Galley Friend M.R. sends us to this sad appraisal of Dead Man’s Chest, which features a clip from the following really, really sad interview with Terry Rossio and Ted Elliott, who wrote both of the Pirates scripts:

Terry Rossio: The world wants there to be movie stars and, in a sense, the story becomes Johnny Depp—because people want that. In terms of understanding why he’s [created] an iconic character, the story becomes ‘Johnny Depp is brilliant’ which of course is true because Johnny Depp is brilliant. People are not necessarily as interesting in pedestrian reality. You still have a storyboard artist who comes up with a visual of Johnny first stepping onto the dock as the ship sinks. We wrote that [scene in which Jack Sparrow is introduced]. We wrote lines like: ‘you’re the worst pirate I’ve ever heard of—’ and [the response] ‘but you have heard of me.’ People quote those lines. If the character had walked on screen and just stood there and said, ‘hello,’ it wouldn’t be the same. So, clearly the screenwriting goes into the creation of the character. And I have to credit Gore Verbinski’s direction.

Galley Friend S.B. emailed me a link to this Bill Simmons column under the guise of pointing out the Heat discussion, but that was a thin pretext. He’s really just trying to rub my nose in this:

Q: I am a long-suffering Philadelphia sports fan. Waiting for Billy King to pull the trigger on an Iverson trade is like watching your girlfriend drink too much at a party. You KNOW she is going to eventually blow chunks. There is no doubt. It’s gonna happen. And it’s gonna be ugly. The real question is, where? Do you dare hold out hope that she finds her way to a toilet? Or do you brace yourself for the inevitable ride home … where she proceeds to redecorate the interior of your car with bits of fish taco and the stench of tequila?
–Brendon, Philadelphia

SG: That’s been the most underrated sports subplot of the summer — every horrified Philly fan dreading the news that Billy King gave away Iverson. It’s legitimately cruel. Hasn’t this city suffered enough? In last week’s NBA column I suggested that Philly ban pro sports for a calendar year for everyone’s safety. And normally, whenever I write something about a fan base that could be perceived as negative, the fans always fight back in droves and I’m guaranteed some hate mail (like with the LeBron thing last week). But with that comment? Not only did I get zero complaints, some Philly fans even e-mailed just to say, “Right on, the sports scene is absolutely morbid right now, never seen anything like this before” and “I majored in psych in college and am becoming convinced that Philly sports fans are suffering from collective depression, all the signs are there.”

Now …

Depression is a serious illness and I would never make light of it. Obviously Philly fans aren’t legitimately depressed. At the same time, couldn’t there be a more harmless form of depression that’s sports-related? When I was living in Boston in the late ’90s and early ’00s, we were absolutely battling sports depression before the Pats beat the Rams to win the Super Bowl — it was the tail end of a titleless 15-year stretch when everything had gone wrong (Bias and Lewis, Bird’s back, Neely’s hip, McHale’s feet, Nomar’s wrist, Clemens fleeing to Canada, Parcells going to the Jets, Pitino and Duncan, etc.), and after awhile, we started EXPECTING things to go wrong. That’s when you know there’s a problem, when you’re trapped in an ongoing state of pessimistic inadequacy and there’s no way out. Hence, the depression connection.

Well, doesn’t that describe Philly fans right now? Pessimistic inadequacy? After 22 years of suffering and falling just short, dealing with a relentlessly unhappy media getting everyone riled up, enduring dozens of ludicrous front-office moves, getting their hopes raised by some genuinely big-time superstars (Lindros, Iverson, McNabb, Roenick, Schilling, Cunningham) and big-time contenders (the ’93 Phillies, ’01 Sixers, multiple runs with the Eagles and Flyers), McNabb’s bizarre collapse in the Super Bowl and the subsequent T.O. debacle seemed to push everyone over the edge … and these fans were uber-pessimistic to begin with. Hell, in a column about the “Worst 20 Sports Fans” for my old Web site, I picked Philly fans No. 1 and braced for the deluge of hate mails that never happened. Instead, they e-mailed in just to say stuff like, “You’re right. We’re insane. There’s something wrong with us.”

And that was eight years ago! When I was signing books in Philly last December, right as the Eagles’ season was going down the drain, the bitterness was almost disarming. As I wrote in my football column that week, “I couldn’t believe the body language of the locals — signing a sports book for these poor people was like signing a romance novel for Jennifer Aniston right after Brad and Angelina started dating. You can’t even imagine how many people asked me, “Can you sign it? Maybe this will happen to the Eagles someday?” And that was before T.O. went to Dallas, the C-Webb trade backfired and the Mets ran away from the Phillies.

Which brings me back to my original point: On paper, Billy King can’t screw up an Iverson trade because Philly fans would see right through the stereotypical three-nickels-for-a-quarter trade that never works. They’re too smart for it. At the same time, he’s Billy King. He’s one of the worst GMs in any sport. He shouldn’t have a job. And he’s absolutely going to screw this up. There’s no doubt. Even worse, he’s dumping Iverson because he’s made so many bad moves over the last five years, it’s the only way to potentially improve the team — they have no cap room and nobody else with any trade value, and he has to do SOMETHING because he’s one more crummy year away from losing his job. Does that sound like a valid reason to trade a 33-point scorer for 60 cents on the dollar? I didn’t think so.

If I were a diehard Philly fan, I would be doing everything possible to stop the inevitably dumb trade that’s about to happen — launching anti-King Web sites, protesting outside of radio stations, chanting Iverson’s name at baseball games, you name it. To borrow Brendon’s “drunk girlfriend” analogy, there’s still time to throw her in a car and drive her home before she starts puking all over the place.

It hurts because it’s true. All of it.

Every last word.

Joseph Bottum has found Jake Shimabukuro, the greatest ukelele player to ever live:

It surely means something that we live in an age containing the greatest ukulele player ever born, but I’m not sure just what it means. His name is Jake Shimabukuro, a twenty-nine-year-old from Hawaii, and he can make a four-string ukulele do everything but sit up and beg—and the question, when you hear him, is why: If you are this good on a ukulele, why are you playing a ukulele?

Take a look at him here, for example, playing “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” It sounds good from the beginning, but the moment, I think, when it ceases to be merely good and becomes simply impossible is the second time through the chorus (at 1:40 in the clip), when Shimabukuro starts adding on the rhythm guitar’s part—approximating two guitars on his four-string instrument. (On the original Beatles song, as I remember, George Harrison played the rhythm part and Eric Clapton sat in to play the lead.) By the time he reaches the piano-like arpeggios at 3:38, the listener’s capacity for astonishment is exhausted: The man is some kind of mad genius, because the ukulele just isn’t capable of doing all this.

Bottum isn’t kidding, either. Below is the YouTube clip of Shimabukuro. It’s 100 percent safe from the office, although you will want to play it very loud. You’ll be cheating yourself if you don’t watch the whole thing, but if you really want to jump to the insane part, go to 2:38.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J30S6hkiyU]

Galley Friend B.W. sends this heartbreaking story about Ashley Judd. Judd has long been a favorite of mine, and not just because of that Luke Perry movie. But if this account is even 5 percent true, then she’s sort of horrible.

By the way, she’s the only actor in Heat who doesn’t rise to the occassion. When De Niro corners her in the hotel room and knocks the hangers down, she does nothing with what should have been a golden moment. I’m just saying.

Buried deep in this story about the American ratings of the World Cup final is a very interesting tidbit. Soccer scolds like to lecture us about how a billion people (literally) watch the World Cup championship. The Tribune expands on that a bit:

Depending on two estimates, anywhere from 300 million (live coverage) to more than 1 billion people (live coverage, replays, highlights) watched Italy win its fourth World Cup on Sunday.

“Replays and highlights”? That’s a pretty inflated figure.

Galley Brother B.J. sends this link from LaLa Land:

Talent agency insiders with ties to the film tell TMZ that Warner Bros. Pictures president and COO Alan Horn has informed agents that a sequel hinges on whether grosses of “Superman Returns” can crest the $200 million mark domestically. What’s more, the studio plans to shave millions – many millions – off any “Superman” sequel’s budget.

Superman Returns has a good chance to go over the $200M mark for the summer, but it’s not a lock by any means.

Hugh Laurie just got a raise–to $300K per episode of House.

Who would have thought you’d hear talk like this from a Frenchman? From a French soccer player, no less?

The France legend did not reveal what Materazzi said, but claimed it was “very personal” and concerned his mother and his sister. . . .

Zidane refused to say sorry to Materazzi and said he did not regret what he did after being provoked by the insults.

But Zidane, who was playing in his final game before quitting football, added: “They were very hard words. You hear them once and you try to move away.

“But then you hear them twice, and then a third time.

“Before anything else I am a man and some words are harder to hear than actions. I would rather have taken a blow to the face than hear that I can’t regret what I did because it would mean that he (Materazzi) was right to say what he said.”

“I want to apologise,” he said. “But I can’t regret it because if do that would be like admitting that he had every reason to say what he said. I can’t do that because he was not right to say what he said.”

Manliness on the pitch. Who would have thunk it?

Just as an aside: If this had happened on an American basketball court with some analagous type of insult, I bet public opinion would be running 80-20 in Zidane’s favor.