Sideshow | Paula Abdul: I'm not wack

In an always fascinating, surreal, and at times vaudevillian interview with TV Guide, the much maligned

American Idol

judge

Paula Abdul

says she's no harebrained doofus strung out on pills.

The star of a new reality show all about Paula called Hey Paula, Paula mines a seriously deep narcissistic vein and basically claims she's some kind of prophet.

"I've endured life journeys that people never in a million years would ever think of experiencing," Paula says about the bumps in her life, which have included an airplane crash, a car accident, a nasty divorce from Emilio Estevez, and a killer eating disorder.

The pain has made Paula into a visionary, a latter-day William Blake for the nightclub set. "I have risen from the bowels of hell and come out tripping and singing and dancing," she says.

Paula, Paula says, is resilient, powerful, sharp, brilliant. Paula, Paula says, is "the kindest-of-kind human beings."

"I know my life purpose: having the uncanny ability to tap into the heartstrings of people and make them feel they'll be OK," she says.

The Ante Up for Africa poker tourney last week at the Rio Hotel in Vegas was blessed with two of the brightest 1,000-watt smiles in Tinseltown,

Matt Damon

and

Ben Affleck

. The longtime buds, who had just returned from a shared vacation in Hawaii, dropped a few nice bills at the game, which benefits charities that aid survivors of the horror in Darfur.

Ironically, Damon, who played a geeky genius card sharp kid in Rounders (some say the movie launched our current poker craze), was knocked out of the tourney within five minutes.

Affleck did much better. But when asked about his old reputation as a big-time gambler, he said: "I've got a kid [Violet] and I'm directing movies. I have hardly any time now."

American master comic

Jim Carrey

will acquire multiple personality disorder for his next project, a Disneyfied version of

A Christmas Carol

. Variety says the

Ace Ventura: Pet Detective

star will portray Ebenezer Scrooge

and

the three ghosts who haunt him in

Charles Dickens

' sometimes dark cautionary tale, which teaches the virtues of consumerist morality. ("Buy, buy,

buy

- and share a tiny bit" rather than "scrape, save and hoard," or you'll be miserable.)

Written and directed by Robert "Forrest Gump" Zemeckis, the flick will be shot in that funky mix of real-life and 3-D animation that was used for Polar Express.

Somehow I don't think this is a companion piece to Roman Polansky's savagely thoughtful treatment of Oliver Twist.

Britney Spears

, bless her soul, is a simple girl.

Or is she?

In an attempt to clarify why she assaulted a photographer's car with her umbrella in February, she has produced this powerful dadaist tone poem on her Web site.

"I was preparing my character for a roll [sic] in a movie where the husband never plays his part so they switch places accidentally," she writes.

"I take all my rolls very seriously and got a little carried away," Brit explains. "Unfortunately I didn't get the part."

Afraid I do not have the requisite Buddah-Mind to understand this riddle.