Charlie Sheen, WCVB, and CBS

A few thoughts as Charlie brings his parade wagon of crazy from town to town:

• I've known guys like Charlie - good-looking, talented enough, articulate, energetic. Most of them are dead. They hit their resonance frequency, that point at which the energy in their systems was too great for the forces that could hold them together, as though they're driving their cars over the event horizon and into a black hole. I don't know what more can be done to help him, except that I am not interested in sitting in the passenger seat with him.
• I heard a long time ago that the media don't tell us what to think, but they tell us what to think about. The comparative sensible WCVB anchor Ed Harding said during yesterday's early evening news that we must clear away any other plans we have for 10PM because there's going to be a special on Charlie Sheen at that hour. Well, Ed, I didn't watch the special and I'm not going to watch your show, either. People are dying for peace and justice in north Africa. People are dying because of earthquakes and floods and hunger and disease and this is the best you've got?
• As someone on Twitter noted, CBS stuck by Sheen when he beat up his girl friend and only suspended the show when he criticized the network. 

I wouldn't give Charlie much thought at all, except that I recognize in him too many friends. He's on fire and the media says to him, "Here, hold this can of gasoline while I get my camera."