It is a time of great reckoning. A time when an anxious, troubled nation huddles in tight clusters of fear and uncertainty, shot through with far too much war, economic grief, Tea Party idiocy, iffy cell phone reception and low-level karmic doom.
But wait! Just when all seems lost ... look! Yonder! Could it be? It is! A dazzling beacon winks out from the savage darkness. We are saved! Let us now wheel in the hookers and Veuve Clicquot and large bazookas full of cocaine! God bless America.
Hence and by extension, Charlie Sheen is perfect. A spectacularly middling actor of no real import with decent comic timing, a razor wit and a thing for cocaine, porn stars, polyamory, multiple kids and hilariously nonsensical, megalomaniacal verbal zingers, all oversprinkled with tantalizing dustings of domestic violence and tabloid sensationalism. Like we say about God, the devil and Karl Rove, if Sheen didn't exist, we'd have to invent him.
He hath risen, twitching, sweating profusely and spinning like a top. How long will it last? How long until something gives? Not long. Sheen is the perfect energetic match to what we see and feel all around us right now. He's a spectacularly fractured mirror reflecting the grotesque system that birthed him -- smart, funny, wasted, hugely overpaid, egomaniacal, sexy, violently unhealthy, perverted, overamped, creepy, unhinged, lacking all center, moral compass spinning like a Catharine wheel, entirely unable and unwilling to take a deeper look at root causes. Ain't that America.
You might say: Enough already. You might say: Far too much energy, time, media attention has been spent on Sheen as it is; it's not worth it, leave the poor guy alone, clearly he's spiraling out of control, is disturbingly bi-polar, an insomniac ("I don't sleep. I wait."), a fistful of Ambien and a 3 a.m. gunshot away from an ambulance ride to Cedars-Sinai and the Hollywood Cemetery.
It's a nice thought, but before that happens we will no doubt be treated 24/7 to many choruses of Duelling Lawsuits. Even at $2mil per episode, if Sheen's profligate ways haven't left him broke, the lawyers will. Despite his grandiose pomposity, he hasn't figured out yet that the studio has more money and lawyers than he does and screwing artists out of money is what they do. Then he'll just be another junkie and we'll quit hearing about him. Maybe.
More. Go.
Update:
Then there's another scenario - redemption and salvation. Americans loves them some R&S.
Charlie Sheen Admits 'I'm Losing My Mind,' He Needs Help
Speaking as a former drunk (but still part-time doper, thank you Jesus), I hope every wino on the street gets the help he needs to kick it and start living again, but what if Sheen does? He needs a little jail time and a GOOD rehab, but after that? Whatever the scenario, and there are many from partially re-hinged contriteness to 180° unhinged evangelical of sobriety and everything in between, I doubt that he'll go away and we'll never hear the last of him.
Here's the statement that might get him locked up:
“I’m really trying to contain myself right now,” Sheen said. “My lawyer wants to come over to my house and take the bullets out of my gun.”
He's been in court several times for domestic abuse. I will ass-yoom he's been found guilty, or at least pleaded no contest, at least once. If so, he's not allowed to have firearms for ten years and it's a felony.
Note to his lawyer: Leave him one bullet. I doubt if he could survive the switch from Veuve Clicquot to pruno in jail anyway, let alone from boinkin' "goddesses" to being the goddess. Heh.
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