Everyone's favorite Hilton Hotel heiress and reality TV show
star, Paris Hilton, held sway at the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York last night as a guest on CBS's the Late Show with David
Letterman. (Note: Nicky was our favorite Hilton sister, but that was before the Paris-Rick
Solomon sex video entered our lives.)
For the record, let's be upfront about one thing:
Letterman's not really our cup of tea these days; at half
past 11 P.M., the Daily Show ends and our channel surfing starts to wander aimlessly up and down the
the rank-and-file cable offerings, often stopping for small doses of
E!, Court TV, and VH1--in other words, gossip, dramatic
re-enactments and pop culture punditry. But when it comes to a Hilton sister, especially Paris, then
Letterman wins the vote of our remote control.
Paris made her
appearance on the Late Show, she said, on her way to dinner with her family at East Village hot spot
Butter, which she explained was "downtown" and "cool."
So why Letterman? Well, the darn girl she is a'workin'--it's called
the Simple Life 2 (if you call that "work"), the road-trippy follow-up to last year's Fox reality
TV show sensation the Simple Life. In the first season, Hilton and gal pal Nicole
Richie as well as a camera crew spent a month down on the farm doing chores, some of which wealthy lifelong Manhattanites can scarcely imagine.
Whataver the critics thought of the
Simple Life, the Nielsen ratings said that YOU loved it! Or, rather, that the
American television audience tuned in to the series in vast enough numbers to help
convince the folks marketing hair-care products to spend money on
30-second ads on Fox.
But Paris wasn't just plugging the Simple Life 2 (and herself, but that's a given). Hilton
will soon have her first CD released on her own "independent" label. The
hotel heiress sings on the album and wrote many of the songs. She
described her music style as a cross between New York early 80's new wavers Blondie and "rock."
Among the other tidbits revealed in her interview with Letterman was
Paris's middle name (it's Whitney) and that she once rented a limousine in
Las Vegas to drive her and a small menagerie of
animals to her home in Los Angeles. During one of her many visits to sin city, Paris bought on impulse a slew of exotic pets.
But when she got to the check-in counter at the airport for her return flight to L.A., the airline told her she couldn't take all the animals on the plane with her.
The animals included a goat. During
the six-hour journey back to La La Land, the mini-zoo pooped and peed like
they owned the hired limo. It was disgusting, Hilton explained to Dave, but, she added, "I love animals!" (Aaaaaaaaaaaw! Ain't that sweet!)
Our best moment ever during Paris's ten minute's on the Late Show hot seat came when Letterman dared her to
scream like she did for in a horror movie she'd acted in. And Hilton did it! But, she agreed to do it only if Dave did it, too. And Dave did it , too.
*******
BTW, aside from Paris Hilton on the late Show, last night was also a big one for CBS because--in case you're still paying attention--Big Brother 5
premiered last night. As if you hadn't had your fill of televised human degradation, otherwise more gently refered to as "reality programming,"
Big Brother returns with twelve fresh-faced, soon-to-be mutually suspicious and back-stabbing candidates battling for a half-million dollar prize.
It took a small crowded European nation like the Netherlands
to turn essentially a micromanaged form of cabin fever into a successful global content property. What would George Orwell have thought?
--Instamatic
RELATED LINKS
+ The Late Show with David Letterman Web Site
+ Paris Hilton's Steamy Home Video (E!)
+ The Simple Life 2 Web Site
+ Girls of Maxim: Paris Hilton (Maxim Online)