(above image source)

I was thinking James Franco’s turn in “Pineapple Express“ had offset the mediocrity of “Annapolis and “Tristan and Isolde.” But the actor’s clip in Esquire, titled “Just Before the Black,” sets him back a little bit.   Per Esquire’s site: “James Franco offers his story about how it’s only right before you die that you know you’re living. ”

It’s an…interesting read, suffice to say.  ”Black” reads like my friends’ summer as refrigerator salesmen:

“Hector,” I say.  I am lying on the altar thing and staring up through one of the willows, whose drooping, arcing branches are like jagged fissures in the sky.  Hector is sitting against the base of the willow’s trunk.  ”Would you rather be the pope or Pablo Escobar?”

Hector doesn’t think long.

“Escobar, bitch, he gets to have all the fun.”

“Pope gets to live in the Vatican, see Michelangelo all the time,” I say.

So the debate’s settled!  But really, congrats to Franco for putting himself out there.  But instead of spending time writing, can’t he concentrate efforts getting “Freaks and Geeks” back on the air?