Episode 16: Cease & Desist
May 2nd, 2019
Hosted by Brian Birnbaum
Guests: Ganesh Sarma, Austin Hannah, Shane Burklow
Produced by Katie Rainey
The Animal Riot Podcast is bursting with ebullience over our latest episode featuring the co-creators and -hosts of Amazon Book Club, perhaps the funniest literary podcast out there right now. Tune in to hear an impromptu sample of the ABC podcast -- i.e. us picking a ripely self-published book on Amazon and providing unparalleled insight as we read its first page -- and a discussion of the podcast's risks, which include receiving cease and desist letters from disgruntled contestants.
>> Brian: Welcome to the sixteenth episode of the Animal Riot Podcast brought to you by Animal Riot, a literary press for books that matter. I'm your host, Brian Birnbaum. We're here today with Ganesh Sarma, Austin Hannah and Shane Burklow... Burk-low... Burk-law?
>> Shane: Burk-low.
>> Brian: Burk-low.
>> Shane: Yeah, you got it.
>> Shane: It's like the low burk. That's how I think of it.
>> Brian: I can see Lil John getting down with that.
>> Shane: In 13 years, I never thought to get burk low.
>> Brian: That's tough. Well too late (laughs).
>> Shane: We'll work it in somewhere.
>> Brian: So, yeah, you guys are the co host, I should say, and creators of Amazon Book Club, a podcast who's each episode features a free e book on Amazon. That's all I'm going to say right now and let you guys explain it. Today's brand of fuckery is brought to you by AWP. Do you guys know what AWP is?
>> Austin: Uh, it's a root beer? (laughter)
>> Brian: A&W. I like that. That's close. They should rename it. It's a writer's conference that we all just got back from. You know what it is?
>> Austin: No, I saw your posts about it.
>> Brian: Ah, wow. We're famous. So there's, like, twelve thousand of us that congregate on the city. And the city was Portland.
>> Austin: Awesome. Twelve thousand of us is a terrifying thing to say.
>> Brian: The Lyft and Uber drivers were like, What the fuck's going on right now?
>> Shane: How was it? Was a lot of fun?
>> Brian: It was a lot of fun. Who would have thought that writers like to drink a lot, you know? So I was there doing God's work, which was drinking and reading and shit. So I'm not going to do anything crazy.
>> Austin: That's the essence of humanity.
>> Brian: So the challenge is like, I don't know... Katie, did you have a challenge? Our producers did. Four doughnuts.
>> Austin: I can eat four doughnuts.
>> Brian: Yeah, four doughnuts into one person. You volunteered
>> Austin: Sure. Is there a time limit?
>> Brian: Let's just say by the end of the episode.
>> Austin: That's a lot of doughnuts
>> Brian: But we've already talked about the Odyssey on this episode on the podcast. I'm sorry before, and I'm just going to say it right now. We have to because there's only four doughnuts on here and I want to put in comparison. The Odyssey is... we can cut this out. I don't give a fuck.
>> Austin: Leave it in. I want to hear this later (laughter).
>> Brian: We're going to say it again. For anyone who hasn't heard this episode, there's four numbers. Six, twelve, eighteen and twenty four. You have to sign one of those numbers to another activity. So the four activities are completed masturbations. Jizzes, what have you. Beers drank. Doughnuts eaten.
>> Shane: Oh shit.
>> Brian: So you know, this is below the threshold of the Odyssey. The four Odyssey numbers. And miles ran. So, yeah, I just wanted to, you know, for posterity. Okay. So, yeah, explain the podcast. You volunteered.
>> Austin: Sure. I did. Also, I say this verbatim on the podcast every week.
>> Brian: Well, state your name for the record. So we know we can match, you know, names, the voices
>> Austin: My name's Austin Hannah. When you hear this voice only to think Austin Hannah. What we do on our podcast Amazon Book Club is we read a free book from Amazon Prime. They're not really free. You have to pay $120 per year for it.
>> Ganesh: Per month?
>> Austin: Also an aside, one of my co workers admitted to forging college transcripts so he can tell him it's on that he's still a student, so he's been paying half price for like ten years.
>> Brian: Wow, I feel like you can do you could put in less effort for a greater return on some racket, you know?
>> Austin: I agree. Like counterfeiting. So either way. So let's say you're paying sixty dollars because you're forging your transcripts. You get these e books, we read the first twenty five percent mark, fifty percent mark, seventy five percent mark. In the last page of the book, we read five pages of the book, which some may say is not reading the book, and then we kind of as we go through the book, we comment on it. We kind of interrupt and put our thoughts on it.
>> Shane: Yeah, Ganesh reads it.
>> Ganesh: You don't actually read any of it. I read it all to you like I'm your parent.
>> Austin: Well, in some ways, you are.
>> Shane: I barely even listen. Half the time I'm zoning out.
>> Austin: I hear, like, one word every so often. And then I'm like, Oh, yeah, let me say something about that.
>> Brian: Just extrapolate from that word? I love it.
>> Shane: Then we spend ten minutes talking about our favorite cereals or television chefs.
>> Ganesh: We argue about sandwiches a lot.
>> Austin: Yeah, for a literary podcast, there's a lot of talk about...
>> Ganesh: We're not a literary podcast.
>> Brian: Oh you definitely are. You're doing great work, guys because, you know, someone needs to know. Someone needs to tell them.
>> Austin: If a tree falls in the woods and nobody hears it, did it really fall?
>> Shane: These books exist and we give them the air they need to live. That's what I say.
>> Austin: Beautiful. I should say that on the podcast that we host (laughter).
>> Brian: Have you guys actually tracked sales after you do an episode? That's not possible for you guys, I guess.
>> Austin: Well, the other thing is they're free so they don't really sell (laughter).
>> Brian: Or downloads.
>> Shane: All of the authors say that their best selling authors.
>> Brian: Oh, I'm not supposed to believe everyone that says that on Twitter?
>> Austin: No. Believe it or not. Some people are lying about it. But I will say, like our episode listens are not terrific. But they are often higher than the number of reviews of book has. So I'm like there's probably some episodes where you more people have listened to it than read the book. I hope that overall, it's a positive influence on these books and people get attention from it.
>> Ganesh: And the books themselves, although they're free, they're like gateway drugs into the series. I guess the concept is you get the first book for free, and then you have to pay money for the rest of the series. Like that free book so much you're going to read seven or eight more.
>> Brian: That's like my weed dealer on 150th. Like when I met him, he's like, Yo, I got Bud and I was like, I have some. He's like here first one's on me. I was like, You just got a new client, man.
>> Austin: The first hit is on me. This Texas based romance novel about a lonely cop is free and then you can read the rest of the twenty books in the series.
>> Ganesh: That are the exact same.
>> Brian: And you guys have definitely done it right?
>> Shane: We've seen all these crazy like subcultures that people are obsessed with. There's definitely a cop romance thing.
>> Austin: A lot of books about, like lonely law enforcement officers.
>> Shane: It is definitely huge.
>> Brian: It sounds like noir. It's like a specific type of noir?
>> Austin: That's almost putting something too nice of it.
>> Shane: It's definitely like graphic sex.
>> Austin: Yeah, that too. There's a lot of romance, romance in air quotes, meaning a lot of weird sex stuff. But it's often about...
>> Ganesh: Poorly written sex scenes as well.
>> Shane: You would write them better?
>> Austin: Some of them are written beautifully.
>> Ganesh: Yeah, I think I would write a better.
>> Brian: That's like cards against humanity card right there.
>> Austin: Poorly written sex scenes could have been the name of our podcast. I would say generally, I wouldn't say they're poorly written. I tried to go into it with a positive attitude that maybe this book will be good. I would say that's our general attitude. We don't go into it thinking like, Let's just rip this book.
>> Shane: We get surprised. I mean, we enjoy some of them, but the thing is also like, we're only reading like the very bare bones, like the complete bare minimum. And we have no idea what's going on when we jump ahead. So a lot of it's us, like framing, going these stories for each other. And we're way off, like all the time.
>> Austin: Yeah. I mean, that's kind of the fun of the podcast is a kind of tried to fill in the blanks and figure out what's happening again. Not the way anybody would recommend you read a book, but it's going to get at it.
>> Brian: Do you guys, uh, you guys wanted to do one, right? Yeah, I thought that was your idea. And I think we should. And I could totally sit on the sidelines.
>> Austin: We could do like a chapter of a book.
>> Brian: Yeah, Yeah, let's do that. Yeah, a little sample, A little sample of the sample of the book.
>> Austin: Yeah, alright.
>> Shane: Taste. Yeah, Just a tiny taste of this smaller.
>> Austin: Some like, piece of a little bit. All right. Yeah, we could do that. I can do it.
>> Brian: Yeah, I'm ready. Someone's life is about to change.
>> Austin: Which other author, Which is a big way. Weirdly enough, We don't really hear from too many authors.
>> Shane: Except a couple we've heard from two: one positive one Negative
>> Austin: Yeah. One extremely negative. Should we get into the negative?
>> Brian: Let's do one first.
>> Austin: You want to do one first?
>> Austin: Let's do a chapter of a book here.
>> Shane: Alright. Ganesh is taking out his pocket notebook.
>> Ganesh: So the great thing about my Amazon account now is it just recommends bullshit books now.
>> Austin: Just for the record, I'm going to eat my first doughnut.
>> Brian: Good job.
>> Austin: I'm not gonna talk for like fifteen minutes (laughs)
>> Brian: Excellent. Entenmann's can't go wrong.
>> Ganesh: How about "Spooky Shopping Mall"? (laughter)
>> Austin: Sure.
>> Brian: That's a Jamie Lee Curtis movie.
>> Ganesh: Oh shit. "Cutie pies and deadly lies"?
>> Austin: I kind of like "Spooky Shopping Mall". This is how we choose the book for the podcast. We talk for five minutes and go this title's funny.
>> Shane: Or if the cover is outrageous. I don't know where they find the designers that put the covers together. But it's definitely, like one stock hot man body that they use on all of them.
>> Austin: Yeah I've seen, the same abs across many books.
>> Shane: That guy's rolling in the dough, man, whoever that six pack is.
>> Ganesh: Someone on fiverr for sure.
>> Austin: Man, I would love to be the guy on fiverr. That's just like, take a picture of my abs for one hundred dollars. Okay, You find a book?
>> Ganesh: Yeah. "Spooky shopping mall". Do you want to know what? We're going to do the first page?
>> Austin: Yeah, it sounds good. And then maybe we could finish it on our podcast. I don't know what we'll have a little to be continued.
>> Ganesh: So normally I would read the synopsis first to give a context. But I'm going to skip it.
>> Austin: Yeah, let's just get into it.
>> Brian: You sure you don't want to do context? I mean, I kind of want them.
>> Shane: That's my favorite part.
>> Ganesh: Alright, this is "Spooky Shopping Mall" by Steve Higgs and Jenna Higgs.
>> Brian: That is co-written.
>> Austin: I will say another big trope in the free e book game is it's a lot of couples that right together a lot of people teaming up. If you thought these books for good with one author, just wait til two take a stab.
>> Shane: We do have a favorite.
>> Ganesh: Sean Platt, Johnny B Truant.
>> Brian: Yes. Yes, I want to believe those aren't pen names.
>> Austin: Yeah, Johnny B Truant has to be a real person.
>> Ganesh: He's written probably our favorite book that we've read on the podcast. Fat Vampire? And Fat Vampire 2. Those were good ones.
>> Austin: For a while, he had a writing partner which seems to have disappeared at some point. Yeah, we're just Truant at this point.
>> Shane: Yeah, pure Truant is where the action happens.
>> Brian: I think Johnny killed him.
>> Austin: I mean, the success got to his head I think.
>> Ganesh: If you love deeply funny, page turning mysteries like those by Amanda Liam... I'm going to skip these names. When historical... when hysterical customers claim their shopping mall
>> Austin: Another good part of the podcast is Ganesh just fucks up words all the time.
>> Ganesh: I fuck up so much.
>> Brian: And you guys just edit it?
>> Austin: No, we point and laugh.
>> Brian: It sounds so smooth when I'm listening.
>> Ganesh: Oh, he cuts it a little bit.
>> Brian: Yeah, I was going to say it sounds like just you guys.
>> Shane: We're just riffing. You clean up like us, breathing heavily and grunting and moaning into the microphone.
>> Austin: Shane's often grunting into the microphone.
>> Shane: Or the stupid little vape noise. You hate that.
>> Ganesh: Yeah, you gotta stop hitting the juul.
>> Brian: It's like Lil Wayne on the Carter 3 with the bubbler. (laughter)
>> Ganesh: You just changed my mind. I want you guys to rip the Juul more often.
>> Austin: All right, let's do this.
>> Brian: Sorry, we're interrupting.
>> Ganesh: So when hysterical customers claim their shopping...
>> Austin: That's the point, we interrupt him all the time (laughter). He loves it too.
>> Ganesh: Nope. When hysterical customers claim their shopping has been stolen by a ghost. The shopping mall manager calls the only Paranormal Investigation agency in the book... Meet Amanda Harper Paranormal PI
>> Brian: Not in the world. The book (laughter).
>> Ganesh: Does she have any idea what she's doing and why? Oh, why did she invite sassy BFF Patience Woods to help her out.
>> Austin: That's a great name, Patience Woods.
>> Brian: That is good. I'm not going to make the obvious joke here
>> Shane: That's got a lot going on.
>> Brian: This is an all in the first book? This isn't the series?
>> Ganesh: This is one book.
>> Brian: Wow, that is a... I don't remember that whole plot.
>> Austin: That's part of the other thing about the pockets is, well, just never touch on a lot of this way. We'LL never see the billionaire
>> Shane: Well, they're all paced like TV movies, like So Much is going on and they don't have a lot of room to work with it. They must watch a lot of TV movies.
>> Austin: I will say this is like the Hallmark Channel of books.
>> Brian: Yeah, I was going to say it sounds like a lifetime / sci fi channel movie.
>> Austin: Yeah, this sci fi books are my personal favorites because those are the ones where the authors just go buck wild and just come up with all kinds of weird for a world that doesn't exist, like every sci fi book has, like every planet's name. And like every different kind of species, it's my favorite trying to build a universe. World building.
>> Ganesh: I can't stand that.
>> Austin: You don't have an imagination.
>> Ganesh: All right, I like the Tom Clancy knock off.
>> Brian: Oh, yeah, that's beautiful stuff.
>> Austin: Yeah, the ones that are just like total military fetishism.
>> Brian: Yeah, way just waiting for Nicolas Cage to read the script.
>> Austin: Yeah, it was about a special Ops guy who looks like a dog died and it was depressing.
>> Shane: I feel like Jon Voight has, like, all of those books.
>> Austin: And he was probably written a couple himself. Well, do you want to read the book first? Off your phone. This is a different experience.
>> Ganesh: Usually read off a forty dollars Amazon kindle.
>> Brian: We should get paid for that kind of advertising.
>> Austin: That's what I'm saying. Amazon's in the damn name. I don't even like Amazon. Yet we're not raking in any money yet, Which is fine.
>> Ganesh: All right, here we go…
>> Austin: Sounds like we caught the shopping bag thief. Case closed.
>> Ganesh: He looked up briefly and stepped over the threshold into the shiny metal box. Just as the doors were closing, a hand slithered between them, two pretty girls in their early twenties got in.
>> Brian: I'm in.
>> Austin: Yeah, my kind of elevator.
>> Austin: Imagine being that guy with your hand on the buttons like, where are you going? (laughter). I'll take you there.
>> Ganesh: They were on the bottom floor anyway, So whichever level they wanted, the elevator would be traveling in the right direction.
>> Shane: Great. Gotta love a good lift, huh?
>> Austin: Yeah, I don't care giver I was reading the other day that elevators. I think that they should be falling way more often. Isn't it kind of shocking to you that elevators...
>> Brian: What about it? Like, the cables?
>> Austin: How does it not fail more often?
>> Brian: I think about that with, like, things like just buildings. Yeah, I'm just like, how is that standing up? Just like the people that build them, they don't have, like PhD's like they're just like...
>> Austin: Buildings were built in like 1920.
>> Brian: That's a book.
>> Shane: They built the Empire State Building in less than a year. Yeah, that's absurd that it takes longer than that to build a Duane Reade. It's insane.
>> Ganesh: This is what happens on the podcast. They were on the bottom floor... oh I already read that.
>> Austin: That happens a lot.
>> Brian: But read it again because it was so good (laughter).
>> Ganesh: The Pentagon that only had two levels with shops... unless... this is the Pentagon Shopping Center. (laughter)
>> Austin: It's like they put a Lord and Taylor in a federal building... Where's the Dillards?
>> Shane: Have you ever been to a Dillards?
>> Austin: Hell Yeah I'm from the south, man. Where do you think I bought on my nice clothes for school?
>> Shane: You went to Dillards? I went to Belk.
>> Austin: I haven't even heard of Belk.
>> Ganesh: That's definitely a Southern thing.
>> Brian: Are you from the South as well?
>> Austin: Yeah.
>> Brian: Oh, my God. So so are our producers.
>> Austin: Where are you from?
Katie: Yes, I have heard of Belk.
>> Austin: Oh shit, finally somebody does. I just thought he made it up.
>> Brian: I'm like she's not allowed to talk now.
>> Shane: For my birthday, my mom mailed me a gift card to Belk.
>> Austin: That's the saddest thing I have ever heard.
>> Brian: What do you buy at Belk?
>> Shane: I mean, it's because the department store, it's like suspenders, settings, trousers. They sell, like bo ties a lot of like polo shirts.
>> Austin: Okay, that sounds like you.
>> Ganesh: It was one of the first indoor shopping malls built in the area way back in the seventies.
>> Brian: It's a long time ago. How's that building still standing? (laughter)
>> Austin: They don't have in elevators.
>> Shane: They do. But here it's only two floors.
>> Ganesh: The planners had undoubtedly expected the offices to be a draw when it was erected, but they mostly sat empty. Three please, the prettier of the two girls replied with throwaway smile. (laughter)
>> Brian: That is a judgement call.
>> Shane: Weird detail.
>> Austin: I was envisioning the uglier ones.
>> Brian: I also need to go back and say, Like he said, the barest whisper of a noise that was the first line. How vague is that? (laughter) Like a noise?
>> Austin: A whisper?
>> Brian: You know, elevators sound really right, right?
>> Shane: Really, really stretching out how to just say whisper, whisper of the barest hint of things. All right, you get.
>> Brian: Like a fart, but it is not like a sneeze.
>> Austin: Cool guy.
>> Shane: Leaning on the back wall? That's my move. My ankles crossed. Get my phone out. Twitter, you can't be.
>> Austin: So yeah, when I'm on the elevator, I just stand right at the doors and wait for it to open like people waiting to get on an airplane. I'm just, like, constantly there, and people have to push past me like that. I'm rude.
>> Austin: It was that guy, That weird guy. Shane?
>> Ganesh: I don't know, but I didn't like it. It was probably a power outage, he interjected. Trying to sound authoritative is knowledgeable.
>> Austin: Is he mansplaining, the elevator malfunction?
>> Brian: Not quite as hunky as...
>> Austin: That voice doesn't scream, Hunk. That's a Ganesh problem.
>> Brian: A selfie was just put in the middle of these screams? What was I doing again before I, like was scared to death?
>> Austin: Basically, Yeah, I think I'll take a picture of this. You know, I remember this.
>> Shane: Her personal brand needs the content.
>> Austin: Yeah, hashtag screaming in the elevator. He's like in the booth. This guy fucking sucks.
>> Shane: So this is a swish on the top floor because the, you know, wind carries up, puts a pressure factory or something.
>> Ganesh: They got sucked out.
>> Austin: Something Spooky is going to be in that selfie. Calling it.
>> Brian: Ohh, that's Chekhov's gun guys.
>> Shane: Chekhov's selfie (laughter)
>> Brian: Oh my God. Another person, I presume. (laughter)
>> Austin: Okay, I get it.
>> Brian: That's physics.
>> Austin: Yeah, works. That checks out.
>> Austin: What was he seeing that place?
>> Ganesh: What was he saying? He needed to show this to someone. The police? Or maybe the Ghostbusters?
>> Austin: The police. I stole this woman's phone pictures. This picture is weird.
>> Brian: Are the Ghostbusters in this book, though? That's what I want to know.
>> Austin: Maybe they kind are. They were referenced. So this exists in a world where Ghostbusters exists.
>> Brian: Yeah, but are they in the book?
>> Austin: Yeah, this's just Ghostbusters fan fiction.
>> Brian: I would like that in the summary.
>> Shane: What?
>> Brian: This is definitely Jamie Lee Curtis.
>> Shane: He named himself Hot elevator guy. Heart emoji. Call me later.
>> Ganesh: He turned to get this shopping from the floor where he had placed it. It was no longer there.
>> Shane: Damn.
>> Brian: That could be the end of the chapter right there.
>> Austin: Oh, well, I'd say that's a spooky shopping mall.
>> Brian: That was the first page, though, right? Or was the whole chapter?
>> Ganesh: That was the whole chapter.
>> Austin: Often in these free books of the chapters are just two pages.
>> Shane: Yeah, we'Ll jump ahead and it'LL be like chapter seventy one and we're like, Oh, my God. Why do that to yourself?
>> Brian: That's beautiful plot movement. As George of George Pour fame would say, in Top Gun, the plot moves every ten minutes.
>> Austin: I think that's how you should write books. One paragraph per chapter. 40 chapters and done. So that's it. That's a little taste of what we do on the podcast. There's usually some music, some sound effects. We have fun. We spent a lot of time talking about shit.
>> Brian: That's a lot like our podcast. Except we don't review free e books on Amazon. That's like, the main difference. And sometimes we get, like, a little serious, I guess you could say serious.
>> Ganesh: And you have, like, actual authors and like, real people on real people.
>> Brian: What the fuck are you guys? Apparitions on the elevator? (laughter)
>> Austin: We're definitely not serious at all. Although, but we should make the turn. I've been petitioning that we should read the Bible.
>> Brian: I like it, but, you know, and here this is a segue into the cease and desist letter. But if you think that, you know, if you got a cease and desist letter off that...
>> Austin: If we got one from God way have made it. If the Holy Father himself says You guys got to stop...
>> Shane: Leaves us a one star review on iTunes.
>> Austin: Yeah, he is a little bit.
>> Brian: Judging by the bible, he has shitty taste (laughs). I actually hear the Bible is pretty good. I'm Jewish, so I wouldn't know. (laughter). I mean actually I should. The Old Testament, right?
>> Austin: That's right. I gotta read the sequel.
>> Brian: Have you seen the new one?
>> Austin: I think we should anyone think for the hundredth episode we should do the Bible. I'm petitioning for that.
>> Brian: I would co sign on whatever shit you catch.
>> Austin: We're going to get in there and read between the lines of the Bible and see if you can find something that nobody's noticed. A fresh take on the Bible's.
>> Shane: No one's really dissected the Bible on a podcast.
>> Brian: Well, they probably have (laughter). But not like you guys would.
>> Shane: I have no idea what's going on with the Bible these days.
>> Austin: A lot of characters. And they're all like one hundred something years old.
>> Shane: They're all really old?
>> Austin: Yes.
>> Shane: That doesn't really add up.
>> Austin: But you got to read the Bible, man. All right, we're going to catch up on this later. We'LL talk about the Bible.
>> Brian: Yeah, let's talk about the cease and desist. So let's talk about what book it was.
>> Austin: Sure, Yeah, it's been a long time. We just name names and say the book, right. This is going to be the end of us. He will catch wind of this and be like, all right, you pushed me too far.
>> Brian: We're going to somehow get this on, like, tape and just like mail it to him.
>> Austin: This will be like in the documentary about our lawsuit... We read a book...
>> Brian: That's why they're selling, man... for free.
>> Ganesh: That wasn't even the name of the book. That was like the byline of the book.
>> Austin: The byline was is the author's name. This was like the subtitle of the byline.
>> Ganesh: Sorry.
>> Austin: And we were like, that's weird. We don't really want to say that on the episode. Here is the real back story to this is Ganesh picked this book. Me and Shane didn't like it.
>> Ganesh: Based on the cover.
>> Austin: Me and Shane were like, I don't think it's going to be a good book. I don't really want to do it.
>> Brian: And when you say good, obviously we're talking about good to do on a podcast?
>> Austin: More like will this be a fruitful episode?
>> Brian: Because I got to say Just like I got to say none of these books are good.
>> Austin: You're right. There has to be some veneer of like they could be good.
>> Brian: Yeah, right.
>> Austin: They're not good.
>> Shane: That's the things, I don't want to rip off some, like a dumb pickup artist book.
>> Brian: Because it's too easy or something?
>> Shane: It just seemed like, bleh.
>> Austin: Me and Shane were like, I don't wanna do this book when he stuck to his guns harder than he ever has before. He was like, We're doing this book. It's going to be great.
>> Ganesh: It had a cool cover. I read through, like, the first couple pages and I was like, we started reading and it was okay, but it wasn't great. Halfway through, we're like, all right, this book kind of sucks. And then I will admit we got very frustrated with the author.
>> Brian: But what What made you say that, like in earnest about this? Like when all the books suck.
>> Shane: There was, like, some overt misogyny. And we're just, like, fuck this dude.
>> Austin: It was over the top, like of misogynist for just for the sake of it. And like, not that we're like the arbiters of good taste. But it was just like I'm not having fun doing this book particularly. But either way, we made the episode. Ganesh made it salvageable because he's a good producer and add stupid fucking fart noises and everything is great. So at the end that's how we make any bad episode, good. (laughter) And it's like, Wow, can you believe he did that way?
>> Brian: (airhorn noises)
>> Austin: Exactly, that makes anything better. So we released this podcast in the world, whatever. Not all the episodes are winners. We have a pretty hard and fast rule that we'Ll just release it because not everything's gonna be perfect. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. So we released it and then like a week... so we also when we release an episode, we do social media. So Ganesh's strike 2 here. He went on Twitter and was like we just read the worst I ever read and then put the dude's name in the tweet like [....] wrote the worst book I've ever read in my life. And I was like, this guy's probably says a Google News alert for himself.
>> Brian: And putting it on the immortal digital webs.
>> Austin: Like if you're the person who's writing a free book on Amazon, you're probably the kind of dude that has a news alert on Google for your name.
>> Shane: And it turns out, he did.
>> Austin: Then he likes he likes the tweet, but then crucially unlikes it.
>> Brian: Oh, yes, yeah, that's when you know.
>> Austin: I think at first he was like, somebody's read my book and then he listened to the episode.
>> Shane: I could just imagine his face turning white in his jaw, dropping like what has become of me.
>> Austin: If I'm not mistaken, you called him a pervert in the episode.
>> Shane: Yeah, I did. He had said some perverted stuff.
>> Austin: And we were pretty unfairly harsh on him. So, anyway, we do put this out in the world like the rest of the episodes. Ninety nine point nine percent of the time, nobody responds to it. Yeah, pull up. There's a lot of interesting stuff about him on there, which I won't get into.
>> Brian: On Amazon?
>> Austin: Er oh, just in life.
>> Brian: Whoa, whoa. This is not what I envisioned. Yeah, he looks like a young Republican.
>> Ganesh: He worked for Fox News for, like, eleven years.
>> Brian: Oh, yeah, that's it. That's and that's why Yeah. He's got that Bill O'Reilly style.
>> Austin: which may explain why he's litigious. We thought, as per usual, nothing will come of this. And then one day I get a little letter from him in the mail. Not from him from his publishing company that has a seasoned assistant side that says he's going to sue us for one hundred thousand dollars.
>> Shane: One hundred fifty thousand.
>> Brian: With the full weight of Rupert Murdoch. (laughter)
>> Austin: So, like we had a brief a couple weeks of going back and forth like, what should we do? We came really close to taking it down.
>> Ganesh: No, I was never gonna let that happen.
>> Brian: Ganesh, were you the one who emailed Katie?
>> Ganesh: Yeah.
>> Brian: You sounded kind of scared.
>> Ganesh: I was a little bit about it.
>> Brian: You were asking for advice and...
>> Ganesh: I certainly was.
>> Austin: As solid as our legal ground was, it's not every day you get a letter saying I'm going to sue you for a hundred fifty thousand dollars. Even if it's bullshit, you still take a pause to go like What do I do?
>> Brian: How does he arrive at that number?
>> Shane: It is weird. It's a free book. I don't know what damages. It doesn't make sense. Emotional - I cried one hundred fifty thousand tears. (laughter)
>> Brian: Those are expensive tears.
>> Ganesh: We talked about it for a little bit and then we decided that I was going to contact a lawyer to see what they had to say on. Then. This really nice guy talking like an hour about copyright law on, and he was, like...
>> Austin: He was the perfect New York lawyer who was just, like, fuck em. (laughter) Don't give him an inch.
>> Ganesh: His name was like Frankie something.
>> Brian: Want me to bring my boys over there?
>> Ganesh: He was like, Have you ever heard the expression Don't poke the bear. I was like, Yeah, yeah. It was like, Well, what you have done is you haven't really poked the bear, but you've poked a muskrat, and he's like, this dude's probably living in someone's basement, and he's like, he's not gonna do anything. And then he explained me that it's like it would actually go to federal court, which is crazy endeavor. It would cost him a lot of money upfront. You'd have to put a lawyer on retainer and cost him a fuck ton of money.
>> Brian: Why would he go to federal court?
>> Ganesh: A copyright law is a federal thing...
>> Austin: Me and Shane were just like yeah, like, cool.
>> Ganesh: So I reached out to him directly. I was like, First of all, fuck this guy for just sending us this letter and not being like, Hey, can you take this down?
>> Austin: Yeah, that's the thing. I mean, I hate the way... we wouldn't have taken it down, but he did just reached out and been like, Hey, why you called me a pervert? Like, Why are you saying that I wrote the worst book ever? We probably would've edited the episode or removed the tweet or whatever. But so basically, if he had reached out in a nicer way, we may have tried to work with him to do something to like edited the episode, whatever. But he immediately just sent us this cease and desist letter from legalzoom dot com.
>> Shane: That's not even a piece of like legal stuff at all.
>> Austin: It didn't come from a lawyer, it just came from him and his publishing company, which is him.
>> Shane: So we did some more digging on this guy after we kind of have more of a ground to stand on. It turns out his work, his publishing company, is just himself.
>> Brian: Oh course. That's what I am. It's just me.
>> Austin: And the other thing is he didn't have a copyright.
>> Shane: The copyright is not registered in the state of Texas. And we found out he used to live in Chicago so we looked in Illinois. Like no copyrights for this character.
>> Austin: The whole basis is copyright infringement. If he was saying, like a libel or whatever, because we're saying some things about him on the show. Which was a learning experience. I probably wouldn't say shit like that about an author again.
>> Brian: If that goes to court and, like, he's like, Is there any precedent for like, oh, if it's true, it's not libel? It's pretty subjective.
>> Austin: I have to find some evidence.
>> Ganesh: He would have to try to seduce him.
>> Shane: We could just take passages from the book.
>> Brian: And like case studies like from like, you know, his colleagues at Fox News.
>> Austin: He's probably a normal guy. I understand that. It sucks to probably see a podcast trashing you, which I wouldn't really say we trashed him, but, like I get it when your self published author probably sucks to just see your name on Twitter being like this guy wrote the worst book at you. But that's, like, the worst way to respond. Like, just email us and we'll figure it out. So, yeah, we've got really indignant and righteous about it and were like fuck this guy, we're not going to give in to him.
>> Ganesh: After I found out he worked at Fox News for eleven years... At that point, I was like, fuck this guy. Before that, I felt really bad because I felt like we were tearing down this guy in this passion project. And I don't ever want to like trash on someone for, like, their their hobby that they're...
>> Brian: Even that you were offended by what he wrote?
>> Austin: Yeah, because I think that even if I mean, for one thing, offended is like... Do I think it was like evil?
>> Brian: But he was just offended.
>> Austin: Listen, we didn't take it down. We definitely think we're in the right. But it was a teachable moment.
>> Shane: I think we learned, like, kind of how our podcast would be received. It's performative, You know, it's satire. It's also criticism. It's like this weird blend of all these protected things that I think no lawyers want to try, like have a fight against, like the First Amendment. You know what I mean?
>> Austin: I feel like we're fully protected by the First Amendment.
>> Brian: Yeah, what, also, can you actually get sued for here? Like, I got to sit here and say like, Fuck Trump, He's a piece of shit. What is going to do to me like what?
>> Ganesh: If you read his book on a podcast and then published that...
>> Austin: Again nothing would happen. But also Trump's not a middle- aged dude with no, like all the time in the world on his hands thinking, like searching for himself on the Internet, being like who is talking about me.
>> Brian: Yeah, And I'm not talking about whether he would win or not. Or whether he would do it or not.
>> Austin: I mean, that's also why we didn't take it down and nothing's happened, like we stuck to our guns and we left it up, this guy probably thought that he would send us this letter would freak the fuck out and take it down, and we almost did. At least I did.
>> Shane: I just didn't want to have, like, ongoing headaches with this guy that I kind of turned out to just go away.
>> Brian: So how did it get resolved then?
>> Ganesh: There's no resolution.
>> Austin: I will say we deleted the tweet that said he wrote a bad book. Because I get that that sucks. Like I understand.
>> Brian: Can I tweet it?
>> Austin: Sure. Everybody go out there.
>> Brian: Just read your book, Dude, stop.
>> Austin: There's nothing against leaving Amazon reviews.
>> Shane: I mean, he like screenshots and tweets every review on his book, and there's been, like, fifteen reviews.
>> Ganesh: I wrote him a five star review.
>> Shane: You did not.
>> Ganesh: I did.
>> Brian: Which, Which book is it? How to pick up women?
>> Austin: That sounds about right.
>> Brian: This says two ninety nine. It's because I'm not forging a transcript.
>> Austin: We might have pissed him off into putting a price on that.
>> Brian: Or he's blowing up now. Oh wow, one star of you how to pick up a boring book with minor reference to the title description. What's the title of your review?
>> Ganesh: I don't remember. It should be under my account.
>> Brian: Is it just Ganesh?
>> Ganesh: Yeah. It's a five Star Review.
>> Brian: See all twenty six reviews. We got over the twenty five threshold.
>> Shane: Maybe thanks to our episode. Someone did respond to our tweet and was like, Wow, I want to get this book. That's the first time it's ever happened. There's a lot of five star reviews.
>> Austin: Friends and family. But no joke that that is the only episode where somebody's responded to the tweet and been like, I'm going to read this book myself. That is the only one where there's actual in writing evidence that we convince somebody else to read this book so he should apologize.
>> Brian: A one star review titled Not Funny. I was hoping for humor and great writing. I didn't get either, and the author clearly knows nothing about ninjas. (laughter) I used to study Ninjutsu. The author makes a mockery of the art. Not impressed.
>> Austin: That guy just got sued for four hundred fifty thousand dollars (laughter). He's destitute now.
>> Brian: That's actual libel. I can't find yours. Maybe he deleted it.
>> Ganesh: There's no way. Why would he delete a five star review?
>> Austin: Because he hates you.
>> Shane: You're his nemesis.
>> Austin: You wronged him. Even an ironic five star review is not good enough. I'm gonna eat another doughnut.
>> Brian: Oh, I found it. I found it. Entertaining is the title (laughter).
>> Austin: Petty as hell.
>> Shane: You're a little rat, man.
>> Brian: Five stars. I see it. All stars are colored yellow. The coolest bad boy in space bar none. Good entertaining sci fi book. Thanks (laughter)
>> Austin: Why don't you love us? Be our friend. I would love for him to come on the show and talk to us.
>> Shane: True friends exchange legal threats to each other. We've already broken that barrier bud.
>> Austin: He sent us this cease and desist in this legal threat. And then Ganesh tried to reach out, and he totally ghosted us. Like talk to us.
>> Shane: Also his cease and desist letter had absolutely no contact information on it. Yeah, I know. It's just funny.
>> Brian: He's just like you got served.
>> Shane: Yeah, he's probably like with his wife. He's like, Babe, I'm going to write those guys those little shits.
>> Brian: You think he's married?
>> Shane: We found out. I paid for a background check on this mother fucker. We found out quite a bit about him. Now we'll say it got better after that just because a couple weeks later, we had a different author reach out to us and send us a really nice note, which kind of like tip the scales a little bit.
>> Brian: Even though you weren't kind?
>> Ganesh: We were kinder to him. It was a better book.
>> Brian: Are you guys ever kind?
>> Ganesh: Yeah, for sure.
>> Austin: I'll never say it's good, like in a way that's like, Wow, that was that was moving. But like that was fun.
>> Brian: It's funny or something like that. It's like that stuff. There's actually good books? I'm not talking about Moby Dick, you know?
>> Austin: You know, there are definitely books where at the end of it were like, that was a fun read.
>> Shane: Yeah, for sure. Like there was the one where there was a fist fight in a burning down house. And it was so fucking funny and entertaining and good. Like we were losing our minds. We were laughing so hard. That's hilarious. And it was great.
>> Brian: And they live?
>> Shane: No. He punched him into the fire. And like he died, he watched his body, like, burn up and that guys like pregnant wife?Oh, no. Because the other guy had pushed his wife down the stairs.
>> Austin: I wonder what episode that was.
>> Ganesh: The Magpies. I remember that one because that was one that our readers are listener sent to us was like, you know, you also read this. This is the worst book I've ever read. And then we read it, and I was like, this is actually pretty good. (laughter)
>> Austin: Yeah, the thing is, it's never so much of the whole book is good, but sometimes scenes are good. A fist fight in a burning like crumbling house is fucking amazing.
>> Ganesh: With nothing to suggest that that would ever happen. Just jump right into that.
>> Brian: They didn't say this was going to be in the book?
>> Ganesh: Exactly. Most of the rest of the book was just roommates, arguing about, like music being too loud and shit like that.
>> Austin: Another book that I remember having a really good scene was a book about an alien who comes down and goes to the Hoover Dam and steals a man's clothes.
>> Ganesh: His dead wife's clothes. The alien wears the dead wife's clothes to the Hoover Dam. Like, why would that ever be?
>> Austin: And who would write that? He would come up with that and we read it and it was great. Like there's just little moments in each book where it's like who thought of this and thank God it exists.
>> Shane: And also coming into these moments with, like, really no context and then just watching it play out. That's like, really fun to that adds to it. I feel like if we read up to these points and we're like, Oh, that's not so good.
>> Austin: Yeah. So overall. Yeah, I would say, despite the fact that the books are technically bad, we do generally try to go into it with the idea of, like, let's have fun with it and not be like that I didn't want to be mean spirited, like I feel like that's our goal. Generally, I don't want to be mean spirited.
>> Brian: In my introduction because, you know, I was going to explain it before I before I was like, Yeah, you should just do it. I called it hilarious, brightly sardonic and, dare I say downright sadistic. (laughs) And what I'm hearing is that you guys definitely don't feel that the last part is true. But the thing is I'm definitely exaggerating.
>> Austin: I would say we try not to be totally mean, but we will turn on books quick if it's bad.
>> Shane: I think some of the content is sadistic. You know what I mean? Like, the cop fetish thing is so weird and it's a whole market.
>> Brian: It's like hot cops?
>> Shane: It's like hot cops.
>> Brian: They're not strippers with, like, emotionally damaged cops? That sounds like noir.
>> Austin: That's not good enough to be noir.
>> Brian: A lot of noir is shit, let's remember.
>> Austin: True.
>> Shane: There's no cool guy. Like there's no Philip Marlowe, you know?
>> Austin: That's right, Shane is our resident noir expert.
>> Shane: I like Raymond Chandler. They're fun reads. It's not like that. There's, like no case. There's no cool like slickness about it. These are like good old boys from the South. Like they're always written is like a quiet, good old boys.
>> Ganesh: Like us. I really want to bring out the Southern accent.
>> Brian: Can you not do it?
>> Ganesh: Oh I can definitely do a Southern accent.
>> Brian: Where are you guys from the South?
>> Ganesh: From Richmond, Virginia.
>> Brian: That's... Yeah, that's the South.
>> Shane: Yeah, I grew up like near Charlottesville, Virginia.
>> Austin: You commuted from DC so that doesn't count.
>> Brian: You're from Nova?
>> Ganesh: But I lived in Richmond for like, twelve years.
>> Austin: Ganesh went through a heavy redneck phase where he was wearing cowboy boots all the time.
>> Brian: I mean he's got a straight Bilbo's hat on. I was so happy when you guys opened the door to you guys, I was like, Holy shit.
>> Austin: Ganesh has the most Southern vibe of all of us. I feel like you still have the accent a little bit, for sure.
>> Ganesh: It definitely comes out my drink. Or when I used to drink.
>> Brian: That's what our producers say.
>> Austin: It's fun. We do accents on the show a lot. Ganesh reads in a different voice, every three lines which is really impressive. I didn't know he could ever do that in the years I knew him.
>> Shane: You know, I've never told you this, but there was a moment, like nine years ago when I was at Ganesh's apartment and he had to give...
>> Brian: Oh so you have known each other for quite some time?
>> Shane: About thirteen thirteen years, and he was at his apartment, prepping. I think you had an assignment in your English class where you had to go and give a speech, but with a voice, and you didn't know what kind of voice to do. So you did like a Batman voice. You were doing like Christian Bale Batman and you were really good at it.
>> Austin: And you thought, someday you're going to be a star.
>> Shane: You do that voice all the time on this podcast on.
>> Brian: How old are you guys? And where'd you guys go to college?
>> Austin: We are all thirty. We went to Virginia Commonwealth University.
>> Brian: Was that the sweet sixteen days?
>> Austin: Hell yeah. The Shaka Smart days. They went to the Final Four the year we graduated.
>> Brian: It must've been wild. I'm like having this either deja vu or jamais vu moment where I feel like I recognize you now.
>> Austin: Oh yeah? We're from Richmond, we're all the same.
>> Brian: Maybe it's just the O's hat. I went to Maryland, so...
>> Shane: Oh nice.
>> Austin: We are all the archetype of Virginians. Like Hipster 2006 Virginians.
>> Shane: Yeah, I love it. We went to art school. I rode a fixed gear bike around for, like, seven years.
>> Austin: Now you're an old man.
>> Shane: And my knees don't even work anymore.
>> Austin: Yeah, we all went to art school. We met there. We all got randomly paired in our dorm together.
>> Shane: I was a painting printmaking guy. You were animation in animation.
>> Ganesh: And I dropped out of photography in film because I could not draw on. And then I went to English
>> Brian: Beautiful. Yeah. So you guys do like books.
>> Ganesh: Sure. Is that a thing like that?
>> Brian: Just the question I'm leading up to is how did you start this?
>> Shane: Oh, that's a good question. We had a whole other thing that we were really into. And it just didn't work.
>> Austin: We've been wanting to do something creative together for a while, and we thought a podcast would be easy and fun. And it gives an excuse to just hang out and talk to each other. Originally, what we had done was we had the podcast that was just based around the weirdness of, like, amazon dot com. Like everything encapsulated.
>> Brian: That's much different.
>> Austin: Yeah. So we had a bunch of different segments and that we had one where we would, like, dig in reviews, like you know how sometimes we'll go on like reviews of something and you just find some matches and saying things like, Who is this guy who reviewed this Taser and said like this hurt? (laughter) I use this on myself.
>> Brian: I bought a scale for not drugs yesterday on, and I don't sell drugs. And by the way, these are these are like, random, like, research chemicals I buy from, like, China and just put in my body and see what happens. But I'm on one of them right now. But so yeah, and I see like, the someone's reviewing it, They're like, Yeah, it didn't come with the with the little red ribbon that was in the picture. What the fuck does that have to do with anything? (laughter)
>> Austin: So we go to all these weirdos products like who reviewed like there's body bags on Amazon. Like this wasn't heavy enough to carry the body. We had a gag where we buy each other a gift under five dollars every episode and look at it and, like, one of those segments we did was we'd read for you books. And every time we did it, we think, man, that's the funniest part of the show and the rest of it was having...
>> Brian: How many episodes did it take you guys to figure it out?
>> Austin: Three or four.
>> Brian: Oh shit, ok. You basically jumped right into it.
>> Shane: We did tests that we never even released.
>> Austin: We thought that was a funny idea. Just because we all thought the Amazon was like It's weird. It's a weird thing.
>> Shane: We had it kind of like a variety show. We had, like segments.
>> Ganesh: We had games where I would like to read reviews and they would have to guess what movie?
>> Austin: Sometimes it was funny. But we just felt like the one consistent thing that was always really funny was the books. And then we just had an epiphany one day it was like when we just do that sort of reading one chapter of a book, Why don't we just try to read as much as we can and then skip the other stuff that was, like, hit or miss?
>> Shane: We realized we did one. We did a test run of it. And we were like, This is like, pretty much a perfect hour. We're like, this is just like this is like the perfect length happens often.
>> Austin: But it was just substantially better than what we had done. It was just like this was, why not take the one thing we're pretty good at and think is the funniest?
>> Ganesh: And a lot less work. Because the other idea we had to do a lot of research and shit like that, which we're not trying to do.
>> Austin: And then also basically We just figured that Let's just hone in on the one thing that we're actually good at one thing and it just felt too scatterbrained to have this weird kind of ambiguous podcast about Amazon in general like it's easy.
>> Brian: That's basically what ours is is this ambiguous podcast about writing and art. And we get random ass people on here.
>> Austin: That's at least like a focused niche. Whereas Amazons well, we could focus like it has everything on it. We could have done a random product from the movies, right? I mean, we're doing E books like it was just too much and we just honed in on the one thing that we were going on.
>> Shane: And this it really lends itself perfectly for, like, the three people part like you read, we comment and our vibes are like, so different that, like I was really surprised by how I guess sonically I like our voices sound different. You said like sting from your very stupid, very distinct kind of flowed like really well as really shocked.
>> Austin: Sure, and there's just a huge part of it was our natural chemistry of isn't I mean we knew each other for twelve years by the time we did this podcast way, talked like this without the microphone. So like it was just easy to put that in front of us. And then, as the podcast went on, we started experimenting more. Ganesh start experimenting with, like sounds like music and kind of setting a mood or a tone for the book as opposed to straight reading. And that kind of knocked it up a notch to make it so much better. And that's basically how we got where we are now. I'm pretty happy with her because I have superstars.
>> Brian: You guys are megastars. Seventy five million Facebook followers.
>> Austin: That's true. I am beating people off in the street.
>> Shane: You're beating people off in the street.
>> Austin: Yeah, somebody's gotta do. That's basically the genesis of our podcast.
>> Brian: What if I brought my book onto your guys podcasts and you guys just ripped it?
>> Austin: We'll do it.
>> Ganesh: We'LL do it right and make him sign a waiver first.
>> Austin: Yeah, you're going to sue us for one hundred fifty thousand dollars?
>> Brian: Katie, we're rolling right now. I'm serious. I'm putting this into the airwaves.
>> Austin: You want to come on and rip it with us?
>> Brian: Yeah, I need a good reason to go down a Brooklyn.
>> Austin: Alright, that's a good one to have us just shit on your book.
>> Shane: That be so much fun. Ganesh's apartment's really fun to hang out. And there's a thousand cats.
>> Ganesh: Three cats.
>> Brian: And I don't know what I need to disinhibit you guys, but I don't want any held punches.
>> Austin: No, we'll be good. Once we start reading it, I can't stop. I've never held back in the show. Which is why I've been threatened with legal action (laughter).
>> Brian: Exactly. I want to comeback fuming, like I'm gonna get these guys. Like I should just stop writing.
>> Shane: Yeah, that would be really cool because we had always talked about, like, if an author ever were in line to have an author come on the show and defend himself. It would be cool if you were there while we were doing.
>> Brian: We will do it and then I'll defend myself afterwards.
>> Austin: Okay, we'll give you like it's court.
>> Ganesh: Yeah, like a fifteen minute response.
>> Shane: Yeah, let's do that. That's a good idea. I think you should be mic'd up while we do it, so you can just, like, call us out
>> Austin: I seriously think you should do that. We will set something up.
>> Brian: Will I be the first guest?
>> Austin: No, we've had three other guests.
>> Brian: And where they other writers whose books you were reading?
>> Austin: No those were there just like comedians. So yeah, you'll be our first author to come on. I actually think we should really do that. So let's do it. Well, now I'm going to eat the last donut do it. Seems like we're approaching the end.
>> Brian: Do it... He is eating the doughnut here.
>> Austin: It's delicious.
>> Ganesh: He is profusely sweating from the pits.
>> Austin: You know I am for sure.
>> Brian: He's gonna spit a verse after while he's chewing (laughter)
>> Austin: Yeah, I actually am. No joke. I'm sweating a lot.
>> Shane: It's a hot day.
>> Brian: I'm getting feed into my ear from the producers. They want me to ask a question. What do you guys hope for the podcast? Are you guys just content to just keep doing it and see where it goes or do you have goals?
>> Austin: I want unending power and fame.
>> Shane: We have some ideas. I mean, we want to try some new like, mediums out. I think we have talked a lot about doing something like a live show, and I feel like that could exist on, like on Twitch or something. Like a live Twitch show with, like, direct, like live feedback from listeners. Something like that?
>> Ganesh: Or even just like live, like at a venue in Brooklyn.
>> Shane: Yeah, Like a little performance art space.
>> Austin: I mean, we all come from like, at least me and Shane, come from, like, visual artistic backgrounds. So, like, I definitely think that video or some sort of, you know, I don't know if it's a live stream or some sort of I'm not sure, but we want to expand more in that direction. I mean, I love the podcast, and I mean, it's sappy but it's like, my favorite thing in my life is the podcast. I feel the most proud of it out of everything I've done. So I do love that. But I think that there's potential to grow in other directions as well.
>> Shane: Yeah, well, I mean, we've started it...
>> Austin: The doughnuts are killing me by the way.
>> Brian: Are you going to have a diabetic episode?
>> Austin: I'm gonna pass out.
>> Shane: Don't let the doughnuts win.
>> Austin: So, yeah, you're saying we were going to be satisfied with ten listens?
>> Shane: Yeah, and then it kind of got a little bit bigger than we've got some cool press. Got some cool write ups.
>> Brian: Nice. Where?
>> Shane: AV Club.
>> Brian: Oh, yeah, very cool.
>> Shane: We were like mind blown at that.
>> Austin: And basically, we just want to make something that we found funny that we like and that our friends would like and whatever else was just kind of gravy.
>> Ganesh: And the funniest thing is that your friends don't even listen to it. (laughter)
>> Austin: Yeah random people listen to it. That's even cooler. Yeah, but like, that's great, Honestly, like yeah, echoing Shane, we had such little low expectations. And frankly, it's not like we've achieved any massive amount of success. But it's so much more than we ever imagined. And just like the idea that people listen to us and think that it's funny and worth your time is like more than I ever imagined us achieving with us. So, yeah, All in all, it's been an extremely positive experience. I would say I'm really happy with it. What about you guys?
>> Shane: I actually hate it.
>> Ganesh: Yeah I'm proud of it. And we're going to have our own fucking network, The Original Kings of Content LLC. Patent pending.
>> Brian: Bang bang.
>> Shane: That's another thing we joke about. I mean, you're a talented editor and producer. I could see us like making more shows. The other night I was thinking, like, what if we wrote out, like, a six episode thing? If it was just like a thing that we worked on and produce it and then we release it all at once or so.
>> Austin: Definitely has gotten the creative juices flowing. They always have been to some extent, but I feel it was the first time we've actually accomplished in a way where it's like we stuck with it.
>> Ganesh: Me and Austin have written a ton of shit for Web shows and stuff like that that we just didn't do anything with because we're like, we don't really have the means to do it.
>> Brian: Yeah. Yeah.
>> Ganesh: So this is like podcasting is easy. I mean, is from the fourth, a barrier of entry standpoint. It's easy to do. Spend a couple hundred bucks. Get all the shit you need to learn how to edit and like...
>> Brian: Say words.
>> Ganesh: So, yeah, overall... (sirens in background)
>> Brian: I like it. It's like ambience.
>> Austin: We're in New York City.
>> Brian: Exactly. Like, Hey Arnold.
>> Ganesh: We hear cats shitting on our podcast constantly.
>> Austin: Yeah. We even have little music that goes in the background for cat breaks. Just cause Ganesh gets tired of editing around it. So overall, I would say what we want to achieve is basically what we have done already and just hopefully find more people who like it.
>> Shane: Yeah, I think the live performance would be really fun. You guys come from performance, things like you did stand up. You played in a band. You were like the frontman of a band plays a band.
>> Austin: Ganesh plays a fucking saxophone. Something we never talked about. Yeah, he also wears this extremely ballin jacket while he does it.
>> Ganesh: And gold chain.
>> Austin: Yeah, he does well I mean, that's kind of part of your aesthetic as an aging Indian man, you need the gold chain for sure.
>> Ganesh: Yeah, next year will be two.
>> Austin: It's like rings in a tree.
>> Ganesh: Soon I will be rocking a pinkie ring.
>> Austin: I can't wait. Yeah, that's, uh that's what generally our hopes.
>> Brian: I got to say, you know, I feel like I kind of have to defend us here because, you know, I find your podcast just incredibly funny. And we're always trying to build community like literary community. So how do I like wash that with the fact that, you know, we're kind of making fun of books here? But at the same time, I really do believe in it as a form of satire like a la, the Daily Show, or something like that. Like, because people can self published their own shit now, like someone's got to tell them they suck. I'm serious, like I'm and I don't say that to be mean, but like, in a sense, especially they're being misogynistic or something like that and you start calling him out like, you know, You know, for all these all these things like I actually do think, you know, while it might not be the nicest thing to do in the world if there's no gatekeeper anymore...
>> Austin: It's valid for us to respond.
>> Brian: Exactly, especially when there's twenty five people on Amazon reviews saying, like you know, 'entertaining' and five stars (laughter)
>> Ganesh: Ultimately the joke's on us because we're the ones taking the time to read these fucking books. It's not like we have very good taste. I love bad news. I watch Lifetime movies like not as a joke, just because I like watching bad shit. I like reading bad shit.
>> Brian: We tried watching Hallmark movies ironically and we just got in.
>> Austin: He just watches them unironically. He completely loves them. He was really heartbroken that Lori Laughlin is in jail.
>> Brian: She was in a lot of those, wasn't she?
>> Shane: There definitely is like a place in like the world's creative conversation about like trash shit. Look at Vanderpump Rules, this's like really vapid like dumb shit. But it's like entertaining. You know what I mean? Did they know at the beginning that it's entertaining for the reasons why it's entertaining to me?
>> Austin: And it's something that's what makes it art right?
>> Ganesh: That's taking it to far.
>> Brian: I'm not interpret it anyway.
>> Shane: But these books, they're like a launching pad for us to riff on and like, improvise. Many of the jokes were like at our work expense.
>> Austin: Sure. But I agree that you like I do think that if you wanna put yourself out there creatively than you're open to criticism and review and...
>> Brian: You have to hate yourself to hate other people.
>> Austin: That's right. And boy do I (laughter). Let me tell you. But I hate them so it works out.
>> Ganesh: Us?
>> Austin: Yeah. When you put the jacket on, it's like ten times worse.
>> Ganesh: I guess we aren't sharing a cab home together.
>> Austin: I'm taking the train, man. I'm not making that Patreon money yet.
>> Brian: You guys should race.
>> Austin: I'LL do it.
>> Ganesh: I'm in.
>> Austin: You think you'd beat me in a foot race?
>> Ganesh: Hell no. I'd be dead by like 70th Street.
>> Austin: Me too.
>> Brian: That's still a lot of streets.
>> Austin: I might have walked sixty of those blocks. I wouldn't just get hit by a car.
>> Brian: Yeah, so I had that same thought. Actually, today I was like, Man, I'm glad you actually had that question, though, you know, Because, like, we do like, is this fucked up?
>> Brian: Because you guys aren't sadistic. I was really saying that talking cheek.
>> Austin: Sometimes we are, though, but the thing is, it's not...
>> Ganesh: But you say way worse shit to me and Shane.
>> Austin: You deserve it.
>> Brian: But to put it in perspective, you guys aren't like, you know Alex Jones saying, You know, Hillary Clinton is like part of the Illuminati and a Satanist. Like there are levels to this.
>> Austin: Nothing we say is wrong per se, but it can be mean or in poor taste. We're not like a go find this author and beat the shit out of them.
>> Ganesh: We talked for thirty minutes talking about adults in diapers.
>> Austin: I mean, I would say hopefully that this sheds light on smaller books that maybe don't get an audience, but also sheds light on some people who shouldn't be writing at all. I think there's a good with the bet.
>> Ganesh: I want them to keep writing because what would we read?
>> Austin: Keep pumping out these books.
>> Brian: I, uh I've been Amazon book reviewed before. You know, I feel like now that should be a verb. You know, when I wrote my when I wrote, my third novel as a stripling, you know, twenty one year old stripling.
>> Austin: What were you Amazon reviews like?
>> Brian: They never got published or anything. It's just that, you know, I sent it to my friend's dad in Seattle, and he was just like he was like this blows pretty much in so many words. And I sent him angry email back. He was like, That's some good writing right there (laughter).
>> Austin: If you want your work to be torture part line by line by three Idiots, please. Come to Brooklyn.
>> Brian: I have already volunteered. Trust me, I'm coming down. I'm looking forward to that. Yeah, I think I think we're good. Yeah. I mean, we've established my apocalyptic scenario, so...
>> Austin: Yeah, it's, uh , which, by the way, for the record, I ate all four doughnuts.
>> Shane: Well done.
>> Ganesh: With no beverage. That's the most incredible part.
>> Austin: Had one cup of water and I finish it like before the second owner, so no. Hell, yeah. I'm very proud of myself. You'll get one here for me tomorrow. I went out the way I wanted to.
>> Brian: Okay, that's it for today's episode. If you like what you heard, please subscribe and review on whichever platform you're listening. You can get in touch with us on Twitter @AnimalRiotPress or Facebook and Instagram at Animal Riot Press or through our website animalriotpress.com. This has been the sixteenth episode of the Animal Riot Podcast with me, your host, Brian Birnbaum and featuring Garnish Sarma, Austin Hannah, and Shane Burklow. And were produced by Katie Rainey, without whom we would be merely four of Shakespeare's thousand monkeys banging on a typewriter.