Tara Reid goes wild again (and again)

Time has come for someone to put his foot down ...
Tara, meantime, has decided to celebrate pushing 30 by making her general booziness, vapidity and abandon into a reality-show theme. Not to get all Dean Wormer, but after seeing how much saganaki (fried cheese that goes directly from gullet to waistline) she chowed down in Greece, what comes to mind is: Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, girl.

In fact, I'm not sure how Tara escaped our list of celebrities who need an intervention.

Perhaps she should take a cue from Paris. Ms. Hilton certainly made the party rounds once or twice, but at the tender age of 24, she's settling down and contemplating married life. Kathy and Rick Hilton may not know a damn thing about compelling TV, but they really do seem to have raised their daughter right.

The more you watch the Tara-Paris dynamic, the more clear this becomes. Tara drinks with gusto, Paris makes small talk. Tara babbles semi-coherently, Paris smiles demurely for the hovering paparazzi.

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Does Paris keep Tara around for comic relief, or have I missed some defining aspect of their friendship? Seeing as Paris didn't think twice about ditching her beloved dog Tinkerbell, I suspect Tara's number might be inadvertently lost from Paris' new Sidekick. She can always blame hackers.

The double-secret irony of all this came as I watched “American Pie 2” again last week. (Don’t ask.) Reid’s character Vicky in the “Pie” franchise comes across as a stuck-up little snot with no sense of fun. I’m thinking maybe she was just overcompensating for real life.

‘I always have a good time’
But don’t take my word for it. Here’s how Reid herself describes her qualifications as the show's perfect host: “I love people, first of all, and I can pretty much talk to anyone and I always have a good time. I’m really, like, happy and I love having fun. And I’m known for that, too.” (That video, at least as of Monday afternoon, could be found here.) 

Jennifer Graylock / AP Tara Reid suffered her own wardrobe mishap last November, which prompted a surge of speculation about her partying ways and possible body enhancements. We couldn't publish the other pictures.

If Paris truly wants to be a friend to Tara, she might share some tips from her head-held-high upbringing.

Because Tara's party-girl thing can't really endure, certainly not with a list of film credits as generally cruddy as hers. (I wouldn’t bank on the E! series either. This is the network that realized it could make good ad dollars by convincing Anna Nicole Smith to reveal her nutty inner self.).

Because at Tara's age, the college party-girl ethos is pretty well worn. Even the young women I remember so fondly with a plastic Solo cup glued to their hands, stumbling down the streets of New York, knew that come Sunday night, it was time to hit the books again.

Tara, by contrast, managed to land herself a free all-access trip to Athens without so much as cracking a Frommer's. When you're dining across from the Parthenon, and you need the hotel staff to explain what it is, I’m thinking you might not be fully appreciating the cultural opportunities you've been given.

At some point, you have to pull your dress strap back up and move on.

MSNBC.com lifestyle editor Jon Bonné is pretty sure he remembers how to change taps on a kegerator.

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