Past Deadline

Proof That God Is Already Having a Very Rough Week

Say this much for Tony Soprano: at least he didn't claim to find God at the end.

The same cannot be uttered about Paris Hilton, who in the brief time between being re-jailed and the Monday morning installment of ABC's "The View" managed to ring up Barbara Walters (collect) to note that once she's out of jail in late June or early July or whatever she's going to dedicate her life to women with breast cancer and kids with bad stuff and rainbows and puppy dogs. (I just made the rainbows and puppy dogs part up, but I fear it's next.)

Yes, as Walters dutifully reported on Monday's show, Paris is a different person than she was 48 hours ago. The selfishness, doltishness and reckless entitlement have magically melted away, replaced by an I'm-making-this-up-on-the-fly commitment to helping those in greatest need while serving The Guy Upstairs.

"God has released me!" Walters reported that Paris said to her -- which is a very good thing, though it was uncertain if Hilton had suddenly taken to using the term God as a euphemism for Sheriff Lee Baca. And if so, she nonetheless remained incarcerated on Monday, so perhaps it was merely wishful thinking.

Walters continued that Hilton had told her, "I know I can make a difference...I have become much more spiritual. God has given me this new chance." You wonder what God's take might be about that. (God: "I was only joking, honest. Paris took me seriously? Oh God! Or as I like to say: 'Oh Myself!' Like I haven't got enough to deal with, now I've got to help this girl feel all good about herself by working for Me? Oy! This is a nightmare. Wait...That was off the record.")

Yeah, apparently Hilton had been off of the international radar for a full 24 hours and was having some trouble handling that, and so on Sunday she rang up Babs to make sure she was back in the headlines Monday morning. More of Hilton's quote, as per Walters: "I'm not the same person I was. I'm not that superficial girl. I haven't looked in the mirror since I got here. I used to act dumb. It was an act." And quite an act it was. She had me completely convinced. In fact, I still am. It feels somewhat more credible than using the name Paris Hilton and the phrase "soul searching" in the same sentence.

So what the hell heaven heck is this all about? Probably just an odd and clunky way of Hilton's trying to summon sympathy to her corner. Yes, everybody seems to find God in prison, but usually that's only if you're a lifer or on death row. Hilton is a month-er, yet she's acting as if she won't be seeing life outside the walls until Halley's Comet next pays us a visit.

I can't decide which part bugs me more: Hilton's thinking we're all going to leap to her side in spiritual connection because she's decided to toss out a few dimestore platitudes or Walters' believing that making a huge deal out of this somehow represented a major coup. Trust me when I say that God has better things to do, like help the baseball teams that pray the hardest to win. I'm happy for Paris that she's purportedly got this "new chance" to turn her life around. I only wish she'd do it out of media earshot. But that's one Divine plea that I fear the Lord won't, or can't, easily heed.

As uber-publicist and media expert Michael Levine has come to observe, "Americans can't get enough of Paris, Lindsay and Britney. And we wonder why al-Qaeda calls us The Great Satan."

Being Here in Can/Canz/Con Is Just the Coolest!

Wow. Finally. Here I am. Strolling down the avenue where festival du film was born. Infuriating the locals by asking where I can find the "Arch of Trump." I've always wanted to blog from Cannes. Even before there was such a thing as blogs or even an Internet, I've felt this way. It's all really just about impressing people with how cool I am, because if you're at Cannes, you're automatically cool. Best of all, because you can pretty much make it up as you go along when you have a blog, you don't actually have to be where you say you are. These are just words on a screen, you know? I could say I'm in Mozambique and who'd know different, really?

So I can just fantasize about what I'd do were I actually threre, attending "The Da Vinci Code" screenings and booing the closing credits like everyone else. Actually, the first thing I'd do is solve a personal dilemma: is it pronounced Can, Con or Canz? I hear Cannes pronounced all three ways, and everyone claims to be certain that their pronunciation is the only accurate one. Even people who actually attend the festival du (or is it de?) film seem to have disagreement on this particular subject.

Until further notice, then, I'm calling it The Big C.

Anyway, it all reminds me of the first and only time I was ever in France. It was Paris. The year was 1983. It was the honeymoon of my first marriage (I've since had 47 others). The new wife got food poisoning on our first day there and spent three days in the hospital. Getting food poisoning in France...isn't that sort of like suffering a Vitamin C deficiency in Florida? It was an omen for the way things would go throughout the rest of the marriage. Not that this really has anything whatsoever to do with Can/Con/Canz/The Big C.