Good time Charlie
Outside Stage 27 at Sony Pictures Studios in Los Angeles, on a warm September evening, an army of reporters stands in wait for the man of the moment- a man who has been grabbing hyperbolic headlines around the world, not for his creative talents, but for his many colourful rampages, be they drug-fuelled, sexual or verbally diarrhetic.
The madness that seized Charlie Sheen this year has been legendary in scale, not only getting him fired from his US$1.8-million-an-episode job as the star of hit television show Two and a Half Men (resulting in a legal dispute between Sheen and Warner Bros that was settled last week, with the actor reportedly receiving a US$25 million lump sum) but also costing him a hefty chunk of professional credibility and a couple of porn-star girlfriends.
It's also the reason he is here; to sit down in front of an audience of his peers and the world's media to have the innards of his putrid personal life torn free and dragged bleeding across the stage. Tonight is Comedy Central's Roast of Charlie Sheen, for which 10 comedians and fellow celebrities have been conscripted to take potshots at a target that has in the past 12 months provided more than enough ammunition.
Made famous by New York's Friars Club and actor Dean Martin in the mid-20th century, roasts have traditionally been events at which the entertainment world gathers to subject one of its own to a night of comedic insults mixed with heart-warming tributes, all in the name of fun- or, in Sheen's case, intervention.
Since 2003, American TV channel Comedy Central has been stag- ing its own versions, turning the roasting rays on Donald Trump, Pamela Anderson and David Hasselhoff, among others. Sheen was an obvious choice.
Tonight's roasters include 'roastmaster' and creator of Family Guy Seth MacFarlane, Star Trek's William Shatner, former boxing champion Mike Tyson, Jackass star Steve-O and a perennial participant, comedian Jon Lovitz, who will later be the subject of lame jokes about his double chins and an imagined penchant for male organs. Part of the deal, you see, is that in the process of a roast, roasters also make fun of each other.
For the most part, however, the focus is on Sheen, and as a series of B- and C-list stars meander down the red carpet, past models wearing nothing but togas and white body paint and a line of polystyrene pillars in keeping with the Greco-Roman theme for the night, reporters clamour for the dirt on Sheen.