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JD could put on a good Byrne-tastic spaz show with the best of them. He lip-synched to “Making Flippy Floppy” at our elementary school’s first (and only) such talent show, put on by the fourth through sixth graders (as we were) for the lower classes and assorted chaperons during a week-long excursion to the Oregon Coast. He deservedly won. I floundered attempting a much too-literal take on “Yakety Yak,” acting out lyrics and such. I redeemed myself, after a fashion, not 12 months later tackling “Love for Sale” (from this week’s movie) and dervish whirling on my junior high stage like Iggy Pop, only without the broken glass and hard drugs. I didn’t win, but apparently the eighth graders - my elders - voted for me in droves.

(In the long run, however, I feel as if the essence of Byrne, his tics and mannerisms, have shaped me from the inside out, at least as much as I may have adopted them. If you want a glimpse of where I think I will be in two decades, bodily speaking, look no further than David Byrne circa 2010.)

In writing this week’s column, I have already offered up my personal biases that predispose me towards enjoying True Stories. I now confront a problem on the opposite end of the spectrum, a psychic Achilles Heel if you will, that I wrestle with on a regular basis and that may disallow me from seeing True Stories as it “really is”: telling when people are kidding.

I am terrible with jokes, relaying them and receiving them. If someone is pulling my leg, I can easily be suckered in. If they give up the game quick enough, no harm, no foul, I can be along for the laugh. If they were to sustain the joke, the story, what have you, indefinitely, with no winking, no breaking the illusion, just selling me the bill of goods and on and on, in the face of any evidence to the contrary, I would be forced to believe them. No matter how outrageous the construct. It’s like an existential riff on Sherlock Holmes’ theory that “once you take away the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the solution.”

As an example of this, I point to Joaquin Phoenix’s performance/art/stunt in I’m Still Here. From the start it seemed likely to me, as it did to many I am sure, that the Oscar-nominated actor was not really leaving behind acting for rapping and hiring his brother-in-law in the process to document behavior including but not limited to screwing hookers, snorting blow, and following a trajectory of spiraling assholery. And yet, as the months went on and no light escaped from that black hole, my thoughts did drift towards the notion that this was all for real. Perhaps he was mentally melting down and having it filmed, but it was not faked. With the truth at least somewhat come to light, I am glad to have resolution, though I would still qualify Phoenix’s behavior as sociopathic. Compelling and novel, worthy of Academy recognition, but distressing nonetheless.

Which brings me up to True Stories. A former girlfriend could not fathom my general disdain towards ironic affectation and distance and see how it could be reconciled with a love for and defense of this movie’s sincerity: “It’s nothing but irony, all the way through.” And there’s the rub. If the movie is a solid wall of post-modern hipster stick-poking at small-town yokels, it is so complete and thorough that I have no choice but to consider it sincere. Thankfully, I do have some externals and other mitigating factors to rely on in defending this decision - Byrne’s words regarding the project, a glance at his collaborators, the look and tone of the picture, the role Byrne’s narrator plays in the film - but I also have my childhood spent in at least one version/variation of small-town Americana.

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