Joseph Planta: The Commentary (thecommentary.ca)

Thursday, 21 July 2005

Rosie on Oprah

By Joseph Planta

VANCOUVER - Here's a situation similar to that I had with mail being sent to me intended for Andy Rooney of 60 Minutes fame. In the last couple of weeks, we've gotten a couple of e-mails intended for home improvement guru, Shell Busey. One was a floor waxing question, another had to do with a squeak in the floor of someone's trailer. I've noticed that there's been a bit of traffic to The Commentary's website gained from folks putting Busey's name into their search engine. But the interesting thing is that I had dropped Busey's name in a previous column, but had spelled it wrong: 'Bussey.' The real Shell, spells his name with but one 's.' Don't worry, if you've sent an e-mail to The Commentary hoping to hear from Shell, I have forwarded them to him, and hopefully you all will get a response from him.

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Oprah Winfrey, it seems was hoping to shop at the Hermes store in Paris recently, but was turned away. It's been reported everywhere, and at first, I never thought much of it. It seems hardly much of a news story. Then, Gayle King, Oprah's best friend, says to the press, "Oprah describes it as one of the most humiliating moments of her life." Then I read somewhere that Oprah will probably talk about it on a forthcoming program. Again, didn't think much of it.

I don't watch the Oprah Winfrey program, because I'm not around when it's on. And when it's on, I've usually got one of the cable news outlets on instead. It's not that I don't like Oprah. She seems like a nice person. She's done some good work. Then again, she tends to over blow things if you ask me. If she's planning a full hour segment on the Hermes thing, then honestly, that's not really using her powers for good.

One person whose program I used to like was Rosie O'Donnell's. This was before she got political and rabidly anti-Republican. As a comic and a chat show host, she was harmless like old Merv Griffin or Mike Douglas. Then she shot her mouth off with Tom Selleck, which made her seem like she was gunning (no pun intended) for Oprah-status. Oprah Winfrey has been good at shrouding her political views. I couldn't tell you how she votes, though I probably have an idea of where she leans.

Anyway, I kind of like Rosie, now that she doesn't have a show, because she's hardly a phoney about things. She comes out and does her angry lesbian schtick, and it's refreshing. She's anti-Bush, but that's tolerable because the rest of her liberal friends are anyway. She's not kissing up to celebrities anymore who curried favour with her when she had a show. She's herself now.

Like everyone it seems, O'Donnell has her own blog. Once on blogspot.com, it's now found on her website, www.rosie.com. She recently put the whole Oprah thing in perspective. She said, she couldn't wait to hear Oprah's side of the story, because it seemed a bit specious that the Hermes snub was 'one of the most humiliating moments of her life,' considering she was "a poor overweight sexually abused troubled black child from a broken home (sic)." Come on. As Rosie puts it: "ONE of the most HUMILIATING moments of HER life at Hermes in Paris hmmmmm."

Frankly, Oprah should simmer down on the melodrama. It wasn't like she was knocking down the door to a restaurant to buy a bunch of meals for some starving friends. She was trying to buy a watch-a gift-for her friend Tina Turner who she was to have dinner with that night! It is a bit much. Oprah uses her power for good most of the time, but to make a big deal about getting snubbed by Hermes is hardly something to write home about.

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It's also good to know, that despite her love of Tom Cruise, Rosie O'Donnell is a bit taken aback with the whole Cruise-Katie Holmes melodrama: "my tommy needs to breathe/'heart humour and humility will lighten up your heavy load' said Joni Mitchell (sic)."

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