Alec Baldwin continues to be not nice

I haven't had a whole lot to say about the Alec Baldwin daughter-trashing incident because I've been trying to give Alec the benefit of the doubt. Reason being he's developed into a such a top-notch scene-stealing actor and, quite frankly, I live in fear of the collective powers of the Baldwin brood. Anyway, if you only listen to the first 30 seconds of Alec's two-and-a-half minute ass-straightening, swine-equating tirade it's not that bad.

But Alec lost me with today's (taped) apology. So he goes to Dr. Phil to work out his rage and daughter-hatred issues? I don't even think this Phil is a real doctor. In fact, if memory serves, he was some sort of cow wrangler until Oprah found him and unleashed him upon the world.

Sometimes, during a basketball game, a streaking jump shooter will pull up for a ridiculously long shot. They call that a heat check. Well Dr. Phil was Oprah's heat check. And after he found the target, the daytime talk queen strutted around the court safe in her knowledge the housewives of America have an insatiable appetite for any trash she decides to throw up.

But enough about Phil, the real problem here is Alec. By eschewing proper rehab he is clearly trying to conduct his public rehabilitation on the cheap. What's that about? It's almost like he is saying he doesn't love his daughter as much as Mel Gibson loves not hating Jews, or Mark Foley loves not buggering pages, or Lindsay and Britney love being quasi-respectable celebrities with all their naughty parts covered.

Actually, that is exactly what he is saying. Jerk.

Note: The picture above is not from a cinematic release. It's the inevitable result of an officer of the law's misguided attempt to tell a Baldwin what's what.

Xenu made him do it

Taking a page from the playbook of the Philadelphia Eagles, Paramount Pictures has T.Oed* Tom Cruise. While Terrell Owens got the ax for yelling at his quarterback on the sidelines and fighting a team representative in the locker room, T.C. was let go because he proved fond of jumping up and down like a madman on Oprah's couch and eating his baby's placenta.

What surprised Hollywood wasn't so much that an ailing studio cut ties with a high-maintenance star, but the way Paramount boss Sumner Redstone gleefully cited Cruise's off-screen behavior as the rationale behind the decision to drop him.

It seems to me that a lot of Cruise's "erratic behavior" is a result of his belief in Scientology not jelling with the way normal people go about their business.

I'm not going to defend the practice of Scientology -- it appears to be quite silly. Nevertheless, enough people take it seriously enough for it to be considered a religion. It might be a religion based on space travel and pseudo-psychiatry, but that's because it was founded in 1952 when such things were in vogue.

Back when the "real" religions were founded people knew nothing about the way our brains work or about the universe around us. So these "real" religions were, and continue to be, justified by the exsistence of an unseen magic, pure and simple.

If a religion were to invented today, God would probably live inside the internet and we can only hope there would be little mention of Paris Hilton.

Yes, I do smell a whiff of religious intolerance in the ostracism of Thomas Cruise Mapother IV. If Tom Cruise had picked any other religion outside the mainstream Judeo-Christian umbrella, there would at least be some people standing up for his odd beliefs and behavior.

That being said, we have tradition in America of keeping our constitutionally-protected weird religious practices to ourselves. So to some extent Cruise has brought his troubles on himself. There are plenty of other Scientologists in Hollywood, but we didn't hear about placenta-eating until Cruise brought it up.

Cruise needs take a page from Madonna and try to use his made-up religion for good. Recently, Madonna proposed using Kabbalah water to clean up nuclear waste. We all laughed hysterically, but it was nice to see her trying to help.

When Scientology drives Tom Cruise to do things like make Brooke Shields cry for using antidepressants, he just comes off like a huge jerk. The kind you wouldn't want to hitch your multi-billion dollar movie studio to.

*Of course the Eagles were taking a page from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers playbook when they Keyshawned T.O. Maybe one day a studio will Cruise Lohan.