So you see, George Lucas is a sadist. But like any abused child, wearing a metal bikini, chained to a giant slug about to die, I keep coming back for more. Now why, you might ask? Well, (I would answer), let’s face it, George Lucas is a visionary, right? The man has transported audiences the world over and has provided Mark and Harrison and myself with enough fan mail and even a small merry band of stalkers, keeping us entertained for the rest of our unnatural lives—not to mention identities that will follow us to our respective graves like a vague, exotic smell.
Speaking of graves, I tell my younger friends that one day they’ll be at a bar playing pool and they’ll look up at the television set and there will be a picture of Princess Leia with two dates underneath, and they’ll say “awww—she said that would happen.” And then they’ll go back to playing pool.
And don’t forget, George Lucas was the man who made me into a little doll! And it barely even hurt. A little doll that one of my exes could stick pins into whenever he was annoyed with me. (I found it in the drawer.) He also made me into a shampoo bottle where people could twist off my head and pour liquid out of my neck. Paging Dr. Freud!
And then there was a soap that read, “Lather up with Leia and you’ll feel like a Princess yourself.” (Boys!) Oh! And the nice people at Burger King made me into a watch. And you know Mr. Potato Head? Well, they just came out with a Mr. Potato Head Star Wars series so you might recognize me as Princess Tater? (With my husband Dick and our daughter, Rehabili-tater.) And I’m a tiny little stumpy Lego thing—which are delicious, by the way. And now there’s even a stamp, which is totally cool—and not only because of the licking. But the thing I’ve been made into that has really enhanced the quality of my life? I’m a PEZ dispenser. True story. Which not only has really made my life great, but it’s enhanced the lives of everyone I run into. If you can get someone to make you into a PEZ dispenser, do it. And my daughter loves it because like I told you, she’s a teenager, and they love to humiliate the parent for sport, so all she has to do is flip my head back and pull a wafer out of my neck. But ultimately, I really don’t mind. Even though, among George’s many possessions, he owns my likeness, so that every time I look in the mirror I have to send him a couple of bucks! That’s partly why he’s so rich! Because I’m vain. So, I look in the mirror a lot, and it adds up.
You know I saw yet another Leia figurine recently at one of those comic book conventions—which yes, I go to when I’m lonely. Anyway, this doll was on a turnstile. And when it got to a particular place on the turnstile, you could see up my dress, to my anatomically correct—though shaved—galaxy snatch. Well, as you can imagine, because this probably happens to you all the time, I was a bit taken aback by this, so I called George and I said, “You know what, man? Owning my likeness does not include owning my lagoon of mystery.”
Oh, and remember that white dress I wore all through the first movie? Unless you didn’t see Star Wars, in which case, why are you still reading this?
Anyway, George comes up to me the first day of filming and he takes one look at the dress and says, “You can’t wear a bra under that dress.”
So, I say, “Okay, I’ll bite. Why?”
And he says, “Because… there’s no underwear in space.”
I promise you this is true, and he says it with such conviction too! Like he had been to space and looked around and he didn’t see any bras or panties or briefs anywhere.
Now, George came to my show when it was in Berkeley. He came backstage and explained why you can’t wear your brassiere in other galaxies, and I have a sense you will be going to outer space very soon, so here’s why you cannot wear your brassiere, per George. So, what happens is you go to space and you become weightless. So far so good, right? But then your body expands??? But your bra doesn’t—so you get strangled by your own bra. Now I think that this would make for a fantastic obit—so I tell my younger friends that no matter how I go, I want it reported that I drowned in moonlight, strangled by my own bra.
But George actually does have a point, because you know when they send out those space probes and they beam back footage of what it looks like up there? All those films ever show are sand and rocks. I’ve never seen a bra in any of that footage.
So instead of a bra, what do you think I wore for support, intergalactically?
Gaffer’s tape.
I used to think there should have been a contest at the end of the day for who in the crew would get to help remove the tape.
Well, I was just thinking of others. Even then. I was just giving, giving, giving.
But clearly, they’ve gone as far as they can go with this whole doll thing. I mean, what are they going to do next? Make a life-size Leia doll? A kind of Stepford Leia? Which would render me obsolete. You’d read her book. So, thank God they haven’t done that. And thank God they haven’t come up with a life-size Leia sex doll. Because that would be truly humiliating. Thank God that they haven’t made an $800 sex doll that you can put in your cornfield to chase away crows. Oh, wait, they have!
Okay, I admit, I knew about this, and I have to say it does turn out to be kind of a useful thing. Because if ever anyone tells me to go fuck myself, I can actually get the doll and give it a whirl. Well, this actually happened one night at my show. Someone from the far balcony screamed, “Go fuck yourself, Carrie!” So I had the crew load the doll up into my car and I took it back to my hotel and I have to tell you, I spent hours. But here’s the thing I have to point out. The doll is cement. Now I don’t know how erotic that is for you, but it just doesn’t do it for me… anymore. Anyway, at about 3:30 A.M. I tried to get the doll to do something with her hand, and it just fell off. So finally at about 4:00 A.M., I think, oh my God, epiphany! The doll is heterosexual. But I really have no way of proving this theory because I no longer have a penis. It is being revoked until the financial crisis is over.
6
“FROM WHAT I CAN SEE OF THE PEOPLE LIKE ME, WE GET BETTER BUT WE NEVER GET WELL”
Years ago, there were tribes that roamed the earth, and every tribe had a magic person. Well, now, as you know, all the tribes have dispersed, but every so often you meet a magic person, and every so often, you meet someone from your tribe. Which is how I felt when I met Paul Simon.
Paul and I had the secret handshake of shared sensibility. We understood each other perfectly. Obviously we didn’t always agree, but we understood the terms of our disagreements.
My mother used to say, “You know dear, Paul can be very charming—when he wants to be.”
And my father just wanted Paul to write an album for him.
Anyway, Paul and I dated for six years, were married for two, divorced for one, and then we had good memories of each other and so what do you think we did?
No—no, we didn’t remarry. We dated again. Which is exactly what you want to do after you’ve been married and divorced.
Samuel Johnson once said that remarrying (and he’s not talking about marrying the same person here, just remarrying) is the “triumph of hope over experience.” So for me, remarrying the same person is the triumph of nostalgia over judgment.