An Open Letter to

Paris Hilton
Written During Her
Incarceration
I hope this correspondence finds you as well as you might be all
through these thorny, for you, times. I see no reason to rejoice about
your imprisonment. You have been denuded, both physically and
mentally, and set in a chamber which is in total contrariety to the
standard of living you have experienced since your childhood. This is
traumatic—it would be harrowing for any person regardless of his or
her economic standing. Nevertheless, I also wish that your
punishment will be used as a “breathing space” prompting you to
reflect upon the entirety of your life and not just what has recently
emerged concerning it.
As you contemplate, you might come to the very heart-rending
realization that you have been manipulated ruthlessly. And not just
by the adolescent-minded paps. By a whole nation, and more, which
finds some perverse pleasure either in seeing you deprived of your
deluxe way of life—something most of us have not—or in revelling in
a Fantasyland genuinely desiring it had what you hold. You have been
set up to be the sole recipient of a whole society’s guilt complex—one
which marinates desperately in a vindictive GroupThink. You now
know that the paps would have been even more pruriently
comfortable if you had driven your car, in a state of intoxication, into
some tunnel where it would have careened off some cement
stanchion leaving your body in many broken, bloody pieces. And
those indecorous paps, too, would have scurried with their digital
cameras to the nearest news room to haggle over the price for the
gory details surrounding your death. As a Vietnam veteran, I know
well what it means to be the rubbish bin of the vicious collective
consciousness of the schizoid citizens of the DisUnited States of
Northamerica. You have my sympathy.
I will tell you straight away, Paris, why you are the most fortuitous
woman in the DisUnited States. If you mull over your past with
vigour, face some exceedingly disgusting facts, and use the innate
intelligence I am convinced you retain, you will find yourself in the
unique position of being able to formulate a resurfacing and, after,
brandish a reprisal worthy of a finally-victorious field commander. The
hour has arrived for you to claim your right to be respected as any
other human being instead of being gazed at as the whipping girl of a
confused, fickle, and sadistic society. That accomplished, you will
assume the stature of a woman of dignity and charm and serve, in the
future, as an admirable exemplar for all of us to imitate.

“Sail on Silver Girl, sail on high, your time has come to shine,
All your dreams are on their way…”
Bridge over Troubled Waters, Simon & Garfunkel

Your friend,
Tony

Written by Anthony St. John in Calenzano, Italy on the First Day of Summer, 2007