In a new profile of the greasy-haired renaissance man in The Advocate, actor turned academic and author James Franco talks about his literary ambitions (he has a short story collection coming out soon) and addresses the haters. Namely, us.

The caramel cream-cake says:

"I don't want to sound defensive at all," he says, sounding defensive, "but if websites like Gawker.com or PerezHilton.com don't like my writing, I can live with that. There is this crazy phenomenon in the blogosphere that is so hostile to anyone being creative, and if I incur that hostility from people who've probably read five short stories in the last 10 years, it doesn't really bother me."

Oh excuse me, lady, but A-number-one, don't compare us to P*r*z. B-number-two, I'll have you know I am fifteen pages into Freedom and have only had it for a week.

Franco goes on to discuss his academic success:

I applied to 15 creative writing Ph.D. programs. I got into 14. Some of them only accepted one fiction writer. I know there's this idea that I'm getting a lot of opportunities because I'm a celebrity, and there certainly is truth to that, but it's not like I'm coasting. I'm working all the time. Short of writing under an alias, I'm doing everything I can to treat this as seriously as I can.

Haha. Amazing that he got in, right?

If we're trading insults, I'll just say that I have an early copy of Palo Alto and... Well, Birds of America or Among the Missing or You Are Not a Stranger Here (all short story collections I've read in the last 10 years! they are good! you should read them, James!) it is not. So: BOOM.

But seriously, we are idiots. The difference is, we know it.