Cruise Is A Big Wet Pussy
Fake reporters have squirted Tom Cruise with water, and he threw a hissy fit in response. Not the most earth-shaking of news stories, but I can't help but eat this shit up. I think all of his public wigouts since he replaced his apparently-gifted publicist with his kooky Scientologist sister and started his pretend-banging of poor little Katie Holmes have all been fascinating little portraits of human oddity.
My crazy friend Sean once bought me a scientology book as a gag present, a sort-of textbook primer on the the intricacies of the "faith". In one chapter, the hypothetical question "How do I know that I have a soul?" is asked. The answer, in paraphrase: "Close your eyes. Picture a cat. Can you see that cat now? That's how you know you have a soul". I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean, or how that ties into a religious system that also includes the belief in a variety of specified space aliens hiding among us and the knowledge that the payment of a large lump sum of cash will grant you a certain spiritual evolution, but I think it's testament to the mindset of the people who would buy into this insipid crap.
What shocks me more is the fact that this bullshit church can enthral celebrities who come off as actually having something resembling a modicum of intelligence, like John Travolta and Juliette Lewis, or at least a hint of common sense like the hot wife from King of Queens. Either I am missing something here, or it is never safe to assume that your average Hollywood type could be capable of processing intellectual thought or even simple cause-effect logic.
Speaking of Cruise:
One time, about five years ago when I first starting working in the city, I was schlepping to the 7 train from my job and unwisely cutting through the heart of Times Square, when I came across this little person in a ridiculous trendy-casual ensemble doing little Stevie Nicks twirls on the traffic island in front of the Virgin Megastore. Most ridiculous was his hat, which I can only describe as being wide-brimmed and powder blue. Someone was filiming him with a digital video camera, but other than that no one seemed to be paying him much attention, and there were throngs of touristy pedestrians crossing the scene at either side. I was forced to squeeze in front of the crowds to get to where I was going; in order to get anywhere in Times Square you have to be at least semi-aggressive in your navigation through the lumps of cowlike tourists. As I inched passed the whirling dwarf, he spun to face me, and I saw that I was face-to-face with Tommy Cruise himself (it turns out, I believe, that he was filming some type of practice shot for Vanilla Sky, which would eventually require the unprecedented closing and emptying of Times Square when actual filming began). It was as if some little rodent-like figure had reached up into the movie screen, ripped off the actor's blue-eyed mug and tacked it to his own face.
I realized in that moment as I stared down at the little man, who stared back up at my mean-looking 6'2'' fat-assed veneer with something that resembled mild terror, that if I just reached out and pummeled him that I would have 15 minutes of fame. It was a a very fleeting vision-- to punch him or shove him or reach down and make out with him would lead to a next day headline in the New York Post. Cruise isn't my favorite actor/celebrity, but I certainly never bore any desire to do him physical harm before or after that instant.
I guess it's just the powerful allure of fame. It's a bitch.
PS-- And to think I used to have a crush on Katie Holmes...