Intervening with Paris

Darlings, I just returned from an intervention. I had the most awful time.

Among my rather large collection of friends, lovers, and business associates, interventions tend to happen nearly every weekend in one part of town or another. It’s our own special way of saying hello to one another without having to dress up. I’ve had seven myself.

Most of the time we’re intervening for reasons that nobody seriously considers life-threatening. For example, the last intervention my dear friends threw for me came about after I became overly-enamored with the word ‘delicious’. Everyone agreed I simply had to stop. And it worked! I hardly ever use it any longer except to describe food, clothing, and George Clooney.

But this was not one of those interventions. This was for Paris.

We all met at Jimmy Caan’s house: myself, Tommy, Sammy, Frankie, Katie, a few of the girls from that silly Survivor show, and one or two others that I’ve probably forgotten. Adding in all of the personal assistants, it was close to fifty people.

Lindsay was in charge of bringing Paris. She lured her in by claiming Jimmy was her personal cocaine supplier (which was true) and that she had to pick up a fresh supply (which was not.) Well, poor little Paris was so confused when she saw all of us. To begin with, the dear thing had no idea what an intervention even was, so we spent the first two hours explaining that. (Darling though she is, the girl is spectacularly stupid.) Once we finally got through to her that this wasn’t some sort of costume party, Jimmy took the lead.

“Paris,” he said in that achingly convincing voice of his, “We brought you here... because... honey... you’ve got to start eating.”

“Eating?” she asked. She did not appear to be familiar with the term.

“Something! Anything! A breath mint!” Jimmy screamed. We held an intervention a month earlier to try and get him to stop screaming in casual conversation. It didn’t take.

“Wait... no, I still don’t know what you’re talking about...”

Sammy Jackson stepped in. “What we are talking about, little girl, is a problem you have with food. Don’t play stupid, because I will KNOW when you play stupid!”

Paris shrugged blankly. Her shoulders popping up beside her ears looked like two fence posts holding up a blouse.

“I’ve got it,” Frankie said, his voice cracking. (Frankie Muniz is on year seven of puberty, the poor thing.) “The burger! Didn’t you eat a burger in that commercial?”

“Oh!” Paris exclaimed. “When I stuck that thing in my mouth and... what do you call it?” She moved her jaw up and down in an exaggerated motion, and for a moment I thought she was mimicking an entirely different action from an entirely different cinematic event.

“Chewing?” offered Katie Hudson.

“Yes!” Paris said. “Is that what you’re talking about? Because I didn’t even do that... that was like, computer effects or, or something.”

“Chewing AND swallowing,” Sammy said. “That’s what we’re talking about, girl.”

“Oh my GOD you perv!” Paris screeched.

“Watch,” Jimmy said, holding up a poppy seed soda cracker. Slowly, he placed it in his mouth, chewed and swallowed. Then the rest of us did the same. Poor little Paris looked horrified, as if she’d just discovered everyone she knew was actually not famous.

“You all... do this?” she asked timidly.

“All the time, darling,” I said. “And we think you should learn how.”

“But... why?”

“Sweetie, you’re six feet tall and weight twenty-seven pounds. We think food would be in your best interest.”

Slowly, she nodded. “All... all right, if you really think so.” She held out her bony little hand for one of the crackers. And with us declaring words of encouragement, she ever-so-carefully took the tiniest of bites.

And darlings, I wish I could say the intervention ended happily there. But it didn’t. Seconds later poor little Paris turned and vomited that cracker right back up and all over Tommy Cruise, who had been busy at the time trying to levitate off of the settee and not paying attention. (Tommy mostly comes to interventions for the food.) Then her head spun completely around and Michael Clarke Duncan’s deep voice (I swear it was him!) came booming out of her, declaring “YOU WILL NOT FEED THIS CHILD!”

Well.

Sammy Jackson and Jimmy Caan apparently were prepared for this, as they were on her in seconds. They pinned her arms and the Survivor girls grabbed her legs, while Katie Hudson pulled out a small bible and started chanting “The power of Christ compels you” and Lindsay began sprinkling holy water (Evian) all over the place. It was madness, darlings. And I think I must have blacked out, because the next thing I remember I was being fed a lovely chardonnay by one of Jimmy’s manservants in a recliner by the lounge.

“Is it over?” I asked.

“It’s too soon to tell,” he admitted. “But we can hope. These things can take days. Can I get you some Beluga?”

“That would be delicious, darling,” I said.

Keep the mushrooms from Cheney

Darlings!

So sorry I haven’t written, but I’ve been away. Galahad, my webmaster (who loves to be called “master” and you know I don’t mind calling him that) is quite upset with me about it, and wants you all to know about something called an RSS feed. I’ve no idea what it is-- Galahad was holding a ball gag at the time, so I was sure an “RSS feed” was something very different-- but he insists it’s a thing you can all use to keep updated with the Maven in case I’m away for longer than expected.

I was at a party, if you must know, and things got complicated enough that I had to go through something perfectly dreadful called a “debriefing”. If you are imagining Galahad’s ball gag right now when you see the word “debriefing” I don’t blame you, but it is not nearly that much fun.

Michael and Catherine-- who are friends but not dear friends-- threw this little shindig to celebrate Michael’s latest face lift. (His last job left him looking perpetually horrified, which I’m afraid limited his cinematic roles. Now he looks both rumpled and stuck in a wind tunnel, which you’d think would be incompatible until you see it.) It was at this little place Michael owns beside a ski resort out in Colorado, and it would be simply divine if all the walls weren’t made of glass, which is just a touch too exhibitionistic for me, darlings. Not to mention dangerous; Catherine cannot stand a window that is anything less than perfectly transparent, and keeps a full-time staff of window cleaners armed with tubs of windex and cloth baby diapers. Most of us spent the week caroming off the walls like sparrows with inner ear problems.

Despite that, it was a grand time. Michael, as I’m sure you must know, is heavily into exotic hallucinogens, and he had a magical variety. There was a species of Scandinavian mushroom that you simply have to try someday. They produced a thoroughly out-of-body psychosis that lasted for several days. I apparently decided I was a Polish dentist named Urgle, and I distinctly recall discussing molars for over an hour with someone who was either Linda Hamilton or Christian Slater. The mushrooms were very good is my point, darlings.

So when I ran into Dick Cheney up there, I wasn’t entirely sure it was him until much later, when several severe-looking gentlemen sat me down and told me that it absolutely positively was not.

If that makes no sense, darlings, I apologize, but I’m still a touch addled by the entire experience. I had to sign a lot of documents testifying to the non-presence of the Vice President, which really wasn’t necessary. I thought for most of the week that it was Mary Cheney, who looks just like her father in drag. And he didn’t exactly produce any state secrets, so far as I could recall. All he did was mutter “I like Dick” over and over, and truth be told, we all thought he was referring to himself in a sort of narcissistic, vaguely masturbatory fashion. In one brief period of lucidity he did declare, somewhat loudly, that traditional family values were “for pussies”, but most of us just ignored him.

I think Michael and Catherine were embarrassed by the whole thing, especially when all of us had to sign those disclaimers. (Barbra refused, so don’t be surprised if you don’t see her around for a bit. They seemed quite unhappy with her.) Catherine confided in me that the Vice President keeps a private Undisclosed Location nearby, and frequently pops in unannounced. “Sometimes, he’s not even dressed,” she said, blushing violently. I wanted to tell her that this is what happens when you have windows for walls, but it just didn’t seem like the time.

Anyhoo, darlings, it’s impossible to say what the Vice President was really like (or as my lawyer Estragon keeps reminding me to say, what the Vice President might have been like had he actually been there) because he was out of his mind for most of the party. As was I. And on that, I really must rest. I have a peeling in an hour, and I need my rest.

Until next time, darlings.

Door-to-Door Malkovich

We found Johnny Malkovich out by the pool today. It’s impossible to tell for certain how long he’d been sitting there and just staring at us, but Paco thinks it might have been since at least yesterday. He was under a number of towels, which made it that much more difficult to spot him.

Oh, don’t worry darlings. He’s fine. Johnny is just unnaturally still. I remember the first time we met, at a party our mutual friend Faith threw to celebrate her first nose job-- this was back before she married that dreadful Tim fellow. I was there was my old friend Toddy, who is both a country music fan and a fan of Faith Hill. Well, as we were taking in the decorations-- photos of greased nudes in repose, mostly-- we saw, standing against the wall between “Butthole In Blue” and “Vaginalia”, what I took to be an amazingly accurate replica of the actor John Malkovich. So I turned to Toddy and said, “darling, who would bring a doll of John Malkovich to a party?” My mind, which of course seeks out the most devious possible explanations, came upon the words “sex toy” and paired them immediately with “Vince Gill”. And I very nearly opened my mouth to suggest that very thing when Toddy said, “I think that’s actually him.”

“No! Is he dead?” I asked. “He’s not breathing.”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you introduce yourself?”

So I held out my hand, ever so tentatively, to the Malkovich replica, and introduced myself.

“It’s a... pleasure,” he said, moving so suddenly I actually jumped several feet backwards and shattered the nail on one of Toddy’s big toes. (Toddy had consumed an epic quantity of anti-psychotics before the party, and thus did not notice the damage for two days.)

“I was just... watching... the people. Moving... through this LOVEly... space,” Johnny said, in that word-devouring way of his.

Well, I just had to keep him talking because every time he stopped he stopped so completely I was positive he had died. One time I nearly screamed for a paramedic. (Willie Nelson was at the party as well, so there were paramedics on standby.) Anyway, as you might expect, trying to keep someone talking all evening, while often exceptionally tiring, is a fantastic way to become fast friends, which we did.

Of course sometimes, darlings, being Johnny’s friend can be tiresome. The last time he turned up unannounced at my home, in addition to frightening poor Paco half to death (I can still hear him running from the front door screaming, “Muerto! Muerto!”), he had come to make what I considered an unreasonable request.

“I need to know... what it feels like... to have a NAIL... driven through my hand,” he’d said.

“However can I help you with that, darling?” I asked.

“I’d like you... to drive this NAIL... through... the palm of my hand.”

Well that was something I could not do. (I wouldn’t think of holding a hammer, darlings!) So I sent him off to ask Angelina instead-- she loves that sort of thing, you know-- and I suspect he was rather put off by that, as he hadn’t come around for some time.

Which is why the staff wasn’t properly trained. I had to change pool maids since the last time Johnny had stopped by (it’s so hard to get good pool help) and I guess one of the girls just mistook him for a chair, or a statue they simply had not seen before. And Johnny can get lost in thought for quite some time, so until there was someone there to address him formally, he just remained where he was... up until a few hours ago, when my afternoon nap was shattered by renewed cries of, “Muerto! Muerto!”

Johnny couldn’t stay for long, though. After inviting him inside I asked him why he decided to stop by. “I was... wondering... if I had ever talked to you before... about the wonders of AMWAY.”

And that, darlings was the end of that.

Speeding with the Gores

I’m worried, darlings, about my dear friend Al.

Al is one of my many brilliant friends, and like most of my brilliant friends he has at least one weakness about which he is painfully unaware. For some, like my dear astronomer friend Carl, who was cursed with paralyzing halitosis, it was something easy to get past. But Al’s weakness is that it is practically impossible to listen to the sound of his voice without lapsing into a stupor. And now he has gone and made-- narrated, even!-- a terribly important film about the environment, and I’m just afraid that the message will be lost over the sounds of loud snoring.

I remember the last time I saw Al and Tipper (whom I adore, despite her simply insane devotion to Christian rock) at a small party they were throwing for some occasion or another. It wasn’t the sort of thing one simply lapses into a nap in the middle of-- some parties are-- so to prepare myself I had Paco whip up a mix of espresso, Red Bull and crushed No-Doz. But I suspected that would not be quite enough, so I called up dear friend Hunter, who would know more about this sort of thing.

“Christ, dinner with Gore?” he shrieked. “How much coke can you get your hands on?”

“Darling,” I reminded him, “you know cocaine goes straight to my thighs.”

“I’ll be right there,” he said. And an hour later he was at my door-- I don’t dare ask how he got there so quickly from Colorado, but one didn’t ask Hunter about these things-- with a bottle of lavender tablets.

“I gave a half one of these babies to a tree sloth once,” he said, grinning manically, as he was wont to do when he was excited about a pharmaceutical endeavor. “He chased down a gazelle, and then tried to fuck it. Take two. And here’s a few for Tipper. She eats these like Pez.”

Yet despite my extensive preparations, I nearly fell dead asleep in my tiramisu during Al’s toast. And I was doing well. Marty Sheen got caught up in a discussion of Latin American economics with Al by the pool and had to be fished out of the deep end by two secret service agents equipped with ear plugs and emergency Modafinil tablets hidden inside of fillings in their molars.

Tipper confided in me that night about all they had done with Al to make him sound less somnambulent, but nothing seemed to work. “We hooked him up to an electric shock device, but it just made him modulate randomly,” she said. “The only thing that seems to help is using the electric shock on his audience. But that’s difficult to do on a large scale.” Then she started going on about the new Stryper album and I had to excuse myself.

So my point, darlings, is I’m afraid the response Al’s little environmental movie isn’t going to be quite what he hoped, and that’s a shame, because the environment is just awfully important. I’m looking at it right now, from the chaise lounge in my temperature-controlled sitting room, where the picture window affords just a spectacular view of the valley. (Today is an indoors day, darlings. This humidity just wreaks havoc on my pores.) The only hope for it is if Tipper somehow got shock pads installed in the movie theaters in time, like the ones they had in the seats at Cannes.

Ah well. That’s all for today, darlings.

Tommy Cruise, magnificent whiner

Hello darlings! Maven here, by the pool as usual. Just got off the phone with dear friend Tommy. Oh, you know which Tommy I mean; most people call him Tom, darlings, but he does respond to Tommy. (But not Thomas or Thom. Never ever Thom. The ‘h’ is silent but I guarantee you he will hear it like a subsonic whistle to a dachsund.)

Poor Tommy is just beside himself with the response to his new film, the poor thing. “Maven,” he said to me in that whiny quiet voice he reserves for his special friends, “I don’t understand; I thought everyone loved me.”

The dear sounded like he was going to cry. He couldn’t, of course. Tommy has a rare genetic condition that prevents him from actually crying, which is why there is always a stunt double on his films specifically to shed tears in his place. (The double’s name is Esteban, and he’s also a dear friend and a simply fabulous crier. He does all of Matty Damon’s tear work too. I hire him sometimes for my parties, because there is simply no better way to get out of an awkward conversation than to have another guest breaking out into tears.)

“Oh, they do love you,” I told Tommy. “Most of the time. But darling, you have simply got to stop with the crazy. Short crazy people can be very alarming to John Q, you know.”

“I can’t help it if I speak the truth and it goes unappreciated,” he declared, getting even whinier. (Tommy is a spectacular whiner. I was there when he proposed to Katie, and it was breathtaking.) “One day they will all understand.”

“Of course, darling,” I said soothingly, “but there’s your problem. You see most people think of themselves as fairly enlightened already. It’s just not nice, going around and telling people you know more about the universe than they do. People don’t want that from their movie stars, darling.”

“It’s not my fault,” he insisted. I could hear him putting on his pouty face. He has only seven distinct facial expressions, and each make a precise sound when he switches from one to the next. “You know I can fly now. Did I tell you?”

“Why yes. We’re all very proud. But-- and I say this for your own good, Tommy--you shouldn’t go about telling people that either. You see, most of us can’t fly, and while I, darling, absolutely positively believe you when you say you can, everyone else you’re likely to tell this to will just think it’s another example of the new you, the freakishly insane you. And we just have to keep that you under wraps for a while longer.”

“I was going to call Oprah next,” he said, oblivious to my very good advice. Tommy is rarely capable of following compound sentences, which I always forget.

“Now’s not the best time to ring her,” I said, looking at my watch. “She’ll be on her third highball by now. You must catch her earlier in the day.”

“I forgot,” he admitted.

“Why don’t you go see Katie and the baby, darling? Didn’t I hear they were just let out of the isolation tank?”

He laughed that charming, manically unhinged laugh of his that I always find so very dear, and agreed that this was a splendid idea. “She might be back to whole sentences soon,” he declared.

“Why that’s wonderful, darling,” I told him. “Keep your chin up, and do call again if you must.”

As I hung up I couldn’t help but feel a touch of sadness for poor Tommy. The less John Q knows about him the more John Q likes him, and that is surely a burden, as it is for many famous people. But not for Maven, darlings. Maven tells all and doesn’t care what you think.

But that’s all for today, darlings. Paco has just mixed a new batch of chocolate mango martinis. Ta for now.