Kaufman you are not, my friend.

So the Joaquin Phoenix debate took another turn today, with Mr. Phoenix nearly physically attacking a fan at his latest "rap" gig.
But let's take a second to step back from the whole thing and look logically at the situation.
For the uninitiated, about 6 months ago Joaquin announced he was quitting acting to become a rap star, and less-famous-than-his-brother Casey Affleck would be documenting the whole thing. He performed a series of disasterous gigs, repeatedly garbling his way through songs and occasionally falling off stage.

Now after about 3 weeks of this type of shit, people started questioning whether he was for real, or whether this whole thing was one big prank, in the style of Andy Kaufman, or more recently Sascha Baron Cohen.
Add to this a disasterous appearance on Letterman, and everyone was asking the same questions, to wit "Is he high, is he crazy or is he kidding?"

I was skeptical from the start, but this Letterman appearance confirmed it for me, for a few reasons.
Watch Joaquin carefully, many would assume by his attitude and demeanor that he was high, or losing his mind. Not true. Having spent an inexorable amount of time around people in various stages of drug dependance, I can tell you his behaviour is way too calculated for someone on drugs. He is purposefully trying to give off the air of someone nervous and ill-at-ease, but a few minor slips prove his mind is in place. Specifically, when Paul laughs at him, he jumps on the opportunity to push the focus off him onto Paul, and his line "are you serious, with the maniacal laugh?" sounds too controlled, like he's milking the audience for the laugh, not really the actions of an an insane or drug affected mind.
His constant looking down at his fingernails is obviously an affectation, you can see he forgets to do it on occasion, then remembers he's meant to be acting high and goes back to picking at his nails and avoiding eye contact.
Lastly, when Dave is introducing the clip, Joaquins whole act falls when he says "OK, you're doing fine..." This is too coherant a statement for someone who's losing their mind, or exceptionally high. Suddenly, all his behaviour makes no sense. He is flailing wildly between the actions of someone truly fucked up on PCP or crack (acting like he doesn't understand simple questions, ignoring Dave etc.) to someone totally sober (milking the audience for sympathy when Dave disses his music, cracking jokes etc.) It's all too strange for a truly collapsing mind.
Believe it or not, those of us who's minds are falling apart actually behave a lot more predictably than this. Either we're coherant, or we're not. We're either avoiding human contact, or we're doing everything possible to have all attention on us. Joaquin is swinging between these two extremes like a pendulum, showing that he is a lot more in control of his behavior than he would like us to believe.
His ridiculous act was pushed a little further today, with a near-physical altercation at his latest gig, of course caught on camera by Casey.
Joaquin Phoenix attacks crowd member at latest gig
Again, this doesn't seem to be the actions of someone who is out of control. It seems to be the actions of someone who wants to appear crazy, and it would have been very interesting to see what would have happened if security didn't step in. I wonder if things would really have escalated, or whether you would have backed out.

At the end of the day, none of this is really that important, and i'm kind of playing into Phoenix's web by even posting on it. If everyone ignored this behaviour, i'll guarantee the dude would get bored with this charade pretty quick and go back to making (mostly) decent movies.
But it frustrates me to have people saying he is pulling a Kaufman-esque prank. This self-indulgent BS is nowhere near the genius of Andy Kaufman. Joaquin could never come up with pure comedic gold like this.

Andy Kaufman performs Mighty Mouse - watch more funny videos

And Joaquin, here's how you truly fuck with an audience. I have a feeling that you planted the homie you attacked in your audience, just like Kaufman had Jerry Lawler in on the act here.

The main problem with Joaquins act is that he admits that he has someone filming it. Unlike Kaufman, who was a comedy star in his own right and used the air time he gained from that to fuck with people, you have someone apparently filming a documentary about your decline into psychosis. What kind of a friend would stand back and film a man losing his mind and destroying his career? Even Steve-O's mates got to a point where it wasn't funny any more, and they knew their buddy was in trouble, so they slammed him into rehab against his will.
I'm not saying Casey Affleck is the sharpest knife in the drawer, but if this isn't an act, he's a pretty callous dude to let you ruin your career, and possibly your mind, just for a documentary.
Peace out y'all.