Joaquin Phoenix On Letterman

Apparently, Joaquin Phoenix acted like a complete and total freak on Letterman last night.

Now, it would be easy to rip on Joaquin. Talk at great length about his appearance, which seemed to channel and offend the Amish all at the same time. Bring up his notions about leaving a career at which he is actually successful for a career he clearly has no business being in. Hell, I can even talk about the suspected drug abuse and how it has family ties. But I'm not going to.

It's too easy.

Instead, my object of scorn will be the ABC News Reel I've linked to, which summarizes the accounts of last night. I'm sure everyone knows, and seemingly agrees, that Phoenix is making the transition into becoming a "rapper" right? I know I've read that word on several occasions in various news feeds. So why the fuck, in this day and age, are there still journalists afraid to use the word?

R&B Musician. The guy says it like three times, and it sounds stupider every fucking time he says it. Joaquin Phoenix isn't an R&B musician. Smokey Robinson is a R&B musician, Marvin Gaye was an R&B musician, Otis Redding was an R&B musician.

Joaquin Phoenix is a fucking rapper.

And it boggles my mind how in this day and age, the word "rapper" is still considered taboo. Especially by ABC, a news agency that's been around for a long time. I admit, it's a stupid sounding word. Not exactly something that rolls of the tongue. I didn't much care for it when I was a kid, and I like it even less now. But, it's a term that has cultural acceptance. You can say the word and people everywhere will pretty much know what you're talking about. And here we've got professional journalists that are so goddamn skiddish, that they need to change the lingo up. And for who? 80 year old women living in a retirement home? Does the word "rapper" cause so much terror in their little hearts, that they end up peeing their pants and weeping to sleep every night? I'm fairly confident that if you people went to your grandparents and discussed rappers, they'd be able to follow the conversation.

But hey, maybe the guy hates the word. Maybe he's so particular about his prose and speaking rhythm, that the word interferes with how he talks. I could almost understand that. I mean, if Orson Welles can get pissy about structure, why not this guy? So, why not refer to Phoenix as a "Hip-Hop Musician" then? Yeah, that phrase sounds a little more preschool, but at least you're being more honest about the source material. At least it's better than comparing a mentally depraved actor-turned-psuedo musician to a history of great and honest music.

As for what's happening to Phoenix? Like I said, it's too easy. Plus, I guarantee it's gonna go down a lot harder than this.