But I loved the Thunderbirds.

Supermarionation® was a big improvement to my way of thinking. The opposite of Clutch Cargo, everything moved but the lips. If you’ve seen Team America, you’ve seen Supermarionation® at work.

But the cartoons of today are such a huge improvement over those of my childhood. Every cool superhero has its own cartoon—Batman, Iron Man, the Avengers (the Superhero Squad)—and they’re all first-rate operations. Iron Man is especially brilliant.

This is the Iron Man I had as a kid:

So you can imagine, I hate to deny my my boy the same content that I was denied as a child. Even second-rater efforts from a “creative” group that goes by the name of “Man of Action” like Ben 10 and Generator Rex. It must be wired into the DNA. But he’s become way too dependent on them. His art production has slowed to a crawl and when he’s not bugging his mom to play video games on her phone, he’s pestering me to watch superhero cartoons.

So today I decided on a quid pro quo that we could both live with. Anytime he wants to watch a superhero cartoon now, we will first watch together something that I want him to see. On the new plan’s inaugural run tonight, we watched Where Did You Sleep Last Night from Nirvana Unplugged; Alan Parker’s The Wall from Comfortably Numb to Run Like Hell, then Radio Gaga by Queen from Wembley Stadium.

We talked about all the bands as they came along. We talked about Nazism and fascism during The Wall, and rock godhood during the Queen number.

Then we switched to the barely watchable Ben 10 and I excused myself to the kitchen to make his dinner.

I have lots of great music on DVD. Next up? Maybe Stairway… from Led Zeppelin’s BBC sessions. Or almost anything from U2’s ZOOTV tour. Definitely some Steve Goodman from Austin City Limits. The nice thing about excellent music is, like cartoon superheroes, there is a practically inexhaustible supply.

I gotta find Nine Inch Nails from Woodstock 94. Bet it’s on the YouTube. The Boy is going to love it! It almost makes Ben 10 worth it.

He’s on the classic trajectory. In and out of rehab, unrepentant, un self-reflective, wilder and wilder excesses… and now that CBS has finally put a stop to production of his execrable sitcom, his professional legs have been cut out from under him too. He’s unhirable. He’s a caricature of self-destructiveness. He not only doesn’t apologize for his extra-legal antics, he goes on record shrugging them off, saying they don’t matter. Then dumping even more vitriol on the fire.

He’s become worse than Robert Downey Jr. or Sam Kinison ever were, to name two pretty notorious partiers from back in the day. But Downey and Kinison both had something Sheen seems to lack: a sense of shame.

Now, I’m no big advocate of shame. As a rule, I tend to find it a bit of an impediment as well as a bore, but when it is used in a life-saving capacity, I’ll give it a waiver. Downey and Kinison both had shame over their circumstances, which—along with judicial intervention—led them to seek help. (Remember, Kinison died sober, in a car wreck caused by the other driver, who was drunk.)

But poor Charlie Sheen doesn’t seem to have a lick of self-respect. He’s acting like he’s a stupid-shit-saying machine stuck in the “ON” position. I haven’t heard the actual phone-ins, so I don’t know if he’s jacked-up or slurring or speaking perfectly clearly. I kind of hope he’s been acting under the influence. At least that would be a slightly mitigating factor.

Because he’s been on a radio call-in campaign the last couple days, trashing his show’s producers using arguably anti-Semitic jibes (always a crafty career move in Hollywood), as well as the show’s writers, 12-step programs and even the prostitutes he is renowned for partaking of, referring to them ungallantly as “turds.”

Remember how adorable he was in his cameo in that Ferris Bueller film? Playing the Bad Boy at the end, scaring Jennifer Grey’s good-girl character straight? Sociopathy is not as adorable at 45 as it is at 20.

I feel bad for his father, Martin Sheen, by most accounts a pretty decent guy and caring father. This has got to be murder on him. He’s bent over backward trying to save this kid.

I’m not gonna argue with Charlie Sheen about anything, let alone AA; just like I don’t get into heavy arguments with my five-year-old and for the same reason.

But I’ve known more people AA worked for than people it didn’t. I have my own gripes with it, but I’ve sent a number of likely candidates its way over the years. But AA isn’t designed for people like Charlie Sheen. AA is designed for people who are committed to working on staying sober, and that does not sound like a description of Charlie Sheen.

It’s so sad, so predictable… and don’t even talk to me about Lindsay Lohan. She also seems to be circling the drain. Christ, she couldn’t even hang onto a gig playing Linda Lovelace, and now she looks like she’s heading back to the Big House for theft?

These aren’t just Celebrities Gone Wild, these are actual  flesh-and-blood human beings who are hard-wired and hell-bent for self-destruction. Believe me, a guy like Charlie Sheen would be as much a danger to himself and society if he was working behind the counter of the corner liquor store as he is on a soundstage in Hollywood. Probably more, if you threw poverty and desperation into the mix.

I guess the sad fact is every generation has to have its cautionary tales. For Martin Sheen’s sake—as a fellow father—I just wish his son didn’t have to be one of this generation’s.

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© 2011 petebrooks.com

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