We've been vexed, terribly vexed by Joaquin Phoenix's slurred proclamation to Extra that he planned to give up acting to follow in the illustrious, thesp rock footsteps of The Bacon Brothers and 30 Odd Foot of Grunts. Was he seriously quitting the business, or was it all a ruse for some forlorn, Sundance Channel takeoff of Punk'd? Then, at the Saturday AFI Fest part for Che, Phoenix did what any actor ready to leave Hollywood would do: a full red carpet press tour, complete with the hastily scrawled words "Bye!" and "Good" on opposite knuckles (perhaps he takes his sentence structure cues from the backwards "B"-sporting Ashley Todd). Said Phoenix to the AP:

"I think it's just moving on. It's rediscovering something else," said the budding musician. "It's like greener pastures, you know what I mean?" he told The Associated Press. "And so, I'm just going to try and like, I'll just be doing the other thing. ... Hopefully, I will emotionally impact you with that, as well."

Though Phoenix has emotionally impacted us before in far-afield gigs like "frog hallucinator," "activist mute," and "Yawanawa tribal inductee," we're a little more skeptical about his new career path, "Spaceland opening act." We're going to cling to our hope that this all an elaborate joke until we see Melissa Leo leap out from behind the Extra cameraman, yelling, ""You got Indie'd!" [Photo Credit: AP]