Last week when TheWrap broke

Eszterhas told TheWrap on Wednesday that he released the recording because “Gibson called me a liar. And I also have some reason to believe he’s creating a PR blitz questioning my truthfulness.”

Well, you kind of have to do that when someone accuses you of calling everyone oven-dodger and saying John Lennon and Walter Cronkite are sucking each other off in hell. What’s he supposed to say? “Okay, you got me, Joe, I hate the Jews.”

It was recorded on an iPod on Dec. 7, 2011, by Eszterhas’ 15-year-old son Nick, who was with his parents, Joe and Naomi.

12-7-2011, as in, more than a year after he’d already been embarrassed by these kinds of recordings. You’d think he’d be a little more careful.

“The bottom line is it shows to me he badly needs help,” Eszterhas told TheWrap. “My interest isn’t to damage him with this tape [*cough* BULLSHIT! *cough, cough*] but to prevent damage being done to others, starting with Jews, including Oksana and now, I’m sure, me. I strongly believe that unless he seeks and receives some kind of psychiatric help, someone is going to get hurt.”

Eszterhas (as told to TheWrap) also never explained how the letter got out, even though it said in the original letter “I’ve sent this letter to no one else except Nick Guerra, your assistant, per his previous instructions that I send him whatever I send to you so he can make sure you’ve received it.”

Here’s the transcript of the audio:

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"You looked."

Last week brought us the news of the biggest celebrity pissing contest of the new year, between Mel Gibson, who wanted to make a “Jewish Braveheart” about the story of Judah Maccabee, and Joe Eszterhas, the screenwriter (Showgirls, Basic Instinct) initially hired to write it, who claims Mel Gibson is a psychopath who calls everyone “oven-dodger” and “Jewboy”, hated John Lennon, and only was interested in the project as a way to rehabilitate his image. In his public response, Gibson said the only reason the project hadn’t moved forward was because Eszterhas’s script was “extraordinarily disappointing.” Frankly, neither of their stories are that hard to believe.

Today Sharon Waxman at TheWrap has posted a review of Eszterhas’s script, which was apparently titled M.C.K.B.I., and sounds like an NKOTB side project. She says it’s “every bit the Jewish Braveheart” Eszterhas was commissioned to write, but you may want to take the whole thing with a grain of salt, considering TheWrap was the site that initially broke Eszterhas’s letter to Gibson, and Waxman has had an ongoing feud with Nikki Finke of Deadline, who published Gibson’s response. Don’t be surprised to see a few pro-Gibson and pro-Eszterhas stories being thrown back and forth between them. (My, this is all very exciting, isn’t it). Anyway, here’s Waxman’s account of the script:

Eszterhas’s script is remarkably faithful to the 2nd century B.C. biblical tale. A group of five brothers, sons of the high priest Mattathias, band together to fight the anti-Jewish occupation of Israel by the Greek-Syrian ruler, Antiochus. It is primal: white hats and black hats. Heroes and heinous villains. Good vs. evil.

On the face of it, this is a script that Mel Gibson should absolutely love: A band of pious underdogs take on an evil overlord. (They don’t paint their faces a la “Braveheart,” but the Jewish women are physically branded as harlots.)

It is full of throat-slitting and cutting off of heads. There are miles of heads on stakes. In one scene, a woman plunges a dagger into the eye of an opponent. Hearts are cut out of dead bodies. And the fighting is full of Rambo-like relish.

The question is, perhaps: Does anyone outside the Anti-Defamation League want to see a Jewish “Braveheart”?

The answer: YES. Especially if Tom Berenger plays a grizzled old Hebrew, running around with a necklace made of enemy foreskins.

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Break out your slide whistle, wetbacks, it looks like Mel Gibson is up to his old tricks again. This according to Joe Eszterhas, of Showgirls/Basic Instinct fame, who had been hired by Gibson to write

Here’s a partial excerpt:

An executive there [at WB] said the script had “no feeling” and “no sense of triumph.” (I vehemently disagree). He said you would be calling me imminently, but you haven’t.

I spent nearly two years researching and writing my script and I am deeply disappointed that you haven’t had the decency to respond to it.

I’ve come to the conclusion that you never had, or have, any intention of making a film about the Maccabees. I believe you announced the project with great fanfare — “a Jewish Braveheart” — in an attempt to deflect continuing charges of anti-semitism which have dogged you.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the reason you won’t make The Maccabees is the ugliest possible one. You hate Jews.

Let me remind you of some of the things you said which appalled me. You continually called Jews “Hebes” and “oven-dodgers” and “Jewboys.” It seemed that most times when we discussed someone, you asked ‘He’s a Hebe, isn’t he?’ You said most ‘gatekeepers’ of American companies were ‘Hebes’ who ‘controlled their bosses.’

You said the Holocaust was “mostly a lot of horseshit.” You said the Torah made reference to the sacrifice of Christian babies and infants. When I told you that you were confusing the Torah with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, … you insisted “it’s in the Torah — it’s in there!” (It isn’t).

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"I know you said to turn the other cheek, but in my defense, her tits looked REALLY stupid."

Burnsy filled in for me on Friday while I was busy volunteering at the legless cat shelter, and since he did such a good job on his guide to Happy Madison, I suppose I can forgive him for not mentioning that Mel Gibson is developing a movie about Judah Maccabee, the Jewish hero of Chanukah, to be written by Powder/Showgirls screenwriter Joe Eszterhas. Working title: “One of the Good Ones.”

This story reminded someone at The Atlantic of a book he was writing (as so often happens). It turns out, Jeffrey Goldberg heard about Gibson’s interest in turning the Maccabee story into a film a few years ago. He related the story to fellow Atlantic writer Christopher Hitchens, who told Goldberg, “You must go to Los Angeles and stop him.” Goldberg did as he was instructed, because Christopher Hitchens is like a cross between Yoda and William Wallace to Atlantic writers. Clearly, Goldberg was unsuccessful in his mission (probably because Mel Gibson can recognize Jews at a thousand paces and becomes immediately suspicious), but he did get Gibson to open up on a variety of topics, including Sugartits-gate.  Here’s what Gibson told Goldberg about that:

I asked him why it happened, and he answered me directly: “I was loaded, and some stupid sh*t can come out of your mouth when you’re loaded.”
But from what dark corner of his soul did this terrible accusation — that Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world — emanate? He said, “That day they were marching into Lebanon. It was one of those things. It was on the news.”
The “they” in question is the Israel Defense Forces. I found this answer to be proof, of course, of Gibson’s anti-Semitic tendencies. Most drunk people, when stopped by the police, don’t launch into tirades against Jews.

Clearly you’ve never met my Uncle Steve.

Which brings us to Goldberg’s next question, why a film about Judah Maccabee?

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