I'm done with Oprah...

Nearly every afternoon at four o'clock for the past twenty years, I've either been plunked down or have plunked myself down in front of my television for roughly forty minutes of tv therapy. Now, one really shouldn't need therapy at the age of eight, but that's besides the point. One really shouldn't know about celebrities sex lives at eight either, or be privy to strangers secret addictions and other various pecadillos, but there you have it...the beauty of the day time talk show. I blame my mother of course, as I do most everything else, for she is really the one who got me started on this at such a young age.
I used to love Oprah...LOVE Oprah. She's so benevolent, so wise, so all knowing, so compassionate, so busy saving the world so that I barely have to think about how I really should be doing SOMETHING. But you know what? I'm done. Done with Oprah. I'm done with simple abundance and being grateful, done with protein diets and liquid diets and grapefruit diets and especially done with Bob Greene. Anyone THAT into fitness has something very wrong with them. I'm done with sappy, poorly written books about tragic, victimized female characters in weird situations, although The Poisonwood Bible and White Oleander were actually quite good...but don't get me started on Fall on Your Knees...that's a blog for another time.
I'm done with being my authentic self, sitting in the seat of my soul, being from Venus, and really done with hearing it told like it is. I'm done with make overs, make unders, the right celebrity jeans, the right celebrity make up, the right celebrity hair, the right celebrity diet plan, charity, foreign aid tragedy, adoption, birth, marriage, live in committed relationship, divorce, rumor, innuendo, tabloid story that in all likelihood IS true, and especially done with celebrities talking about how famous they are. And herein really, lies the marrow of why I am cutting Oprah out after all these many years of unyeilding devotion.
A while back, she had Meg Ryan on to talk about all her great charity work in India with victimized women. I'm not slagging her or the cause by the way, I'm just simply done with it. So before they actually get to the issue at hand, Oprah and Meg sat for a good ten or fifteen minutes discussing being famous. It was then that I had an epiphany, a real honest to goodness epiphany, akin I can only imagine to a quasi-religious experience. I was suddenly very acutely aware that watching Oprah was a gigantic waste of my time. I'd been doing it for so long that it had become this ingrained habit. The clock would tick over to four and like an automaton, I would lumber over to the tv set with the voice of the Dunkin' Donuts guy in my head, only this time saying "Time to watch Oprah." Here's my point:

There is nothing in this world more boring, or so I've discovered, than watching two hugely famous people talk about being hugely famous.

At the time I gave Oprah the benefit of the doubt, like you might an older relative who's slowly slipping into dementia, but for the time being you're in denial and besides, it's kind of amusing at family holidays when the conversation is lagging. But it happened again! Only this time, it's an ongoing segment within the show where Oprah sets up an interview between two OTHER famous people, only this time, they're soooo famous that they've won OSCARS (gasp that the pure irrelevance of that achievement here) and they sit down in a very lovely setting, filmed with a soft lense and discuss how winning an Academy Award changed their lives. Yeah, cuz who can't relate to that, am I right?
This most recent segment featured Kathy Bates and Billy Bob Thornton, two people that I believe most of the viewing public either forgot had won or couldn't give a crap about winning an OSCAR (capitals on OSCAR cuz I guess it's a big deal or something). Billy Bob had wanted to interview Kathy, cuz Oprah was like, 'Hey famous people! What other famous people would you like to talk to so that I can put it on the air and make a billion dollars a second?' So Billy Bob goes to Kathy's house, meets her tiny dog and proceeds with the interview, wherein he talks about himself the entire time. And somehow the subject of each of their nude/semi-nude scenes in their respective movies comes up, (Kathy in About Schmidt and Billy Bob in Monster's Ball) which by god, have to be two of the worst visuals in all of Hollywood history.
Here's a basic overview, in paraphrase, of how the interview went:

BB: So, Kathy, you were once not famous, and now you're famous. What's that been like for you?
KB: Well, Billy, I...
BB: Yeah, I used to not be famous either, but now I'm really famous, the kind of famous where having unusual phobias, like being afraid of pre-1950's furniture is considered endearingly eccentric. So, you've also won an OSCAR. How's that changed your life?
KB: It's really changed my life, for example...
BB: Yeah, I've won an OSCAR too. Isn't being hugely famous with an OSCAR, like, the shiz?

You get the idea.

So yeah, done with Oprah. I hereby decree it to be so, on this very blog. I think I need a little time to mourn the death of this twenty year relationship...whew, glad that's over. Time for more coffee...until later.