Today, Oprah says goodbye to her talk show. Tomorrow, the world exhales a sigh of relief. Sure, I love Oprah as much as the next soccer mom, but really, aren’t you tired of her making mountains out of molehills? How many problems can one person possibly solve? How many celebrities do we need to hoist onto a pedestal? How many favorite things do we need to watch other people get? We’ve endured 25 years of her nabbing the national spotlight — tackling topics from beef consumption to douching. She has more power than the president.
If you detect a tinge of jealousy, you are absolutely correct. I’ve wanted to be Oprah my entire life. But perhaps I’m more envious of Gayle, who gets to be Oprah’s best friend and travel across the country with her — two billionaires pretending to be proletarians. It must be fun to be Oprah. In fact, lately when I drink too much, I pick up Oprah-speak — enunciating ends of sentences, phrases and names, and doling out cars to baffled barflies. “You’ve got a car! You’ve got a car! And you’ve got a car!” I shouted to my table last week at the Back Door. It’s actually quite empowering. “I’d like a gin and TONNNNIIICCC! For GayLLLLEEE!” I told Marianne behind the bar. She giggled and called security.
So I was thinking about all the good and bad stuff Oprah has given us over the years, and here it is, genital warts and all.
• No Douching! — Oprah and her team of medical experts cautioned against the common practice of vaginal washing. Summer’s Eve is still pissed.
• Speaking of the Vag — Oprah helped the word “va-jay-jay” become a fun, happy term that white Christian women and Tyra Banks could be comfortable using when talking about all issues related to “down there.”
• Yo-Yo Dieting — We now know what 67 pounds of fat looks like in a Radio Flyer wagon. Big Oprah vs. Skinny Oprah — we liked her either way. Let’s face it — we’d all much rather have our lips wrapped around an éclair than our legs around a Thigh Master.
• Glorifying Multiple Births — I’m not sure how many is in a quintuplet, but please keep them far away from me.
• Side-Camera Looks — Camera one, camera two. Wait, I’m saying something important here.
• Oprah’s Posse — Gayle, Stedman, Dr. Phil, ad infinitum.
• Book Clubs — Who wants to read when there’s happy hour?
• The Color Purple — I always liked it much better than pink.
• Favorite Things — You get a car! You get Barefoot Dreams Robes! You get cherry ChapStick!
• Couch Jumping — Did that really happen? I’ve repressed it.
• Maya Angelou — The caged bird sings because you’ve been on Oprah more times that Gayle … and she’s jealous.
• Beef — It’s not what’s for dinner at the Winfrey abode.
Bourbon bliss at Jockey Silks
Sometimes a change will do you good. Bored last week and looking for a quiet adventure, a friend and I headed over to the Galt House to check out Jockey Silks, a bar located deep inside the hotel. With more than 150 bourbons on the menu and adorning the walls behind the dark and swanky bar, we felt like we took a step back into old Louisville — the debaucherous river city, not the neighborhood. Except for the out-of-place neon jukebox blasting today’s pop hits, Jockey Silks is cool, calm and collected. It’s been serving up libations to the rich, famous and everyday guests for more than 40 years. The bourbon menu lists brands by price, with a majority falling in the $8 range for a full pour. Elijah, Basil, Pappy — they’re all here, along with many I’d neither heard of nor tasted.
The evening seemed to fly by as we sampled our way through the menu. We played pool (I lost) while businessmen cheered on the Bulls on the quiet flat-screens that lined the walls but did not overshadow the overall subtle ambience. If you’re tired of the Bardstown Road same-old-same-old, duck into Jockey Silks for a change of pace and reacquaint yourself with one of the city’s best-kept secrets.
Drunk Texts of the Week
• Peter frampton gets so high he sucks the gravity out of the room.
• I just feel like an animal cracker that wants to make noise!!!
• Sex b4 rapture? C ya at 530
• Shit, still alive. Shotz?
