Why Oprah Hates Me

Some days, friends, this old blog just writes itself. All I need is a quick look at the paper and brief listen to the radio news, and I'm rip-roarin' to rip into it. Wanna take you back to 1979... a simpler time in America. Skylab plummeted to the ground in July, and that followed widespread fear that the space research lab might land on and crush Sex Pistol bassist Sid Vicious, and it very well could have, had Vicious not died in February of a heroin overdose ingested at a party thrown to celebrate his release on bail over charges that he killed his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen. In a poignant touch, Sid's mom, herself a former registered heroin addict in England, said, "He knew the smack was pure and strong and took a lot less than usual." Ah, the support of a kindly old mama.

While the nation mourned the loss of El Sid and regrouped, we also saw a return to the inconvenience of 1974-style gasoline lines. In those faraway days, oil barons reduced the amount of gasoline available for sale so as to create artificial shortages and drive up the cost. As I say, it was a simpler time. Now they just raise and raise and raise the price and don't even worry about the national leader doing a damned thing about it! It's like asking Colonel Sanders if he thinks we should eat more chicken!

But that's old news. In those halcyon days, channel 13 here in B'More had Oprah Winfrey reading the news on the early-morning Good Morning America cut-ins. Already, the Big 'O' had shown a predilection for doing a talk show, newsreading clearly not being her strong suit. So. every day as I pulled on my socks, Ope would close her five minutes with "So remember, join Richard Sher and I at 9 for 'People Are Talking.'

After a while, time spent waiting for someone to give her a little grammatical backup, I called the station and asked that they point out to OW that she needed to use the objective case, and should be saying "Join Richard Sher and me...."

Actually, she should have been saying "Go read a book !" but she didn't.

Next day, when Oprah closed the local newscast, she got as far as "that's it for now; be sure to join Richard Sher {and at this point she got a look on her face quite similar to the way Earl Weaver would look as he attempted to chicken-peck an umpire with the bill of his Oriole cap} AND MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!! for People Are Talking!"

Uh oh. The Oprah had become upset.

So that's been the extent of our relationship over the years. Peggy has watched her show a lot, especially the Book Club and Oprah's Favorite Doggone Things episodes. Considering her show to be a daily exercise in self-glorification, I generally lean toward more fulfilling fare at 4 PM...such as Judge Joe Brown, Judge Hatchett, and the saucy, sassy Sandra Lee with her Semi-Homemade offerings (Jello chocolate pudding + Cool Whip = fake chocolate mousse!) But all day and all night, we hear the Oprah promos on the local outlet, and last weekend she was hollering about the saddest thing I have ever heard.

Oprah was promoting a show "from New York City!" and the final guest she mentioned was "My Cousin, Lisa Marie Presley!!!!!!!!!"

Now, friends, various estimates of the wealth of Oprah place it somewhere between the gold bullion reserves at Fort Knox and the total wealth of most of the Scandinavian countries. She is rich. Rich beyond your wildest dream and my wildest dream, and my wildest dream involves me and Peggy scooting up to the Jersey shore on a magic carpet. Oprah owns about 47 houses, and one farm in Indiana somewhere, and has the wherewithal to hand every member of her audience the keys to a new Pontiac. And the new Pontiac that goes with the keys! You hear your friends say "I wish I had a nickel for every time somebody blah-blah-blahed..."? Oprah has that many nickels. In fact, she's probably only vaguely aware that nickels are still being minted, preferring to keep her wallet full of Grants, Franklins and Clevelands.
In fact, when she endorsed Barack Obama for president as representing "change we can believe in," Ope thought of buying up all the dimes and quarters in circulation.

So, I have to wonder, just how sad it must be to have all that success - and I cannot gainsay Oprah's success and how hard she has worked to achieve it - and yet, with all that fame and all that power and all those bigshot friends like John Travolta and Julia Roberts and Steven Spielberg and a cheery consort named Stedman Graham
she still is not satisfied with the way her life has turned out. How sad, to have to claim to be the cousin of the daughter of the King. Which would make her, what, Elvis's niece? And who is Oprah's best friend? None other than Gayle King! And whom does my Mom watch every night on CNN? Larry King!

The similarities boggle the mind. And while I reeled from this news came the news that some clown in Canada had been arrested for DUI, and, once in custody, had claimed to be David Lee Roth,
the erstwhile and current (for summer touring purposes) lead singer for Van Halen. Dave's wizened image (above) is proof positive that spandex is very harsh on the constitution, not to mention the Constitution. Apparently driven mad by Canadian bacon and Anne Murray records, the Canadian claimed to be Roth and blamed his erratic driving on a peanut allergy.

Contacted by undoubtedly-frantic US Customs officials, Roth turned out to be in Arizona at the time that the Mounties were busy getting their man above the border, as always. He denied having been in Canada, and stated for the record that he is the victim of no known nut allergy, although it's fairly common knowledge that he avoids Valerie Bertinelli. Rudimentary tests ruled out any capacity for shape-shifting on Roth's part, so he couldn't have been in two places at once, let alone two nations. But if he possessed one scintilla of Oprah's sense of showmanship and self-delusion, he would have claimed to be Conway Twitty's uncle's second cousin's grandchild by marriage.


And that's why Oprah is where she is now and DLR is in Arizona, for the love of Pete. Let's hope his career will get a boost from this publicity, and be reborn like a Phoenix. Or at least, maybe Oprah will give him a Pontiac.