• New York Daily News

James Franco may have been just one player in an unprecedentedly snazzy roster of celebrities to commemorate Obama’s inauguration over the last few days, but his two cents might just take the cake as most memorable, by way of being the most “wait...WTF did he just say?!”-worthy.

Just when you thought Franco’s obsession with filming himself spewing bizarre source material this month couldn’t get any more prominent (I’m still trying to eradicate the “Boyfriend” lip-synching spoof from my memory), he took it upon himself to conduct this little poetry reading from the oh-so-patriotic confines of a dimly-lit bedroom, next to a can of soda. At least wear a tie next time, bro.

Apparently far away in Franco-land, you “write about someone who’s written about endlessly" by barely writing about them at all. He claims he was asked to write the poem, but, c’mon, we all know better. And while it may not be as bad as the mass drubbing it’s getting online suggests, the parade of morbid, erroneous literary references and not-so-subtle resume boastings start to wear thin. That was the impression just from reading it: I saved the accompanying video link for the second round. Put simply, it comes across as the ramblings of a sallow-faced crack addict who happens to really enjoy the company of Katie Holmes.

If James Franco was in a film about Obama - like he so cleverly implies that he should be when he finally gets around to actually mentioning the guy - he’d play the role of the creepy older man inappropriately pursuing Malia who had to be chased off the White House lawn by the Secret Service, never to be seen again. ...Wait, but really, let's get started on that, Hollywood.

Here’s some more highlights:

-The transcript says Arizona State when mentioning that the university denied Obama an honorary degree, but Franco simply says “Arizona” in the video. INCONCEIVABLE!
-When Franco muttered, “one of nine,” I literally saw my life flash before my eyes. Much to my chagrin, I caught a glimpse of Spiderman 3.
If anyone knows Frank, tell him to change his email address. It’s really for his own good.

Watch the video link of Franco’s poem here, via Vulture, or read the full poem below:

Obama in Asheville
Asheville, North Carolina, is the birthplace of Thomas
Wolfe and the sometime residence of F. Scott Fitzgerald
When he visited Zelda at her institution;
He stayed at the Grove Park Inn, a grand stone edifice.
On the phone once, Cormac McCarthy lamented
The two added wings and the spa, and marveled
At the original structure, They pulled the stones
From the mountains and brought them down on mules.
Soon after his fortieth birthday, Fitzgerald attempted suicide
Here, but couldn’t shoot his own head, drunk, I guess.
Later, after he was actually dead, from alcohol,
Zelda perished in a fire at her institution, one of nine.
*
Asheville is the place where the Black Mountain College once stood
And helped birth Rauschenberg, Twombly and Johns,
Cage and Cunningham; now I think it’s a Young Men’s Christian Association.
On the wall of the Grove Park, they have pictures of the famous guests;
I’m not up there, but Obama is. I was asked to write something
For the inauguration of his second term, but what could I write?
I was in Asheville, studying writing, but not the political sort;
I write confessions and characters, and that sort of thing.
I wrote my friend Frank about what I could do, but he was unresponsive.
I went to class and then the little burrito place where they know me,
And finally at night I got Frank’s email on my phone and pulled over
On the side of Warren Wilson Road, past the school barn with the WWC —
That I couldn’t see in the dark — right before the school entrance;
A little spot where there’s a path that leads to a lake called Snake Lake.
First I called my class at UCLA, and told them to watch Apocalypse Now,
And that it used Heart of Darkness as a model, and that we’d watch
Eleanor Coppola’s Hearts of Darkness, the making-of, the following week.
Then I read Frank’s note. He said he was sleeping twenty hours a day,
With no symptoms except that he desired sleep
And just a little more sleep. He’s in his seventies.
Then he said that my poem was a difficult task.
How to write about a man written about endlessly;
A man whom everyone has some sort of experience of;
How to write so that it’s not just for the converted.
*
I met Obama once, in D.C., the Correspondents’ Dinner.
I was the guest of Vanity Fair, guided through D.C. by the wife
Of Christopher Hitchens, when he was alive. We went to Hitch’s place,
He had books from floor to ceiling, and said he had read
To Borges, when he was blind, Old Icelandic Eddas—
Then we waited in a private room with the likes of Tom Cruise,
And Katie Holmes, and Claire Danes. When Obama entered
The crowd converged. Finally, I got to shake his hand,
He knew me from Spider-Man. I asked him for advice,
I was scheduled to give the commencement speech at UCLA
And there were some undergraduate knockers against me;
He had been denied the usual honorary degree by Arizona State
Because he hadn’t accomplished enough, so I wondered
How he dealt with detractors. He smiled his smile and said,
“Humor.” Well he’s damn right, and I wonder how much
That stand-up comedian is laughing in the face
Of this big country. Because he is one man and we are many,
And a great servant of the people—he’s a president, not a king—
And doesn’t need to face what King Charles once faced.
(Frank suggested I examine Marvell’s semi-inauguration poem for Cromwell:)
That thence the Royal actor borne
The tragic scaffold might adorn:
While round the armèd bands
Did clap their bloody hands.
That most famous stanza, and then:
But bow’d his comely head
Down, as upon a bed.
And he was beheaded, good-bye Charles.
*
If I were to act in the film about Obama,
All I would need to get down, aside from the outer stuff—
And I know that’s important—is his essential kindness,
I’d let the writer put in all the political crap,
And the specific things that he was up against,
All that stuff on CNN and the Huffington Post,
And I’d say the lines that were written, just like Obama
Reads his lines, but what would really put the role over
Would be the goodness at its core.
That’s what will be remembered.
Yes, his race, no one will forget. But the soul too.
I’d win the Academy Award if I just captured that.