Hmm. If you couldn’t tell from the above photo, I’m sort of torn on how to best illustrate this latest Shia LaBeouf post. Most of the candid paparazzi photos of this guy have him looking utterly grungy and completely unwashed, so I opted for some photos of Shia at the Berlin film festival premiere of The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman. Then I decided that if he was facing away from the camera, that was even better. I’m not disgusted by Shia’s looks when he cleans himself up, but he’s got such a terrible attitude that gazing at him is a real turnoff. We’ll get to the forward-facing photos in just a moment, so prepare yourself.

To recap yesterday’s weirdness, we covered the story of Shia “quitting” his big time Broadway debut, Orphans, after he threw a hissy fit and punched a hole in a backstage door. For whatever reason, Shia has endured the aftermath of his discontent by posting private emails on the situation to his Twitter account, and the most amusing thing about Shia’s departure is that he managed to go all ragey before Alec Baldwin, who is a notorious rage monster. Indeed, it seems that Shia’s departure from Orphans had to do with a personality clash between him and Alec. According to one particular email posted by Shia, a producer revealed, “You’re one hell of an actor. Alec is who he is. you are who you are. you two are incompatible.” For what it’s worth, Shia also tweeted this email containing an apology poem of sorts to Alec, which was all well and good except that he plagiarized all but the first and last lines from Tom Chiarella’s essay, “How To Be A Man,” for Esquire magazine. How charming:

A man is good at his job. Not his work, not his avocation, not his hobby. Not his career. His job. It doesn’t matter what his job is, because if a man doesn’t like his job, he gets a new one.

A man can look you up and down and figure some things out. Before you say a word, he makes you. From your suitcase, from your watch, from your posture. A man infers.

A man owns up. That’s why Mark McGwire is not a man. A man grasps his mistakes. He lays claim to who he is, and what he was, whether he likes them or not.

Some mistakes, though, he lets pass if no one notices. Like dropping the steak in the dirt.

He does not rely on rationalizations or explanations. He doesn’t winnow, winnow, winnow until truths can be humbly categorized, or intellectualized, until behavior can be written off with an explanation.

A man knows his tools and how to use them — just the ones he needs. Knows which saw is for what, how to find the stud, when to use galvanized nails.

A man does not know everything. He doesn’t try. He likes what other men know.

A man can tell you he was wrong. That he did wrong. That he planned to. He can tell you when he is lost. He can apologize, even if sometimes it’s just to put an end to the bickering.

[From Esquire]

Beyond the douchiness of Shia blatantly lifting Esquire’s essay, does anyone else find it incredibly self-destructive that Shia is posting self-serving emails between himself and his (former) colleagues? I mean, he even posted Tom Sturridge’s confused “Wha?” message about this mess. Besides the fact that Shia is a whiny baby (and not a “man” as he seems to believe), he’s also airing emails that other people figured would be entirely confidential. That’s pretty unprofessional to say the least.

Shia also posted Alec’s response to his plagarized apology, which is below and included, “I don’t have an unkind word to say about you. You have my word.” So there’s that, I guess. This is such drama between boys. Oh, and Shia’s already been replaced by Ben Foster. Good plan.

Photos courtesy of WENN