-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
The Great Tom Cruise Backlash
Will this annoying phase pass, or will Tom become the next super-
rich, Mel Gibson-like nutball?
By Mark Morford
http://www.issuesandalibis.org/
Let it begin now. Let it start with a wry askance glance and evolve
into full-fledged annoyance and then move into raging hell-bent OK
that's quite enough now please stop before we slap you silly.
Note to Tom Cruise: You are maxing out. Wearing out the welcome.
Becoming less the tolerable and moderately talented and mildly
likable megastar and more like an itchy boil on the deranged ferret
of popular culture, requiring lancing.
The signs are all in place. The crazy ranting, the jumping on
couches, the crazed grins, the enormous piles of money, the
incessant photos of you sucking the face off your new and
bewildered and child-like fiancee, the weird diatribes about
psychiatry and mental health, the relatively common knowledge that
you are super-seriously involved at the highest levels with one of
the creepier money-hungry pseudo-religions in the nation.
Also: the assigning of a "handler" from said cult to tag along with
your new bewildered young fiancee everywhere she goes to "keep her
on the path" and make sure she doesn't, I don't know what. Talk
about the nightmares? Break down in a heap and confess that it's
all a staged setup? Reveal your true lizard identity?
Yes, Tom Cruise is getting weirder, more annoying than ever. Or
maybe he was already deeply weird and we just didn't know it
because he was famously tight-lipped in interviews and was never
much of a deep thinker and wasn't all that articulate and no one
really paid much attention because, well, who really cares?
But now, oh, Tom is opening up. Tom is speaking extemporaneously on
talk shows and in interviews about life and love and Scientology,
free of the careful grooming and aggressive protection of his
former publicist, and while he's still not all that interesting, he
is indeed letting his true colors beam right through and those
colors are sort of a strange reddish brown with lots of unbecoming
blue polka dots and weird slashes of hot pink all overarched by a
vague hint of a rainbow flag waving just overhead.
Click to join catapultthepropaganda
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There are rumors, and they are all juicy and fun. Rumors that
Cruise "interviewed" numerous young actresses to play the part of
his fiancee so as to crank the Scientology awareness quotient and
downplay the gay rumors. Rumors of Katie Holmes being essentially
trained by the "church" to forgo her former self. Rumors that
Holmes essentially vanished for 16 days just before emerging with
Cruise on her arm and a hundred million more dollars in her future
and a new, decidedly odd Scientology gleam/haze over her eyes.
Aren't rumors fun? Totally silly? But somehow, in the age of Bush
and bogus wars and massive, commonplace deceptions, weirdly
believable?
Also: Rumors persist that Tom's Scientology-rich pseudo-love
somehow convinced Katie that she must immediately dump her
longtime, beloved manager and agent switch to his. And she is
rumored to be disassociating with old friends and not communicating
with her close family (cult behaviors, all) --
and did we mention the part about how the Scientologists have
allegedly assigned her a handler/new best friend to tag along
wherever she goes and answer questions for her and coach her on how
to behave and speak when asked about their "religion"?
Hell, not even Mel Gibson has a beady-eyed priest from the Holy
Family uber-Catholic sect following him around everywhere he goes,
answering, in hissing Latin, questions from Vanity Fair reporters
and spraying everyone with fake stage blood and sitting next to Mel
in all the big studio meetings and screaming "Jesus wants 20
percent off the back end, plus international DVD rights!" while
twitching madly.
But then again, Mel's an old hand at being a slightly creepy
religious nuthead. And now, apparently, so is Tom. After all, he's
been deep into Scientology for upward of 20 years, and is rumored
to have progressed to the level of an OT6 (Operating Thetan 6),
which is a super-secret high level of the church with super-secret
knowledge of the alien story (called "The incident") and ESP, and
they all get super-secret decoder rings with access to all the best
alien-bred hallucinogens in the L. Ron Hubbard Bone Room, where
high ranking devotees gather to drink bunny blood and watch old
Travolta movies and discuss what the hell to do about Kirstie Alley.
But Katie Holmes, she's not like them. She's just a kid. She needs
lots of creepy brainwashi... er, gentle religious coaching into the
super-secret ways of the "church" of Scientology, with their
incredibly vicious army of lawyers who attack anyone who says
anything at all negative about their cult... er, religion.
(Note to Scientology: first signs that you are not a true religion:
You cannot take a joke. You have an army of attack lawyers. You are
so unstable as a religion you are unable to handle satire. You
think the Kabballah is suing everyone who trashes Madonna? They'd
be broke in a week. Just a thought.)
One thing the weird TomKat relationship is not, we can be
reasonably sure, is a publicity stunt designed to lure more fans to
"War of the Worlds" and "Batman Begins." Reason: Tom Cruise does
not need the money. As Edward Jay Epstein points out in his
excellent Slate piece, Tommy raked in well over $120 million on the
first two "Mission: Impossible" movies alone, and stands to make
easily that much from "War of the Worlds" and the forthcoming
"M:I-3" and he is quickly accumulating more power and money than
God or than the giddy accountants over at the bizarre Scientology
compound outside Hemet, Calif., ever wet-dreamed.
Should we be worried? Should anyone care? Should it at all matter
beyond buying yourself a Free Katie T-shirt and shaking your head
and laughing it all off as just more pop culture chyme and then
going to rent the surprisingly decent "Minority Report"? Of course
it doesn't. Getting deeply involved in the lives of annoying, semi-
articulate celebs is like getting all wrapped up in what Paris
Hilton feeds her Chihuahua. It just has no bearing.
But then again, we have a warning. Remember, won't you, the savage
impact Mel Gibson had, coming out of the blue and slapping the
culture with his ultraviolent, blood-drenched vision of a very
miserable Jesus being pulverized into raw veal and calling it
spiritual enlightenment. Kooky-rich celebs with pseudo-religious
agendas can be dangerous indeed, if for no other reason than they
annoy the living hell out of you when you're trying to meditate.
It just feels like Tom is gearing up for something, doesn't it?
Like it's no more Tom Cruise the cute kid from "Risky Business" or
the hot gay stud from "Top Gun" or the chick-flick dreamboat from
"Jerry McGuire," but now it will be Tom Cruise, the bizarre
Hollywood power player, the unstoppable, outspoken cult-head with a
gleaming, glazed-eyed "wife," proselytizing like a ferret and
working hard to convert the masses.
It feels like this is all some sort of bizarre precursor to, say,
2015, when Cruise's powerful production company suddenly whips out
"The Passion of the Hubbard," depicting the cheesy sci-fi hack
writer and Scientology founder as the new Jesus, dancing with 75-
million-year-old aliens and battling the evil overlord Xenu while
busting "engrams" like water balloons and calling on the people of
Earth to join him in the bunker so we may all join hands and look
to the skies for the next big comet to pass by so we may leap from
this Earthly plane and join the UFOs on their journey and . . . oh
wait, sorry, wrong sect.
So anyway. Thanks, Tom, for all the decent movies, aggro
performances, that mega-intense, frat-boy-on-'roids stare. But
please, before you get any weirder, would you maybe consider
exiting calmly? Is it too late to ask? If we all buy a copy of
Hubbard's silly little "Dianetics" and send it to Brooke Shields,
will you go away and leave us alone? Damn. I didn't think so.
(c) 2005 Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every
Wednesday and Friday on SF Gate, unless it appears on Tuesdays and
Thursdays, which it never does. He also writes the Morning Fix, a
deeply skewed thrice-weekly e-mail column and newsletter. Subscribe
at SFGate.Com.
---------------------------------
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<DIV>
<DIV>
<CENTER><IMG src="http://www.issuesandalibis.org/
queentom.jpg"> </CENTER>
<CENTER> </CENTER>
<CENTER><IMG src="http://www.issuesandalibis.org/
mmorford.jpg"><FONT color=#ff0000><FONT size=6> <BR>The Great Tom
Cruise Backlash </FONT><BR></FONT><FONT color=#0000ff><FONT size=
+2>Will this annoying phase pass, or will Tom become the next super-
rich, Mel Gibson-like nutball? <BR></FONT>By Mark Morford </FONT>
<P><FONT size=+2><A href="http://www.issuesandalibis.org/";>http://
www.issuesandalibis.org/</A></FONT></P></CENTER>
<CENTER> </CENTER>
<CENTER>
<P>Let it begin now. Let it start with a wry askance glance and
evolve into full-fledged annoyance and then move into raging hell-
bent OK that's quite enough now please stop before we slap you silly.
<P>
<P>
<P>Note to Tom Cruise: You are maxing out. Wearing out the welcome.
Becoming less the tolerable and moderately talented and mildly
likable megastar and more like an itchy boil on the deranged ferret
of popular culture, requiring lancing.
<P>
<P>
<P>The signs are all in place. The crazy ranting, <A href="http://
www.defamer.com/hollywood/gossip/tom-cruise/intensity-photoblogging-
tom-cruise-on-oprah-104673.php">the jumping on couches, </A>the
crazed grins, the enormous piles of money, the incessant photos of
you <A href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?
blogid=3&entry_id=143#readmore">sucking the face off </A>your
new and bewildered and child-like fiancee, the <A href="http://
celebrity.aol.com/people/ataol/articles/
0,19736,1077319,00.html">weird diatribes about psychiatry and
mental health, </A>the relatively common knowledge that you are
super-seriously involved at the highest levels with one of the
creepier money-hungry <A href="http://www.xenu.net/";>pseudo-
religions </A>in the nation.
<P>
<P>
<P>Also: the <A href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/gossip/story/
318681p-272535c.html">assigning of a "handler" </A>from said cult
to tag along with your new bewildered young fiancee everywhere she
goes to "keep her on the path" and make sure she doesn't, I don't
know what. Talk about the nightmares? Break down in a heap and
confess that it's all a staged setup? Reveal your true lizard
identity?
<P>
<P>
<DIV>
<DIV><A href="http://yes/";>Yes</A>, Tom Cruise is getting
weirder,<A href="http://amiannoyingornot.com/
(ffrof3qfmywoxi45rm0tpn55)/ranking.aspx"> more annoying than ever.</
A> Or maybe he was already deeply weird and we just didn't know it
because he was famously tight-lipped in interviews and was never
much of a deep thinker and wasn't all that articulate and no one
really paid much attention because, well, who really cares? </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV></DIV>
<P>
<P>But now, oh, Tom is opening up. Tom is speaking extemporaneously
on talk shows and in interviews about life and love and
Scientology, free of the careful grooming and aggressive protection
of his <A href="http://edition.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/Movies/06/27/
film.cruise.reut/">former publicist, </A>and while he's still not
all that interesting, he is indeed letting his true colors beam
right through and those colors are sort of a strange reddish brown
with lots of unbecoming blue polka dots and weird slashes of hot
pink all overarched by a vague hint of a rainbow flag waving just
overhead.
<P>
<DIV><A href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/catapultthepropaganda/
join"><IMG alt="Click here to join catapultthepropaganda"
src="http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/yg/img/i/us/ui/join.gif";
border=0><BR><FONT color=#9136ad>Click to join
catapultthepropaganda</FONT></A> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><A href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/catapultthepropaganda/
join">http://groups.yahoo.com/group/catapultthepropaganda/join</A></
DIV>
<P>
<P>
<P>There are rumors, and they are all juicy and fun. Rumors that
Cruise <A href="http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?
ubb=get_topic;f=52;t=002044;p=1">"interviewed" numerous young
actresses </A>to play the part of his fiancee so as to crank the
Scientology awareness quotient and downplay the gay rumors. Rumors
of Katie Holmes being essentially trained by the "church" to forgo
her former self. Rumors that Holmes essentially <A href="http://
www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,160192,00.html">vanished for 16 days </
A>just before emerging with Cruise on her arm and a hundred million
more dollars in her future and a new, decidedly odd Scientology
gleam/haze over her eyes.
<P>
<P>
<P>Aren't rumors fun? Totally silly? But somehow, in the age of
Bush and bogus wars and massive, commonplace deceptions, weirdly
believable?
<P>
<P>
<P>Also: Rumors persist that Tom's Scientology-rich pseudo-love
somehow convinced Katie that she must immediately dump her
longtime, beloved manager and agent switch to his. And she is
rumored to be disassociating with old friends and not communicating
with her close family (cult behaviors, all) --
<P>
<P>and did we mention the part about how the Scientologists have
allegedly assigned her a handler/new best friend to tag along
wherever she goes and answer questions for her and coach her on how
to behave and speak when asked about their "religion"?
<P>
<P>
<P>Hell, not even Mel Gibson has a beady-eyed priest from the Holy
Family uber-Catholic sect following him around everywhere he goes,
answering, in hissing Latin, questions from Vanity Fair reporters
and spraying everyone with fake stage blood and sitting next to Mel
in all the big studio meetings and screaming "Jesus wants 20
percent off the back end, plus international DVD rights!" while
twitching madly.
<P>
<P>
<P>But then again, Mel's an old hand at being a slightly creepy
religious nuthead. And now, apparently, so is Tom. After all, he's
been deep into Scientology for upward of 20 years, and is rumored
to have progressed to the level of an OT6 (Operating Thetan 6),
which is a <A href="http://www.cultnews.com/archives/
000813.html">super-secret high level </A>of the church with super-
secret knowledge of the alien story (called "The incident") and
ESP, and they all get super-secret decoder rings with access to all
the best alien-bred hallucinogens in the L. Ron Hubbard Bone Room,
where high ranking devotees gather to drink bunny blood and watch
old Travolta movies and discuss what the hell to do about Kirstie
Alley.
<P>
<P>
<P>But Katie Holmes, she's not like them. She's just a kid. She
needs lots of creepy brainwashi... er, gentle religious coaching
into the super-secret ways of the "church" of Scientology, with
their incredibly vicious army of lawyers who attack anyone who says
anything at all negative about their cult... er, religion.
<P>
<P>
<P>(Note to Scientology: first signs that you are not a true
religion: You cannot take a joke. You have an army of attack
lawyers. You are so unstable as a religion you are unable to handle
satire. You think the Kabballah is suing everyone who trashes
Madonna? They'd be broke in a week. Just a thought.)
<P>
<P>
<P>One thing the weird TomKat relationship is not, we can be
reasonably sure, is a publicity stunt designed to lure more fans to
"War of the Worlds" and "Batman Begins." Reason: Tom Cruise does
not need the money. As Edward Jay Epstein points out in his
excellent <A href="http://slate.msn.com/id/2121617/";>Slate piece, </
A>Tommy raked in well over $120 million on the first two "Mission:
Impossible" movies alone, and stands to make easily that much from
"War of the Worlds" and the forthcoming "M:I-3" and he is quickly
accumulating more power and money than God or than the giddy
accountants over at the bizarre Scientology compound outside Hemet,
Calif., ever wet-dreamed.
<P>
<P>
<P>Should we be worried? Should anyone care? Should it at all
matter beyond buying yourself a <A href="http://
freekatie.net/">Free Katie </A>T-shirt and shaking your head and
laughing it all off as just more pop culture chyme and then going
to rent the surprisingly decent "Minority Report"? Of course it
doesn't. Getting deeply involved in the lives of annoying, semi-
articulate celebs is like getting all wrapped up in what Paris
Hilton feeds her Chihuahua. It just has no bearing.
<P>
<P>
<P>But then again, we have a warning. Remember, won't you, the
savage impact Mel Gibson had, coming out of the blue and slapping
the culture with his ultraviolent, blood-drenched vision of a very
miserable Jesus being pulverized into raw veal and calling it
spiritual enlightenment. Kooky-rich celebs with pseudo-religious
agendas can be dangerous indeed, if for no other reason than they
annoy the living hell out of you when you're trying to meditate.
<P>
<P>
<P>It just feels like Tom is gearing up for something, doesn't it?
Like it's no more Tom Cruise the cute kid from "Risky Business" or
the hot gay stud from "Top Gun" or the chick-flick dreamboat from
"Jerry McGuire," but now it will be Tom Cruise, the bizarre
Hollywood power player, the unstoppable, outspoken cult-head with a
gleaming, glazed-eyed "wife," <A href="http://www.salon.com/ent/
feature/2005/06/27/cruise/index_np.html">proselytizing like a
ferret </A>and working hard to convert the masses.
<P>
<P>
<P>It feels like this is all some sort of bizarre precursor to,
say, 2015, when Cruise's powerful production company suddenly whips
out <A href="http://villagevoice.com/film/index.php?
issue=0526&page=fwinter&id=65368">"The Passion of the
Hubbard," </A>depicting the cheesy sci-fi hack writer and
Scientology founder as the new Jesus, dancing with 75-million-year-
old aliens and battling the evil overlord Xenu while busting
"engrams" like water balloons and calling on the people of Earth to
join him in the bunker so we may all join hands and look to the
skies for the next big comet to pass by so we may leap from this
Earthly plane and join the UFOs on their journey and . . . oh wait,
sorry, <A href="http://www.religioustolerance.org/
dc_highe.htm">wrong sect. </A>
<P>
<P>
<P>So anyway. Thanks, Tom, for all the decent movies, aggro
performances, that mega-intense, frat-boy-on-'roids stare. But
please, before you get any weirder, would you maybe consider
exiting calmly? Is it too late to ask? If we all buy a copy of
Hubbard's silly little "Dianetics" and send it to <A href="http://
news.yahoo.com/s/eo/
16865;_ylt=ArqJxJ4F862Y9geqLOMfcwYEtbAF;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJ
VRPUCUl">Brooke Shields, </A>will you go away and leave us alone?
Damn. I didn't think so. </P>
<P> </P>
<P><BR><FONT color=#0000ff>(c) 2005 <A
href="mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]">Mark Morford's </A></FONT>Notes
& Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SF Gate,
unless it appears on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which it never does.
He also writes the Morning Fix, a deeply skewed thrice-weekly e-
mail column and newsletter. Subscribe at <A href="http://
www.sfgate.com/newsletters">SFGate.Com. </A></P>
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