Frank Sinatra sang it best when he belted out the words, “If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.” Well the Torpedo of Truth was another dud when Sheen played Radio City Music Hall in New York to an almost packed crowd. But the crowd in New York is a very sophisticated one, especially those that go to Radio City. They know what good comedy is and what a good show is and he was doomed from the start. They started heckling him five minutes into the show and with each passing moment, it got worse. What was normally a show that ran around two hours, wound up being over after an hour. Given that the NYC tickets were higher than most venues, I’m sure a shorter performance didn’t help either. It’s doubtful the crowd would have let him go on anyway.

Of course, it didn’t help that he made them wait like a diva would for a half hour, showing up late, with no warm-up comedian or any sort of entertainment to take up the time. This already didn’t exactly help him bond with the crowd, Not to mention the snake oil like merchandising displays in the lobby, which made it look more like desperation for cash than a show. Of course, all acts generally have some merchandise, but his goes way beyond the norm, even offering Goddess shorts.

And It wasn’t that he changed the show. He had the same interviewer feeding him questions as he had in other cities. He said he was going to tone down the anti-stuff rhetoric this time, which is perhaps why he got slammed. They wanted to see that fire, that torpedo of truth they were promised. Instead what they got is a lot of barroom stories about some of his antics in the past, carefully edited so that more was learned on TMZ than from Charlie himself.

Sheen still has a chance to redeem himself in New York. He’ll be making a second appearance Sunday night at Radio City. It should be interesting to see what he does. While the show itself may not be fun, watching the chaos from show to show is pretty entertaining, along as you didn’t pay $154 for tickets.

For those that want to see Charlie on the cheap, by the way rumor has it they can do so at his Connecticut show in which tickets are said to be selling as low as $18 and that was before tonight’s disaster.