The agony of Paris Hilton

Paris, in a happier moment.

I honestly think I'm in danger of taking things a little too seriously. I blog, and sometimes bloog, about the Iraq war, Bush's non-species-specific intelligence quotient, global warming, while leaving alone those issues that strike closer to home, that define who we are as a people. I speak, of course, of Paris Hilton. There is something pretentious about refusing to engage with her crisis, I see that now. I think I'm too good for all that. Clearly this is an illusion. I'm no better than anyone else; refusing to devote blog space to Paris Hilton, and her ongoing agony, is an act of arrogance. The Sheriff's Department, in transporting Paris from court to jail, from jail to West Hollywood home, from home to court, from court back to jail...the law men can barely do their job because of the crush of paparazzi and reporters. There's a reason for that. People want to know what's going on with Paris Hilton, and they want to know because of who Paris Hilton is. She's Paris Hilton. She's famous for being Paris Hilton, and has been for quite some time.

I've gone to Google and put Paris's name in the browser, then hit Images. I did this because I kept hearing the name, the name "Paris Hilton." There are some amazing pictures of Paris Hilton. Some might make good plates in an obstetrics and gynecology textbook. In the above photo, Paris is dancing in Miami Beach on New Year's Eve. A continent away from the Lynnwood lockup, of course, and I would surmise Paris had two or three hundred of her closest friends at the disco with her. Including someone named Nicole, who may be Paris's sister. If I weren't such an insufferable intellectual snob, I would know for sure. There are millions of Americans, in other words, who know more about Paris's life than I do. At the lockup, Paris is in solitary confinement. She apparently freaked out right away. This is not an uncommon reaction in anyone who is confined. If I had a chance to talk to Paris, and I really wish I did, I would tell her that the first two or three days of her stretch will be traumatic, then she'll settle into the routine and it won't be so bad. Then she can make another fortune giving interviews about the ordeal of being in stir, but first she has to endure that initiation.

It's odd, to say the least, that the Sheriff's Department suddenly took Paris out of a court-ordered jail stretch and drove her to her house in West Hollywood. From what I've been able to gather, however, Paris is actually quite charming, and even though the pundits who take themselves way too seriously (the way I used to be before I loosened up and became a regular guy) talk about how "scrawny" she is, and horsey-faced, I think she's kind of cute, and I'll bet the Sheriffs do too. Plus, I have a feeling Paris really raised a ruckus in that jail. Once that nervous breakdown started to come on, when she realized there would be no sushi or Dom Perignon in her "room," and she was actually supposed to sleep on that mattress and pee in that toilet...I'll bet things got just a little shrill. But what am I doing now? See, I'm slipping into that arch, above-it-all tone, just like all the cable news guys who pretend they're not fascinated by the life and times of Paris Hilton. Do they think Paris Hilton became famous for no reason? That's silly; she became famous, a celebrity, because she's Paris Hilton.

Claustrophobia, which Paris is enduring again right now, as I write this (I can barely stand to think about it - when will it end?), must be especially acute for her. (Paris, reading this, thinks I just called her cute again.) Paris is used to having lunch in the West End, continuing by Gulfstream to Milan to pick up a skirt (total square inches: 14), and then finishing up at a disco in her namesake city. Given the contrast between life before and after incarceration, maybe Paris has already done enough time, in terms of relative deprivation of freedom. See, that's why Paris Hilton is such a staple of People magazine and dinner-hour cable news. Paris is a very privileged young woman who uses all those privileges. We can identify with her, because secretly we know that most of us would behave the same way with all that money, glamor and access. We wouldn't spend our time like Princess Diana, making the rounds of all the land mine victims and disease hotspots. We're just as frivolous as Paris Hilton. Go ahead and call her a disco-dancing, jet-setting, coke-snorting, magnum-swilling, bed-hopping airhead celebutard. She's got a quick riposte for you (it's like "put-down," Paris): I'm Paris Hilton and you're not.

I'll probably write a lot more about Paris Hilton, now that I'm into it. Maybe a legal analysis of the fairness of her sentence. Too lenient? Too heavy, as the judge sought to make a point about equal justice? Or maybe this blog is it. It took about 15 minutes to write. That's all the fame Paris should have had, logically and according to Andy Warhol, but there appears to be no end in sight. This jail stretch is just what Entertainment Tonight was praying for.