WE ARE BACK!

This long awaited episode has got it all: sadism, dowries, and nuns! The StoryFellers (writing it out, it feels like a band, like The Lumineers) had a lot of fun writing this, and putting together the details from the last episode, and it was an absolute blast getting to do this with THE Jaydie Halperin!

Also the deepest apologies from Shlok Sharma for not putting this out sooner, he is awful at editing things on time. This will be better in the future! Plus, doesn't the wait make the episode that much more worth it? No? Fair enough!

Without any further adieu, "Venetian Blind!"

A fun episode! Jaydie comes onto talk with the StoryFellers and brings a breadth and depth of knowledge that Joe and Shlok desperately need. She talks about dowries, the effect and pressure they had on most marriages in fourteenth century Italy, and seeds the idea of a heist that features the concept.

The idea for the story featured in the next episode was borne out of Jaydie's focus in her graduate studies, and there's a wonderful focusing function that happens because of it. A lot of what we do here at StoryFellers is engage with and work on storytelling without any real expectation of seriousness, but it is nice to work with a topic that is innately weighty, and see what we can do with it.

In a quest to find as many balances as possible, there is something to be said about doing it with the concept of the podcast: apply the lens of silliness to seriousness, and maybe it'll lead to something new. You'll have to see in our next episode when we premiere the story that we come up with. It's a ton of fun.

The title does give it away, but thankfully there's more to us than just the premise.

Listen in for a funny premise, controversial characters, and middling English accents.

I just want to note here that Joe chose Jack the Ripper without telling me (Shlok is writing this) obviously – that's how improv works – but I chose Jeffrey Dahmer without him saying anything. Call it the universe, call it cosmic togetherness, call it the divine, but something's in the air and it ain't summertime (it's been quite rainy these past few days).

Much love, much love!

A lot of this episode is Shlok and Joe talking about music, which then results in a retrospective on their writing. It's a good place to do that every now and then.

Shlok also, gingerly and then all at once enthusiastically, pitches Joe his idea for a musical about the military industrial complex set to the music of a man with an acoustic guitar (a la Jack Johnson); this might be a good pivot, considering Shlok's going to send a lot of demos about this project to Joe. Maybe the musical could be called "Jingo Hell"?

Joe brainstorms a setting for the StoryFellers' most recent improvisation, which will take place in the next episode. It's a real treat.

We (yeah, yeah, I mean Shlok and Joe, I mean Joe and Shlok, but who are we kidding here, it's just you and me in this little description box) talk a bit about the standup/influencer character we want to explore, and the need for stronger character dynamics in general.

We also talk a lot about I Think You Should Leave, and dream up a new podcast called "We Think You Should Stay."

Then both of us took it a little seriously and we got graphics, music, and episode ideas tied together. Thirteen episodes in and we're already thinking of a spinoff.

This is how empires are built.

Here, Joe and Shlok take a break from the format, and accidentally end up reverting back to the format anyway (though this time they get to the final product a little quicker, which is better).

Listen to Fritzel the Elf try to convince the chosen one, a man who goes about his corporate job in the big city, to leave his life and save Fritzel's realm from total destruction. The one problem? Fritzel forgot to set a When2Meet (or Calendly, for those that are a little older).

Towards the end of the episode Shlok and Joe also discuss a potential standup tour and try to figure out what the specific angle of this could be. This might turn into something kinda fun so for posterity, this is the first episode it was discussed.

A real part two episode! This one was a surprise, but it made so much sense thematically. We just had to do it.

In this episode, Shlok and Joe get existential: with AI going everywhere, what's the point of trying to come up with quick, absurd stories?

Thankfully, Joe and Shlok get to a point of resolution that goes beyond despair. Sure, AI may take our jobs, but it doesn't mean we can't try a little harder to write more interesting stories.

We had a lot of fun recording this, and we can't wait to write more.

In this episode, Joe comes in with a fresh idea: ask ChatGPT to try to do our jobs.

We hear ChatGPT come up with scripts based on the premises of past stories we've developed on this podcast, read them out, and try to figure out if we like them (surprise: sometimes, we do).

This was a lot of fun to make, and part one of a deeper investigation into how we should continue doing this podcast, and continue writing in general with the advent of large language models.

We finally finished the story that was inspired by Ryan's anecdote! Shlok and Joe had a lot of fun writing this docudrama-style play about two hardboiled detectives interviewing a man accused of killing all his short buff friends at bodybuilding camp.

We have a guest: Ryan Natcharian!

In this episode she shares a wonderful story from her time as a camp counselor, which is paired well with Joe's category suggestion of a horror/slasher film. Listen to us amalgamate the two options into a true crime documentary featuring a serial killer that only targets short buff dudes at a bodybuilding summer camp.

Also, Shlok introduces the word "equanimity," and later, the word "verdure." He is very pleased with himself.

We tried something pretty different for this episode – improv! Just two guys having fun in accents they've never really done before (Joe did Transylvanian, and Shlok is pretty sure he started off Central European and slid right into Southern), working out a scene they might end up working on later.

Listen to us figure out what an anxiety-ridden vampire talking to his ambiguously-centered therapist about his condition sounds like.

Our first two-hander!

We had a lot of fun writing and performing this, and we both agree: this is our best one so far. If you haven't listened to any of the first five episodes–that's okay! We won't be so mad. But listen to this one. It's a lot of fun.

Joe also comes around to the term "two-hander," a bit more, but only barely. Shlok puts out an idea for an improvised two-hander at the end, as if writing and performing in the span of a couple hours wasn't already hard enough.

They both beg for jobs by the end of it.

A tale of artistry and monetary success, of safety and risking it all, "Fight Call" shows two sides of the deeply vulnerable, often ridiculous world of creation. There's a ton of sound effects. Too many? You be the judge.

And if you want to be on the podcast as a guest, email shlokzartsharma@gmail.com.

In this episode, Joe shares a couple stories about times he got mildly injured in productions he was a part of. Everything's alright now–thank god.

Shlok brings up his fascination with two-handers, a term Joe is immediately uncomfortable with, and they figure out a way to make a show that captures the panic of directing an actor that won't quite listen, and acting for a director that will never compromise.

Logline: While rehearsing for what's sure to be a sensational one-man show, Jay Gecko, an actor known for schlocky action movies, comes in repeated conflict with J. C. Wheeler, the playwright and director, who made the show about his own life. As the famous actor and acclaimed director butt heads, the rehearsal becomes more violent, more confrontational, and, above all else, more artistically visceral.

We call it "Fight Call."

In this episode, Shlok and Joe present "Shotgun Legend."

Definitely a bit of a departure (already!) for us, we do a small excerpt from the story and then talk about how we felt about it. We're probably going to get back to trying out funny stuff.

Set in the Wild West, “Shotgun Legend” tells the story of Barnabas McElroy, an outlaw that idolizes a legendary gunslinger, Bill Hunt. When Barnabas was a kid, he saw Bill Hunt kill a corrupt sheriff, which set Barnabas on a similar path of exacting justice throughout the West.  When Barnabas meets his idol, he realizes he might never have been the man he thought he was.

There's finally (some) sound effects in this! Evolution!

In this episode, Shlok talks about the time he ran away from Richard Ayoade in the British Museum. Weirdly enough, Joe has a similar story of meeting Chris O'Dowd.

(Now if only they knew someone that had an awkward encounter with Katherine Parkinson and they'd hit the IT Crowd fan interaction trifecta.)

How all of this turns into a movie idea about false idols and deconstructed Westerns is...circuitous. But they get there.

Logline: Set in the 1870s, Barnabus McElroy grows up idolizing the famed Robin Hood-like outlaw Bill Hunt, and goes on a nation-spanning journey of righteous heists and gunfights to meet him. Mac assembles his team of misfits as he seeks his idol, even if Hunt doesn't resemble the legend he remembers.

In this episode, Joe and Shlok present "Kyoto Fried Caper."

Brainstormed in one hour (don't take our word for it–listen to the previous episode) and written in another (that part you'll have to take our word on), "Kyoto Fried Caper" is a revenge heist by two brothers in 1980s Kyoto, determined to steal the secrets of the newly opened KFC and prevent the evil Colonel Sanders from enacting his nefarious plans.

We also plead to KFC to offer us a job. This part goes on for a while.

In this episode, Joe shares a personal experience he had at a chicken yakatori restaurant in Japan, and Shlok talks about his love for heist movies.

They also argue a bit about whether Mission Impossible counts as heist movies (Joe says yes, Shlok says no–this argument doesn't go anywhere).

They do come up with a movie eventually, thank god.

Logline: Brothers Yuki and Ken must pull off a heist at the newly expanded KFC to steal Colonel Sanders' secret recipe, risking their livelihood and home if they fail.

In this episode, Shlok and Joe break down the format of StoryFellers, repeatedly. We eventually get there, and it's pretty straightforward: one person comes in with a spontaneous contribution (they answer a question like "talk about an interesting thing that happened this past week") and the other person talks about a movie trope or genre they want to explore.

Joe talks about Shen Yun, and Shlok explains Conclave.

We don't really get anywhere here story-wise, but we had fun.

See how I changed from third-person to first person through this description? Real mind-bending stuff.