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Initially I had high, if not unrealistic, hopes for Charlie Sheen’s enigmatic ‘Violent Torpedo of Truth’ appearance. If Sheen was the Übermensch from Mars, as previously postulated, then his alien lexicon certainly must have a metaphysics to match. I hoped for more tirades, phantasmagorical tangents and deeper forays into Warlockian cosmology. Forget petty deliberations about the future of the novel: Sheen’s narrative was poised to inherit the future of postmodernism itself. Alas, it is with regret that I must report that the dude has got no game, as evidenced last Thursday in Atlanta. The Warlock’s curious cosmology now probably rests forever incomplete, perhaps one of the greatest underdeveloped philosophical texts of the 21st century.

The evening of the show, outside the Fabulous Fox Theatre in downtown Atlanta, the schadenfreude hung as thick as a humid summer evening in Georgia. A mix of rednecks, fratboys, sycophants, celebritists, disaster tourists, hipsters and detached meta-ironists adorned the streets, curious to experience perhaps the oddest and newest form of popular entertainment: the unhinged celebrity meltdown, live in your hometown! Videographers, bloggers and mainstream TV crews worked the crowds panning for the archetypal caricature of Charlie’s Kids. They had no shortage of wonderful subjects.

One interviewer to a dopey lidded Georgia boy:
“He bombed in Detroit, do you think he will bomb here?”
“Huhu, I hope so.”
Remarks the stoner, in the true spirit of the deprecation of the times.

The show itself was predictably unfocused, persistently heckled and Sheen did very little of the infamous bizarro ranting that initially popularized his meltdown. He mouthed a few catchphrases when he wasn’t smoking, his delivery completely frazzled and bewildered. Vacant and ghostly white, he ambled forward. If it weren’t for Jeff Ross (“how do you roast a meltdown?”), whose roasting intervention literally kept people from walking out, the show would have been an epic disaster. Finally, Sheen’s brief monolog at the end smelled pathetically like a desperate plea to get his TV job back, claiming in reference to his former bosses, that “it’s up them to give the people what they want.” Gone was the fire, gone was the game. Face it Charlie, the drugs don’t work.

CBS need look no further than 1976 satire ‘Network’ in dealing with the Howard Beale Charlie Sheen situation. The world wants solipsistic rant master Charlie Sheen and full televised access to his 24×7 Dionysian revelry. Screw the lame sitcom. Give Charlie Sheen his own fucking show, with all the money and drugs he needs, and let him go nuts with it. It will pay for itself 100x over. This is the new reality TV, why are we afraid to embrace it?

What we love about Sheen’s nihilistic disregard for anything that stands in opposition to His Quest for Winning, is his dogged commitment to the crazy train, full steam ahead, all contrition out the window. There will be no genuflection before the great alter of therapy culture that so desires to process his celebrity meat into acquiescence.

In a way, Sheen recalls a derelict version of Nietzsche’s Übermensch, the artist-tyrant, hyper-evolved man above men who has rejected the values of the miserable class and their appeasing mediocrity, to create the world anew.

So alien are ye in your souls to what is great, that to you the Superman would be frightful in his goodness!

And ye wise and knowing ones, ye would flee from the solar-glow of the wisdom in which the Superman joyfully batheth his nakedness!

Ye highest men who have come within my ken! this is my doubt of you, and my secret laughter: I suspect ye would call my Superman—a devil!

— Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’

Unfortunately one wouldn’t expect the Übermensch to be doing such crappy sitcoms. But then again…God is dead, Sheen is #winning.

freewheel brakeless is the new fixie..

What Michael Phelps Should Have Said

Dear America,

I take it back. I don’t apologize.

Because you know what? It’s none of your goddamned business. I work my ass off 10 months a year. It’s that hard work that gave you all those gooey feelings of patriotism last summer. If during my brief window of down time I want to relax, enjoy myself, and partake of a substance that’s a hell of a lot less bad for me than alcohol, tobacco, or, frankly, most of the prescription drugs most of you are taking, well, you can spare me the lecture.

I put myself through hell. I make my body do things nature never really intended us to endure. All world-class athletes do. We do it because you love to watch us push ourselves as far as we can possibly go. Some of us get hurt. Sometimes permanently. You’re watching the Super Bowl tonight. You’re watching 300 pound men smash each while running at full speed, in full pads. You know what the average life expectancy of an NFL player is? Fifty-five. That’s about 20 years shorter than your average non-NFL player. Yet you watch. And cheer. And you jump up spill your beer when a linebacker lays out a wide receiver on a crossing route across the middle. The harder he gets hit, the louder and more enthusiastically you scream.

Yet you all get bent out of shape when Ricky Williams, or I, or Josh Howard smoke a little dope to relax. Why? Because the idiots you’ve elected to make your laws have, without a shred of evidence, beat it into your head that smoking marijuana is something akin to drinking antifreeze, and done only by dirty hippies and sex offenders.

You’ll have to pardon my cynicism. But I call bullshit. You don’t give a damn about my health. You just get a voyeuristic thrill from watching an elite athlete fall from grace–all the better if you get to exercise a little moral righteousness in the process. And it’s hypocritical righteousness at that, given that 40 percent of you have tried pot at least once in your lives.

…

Until then, I for one will have none of it. I smoked pot. I liked it. I’ll probably do it again. I refuse to apologize for it, because by apologizing I help perpetuate this stupid lie, this idea that what someone puts into his own body on his own time is any of the government’s damned business. Or any of yours. I’m not going to bend over and allow myself to be propaganda for this wasteful, ridiculous, immoral war.

Go ahead and tear me down if you like. But let’s see you rationalize in your next lame ONDCP commercial how the greatest motherfucking swimmer the world has ever seen…is also a proud pot smoker.

Yours,

Michael Phelps

I’m so nostalgic for the carefree days of silly suburban vandalism. Thinking of a new Wes Anderson take on Clockwork Orange…suburban droogs who battle ennui with “grinching.”

Four teenagers were arrested by Marietta police for “grinching” — allegedly using a machete to destroy some of the inflatables.

Note to self: anger goes much further in virtual worlds. The next time I feel like self-immolating, I’ll be sure to do it in Some Other Life.

While I’ve always felt somewhat estranged from the world of puzzles and games, I don’t agree that it is an activity that is necessarily at odds with reading or other creative pursuits. But this dude does:

It’s a terrible thing to behold: on commuter trains, in Starbucks, in offices, the Slaves of Sudoku hunched over their puzzle books, addicted to the mind-numbing hillbilly heroin of the white-collar class.

Heh, nice. But not everyone can crank out a novel on a train, and even if the rank and file of commuting cattle everywhere were to start writing poetry, would anyone want to hear it? Uh, careful what you wish for.

What are some of the other defenses of the puzzle people? “It trains the mind.” No, sorry; it only trains the mind to think in a tragically limited and reductive fill-in-the boxes way. I’d say that instead it drains the mind. Drains it of creativity and imagination while fostering rat-in-a-maze skills.

Not necessarily. It’s at least some form of mental exercise. Having recently attempted (unsuccessfully) a few crosswords I would say that they do increase your appreciation for memory related chores. But me, I think I’ll wait until I can download a “google for the human brain” applet and forget memory altogether.

I don’t know what’s cooler, BMX being an olympic sport, or being able to bid on a FULL SIZE Viper or Cylon Raider from Battlestar Galactica.

Sometimes I think the kid in me just might live forever.

Get ready.

It doesn’t really bother me that corporations have further co-opted hip culture with their viral marketing hijinks. But those popcorn cellphone videos? Who knew.

But Cardo’s commercials point to the ugly side of what Rob Walker calls “murketing,” the obscure form of persuasion that has been on the rise in the ad business in the last couple of decades. The cell-phone popcorn ads peddle false consumer-safety information in an attempt to trick people into buying Cardo’s wares.

I’m not so worried about the false information being peddled on those who voluntarily watch videos of cellphones supposedly popping popcorn on youtube. After all, you are on youtube. Buyer beware, be very aware.