Here are some photos of Katie Holmes and Suri Cruise in NYC earlier this week, and Suri is clearly not enjoying the paparazzi flashbulbs. Some of you have wondered why Katie subjects Suri to such a terrible atrocity as those strange men who take photos for money, but I really do think the paps serve a dual purpose of providing essentially free security because no Scientologist in their right mind would approach Katie while the cameras are snapping. Also, it’s not like Katie and Suri can live underground (although Suri’s new school does have a private parking garage) or never go outside, right? It’s sad to see Suri so disturbed by the cameras, yes, but maybe there’s really not a good solution to the problem. The little girl will always be photographed no matter what.

In yesterday’s story about Tom’s puffy, moob-covering jacket, Kaiser also covered this week’s In Touch story about how Tom hasn’t seen Suri in nearly two months because he’s so busy and important. As always, Tom’s movie-star schedule prevails. The guy never made it a priority to physically spend time with Suri before he and Katie split (as we uncannily pointed out the very day that she filed for divorce), so there’s no logical reason to assume that he’d change his ways for Suri’s sake after Katie left him. By Xenu, he had this All You Need Is Kill on his agenda, and even though he’s Tom Cruise and has the box-office clout (in an action capacity) to postpone production, Tom just can’t do that. Obviously, the guy can’t stand to be himself — he always has to be acting to become someone, anyone else — and I think he honestly cannot take a break for fear that he’d discover the empty shell lovingly created by his years of Scientology auditing.

As I’ve said before, it’s nothing new for Suri to not see Tom for months at a time, and Tom really believes that he can seasonally swoop in for Disneyworld fun and hold Suri while he smiles at the paps and swim with her in front of tabloid reporters, and that will be enough to rehabilitate his public image. Yet it really is true that Tom couldn’t be bothered show up for Suri first day of school. That’s the thing with Tom — he doesn’t even realize what’s really important to his daughter. He only knows how to “play the role of a father” for the cameras (TOOL). Now someone on Tom’s team has realized that Tom skipped out on a major Suri milestone, which doesn’t bode well for his image. So Tom’s lawyer, Burt Fields, has issued a statement that “Tom calls Suri every day, sometimes twice a day. He loves Suri and is a constant presence in her life.” Right.

Now for the more amusing part of this story, which is that Katie Holmes has finally let a bit of smartass attitude slip in regard to Tom. Allegedly, she told one of her friends that she thinks Tom is an old “geezer.” Of course, this is only funny because it’s about Tom:

No more older men for eligible bachelorette Katie Holmes! The 33-year-old actress told girlfriends clamoring to fix her up fast that she won’t consider dating a man old enough to be her father — a la “geezer” Tom Cruise, 50 — ever again!

Katie’s made it clear she’s not ready to date, but told pals that when she is, “Don’t even think about introducing me to any man more than five years older than I am! Next time, I want someone more my own age.”

[From Enquirer, print edition, October 1, 2012]

You know, Tom is always so manic and full of energy that I always figured he’d be exhausting to live with. But do you think it’s possible that once the cameras go away, he just fades into the nearest fainting couch? His level of publicly displayed energy is rather unsustainable, and as much as his OT VIII level self would claim to defy the very laws of physics, he’s still confined to his human shell. Poor Tom. All the plastic surgery in the world can’t make him cool.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet, Pacific Coast News, and WENN