Because I am. Do you guys remember all that “Bye! Good” business that went down a few years ago when Joaquin took a vacation from sanity and tried to be all avant garde with his acting career, trying out rapping and filming shit-filled mockumentaries with Casey Affleck (the younger brother of Ben Affleck)? Because oh, I do. And I couldn’t wait for the ruse to end, because I always had a soft spot in my heart for Joaquin, pretty much ever since ‘Signs’.

Over the last two years, he’s gone from gross to god-like and has emerged victorious. Now he’s doing a movie called ‘The Master’, which, from IMDB, sounds like it’s going to be about a religious cult, maybe. The above trailer tells a different story, but the film’s got Joaquin, Amy Adams, Laura Dern, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, so I’m sure it’s going to be pretty damn good whatever it’s about.

I mean, it sure beats the hell out of this, at any rate:

GET EXCITED!

I know it’s been awhile so you both probably forgot, but you guys were acquainted at one time before. Actually, you knew one another quite well. Some (like me) might even say that you guys were practically indistinguishable from one another.

For awhile, though, it seems that there was a rift by the name of ‘Art’ that separated the two of you, and you both became strangers to one another.

Thankfully, however, I can see that you’ve both been able to overcome your differences and now see the light: where there’s a hotness, there’s a Joaquin once more and for that? Well, fuck. I am just tickled – even if you ARE prematurely grey, Joaquin. I mean, I am too. So I guess that means something. Something like that we should sleep together or something. You know. Something like that.

Unlike the Late Show appearance of a year ago, Joaquin Phoenix sat with David Letterman on his show last night and discussed the ruse that he and director/producter/brother-in-law Casey Affleck had created and participated in over the past eighteen months.

Letterman, who kind of seemed like he had a good-natured chip on his shoulder about the whole thing, asked Phoenix questions like, ‘What were you thinking,’ ‘Why did you do this,’ and claimed that the previous interview was just ‘so much fun.’

Phoenix responded that he and Affleck wanted to portray what the relationship was like between the media, celebrity and consumer, and wanted to underscore the personal eccentricities that some celebrities put on in an effort to separate themselves from the rest and ensuring their part in stardom.

Dave said it best — ‘It was a theatrical ruse.’

I don’t know about you, but I’m just glad it’s over. I’m stoked that I can start looking at Joaquin now and not think that he’s got lice and scabies crawling throughout his beard and pubic hair. Because that was a really unfortunate time in my life.

Let’s take a trip down memory lane, shall we?

So, Casey Affleck, the director of Joaquin Phoenix’s “home movie” featuring the eventual breakdown of an award-winning actor-turned-rap star, is finally admitting what everyone in America has known for, well, quite some time: that the Phoenix hoax was just that — a hoax. According to Affleck, who recently spoke out about the movie:

“It’s a terrific performance, it’s the performance of his career.”

This statement was in response to critic Roger Ebert, after the movie I’m Still Here was released last week. Ebert, who clearly thought that the hoax was truth, reviewed the movie and said that the film was a “a sad and painful documentary that serves little useful purpose other than to pound another nail into the coffin” — the coffin clearly representing Phoenix’s thought-dead career.

Affleck claims that he simply wanted to engage in some Hunter S. Thompson-type of filmmaking, and never intended to make anyone believe that the entire ordeal wasn’t a ruse:

“I never intended to trick anybody. The idea of a quote, hoax, unquote, never entered my mind.”

While it’s hardly surprising, at least to me, the New York Times feels that Joaquin and company are going to have to do some serious damage control in order to repair his image.

But me? Nah, I don’t think so. I think that people are more interested to see what Phoenix’s next move — and movie — is going to be.

Thanks for finally dropping the front, Joaquin, and I totally appreciate the message that you’re sending to today’s society (we’re all obsessed with the bad fortune of individuals in the spotlight), but can we go back to doing real movies now? Thanks.

If you are excited, good, I’m glad we can share that.  If not, go ahead and watch this trailer so you can listen to someone compare life to water on a mountain or something and watch Joaquin fight some dude on a bed and show off his belly, among several other things.

The movie comes out on September 10, and there’s still confusion over whether the documentary is supposed to be for real or not.  If it is for real, then I hope he can work out whatever caused his plethora of issues.  If it’s not for real, then that would make Joaquin a better actor than anyone ever gave fim credit for (and people gave him a lot of credit). Regardless, it’s going to be crazy:  cocaine, call girls, and those classic rapping skills.  I’m going to get ahead of myself and say that someone  already deserves an Oscar for this work.

Also, Joaquin Phoenix needs to stop looking like Zach Galifianakis. Whenever I get excited because Zach Galifianakis is rapping or jumping off the stage to fight a heckler, it turns out to be crazy ol’ Joaquin Phoenix, and I just get so upset.  Find a new look, Joaquin, this one’s taken.

If you do, his new documentary is surely for you.

Remember that whole thing where Phoenix decided to be a, uh, rapper? That whole “Bye! Good” thing? Turns out that it was a farce … but instead of finding that kind of disturbing, the contents of the documentary claiming that the rapper to be real is supposedly far, far worse. The LA Times has the lowdown on the off-kilter star’s self-imposed downward spiral and they’re wondering (among many others) if the entire thing still remains to be a joke:

It’s far from the Joaquin Phoenix you’re used to seeing onscreen: snorting cocaine, ordering call girls, having oral sex with a publicist, treating his assistants abusively and rapping badly. And not, apparently, playing a role — or was he?

Agents at William Morris Endeavor, the sellers of the Casey Affleck-directed film, have started showing the movie to potential distributors, and while some were apparently interested in bidding for “I’m Still Here’s” distribution rights, the shoppers left the screening perhaps even more mystified by Phoenix’s behavior than when they walked in.

Several buyers said the film overflowed with Hollywood debauchery, including more male frontal nudity than you’d find in some gay porn films and a stomach-turning sequence in which someone feuding with Phoenix defecates on the actor while he’s asleep.

The documentary — or is it a mockumentary? — also includes Phoenix’s infamous appearance on “The Late Show With David Letterman,” in which the bearded and bloated actor barely spoke, leaving Letterman bewildered if not infuriated and people wondering about Phoenix’s mental health.

Two buyers who saw the movie were unsure if Phoenix had turned out an elaborate piece of performance art, where the joke was really on the audience. While they were debating the film’s commercial prospects, the buyers did agree on one thing: They’d never seen anything like it.

So … is Phoenix totally brillz or is he just kind of losing his, excuse the pun, shit, piece by piece?

Check out Joaquin’s all-time best performance below.