Where's the money? Don't show it to me, gleesh, just tell me where it is

    I don't despise Rosie O'Donnell much more than anyone else that doesn't like pathological liars, but I do find a certain amount of humor in her "I've made a huge mistake" return to talk television as a co-host. This is the same woman that had the most successful daytime chat show since the days of Mike and Merv, and she walked away. She'd had enough, other important things in her life, blah x 3. Kathie Lee Gifford went out much the same way, of course, and skulked back into an even lowlier position on some infotainment magazine show, but I never disliked her all that much. Her situation is humorous, just not as delicious as Rosie's.

  Why do I despise Ro? It wasn't her show persona, which annoyed most of her detractors; that sort of sycophancy is what talk shows are built on. What turned me against Rosie was the way she went out. Suddenly, she was all over the place acting surprised that people were surprised to find out she was gay. Well, some of us were a lot less shocked than others, but her insistence that it was never hidden was completely untrue. Saying you've never denied something is not the same as saying you never hid it, nor is it the same as broadcasting it. She spent a lot of time droning on about the increasing herd on her kid-farm, and the nannies, and the squirrels that were eating out of her bird feeders, but never a mention of 'companion', 'significant other', 'girlfriend', 'Kelly', whatever. It was a calculated omission for the benefit of the blue hairs that made up her core audience, and she was smart to do it.

  Unfortunately on her way out, since she had nothing to lose or the most severe case of denial in television history, she chose to claim it was a well-known fact that she was a lesbian. The little crushes - Tom Cruise was the big one, but there were other 'Cutie-Patooties' that she gushed over - were calculated to cultivate a sense of her heterosexuality, and pretty cynical. I don't mean to detract from the brilliance of her closetedness, my ill-feelings towards Ro are entirely about her lack of respect towards her audience. As mentioned above, her overwrought faux adoration of every single person to walk on her stage was standard talk show operating procedure. It was the insult to the intelligence of every viewer that suffered through it, her blustering about having always been openly gay; that placed her near the top of the list of famous people that speak out of the side of their necks.

  In the news, newly surgically svelte Star Jones Reynolds has decided that sitting next to Ro for 4 hours a week is something she already has way too much money to have to endure. Or so she had wanted you to believe. In what was seemingly a surprise to co-hosts Baba Wawa, Joy Behar, and Eliza Whatsits; Star announced Tuesday that she will not be returning for the 10th year of "The View", which begins in September with new co-host Rosie O'Donnell replacing Meredith Vieira. Rosie has belittled Star publicly for not mentioning often enough that her weight loss is due largely to her gastric bypass surgery and not diet and exercise alone. Apparently, currently portly Ro was displeased that Star had been accepting accolades about her weight loss without consistently raising her skirt and showing her surgical scars.  

  Of course, it seems now that Star was blowing a bit of bluster of her own, putting quite the deceptive spin on her firing from the show to make it seem as if she had a choice. Baba Wawa cryptically noted "reasons we won't go into" for why ABC had told Star months ago her contract would not be renewed, but I would imagine it was because they didn't feel they needed her because of Rosie or perhaps even at Rosie's behest. I still think Star would have left on her own soon enough after sitting with Ro for a while anyway. And now a show I would probably never watch goes on my record list this fall, just to see how Ro acts the first week or so.

  I wonder if it was ABC or Baba that got pissed off and fired Star immediately for her surprise speech? It always seems to Baba's pet project unless we're speaking of something unpleasant, then it's ABC that's in control.


Duty Freebie: I love me some Presurfer! Maybe the best truly all-encompassing linkdump website, I have never been disappointed when looking for something to waste time on, a 'daily dose of diversion', if you will.