Our Annoying World

MY GRADE:

Let me start by being completely candid about today’s blog topic:

Oprah scares the shit out of me.

There.  I’ve said it.

It’s not that she’s a bad person.  Clearly her heart is in the right place and she has attempted to do much good for the world.

I just don’t think any one person should be so famous.  Or influential.  Or powerful.  Or RICH.

Oprah has a net worth of $2.7 billion.

(Here’s a simple test everyone should take every 6-8 months: Round down your net worth by $700 million dollars.  If you are still left with $2 billion dollars there is a good chance  YOU HAVE TOO MUCH MONEY)

And I also happen to think… well… okay, let me stop hemming and hawing.  I’ll say it directly to her…

Oprah, sometimes I think you’re just a wee bit out of control.

Let’s list a few of the “highlights” of your highly successful television program:

• Oprah lets Jenny McCarthy on her show to parade her anti-vaccine theories without making her defend any of her celebrity nuttiness with scientific evidence.

• Oprah parades Suzanne Somers on her show to explain something called “hormone replacement therapy.”   In the blink of an eye,  Three’s Company becomes only the second-stupidest thing Ms. Somers has ever been involved with on television.

• Oprah interviews the lady whose face was ripped off by a chimp — which I guess is legit, seeing how face-ripping chimps have become such a pressing national concern.

• Oprah buys everyone in her audience a Pontiac.  She pays for them with cash.  From her wallet.

• Tom Cruise jumps up and down on Oprah’s couch and refuses to stop until Oprah proclaims that he’s most definitely not gay.

• Oprah mistakenly promotes James Frey’s work of fiction, One Thousand Luft Balloons (or something like that) as a memoir.  (In Oprah’s defense, Frey did jump up and down on her couch and insist that he really was a heroin addict)

• Oprah starts a book club. Every title she selects rockets to the top of  the best seller list.  (None of those books involve sullen teenage vampires so she gets points for that)

• Oprah launches Dr. Phil.  Sadly, she doesn’t launch him into outer space.

• Oprah starts her own magazine. Which she names O.  Which is short for… Oprah.  Which unearths the rarely debated issue “Who names a magazine after themselves?”  It’s one thing to start a magazine.  It’s another to give it your name.  Oprah, do you realize you named an inanimate object after yourself?  Does anyone else find this as disturbing as I do?  It’s as if I baked a tuna casserole and decided to call it “David.”

So here’s my point.   Oprah, I think sometimes you have trouble discriminating between noble, altruistic, helpful notions and typical daytime talk show dreck.

<sigh.  exhale>

Phew. Glad I got that off my chest.  But here’s the hypothetical scenario I fear:

Oprah reads this blog entry (I realize we’re going way past hypothetical and into the realm of science fiction).  She doesn’t like it.

You will know when/if this ever happens because this website will no longer be functioning.  And the internet will be shut down entirely.  And hired goons will have confiscated everyone’s computer across the United States.  And a chimp will be captured, shipped from Africa, and trained solely for the purpose of  ripping my face off.

So really this brings up the question — what the hell was I thinking?

Oprah? LOVE LOVE LOVE HER!!!

Keep up the good work, O!!!  Don’t change a thing!!!

er… I mean…