It's the elephant in the room. It's the talk of the town and EVERYONE seems to have an opinion on it. And the general public concurrence is...that's right, Charlie Sheen has lost it! He's out of his mind, he's off the reservation, he's a few cards short of the standard deck. Whatever you'd prefer to call it. In short, Charlie's gone crazy! For those of you who haven't seen the airings on 20/20 or Dateline or myriad of subsequent posts on Facebook, I've attached a portion of his 20/20 interview. So please take a look for yourself. I'm sure you'll agree he's in unchartered territory in the realm of mental health.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5aSa4tmVNM
Now I'd like to make myself perfectly clear: I am NOT in that general public concurrence category. I see this interview and I don't see a crazy man. I see a person who has worked his way to the top of the list as far as A-list celebrities go. A man who got in some trouble with hookers and drugs in the past (and then apologized to the public, as if he owed anyone in the public an apology. No, he apologized because he was told to do it so he did it. He appeased the masses while abandoning his own, albeit somewhat flighty, principles.) A man who dreamed, at an early age, of becomming a rock star. Do you remember wanting to be a rock star when you were little? Wanting to live "the life" of a celebrity? Of course you do, we all had dreams. This is what happens to a person when he/she has realized their dream. The real question isn't whether I dreamt of being a celebrity. It's WHY I wanted that life, why we wanted that life. I know why I did...I wanted to live a life sans inhibitions or judgement. Anybody else? Did anybody else want ALL of the money so they could have whatever they wanted? Alright, Charlie may have shot the moon when we found out that all he wanted was drugs, hookers, and mansions. But make no mistake about it what he's got is...everything he ever wanted. I hope I've been pretty clear about that...Charlie Sheen has EVERYTHING he's ever wanted. Are you starting to get a clear picture of why Charlie isn't sorry?
Now let's do what Americans do...let's attack him and pity the poor bastard for having it all and doing whatever he wants. Whate a jerk! He really seems to want everybody's help righting his awful reality. Why, what-EVER will he do with all that money and those "godesses" (who've shared a great deal of the criticism aimed at Sheen). Yeah, folks, Charlie really seems to need our help.
I have a few ideas as to why everybody seems to be pouring down judgements from their vestal ivory towers. First of all, Charlie's different from us, right? He even says his mind "fires differently" than ours. So you can say he's crazy...I'd prefer to call him different. He's not crazy, his mind is just wired differently. If you don't understand that then that's the point. You can't understand it because your mind isn't wired to. But, no, the public needs him to walk the straight and narrow and act like the rest of us. Why? Hasn't he earned the right to do whatever the hell he pleases? Say whatever he wants? Smoke, snort, inject, or penetrate anything he wants? He's got his bills paid, he's got his job that he shows up for. I'll tell you what, I've never watched Two and a Half Men and thought to myself "that man's crazy" or "he's high as a kite" but I think it's safe to assume that, based on his interviews, he's been high and leading a pretty volatile existence from the show's inception to its present hiatus. My point? This man doesn't even let his edgy lifestyle affect his work.
All that being said, everyone else just seems jealous. Charlie Sheen gets to buy whatever he wants, do whatever he wants, go wherever he wants, and we just have to sit there and let him. Yeah, he's different alright. He's got all the money and the women while we all go to our 9-5s and split each penny just to make the bills. That's wayyyy different from my life. But I don't think he needs to change at all. I know that everyone who's giving their amateur opinion (myself included) cares about Charlie Sheen, whether they know it or not. We like our stars and we'd prefer them to be role models, and we hate to see them checking out early. But comon, he's a grown man. It's not our business to baby him back to sobriety (especially if he wants no part of it) or make him change and just go back to being one of us. Take a look in the mirror, America. We've all got vices. There's worse people everywhere. People are toking up all over the world this very second. And I gotta think most of those people have much more at stake than Mr. Sheen.
I'm not saying he's perfect. He's clearly an unfit father who accidentally had a family when he wasn't ready. Is he the first? He's living out loud, uninhibitied. He hasn't killed anybody and he hasn't asked you to stop what you're doing.
But seriously, someone get those kids outta there
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