"Sheen's Korner - Episode 4 - Building the Perfect Torpedo."

Charlie Sheen is expressing himself artistically these days in web video form. Let's take his work seriously — that is, let's not dismiss it as nothing but evidence of insanity or substance abuse. (Warning: Dirty words.)



I'd say, first, this is carefully written in poetic style. He's not raving off the top of his head. He'd be a genius if he could do that. I don't know if he wrote this stuff himself, but it's highly amusing and invites us in, the way good poetry does. We want to try to figure out what he's really saying, and we enjoy the sound of the stream of words even when we only partly understand it. Second, Sheen is an actor performing this script. He isn't garbling it in any way. He's adopting an intense and interesting persona, suitable for the YouTube milieu, and he's able to go on for 8 1/2 minutes, maintaining a crisp delivery and holding our attention. Of course, the fixed stare is the consequence of filming with a computer's built-in camera while reading a text displayed on the computer screen. It's not that hard to do. If it weren't Charlie Sheen but some unknown poet adopting this style, would we think anything of it?