Joe Rogan is explaining the destruction of the hippie movement to Charlie Sheen....

"Just the provable actual facts are so nuts, that very likely Charles Manson was a CIA asset.... They had groomed him when he was in prison and taught him mind control techniques when people were high on acid, taught him how to be sober, but pretend he's on acid. And how to interact with these people that are on acid and shape their mind and even get them to commit murder.... Between 1960 and 1970 is like What?! This world is crazy. The music is crazy. The culture's crazy.... Everything is wild. It's very psychedelic.... They were like, We're losing control and power.... They actually pulled it off.... Oh my God, these hippies are murderous.... And our own goddamn government engineered it. They engineered, they stopped what was probably one of the most beautiful cultural shifts in this country's history that would've organically still kept evolving into other things that would've blossomed out of it.... that completely demonized any peace, love, and... any of that kind of movement. Those people became a real problem now, because you're now connected to Manson...."

The phrase in pink is contributed by Charlie Sheen. The rest is Joe. The 2 men are going on and on about conspiracies — and objecting to "this conspiracy theory pejorative" that "they" are "foisting" on us. And then — 2 hours after that clip above — they suddenly encounter the news of the assassination of Charlie Kirk:

The 2 men do not respond with freewheeling conspiracy notions. Sheen says, "Murder for having a different opinion from somebody else, different ideology from somebody else," and Rogan says, "Yeah." They read some of the instant chatter on line, and Joe says, "What a crazy take, like it might not have been someone assassinating someone for the wrong opinion."

"Trump defense suggests he was shakedown target, not hush money schemer/During contentious questioning of Stormy Daniels lawyer Keith Davidson, Donald Trump’s lawyers portray their client as the victim in the case."

 A headline at The Washington Post.

In the most contentious testimony yet in the criminal trial, Los Angeles lawyer Keith Davidson denied accusations that he flirted with extortion when he negotiated settlements with celebrities to keep potentially damaging stories out of the public eye.

By accusing him, Trump’s lawyers displayed a key element of their defense strategy: getting jurors to focus on the lawyers and middlemen....

Trump’s lawyers... tried to use Davidson to show that he was well versed in squeezing money out of celebrities, and that Daniels thought her chances of getting paid for her story would vanish after the 2016 presidential election, which she expected Trump to lose.

Fortunately, something of Trump's side of the story is coming out, but I do not trust mainstream media to tell us the story straight. We're not able to watch the trial, and we don't even get a transcript, just whatever the media see fit to report. And yet there seems to be this idea — among the Trump antagonists — that we the voters will allow this trial to substantially manipulate our opinion of the man. The case was brought to manipulate us. The presidential election is at stake. Give us a transcript. 

[CORRECTION: Even though I read the news every day, I had not noticed that the New York court system announced, back on April 22, that it would provide transcripts: "The court system is taking the novel step of posting the daily transcripts of the trial proceedings on its public website.... 'With current law restricting the broadcasting of trial proceedings and courtroom space for public spectators very limited, the release of the daily transcripts on the court system’s website is the best way to provide the public a direct view of the proceedings in this historic trial,' said Chief Administrative Judge Zayas."]

Back to the WaPo account of Trump's lawyer, Emil Bove, cross-examining Davidson:

"Charlie Sheen Says He Has H.I.V. and Has Paid Millions to Keep Diagnosis Secret."

"Asked whether he faced lawsuits, Mr. Sheen said it was more 'shakedowns' from people demanding money."

Is he still paying people? “Not after today, I’m not.” And:  “I think that I release myself from this prison today.”

Sheen pictured himself as a hero of coming out: “Hopefully, with what we are doing today, others may come forward and say, ‘Thanks, Charlie, for kicking the door open.’”

"Christopher Dorner, this is Charlie Sheen. You mentioned me in your manifesto..."

"... so thank you for your kind words. I am urging you to call me. Let's figure out together how to end this thing."

You mentioned me in your manifesto.... That's a statement you don't often hear.

Sheen doesn't give a phone number, so call me seems a bit more unrealistic that the usual outreach to a murdering manifestarian.

"Reach for the stars everyone. dogspeed cadre. c out."

Sheen's last tweet.

And with a photo of a bottle of Tabasco sauce on the dashboard of a plane, he deleted his Twitter account.

The account is survived by 8 million followers.

Shall we just have a cigarette on it?

"It would be like Charlie Sheen confessing that it was a body-double under the bevy of hookers and suitcase of coke."

Mark Steyn contemplates my Weiner theory.

"So I lost. 'Celebrity Apprentice.' Big Deal. What they don't know is that they are on a show called 'Charlie Sheen' and they all lost."

"Sheen's Korner - Episode 4 - Building the Perfect Torpedo."

Charlie Sheen is expressing himself artistically these days in web video form. Let's take his work seriously — that is, let's not dismiss it as nothing but evidence of insanity or substance abuse. (Warning: Dirty words.)



I'd say, first, this is carefully written in poetic style. He's not raving off the top of his head. He'd be a genius if he could do that. I don't know if he wrote this stuff himself, but it's highly amusing and invites us in, the way good poetry does. We want to try to figure out what he's really saying, and we enjoy the sound of the stream of words even when we only partly understand it. Second, Sheen is an actor performing this script. He isn't garbling it in any way. He's adopting an intense and interesting persona, suitable for the YouTube milieu, and he's able to go on for 8 1/2 minutes, maintaining a crisp delivery and holding our attention. Of course, the fixed stare is the consequence of filming with a computer's built-in camera while reading a text displayed on the computer screen. It's not that hard to do. If it weren't Charlie Sheen but some unknown poet adopting this style, would we think anything of it?

"Unlike probably everyone else watching Charlie Sheen these days, we think this 'train wreck' (as some are calling it) is probably the best we've seen him..."

"... and (having mutual friends) we applaud him mightily for it. He looks and sounds more like his father than ever. His nothing-can-take-me-down attitude, in the face of this wimpy, middle class, wet rag nanny state finger-wagging opinion is winning. This is a man, owning his actions and insisting everyone else come clean and take responsibility for theirs as well.... [A]ll too often, we see too many powerful beta males in this country... We've become a cautious, conformist, inoffensive, non-risk taking, arrogant, lying bunch of NewAge pussies who think if any woman... says she or others don't approve, then some form of public contrition and apology is called for. Well, screw that. Neither she, or the public, are Charlie Sheen's mother and even if his parents disapprove, he's a grown-assed man who refuses to be a part of whatever milquetoast existence the rest of you think is good for gaining social approval from a worthless feminized culture-killing clique. He didn't ask for it, doesn't need it, and isn't angling for it. He's a man. He's rich. And he's free."

That's Crack Emcee, taking a macho look at Charlie Sheen.

It's funny, I was just saying to Meade that people don't rant against "conformity" anymore — not like they did in the 50s and 60s. What got me going wasn't Charlie Sheen. It was my Bloggingheads with Timothy Noah, which, for various reasons, made me think about the way liberals, including liberal media folk, talk to each other and feel emotional rewards for saying what they all say back and forth to each other. They become so immersed in this feeling of belonging that they don't even hear the things that are not the things that they've been saying back and forth to each other. And my question is: Why does that feel so good? Why doesn't that immersion feel like drowning? Why don't you want to surface into the air and be free — to think about everything, from any perspective, and to find out for yourself what is true and what is good? You are a human individual: Don't you want that?