Jake Gyllenhaal: A Regular Broadway Joe

Memorandum
To: Hollywood
From: Scip E.O. Tex, Internet Provocateur
CC: God Loving Free World
Date: This very instant
Re: You are destroying America, motherfuckers

Dear Hollywood,

You’ve gone and done it now. This is war. WAR!

At what point during your Hotel Bel-Air mid-wine flight post-synagogue movie pitch to Harvey Weinstein did you get the idea that Joe Willie Namath should be played by Jake Gyllenhaal, a confirmed cinematic sodomite?

Right after the course of foie gras, I’ll bet.

No David Hasselhoff? No Joe Penny from Riptide? What about, like, Wolverine? You could have offered us the simple courtesy of casting the Brokeback pitcher instead of the catcher. Heath Ledger was masculine and phenomenal in A Knights Tale.

Let’s get this straight. Joe Willie is no man’s frogurt receptacle. Even in lockup. Or dead drunk at an Erasure concert. If you were to find yourself in the hoosegow with Namath it is you that would be servicing him. Willingly. Cheerfully. Even if you were only in there for a couple of hours for an unpaid traffic ticket.

He played for Bear Bryant! He won the Cold War! HAS EVERYONE LOST THEIR MINDS?!

So, it is war then Hollywood.

Let me list my grievances. First, you toy with me by ignoring Flash Gordon come Oscar time. Max Van Sydow as Ming The Merciless? Ignored. Then you allow Al Pacino to play himself in his last nine consecutive movies. Now this. Namath will be played by Maggie’s gentle brother - a dude who couldn’t even beat out Toby Macguire for Spider Man and was too pansy to aerate a wog in Jarhead.

Let me tell you something about Iraq. Joe Willie Namath would fuck Iraq. And by fuck Iraq, I mean not in a violent way, but in a making love to an entire nation sort of way; so that the Sunnis and Shi’ias learn to internet date each other on e-harmony and get their heads straight and raise consciousness and do I Ching together. And just what is your sign, Akbar Al-Saliyeh? Let’s hug this sectarianism shit out.

But, nooooo, Hollywood. You don’t get what Joe means to us. This is primal. This is about manhood. This is about a crippled Joe after 94 ACL surgeries with knees that look like Freddy Krueger’s best handiwork limping back into the fray against the Iron Curtain to absorb his 24th sack. This is about a dimple so deep that condors use it as a birdbath. This is Gary Cooper in High Noon. This is Joe I nailed three Braniff stews before breakfast & threw 220 career interceptions & was a 50% career passer but I’m still in Canton so fuck you Namath.

He is the merkin-chested Hungarian, a $400,000 contract signing hamby pamby loosey-goosey, good-lookin’ Aqua Velva wearin’ sonofabitch who could get away with wearing a full body chinchilla fur to a NFL sideline and pantyhose on a TV commerical. Yes, he’s a drunk, but the festive Dean Martin kind of drunk that we used to have in the 1960s, before drinking became “a disease” and everyone had to act horrified about wanting to tie one on and quietly piss yourself to sleep in a barcalounger.

This is the dude who told Suzy Kolber he wanted her to examine his ceiling paint on national television. HE’S A MAN!

What is wrong with you, Hollywood elites? Do you get it? Do you even understand what I’m talking about? Is there no decency? Namath! Namath! Namath, you impotent fools. Our nation’s virility is at stake!

Hollywood elites, full of your elitism, I will win this fight using the vast power of internets and my own feeble, badly misplaced outrage. And I will not stop until you cast someone completely and totally amazing. Somone like Joe Penny from Riptide. Or B.A. Barrackus. Or Megatron.

I will win.

I guarantee it.

Thanks for Ishtar,
Skip E.O. Tex