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Dan Dunn's Advice on Charlie Sheen

Last week, after the Food Blog announced the debut of friend-of-the-Weekly Dan Dunn's new Living Loaded: Tales of Sex, Salvation and the Pursuit of the Never-Ending Happy Hour, the feedback was pretty entertaining.

Some of the highlights:

"I loved your commentary and observations regarding our mutual imbiber Dan Dunn. I too have foggy but fond memories of that fateful 2009 [Pebble Beach Food & Wine] weekend. Dan crashed our table at the Michael Mina/Verite dinner and later disappeared with a flirtatious winemaker. However I should mention that this rather predictable behavior occurred only after Dan loudly proclaimed Verite's Winemaker Pierre Seillan the best winemaker in the f---ing country. Who can argue with a guy like that?"

"I dug with much glee your Dunn ditty. I've known that cat for decades, going back to when we played hard ball together in Aspen for a few years. It was a strange, significant moment of mine, reading your review of Living Loaded: Here was one friend reviewing another friends book, only you were both from two totally different (but not so much, it seems) worlds, and actually are two of my favorite food-borne writers..."

And this from Dunn:

"Love the line about soaking my liver like a bar rag... mind if I steal that for a future book?"

But it was another thingy that had me thinking about Dunn's deal: Charlie Sheen's barrage of bizarro.

In his chapter "The Most Delicious Women and Dessert Wines I've Ever Had Have One Thing in Common," Dunn completes a handy subsection named "How to Hang Out With Porn Chicks." (Note: As Playboy spirits columnist, this is not unqualified chatter.) Sheen figures prominently into the checklist, which goes like this:

1) Hold the anchovies.

"It's common knowledge that porn chicks lose all self-control around pizza deliverymen. Ditto for pool boys, men in uniform and guys with Tom Selleck mustaches..."

2) Adjust for inflation.

"...whenever I'm drinking with a lady I always size her up to get an idea how much booze she can reasonably throw back without becoming a puddle."

3) Don't ask her about work..

"If she wants to talk about it, she'll bring it up. And there's a good chance she doesn't want to talk about it. Because guess what everyone else who meets her wants to know about?..."

4) Choose carefully.

"Believe it or not, not every pron star you meet is necessarily someone you're going to want to hang out with. Like in all professions, however, the people at the top of it are doing something noticeably different than the writing faceless masses below them."

5) Avoid Charlie Sheen at all costs.

"Like a moth to flame, that guy. But if you see him, run for the hills, because in all likelihood that deviant bastard's already f**ked her, and who wants to go there? Plus, nothing kills the mood faster than Charlie Sheen."

Just like there are other handy instructionals in Living Loaded—my favorite is "How to Kill at Wine Tastings"—there are also lots of other things you gotta see from Sheen if you haven't already, including:

1) A Guardian quiz out of London called Charlie Sheen v Muammar Gaddafi: whose line is it anyway?

and

2) These top Sheen quotes I've compiled from various media because they are awesome:

On the makers of Two and a Half Men and their giving him the boot: "I'm insulted. I am confused. But these resentments, they are the rocket fuel that lives in the tip of my sabre."

On no more pretending: "I'm tired of pretending like I'm not special. I'm tired of pretending like I'm not bitching, a total fricking rock star from Mars, and people can't figure me out, they can't process me. I don't expect them to. You can't process me with a normal brain."

On his drug use: "I am on a drug, it's called 'Charlie Sheen'. It's not available because if you try it once, you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body."

TMZ's Mike Walters asked Sheen if he had hit "rock bottom" – and Sheen replied: "Rock bottom? That's a fishing term. I have a grandiose life. I embrace it. Sorry my life is so much more bitchin' than yours. I planned it this way."

On getting calls from other stars in support: "Occasionally, you know, a giant marquee name comes through on your caller ID. And it's like, winning."

On his promised legal battle against CBS: "They picked a fight with a warlock…You either love or you hate. You live in the middle, you get nothing."

On a tattoo on his chest that reads "Death from Above," alongside an apple and a drop of blood: "It's the banner from the death card that Kilgore [from Apocalypse Now] is throwing on his victims, but there's also falling from it, is the apple from The Giving Tree. There's my life. Deal with it. Oh, wait, can't process it? Losers. Winning. Buh bye."

and

3) A superior parody by Jimmy Fallon.