Boos greet Sheen as tour opens in Detroit
Sold-out crowd voices its anger
BY KIRK BAIRD
BLADE STAFF WRITER
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Charlie Sheen, the former ‘Two and a Half Men’ television star, greets fans after stepping off his tour bus in Detroit, the start of his 20-city ‘Torpedo of Truth’ tour. The 5,100- seat Fox Theatre was packed, but the unhappy crowd started leaving before he ended.
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DETROIT -- The Charlie Sheen phenomenon is over.
The warlock of winning got his first major league defeat Saturday night at Detroit's Fox Theatre, where he opened his "My Violent Torpedo of Truth/Defeat is Not an Option" tour, a self-aggrandizing spectacle that drew boos throughout from a nearly sold-out crowd of 5,100 disappointed in what they saw. The Detroit stop was to be the first of 20 shows.
"It was terrible," said Candy Lopez, 35, of Detroit. "He just talked about stupid stuff. It was nothing we expected. I spent a lot of money on these tickets — $110 on each — and I feel ripped off."
The show opened with a stand-up comic, Kirk Fox, whose attempt at humor quickly drew the ire of the audience.
It went downhill from there. It got so bad that Sheen, the former star of the CBS hit
Two and A Half Men, came on stage to help calm the crowd and received a standing ovation, which was about the only thing that went right for the 45-year-old unemployed actor.
Minutes later, two Detroit women were singing the National Anthem before Sheen took the stage along with his two goddesses. The women kissed passionately for a few seconds, much to the delight of the mostly older crowd, and left, leaving Sheen, now wearing a white Detroit Tigers jersey with No. 99 Warlock on the back.
After addressing the audience, he left while a presidential podium was wheeled on stage and the video screen behind him displayed a presidential-type seal with "Warlock States of Sheen" written on it.
From there the actor jumped into a Andy Kaufman-as-bad-poet bit full of nonsensical Sheenisms that confused and bored his fans.
"I am ... here to train and enlist the Vatican assassin locked in every one of you," he said. As if he was the only one in on the joke, Sheen said toward the end of the 15-minute rant, "Is anyone else as confused by this [stuff] as I am?"
Then the boos started, to which Sheen replied, "I already got your money, dude."
Yeah, it was that kind of show, as Sheen battled an increasingly restless crowd.
Prior to the tour opener in Detroit, the buzz was what Sheen would do for 90 minutes, Now we know: very little, other than promote himself.
It got so bad that Sheen relied on a 10-minute clip from a never-before-seen film he wrote, produced, and directed,
R.P.G. starring a young Johnny Depp and Clint Howard, Ron's brother. The boos got louder and more frequent. And the mood of the show seemed more desperate.
By the end Sheen turned to questions from the audience, of which he answered very few, before he called "an audible" and brought back Fox dressed as a rapper. This was followed by the world premiere of Sheen's new video with rapper Snoop Dog, "Winning." Sheen never came back onstage.
"It's done. Charlie Sheen is done," said Joe Calcaterra of Detroit. "He should just cut his losses and move on. It was the worst show I've ever been to."
Added Wayne Ivey of Monroe: "I love
Two and a Half Men, but this was nothing, He put together nothing."
Mr. Ivey said he spent $50 for his ticket.
"I want my $75 back," he said.
Sheen has made headlines in recent years as much for his drug use, failed marriages, custody disputes and run-ins with the police as for his acting. His father, actor Martin Sheen, has compared his son's fight against addiction to that of a cancer patient's fight for survival.
In August, Sheen pleaded guilty in Aspen, Colo., to misdemeanor third-degree assault after a Christmas Day altercation with his third wife, Brooke Mueller. The couple recently finalized their divorce.
The wayward star's behavior, which included lashing out at the show's producer, Chuck Lorre, finally became too much for Warner Bros. Television, which booted him from
Two and a Half Men on March 7.
Sheen fired back with a $100 million lawsuit and all-out media assault in which he informed the world about his standing as a "rock star from Mars" and a "warlock" with "Adonis DNA" who lives with two "goddesses."His unique banter and catchphrases — think "winning" — have spread over the Internet and onto T-shirts, more than a few of which are expected to be sold on the tour, which wraps up May 3 in Seattle after stops in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, New York, San Francisco, and others. Sheen has said the Detroit show, where tickets cost $45 to $80, sold out.
This report includes information from the Associated Press.
Contact Kirk Baird at:
kbaird@theblade.com or 419-724-6734.
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