Tom Cruise Hearts Katie Holmes

I finally understand why people say that today's celebrity-obsessed
culture is the polytheistic religion of the modern world: what else are
celebrities but modern gods we worship in packs from afar, many of them
the stars of fictional dreams and stories wherein they perform
superhuman deeds and bandy about with all the morality of a
foul-mouthed garden slug with herpes? Many celebrities, of course,
start at as humans, but via a long PR climb up the Mount Olympus that
is Hollywood, they take their seat at the right or left hands of the
Gods of old. This all hit me the other day when I saw the cover of a
magazine announcing that former Dawson's Creek star Katie Holmes and
celebrity uber-God Tom Cruise (certainly a postmodern Zeus if there
ever was one) were now involved in a relationship.

Back in college, some friends and I obsessed over the 'Creek, some of
them going so far as to starting a band called james Vanderbeek which
features vocal samples of Katie's "Joey" in every song. Dawson's Creek
was as indie rock as network TV could get back in those days, with a
stellar college radio soundtrack, a facade of genteel, educated
blue-state aristocracy, and the articulate intelligence of the cast.
The 'Creek was a little show for modest people in humble shorts
listening to albums which never sold more than 50,00 copies. Katie was
ours, far too young, intelligent, and just plain weird-looking (no
amount of celebrity hairstyling will hide the weirdly attractive
arrangement of her facial features). Seeing her on the big screen in
the slept-upon "Wonder Boys" alongside Toby McGuire (one who also held
an indie pass) and Robert Downey Jr. as a struggling, horny creative
writing student in Pittsburg only cemented the point: Katie Holmes was
the Pavement of starlets.

So it was with more than shock to see Katie strut onstage this evening
for the MTV Movie Awards with Mr. Tom Cruise, who probably lost his
indie credentials the moment in his youth when his family moved out of
my neighborhood back in upstate NY (which occurred before I actually
lived there, but it's true nonetheless). Tom is the anti-Pavement, a
perpetual blockbuster star (who, I'll grant, has recently been taking
on some more difficult roles) and mouthpiece for another unthinking
celebrity cult. He's also a tad too old for Ms. Holmes.

Say it ain't so Katie!

In this very moment, we catch one of our own--the genteel literary
aristocrats of normal humanity -- being swept up into the big, stupid
dramas of the massive hypnosis we see hanging over heads. Katie the
human star of a human show in now a Goddess, her mortal body left as a
husk on the earthen floor, the subtle energy-flame of her thought-body
floating upwards and outwards into some goddamn eternal sunshine
rainbow cloud-kissed ULTRAsphere, where one--through the power of mass
DVD duplication--has now become omnipotent, ubiquitous, and immortal.

Fare thee well, Ms. Holmes, do look fondly on us, won't you? And don't
forget James Vanderbeek.