Upsetting Day: Corey Haim's Me, Myself & I - Part 2 (Patreon)

If you're just joining us, we are fifteen minutes into Corey Haim's Me, Myself & I. If you haven't yet, read Part I for context, and also to help ease your soul into this unforgiving swamp of darkness. And remember, we are examining this as a standalone piece of art, so no Googling "How did things go for Corey Haim after that weird 1989 VHS tape?"

Hobbies and transportation are over. It's time for Corey to get serious. About "you know, the whole misconception thing." He talks about being on the ball, then losing the ball and how his fans want to save him. Corey seems to be referencing some controversy I don't remember, already promised I wouldn't Google, but is definitely drugs. I think it's meant to reassure teen girls he's got his demons under control, but it does not. I had blamed this video on normal teenage awkwardness, poor education, bad planning, unchecked capitalism, inferior Canadian coolness, and a mean-spirited production crew, but now my lead suspect is drugs.

Corey's thoughts on sports he would have played in high school were pretty profound. Here's one, if you don't remember them: "Baseball. It's all about hand-eye coordination." But his insider stories about the film industry will change the way you experience art. He muses on his favorite film project, which is still Lost Boys because "there was a big prop room, and water guns. Just a fun atmosphere." That's all he says, which helps remind viewers this is not a great actor reflecting on his craft, but a child who rates his film projects by which set had the best toys.

Look, I'd like to be cute, but there's no nice way to explain how Corey Haim only says stupid things. They never allowed him a second take, and if they ever gave him the opportunity to prepare a coherent answer, he must have refused. He sneers out strings of unrelated words like he's auditioning for the part of Senile Chester Cheetah.

Corey looks at us like we just threw our training bra at him and says, "Is there someone I look up to? Uhhh, yeah. I look up to John Ritter? Because he's uh, a physical comedian. And I enjoy that." It cuts to him floating in the pool? It comes back to him explaining, "I'm trying to get in the, in the habit of, uh, picking up a book and learning how to write my feelings down; not my feelings but my thoughts about things. Um. And hopefully I'll be moving towards the writing and directing, um, soon." It cuts to him in the pool again? It returns to the couch so we can hear, "Um, as far as being into the musical part of things, um, you know, I'll I'll slap the headphones on once in a while and dibble-dabble at the keyboard. You know, mix the drum effects, things like that."

Then, and curse their evil goddamn hearts for doing this, they cut to Corey Haim dibble-dabbling at the keyboard:

Corey is poking out the same song every child plays when they first touch an electric keyboard. It sounds like an ape trying to open a security door. Woody Allen was better prepared to be a father than Corey Haim was to film his musical process. And during this, the least talented or knowledgeable a person can be at anything, he literally calls out, "It's like Einstein man, I love it!"

If it's not clear from that 6 second gif or my description, Corey Haim does not know how to play the piano, nor has he touched those particular pianos before. Fuck the souls of the monsters who allowed this. I want to look into the eyes of the man responsible while he explains why he chose to include Corey Haim saying, "As far as what I really like in today's music. I'm into the new. I'm into that Japanese funk. Ummm that pop funk. I think Prince is the future, a lot of other things."

It's already enough. Putting a camera on Corey Haim and saying, "You've heard of music. You must be a genius. Explain it. Reinvent it. Aaaaand, action." But then they pan around the room so we can see the crew absolutely not enjoying any of this. This is the worst day they'll ever have at work, and the biggest concert Corey Haim will ever throw. Corey's fingers mash wildly against random keys at random intervals while his voiceover delivers the line, "I think we were all born with a certain inner rhythm" and no followup line to explain what that means. You remember Star Wars Kid? It's like that, but Corey meant to do it, had a 30 person crew, and they sold it to horny teens.

While all this is happening, this smear of sadness we'll never wash off our universe, the director is constantly shouting, "That's it! That's it!" every time Corey shows the slightest energy.

Corey takes this direction well and goes, "Let's get all funky and just-- !"

He takes his hand off the keyboard and twirls. He plays air guitar at it. He knocks his microphone out of its stand, silently shrieks into it, can't figure out how to put it back, drops it-- it's insanity. It is an octopus trapped in a mannequin. Corey is inventing a new form of music and how to mock it at the same time. And it's exactly what the director wanted. "Yeah! YEAH!" he screams. He'll take any moving shapes at this point. Anything but more thoughts on tennis.

Me, Myself & I is the most awful, pointless video ever made, and simultaneously a documentary about the making of that awful, pointless video. At no risk of overstating it, it's like if World War II stopped every forty seconds to show Hitler trying to figure out a hotel shower while Hermann Goering shouted, "Rad! Yes! Keep doing that!"

And that's a wrap on the music! They show several shots of the crew cleaning up, making phone calls, and putting equipment away, but oh no. We're still not done. They pull out a roll of paper and a wardrobe rack for, oh no. Oh fuck no. A fashion show.

The camera pulls in close to Corey's mouth. "Yeah, boy," he says. His voice drops to a whisper, nay less than a whisper. A silent bite at the air. "FASHION."

While no one wonders what the goddamn fuck any of them are doing there, they put Corey Haim in several affordable, name-brand fashions and we watch him learn how to model in real time.

It's times like this I envy people with spirituality because if you can picture God looking down upon this and allowing it, the whole existence thing is almost funny. To create the miracle of life and watch it grow into amazing things that can think and build and feel and to watch them do this. I guess it's not ha ha funny. Anyway, this is what's going through my mind when Corey Haim says, "I'd have to say the way I'm feeling nowadays would be 'INTENSE.'" He takes a long pause, then with full confidence adds, "... powerful." No one is more certain they said something great, and it's back to ha ha funny for me.

Oh no. Someone off camera asked Corey Haim what his ten year plan was.

In 1999, Corey Haim thought he'd be in French Polynesia, alone, in a mansion overlooking a double porpoise and seahorse preserve. Neat. So okay, I know this might end up tearing my heart out, and I promised I wouldn't do this, but I'm going to allow myself one IMDB search to see what Corey Haim's career looked like at that time. Did he ever get the role of "Only Brother?" Did he play Herbie Hancock in a biopic called Dibble Dabble?

...

... okay, that year it looks like he was in Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies. That sounds like a fun ro-- oh, as "Museum Burglar." Oh, no. "Museum Burglar (uncredited)." And oh... no second thing that year. I made a mistake. I shouldn't have done this. This is too tragic. Unless maybe this gap in his resume is because he was raising sharks in Tahiti? No, I would have seen that; it would have been in 139 different Cracked articles. This article is going to make everyone cry. I'm going to have to delete this whole thing and post an apology instead. Unless. Hmmm... unless maybe 1989 Corey Haim can rescue me with some kind of karate kick followed by a chain of manic, indecipherable expressions?

Yes.

The director loudly asks Corey if he's ready. To the soundtrack of Corey Haim growling "Yea-- ye-- y-- yea- yeah, boooyyy," Corey Haim looks into the camera to deliver his answer. "We were born ready. All of us." Oh, fuck yes.

Hold on, it just occurred to me "We were born ready. All of us," wasn't spontaneous. They probably set that line up at Corey's insistence. Oh no, it looped back around to sadness again. I don't think I can dea-- oh thank God. It's the Camera One shot of that sweet karate kick and nervous system collapse. In color. Roll that beautiful Corey Haim footage:

Yes.

And now, at last, as promised by the back of the VHS cover, are Corey Haim's thoughts on kissing. Buckle the motherfuck up, romance fans:

What!? Amazing! They advertised that on the box! It included blood dolphins! Holy fucking shit!

Next, the wardrobe supervisor gives Corey a leather jacket and it's his entire world. He is rebuilding his whole personality around this coat. He loves it like a toddler seeing himself for the first time in a dinosaur costume. He loves it like an evil scientist who just swapped brains with Superman. Instead of asking for a coat that fits, it strikes a previously unknown cool deposit inside Corey Haim and he ruptures coolness out of every joint and facial muscle. He becomes the spinnin', smirkin', new-boot-goofin' uber Corey. It's the perfect way to end it. Watching him twirl, we are all seventeen again, filled with tingling love and blood dolphins.

Oh Jesus, it's not done yet. Someone asked Corey Haim to improvise a generic PSA for teens. And even if the only thing you know about Corey is what he chose to show us in this video so far, you know this is like asking Gary Busey to freestyle rap about motorcycle safety. I'm not a research scientist so I don't know who I tell about this, but I call this substance I've discovered "transmittable unwisdom" and it is NOT SAFE.

There's nothing like this video. They managed, at this point in the production, to show two entire minutes of him in a suit running his fingers through his hairspray. Then he freezes on what he truly believes is his coolest pose and they clear the set around him. It seems like this is it-- the huge finale.

Wait, no, one more thing first. They cut to him changing clothes and a cranky woman reads him a question from a paper about which day he would relive if he could relive any day. Then she turns away and has a different conversation while he answers. She was right to look away.

Corey does not tell the story of his first blood dolphin kiss or dream of one more water fight with Jason Patric and Keifer Sutherland. He panics and blurts out an unrehearsed story about a teddy bear he had on the set of a Liza Minelli movie. A hotel maid threw it in the wash where "it evaporated or something like that." He calls it a very special day, and a very special animal. W-wait. Does he want to relive that day to... to save the bear from evaporation? To get revenge on the maid a thousand different ways? To warn Liza about drugs? I'm going to scream.

The point is, Corey Haim had to fill four minutes, maybe five, with his thoughts on life, sports, fame, fashion, music, and the future. And he couldn't. It seems impossible to be this unprepared for this many questions on a show about your life. And here's something you might think is weird: thirty one minutes and eleven layers of makeup into the video about him, Corey Haim turns to us and introduces himself:

Corey really levels with us in this final camera setup. Well not "us." He might have made this advice too specific. If I'm understanding him correctly, and I'm now a leading 1989 Corey Haim expert, he's speaking directly to child actors of divorce who have landed starring roles in Dianne Wiest films. He says "don't get messed up." And "stay in school." If they opened with this it might have meant something, but the producers have spent a half hour viciously roasting this boy's dummy brain. And if you doubt their cruel intentions, the editor inserted another shot of the crew setting up the scene where Corey tried to look cutely surprised on his couch. Whoever made this hated Corey Haim so much.

After the "final" speech is over, it turns out they have some unused footage to include at the end. They cut to an embarrassing story of Corey's first acting gig. He had a line in a commercial which he remembers as "Extra, extra! Furniture bankruptcy, read all about it!" And the director from that gig, who he doesn't remember, said he had the goods. It's a dull story about nothing other than how great Corey Haim thinks he is, and it's exactly the story an editor would pick if they wanted everyone else to hate Corey Haim too. And that's a wrap on Me, Mysel-- wait, hold on, they stop and rewind the credits to surprise us with three flubbed lines from maybe Dream a Little Dream? Okay, is it? Yes, it's over. After four seconds of behind-the-scenes looks at Corey being bad at his job courtesy of Vestron Video, Me, Myself & I ends.

May the barren Earth fall into the cold sun before anything like this is ever made again.

...

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