http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5aSa4tmVNM
You've definitely already seen this. I feel entitled to make this assumption based on the fact you've got a pulse and an internet connection, because every vaguely sentient being within 500 metres of a Wifi hotspot has seen this. But just watch it again. You can't see it too many times. I've been watching on a loop on nearly four days now, and I'm okay. Well, I've lost ten stone and drunk so much coffee I've had to connect my arse to the toilet by a length of hose, but I kind of see that as a bonus.
I'm transfixed by it, see. 'It' being Charlie Sheen, who on the basis of this video can only be called an 'it'. It's no something from this particular terrestrial realm. It says so itself (actually fuck it, I'm switching back to 'he'. I can't keep this up without stabbing myself in the eye with a pen).
It took me a while to figure out what I was so entranced by. The comedy of him was a big draw; the sheer pig-headed, pseudo-beatnik, drug-chic'ed, cock-ended irreverancy of him. But its effect has worn off, and yet watching him hasn't. Disregarding my earlier quip, he does actively seem to be something un-human.
His face is a marvel. Thirty odd-years of solid substance abuse have certainly taken their toll, but he doesn't seem to be aging, more sort of...hollowing; as though instead of getting older he's slowly morphing into Skeletor, from Masters of the Universe. At one point he takes a swig of something so brightly coloured it looks like it was manufactured as a way of killing Superman. And just some of those lines...
"Can't is the cancer of happen."
"...your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body."*
"I'm tired of pretending I'm not a total bitchin' rock star from Mars"*
"I've got tiger blood, man."
"The run I was on made Sinatra, Flynn, Jagger, Richards, all of them just look like, y'know, droopy eyed armless children."
Droopy-eyed armless children? Most poets would be jealous of that kind of construction and he came up with it as a throwaway remark in a morning news interview. This isn't boring real life, this is a performance. Specifically it seems to be Robert Downey Jr's performance from A Scanner Darkly (seriously, I'm not even kidding here, it's uncanny: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQmGH61OoNI).
What does this mean then? For one thing it means that every single Charlie Sheen role has involved him becoming less interesting than he actually is, making him possibly the worst actor in history. But what it really means is that the American News media has absolutely no idea how to cover the story. Which can only be a good thing.
News interviews are, by and large, attempts (as Sheen puts it) to 'normalise' the subject; to crowbar them into an existing framework of understanding. You can see this in the questions the interviewer asks him; how often do you takes drugs, how many, do you regret it, etc. They're copy-and-pasted from every other interview conducted with some celebrity burnout in the last sixty years. These attempts usually work; the celebrity expresses remorse, apologises to friends and family and embraces their new life of sobriety. But the only interviews anyone remembers or enjoys are the ones where the subject refuses to succumb to these attempts to understand them and instead go actively mental. Think of the Bob Dylan press conferences in the mid-60's, Oliver Reed's chat show appearances in 70's, or Tracy Emin on that 90's art show, proving that when a wanker gets pissed off by other wankers they become almost bearable to watch. Sheen is following in this tradition, even embracing it; referencing the attempts the media make to 'normalise' his life, taking the piss out of the white-bread interviewer for asking about the last time he 'used', mocking subjects who claim that "it's all my mom's fault;-Shut up! Shut up! Move on, forward". Hear Hear.
All of which means that the media has no idea how to report the story other than by simply pointing a camera at him and going "Look! It's Charlie Sheen! In the headlines tonight - more Charlie Sheen! Tune in tomorrow for more of Charlie Sheen being Charlie Sheen, played by Charlie Sheen with dialogue by Charlie Sheen in The Charlie Sheen Story directed by Charlie Sheep-humping Sheen!" And it makes great television. What people are entranced by is not an understanding of people, but an active failure to understand; sheer fucked-up incomprehensible mystery. It's why we prefer Lennon to McCartney, Cook to Moore, Britney to Christina. It's what Joaquin Phoenix spent the last 18 months trying to emulate for his mockumentary I'm Still Here, and who's attempt is currently being completely upstaged by Sheen (imagine a time when we thought having a beard and mumbling counted as a radical fuck-up). Christ, it's why God is so popular.
Oh, and apologies for anyone expecting that film blog I promised who are now foaming at the mouth at my flagrant disregard for continuity. It's coming, don't worry. And Sheen is a film actor, so nyaaaah!
*Taken from other interview clips, currently unavaliable to view
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