Tom Cruise and The Black Eyed Peas (The Conundrum)

You should call it Rappin' Impossible!

So in case you haven't heard (and are therefor woefully uninformed of important world events) Tom Cruise showed up at Black Eyed Peas concert very recently. Not to it; in it - on stage. Singing. For you to understand what a problem this posed my brain, try to imagine if you saw picture, on TV or something, of Ghandi launching manatees from a giant catapult, and it was proven to be real. I'm a Tom Cruise fan, with some degree of irony, yes (of course) but still - he's one of my favorite people to watch on film. And he was on stage with the Black Eyed Peas, the people who have single handedly made me avoid FM radio for the past 7 years.

How do these things happen? Oh, it doesn't help to consider it. Obviously Tom must be a fan enough to - I've learned- request the Peas make a special appearance on the soundtrack of his new movie. And of course this should denote that he make an appearance at one of their shows. Obviously, obviously. What I can't work out is how exactly to feel about it.

I've watched the videos, barely, through slits between my fingers. It is simultaneously the most emberassing and exciting thing I've seen all year. I mean, just imagine it. You're at a concert of, presumably, one of your favorite musical groups, jumping and singing along, when through a downpour of confetti appears some guy you've never...HOLY CRAP, TOM CRUISE! I'd have gone immediately and permenantly cross-eyed. In fact, if I ever become a platinum recording artist (in two or three years, I'd guess) I plan to get as many celebrity appearances in order as possible. Loads of them. Nick Nolte just eating cereal out on a catwalk. Joe Pesci on wires flying over the audience. The entire cast of Family Matters, in costume, dancing like crazy. Etc. But anyway.

Maybe you don't even like Tom Cruise. Not the point. Tom Cruise suddenly being front and center at a concert, performing, is...notable. If you do like him and you'd never in a million years go to that concert, it's...troubling. In an interview where Tom sat directly beside Peas frontman Will.I.Am, Cruise discussed his meeting with Will at the Super Bowl, and the brilliant comparisons he drew for him between his new movie Knight and Day and the music of the Black Eyed Peas. For instance: Knight and Day has a girl. Also, it has all the spirit of the Black Eyed Peas.

I won't go after the first one; we all say less than prestinely developed things on the spot. The second matter bothers me. The Black Eyed Peas have shown spirit in so far as producing some of the most awkward, stupid sounding music I've ever heard. Knight and Day, however potentially corny, clearly brings the goods, action wise. It's in order. Tom Cruise brings the goods. Even when he's in sub-fantastic films. Even if he doesn't know it. "I Gotta Feeling" is rubbish to the core. And yet Tom had no problem singing it to 30 thousand people, as he explained he'd sung it plenty at home - so he knew all the words. All six of them.

Ehhhh...

All of this reminds me of Bono's appearance with Jay-Z months back, where, in a sudden explosion of bolderity, Bono went into some kind of strangely timed, hugely emberassing rapping. Likewise, I'm a very big fan of this person, and likewise it is with a certain grain of salt. I know he can be utterly preposterous, but that's part of the fun. It's part of the fun to know that Tom Cruise probably believes he can do any stunt on any movie at any time - that he's Not down to earth, except in niceness. But now and then their excentricities go off cock-eyed, and I'm not sure I want to like them anymore. I'm not sure I can. Perhaps it's best to remember that even your favorite celebrities are incompotent dumbasses in some way or another.


By Dave Beauchene