Phoenix Is Genius

I think all the recent Joaquin Phoenix weirdness is gonna turn out to be one of the greatest “performance” events since Andy Kaufman started inter-gender pro-wrestling. Phoenix’s fight with an audience member at his concert in Miami just cemented for me that his slide from Oscar-nominated actor to crazy white-boy rapper is just too perfect to be really real. Is it a coincidence that his buddy Casey Affleck has been shooting a documentary about him this whole time? After watching Phoenix’s disturbingly comatose state during his David Letterman interview, I sure wanted to see a movie about what the hell is going on with him.

I could be wrong — he won’t be the first successful guy to go off the deep end (Howard Hughes, Gary Busey, Gary Coleman… ok, I just stuck Gary Coleman in there for a laugh…). But if I’m right, he’s really upped the ante for guys like Sacha Baron Cohen. Cohen took on the character Borat and created crazy real-life situations to place him in without breaking character — but Phoenix has spent months transforming his whole life into the crazy situation.

Here’s Joaqin rapping at a party around the time he announced he’d be releasing a rap album:

Here is the infamous Letterman interview:

And here’s the performance and fight in Miami:

Yeah, you got me, Phoenix… I’ll pay money to see that documentary!