but really what it is is a story about a guy who doesn't want to do anything except watch ESPN with his buddies, who similarly want only to watch ESPN. "Dudes rock", in book form! Grab a shovel and prepare yourself for the ultimate in tension and the premier in punny titles, because like a cake out in the rain or an actor out on loan, our minds are squirming like a toad because it's time for ... Dachshund Through the Snow. Recommendations: "Abracadabralifornia" by The Pepper Men (Jon Daly) You Must be New Here by Ganser Music: "By-Tor and the Snow Dog" by Rush "Child's Christmas in Wales" by John Cale "Rich Man's World" by Immortal Technique

Lighters are clicking and flicking, wheels are rolling, and badasses are extremely American this time around as we climb into our *checks notes* LandMasters and take off across the blasted countryside of ... Damnation Alley. Tuff-guy posturing meets clouds of suspiciously sweetly scented smoke and maybe a few more descriptions of the sky than you were expecting, and the IDEOTV men have to have ANOTHER on-air strategy session to address WHY do all these books have damn' PLAGUES in them, anyway. We can't exactly give this book a ringing endorsement, we're not clappers in its audience, but we're not on Team Pull 'Er from the Shelves, either. If you'd like to know more about what we ding Damnation Alley on, press the button and maybe grab your bong! Recommendations: Blue Light Yokohama by Nicolás Obregón "Letterheads" by Sarah Jeong Music: "1,133 Rite of Spring Beats" by Various Artists "Undertaker Theme (12th) American Badass Uncensored Green Grass INtro" by Jesus, who CARES

Oh my goodness, this is gonna be a wild (broomstick) ride, as the all-time oldest friend of the show, Jeb "@mobute" Lund comes back to help us live deliciously and handle the weirdness of The Coven, by second-tier Watergate figure E. Howard Hunt, writing as "David St. John". And, in a way, aren't we all writing as David St. John? We should note that this is a pulp novel of the early 70s, and, as such, blasts casual slurs, offensive stereotypes, and wide-spectrum ignorance and hostility onto basically every page: We work hard to skirt this garbage, but it's there throughout. If you want to skip this ep, we'll understand, and we certainly suggest you skip this book. But if you're in a mood for a two-fisted, many-piped Washington lawyer with some controversial opinions about young, handsome senators and, eventually, witchcraft, then fire up some incense, polish your cauldron and iron your hair, because you've just been granted access to ... The Coven.   Recommendations: L.A. Quartet by James Ellroy Perry Ma

We can hear you already, you're saying "Oh, A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning, eh, what are you talking about, COLLISION'S LIFE haw haw haw", but the joke's on you, because ... he already knows. He knows. In any case, we picked this because we thought we'd try to keep on keeping things light, but ended up in one of our more contentious episodes, as Clsn kept holding things up and saying "This is a fun bit of mall goth writing for kids!" and J. kept saying "Sure fine whatever but also it's dumb and bad" and ... well ... it's not like J.'s wrong, so. Anyway, you're laughing at us because we're different, but we're laughing at YOU because you're all the same and you'll be laughing at this EPISODE because it's funny! This one is also a fantastic way to hear our direst schemes for bilking orphans, if that's your thing. NOTE: bilking orphans is NOT our thing. Allegedly. "Allegedy" is a word that here means "even if it turns out we do bilk an orphan or two, we can't be sued because we weren't plan

Sometimes we need to retreat to the porch with some kind vibes and mostly harmless advice, and that's why this time around, we reached into the past for All I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. It's a thick slice of I'm okay and you're okay so let's talk about dinosaurs and space with youth pastor slash weed dad Robert Fulghum. So grab a cold drink and some comfortable clothes, because we're going to go forth and jump in puddles! NOTE TO SELF: Check to see if jumping in puddles is actually fun. Seems kinda cold and wet. Also, Jay would like to see that chicken-fried steak is the best thing to write an essay about. Recommendations: "My Quarantine: Cozy Mysteries", by Sarah Manguso "Contradiction - The All-Video Murder Myserty Adventure" game. Music: "I Don't Wanna Grow Up" by Tom Waits "Kindergarten" by Faith No More

'E's a (hairy) wizard, is 'arry ... 'arry Dresden, that is, Chicago's only professional wizard and the protagonist of a book entitled Storm Front: Dresden Files Volume 1. On the plus side, a book called Storm Front featuring a dude named "Dresden" somehow manages not to go to objectionable places. On the minus side, this book is such a bland mess that even the climax explicitly having a wizard fight his foes by magically making a broom sweep those foes away, Sorcerer's Apprentice style, actually registers. Anyway, sub-Moonlighting flirting, a portrayal of lesbian vampires that would embarrass a Cinemax executive, and a narrator in a duster, cowboy boots ... and sweatpants. Yes, this book has "it" "all" for some very particular values of those terms, and it is our absolute pleasure to be able to escort you through the mean streets and magic-scorpion-ridden elevators of Harry Dresden's Chicago, so grab your slicker and get ready for some heavy weather, because what's moving in ... is a Storm Front! Recomme

Because timing is the essence of success and entertainment, we're kicking off our latest huge crossover with Kait & Renata from Worst Bestsellers by taking on Resident Evil Volume II: Caliban Cove, an original novel about ... a horrible virus. We promise, however, that the episode is a lot of fun even if the book was a little too close to our current moment! Cool hangs with four of your bad-book buds: what more could you ask for? Oh! You want to ask for more? Okay, how about "sweaty ghosts"? Flight-preparation kibitzing? Subtle grenade foreshadowing that isn't very subtle? This one has everything up to and definitely including probably the most savage Karen-centric action in any book we've ever seen. If you're ready for a classic Resident Evil experience (prowling through an abandoned laboratory waiting for the monsters to show up), and a classic Worst Bestsellers / IDEOTVPod experience (cracking jokes while waiting for the monsters to show up) then this should be an infectious good time!   Recommenda

You've all hit the trifecta, because this episode your long shot has finally come in and we take on our first Dick Francis book, the slightly disappointingly not-horse-dense-enough sorta-thriller The Danger. (Still enough horses in the book that one paragraph in the book runs "Horses. So many horses.") What should be a cracking good adventure, with exciting locations (Italy! London! the English seaside! where/whatever the heck "Lambourn" is...Washington DC...hmm. Starting to see the problem) and interesting characters (erm) running around and doing fun work (preventing and resolving kidnappings) somehow collapses into a mostly forgettable affair with the occasional pleasant surprise and a whole lot of opportunities for a nice nap. But that's the bad book business for you: sometimes the books just aren't very good. The episode, however, is good cranky fun, with plenty of rosé flowing and the next digression never waiting for the starting gun. So strap on the feed bag of ... sound, and enjoy the hooves thrummi