Me and Charlie Sheen
Updated 3/3/11

In order to cash in on the recent interest in Charlie Sheen I thought I would tell the story of my one encounter with the man. Several of my friends have heard this story before. If you have, move along, nothing new to see here.

During my two years in, mostly, Okinawa, I spent around three months at a camp on the mainland of Japan called Camp Fuji. The camp was at the base of Mt. Fuji. Everyday for three months I saw Mt. Fuji. Seeing Mt. Fuji turn pink at sunrise while the rest of the world was dark is still one of the most beautiful sights I have seen. This would have been, I guess, spring of 1988.

While there we were offered a chance to spend a weekend in Tokyo. I jumped at the chance along with several others in our company. We stayed at a nice hotel in the middle of the city that was owned by the Department of Defense. We saw the sites and stayed out late and got drunk. Our base of operations, for some reason, was the Tokyo Hard Rock Cafe. What I remember most about that place was the King Kong thingy hanging off the side of the building.

I met Charlie Sheen during the last night of our two day stay. The night before my friend Roger and I had met a couple of girls and we were supposed to call them to meet up again the following night. While we were out site seeing the maid service had thrown away the paper with the numbers on it. We were devastated and I ended up getting royally pissed that evening on the whiskey I bought in the hotel's package store. Like David Cross says in his "answer your telephone" routine, I'm not bragging about getting blind in Tokyo but that fact is necessary to know for this story to work.

I am at the Hard Rock Cafe completely blotto. So blotto was I that not too long after I arrived at the bar I went outside to hurl. As I was going out the door a corporal from my company saw me and said, "McDonald, where are you going?"

I said, "I am going outside and throw up." I let loose in some bushes and went back inside. From then on this corporal called me Drunk Boy. Nicknames must be earned.

A while after that this meathead sergeant came down from the small bar upstairs and he's pissed off. He comes up to me and says, "Hey McDonald, you know what? Charlie Sheen is at the upstairs bar and that guy is a dick. He won't talk to Marines." This sergeant was one of those Marines with the high and tight haircut who was all about being a Marine. Loved the Corps, it was his life. Nothing wrong with that, the Corps needs barrel chested motor pool sergeants with big square heads. Why would he leave an encounter with Charlie Sheen all pissed off, I thought. Then it hit me, I just knew that sergeant was up there bugging Charlie Sheen about the movie Platoon. Platoon was a big movie in the barracks. Guys loved it, it was realistic in its portrayal of basic military life. And it was violent.

I went up to where Charlie Sheen was sitting and walked up and said, "Charlie Sheen, oh man, it's awesome to see you here. Dude, you were in that movie and it changed my life and helped make me what I am today."

He shrugged and said, "You mean Platoon?"

I said, "No man, Ferris Bueller's Day Off!" He laughed and invited me to sit down. That is all I remember.

The next morning we are on the bus waiting to head back to Camp Fuji and I'm in the back holding my head. A couple of the guys boarded the bus saw me and said, "Hey McDonald, you were up there talking to Charlie Sheen last night. What's up with that?"

I said, "I talked to Charlie Sheen last night?"

They said, "Yeah, you talked to him for almost an hour."

I thought about it real hard and my pick up line came back to me. "Oh yeah," I said, "I did talk to Charlie Sheen last night."

"What'd y'all talk about?"

"I have no idea."