Chicago performer/writer Ian Belknap wants the head of James Franco

Ian Belknap

Razor-tongued writer/performer and Write Club “overlord” Ian Belknap thinks little of the phenom and soon-to-be Comedy Central roast subject known as James Franco. So little, in fact, that he’s in the midst of creating a one-man play to help express his deep-seated disgust. Funnily. Its title: Bring Me the Head of James Franco, That I May Prepare a Savory Goulash in the Narrow and Misshapen Pot of His Skull.

James Franco, via imdb.com

But not really. Symbolically.

“My hatred is of the Franco phenomenon,” he wrote recently in response to a question about the project, “and is a three-headed viper: a) Franco’s many side projects (‘serious’ pursuit of multiple advanced degrees with no interruption of his film career, publishing poetry and fiction, performance art, appearing on soap operas, etc) creates a growing body of half-assed, under-imagined work which would be born and die in total obscurity if he were not a movie star, b) a slackly uncritical press that KEEPS putting ‘Franco = Renaissance Man’ articles onto a conveyor belt already stacked high with them, and c) a stupid and reflexively celebrity-crazed culture willing to consume any Weak and Boring Turd touched by the hand of a movie actor.

“From any Chicago street corner, I could throw a rock and hit a person of greater skill, dedication to craft, and seriousness of purpose than James f—— Franco,” Belknap continued. “NONE of whom will attract a FRACTION of the attention he can command with the most indefensible brain-slops he attempts to pass off as daring and audacious and taboo-breaking art.

“What I’m after here, in what I hope will be my trademark laceratingly funny way,” he concluded, “is a reasoned and critical response to this clown and his role in accelerating the ongoing erosion of our standards.”

Stay tuned to the Sun-Times entertainment section for more on the subject.