Why We Suck_ A Feel Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid - Denis Leary [70]
And always getting an answer.
Pregnant Man, Cancer Dogs, Brad Pitt, Young Millionaires, Great Moms, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Messy Kids, Tyra Banks, Bad Dads, Bill Clinton, Energy Vampires, The Husband With 24 Personalities-she has dissected and discussed and presented them all.
Jerry Springer and Maury Povich and Montel Williams and Sally Jesse Raphael and all the other dig-up-the-dreggers who pulverized us with drunks and junkies and whiter-than-white-trash trailer trash in their tighty whiteys and cheap lace panties and thong-cracked asses have all died by the wayside-victims of Oprah's ultimate faith in just how smart you can be-no matter how dumb you already are.
Before I started writing this book all I knew of Oprah was The Occasional Guy Click-In-that's where men dial up Oprah on the TV because of The Wife or The Girlfriend-usually in the middle of an argument about a towel that turns into a sudden tornado involving:
a. Sex
b. This relationship is going nowhere
c. You never talk about your feelings
d. All of the above but not in alphabetical order
And then in the midst of the teardrops and the angst and the stony side-long looks she finally deigns to mention that Oprah just yesterday said blah blah Find A Better Soul Mate blah or Oprah said a couple days ago blib glib Is He Really The One For You? glub Oprahdey glub.
They talk about Oprah like they spoke to her on the phone on Sunday or she was just here having tea this afternoon.
I clicked in once and saw Oprah's Extreme Makeovers and thought yeah this housewife looks better after being plucked out of the audience and taken backstage and hosed up and wet down and rubbed raw with Loofah pads and trummeled and trammeled with resins and oils and cucumber creams-before being tucked into a designer dress held together with a roll and a half of two-sided fashion tape and some glue but-what happens after the show? She won't make it from the studio to the car without the blow-dry foofing up into a horse's mane and tomorrow when she and her husband wake up she's gonna look the same way she did before she went to see Oprah because there won't be a team of eight gay men and six Korean cuticle experts to cut, paste and paint her into the tart he saw on TV.
What then? Huh?
Before I started writing this book I blamed Oprah for all the damage Dr. Phil has done. He was nothing before her. Just another balding blowhard with endless axes to grind, but she made him into a star and produced The Dr. Full Show which unleashed him onto all of America, where he can say such thick and exasperating things as "Everyone has their own personal Ground Zero."
Oh really?
Does that mean someday two large speeding planes will crash into the side of your insipid, hairless head?
Let's hope so.
I was ready to steamroll right over Oprah-she was the reason so many wives and girlfriends were disappointed and unamused. She was a one-note wonder, fooling feckless women with her Makeovers and Make-unders and a seemingly relentless river of Hope:
Men Can Change!
Children Will Study!
You Can Be A Better You!
What a crock.
Then I sat down and watched a few Oprahs.
I'm not kidding, guys-I got worried.
One day she was angry as she mourned her recently departed cocker spaniel Sophie with a special piece entitled "Lisa Ling Investigates Hidden Puppy Mills."
The next day she was cackling in apparent Full-On Crush Mode as Gorgeous George Clooney detailed a practical joke he had played on his good buddy Brad Pitt. Oprah seemed eagerly enamored as she giggled and swooned.
The next day her brow became creased with intense concern about Security Clutter Foods-admitting how, just like the rest of us, she gorges on snacks she keeps around the house for the sole sake of gorging on them.
Security Clutter Foods? Holy shit.
She turned a harmless box of macaroni and "orange-colored cheese" into something akin to a terrorist attack on her ass and-unlike Dr. Full when he invoked September 11-I did not wish her ill.
Instead-I threw out bags of Cheetos.
One show she was heavy.