Diane Sawyer Interviews the Crazy Man

I called Meredith last night at 10 to 9. Machine picked up. I left a message. “Okay … I don’t know if you’re already in bed, my stumpy-toed friend … Uhm … I mean that with love! … but Couch-Chimpy is going to be interviewed in 10 minutes by Diane Sawyer … and I think you need to see it. Bye!”

I settle down to watch.

At the first commercial break, my phone rings. I see it is Mere. hahahahahaha I pick it up – already laughing – and I hear her guffawing on the other end. She WAS in bed, and she had heard the phone ring. She was surfing through channels for something to watch, as she lay in bed, with her wounded foot … and came across CSI. She was happy. CSI never lets her down. Then she decided to check who had called. She listened to my message. And immediately, and frenziedly changed the channel to Couch-Chimp On Display. hahahahaha She missed the first couple of minutes, and then, of course, had to call me at the commercial.

Our conversation went something like this:

“He is so nuts.”
“Totally insane. His eyes are so crazy.”
“Isn’t it great??”
“Didn’t he get a new publicist or something?”
“Yeah. But … they can’t stop him from looking nuts.”
“No shit. It’s like – his eyes are dead or something.”
“Oh – ‘If she wants an epidural, she’ll have one …’ Gee, THANKS A LOT.”
“Yeah, really. He just … is so crazy. How about the Katie’s father thing: ‘It’s wonderful. It’s wonderful.'”
“Yeah, really. Oh, is it, Tom? Is it wonderful?? Really??”
“She’s trapped in that house.”
“Did you have a silent birth, Mere?”
“Oh, totally. Not a peep.”
“Good for you. He’s kind of interesting to watch though, isn’t he?”
“He gets so serious. He’s nuts.”
“How about his freak laugh?”
“I hate him when he laughs.”
“Okay, it’s on again.”
“Okaybye.”
— click

hahahahaha Love my friends.

So.

Diane did an amazing job, I thought. It never ever got to a Matt Lauer level. Maybe because she didn’t confront him. She just asked questions.

— The only time that he seems really REAL and unselfconscious is when he talks about making movies. I completely “buy” him then. He talked about the training he did for one long sprinting scene in MI III – they showed a clip of it – and it really was kind of amazing. But he started sprint-training for it months in advance. Again, when he talks about this stuff, he seems like just any other actor, and I like him quite a bit.

— I know someone who has a scene with Chimpy in MI III – a big one-on-one scene, and I’m bummed – because I just can’t see the film. I can’t do it. Maybe I can see a bootlegged copy, just so I can see that one scene.

— Okay. Now onto the crazy. The “Kate” crazy.

— I am trying to diagnose him. He reminds me of someone I know – someone who used to be a very good friend of mine. My friend was already a little bit nuts when I knew him in college – but we were all nuts – and it was endearing back then. Then the dark side of it started coming out (whaddya know, as he became successful) until he became insufferable … and … shattered relationships left and right. I can’t imagine what my former friend would be like if he became as successful as Chimpy. That level of success is disorienting even to people who have their acts together (I’m thinking of Harrison Ford – who may have issues, whatever, we all have issues – but he’s kind of a regular guy – and he has talked extensively about how hard it was to deal with THAT kind of success. So few people ever get that successful – it’s always interesting to me to hear tales from that rarified world. Ford doesn’t whine – he knows how lucky he is – but he said it took him years to figure out how to negotiate the world normally with that kind of success.) So Chimpy is a TOTAL control freak. That was the main thing I felt in the interview: except for the parts when he talked about making movies – he thought about every word he said before he said it. He is CAREFUL. You can see him look through his brain for appropriate words, and it’s a very odd sensation. Especially when he started to talk about “Kate”.

— When you’re in love with someone, and you are asked, “What is it that you love about that person?” – don’t you speak in specifics? I mean, isn’t that what everyone does?? Maybe it’s just me. But vague terms like “wonderful”, “extraordinary”, “incredible” to me just don’t have the right ring. They don’t sound REAL. Because … I am a member of the human race, and based on my observations of my own behavior and the behavior of my fellow humans … I have come to realize that when we fall in love – we are able to talk specifically about the other person. Maybe it’s pheromones, or chemistry, or soul-connection – whatever … But vagueness like “wonderful” is a red flag.

— Watching him try to be specific about what it was that he loved about “Kate” was PAINFUL. “She … is … extraordinary.” Yeah, we got it buddy, but why? Do you like how she loves animals? Do you like how she cooks?

Here’s the deal, Chimp – normal people can come up with specifics.

“I love him because he totally gets my sense of humor. It’s like we have a shorthand or something. We’ll just glance at each other and burst into laughter. You so rarely find someone with the same sense of humor that way – I just love it.”

There is an example of a BELIEVABLE answer.

“I really realized she was the one for me when her aunt died – the aunt who raised her – and I was at the funeral, and everyone was just bonding together as a family – and I was a part of it – and I guess I just realized that we are such a team. LIke – we work together – and I don’t want to be apart from her ever again.”

There’s ANOTHER believable answer.

And I’m just makin’ this shit up. So it’s not even TRUE … but it’s believable.

To just list superlatives is NOT believable. “She is extraordinary. An amazing person. Just a wonderful woman. I am so excited for the rest of our life together.”

Yawn. I give it a couple months. Superlatives never get you ANYwhere.

— Here’s what I see: He is doing his best imitation of what it must be like to be a human being. That’s what it is. He doesn’t know how to … just BE. His freakin’ cult has robbed him of that. He must give programmed answers. He is living under discipline – and he is now such a true believer that he doesn’t even realize that he’s ACTING like a person, rather than being one. He’s been acting like a human being for years … and now the jig is up, and a bunch of us are not buying it … but he is so used to ACTING like a person that he doesn’t know any other way to be. He HAS to act like a person. If he was just free and open … then who knows what he might say? I got the feeling of a tight-fisted control over himself.

— It’s actually kind of sad.

— Another thing: Diane asked what drove him crazy about Katie? He thought and said, “Nothing.” Again: NOT BELIEVABLE. Nothing drives you crazy, Chimpy? I mean, it’s an obnoxious question – and I myself wouldn’t answer it in that circumstance – but Couchy put himself in that position by acting like such a crazy person just cause he “fell in love”. You jump on couches, and don’t expect people to say, ‘So … do you ever argue?” Of course they don’t argue. She has been cowed into silence by the huge organization closing in around her. She is a conquest. She must not be allowed to get away. It’s feckin’ awful. But Chimp, here’s a fact about being a human being that you might not know: NOBODY is perfect. SOMETHING has gotta drive you crazy. So he said, “I can tell you what drives me crazy in a good way … she does this thing with her tongue when she’s really laughing … It’s so cute.” Yawn. EVERY relationship has problems, Chimp. By saying nothing drives you crazy you are, unwittingly, giving yourself away as a citizen of the galaxy Voltor. You are saying, “I am not human.” I guess when you’re OT VII you think you’re “above” all of this human stuff. Okay. Whatever.

— Speaking of OT VII – Diane said the words “OT VII” at him (sorry Mitchell) and he started to laugh. It was breathtakingly condescending. It’s the kind of condescension I have encountered with certain born-agains – they have this snooty sense of ownership over Jesus which makes me want to punch them in their snotty heads. You cannot speak to them about the Bible. Because THEY know the Bible, because it is THEIRS. Snots. That’s how he laughed at her. LIke: hahahaha, look at the little unknowing heathen, trying to speak our language … I am just so far beyond her … I’m an OT VII and she is just floundering in the darkness of her ignorance … isn’t it so cute that she’s trying to ‘get it’? She said, “Why are you laughing?” The Chimp is a canny Chimp and he backed off a bit – a slight adjustment – and gave the “right” answer: “It’s just cute, hearing you say it.” She said, “Why is it cute?” “It just is.” Closed door. End of conversation.

— I got a chill when he said “You can be Catholic and be a scientomhoohoo. You can be Jewish and be a scientomheehee. But we’re just $cientomogists.”

AND WHO MADE THAT DECISION, CHIMP? Did Katie (I won’t call her Kate) have ANY say in that? Look, the girl obviously has some problems. She didn’t know what she was dealing with, she might have been bedazzled by his interest in her, and … not realize how the walls were closing in … but just the snotty way he said it. God. I look forward to the day when she leaves his ass. Something big is coming, you mark my words. Alex and I have discussed it ad nauseum. Because we have no lives.

— His whole thing about the silent birth just SHRIEKED to me of “spin”. Kelly Preston has said, “I eventually did have to make sounds …” But CHIMPY’S propaganda spin was that the mother can make as much sound as she wants … it’s that everyone around her has to be quiet. WhatEVER, people. But anyway, I thought that was very interesting. Again, he gave a lot of the “right” answers – but there was still something creepy about it. Like: it’s HER pregnancy, Chimp. It’s HERS. It’s HER body. It’s not yours. Like – he’s talking about it like it’s HIS. It makes me mad.

— Katie text-messaged him during the interview. “No baby action yet. Good luck with the interview!!!!!!!” Yes, that many exclamation points. We got to see the text-message on his blackberry. It was completely orchestrated – “Okay, honey, text me at 3 pm … I’ll be in the interview by then …” My cynicism knows no bounds.

— Diane was relentless and yet she also chose to take a BAFFLED stance. Also, I loved it – she said she had read Dianetics twice, when he told her that people should “find out for themselves” what it’s all about. “You should read Dianetics …” She said, “I’ve read it twice!” That kind of fucked up his plan! She said, “I took notes – I turned down the pages …” Then (sleaze-ball culty Chimp) he said, “The book you REALLY need to read is Why My Cult Rocks …” (Only that wasn’t the real title. It was some OTHER title … so right there he revealed the endless amount of SHIT you need to BUY in order to really “get it” …) She read Dainetics … TWICE??? And she still wasn’t swayed over to our culty powers? How can this be??? We’ve got a tough cookie here …

But I did like how she foiled his plan by saying she had read it twice.

— They showed the “you’re glib” clip and I am shocked, yet again, at how TERRIBLE he looks. He has literal bags under his eyes as he lays into Lauer. He looks awful. Dude. You’re in a cult. I know it sucks. But you really must hydrate yourself to get rid of the bags … and you really MUST realize how LOONY you look.

— He said that the Holmes family was totally supportive and that he loves them. Diane asked if Katie’s mother would be there for the birth. Chimpy said no, she would come when the baby is born. Very suspicious. Mr. Chimp is going to be such a feckin’ control freak in that room … I hope that Katie screams her head off, I hope that she poops on the table, I hope she lets loose. She deserves it. IT’S HER LABOR. But he is doing his damndest to keep it all under control. Dude: it’s BIRTH. Give it up. You can’t control it, you freak. IT’S NOT HAPPENING TO YOU.

— “How about the rumors that Katie’s parents are upset? How are things between you and Katie’s father?” Long eerie pause – Chimp seems to be puzzling over what she has said, as though he doesn’t even UNDERSTAND it (this is one of his main defenses) … and then says, quietly, but with NO believability: “It’s wonderful. Things are wonderful with him.”

— Like I said: when he talked about sprint-training for that one long scene, I totally believe him. I believe that he is connected to what he is saying, and coming from a place of truth. But when he paused and said, “Things are wonderful” I could feel the untruth emanating off of him.

UPDATE: Alex appears to have written this at the exact same time I wrote my post. She focuses on his wardrobe. I love that the last sentence of her post is identical to what I said earlier: “because we have no lives”. Synchronicity!!

This entry was posted in Miscellania and tagged . Bookmark the permalink.

19 Responses to Diane Sawyer Interviews the Crazy Man

  1. RTG says:

    OMG.

    I saw that last night. Tivo’d it because I wasn’t home when it was on live. It was important that I see this.

    He just looks like the most unnatural human being ever. His laugh is downright demonic. His eyes are dead. He looks like somebody thawed him out of a deep freeze.

    I don’t get the “love” between T and “Kate”. Even when I was madly, head over heels in love with Z, you did not see me couchjumping, proclaiming “I love this man” and basically acting a fool every moment of the day. It’s creepy and weird. The whole thing – creepy and weird.

  2. red says:

    He doesn’t know how to act like a person. He is doing his best guess of what a person in love acts like. So strange to see.

  3. susanna says:

    Hey, wasn’t it a big rumor years ago that Tom Cruise was sterile? I bet she borrowed some John Travolta sperm and a turkey baster.

  4. RTG says:

    Red,

    He’s supposed to be an actor – and really, I guess, not a halfbad one. He should be able to do “person in love” better than that.

    Creeping Tom.

  5. red says:

    I find him believable when he’s saying someone else’s words. I’m not saying he’s the best actor in the world, but when he has a script – I think he comes off pretty well.

    Lts of actors are shy, and introverted about themselves personally – but then they are totally fearless about pretending to be other people, about acting. A lot of us get into this gig because we prefer make-believe to real-life. I’m one of them. But hopefully you still have a SELF in there somehwere, a LIFE, NOT lived in the public eye- where you can be happy. Like, oh, Goldie Hawn seems to do.

    Chimpy seems to have turned whatever introversion he has totally outwards – so everything’s OUT, he is ALWAYS public, he has no private self … Maybe because the inner world is too hard, the compromises he’s made – if you look into his history with the cult you’ll see how dark it gets, the hold that the cult has on him … He probably can’t deal consciously with ANY of that, so everything goes OUTWARDS, leaving him looking like a phony mask.

    Listen to me diagnose him!!

  6. red says:

    Creeping couchy chimpy Tom.

  7. red says:

    Oh and how about him saying that his behavior on Oprah has helped people come “out of the closet” (hmmmmm) about their own “couch-jumping experiences”.

    Dude. I have been so in love that my soul blazed like a fire eternal. And I have never jumped on a couch. I did, however, throw myself down over an ottoman once – so thrilled was I that “he” had called. So maybe that counts.

  8. Ceci says:

    I also have no life, so I DEVOURED this post and Alex’s. I can’t get enough of this! LOL

    Chimpy (hahaha) really creeps me out; it’s got to the point where I can’t even enjoy any of his movies anymore: I can’t stop thinking how nuts he is whenever I see him onscreen. I can’t separate the character he is playing from the “private” man.

    But since he won’t entertain me with his films, at least there’s his AMAZING, WONDERFUL love story with “Kate” to watch in morbid awe…

  9. red says:

    //morbid awe//

    hahahahahahahaha I SO know what you are talking about. It’s riveting, in a totally awful way.

  10. Emily says:

    I have to admit, I couldn’t read any of it. Not a word of Sheila’s post or the response of her dear friends. Despite the fact that I know they will agree with me. I need to take a step back from the cult. It’s making me THAT ANGRY.

    Good show, Sheila. Give me a day or two, please?

  11. red says:

    hahahaha Oh Emily. I know. I totally understand.

    Hating them can be a full-time job.

  12. Emily says:

    AND Bob Dylan was on at the time.
    And the other movie about Omagh crept its way in.

    I just wanted to be a good person.

  13. red says:

    You don’t need to fill your heart with hatred on a daily basis. Everyone needs a break.

  14. dorkafork says:

    Yeah, just wait until MI3, then you can clap when Cruise gets beaten up. Just like the test audience did. Ouch!

  15. mere says:

    That whole text message thing made me want to barf! OH PUH-LEEZ Chimp! How contrived was that?!?!?!?
    And when DS said OT VII and he said it was “cute”? I wanted to grab his chimpy dead-eyed face and head butt him.

    And I’m sorry- but everyone ELSE needs to be silent at the birth? Yeah…like they would be making sooooo much noise that he would need signs. Sorry chimp-we know whats going on. NOBODY BELIEVES YOU ASSHOLE!

  16. RTG says:

    Mere,

    That was the hardest thing in the world for me to conceptualize. Silence during childbirth. It’s like saying go swimming but don’t get wet.

    What is the point of it? It makes me terribly sad for Katie Holmes. Just very sad – and sad for her child.

  17. red says:

    The biggest hurdle a cult needs to get over in order to survive is the family bond. If they can get between the normal family bond, then the cult has a fighting chance. Elron Hubbard made sure with this whole “silent birth” thing that there is a separation immediately between family members. None of that mother-child bonding stuff. Because he knew that that bond was stronger than any brainwashing. Get in there EARLY, start them YOUNG.

    Oh man. I so hope I live to see the day when this cult falls.

  18. DBW says:

    “I hope that she poops on the table”

    Sheila, you just kill me with this stuff.

    Jerry Maguire was on last night. As I was flipping the channel, I stopped for a bit to watch it. In one scene, Cruise started to laugh–you know, THAT laugh. I said to my wife, “Sheila and them(‘and them’–how funny is that?) have ruined me for watching Tom Cruise. I never liked him that much to begin with, but, now, all I can think is, ‘Damn, he is really crazy.'”

    I think you are right on the money–I don’t know anyone who is really in love with someone who wouldn’t be able to give a few very specific reasons why. Now, those reasons might not make a lot of sense to other people, but there would be reasons. Hell, I can give you lots of reasons why I like my neighbor’s cat, and they aren’t, “Oh, she’s incredible,” or “she’s just wonderful.” I don’t really give a crap about any of this, but, on a human level, I hope Miss Holmes survives this with most of her faculties intact. It is easy to foresee Cruise pulling a complete Howard Hughes/Michael Jackson meltdown.

  19. Poor Minnie Temple says:

    Save Katie.

Comments are closed.