Is Joaquin Phoenix’s music act real or a hoax?

In October, Joaquin Phoenix quit acting to become a musician. So this weekend, he showed up at the swanky, $22 million nightclub Lavo at Palazzo to make his first announced concert performance. He rapped three songs after midnight Friday. Yeah. Rapped. Then he fell off a catwalk.

But before that, he spent a surreal day at the hotel. Tourists gawked. Photographers stalked. Miss America contestants were filming in the hotel, so Phoenix found them, put on a tiara and Miss Kentucky's sash, and posed for photos. At some other point, he pulled his shirt up to flash someone.

He looked wild. He had let his hair grow into a bushel of salt-but-mostly-pepper. His untamed beard was 100 percent mountain man. He wore sunglasses, because ... of course he could.

The media was already aware of cynical speculation that his retirement/music career was possibly a hoax, because Phoenix's brother-in-law, Casey Affleck, is following Phoenix with a camera crew everywhere, directing a documentary about his new music career. Is this "Spinal Tap" on purpose?

After he smiled on a red carpet, I followed Phoenix and film crew to Lavo's Strip-side balcony overlooking the girly pirate show, "Sirens of TI," across the street. There, still in sunglasses, Phoenix told a guy from People magazine he hopes to put out a music single Feb. 14.

Then he turned to me. He seemed nice, genuine and remarkably generous with his thoughts. Pre-concert jitters made him slightly manic, swinging from lighthearted to serious and animated. Affleck's documentary crew filmed our chat.

Phoenix told me he rapped freestyle at smaller clubs, but those were surprise appearances. At one club, a DJ messed with him, and people threw ice at him.

"Are there people that are gonna say that it's a joke? Yeah. Are there people that's gonna say that I suck? Probably. I can't control that. You know what I mean?" he told me. "I run that same (expletive) risk every movie I do. I feel like the other actors are going, 'This dude sucks. This is a (expletive) joke.'"

"You can't think about that," he said. "If I was thinking about other people, I never would have gone anywhere. As Jesus said: They say this and that; you don't listen to them. ... I have to be true to myself."

Phoenix knows the path before him is uncertain.

"You might see me in a (expletive) week, and I've retired from (expletive) music and I can't hack it. I don't know, dude," he said with a little laugh. "But I'm gonna put myself out there."

He came to Vegas after Lavo approached him, he said. He took it as a "dress rehearsal" and his goal was to move the crowd. I asked him if he'd gone through a lot of emotions, such as freedom, doubt and happiness.

"I've experienced all of it, but that's what I love about it," he said. "I think I got tired of knowing what the outcome was gonna be when I worked (on films), in some ways. And this is, like, I don't know what's gonna happen. ... They might throw (stuff) at me. But I put myself out there."

For years, he was the kind of actor who said he was willing to do anything, he said.

"And the truth is I was hiding behind this facade, and this (persona) that's created (by) publicists, and agents, and all that."

He said it was time to "walk the walk." After he said this, he leaned into me and chuckled, "sorry, a pun," since he was nominated for a best actor Oscar for "Walk The Line."

"So yeah, there are times when I go through doubt. But I went through doubt when I did 'Gladiator,'" he said. "I didn't know I was gonna get nominated. I was terrified, you know? So I don't know what's going to happen. I don't expect to be given a Grammy tomorrow. It would be nice. But we'll see."

Phoenix shook my hand and walked away to pose for photos. I asked the producer for the documentary, Angela White, if this documentary/career change is a hoax.

"Not at all. It's real," she said. "That's why he has Casey doing it. It's an intimate portrait. Joaquin usually doesn't give that to people."

I asked to interview Affleck, but he wanted to interview me on camera. OK, I said. I told Affleck some people think this is a satire. Affleck crinkled his brow and said this could be viewed as insulting.

I told him people don't believe certain things, because they have had the rug pulled from under them while watching reality TV, and seen other actors start bands, like Keanu Reeves, who created a went-nowhere group called Dogstar.

"What's Dogstar?" Affleck asked.

Affleck explained actors start young and act for years because they're good at it. But they mature and decide to do something else.

I told Affleck I used to be a rock critic but now I'm a people reviewer, you know, like a god. This was facetious. But how often do I get the chance to tell Casey Affleck I'm a people-reviewer god while he interviews me about my interview with Joaquin Phoenix, who quit acting for rapping -- on camera?

Hours later, Phoenix appeared, still in sunglasses, in the VIP section at Lavo. He posed for photos with club girls. Then Phoenix rapped on a catwalk while chain smoking a la Hunter S. Thompson. You couldn't understand much of what he said or rapped through the speaker system. But he was into it. With his eyebrows hopping above sunglasses, he reminded me of John Belushi.

His songs were about dancing, God and career. He kept pointing his microphone at people to rap along, but no one knew the words.

He finished by jumping up and down to cheers, then falling off his perch safely into a heap on the couch.

The crowd was supportive. But after he rapped, a handful told me that although he showed energy, the rap was "so-so" at best and bad at worst, because it was a mumble of words they couldn't discern in songs they didn't know. Two club girls signified two thumbs down. One guy said he sounded like Big Bird.

Here was the problem. When you perform rap in concert, fans have to know the words going in or it doesn't work. Jay-Z couldn't have pulled this off. Well, Jay-Z could, but few others. As it is, pop rap is hard to turn into a good concert. Eminem won an Oscar, too, for music, and he blows on stage.

I tried to reach Casey to tell him this, since he had asked me to deliver my review, but he and Phoenix, still in sunglasses, were trapped in a Hollywood bubble in VIP, cordoned off by security guards who yelled at me and others to back off, as Affleck's camera crew shined bright lights on his entourage.

So Joaquin, Casey, here's my rock critic advice. Do the art you want to do; if you compromise and fail, you'll hate yourself. And don't let the bastards get you down. In this case, I am a truth teller to my readers, but to you, I'm a bastard, because I'm not your producer, your fan, or your sycophant.

Doug Elfman's column appears on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Contact him at 702-383-0391 or e-mail him at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He also blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.