He’s just a Sheen machine

Carlos Irwin Estévez was born in 1965, the son of big time screen success Ramón Antonio Gerard Estévez. These are not, however, the names you would recognise these two famous faces by. The latter can be seen emerging from misty waters as Marlon Brando's camouflaged assailant in Vietnam War epic Apocalypse Now or impacting on concrete like a dead fish in front of Leonardo DiCaprio in The Departed; his stage name is Martin Sheen. The former, too, can be seen engaged in combat in another Nam classic, Platoon, but he is assuredly more widely known for his mainstream reputation as a chauvinistic drinker and substance abuser; his stage name is Charlie Sheen.

Charlie 'Harper' Sheen, as I prefer to call him, is a man I don't personally know; but through his prolific efforts to wet his whistle and score a hit like a decadent mobster at a strip club, Sheen has made himself an example – of what not to do when you're in a position of fame and wealth. Or maybe he's attempting to show us we should be living life on the edge? Either way, I'm not too fond of his educational methods. In a world shadowed by the seedy operations of drug dealers, human traffickers and organised crime syndicates, you'd think that having substantial income through legitimate means would imply consumption under similar parameters? Sheen says NO, that's right, capital letters people.

If the cliché phrase 'art imitating life' could be attributed to one figure and one figure only, it would unanimously be handed over to the half of the man in all of us who Charlie Sheen embodies. His trademark bad boy image is as brazen as his hawk's wing eyebrows, and it appears to be originating at a source that is fundamentally conjoined to the unbridled lifestyle of a corrupt king he has espoused (at least that's one marital relationship he can maintain).

While the majority of his most compelling work – and by work I mean play gone Jud Apatow awry – to date has been produced by the studly star at an age most men when most men would find themselves cranking down the speed setting on the testosterone dial, it must be acknowledged by us, the obviously law-abiding audience of the higher ground to his lower, that Sheen did try to warn us about his hyperactive virility and keenness on the crack several years before it became newsworthy detail. Just rent out John Hughes' endearing portrait of teenage anxiety, Ferris Bueller's Day Off¸ to see the foreshadowing of Sheen's fashionable hangover glamour. Though his scenes are short, you'll catch enough to see what I'm getting at.

Sheen's boisterous attitude first came to the attention of the tabloids in 1990 after he was reported to have accidentally shot his fiancée Kelly Preston in the leg. Needless to say, they never got round to tying the knot on that one. In 1995 Sheen upgraded from standard domestic quarrelling to become embroiled in a high-profile court case involving Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss and a ring of brothels, to which he had paid around $50,000 for the services they offered. During the proceedings he unashamedly justified his association to the case, saying: "I love sex and can afford it". My mother always told me honesty was a virtue – but what about transactions for nookie? Sheen says BINGO.

Two major pornstar partners, a few lawsuits, arrests and a drug overdose later and what do we have? That same old loveable crested cavalier – and I use the term of address cavalier lightly. With alleged domestic abuse and successful drug abuse available for the nosey public to ponder, you would've thought Mr Sheen, who is assuredly not clean, would have turned down the heat on the cooker that is his flaming ego. Of course, for Charlie Sheen this is not an option. Just recently he was wrapped up in another allegedly drug-related dilemma that saw him in a state of imbalance, shall we say, while he knocked an 'innocent' young pornstar's nerves for six. Nice going Charlie, we knew you would make us men proud.

To be fair to the fella, he is only acting the way 90% of all men would in his position. Now I'm not talking about a position of wealth (I would say power, but how much power can I preoccupied sex lover/drug user have over his own life, let alone someone else's), but a position of mind where the mental ropes that hold our screaming man monkeys in place have been cut, leaving the monkey to get to work on those fine ass bitches and sweet sugars from mother earth. Thankfully most of us have our monkeys under safe guard. And to be perfectly honest, Sheen's monkey has probably evolved into a gorilla by now, and gorillas need a little more than a kind banana to keep their urges in check.

Overall, despite my slightly envious cynicism and the inevitable shame the man will have made his far more respectable father feel, Charlie Sheen has done good for himself. When you consider that his current, most steady gig on the hugely popular sitcom Two and a Half Men is now reportedly earning him $1.8m smackaroons per episode, you can't help but wonder if we could all afford to be a bit more like the hedonistic sex gorilla that is Charlie Sheen. Sheen says JOIN THE PARTY.