Tuesday, April 1, 2014

I Don't Even Own A Television: 'Pregnesia'

Some of you may know my friend Jay Friedman. For those of you who don't, he's one of those exasperatingly prolific creative people who's always doing something interesting when you're doing things like marathoning Magnum P.I. on Netflix for no reason.

In addition to working a full-time job, Jay might as well also be a full-time MC. And when he's not releasing another mixtape under the name Satellite High, he's doing things like helping me out by recording a diss track of World Net Daily birther rappers "Wolverines" or tag-teaming a fatuous American Enterprise Institute list of the "21 Greatest Conservative Rap Songs" for a piece in The New Republic.

So, with all that on his plate, naturally Jay started a podcast about books. Fantastically bad books. Because of course he did. And I'm pleased to say that I was the inaugural guest on I Don't Even Own A Television.

In a previous life, I wrote reviews of current events and public affairs books for Barnes & Noble's website. (Under yet another pseudonym.) And while neither those nor my reviews on this website prepared me for the kind of texts that Jay had in mind, it's nice to know that the critical reading skills honed in that job and during the long slog through my history thesis haven't completely atrophied. Basically, I brought a thoroughly misguided level of critical analysis to a discussion of a Harlequin Intrigue title named Pregnesia.