Tom Cruise's 2007 Resolution from Scientologist to Existentialist

(Los Angeles--CA) Who was that little man coming out of a Starbucks on Wilshire Boulevard wearing a beret and shouting lines from Jean Paul Sartre's play "No Exit" mixed with profanity 2AM New Year's Day? According to TheSmokingGun.com, that was no little man. That was Tom Cruise. Cruise has converted from Scientology to Existentialism in one of the oddest New Year's resolutions of 2007 and possibly ever. And a conversion with a vengeance, TheSmokingGun.com obtained a copy of the property voucher, which Cruise needed to sign in order to get his personal belongings after his arrest for disturbing the peace. Under the signature of Albert Camus was clearly visible...Tom Cruise.

It was made official today, when Albert Beckett, of the American Philosophy Center, announced the conversation at a press conference with Cruise in attendance. Beckett said the conversion occurred when Cruise saw War of the Worlds playing in a Blockbuster window on Robertson Boulevard. According to eyewitness reports, Cruise smacked his left hand to his forehead and said, "I thought The Last Samurai was bad! Why? Why!" A follow-up question to Beckett of how he could be certain it was existentialism was answered. "After the aforementioned incident, Mr. Cruise immediately petitioned for French citizenship."

Also present was Katie Holmes, who recounted the first time she saw Cruise after the conversion. "He made bail. He came home. He looked at Suri, then looked up to the ceiling and with a clinched fist said, 'If there was a God, he would have struck me dead right after Born on the Fourth of July.' He then continuously replayed his Oprah appearance on Tivo while eating Brie and drinking absinthe. I knew, and I wept." However, Holmes said that they will "try to work through this even though I have since converted from being a Scientologist to a logical positivist." Cruise snapped back at her. "How apropos for someone whose star rose in television. It bespeaks of your love of cartoon philosophies." Cruise again demanded French citizenship.

Beckett, while pleased at gaining such a high-profile member to this fading branch of philosophy, remains cautious. "This usually runs its course about the same time a college student declares his major. I've never seen it come on this late in life. But if we keep him on a steady diet "Being and Nothingness", and we can get him up to "The Stranger" by the end of the year...I think we've got an existentialist!"

The press conference then ended abruptly when Cruise broke into a Maurice Chevalier inspired version of Le Marseilles.