VIP LESSON 005 - TV Talk
Reading:
Charlie Harper is a carefree funloving bachelor. He has an overpaid jingle
writing job, a malibu beach house, and a very active dating life. He love's his
life until one day, his uptight and neurotic brother Alan goes through a messy
divorce and begs to move into Charlie's house along with his 10 year old son
Jake. Out of a sense of obligation, Charlie begrudgingly allows this because he
feels sorry for Alan. This hilarious sitcom is about the dynamic of these 3 trying
to live together.
Phrases and Vocabulary Used:
Carefree: This is a term that describes people who are free of trouble and worry.
They are optimistic and relaxed. They have little stress and don't worry about
little things. Children are often described as being "carefree".
Bachelor: A man who is single, (not married and no serious girlfriend). If you
are a bachelor with an active dating life it means that you casually date a lot of
different women.
Jingle writing job: Jingle's are the songs played on TV or radio commercials to
advertise products. Some successful people with this type of job can make quite
a lot of money doing it. Of course it helps to have good contacts and talent when
getting into the jingle writing business.
Malibu beach house: Malibu is a rich area in California. A beach house is
obviously a house on the beach. These are multi million dollar homes.
Uptight: If someone is uptight they are tense and nervous. They have a hard
time relaxing. They worry a lot. If people are often like this they can be
described as being "uptight". Sometimes people are only uptight about
something. Students might be really uptight before their upcoming final
examinations.
Neurotic: Emotionally unstable. People who are "neurotic" do strange things
like checking their cell phone or email every 5 minutes to see if they got a
message.
Messy divorce: A "messy" divorce is a divorce where the couple argues a lot
about who gets what after the divorce. Messy divorces can take a lot of time and
energy. During a messy divorce, the couple is often involved in long and
expensive courtroom battles.
Begrudgingly: To unwillingly do something. After a long fight, he begrudgingly
let his wife buy some expensive artwork.
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VIP LESSON 005 - TV Talk
FULL PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Back in the VIP room lesson number five, already Add… doing a day time cast….
a lot of times we do the night ones…. supposed to do it last night. Didn't, that
was my fault… and then I promised Add I’d do it at 9 a.m. this morning, but he a
hard time dragging me out of bed…and then we got caught watching the
basketball game. Ah..right, but we’re doing it now at least, so I can't complain I
suppose… you can't complain Add…you’v got me here in the studio, but I love
doing this so I don’t even know what I'm talking about… today guys, since you’re
the VIP members… we’re deciding to share a great secret… another way
besides listening to this, how to study English and have fun at the same time.
Actually we do this, we don't really do it to study English, but it's fun… watch TV
Add…. modern TV…you get a lot of slang words… you get a lot of…you just
have a good time with it…and you really learn what people are talking
about…and the type of humor people really use nowadays…ah good wisdom
there Andy…I would say…and a lot of shows totally suck, but the one we’re
gonna say is a pretty good one. There are some corny jokes in it…but anyway
the show is called 2 1/2 men. I'm going to read a little blurb about it…then we’re
going to talk about it Add
Charlie Harper is a carefree funloving bachelor. He has an overpaid jingle
writing job, a malibu beach house, and a very active dating life. He love's his
life until one day, his uptight and neurotic brother Alan goes through a messy
divorce and begs to move into Charlie's house along with his 10 year old son
Jake. Out of a sense of obligation, Charlie begrudgingly allows this because he
feels sorry for Alan. This hilarious sitcom is about the dynamic of these 3 trying
to live together.
Ah good piece there Andy….and we especially liked this show because it kind of
relates to our life right now….it does relate to our life in a lot of ways
Add….because we’re brothers Add, we’re bachelors…and we’re living together,
and it just relates a lot to us…there’s a lot of hilarious kind of things that go on,
and even though neither of us are really like either of those two guys exactly in
the show we can laugh and notice a lot of characteristics and a lot of similarities
that one of us had…. even the bad qualities you know…and you can laugh at
yourself really… right, I think we share characteristics of both characters and it's
a pretty hilarious show so we really like it…yeah so if you watch the show you’ll
get an insight kind of into how our lives might be… to some extent…I mean
obviously not exactly are they Add…no..but we may throw in a few anecdotes to
give you an idea…yeah…alright, first word here Add…carefree, and this is a way
to describe people…. and they’re free of trouble and worries…so in the show
Charlie is carefree… he's optimistic, he's relaxed. He doesn't have a lot of
stress…you know people handle stress very differently… the same situation can
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VIP LESSON 005 - TV Talk
affect two people in totally different ways…his younger brother Allen gets totally
stressed out in one situation…the same situation Charlie seems to be able to
laugh about it. Look on the bright side and not really worry about it, and that's
kind of a good…. good way to describe someone who's carefree… and they’re
fun to be around..right…I think it’s easy for Charlie on the show because he
seems to not really do much and just have a lot of money…yeah, his life seems
to come quite easily to him…and he’s a fun loving Batchelor…that’s the next
one..and a bachelor is a man who is single, so he's not married and he also has
no serious girlfriend…. he might be dating but he doesn't have a serious girlfriend
or wife, which is…or fiancé…wife which is even more serious I suppose Add…I
think that's the most serious isn’t it? It’s supposed to be…So we talk about
Charlie in the show having a very active dating life….so he’s this kind of
bachelor… and if you have an active dating life, it's pretty obvious what that
means…you date a lot of different people, you have a lot of dates to go on. and
because he's such a carefree nice guy. And he’s a rich guy in the show… right
he has a lot of time for dating… and he’s not a bad looking. I think either on the
show…yeah…he’s supposed to be a good-looking guy…gets a lot of women…so
he’s having fun..you know…he has an active dating life. He's a bachelor..and he
has an overpaid jingle writing job..this isn’t that important of a term, but if you
watch the show which you really should…a jingle writing job is just..you’re kind of
writing… I guess these little songs really for commercials. And they sound pretty
stupid, but if you're good at them, you can get quite a bit of money for it, so it’s
somewhat realistic for people who have this type of job…right, on the show he
likes to drink a lot, and then just play the piano once in a while…and then write
down a few notes and that's all he does…yeah, he seems to wake-up, drink
some tequila, which we generally don't do…but, you know he does this kind of
thing and then works maybe an hour or two a day, and then he’s good to
go…Right, so it seems something to strive for anyway…so he’s got what they
call an overpaid jingle writing job…a Malibu beach house… Malibu is a very rich
area in California, and a beach house is obviously a house on the beach…these
are multimillion dollar homes. So if you have one of these, you're looking pretty
good Add. Exactly, and Charlie is looking good, but unfortunately, he his
younger brother there now. Yes, so his younger brother comes in on the very
first show of season one, and we call him uptight and neurotic…these are both
really good terms…Uptight, if someone’s uptight, they’re very tense and nervous.
It's kind of like the opposite of carefree, and they have a hard time relaxing, they
worry a lot. So some person can be described as being uptight…. he's very
uptight or she's very uptight, or you could say, this person is uptight about
something… right. He is uptight about his upcoming final examinations…so he’s
kind of of overly stressed and worried… he's uptight about this particular thing.
Maybe not generally an uptight guy….so you can use it in both ways…. you can
describe someone being uptight about something, or just the person generally
being uptight… exactly, yeah but Charlie's brother on the show is uptight in
general unfortunately…yeah he’s always uptight. Just…. it almost doesn't matter
what, he's got a pretty negative attitude and it doesn’t help him…right and you
can just see in his look and how he talks to everyone….that he’s nervous all the
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VIP LESSON 005 - TV Talk
time basically…yeah, how he handles things, how he looks at life. It's…he’s an
uptight guy and to go along with that, probably the best word here inn this lesson
is neurotic… and if you're neurotic….you’re kind of crazy, you're emotionally
unstable. And if people…. people who are neurotic do strange things for
example, they check their e-mail or cell phone every five minutes, or even every
one minute to see if they got a message…so it’s being compulsive as well…we
talked about that in another show… but just doing anything that doesn't really
make any sense almost…Right, or brush your teeth like 10 times a day or just
really focus on things that aren’t very important and are unnecessary to think
about all the time…yeah..just overly thinking things…not being able to control
what he's thinking about is. He's neurotic, you know…some little thing goes
wrong and he makes a big deal about it. Charlie's the opposite of neurotic…
Allen is a smart guy in a way on the show, but he's neurotic and this kind of stuff
brings his life quality, way down… he goes through a messy divorce…this is
another good one Add…to use this term messy, to describe a divorce.. what is
that?… a messy divorce just means you had a lot of things together when you're
married, like having a kid, having a house, having a car…so it’s difficult to split
these after you get divorced… right, so it's hard to know who gets what a lot of
times… lawyers are involved, and the people are bitter about it… and it goes
along with a bitter… or divorce… the people usually… they hate each other. You
know, It is a very emotional thing, obviously, to go through a divorce… and if you
have a messy divorce…it means you’re kind of fighting with the person, you're
arguing about things…it’s very emotional, so Allen’s going through this. And we
talked about this on another lesson… he's… a lot of the shows so far in the VIP
section have been sort of about this show… I sit there in front of the TV with a
notepad…. I consider it working I suppose… watching the show and jotting down
some good words… and so…. Alan anyway is paying alimony…he’s paying child
support…. and he can barely even afford to live anymore even though he’s got a
decent job normally…so he has to move in with his brother Charlie… and after
this messy divorce….Right, and it's pretty funny too because Charlie has such an
easy lifestyle and doesn't have to work. Allan has to go to work everyday fulltime and has no money. So it’s kind of funny this way…right, and it seems like
Charlie's life should be bad, the way Alan would look at things, he's not working
very hard, he's drinking too much. But somehow Charlie's happy, making more
money, and doing better in pretty much every area of life. So Alan's quite jealous
of this and then has to beg his older brother to move in…so it’s pretty funny…
right… exactly, like Alan is the kind of guy that thought he was doing everything
right and is wondering why the world is..you know, giving him this difficult time…
right, and Charlie according to a lot of people and society is supposed to be
doing everything wrong, but somehow his life is turning out well….anyway, so out
of a sense of obligation, Charlie begrudgingly allows this…so of course Charlie
does not want his brother Alan, moving into his house. because Alan has to bring
his 10-year-old son Jake and he’s moving in…it’s just gonna cause a lot of
unnecessary stress really in Charlie's life….Charlie’s enjoying the life…but he
feels obligated cause he’s family and he begrudgingly allows this…so if you
begrudgingly do something, it means you do it….but you’re kind of unwilling
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VIP LESSON 005 - TV Talk
almost to do it, but finally you say, ok..i’ll do it…right, you have a sense of
obligation as you mentioned, you realize you have to do it, but it's something that
you don't want to do…for example, you could say, after a long fight, he
begrudgingly let his wife buy some expensive artwork…right, so men are often
begrudgingly allowing their wives to do things and vice versa…. women of course
are begrudgingly allowing their husbands to do things…so they’re not really
willing…they’re not that into the idea, but…they just kind of allow it to happen
anyway… they begrudgingly allow this…right, it’s usually some kind of a
compromise, isn’t it?… so Add we've got a great show here today in the VIP
section, a couple more…. We’re not going to spoil the surprise, in the
pipeline….meaning, what's coming up soon…and besides, just listening to
this…really check out this show, 2 1/2 men, you can download it on a lot of
different places, I guess it depends on which country you're from… or, I don’t
know…buy it…or watch it somewhere…it's pretty, pretty much…if you know how
to use the Internet… right, if you guys signed up for the VIP section I'm sure
you'll be able to figure it out… figure it out… watch the show… and comment…
let us know what you think….thanks a lot for the support… and we will see you
very soon at triple WdotChina232.com in the VIP room.
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