For Good

Reflecting on something as gargantuan as The Oprah Winfrey Show is not an easy task. I don't even know how to begin.

Maybe I'll just start with the ending. A very good place to start. The finale aired yesterday, and I was there right at four o'clock, and watched the whole thing, commercials and all. It was funny how many commercials were made specifically for the finale. Even Pixar cut a trailer for Cars that catered to the Oprah audience ("You get new Cars, you get new Cars..."). So, apparently this was a pretty big deal.

Here's the thing, though: as finales go, it sucked. Kind of hardcore.

Certainly, it's not easy to wrap up the previous 4,560 shows during the 4,561st episode. There's a lot to cover. But that's what the show had already been attempting to do this entire season, with all the clip shows and follow-ups and "ultimate" everything. I guess Oprah decided that, after all that hoopla, it made sense for her to take her last hour and just talk to the audience directly, without any distractions.

This show has always been based on Oprah's connection to her audience, so in theory, this wasn't a terrible idea. But it ended up just feeling like a weird commencement address. Now, I didn't go to the big NYU graduation in 2001, but now I feel like I didn't miss a thing. Because Oprah gave me all her life lessons, and now I feel prepared to go out there and grab this world by the horns!

It's About to Be Over

From Oprah.com...

Are you ready? Because I'm certainly not. But then, you know that. Every day, tens of you drop by to see if I've updated after every show (or because you Googled "Oprah's tits," which happens way more then I care to admit), and every day one or two of you (basically Katie and my friend Ashlie) are disappointed to find that I am a slacker. I'd probably be crowned "Oprah's Ultimate Slacker," if she had such a category.

You know that I am not ready to reflect on this season, since I haven't been able to reflect on many of the final episodes. To be fair, I have (mostly) lived up to the "watching" aspect of the title of this blog. In recent weeks, I have only missed the James Frey episodes. And over the course of this season, I'm pretty sure I haven't missed more than five episodes, total. So, yeah, I've been "watching." I just haven't been writing. Which doesn't exactly make for a compelling blog.

I don't know how to truly explain to you how busy I am. I don't have any days off. Ever. Even right now, I should be working, but I felt like I had to write something on the eve of the finale. So I'll just be up even later tonight as a result.

Remember When Ralph Lauren Was On "Friends"? That Was Way Better Than This

Today I watched (listened) to Oprah while I put together my new IKEA desk (that is now sitting in my new "office," otherwise known as our closet). I will let you guess which venture was more entertaining.

All I can tell you is that Oprah kept mentioning that she used to drive by Ralph Lauren's big ranch in Colorado all the time, wishing she could know what it was like on the other side of the fence. She seriously mentioned this drive at least four times during the episode, and acted like it had happened frequently. So now I'm just wondering why Oprah was spending so much damn time in Colorado.

There's nothing else to say. I don't understand these last few episodes. I mean, two of the final episodes were wasted on James Frey. I didn't see them, but I still feel like I can say that it wasn't the right choice for the end. And now Ralph Lauren?

Maybe I'm crazy, but I'm looking for that "wow" factor here in the final week. Oprah better bring it.

Here's What's Happening

Television is still broken. The TiVo was attached to this television, and was not able to record the last four episodes.

We just moved to a new apartment. Movers came yesterday.

I am going to connect the TiVo to the only working television in the house, and starting today it should record normally.

I have not told you about the last nine episodes of Oprah. I managed to watch six of them, but I don't see when I will have any chance to write about them. I'll try, but no promises.

What I want to do now is just start from today and do the last six episodes of the show "live." Meaning I'll watching today's episode and write about it tonight. I think I can handle that for six more days. And if I get some extra hour between now and next Wednesday, I'll try to share my thoughts on the six episodes I've neglected, plus the three I haven't watched (even though that means I'll probably have to illegally download them).

Sorry. This blog is getting to be completely pointless, but I just can't quite justify giving up this close to the end, even if every post from here on out is utter crap.

Don't Call It A Comeback

If a girl gives up on a blog, then watches ten episodes of Oprah in two days in an attempt to catch up, and then decides to start writing again, and she's in a forest or something, does anyone read her?

Only one way to find out.

I guess the real question I should be asking myself is, "What is the thing that I can do to let my courage become an expression of my integrity?"

Kidding. Because I don't know what that means. But some life coach or something did, and she said it to Gayle while trying to get her over her fear of heights. And they showed the clip during one of the ten episodes of the show I watched on Tuesday and Wednesday. Seven on Tuesday, three on Wednesday. And just like that, I'm all caught up. Except that another episode airs in about an hour. God damn it. Will this ever end?

Oh, right. It will. In fifteen episodes, on May 25.

There is no way I can go through and tell you everything about every episode I watched. That was a whole hell of a lot of Oprah to digest in such a short period of time. But it had to be done. I realized that I'm not a quitter, and even though I still have zero time for everything, I have to see this through. It didn't make sense to watch more than 100 episodes of the final season, and then quit with 25 to go.

So here we are. And here's what I watched this week:

• The Hollywood Shocker: From Multi-Millionaire to Mobile Home
• 25 Years of Oprah and Gayle's All-Time Best Adventures
• Chris Rock - The Oprah Show Farewell
• Oprah's Producers Uncensored, Plus Most Memorable Audience Moments
• Hollywood Legend Michael Douglas Plus Nike's Phil Knight
• Turn Back the Clock: Look and Feel 20 Years Younger
• Rob Lowe Opens Up: The Brat Pack, Love, Sex, Scandal, Sobriety
• The Royal Wedding
• President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama
• Back from Betrayal: Shania Twain's First TV Interview
• Oprah Honors American Heroes - The Freedom Riders Reunite

In order, here are my thoughts on each, brief though they may be:

• Boring. Dude still makes a ton of money, and the "trailer" he claims to live in is way bigger and nicer than the apartment in which I currently live. I'm glad he's attempting to give away a lot of his money. I don't know. I guess the guy was nice enough, and he did call Oprah a "drug pusher," because she makes everyone feel good. So that was funny.
• Hilarious. The clips from them in "colonial America" were pretty good. Supposedly this was Gayle's last appearance on the show, and the first time she had ever walked on (instead of already being on stage when the segment started). But I find it hard to believe that she wouldn't come back for the final episode. I'm getting more and more curious as to what we're going to see on May 25.
• All I can remember from this is that watching old clips of Chris Rock on Oprah make it obvious that he's had his teeth fixed at some point in the last fifteen years.
• While I understand it, sometimes it feels a little weird that most of these remaining episodes are essentially clip shows. I guess that's what you have to do when you're winding down, but sometimes it get a little repetitive. Which is why, even after reading the recap, I couldn't think of anything interesting to say about this episode.
• Michael Douglas was boring. And during the Phil Knight segment, all I could feel was jealousy, since I only own three pairs of shoes, none of which are less than a year old. I'm not joking. I really wanted a pair of those Nike Lunarglide IIs that Knight gave Oprah, even though I really think "Lunarglide II" is best reserved for the name of a tampon.
• Eat better, take care of your skin, exercise, and get sleep. So easy, right?
• Rob Lowe is funny, and it seems like his book might actually be interesting. He's probably an okay guy. Not an entirely boring episode.
• I can't believe how excruciating this episode was. I didn't care about the royal wedding in the first place, and an entire episode about it was mind numbing.
• It was weird to watch the Obamas on the show, knowing it had taped the week before Osama was killed, and had aired the day after the announcement of his death. But you know what? Our president and his wife are really likable. Maybe some of you could cut them a break now and then, huh?
• Shania Twain is Canadian. There's a chance I had never actually heard her speaking voice until watching this episode, because I could not get over how Canadian she sounded. That accent drives me bonkers. Also, it's weird that she married the ex-husband of her ex-husband's new wife. Wife swap!
• Yes, I cried. Oprah did, too, when she introduced the 100-something members of the audience who had been part of the infamous "Freedom Rides" in the 1960s. I had only the most rudimentary knowledge of what these people did, and this show had me enthralled. How many of you think you would have had the courage to do what these people did? Oprah says she knows she wouldn't have been able to do it. I'd like to think I would have been brave enough, but it's so hard to say. You should tune in to PBS on May 16 to watch the American Experience episode devoted to this issue. I'm going to do my best to watch.

Only fifteen to go. I can do this.

It's Over

Mrs. Nuccio (don't worry -- you don't know her) told me recently that I was the smartest kid she ever knew. I hadn't seen her since I was eleven years old and on my way to Space Camp, and she came up to me at my sister's wedding last year and told me about all the great things she had assumed I would do with my life.

Then she asked me what I was doing with my life.

At the time, I was unemployed. I had just walked away from everything and everyone I knew, and I was a month into my new life in a new city. I'm sure she left that conversation thinking she had been wrong about her initial assessment of me.

The thing is, she wasn't wrong. I am incredibly smart. And I obviously don't have any difficulty telling you about it. It's not bragging when it's the truth, right? I just happen to be one of those people who hasn't lived up to her potential. And for the time being, it's pretty likely that I will hover in that "below potential" range. That's just the way things go when you get a useless degree and then spend five years not doing a lick of work because someone else is taking care of you. When you do that, it means you're bound to not be able to do exactly what you want to do with your life, and also make a ton of money doing it.

So while I'm thankful that I've found a full-time job that doesn't have me spending my days digging ditches, the compromise is that I have no other time to do anything else. I have to work some hours at a second job, too, and that means that I can't watch Oprah every day. And that means that if I get behind on work, Oprah has to go to the back burner. And before you know it, there are a ton of episodes piled up, and no time in the foreseeable future to either watch or write about them.

Oh, and the television is broken. And I didn't notice until today, so I don't even know if it was able to record this past week's episodes of Oprah. And even if they're recorded, I won't be able to watch them because the picture is so messed up on my television. So I will continue to get further and further behind until at least Wednesday, when Geek Squad is going to figure out what the hell is going on.

And I'm in the process of trying to find a new apartment. It's a long story, but we are leaving our current place by June 1, which means I'll spend the month of May either looking for a new place or moving out of this place and into that new place. The point is, I don't have time.

So, I give up. Yep, just like that. I have so much stress right now, and I can't continue to worry about whether or not I can keep up with this project I should have never started in the first place.

There's a chance I'll watch the finale of the show, assuming I'm not in the process of moving that day. But it's not like I'll have a hard time learning what happened. Something tells me Oprah has a little bit of pull in the media. She's not going out with a whimper.

I, however, am.

Thanks for reading.

Hatchet Wound

A week ago, I had to go to the doctor. The special lady doctor who deals exclusively in vaginas, if you catch my drift. Yeah. You know what I'm saying.

But this visit wasn't for my annual invasive swabbing. No, this time around I had something super awesome for the doctor. A doctor I had never seen before until that day, I might add.

Go do an image search for "Bartholin Gland cyst." Better yet, I'll do one for you. Just click here. I'll wait.

Had enough cartoon images of vaginas, mixed in with a few that are just a little too real? Yeah, me, too. First, let me say that what was happening in my nether regions was not quite as extreme as the "real" pictures on that image search I provided. And it's also possible that I didn't have a Bartholin Gland cyst. Could have been just a normal sebaceous cyst. But it was in that exact location, so I'm painting a nice picture for you.

Size wise, we're talking about something that was about as big as a grape. But that's probably big enough, wouldn't you agree? I mean, I like to think of my vagina as a beautiful, wondrous flower. When you have to start factoring in a foreign object and what fruit it resembles, you're probably not having a great day.

This thing had grown exponentially in the previous few days, from a little tiny zit-like thing, to a raging, angry grape. Walking had become a little difficult, what with the rubbing. So I finally made an appointment, packed my lady in the car (not Katie; I call my vagina "lady" because she's a lady), and went off to meet my doom.

But Katie did come with me.

We had to wait over an hour because some patient of my doctor's was "having a baby" and "ready to deliver any minute." Whatever. This woman should really have thought about how irritating it was for me to have a small lump protruding from my vaginal area.

Lucky #7

Here's the thing about me and Vegas: I never bet on seven. I don't think I have an aversion to it or anything. But this one time I learned how to play craps, California style -- meaning with two decks of cards, instead of dice, because somehow that's not really "gambling" according to California law, I guess -- and nobody likes seven in craps. Except the assholes who bet against the tables. But if you don't know craps, that doesn't mean anything to you.

I play roulette, too. Not as frequently as I play craps, but I've been known to become a slave to that little white ball. And at the roulette table, I never, ever bet on seven. It's just not one of my numbers, which are 13, 17, 23, 26, 27, 29, 32, and 33. And sometimes 16 and 20. It just depends. Spread the money around, people. That's the key.

Man, now I'm itching to hit the tables. It's been nine months since I was last in a casino, and before that it had been a year and a half, but I do love me some gambling.

Huh, I guess I might have an aversion to the number seven after all. But I've still left myself with that many episodes of Oprah to cover in this one post. Okay, actually eight, if you count the one that aired today. But I haven't watched it yet, and I don't know if I could write a witty, loosely connected intro about the number eight. So you get seven.

The good news is, I don't actually have a lot to say about most of these episodes. The first one in the bunch was about a woman who was arrested at the age of nineteen for selling drugs, broke out of prison a year later, and went on to live a comfortable, upper class life with her husband and three children, all of whom were in the dark about her true past. But that past caught up to her, and she had to go back to jail. You'd think that aging might have led to some growing and learning, perhaps some reflection on how all that heroin and cocaine you were doing wasn't probably the best thing, but no. This lady just kept denying that she ever sold anything, saying that she was promised a plea bargain even though both the prosecutor and her defense attorney said she hadn't been, and basically trying to play the victim role. Yeah, okay, ten to twenty years for selling a small amount of drugs is harsh. But 32 years later, I think it's okay to admit you were a dumb kid who made some mistakes.

For instance, when I was in college, I would often crawl out onto the brick ledge outside the window of my tenth story college job. And I would just sit there, on this ledge that couldn't have been more than two feet out from the side of the building. Sometimes it would be raining. Sometimes I would talk on the phone. I don't know what the hell I was thinking, but today I am okay admitting that it was a dumb thing to do.

Granted, while I was out on that ledge, I wasn't also selling heroin, but still. It was stupid.

Oprah's On!

The woman who rules my life finally came back with new episodes yesterday. But you know what? She can wait a minute. She made me wait an entire month, wherein I lost virtually all my readers, and I wandered about in life without a mission. So she can wait a day or two before I give in and start writing again.

I'm not sure my episode count is correct, but it must be close. I think yesterday's episode was #97 on the season. If Oprah is new every day until the May 25 finale, there will be a total of 132 episodes this season. I have no idea how accurate that is. I'll try to do some more sleuthing to see if I've got the correct number, but at least it's in the ballpark of 130, which is what Oprah had claimed she would be doing this season.

It doesn't help that it is now baseball season, and most Red Sox home games will start at four o'clock my time every weekday. I guarantee you that in a battle of Oprah versus baseball, baseball will win every time. Which means I'm now extra thankful for my TiVo.

The point is, we are absolutely in the home stretch. I've gotten through nearly 100 episodes of Oprah, and there are only about 35 to go. This is the real deal now, folks. I'm going to have to step up my game if I want Oprah to notice that I exist.

Which is bound to happen any day now, right?

The End Is Nigh

It's been weeks since the last new episode of Oprah, and the new ones won't be back until April 7. That's a Thursday, oddly enough. I would like to say that I've been using the downtime to continue (and complete) the remaining three discs of the 20th Anniversary Collection, but that would be a lie. Instead, I've been using the time to work, work, work, to recover from being ill, and to do a piss-poor job of taking care of Katie while she ails.

Oprah has been using the hiatus to decide on the end date for the show, which she has finally been announced. And though I know this whole project is supposed to be all about the journey, it's nice to have a destination, too. Now I do. May 25 will be the last day you'll see a new episode of Oprah on the air. It will truly be the end of an era, and I'm not just talking about this blog.

This gives me very little time to secure a book deal all about my year with Oprah, which is troubling. My prospects for getting rich quick are dwindling by the moment. Damn you, Oprah. Why can't I ride your coattails down the highway of success?

I know many of you are dreading the last days of Oprah, and wondering how you'll go on with that afternoon fix. But I guess this means you'll just have to settle for her 24-hour cable network and whatever numerous projects she'll be working on once the show is gone.

Oprah, how can we miss you if you won't go away?

And yet...

In high school, in her recommendation for my admission to National Honor Society, my debate coach wrote that I was "a tough nut to crack...but worth it." Later, she defined me further by saying that I have an "edge."

These are not untrue statements.  I keep that "wall" between me and other people pretty much intact. I'm sure I meet people and give them the impression that I am "quiet" or "stuck-up," or even a "bitch." I have heard all of these things, actually. I have gotten better over the years, though I still recently included "normal human emotion" on my list of fears.

Katie is the only one who sees my true colors. I give you readers a hint of things, and I certainly could be accused of oversharing in that last post, but for the most part I keep my emotions to myself. And though you know my name and what I look like, there is still something slightly anonymous about this whole blog thing. There's a disconnect. I don't have to look you in the eye when you read what I've written, and I certainly don't have to witness your reaction. And if you leave a comment I don't like, I can simply delete it. Thankfully, I haven't had to do that so far on this blog.

The point is, I don't let things affect me. And if they do affect me on an emotional level, I act like they don't and might even go out of my way to convince you that I am completely unfazed. In other words, I will show you my "edge."

You know what was not supposed to ever happen with this Oprah project? The woman was not supposed to affect me. I was not supposed to fall for her "aha moments" (still not clear on how one writes that, but Oprah seems to spell it without a hyphen, so there you go), or find myself nodding along at her spiritual statements or weeping with her downtrodden guests. This was supposed to be a lark -- a funny, sarcastic thing I could write because no one would expect me to write about Oprah. People with edges do not buy into the Oprah system. They just don't.

Loose Ties

Eight months and eleven days ago, I walked out on my life. I've alluded to it here in various posts, but I bet sometimes those of you who don't know me personally are a little confused. It's understandable. It's a confusing situation, and I've hesitated to write about it I guess because I just don't know how. No part of the story makes me look like a good person, and maybe I just wanted to keep up the illusion that I'm just a lighthearted, sarcastic soul who moved to Portland and fell in love with a chick with a kid. That's all true, mostly, but there's just more to the story.

Nine years and ten days ago, I moved to Los Angeles. I moved in with my friend Lise (pronounced "Leeza"), and started to make the efforts to put my NYU film school degree to good use. In the beginning, that meant a super fancy position at Blockbuster. Then a temp position doing customer surveys at Universal Studios (read: riding the rides all day, and getting paid for it). Then I finally broke into "the biz" with a job on a BMW film directed by Tony Scott, which shot in both Los Angeles and Las Vegas. I got this job because my uncle had met an assistant director. Every single job in Hollywood that I got after that one came as a result of this first job, which means that my degree was literally useless. I could have saved all that money and just waited for my uncle to meet that A.D.

I did that job, then spent a couple of months on the Tom Cruise film The Last Samurai, and then spent basically the next year unemployed, save for a two-week stint on Hollywood Homicide. But at the end of that year (2003), I got the job that would change my life forever. Sounds dramatic, but it's true.

At the end of November, a transportation guy I had worked with on The Last Samurai called and told me that the costume department on Lemony Snicket was looking for a new production assistant. I got the job, and started right after Thanksgiving.

The job was supposed to last until March. I stayed on until June. But before I finished up that job, I had myself my very first girlfriend.

Christine was the assistant costume designer on the film. She was incredibly talented and very funny. We fell into a relationship without meaning to; she hadn't been gay before me (or at least didn't know it), and I hadn't intended to woo her and get her to join my team. It just happened.

21st Century Girl

I thought maybe I could have been a child prodigy, or at least a talent, if only I had stuck with any one thing. I was a great speller; I won the second grade spelling bee, and would have won it in fourth grade if the crazy lady reading the words hadn't insisted on pronouncing it "conFene," thereby throwing me off the correct spelling. I believe there was a conspiracy afoot. I was pretty good at soccer. I was a good reader (is that a talent?). I was also a really good swimmer in high school. And I was a good debater. One time my partner Nicole and I made two girls cry in a debate round. It was our crowning achievement.

So what the hell happened? I went off to film school instead of journalism school, for reasons that I don't really remember. I have no doubt I would have succeeded in USC's journalism program, instead of just skating by at NYU. Sure, I had a high GPA, but that didn't make me a talented filmmaker. I just knew what I needed to do to get the grades. I didn't even particularly like making films. In fact, I would do whatever I could to get out of going on shoots, including faking illness. My apologies to my crew. Heather, Stacey and Nancy: ten years post-graduation, I think it's okay for me to admit that I was a slacker who was uninterested in early wake-ups and frigid temperatures. I didn't want to sacrifice for my art. I still don't understand my film school friends who spend their time writing and trying to produce scripts. I don't want to try to raise money to make a low budget short. The idea of slaving away like that is not in any way a part of my bucket list. So I don't think I'll ever understand why I chose to spend three years of my life (I graduated a year early) and more than $100,000 to obtain a useless degree that has literally done nothing other than look pretty in a nice frame on my wall.

The crew. On a rollercoaster.

One Shining Moment

It's nearly two in the morning, and I was just sitting here in bed, writing a bunch of stuff in my head. So I thought I would just get online and do a little bloggin'. Yes, I haven't watched the last two episodes, but Oprah has been so kind as to give me a little break here. Thursday and Friday were repeats, and all next week we get repeats, too. Sweeps is over until May, so I guess Oprah is on a bit of a hiatus. That's fine with me, since I need the opportunity to catch up on what I've missed.

Did you guys see the Diana Ross episode? I thought I was going to hate it, but I actually rather enjoyed it. Oprah was at her realest here, because she really loves Diana Ross. I guess Ross was sort of a pioneer for black women, including Oprah, even though Oprah does not have backup singers. And yes, I'm call the Supremes "backup" singers, which I sort of know would be a point of contention for those other two women, since they don't love that Ross was the one to make it big. Go ahead -- name another Supreme. I dare you. That's why they're the backups.

Oprah was in awe of Diana Ross, and teared up more than once while talking about what Ross's success meant to her when she was growing up in Mississippi. And then Ross sang to Oprah, and it was pretty moving.

On my 20th birthday, I went to see Wynonna Judd at Irving Plaza in New York. My boss at my work study job at NYU had a side job at the venue, and he got me a VIP pass. I spent the concert standing between the New York Times reviewer and Ashley Judd. The NYT lady asked me a million questions because she basically didn't know a thing about Wynonna. Two days later she wrote a not-so-great review of the show. I was not pleased.

During the show, I was certain that Ashley Judd was watching me. We both had to look to the right to see the stage, and since she was on my left, I kept reminding myself that she had to be looking in my direction in order to watch the show. But I was still convinced she was looking at me. After the show, Ashley was sitting down, enjoying a beer, and I went up and introduced myself. She said it was nice to meet me, and then said ten words I'll never forget as long as I live, or until I get Alzheimer's: "I really enjoyed watching you rock out to the show."

Because she was watching me, folks. And I fucking knew it.

Wish Fulfillment

I swear I didn't plan it this way, but the giant "snowpocalypse" that was supposed to hit Portland this week caused the local NBC affiliate to cancel Oprah on Wednesday and rerun it later that night. Which I didn't know until I sat down to watch on my DVR, and instead got to watch a lot of "snowverreaction" to what ended up being two (at the most) inches that melted by mid-morning Thursday.

Perhaps I just willed it to happen, since I really, truly did not want to watch part two of the Iyanla Vanzant train wreck. So, lucky me. Instead, I got the David Arquette train wreck.

Which, actually, wasn't all that bad. Arquette can be a little bit nutty, but it sounds like he might finally be getting his shit together. He talked a lot about healing and becoming the person he thinks he should be, and it didn't sound nearly as corny as you might think. It just sounded like a guy who's gone through rehab, who's owning up to his mistakes, and who is now trying to get his life together.

Oprah rightly called him on the insanity of him going to a bar on New Year's Eve, two days after he got sober, and then going to Vegas mere weeks after he got out of rehab. But I guess if he was able to stay sober in those situations, that quickly after he got clean, he might really be on the right path here.

I hope his wife knew he was doing this show, since he sure talked a lot about their relationship. Not as much as he talked about it back when he did Howard Stern, thankfully.

It's weird that Arquette got the full hour, when Celine only got the first 20 minutes and then some singing at the end of her episode. Does Oprah not know that Celine is the best singer in the world?

I bet Celine is sad. And if I knew her, or I just ran into her on the street the day after she got dissed by Oprah like that, I'd say, "Hey Celine, why the long face?"


Diana Ross was on today's (Friday) show. I haven't watched it yet. Hopefully I'll get to it by the end of the weekend.

The Power of Love

Let's get one thing straight right away: I do not think Celine Dion is the best singer in the world. She has a nice voice, and she seems like a very nice person, but her cornball rating is off the charts. The woman is certifiably nutty, which I guess is what happens when you're French Canadian.

"The best singer in the world" title comes from the Ana Gasteyer sketch from SNL in the late 90s. I found only one video, so let's hope it stays up on YouTube for a while:

So, Celine had some twins. And she has a giant mansion in Florida, complete with a lazy river and some water slides. It looks awesome. But soon she'll be back in Las Vegas for three more years at Caesar's Palace. In 2005, I went with Ellen DeGeneres and a bunch of mothers for a Mother's Day weekend in Vegas. We stayed at Caesar's, and everyone got to see Celine's show. I was there when all the mothers met Celine before the show, and she was super nice, but I couldn't bear the idea of sitting through her show. So I gave up my ticket and won $467 at craps instead. That's what I call a win-win.

In case you want to see some of that meeting with Celine, I managed to find a YouTube video of it. I haven't transferred my own tapes to the computer, so we have to deal with what I can find online. Basically, most of the audience reaction shots in the segment (once they get to Vegas, which is about 1:55 into the video) are ones I shot.

Oprah interviewed Celine for the first 20 minutes of the show, which was odd. Seems like a waste of the "Oprah & Celine" graphic made for the show, especially since Celine's name was almost as big as Oprah's this time around. This was her 27th appearance on the show, and Katie said that the guest's name just gets bigger every time. It's a good thing this is Oprah's Farewell Season, since if Celine kept showing up on that stage, Oprah would have to just give her the show.

The Only Way In Which Liz Lemon and I Are Different

I really don't like this habit I've gotten into of not writing about the show until a week's worth of episodes has aired. I lose track of whatever it was that I wanted to write about in the first place, and I'm stuck staring at the "past shows" page on Oprah's website, trying to come up with witty repartee about five hours of a daytime talk show. I know it's pretty late to be asking this question, but exactly why did I decide to take on this project?

On Tuesday, Katie and I watched Monday's episode, which featured Roseanne Barr. Then we didn't watch a single other episode until Saturday afternoon, when we decided to just make it an Oprah marathon, and we crammed in those final four episodes. Yes, that is how we spend Saturday nights. Well, when we're not at Office Depot buying new pens so we can keep working on our New York Times Sunday Crossword Omnibus.

Yes, that's how we spent last Saturday night.

I told Katie that we would be spending our afternoon "Ope-ing," and then during the marathon, I sent her a text (yes, she was right next to me on the couch; shut up--it's cute) saying, "Thanks for Ope-ing with me." She responded, "It makes me Ope-ful."

We are geniuses with the wordplay, folks.

On Thursday night's episode of 30 Rock, Liz Lemon was very excited about something and explained, "My heart's pounding like I'm watching Oprah's Farewell Season."

While I can't claim that watching this show has made my heart pound in excitement, I will say that I've broken out in a nervous sweat more than once over the prospect of having to write about all these episodes. But I'm doing it. We're chugging right along.

Also, do you think Tina Fey was giving me a shout-out with that line? I mean, she did say, "...like I'm watching Oprah's..."

Seems pretty obvious to me.

Roseanne was, surprisingly, mostly boring. She lives on a nut farm now and has some grandkids, and her controversial self seems long gone. She's still outspoken, but just not really that interesting. She thought Oprah had been mad at her because Roseanne didn't like that Oprah picked Obama over Hillary Clinton. Oprah, not surprisingly, had never given two shits about what Roseanne said, and so was never angry over the "situation."

That, and the fact that Roseanne's black sheep was named "Roseanne," is the only thing I remember from the episode.

It's Been One Week

I looked at the list of shows I watched this week, and that's when I realized that I haven't written about the last five. And I've only watched the last four. That damn episode with Barbara Walters and the rest of The View ladies is sitting on my TiVo. I don't know when I'll be able to brave it.

This week was full of episodes that weren't exactly fun to get through. Monday, it was Donald Trump and his whole family. I didn't want to watch that one at all, so much so that on Tuesday night when I had the choice between that episode and the one about twin sisters who were raped by their fathers and brothers, I chose the incest episode.

And it was certainly more compelling than Trump's episode, but maybe not quite as disturbing. Yes, yes, those poor twins were raped for years and years, starting at age five, by first their brothers and then their father. And their mother knew all about it, and even walked in on it more than once, and still turned a blind eye.

But, come on. Have you seen Trump's hair?

My biggest problem with the Family Trump is the same problem I've had with many guests this season. I don't need Trump's kids coming on national television to tell me that they were raised just like everyone else in this country, and that life was perfectly normal. Yes, it was. For you. But when you have maids and you live in penthouses and you know all kinds of celebrities, and your father is a celebrity, you're only normal to the other people in your world. The ones you talk to when you head over to the Jolie-Pitt house for a playdate.

A perfect example of this not-at-all-ordinary family: there was big talk about the daughter that Trump had with Marla Maples, Tiffany, and how she hadn't been in the spotlight and was only now, at the age of seventeen, "coming out" (in the debutante sense) on Oprah. But Oprah's people found pictures to show of the daughter before we got to see her in her taped segment, and two of the three that I noticed featured Tiffany and her mother in front of those standard backdrops that you see when celebs walk the red carpet before a party.

Hey, guess what? I lived a pretty "normal" childhood, too. The difference is, the only things that featured as a backdrop for my childhood photos were my grandma's fireplace and my little brother putting up two fingers as bunny ears.

I've Got Dreams to Remember

Today I was going through the older pages on my new favorite site, xkcd, as I am methodically making my way through all of them. Over at Robots, I wrote about my obsession with the site, so head over there if you'd like a little more information. Within that post, I kindly provided two links back to this site, so it's just one big circle.

One of the strips I read today really blew my mind:

I don't even know if I can adequately explain what this is currently doing to my brain, but it's significant. I think it's because I've always been certain that I'm destined for big things. When I was younger, I was absolutely positive that I would be famous in some way. That's probably the main reason I went to film school. And when I moved to Los Angeles and started working in film and television, then got hired by Ellen DeGeneres herself, I was certain I was on my way to making my dreams come true.

Watching (Half of) Oprah

It happened again. I had to leave my house at 4:35, which means I missed the second half of Tuesday's episode. And then, on Wednesday, I missed the episode entirely. This is what happens when you move to being a one-car family, and your partner gets off work at 4:00 most days. That woman just keeps demanding a ride home.

So, after I picked up Katie last night, we went to Best Buy. And I splurged on a TiVo. I've made a little money lately, and we've done a good job with reducing our debt significantly, so it seemed like if the choice was between just giving up on this project, and shelling out a little cash for the TiVo, I should probably choose the latter. So I did. I came home, set it up with our antenna that receives the HD signal, and we were good to go. TiVo even helped me to learn that Oprah re-airs at 10pm on one of the digital stations. Information that it would have been nice to know, say, on Tuesday. But at least it means that I haven't officially missed Wednesday's episode. I just haven't watched it yet.

I have no idea why I'm so attached to this project. I'm averaging 75 page hits a day, which is nothing. And it's not like I've received any attention over it. So I guess this is just something I'm doing for myself. I'm my harshest critic (except for maybe Erica, of course), and I guess I'm a bit of a taskmaster, too. I would be extremely disappointed in myself if I had to give up something as simple as writing a blog. Which means I'm pushing through. I'm going to keep on keeping on.

But this post is about Tuesday's episode, which was all about Oprah and 378 of her staffers going vegan for a week. Since I missed the second half, I didn't get to see the overall results of the experiment, though we did get a few hints: a bunch of people had gas, and one person lost eleven pounds in the week.

I did get to see enough that I'm considering vegetarianism. I've considered it before, generally after biting down on a piece of gristle in a hamburger, or after watching Food, Inc (if you haven't seen it, rent it or stream it on Netflix immediately). But I've never really thought I could do it. I hardly ever eat red meat, but I do eat a lot of chicken. And now that I'm poor, I can't afford the fancy cage-free, organic, all-our-chickens-get-daily-massages kind of stuff. So that makes it less desirable to eat a chicken breast that's been engineered to be larger than my head, and much more appealing to consider going meat-free.

Oscars

There was a moment in time where I was slated to be attending this year's Oscars. For reasons I do not care to go into at the moment, I will not be present at the Kodak Theatre on February 27, 2011. Consequently, any sort of talk about the awards ceremony sort of bums me out hardcore.

But, Oprah cares deeply about the Oscars. And I care deeply about bringing you commentary on all of Oprah's deepest loves and desires. Which means I got to watch Sissy Spacek, Holly Hunter, and Susan Sarandon (live via satellite, since she was trapped in New York due to last week's blizzard) wax poetically about the glamour and glitz that is the Academy Awards.

And it wasn't so terrible. All three ladies are pretty grounded, and I've always had a bit of thing for Holly Hunter, so I'm not going to tell you that I didn't enjoy watching the episode. It was just a bunch of girls sitting around gabbing, and I guess it was relatively painless.

I will tell you that I had to leave at 4:30, which means I only saw these three women being interviewed, and missed the rest of the show. In the second half, Oprah was supposed to talk to a few of this year's nominees. Since I missed it, I'm just going to guess how it went.

Oprah: You were so amazing in {insert name of movie here}!

Nominee: Thank you! It was really a {challenging and/or rewarding} experience, and I'm just so happy to have been recognized by my peers.

Oprah: What are you going to wear? What are you going to say if you win?

Nominee: I'm not sure yet. And I don't want to prepare a speech beforehand, {but I'll probably thank my agent and/or lawyer}.

Oprah: You know, I remember what it was like when I was nominated. I'm presenting this year! And remember that I'm going to do a special Oscar show the day after the awards!

And that, as they say, was probably that.


Tuesday: Oprah and 378 staffers go vegan for a week

Four Episodes at Once

Here's how we could sum up the four episodes that aired Tuesday-Friday of this past week: gay, happy, sad, gay/happy/sad.

But I committed to this project, and though it was never specified that I would give you more than one-word takes on episodes, I think it was implied. And, frankly, I'm better than that. So let's do this.


Gay Tuesday: This kind of episode is what makes me certain that Oprah is not gay. I just don't believe that someone would make this effort (25 years' worth) to make it clear that she supports gay people, wants them to come out, wants everyone to come to the realization that being gay is okay, if she were herself gay. It just doesn't make sense. Preachers who rail against homosexuality, only to be caught in the closet going down on the lawn boy, make sense to me, because the lady doth protest too much, you know? Oprah being gay just doesn't work. I believe if she were gay, she would have come out long ago.

But, man, that sure would make for a hell of a final line on the final show later this year, huh? All I'm saying is think about it, Opes.

We got some clips of Greg Louganis on the show back in 1995, and then he was there on Tuesday, mostly to reach out to a young man who found the courage to come out because of Louganis. Nice, I guess, but not engrossing television. I was more interested in Chris and Joe, a couple that had been married, until Chris came out of the closet and told her husband Joe that she was gay. And then Joe said, "Good, because so am I." Quite the story, but I was most interested to see how their sons were adjusting. The answer is, not surprisingly, they're doing just fine.

Turns out that the story of Joe and Chris left one viewer skeptical, until that viewer met a chick she liked, and fell in love. Then she had to tell her husband, and it turns out he was gay, too. This shit is becoming an epidemic, I tell you.

Baby Sister Drama

Oprah has a sister. You know this by now. Her sister, Patricia, has known for years, but has spent this long struggling to figure out how to tell Oprah. In all that time, she never once considered going to the press, which makes her kind of an awesome human being. Oprah sure thought so, anyway.

Patricia was probably just smart enough to understand that the $100,000 the National Enquirer would give her is nothing compared to what she will be getting from Oprah. I mean, seriously. This chick is set for life. How do you feel about Australia, Patricia?

Seriously, though, the woman seems perfectly nice, and she should be commended for keeping her family's business private. Apparently she reminds everyone in Oprah's family of Oprah's now deceased sister, also named Patricia (no one knows how the newly found Patricia got her name since her mother, who is also Oprah's mother, did not give it to her), in her looks and her mannerisms. So it's been tough for the original Patricia's daughters, but everyone was happy to meet this new addition.

But whenever there are big reunions like this on Oprah, don't you always expect the huge surprise of a bunch of money or a trip or something? Come on, Opes! She's your sister! Where's her iPad, for Christ's sake?

Also, has anyone considered how Gayle feels about all this?

Australia!

I'm going to cram three days worth of Australia shows into one post.

I'm not even sure how long the Oprah folks were in Australia, but everything about these shows felt rushed and weird. There were 300 guests to follow, plus Oprah and Gayle and all the people Oprah surprised while she was Down Under. So cramming all of that into four one-hour shows was...ambitious, for lack of a better word

Which is not to say that I'm going to complain all that much. The fact is, these shows were fun. I said in my first (brief) post about the Australia shows that it was Oprah at her best, and I'm not backing off that claim.  It's just that it seemed like they had enough material to fill two weeks' worth of shows, and then some. So it just felt a little hurried.

Oprah surprised some Australian viewers at their homes, and surprised a pregnant super fan at a baby store, giving her a billion things for a nursery. The lady was due to have a c-section the next day, so I would hope she already had her nursery set up, but that sure was a lot of nice stuff Oprah gave her. The lady might want to look into selling that stuff on eBay. Cha-ching!

We saw some of the excursions the audience members went on, but I guess that's where I felt things were lacking, and why I thought things felt hurried. I mean, I know the show is called Oprah, and people like to know what she's doing, but the big excitement of the premiere episode was in watching the audience members' reactions to the news that they were going! to! Australia! So though we saw a woman surprise her husband with news of her pregnancy (super cute), and saw some people on hot air balloons and on other adventures, there just wasn't a lot of that. There was no indication as to how the audience was broken up into groups to go to Uluru, or to Olivia Newton-John's spa, or wherever else they went. And with 300 people, you know that every single one of them had a story to tell, and I would have liked to have seen more about them.

Change Is in the Air

Turns out, watching Oprah isn't all that easy when dealing with a 24-hour stomach flu (me and Katie), the sudden onset of the terrible twos (Merritt), and a 40-hour per week full-time job (me).  I have an alarm set for every day at 3:55, and getting myself to the television at that point in the day, even just four days into the new episodes of 2011, is a surprisingly difficult task.

Which is not to say that I've missed an episode (other than the one I already told you I missed), because I haven't. But I've had to do things a little differently, which means things will be changing a little bit around here.

Don't freak out. All I'm saying is that my style is going to have to adapt to my lifestyle. I can no longer have the "pleasure" of sitting down after Merritt has gone to bed, firing up the DVR, and taking copious notes on each new episode of Oprah.

All this means to you is that you'll probably get less of the recap stuff in the posts . Instead of details on the things Octomom said on Friday's episode, for instance, you're more likely to just get my general thoughts on the content. Which, in this case, would be the following:

Octomom is crazy.

Seriously insane. The whole episode was just an attempt to get her to stop being crazy and admit that maybe, just maybe, having eight kids (at once!) when you couldn't afford the first six you'd already had was a bit of a poor judgment call. Suze Orman, financial lesbian, was having none of Nadya Suleman's (that's Octomom's real name) bullshit, which was a good thing, I guess. But it just made for a really weird, awkward show, in which Suleman kept claiming that she agreed with everything Orman said, and she was really trying, and the one thing she'd always said was that she wasn't going to exploit her children for financial gain. Even if that financial gain would help her actually, you know, keep those children alive. Orman and Winfrey both thought Suleman was addicted to fame, until Suleman went on a crying rant about how all she's ever wanted is those mean, bullying girls from her school years (her metaphor for all women) to like her, and how they don't like her as a result of all this baby nonsense, so of course she doesn't like the fame she's gotten from this.

1/13/11 -- Five Things You Need to Do in 2011

So, after almost two weeks without a new episode, this is what we get? Really? Come on, Opes. I realize that you're probably saving the big stuff for when all the Australia episodes start next Tuesday, but I was hoping for a little more than this.

I'll just break this down for you quickly. Here are the five things Oprah thinks you need to do this year:

1. Know your five lifesaving numbers: blood pressure, waist size, weight, cholesterol, fasting blood sugar.
2. Know five weight loss secrets: have a clear vision of what you want, convince yourself that you are deserving, identify the biggest barriers, break through the barriers, put yourself first.
3. Know five clutter traps in your home: kitchen, closet, bedroom, bathroom, family room laundry room.

I understand the theme, but that is a list of three. Wouldn't it have made more sense, if you're going to call it "Five Things You Need to Do in 2011," if the episode consisted of five categories, perhaps with each having five items? 

I guess I'll reluctantly forgive them for only having three categories, since at least each one had five items.  Except, wait. For the clutter traps, there are six rooms listed. So, there goes that my leniency. 

And that forgiveness really went out the window once we got to the tail end of the show, which featured "7 Fashion Must-Haves." 

Nobody knows what they're doing over there at Oprah. That's clear to me now.

I suppose Dr. Oz gave some helpful tips, along with some ridiculous demonstrations of what happens to your arteries when you have high blood pressure. But, really, if you needed Oprah and Dr. Oz to tell you that it's good to know your cholesterol and blood pressure, that's a problem.

And Bob Greene just gave us a lot of gibberish. You know what people are looking for when you tell them they're going to get "weight loss secrets"? How about some practical food and/or fitness tips? No, you're right. What people really need is to be told to "break through the barriers." Because that's not abstract or anything. This is what a friend of mine would call "touchy-feely" advice. And I tell you, I will not stand for it.

I barely paid attention during the "clutter traps" section. Some Australian guy told us to not be messy, and to go to The Container Store to get organized. Then the whole audience got a $100 gift card to the store. The end.

You may sense a bit of complaining in this post, but you ain't seen nothing yet. Friday's episode is Suze Orman talking to the "Octomom." I need you all to know that lately I have seriously been considering giving up this project, simply because my life has become much more chaotic in the last month or so. And episodes like Friday's are enough to push me over the edge. I am going to pick up Merritt at 2:30, and given the drive time on a Friday, I can't even guarantee I'll be back by 4:00, when Oprah begins. But knowing that I'll have to stare at a moron with disgusting lips for the whole hour is not going to make me entirely eager to break the speed limit, if you catch my drift.

Oprah's Search for the Next TV Star

Oprah is seriously killing me with all these repeat episodes. And I'm sure it's killing all of you that I've had nothing to write about for what seems like a year now. But everything returns on Thursday, according to the website, so I'll be ready to go at 4 pm. Let's all hope that Merritt is willing to watch Oprah that afternoon, since we no longer have cable and I decided against getting the DVR. It's either see it live, or illegally download it.

And speaking of the potential of missing episodes, I did miss the last new one. It was recorded on my DVR, but then I canceled cable, and within seconds my DVR was just a useless piece of machinery with an new episode of Oprah trapped inside. But, honestly, I didn't care that much. The episode was all about the new OWN show called Your Own Show: Oprah's Search for the Next TV Star. Clever title.

I don't think I can describe to you how not sad I am over missing an hour of Carson Kressley and Nancy O'Dell talking about the next big thing. So, yes, the "missed episode" count is at one. If I feel really guilty about that at some point this season, I'll consider finding a way to watch it. But don't count on it.

The other night, Katie had to take Merritt to urgent care. He was not feeling well at all, and we were, at that point, going on three straight nights without anyone in the house getting a bit of sleep. It ended up being six nights in a row, but that's not the point here.

The point is, Katie noticed an "O Magazine" in the room at urgent care, and mentioned it out loud. What follows is history, and proof that I have already found Oprah's next TV star.

(and please note: Merritt was not coached on this. Katie mentioned Oprah's name one time, then pulled out the magazines several minutes later. The kid has probably just sat through enough episodes to know the deal by now.)

Thursday's episode: the five things you need to do in 2011.