Exposed

  She seems to be everywhere.  If there’s a Hollywood party, she’s there.  If there’s a red carpet rolled out somewhere, she’s on it.  If a single starlet should be chosen as the poster child of the jet-set crowd, it should be her.  She is famous because of her last name; she is famous because of her extravagant lifestyle.  And sadly, she personifies success and fuels the aspirations of today’s youth.

  This week, a new website made headlines by exposing the most private details of Paris Hilton’s personal life.  And it’s not pretty.

  How does a person like Paris end up in a situation like this, with so much of her private life posted online for the world to see?  Well, according to legal documents filed by the heiress this week, it was all because of a misunderstanding.  It started two years ago, after a burglary caused Paris and her sister, Nicky, to move from one L.A. mansion to another.  Paris and Nicky put a lot of their belonging in a storage unit—a storage unit that Paris claims the moving company was supposed to pay for.  When the storage company didn’t receive payment, they tried, unsuccessfully, to contact the heiress to collect the $208 she owed.  Eventually, the contents of the unit were put up for auction and sold for $2,775.  The buyers, realizing whose stuff they had purchased, turned around and sold it stuff to an Internet entrepreneur for $10 million—for a profit of $9,997,225.

  The man who paid $10 million for Paris’ property—6,000 square feet of it, to be precise—catalogued, itemized, digitized and uploaded every last piece of it, and for about $40, looky-loos can peruse every morsel for 60 days.  Or until the Hilton lawyers get their way and the site is taken down. 

  The items are shocking, even by Paris Hilton standards, and are not suitable for young eyes or the easily offended.  Paris seems to enjoy being naked, judging from the abundance of photos and video.  She likes doing drugs, too.  One video shows her and her “billionaire-buddies” snorting cocaine—and A LOT of it—off of a friend’s chest.  Another shows her smoking a pipe while extolling the virtues of marijuana.  Paris’ passport, driver’s license, medical records, address book, love letters, and journals are also available.  In essence, her life just became an open book.

  And so much for denying a relationship with Girls-Gone-Wild-creator Joe Francis.  Video footage of the two, as well as footage, captured by Francis, of Paris in a bubble bath, is available for all to see on the new website. 

  As I took the site’s free tour, I began to analyze my own curiosity.  Truth be told, I began psychoanalyzing myself.  What drives our curiosity about people like Paris?  It’s more than voyeurism.  There’s something about seeing these filthy rich pop-culture icons living dangerously and carelessly, compromising their own integrity, and self-destructing.  I don’t get any gratification from it, but it’s interesting.  It’s baffling, almost incomprehensible.  People like Paris seem to have it all, but lack responsibility, integrity, and accountability.

  I guess it makes me appreciate the life I have a little bit more. 

 -From Pulse
   February 1, 2007

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Paris Sings

  I don’t think that I’d be a good red-blooded American if I didn’t spend my Memorial Day weekend pondering the career of Paris Hilton. Not because Memorial Day is for remembering people we have lost, but because Americans are supposed to spend their time thinking about pop culture icons and celebutantes, like Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie and Ally Hilfiger.

  As an American, you can imagine the bittersweet sting of delight that I experienced when I read that Paris had released the details of her upcoming CD to a Hong Kong magazine.  On one hand, all of my questions had been answered.  On the other, she revealed all of the details that the world awaits with baited breath to the country that gave us William Hung.  Fortunately, the “news”  was quickly translated from Cantonese and spread around the world like a July brushfire. 

  The CD, to be released later this year by Hilton’s record label, Heiress Records, will feature seven songs written by the artist herself.  The label was formed two years ago, but has yet to release an actual CD.  Naturally, Paris’ will be its first.  And while the album still doesn’t have a name, there was talk last year that it would be called “Paris Is Burning.”

  The recording process was not without it’s tribulations though.  Paris claims her shyness has always stood between the artist and her dream.  “I have always had a voice and always knew I could sing, but I was too shy to let it come out,” she told the Hong Kong magazine Prestige.  “I think that is the hardest thing you can do, to sing in front of people.  When I finally let go and did it, I realized it is what I am most talented at and what I love to do the most.”

  While Paris wrote a majority of the songs on the upcoming disc, it will also include a remake of Rod Stewart’s “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?”  The first single will be a reggae song—that’s right, a reggae song—called “Stars Are Blind.”  We won’t know what the song’s about until it’s released later this month, but I suspect it’s a political cry calling for government regulation of paparazzi flashbulbs.  Granted, it’s no “Buffalo Soldier” or “Redemption Song,” but it’s an admirable cause in it’s own way.

  Though most Americans eagerly await Paris’ maiden album as if it were a Beatles reunion tour, some skeptics claim that Hilton is just trying to upstage her once-pal Nicole Richie.  The two have been embroiled in a bitter feud for the last year or so, and it continues to play out in a self-perpetuating parade of one-upmanship.  Paris buys a little dog, Nicole buys two.  Paris writes a book, Nicole writes a book.  And since Nicole has been in the studio working on an album, well, what else was Paris to do?

  The video for “Stars Are Blind” was shot last week on a beach in Malibu by Chris Applebaum, who directed the “Stacy’s Mom” video for Fountains of Wayne and “S.O.S.” for Rihanna, among others.  You’ll probably be seeing it on MTV within the next six weeks, even if it’s awful.

  Not since the Lindbergh baby or Patty Hearst has a child of prominence become famous for all the wrong reasons, until now.  My prediction: Paris Hilton’s new CD will earn her a place in the history of American pop music right between Shaquille O’Neal and Bart Simpson.

 -From Pulse
   June 1, 2006

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Calling Paris

  So last week Paris Hilton’s Sidekick was hacked, and the contact information for dozens of celebrities spilt across the World Wide Web like Tara Reid’s fourteenth banana daiquiri on P. Diddy’s chinchilla rug.  Jay-Z, Ashley Olsen, Eminem, Lindsay Lohan, Russell Simmons, Fred Durst, Christina Aguilera, Ashlee Simpson, Usher—they’re all there. 

  This prompted a clever tee-shirt manufacturer to start printing shirts that read “Paris Made Me Change My Number.”  You can expect to see these on the back of your favorite celebrity soon.  It’s sure to be the hot Spring look.

  But this “number-spill” raises some societal issues, as well. 

  • If they can get into our cell phones and raid our address books, what else can they get to?  We are constantly warned about identity-theft, and last week’s gag on Paris should make us think twice about how we handle our own affairs. 

    Now, I’m not one of those techno-paranoiacs who thinks that Big Brother (or worse) is always watching.  In fact, I’m probably a little naïve.  But, in today’s technology-driven world, it’s wise to be cautious.  It’s a madhouse out there; information flows freely, and punishment for the bad guys isn’t as stiff as it should be.  It’s just something to think about.

  • The larger issue, though, is that we rely so heavily on digital address books in cell phones, Sidekicks, Blackberries and PDA’s.  Many of us are lost without them.

    For example—and this is horrible—I don’t know my mother’s phone number.  It’s in my cell phone, not in my head. I don’t know the phone numbers of my best friend, my barber, my favorite restaurant.  Nor have I memorized the phone numbers of my doctor, my mechanic, my insurance agent or my favorite movie theater.  The only phone numbers that I have committed to memory are the ones I dialed frequently before I got a cell phone.

    Fifteen or twenty years ago, that would be a different story altogether.  Most of us would know these frequently-dialed numbers.  They are our connection to the rest of the world, to our inner-circle.  But, as a culture, we have become so reliant on having them at our fingertips that we fail to commit them to memory.  As a result, our memory suffers. 

    With the constant barrage of entertainment and information, we have become a generation of feeble-minded couch-potatoes with attention-deficit problems.  We record shows on our TiVo so we can skip the commercials.  We watch one show while we record another.  We surf the internet with three or four browsers open at the same time.  We use three-way and conference calling so that we can talk to everyone we know at the same time.  We multi-task at work.  We multi-task at home.  We multi-task for fun. 

  This weekend, turn off your cell phone and try to enjoy doing one thing at a time.  And when you’re done, sit down with a phone book and memorize some phone numbers you need to know.  Start with your mom.

-From Pulse
  March 3, 2005

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