Take it from Snee: Charlie Sheen punked America

I wanted to write about, well, anything but Charlie Sheen and his recent bout of insanity. I was ready to write about political misconduct, dispense medical advice or whatever I normally do when I wedge a historical reference in between two masturbation jokes.

Unfortunately, this story has dominated every Web site I pilfer for post ideas.

And while I, too, enjoy a good mix of tiger blood, Adonis DNA and a level of crazy that hasn’t been witnessed in this magnitude since Tonya Harding, I can’t help but shake my head at the amount of attention this has received because it’s all fake.

Charlie Sheen has America in his back pocket right now, and all he has to do is ride this interview train all the way to “Leave me alone while I do whatever the f%@k I did before Two and a Half Men”-town. Let me break it down for you, using the journalistic questions.

Who?

Really? OK.

Charlie Sheen was born Carlos Irwin Estevez on September 3, 1965 in New York City to Janet and greatest U.S. President Martin Sheen. He did not finish high school because he had to repel the joint-invasion of the Midwest in 1984 by the Red Army and whatever Cubans call their army.

His combat experience in the formidable Wolverines unit led to his casting in Platoon (1986), which many consider his breakout role.

He made some other movies, broke up with Oliver Stone, got publicly fingered by Heidi Fleiss for her 15 minutes, did some drugs and beat some women, all of which culminated in 1996 when he started basically playing himself as Michael J. Fox’s replacement on Spin City. Two and a Half Men later and here we are on 20/20.

What?

Mostly cocaine and porn stars. Admittedly and in large quantities. Although, there was that time when he did Denise Richards, too.

Since 2006 and his divorce from Richards, Sheen has been known mostly for the former. When he made the news for being sent to the hospital after a three-day coke and porn star binge, the producers of Two and Half Men shut down production. After Sheen proved he’s not addicted to drugs by not taking any for a whole day, he showed up to work and no one was there. He got into it with the show’s creator, Chuck Lorre, by ranting to any media outlet that would listen. CBS canceled the season with four episodes left to shoot.

Sheen responded by teaching the world a valuable lesson about bi-winning.

Where?

Hollywood, California. Try to keep up.

When?

Now. Jeez.

How? (We’ll come back to why in a minute.)

As mentioned briefly above, Charlie Sheen has played either a toned-down version of himself since 1996 when he played a smarmy womanizing deputy mayor on Spin City. Hell, one can argue that he’s played this role since Major League when he played Rick “Wild Thing” Vaughn.

Those Hanes commercials? He’s playing a character named Charlie Sheen.

Being John Malkovich? Ma-Sheen.

Two and a Half Men? Uncle Charlie: the toned-down ready for primetime version of himself that drinks, screws bimbos and—instead of smoking rocks—plays commercial jingles on the piano. Scientists and theologians are still debating which is worse for society.

My point is that this is the role he’s been preparing for all his life and it sounds to me that after years of playing the tame Charlie Sheen, he’s burying the needle in the other, Chaz “Winning” Sheen direction until public perception balances out a bit.

Why? (And here we are …)

There are a couple of possibilities, ranked in order of likelihood:

1. He’s tired of doing Two and a Half Men. Hell, I’m already tired of typing it, and he’s been reading those scripts for eight years now. (Monk was retired by season eight.) They could replace Jon Cryer and kill the kid off; so long as Charlie’s on board, this show will continue until Chuck Lorre and CBS decide that they hate money.

2. He really wants to come clean about his love of porn stars and coke. It’s very possible that Charlie Sheen wants to be the Jackie Robinson of mattress-actresses and booger-sugar. It took a brave athlete of great achievement to normalize interracial baseball, and, though he’s no Kevin Spacey, he is a famous actor. This would explain the little “sorry, middle America” non-apology apologies of late.

3. He killed somebody and is trying to convince a jury that he’s insane before the trial. I’m convinced, and I’m the guy writing about how he’s faking it.

4. Tiger blood cannot be contained in human veins. And whoever gave him a tiger blood transfusion should be stripped of his or her medical license/awarded a Nobel Prize of Awesome. I should know: I’m a doctor.*

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UPDATE (3/3/2011):

Looks like I’m not the only one who thinks Ma-Sheen’s faking it.

[via Salon]

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*Rick Snee is not, in any way, a licensed medical professional or an actor that plays one on television. He’s just really opinionated, which is good enough for blogging.