Prepping for the Paparazzi

I’ve waited a long time to be chased by paparazzi.

A lo-o-ong time.

Long enough to practice defense techniques. I’ve already broken the world’s record in how fast a hand can block a camera. There’s no category for that in Guinness. There should be.

With Frankenstein’s Monster coming out in two months (shameless plug), my waiting is at an end. And I’m prepped, I’m pumped—which, for a writer, means my fingers are ripped, ready to type up scathing comebacks like, “Yo Momma!”

I’ve also been practicing all the shocking things that celebrities do. I may not look like it, but I can party like I have a platinum library card.

My first step is to leak my own nickname before being plastered with something horrible. Once upon a time, we had the Lizard King, the Governator, and the Godfather of Soul. Now instead celebrities, especially celebrity couples, have a squishname. The ones in favor right now are “couple squishnames”—like TomKat for Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.

TomKat is actually one of the best: It uses the actual beginning of each name. The combination is an actual word. And it reflects that the he in question and the she in question are actually thisclose. But dozens more squishnames, before and since, are forgettable (which is a clever way to hide the fact that my memory is shot).

Desperation on the part of the paparazzi, and of the media that then buys their close-ups of hands, has now forced them into shortening even single names. Perhaps they suddenly remembered that Jennifer Lopez has had a squishname all her own for years—J-Lo. But they never heard its natural musicality. All they saw were two syllables. So now we have things like R-Pat for Robert Pattinson of the Twilight movies. It’s as if his celebrity hair and his celebrity eyes have the magnetism of two separate celebrity beings. (Well, maybe they do.)

Then I heard proof that not even the bottom of the barrel was low enough for a squishname. I heard one so bad that it revealed the human soul clawing its way through the barrel and digging all the way to China.

Subo.

Subo!

Short for singer Susan Boyle. The world couldn’t handle three syllables and so shortened her name to two. Subo. It is so horrendous that even now somebody somewhere is “verbing” it:

“Subo a song for us, Subo!” 

I need a squishname quick!

Suggestions? I’m looking for something that screams, “Peppy, dignified, charismatic, humble, literary genius!”