Defining Charlie Sheen

I suppose it was inevitable that someone would come out with a glossary of Charlie Sheen's egotistical, outrageous quotes. So now not one, but two, major newspapers have done so. And that's not even counting the hilarious New Yorker cartoons done on Buzzfeed. Their lists were similar, but different, so I've compiled, alphabetized, and amplified them here for you into one Big List o' Craziness. To read the original articles, go here and here. To read the original quotes from the Sheenster himself, well, just read any newspaper or news website that covers Hollywood celebrities. Daily.

Hey, the crazy act has done wonders for Gary Busey's career, right? Keep the little jewels a-comin', Charlie! But it's a fine line to walk. Just be careful not to cross over into the Mel Gibson area, or risk being shunned by the media. Here, then, are the terms popularized in Sheenville over the past few weeks:

Adonis DNA
noun
A mysterious substance that allows one to forgo treatment by Alcoholic Anonymous: "AA was written for normal people. People that don't have tiger blood and Adonis DNA."

Alcoholics Anonymous
noun
Insidious group, also known as AA, whose influence is to be avoided at all costs by warlocks: "AA was written for normal people. People that don't have tiger blood and Adonis DNA."

Apocalypse Me
title
1. According to the Sheenster himself, "Warlock Latin for WINNING."
2. The title of Charlie Sheen's new book, delivered to him through "vast and extensive Lunar channels."

Bang
exclamation
A synonym for "voila": "I can say, 'Hey, kids, your dad's a rock star. Look at his experiences. Look what he survived.' Bang. There are some of your lessons."

Bi-winning
adjective
1. A play on the term for a mental illness meaning triumphing in two places: "I'm bi-winning. I win here, I win there. Now what? If I'm bipolar, aren't there moments when a guy like crashes?"
2. Successfully convincing two "blonde" porn actresses to make out with each other.

Boom
exclamation
Term used to punctuate the end of a gnarly, mind-blowing statement: "you have the right to kill me, but you do not have the right to judge me. Boom." "She shows up looking the way she does...Wow! Everybody's winning. Boom!" "White gold? Boom!"

Buh-bye
exclamation
Dismissive term used to denote the end of a contest, which is always signified by the victory of the warlock: [when explaining his relationship with two blondes on a morning talk show]: "That's how I roll. And if it's too gnarly for people, then buh-bye." "Oh, wait, can't process it. Losers. Winning. Buh-bye."

Chaim Levine
proper noun
Disparaging and vaguely anti-Semitic reference to Chuck Lorre, creator of Two and a Half Men. Synonymous with clown, bozo, charlatan, stupid little man, pussy punk, and piece of shit.

Charlie Sheen
proper noun
1. Erratic and self-proclaimed superhuman star of films and the sitcom Two and a Half Men, AKA "C. Irwin Estevez".
2. A "drug" the actor claims to use recreationally that would cause normal people's faces to melt off, their bodies to explode, and their children to weep: "I'm on a drug. It's called Charlie Sheen. It's not available. If you try it once, you will die."
See also: F-18, Warlock, Wedge

Cosmic fastball
noun
Proclamations and statements of wisdom imparted by warlocks via Twitter and other media outlets: "this just in.... another cosmic fastball from theMind of your fav Warlock;"

Dying
noun
A process that can be avoided through wisdom and professionalism: "Dying's for fools, dying's for amateurs."

Earn Yourself
proclamation
Typical "cosmic fastball" from the Sheenster, also used as a hashtag on Twitter, and manifested in other subsequent sayings: "You already own you. Now go... Earn the power. Earn the Truth. Earn the most important component in this entire dimension..."

Epic
adjective
Major, monumental, as in the Sheenster's drug stories and other feats accomplished by warlocks, or titles bestowed by them: "she is most noble and worthy of this EPIC title."

F-18
noun
Powerful jet packing a punch comparable to the star of Two and a Half Men: "Most of the time -- and this includes naps -- I'm an F-18, bro."

Geek Squad
proper noun
Disparaging name for The Big Bang Theory, created by Chuck Lorre (see Chaim Levine): "Mike and Molly and Geek Squad are gonna explode like they were hit by a Japanese torpedo."

Gnarles Gnarlington
noun
Super-cool one who claims to have special powers; see "Warlock". Persona of the Sheenster: "like my dear friend Gnarls Gnarlington says, #WINNING!"

Go
noun
The only speed on which the Sheenster operates: "I was banging seven-gram rocks and finishing them because that's how I roll, because I have one speed, one gear: go."

Goddess
noun, often used in plural
1. A woman, usually a blonde-with-dark-roots, who positions herself near a flamboyant actor for the cameras and makes herself available for sexual favors and ego boosting. In the Sheenster's case, synonymous with porn stars, former nannies/models, and wayward graphic designers: "You've read about the goddeesses, come on. They're an international sensation."
2. The sort of woman who needs step-by-step instructions when asked to make instant coffee during an interview on TMZ Live: "It's the premade. The instant. Mix the water with the powder. Don't confuse her." (See previous note on ego boosting.)

Golden sombrero
noun
Headgear that must be worn by one who has been divorced four times: "I tried marriage. I'm 0 for 3 with the marriage thing. So, being a ballplayer, I believe in numbers. I'm not going 0 for 4. I'm not wearing a golden sombrero."

Lunar channels
plural noun
The means by which great information is delivered to the Sheenster, for dispensation to us mortals: "the title of my book has finally been delivered thru vast and extensive Lunar channels."

Mercury surfboard
noun
Triumphant vehicle for a warlock using the media to his own advantage: "It's been a tsunami of media and I've been riding it on a mercury surfboard."

Octagon, the
noun
1. An imaginary location where a show-runner and a sitcom star can wage battle for dominance.
2. An area of unclear demarcation into which a porn star may accidentally wander into at her own peril when a sitcom star is raging over losing his wallet.

Organic union of the hearts
phrase
Description of the relationship between an erratic sitcom star and two goddesses: Maybe the three of us will get married. I don't know. I'm gonna say this. It's a polygamy story. All my guy friends are gonna like throw tomatoes at me. It's like an organic union of the hearts."

Out partying
adjective
Star's explanation for how all his crazy escapades begin. Often results in nudity, trashing of hotel rooms, terrified escorts hiding in closets, police visits, and wacky statements to the media.

Plan better
advice
The alternative to excuses, as explained by the Sheenster himself: "Ready for my next fastball, world? PLAN BETTER Applies to everything where an excuse now sits. Try it. U won't be wrong. Ever."

Porn family
noun
Replacements for one's actual family which has fled the coop, constituted of a fetish-appealing porn actress and a former-nanny-and-model graphic artist housed in an empty house in escrow located down the street from the former home of said actual family.

Radical success
noun
Results achieved by superhuman warlocks going through rehab at the Sober Valley Lodge: "Its primary client achieve radical success."

Rock star
noun
See Warlock. A term often preceded by "totally bitchin'" and followed by "from Mars".

Scoreboard
noun
Ultimate judge of who's winning, a reference to Sheen's roles in baseball movies, "where the home team's tally is always a lit-up infinity symbol, while the visitors must make do with an LED of Charlie Sheen giving the thumbs-down sign (with a smaller caption that reads, 'Sorry, bro')": "The scoreboard doesn't lie."

Sheen
verb
1. To behave like Charlie Sheen; e.g., when Trey Parker and Matt Stone told David Letterman that they were "Sheening pretty hard" when they cross-dressed for the Oscars.

Sober Valley Lodge
noun
Nickname for the Sheenster's Mulholland Drive mansion, a home rehabilitation facility populated by goddesses, warlocks, and past visits by said warlock's children...but perhaps not so many future ones. Free from the controlling influence of Alcoholics Anonymous, its inhabitants complete their miraculous healing by proclaiming, "Cured. Winning.": "We couldn't really call it rehab because we didn't have a license to operate one, so it was a crisis management center that we labeled the Sober Valley Lodge. Its primary client achieved radical success."

Stoopid jew pig
noun
Title bestowed on the Sheenster's manager, Mark Berg, who promptly took offense at the term and resigned. As did his publicist, Dan Rosenstein.

Tiger blood
noun
Fluid that allows one to survive drug addiction when flowing through one's veins. Purportedly composed of human blood, prescription painkillers, copious amounts of cocaine, and male performance-enhancing drugs: "AA was written for normal people. People that don't have tiger blood and Adonis DNA." [And in response to a question about why he survived drug addiction]: "Because I'm me. I'm different. I have a different constitution, I have a different brain, I have a different heart. I got tiger blood, man."

Twitter
noun
The latest platform on which the Sheenster (@charliesheen) can dish out his pearls of wisdom for the masses, and on which he got over 1 million followers in his first 24 hours there. Typical tweet: "Just got invited to do the Nancy Grace show...I'd rather go on a long road trip with Chuck Lorre in a '75 Pacer...."

Warlock
noun
A man who holds special powers (shooting magic and poetry from the fingertips, converting tin cans into gold), endowed with three-part heart, tiger blood, and Adonis DNA. His brain "fires in a way that is -- I don't know, maybe not from this particular terrestrial realm."

Wedge
noun
Term for the trio of a warlock positioned between two godesses: "It's a wedge. Boom. You form a wedge to make room for the guy carrying the ball."

Winning
noun, participle
1. Triumphing by getting more media coverage than studio executives, famous fathers, and show-runners who then must, "lay down with their ugly wives and their ugly children and just look at their loser lives." Often used in all-caps as a hashtag on Twitter (#WINNING).
2. Self-amplifying exclamation used to punch the end of a sentence: "Sorry, you thought you were just messing with one dude. Winning."
Examples: "The only thing I'm addicted to right now is winning." "Just winning every second." "Winning, anyone?" "Duh, winning!" "It rhymes with winning." "Face it, folks, you just feel better when you say it. #WINNING"

If nothing else, Charlie's at least taken our minds off the dismal U.S. debt load, the meltdown in the Middle East, and the political bickering in Washington. And you gotta love him for that.

So, Where Are You, Already?

For all you newspapers out there with online versions (that's pretty much all of them these days, right?), here's a tip you may not have considered:

Tell people your city, state and country. Put it right up there in your masthead, the one that appears on the top of every page of your site.

Why? Because it's not just your local audience reading your stories any more. A lot of people all over the world find their way to your little ol' newspaper's site, via news aggregation sites, alerts or searches on keywords in your stories. They may be curious as to where these stories took place, and it's not always evident from the content.

Simply "The Times" or even something like "The Valley Times" doesn't give readers any more clues to your whereabouts. What valley? Where? Sure, the locals know all your nicknames for the area, but somebody in Timbuktu won't. Even including the name of your city only narrows it down a little, as very few cities have unique names that aren't shared by at least one other burg somewhere in the world.

So do your readers, and your town, a favor, and tell people where you are. Your local Chamber of Commerce will thank you for it!

Creativity Exercise -- You'll Love This!

I posted this creativity exercise on Facebook this morning, but wanted to expand on the idea a little here. And I'd like for people to post their resulting stories here, as well. It could get interesting!

So here's the idea. You know those little verification words you get asked to type in when you post a link on something like Facebook, or when you're signing up for something online? Start keeping a list of them. When you have quite a few built up, start writing a story that incorporates all those words. Here are the criteria:

• The words have to be used in the order in which they appear on your list.
• You must include all the words you get as verification words; I usually just keep a Word document minimized on my desktop and pull it up when I have words to add to my list.
  
• A capitalized word, other than a proper noun, constitutes the beginning of a sentence. Until you get a capitalized word, you need to keep including words on your list in the same sentence.
• Punctuate the sentences however you wish, and add words in between as needed so that your story makes some sort of sense.
  
• Make all the words from your list bold in the story, so people will know what you've used.
  
• If you want to make a game out of it, say that the person with the least amount of words added to those on their list wins. That'll really push the creativity up another notch.
  

That's pretty much it! Post your stories here when you're done with them, and we'll start a community of people playing this game. Anybody got an idea for the name of such a game?

I've been keeping a list for a little while now, and the combination of words at the end of it right now is this: "when limply explaining war mullets." Doesn't that sound like a delightful concept to include in a story? Enjoy!

New Book Released!

Congrats to ghostwriting client Joe Overby, who has released his second book, Acres Aweigh! It's the story of Joe's life during the time he was stationed at Mayport as a tug master in the late 1950s-early 1960s. It's also the story of his friendship with Mrs. Elizabeth P. Stark, who used to own a 370-acre estate and operate a large resort called Wonderwood By-the-Sea where the basin at Mayport now stands. Fascinating woman who traveled the world, mingled with royalty, and marched for women's suffrage. As with Joe's first book, there's lots of history intermingled with his amusing anecdotes.

The book is available through Joe, at several local retail outlets including the Beaches Area Historical Society, or online at OldMaidCatLady.com, where you can also purchase Joe's first book, Just A Dumb Kid From Nowhere.

Today's Escape from Reality?

The nostalgic opening production number at last night's Academy Awards looked like a Busby Berkeley musical from the 1930s. That got me to thinking. During the Great Depression, people went to the movies to escape from their grim reality. These days the economy is pretty grim, but people are so busy with all the technological distractions of the day that there's really no escape. Even when we go to the movies, there are still at least a half-dozen people in any theater texting or actually answering their cell phones and carrying on a conversation during the movie. No escape.

It's not like Hollywood hasn't tried to get our attention. Big-budget CGA films like Avatar go all-out to pull in the viewers, and box office receipts would indicate that they're succeeding. But the industry insiders aren't buying it; the film won only in categories recognizing its special effects, which was where it deserved to win. The modern-style fantasy musical Nine was pretty much overlooked entirely. (Maybe those Hollywood types aren't so shallow, after all.) The Best Director and Best Picture Oscars went to...a film based on today's war environment. More reality.

But if the movies are just another dose of reality, where do we find our escape? Can we go for a nice drive? Not with the traffic on most of the highways. And then there's that concern about somebody texting while driving and killing us in our cars. At home? No, there we have dozens of TV channels showing "reality" shows. Then there are the video games based on real-life crime to remind us, or social networking and a host of other online reminders of the real world. Some people escape into Farmville or Mafia Wars...again, games based on real-life situations. We've become like junkies Jonesing for increasing levels of action, each more spectacular and gory than the last.

Remember the old TV commercial -- "Calgon, take me away!" Where's the old-fashioned, hopeful fantasy in our lives now? Must we make do with Guitar Hero? Where are the regular people, poor but hopeful, bursting into song and dance from sheer joy as they walk down the street? Where are the overhead camera shots of synchronized swimmers diving into huge swimming pools? Even Dancing With the Stars doesn't get that grandiose. And the variety shows of the 1960s, like Jackie Gleason's with the June Taylor Dancers, are a distant memory that only remind us how old we really are.

Truth is, if you're over about 15 years old, the reality of life tends to stick with you no matter where you go. Maybe that's why we're all so stressed out that we can't sleep, but go around shooting each other and yelling at little old ladies in traffic. Maybe what we really need is a good old Busby Berkeley-style musical to forget about the real world for a couple of hours. Have we become too jaded and cynical for that to work for us any more? Has "hope" these days become merely a hollow campaign promise from a politician, a poster icon reminiscent of the Cold War-era placards of Chairman Mao?

I say, bring back the old musicals! Let's get our fat duffs off the couch and start learning to tap dance again. Let's go out and rediscover romance -- pure, innocent, golden-age-of-Hollywood-style romance. Grab our attention and keep us so riveted to the screen that the cell phone can take a rest. Is anybody in Hollywood listening? Or is the best you can do a Hot Tub Time Machine? If so, "Calgon, take me away!"

The Ladder is Available Again!

You may be familiar with A Professional Writer's Ladder to Success, which is the series of e-books I started writing a few years ago to teach people how to plan for, establish, and run a successful writing business. After completing 8 books and 2 packages of them, I got a big contract that consumed most of my time and haven't added any more to the series. Then the sales portal where I had them for sale went out of business and the only way anyone could buy them any more was to see me speak somewhere and buy one on CD. The ladder series seemed doomed to fade into obscurity!

But I just spent this afternoon adding all the available e-books and packages to my Old Maid Cat Lady retail site. There's a special section on there for "Life Beyond the Kitties" that will feature other types of things needed by old maid cat ladies. After all, we have to earn a living, be entertained, socialize, and take care of ourselves, right? So after you've gone there to shop for your cats, you can now find these e-books and download them immediately so you don't have to wait to get started! Titles in the series, which I call "rungs" ('cuz it's a ladder, see?) include:

• Planning for Self-Employment: Building a writing business from the ground up
• Learning the Writing Industry: Is it one you really want to join?
• Polishing Your Writing Skills: Your writer's toolkit
• Writing a Business Plan: Your blueprint for success
• Establishing Your Writing Business: Preparing to open your doors
• A Writer's Professional Ethics: Keeping your integrity intact
• Finding Your Niche: How specialization can improve your bottom line
• Virtual Partnerships: Forging alliances with other creative professionals
• Writing Business Exploration Package (Rungs 1 & 2)
• Writing Business Startup Package (Rungs 1-5)

Best of all, they're on sale! So if you've thought about going into business for yourself as a writer, but you're not sure how to get started, this series will walk you through it. Now, if I can just find the time to get back to finishing the series, we'll both be getting somewhere!

If you also like to read for pleasure, I've also just added two books for one of my ghostwriting clients, Joe Overby, to the site. You can also buy them in paperback version there, which means you will have to wait to read them. But they're both great books, if I do say so myself! Just A Dumb Kid From Nowhere is the story of Joe's childhood in rural Mississippi during the Great Depression. Everybody who's read it just loves it. And his new one, Acres Aweigh!, is the story of his friendship with Mrs. Elizabeth P. Stark, a fascinating lady who used to own the property where the carrier basin at Naval Station Mayport now stands. The book is set in the late 1950s-early 1960s when Joe was stationed at Mayport. Joe is expecting his first shipment of the new book within the next week.

You can go directly to the appropriate page of Old Maid Cat Lady for each of these books by clicking on any of the links in the text above. The new pages of the site are "building" now on my store host's site, and should be up by Saturday morning. Enjoy!

Calling All Editors!

If you'd like to take on some book editing work as a sub-contractor for Thompson Writing & Editing, I'll soon be offering a class on my editing methodology. Drop me an e-mail and let me know of your experience and the genres that interest you. I'm setting up my network of editors to enable the company to take on more editing work than I can handle personally. You'll get most of the fee, and I'll take a percentage. Interested? lynn@thompsonwriting.com.