Frontiers of shamelessness: Chuck Lorre hawks his book-form collection of his vanity cards

You know the old saying, "Shameless is as shameless does." Okay, maybe it's not an old saying, and maybe I'm not even sure what it would mean if it were. But somehow it seems pertinent to Chuck Lorre's collection of his celebrated end-of-show vanity cards -- with, he promises, some new material added.

by Ken

So here I was just this week bragging about how I was on top of my new-season televiewing. It shouldn't be that tough, really, since it's pretty much all old and returning shows. (I'm casting a wary eye on CBS's Partners, though I missed the pilot, and the show is apparently too fancy for On Demand. There's sort of something going on there, nothing much is grabbing me except Brandon Routh, whom I don't think I've seen before, as "the other" gay guy.) Then I ran into the usual Sunday-night jam-up, which isn't so easy to clear if you aren't doing due DVR diligence, which for various reasons I wasn't this week -- and then I discovered I've got a Thursday-night mini-jam-up.

Which is a long-way-round way of saying that I only just caught up on Thursday night's Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men. And naturally at the end of the very lovely Big Bang Theory episode, naturally I paused the machine to read producer Chuck Lorre's vanity card. Which looked something like this:

CHUCK LORRE PRODUCTIONS, #393

I'm reluctant to use my vanity cards to plug the sale of my vanity card book. That doesn't mean I won't do it, I'm just reluctant. Or perhaps the better word is ambivalent - of two minds. On the one hand it seems a bit shameless to ask people to spend money on a beautifully bound, giant coffee table book filled with amusing stories and biting witticisms, each high-gloss page handsomely illustrated and ready for framing. On the other, it sure would make a dandy holiday gift for that special someone in your life who already has an iPod Nano. Of course, the fact that the book contains some original material which is sure to stir up some old controversies is by no means reason to buy it. Then again, how can you miss out on owning something that is so perfectly suited for toilet reading? The answer is, you can't. Take it from me, don't suffer from ambivalence. Enjoy the clarity of thought and purpose that comes from being of one mind - a mind that says, "I'm gonna go online right now and order me a copy of 'What Doesn't Kill Us Makes Us Bitter.'"

Okay, so I'm shameless, sue me. Oh wait, that's already been done.

Having written here before about some of Chuck's notable vanity cards (it was, in fact, a DWT reader who clued me in via a comment that you can find them all online), I decided on the spot that I was prepared to shamelessly promote his shameless self-promotion. As indeed I'm doing.

The only thing was, not being exactly a ball of fire today, I didn't head straight for the computer to do the deed, but instead dawdled in front of the TV and, as already noted, caught up on Thursday's Two and a Half Men, also a Chuck Lorre show, and what did I see at the end but -- you guessed it -- good old card #393! My immediate thought was that that may be just one tiny shameless step too far. But that, I decided on second thought, is a subject for another post.

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