Ca-Sheen in On Crazy

This weekend I had two thoughts rolling around in my head until they seemed to merge: one is that I am grateful to have lived in a time when a man like Sidney Lumet made visionary, provocative and ultimately ENTERTAINING movies and two, how grateful I am to live in a time when a calculating or at least well handled madman can make MILLIONS being a rogue, sometimes incoherent, ULTIMATELY entertaining anti-hero. Sidney called it 35 years ago in his film Network that was nominated for 7 Oscars of which it took home 4.

Is Charlie Sheen calling it now?

Here’s where they merged, the center of the film is a TV personality embattled with his network and producers who goes on a very public rant spewing the catch phrase, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!” Before Face-booking and tweeting and EVEN email, executives had two count on land lines if they wanted an immediate response to programming and in the prophetic film, the phones are ringing off the hook as the insane Howard Beale raves on. Little did he know, his second act was just beginning.

Netflix, rent or steal the film from some site with the help of a prepubescent hacker; it continues to garner accolades actually rising in ranking on the American Film Institutes top 100 movies from 1997 to 2007. The parallels to what we are witnessing are uncanny.

There has always been profit in the portrayals and recently, showcasing and encouraging of crazy (isn’t that the formula for reality TV?). It is fascinating, because it is invisible and hard to quantify. I KNOW crazy on a very personal level.

My father was crazy in a good way and my mother was good in a crazy way. He was diagnosed, hospitalized, drugged, given shock treatment, shrunk by the hour weekly for a few years and then just did it his way as Sinatra would say. She is Catholic (and LOVED Two and a Half Men).

What’s particularly FASCINATING to me is how quickly crazy can get out and BRANDED now. The timeline on the Charlie Sheen’s Torpedo of Truth Tour is as follows: February 28^th he is barred from the Warner Bros. lot, March 3^rd he hires a marketing firm specializing in social media and begins a blitz. Charlie is fired on March 7^th, shows up on the roof of the Live Nation building drinking tiger blood and waving a machete (where was security?!) and announces a live tour (doing what?!) March 10^th. THAT is a busy week for anyone, let alone a guy who once shot his fiancé (Kelly Preston) and was recently hospitalized for doing a “briefcase full of cocaine” (according to Kasey Jordan his companion on the 36 hour bender).

It begs the question; what do you do next when you are the Kleenex, Xerox and Coke of Crazy (couldn’t resist the last one)? Charlie’s history of drugs, overdoses, rehab, hookers and violence against women was only made public when the law was called in. These were not stunts; there were never any leaked photos or sex tapes. For the record, I’ve never believed anything was leaked that didn’t involve a mug shot of Mel Gibson. Funny people can get away with a LOT, more than pretty people and a few years ago, he was both.

What will Twitter do with him and what did 1million dollars buy them that they really needed? So far his tweets are mundane, self serving, shameless plugs, silly pictures and in some cases a way to give away tickets to the tour that seems sort of desperate. Will he still make the reported 7 million if the ticket sales drop before the end of the tour in May? He was on the radio in Boston pushing the shows like a regular comic and alluded to returning to CBS…Touring, performing, promoting and being nice to dillweed DJ’s (not all are, I know…) is not as easy as it seems. It’s a lot harder than a phone in press junket in your underpants while goddess’ refill your chalice.

There is no question of his talent, intelligence, likeability and physical stamina! He is brilliant in his delivery of the written word and affable in deflecting past controversies. He has certainly launched a lucrative merchandising campaign with t-shirts, ball caps, ashtrays, key chains and glassware; the catchphrases “Winning, duh”, “Tigerblood” and “Goddess” emblazoned on them.

I will not divulge the end of Network if you haven’t Wikipediaed it already-

This will be much harder to call; documented, celebrated devolution or calculated launch and rebirth? The one thing that cannot be denied is social media’s ability to speed it all up.