You Ever Wonder Where Photos Come From?

As readers of the previous posts' comments know (and readers of any other Jake blog in existence since it seems to have been covered quite extensively), Stephen got remarried over the weekend.  Of course there are tons of pictures...

Huh.

Surely the Gyllenhaals knew these pictures were being taken, right?  And were those all of the pictures that were taken?  Jake is prominent throughout...is this because more pictures were taken of him?  (Leading to the question of why the pictures were taken in the first place if he was the focus.)  Or were there more pictures in total, but the ones of him are the ones we're seeing because he's the most famous family member?

Where do these pictures come from?  Who takes them?  Who decides when and where to release them?  Who decides which of the shots are released to the public and which stay in the vault? 

It's Stephen Gyllenhaal's second wedding for Christ's sake.  Who on Earth would care enough to send a photographer off to capture it on film?

And perhaps the biggest question of all is how is it possible that Stephen and I have roughly the same amount of gray hair?

(Answer:  Stephen did not age prematurely like I did, because Stephen did not have to go through his twenties bearing the weight of having his entire existence disregarded by Stephen Gyllenhaal.)  (If you don't know what I'm talking about, that's because you still haven't read I'm Stalking Jake! the book!  You should get on that.)

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Yes, Yes, Jake Witnessed a Gang Shooting; Now Let's Tie It to Harry Potter!

It's my running joke (which works only because it's true) that Jake Gyllenhaal is a boring person.  The vast majority of the time, his life is about as interesting as anyone else's, which is to say not even remotely interesting enough to write about with anything approaching regularity.  Thus my propensity for making shit up.

But last week, two legitimately unusual things happened in the world of Jake:  he was a guest on the season premiere of Man vs. Wild, and he witnessed a gang shooting while doing a ride-along with the LAPD as part of his research for his role in End of Watch.

As is likely painfully clear, I offered full coverage of neither event.

My life last week did not include sleeping in a snow cave or cruising by real-life violence in a police car, but it was interesting within the context of me.  Some major life shit went down...and of course we had the release of the final Harry Potter film...

I was thinking about all of it as I lay in bed last night, and then I started thinking about this blog and waiting for the guilt that inevitably comes when I realize I haven't posted anything here in a while.  When the guilt didn't come, my train of thought shifted to why that was...

Jake was just doing his job last week.  When he showed up to Iceland a few months back, he wasn't actually morphing into a survivalist.  He was spending 48 hours with a camera crew under the guidance of a trained professional for the sake of making good television (the success of that goal being somewhat under debate).  And hanging out with the cops for a day doesn't give him any sort of in-depth appreciation for the harsh realities of making your living on the streets of Los Angeles year after year; it gives him insight into how to pretend well enough to entertain movie-goers who don't know any better.

And I guess that's maybe why these supposedly "interesting" things weren't really all that interesting to me last week. 

In a recent interview, Daniel Radcliffe (God bless him) said that one of the things he does to keep himself grounded is remind himself that when he gets out of the car at a premiere, the screaming isn't for him.  It's for Harry Potter.  Anyone who landed the role of Harry would have gotten those screams.  The true power lies in the story, not in his personal appeal.

And isn't that true of every celebrity?  I mean, honestly, at the very root of it, don't we applaud the fame above the person himself?  Jake's a good-looking guy, but how would you react to running into him if he weren't famous?  I'll go out on a limb and say there would be far less shaking and freaking out if instead of acting in movies, he was working behind the counter at Starbucks.

July 15 marked the fifth anniversary (!) of my first post on Jake Watch.  That is a long goddamned time.  In the past half-decade, I have learned many things (it is, after all, "all about learning"), but one lesson seems to have reared its head over and over and over again.  Fame is currency.  And at a much more impressionable era in my life, I got swept up by a guy who doesn't know how to spend his very well.

So I apologize for not commenting on the gang shooting thing.  But the truth is that I'll always find it more interesting when Jake winds up on an adventure for his own sake, and not for the sake of his audience.

Sort of related...here is DanRad on The Daily Show last night.  And no, there is no reason to post this other than it's my blog and I am one of the world's biggest motherfucking Harry Potter nerds. #noshamewhatsoever

The Daily Show - Daniel Radcliffe
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Happy Bear Grylls Day!

I'm really not sure what all the fuss is about.  You people act like watching Jake eat worms and fall into horrifying knee-deep crevasses (see previous post) is more exciting than what we usually see him doing.

Personally, I think you're all nuts.  Jake is exciting all the time.  Just in the past couple of weeks, we've seen him walk to his car:

Walk to his car carrying a beverage cup:

And walk to his car NOT carrying a beverage cup, but holding his hand like he is because it's apparently now permanently stuck in that position:

But whatever, fine, go and enjoy your season premiere tonight like it's something out of the ordinary or something...

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Jake Gyllenhaal Almost Dies or Something but Whatever Because This Makes for FANTASTIC Television

Oh, what thrills await those of you who will be watching the season premiere of Man vs. Wild this Friday!  A sample below:

It was with great interest that I read the comments of the last post regarding Brokeback Mountain jokes.  Clearly they have been far more widespread than I realized in reference to Jake's appearance on Man vs. Wild.  Even the Huffington Post, where these clips were snatched from, used Brokeback in the first sentence of their article about this show. 

Why are people still talking about Brokeback Mountain?  Apparently within the grand context of pop culture, it remains the fastest and easiest way to remind everyone who Jake Gyllenhaal is.  He's that guy who was in that movie that caused such a stir that five and a half years later, people still haven't gotten over it...

Thanks to Sam and Vanessa for tipping me off to these clips!!

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