Comments on: 75 on 94.

By: Pam

Pam — Sat, 28 Jan 2006 16:47:44 +0000

The saddest thing about this whole Frey/Oprah deal is Frey’s mother. She was in the live audience when Oprah announced that Frey’s book had been selected for the book club. It was a surprise that the Oprah staff planned for her. The whole scenario was “son is a complete loser, mother suffers and suffers, but now look, aren’t you proud!!” Next, I guess we’ll learn that she was in on it too. Totally off the subject, what is RSS at the bottom of this page? Is it useful?

By: mary

mary — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 23:25:17 +0000

Exhaustion and dehydration is so much more common among celebrities than it is among we simple folks. You’d think people like roofers or ditch diggers would be more prone to it than people like Lindsay Lohan, but you’d be wrong.
I always liked Private Eye magazine’s term “tired and emotional.” It means drunk, as in “Princess Margaret seemed tired and emotional at last night’s reception.”

By: Cynthia

Cynthia — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 22:30:57 +0000

Mary, Thanks for pointing me to Slate’s take on Frey and Oprah! Troy Patterson nailed it. I especially liked his line, “he (Frey) was in a proper venue for psychobabble.”

By: deb

deb — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 21:47:08 +0000

well, here’s hoping. a fellow book club member once said she hated reading books oprah had picked. she always hid the covers from view, lest people think she was so stupid she had to have oprah tell her what to read.

i read a few of her picks myself, and not a damn one of them was uplifting. bleak death marches, all.

lane change: celebrities being hospitalized for “exhaustion” always cracks me up. when the rest of us feel wiped out, we take a nap or go to bed early; we don’t go to the ER.

next time you DO go to the ER — assuming you can afford it — tell them you’re “checking yourself in for exhaustion.” ten bucks says they page security.

By: joodyb

joodyb — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 16:01:26 +0000

‘Milk’? Another verb comes to mind.

That was some 24-karat television, but it was also a no-brainer ratings lock.
With her estimable powers, she could’ve done that show at least a ago. (That kind of vetting could have been done in 48 hours. Such mountains can and are moved every day.) Yesterday was two weeks and a day since her kneejerk rush to defend Frey on Larry King, which she says was based on the volume of emails she was getting from people in the recovery community. Her people could have done some fact-checking once those emails began rolling in. They surely could have asked Nan Talese et al a few questions. How long does it take to figure out which way the wind is blowing?

Star Jones said this in an interview this week:

(Of her dramatic weight loss), she’d rather talk about what finally pushed her to make a change:
“Not being able to walk a block without an asthma attack. Not being able to stand in church because my knees hurt so much,�? she says. “I was lazy, lethargic and sedentary. I got comfortable being Star Jones and having a car to take me someplace. It lulls you into a false sense of what you can do. Instead of admitting I couldn’t walk around the corner, I’d say to myself, ‘I have a car to take me.’ �?

Oprah is The Playah. No question. She made it into every news outlet last night. None of it wakes her up in the same world as that of the rubes who have blindly made her what she is.

OH, and i predict the Book Club is a goner.

By: Dorothy

Dorothy — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 11:35:17 +0000

I am glad Oprah did an about face, and I am sure she did it for (1) her reputation and (2) a shout out to the authors waiting in the wings for her blessings. It’s not ratings month so I am guessing she taped the show as quickly as she could after previously-taped shows had been aired. I think she also probably took her time to have her staff go over the book, and be painstakingly prepared for her rebuttal on national television when she tarred and feathered him in front of the world.

By: mary

mary — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 05:00:52 +0000

Did you read Slate’s take on Oprah’s show? I’m with that guy. It’s good that she figured out that crap is crap, and there’s nothing redemptive about it. I think she may have milked it a bit though. The outrage is good, but why was it delayed?