CELEBS HIT THE FANS

haos today as newly transplanted celebrities marched in Ojai to protest their being left alone too much. The march, organised by Kanye West, was proceeding down Ojai Avenue, largely ignored by Tuesday morning trinket and art shoppers, when a scuffle broke out between Mel Gibson and Barbara Streisand about the Crucifixion, and agitation spread quickly through the crowd of already semi-inflamed celebs. An Ojai Quarterly reporter (me) was on the scene and witnessed events as they got out of hand.

“It was like a war zone,” I told myself in an interview later. “There were crazed celebrities everywhere. Cher was stamping on Paris Hilton’s head with a 5” heel. Vin Diesel was upending hybrid cars and yelling something about getting that bitch Judge Judy. Hanging perilously from a helicopter, Sean Penn tried to distribute aid parcels to puzzled people below who kept insisting they weren’t starving. As she marched, Kate Hudson had an aide hold a wind machine in front of her to make her golden hair billow attractively, but the aide carrying the machine walked backwards right into Vin Diesel’s clean-eating advisor. The advisor’s beard got sucked into the wind fan and the poor man had his chin scalped clean, the bloody beard hanging uselessly from the wrecked fan. It was a scene of carnage this reporter will not soon forget.

Just because I was interviewing me about the incident, though, didn’t mean I didn’t ask me the tough questions.

“Just how killer were Cher’s boots?” I asked gravely, watching me closely.

“Almost fatally killer by the looks of Paris” I recalled. “But luckily the celebutante’s head seemed of a curiously rubber consistency; Cher’s boot heel fairly bounced off it.”

A gracious, and dented Paris later told me that, had she succumbed to the stamping, there would have been some solace for her family in knowing that she’d been slain by really truly killer Prada boots — Butter-soft Italian lamb-leather, totally finely hand-tooled into, like, a poem of foot-shaped baby-sheep. Sooo hot.”

This morning’s furore, which resulted in one death of an unimportant plain person, some serious ego-injuries and a half-dozen boob deflations was described by some as “the worst carnage Ojai has ever seen since the great cut-flower shortage of the ’80s.” Older readers may remember that day back in the bee-less summer of ‘84 when mobs of angry housewives with nothing fabulous to put on their entrance-hall tables, stormed Mr. Bently, the florist, and held him hostage until he promised to force them some peonies in his poly-tunnel.

That day, Black Wednesday, claimed the lives of a blameless organic butcher, an only slightly guilty artisanal baker and a probably-did-something-at-some-point-but-nobody-couldprove-it sacred-herb-scented candlemaker, and is still marked every year in Ojai by a tasteful outdoor cheese-and-wine party, the release of three white doves, and a one-day-only 50 percent off mourning-sale in local shops.

Today’s demonstration was ostensibly a protest on the part of the area’s celebrities about local people failing to hound them for their autographs. But the protest was part of a larger set of grievances at being outrageously allowed to live quiet, undisturbed lives in a town respectful of its more famous citizens. Spokeswoman Rihanna, youthful in Roberto Cavalli sweatpants and a simple, white GAP t-shirt with “UNDERSTATED” emblazoned goldly across the front, said in an interview after the riot that Ojai’s resident Stars Association were “saddened” at ordinary people’s seemingly complete disinterest in them as they tried to go about their daily business. “It goes completely contrary to what being a star is all about,” wept Rihanna suddenly. “Tom (Cruise) was in tears last week when he was able to sit in a coffee-shop and drink 8 soy lattes before a small child recognized him and asked if he was gay,” said an indignant Rihanna, now recovered again, her beautiful eyes flashing with anger. Other witnesses today reported that skirmishes also broke out when Oprah and Dr. Phil went on a “FREE! Compassionate

Advice-Giving Tour” of the farmer’s market. A local witness said “Dr. Phil’s feelings were hurt,” when he tried to give an ordinary cauliflower-shopper some advice about “sticking with it.” The ordinary person asked him what the expletiving sexual act he meant. Dr. Phil indicated with a puffed-out cheeks gesture and a comically-affected wobbling gait, that it was clear the shopper was overweight and that buying a vegetable indicated that he was “owning his problem” and choosing a healthier lifestyle with his cauliflower purchase.

“The first step on the path to getting rid of that massive gut is the hardest one to take, but you’ve taken it, my friend!” declared the self-help guru.

“What the (rigorous coitus)?” exclaimed the cauliflower shopper, who declined to identify himself, and proceeded to try to insert the cauliflower into the anus of Dr. Phil, shrieking “You’re not so (intercoursing) light on your own (incestuously-intercoursing) toes, you son of a (bestial act common in Wales-ing) (girl-dog!) Have you never heard of body positivity, you absolute stapler? How do you like this colon friendly vegetable, huh? Stick with THIS, you pompous quantity of toilet-paper! Eh? Huh?”

The enraged cauliflower man screamed on, until police arrived on the scene and removed him from the market, kicking and shrieking, as Dr. Phil brushed himself off, delicately removed the cauliflower and explained that he frequently incurs this reaction from pitiable people who have not yet been advised of the way out of their poor behavior patterns.

Meanwhile, in the next aisle of market-stalls, Oprah was cozily advising a 79-year old woman, Miss Betty Dearheart, that “that homemade lemon mayonnaise may look good now, girlfriend, but wait til that sucker’s stuck on your booty!”

Witnesses say the elderly woman tried to shuffle away from the wild-eyed Winfrey, but then Dr. Phil came flying over the handmade soap stall, wrestled the senior citizen to the ground and assured Ms. Winfrey that it was OK and not to panic, he “had the b$%*h under control. They’re an unreceptive crowd,” he added, shaking his head sadly while massaging his brutalized anus, also sadly. “They’re not ready to confront themselves yet. This town is hurtin,’ hurtin’ real bad.”

I asked Kim Basinger if moving to a small town away from the Hollywood papparazzi didn’t imply a desire on behalf of the stars to live an unmolested life.

“Well, yeah — like duh,” she said. “But, I mean you don’t really expect it, do you? Studies (or is it studios? I can’t ever tell the difference) show that stars need almost permanent adulation in order to shine, you see, and by not revering or indeed reacting in any way to, seeing, say, Ellen, in a headscarf trying not to be spotted at the Post Office, you are causing us anxiety about our own self-worth and fabulousness that translates into poorer performances in our movies/chat-show hosting. It’s you that suffers in the end.”

“Maybe people in Ojai just aren’t that impressed by stars?” I ventured. “After all, there are many talented secondary industry people living here: screenwriters; directors; set-designers, costume-designers and special effects folks; animators; producers; stunt-men and so on. And perhaps the non-Hollywood citizens: the teachers and the house-cleaners and the store-owners and the soccer moms just don’t care to intrude into other people’s lives. Or could it be that you’re just not that interesting?”

At this Ms. Basinger’s chin began to dimple adorably as a fat tear rolled slowly down her flawless cheek.

“We give and we give and we give,” she howled, doing something Italian with her arms (probably a method). “Nobody knows how hard it is for us to be so free with our emotions and how we’re forced to peddle them for massive amounts of money — do you have any idea how much self-involvement that takes? It’s exhausting! Nobody but a star knows how wearying it is to have to do Jimmy Kimmel and attend a charity gala event in one evening, ONE EVENING, people! It’s like slavery or something! It may look like an easy life to you with our limos and our stylists and our personal assistants but we’re far more sensitive than you people. That’s why we’re special. We feel more than ordinary people do, you know?…”

At this point Madonna, in a baseball-cap sporting the word “EMPATH” in diamonds, jogged up and interjected, putting a consoling arm around the gently weeping Basinger. “And I’m tired of being criticized for being a Kabbalist,” said Madonna, veering wildly between Cockney and Liverpudlian cadences. “They say this is just another shallow Madonna fad, a fuzzy spiritual hobby with cute accessories. But you know, wearing the humble red thread wristlet and calling myself Esther is something that moves me deeply. Until Kabbalah nothing else had ever managed to move me more than myself and my own harrowing personal struggle to make it to the top, so I feel it, like, deeply, you know?” Here Madon na inclined her head slightly and put a slim hand over her heart, as if willing me to understand the real her.

“The other day I had Posh Spice round at mine dry-crying on my shoulder…” ranted Madonna in a (possibly clinically relevant) rapid change of tone, and now using a pronounced Essex accent.

“Excuse me, but…dry crying?” I interjected.

“(Impatient sigh) Posh can’t cry real tears because of make-up considerations. Do you even know how long that look takes several style-professionals to achieve every morning? One genuine emotion could wreck it. Have you any idea what it’s like to be super-super-sensitive and maintain flawless day-to-evening mascara?” Here Madonna’s voice softened. “Behind Posh’s joyless demeanour and cold, dead eyes I knew she was really hurting, you know? She just wants to be recognized for who she really is — the real Posh Spice. She simply wants people to jostle around asking for her autograph as she walks past them aloofly in enormous sunglasses. I means she never actually gives her autograph or interacts in any way, but that’s part of what the fans LOVE!”

The clearly exercised star went on, now suddenly in a more part Kensington, quasi-Queens accent, “Babs Streisand is a wreck because she can clearly see the way forward for the country in our foreign policy and nobody will listen to her! I mean, it’s unbelievable! Ashton Kutcher can’t get anywhere with his harrowing novels of existential doubt in the 1920s Czech surfer scene, and Kevin Costner’s thinking of starring in another crappy baseball movie. Do you know how unhappy we are?”

I said I didn’t.

“Very,” said Madonna, angular in a “Free Europe Now!” t-shirt. (She only consented to be interviewed if I described her as angular.) “And with all the money we spend trying to be happy, we simply can’t have the fans upsetting us!”

At this point Madonna spotted Demi Moore and abruptly left the interview, squealing “Demi, you look so expensive…!”

Over by Bonnie Lu’s, and still stuck to the broken wind-machine, Vin Diesel’s clean-eating advisor’s bloodied beard turned slowly in the breeze like some mangled pastiche of a squirrel. Updates on the various lawsuits stemming from today’s riot will be published as they become available and then dismissed by unnamed powers-that-be. Also, there will be an update on the condition of the ordinary dead person, although he is not expected to come round.

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