Your Own Personal Oprah

I was idiotically cruising the idiot box (internet) when I learned Oprah taped her last show, and I guess it airs this week – or in September. Whatever, I don’t know. I care as much about Oprah’s last show as I did, the Royal wedding and whether or not I’d get swept up in the rapture.

Queen Oprah thinks her last show is on a par with the Second Coming, I’m sure. Isn’t her image more recognized than those of Elvis, Jesus Christ and Mickey Mouse? You know she’s Do-Gooder of the Ages--Spiritual Guru-Miracle Suit-Mondani handbag-Maya Angelou messiah -- New Agey -- jesus with a vagina-angel mama.

Oprah’s righteousness knows no bounds. She’s an original savior, who unlike Jesus or Joan of Arc, could never go out endowed in pain. How antithetical to the Church of Oprah tenet of entitlement to the greatest life ever and if you do not cross over to this personal enchantment, you are lacking, within yourself, the positive vibrations needed to attract those secret gifts of old from the universe. http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/07-03-07/

This is not to say the queen of all that is media has not had her cross to bear in life. I’ve heard her story. We all have – Oprah born to an unwed teen mom living in abject poverty and she did your drug – was molested – snorted coke – was addicted to the married man she was sleeping with -- who pulled herself up by the bootstraps to become a media empire unto herself and the self-proclaimed doyen of all that is known about handbags, make-up, breast-lifting bras, the inner child, cosmic healing, literature and spirituality. As I’m sure you know she’s the greatest TV faith healer since Oral Roberts.

Queen Oprah’s journey through the media sphere has grown exponentially since the ‘80s when she was this young upstart hosting shows with such thought-provoking themes as “Housewife Prostitutes,” “Satan Worshipers” and “Man Stealing Relatives.” Back then, I just knew her as this woman with a chick show that my mom watched. She gained and lost a lot of weight and cried about her family and sexual abuse. That’s about all I knew.

I paid more attention to Oprah in the '90s when Texas cattleman sued her for saying bad things about beef. Cattlemen may have lost a lot of money due to her remarks, but sorry. Freedom of speech has its price. Neo-nazis, the Taliban, Religious Right – all of them have First Amendment rights that must be respected. So I was happy when Oprah prevailed against the lawsuit and said, “Free speech not only lives, it rocks.”

Employees of Empress Oprah do not have this right because they have to sign confidentiality agreements that are binding unto the grave. http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/free-speech-rocks-when-oprah-calls-the-tune/Content?oid=900962 It’s all a square deal. Our constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech exists in full force until a legal procedure is enacted in which an establishmentarian billionaire mogul with a team of high-priced celebrity lawyers coerces the underlings to sign a form, abdicating their civil liberties.

In the years since then, Oprah has…not changed, but evolved. Her shows have taken a more quality-of-life dimension, encompassing lifestyle themes of fitness, nutrition, the best shoes to wear and how our poop should be properly colored, s-shaped and eliminated into the water with a single plop. She has: allowed people to live out their wildest, most materialistic dreams as she’s given away cars donated by General Motors, explored Wynona Judd’s voyage of self-discovery and how to prevent leakage when sneezing or laughing. http://www.newsweek.com/2009/05/29/live-your-best-life-ever.html http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=98

She has warned audiences about the dangers of childhood immunizations. This controversy gained traction after a study was published in a medical journal in 1998. The medical community has since attacked the credibility of that study and affirmed that immunizations are safe. But who needs medical authorities? Oprah has her own experts – Playboy Playmate Jenny McCarthy and Suzanne Somers (Crissy from “Three’s Company.”) http://www.skepdic.com/refuge/harm8.html http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/05/combatting_the_oprah_effect.php http://www.randi.org/jr/2007-03/030207harpo.html#i1 http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/09-06-03/

Obstetrician/gynecologist Christiane Northrup, is another of Oprah’s pals, sounding the alarm on vaccine evils. Dr. Northrup’s credentials are impressive -- Dartmouth Medical School alum, professor and best-selling author. Also, she uses tarot cards, astrological charts and advises women to increase their “energy flows” by doing qigong in their vaginas. Or as Oprah would call them, va-jay-jays. http://www.drnorthrup.com/about/credentials.php http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=98 http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=110 http://skepchick.org/2008/01/dear-oprah-leave-our-vaginas-alone/ http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/science-and-medicine/christiane-northrup-md-science-tainted-with-strange-beliefs/ http://www.drnorthrup.com/womenshealth/energycenters/index.php http://appshopper.com/medical/womens-bodies-womens-wisdom-healing-cards-christiane-northrup-md http://www.healyourlife.com/blogs/christiane-northrup-blog/guardian-angels

Medium John Edwards is also in the Queen of Media’s inner circle. He’s an expert on talking to dead people. Bereaved paying customers rely on Edwards to relay the messages they don’t hear from their loved ones. You see, spirits communicate by way of a “vibrational” language and most living people can’t speak in the “low frequencies” of the dead. Naturally. Any scholar in the reputable science of the paranormal knows that. http://www.skepdic.com/vibrationalmedicine.html http://gothamskeptic.org/cause-of-death-oprah/

Not everyone is as spiritually in tune as the Reigning Oprah and her court of advisors. Some people block positive energy with their thoughts. The magnetic law of attractions won’t favor them because they lack willful thinking. For example, the impoverished South African girls attending Saint Oprah’s Leadership Academy are poor because their families didn’t properly visualize prosperity. Jews in Hitler’s concentration camps must have been projecting majorly negative energy into the universe. That must have been the case with Elie Wiesel, whose memoir “Night” was an Oprah’s Book Club favorite. (Oprah likes to tell people what books to read.)

We should all be on Oprah’s spiritual plane. Naturally, there must be a celebratory cry-fest to mark her last show even though she’ll continue with an omnipresence to rival God. Narcissus had to be content with his mirror image in a pool of water. Oprah will continue to grace the cover of every O magazine, run her own network and a media kingdom the size of the Roman Empire.

So let’s all cry for Oprah (she loves it when people cry), but remember she’ll be back. Always. Like a recurring outbreak of genital warts, she’ll be back.

The Devil and Mr. Johnson

If I were in hell right now, catching a live, breathin’ Robert Johnson flesh out the devil’s music, my mortal soul would be aflame with the spirit as a primordial drive rocked my body into rhythmic sensations, most real and Biblical.

One hundred years ago, Robert Johnson, “King of the Delta Blues singers” was born in Hazelhurst, Mississippi on May 11, 1911, far as we know. The details of his life -- and death -- are muddy. http://www.msbluestrail.org/_webapp_1389781/Robert_Johnson_Birthplace http://www.mojohand.com/robertjohnsonbio.htm http://www.robertjohnsonbluesfoundation.org/ http://www.nps.gov/history/delta/blues/people/robert_johnson.htm

If I owned a Robert Johnson 78 rpm disc from the ‘30s, that’s the object I’d reach for if my house were on fire. There are collectors who own such treasures and I am covetous. I just don’t have $5,000 lying around that I can plunk down for an original wax pressing of “Terraplane Blues.” I’ll be happy to listen to the recently released CD – “Robert Johnson: A Centennial Collection,” a re-issue of the 49 songs Johnson is known to have recorded in his short life.

Delta blues thrived throughout the 1920s and ‘30s. http://www.pbs.org/theblues/roadtrip/deltahist.html A slew of artists were recorded for posterity – Bukka White, Skip James, Blind Blake, Tommy Johnson (no relation), Mississippi John Hurt, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Willy Brown, Son House… Robert Johnson’s recordings, made in 1936 and ’37 were the last hurrah for this era, but his music was delta blues at its pinnacle. He took it places it had never been to before.

Johnson incorporated a percussive sound, boogie-woogie bass line, ragtime, masterful “bottlenecking” techniques and drastic changes in pitch. Keith Richards has described his technique as almost “Bach-like,” in the way it sounded like more than one person playing. His lyrics were simple, poetic narratives of forlorn love, hard times and drifting. http://www.sibetrans.com/trans/a269/poetic-devices-in-the-songs-of-robert-johnson-king-of-the-delta-blues In songs like “Crossroad Blues,” his voice was low down and in “Kind Hearted Woman Blues,” it reached a jangling falsetto.

Johnson was said to be a mediocre guitarist when left Robinson, Miss., in around 1930, only to return around a year later with his uncanny talent. The myth, of course, is that he traded his soul for his talent. Supposedly, he went to the crossroads – the intersection of highways 61 and 49 outside Clarksville, Miss. and made a pact with the devil. http://crossroads.stormloader.com/

The “deal with the devil” story-line has precedence, stretching at least as far back as Medieval times. German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe used this theme for his play, “Faust,” in the 18th century, and the idea spread to America with Washington Irving’s “The Devil and Tom Walker” and Stephen Vincent Benet’s “The Devil and Daniel Webster.” Italian violinist, Niccolo’ Paganini – for only one example -- was rumored to have sold his soul to Satan.

There is a tendency, I guess, to explain away dazzling talent by attributing it to witchcraft and the diabolical. Maybe that seems more plausible than the possibility that someone worked his ass off.

The story of Robert Johnson’s deal with the prince of darkness was given legs by Son House, and Johnson, himself. Here’s what I think: Tommy Johnson (one of Robert Johnson’s mentors) was telling that story about himself back in the ‘20s. Robert Johnson just stole (or borrowed) that tale for himself and used it for his own PR.

He was ambitious and out to carve his niche. The few recordings he made showed he was serious. I think Johnson was a savvy artist who played on the devil theme with songs like “Preachin’ the Blues (Up Jumped the Devil)” “If I Had Possession Over Judgment Day” and “Me and the Devil Blues.” The “devil” in these songs, I believe, was a metaphor for a white-dominated system bent on holding the black man down – economically, socially, politically, psychologically and spiritually. Hell was the life he had to live on earth. The impending doom he sang about represented what might happen to a black man found on the street after dark. Lynch mobs were perfectly legal back then.

His early death at age 27 didn’t come about through a Faustian pact. It happened because he had a sweet tooth for women and booze, and one night he made love to the wrong woman and when her husband offered him an open bottle of whiskey, he foolishly accepted it. Unfortunately, the drink was laced with poison and he died three days later. (He died on Aug. 16, 1938 – exactly 39 years prior to the date when Elvis Presley would die in his Graceland bathroom.) If Johnson hadn’t died young, that story might not have caught on.

As it happened, the folk revival of the 1960s brought many of Johnson’s contemporaries out of obscurity, and while they finally received the acclaim due to them, Johnson’s fame was posthumous. If only Johnson had lived another 30 years…he could have played an electric guitar and jammed with Hendrix. It would have been natural. “Me and the Devil Blues” sounds just as haunting as “Voodoo Chile.”

No, Johnson’s not in some Dante-like inferno. Nor is he on a cloud, playing lily-white church pop on a harp. I think his body lies mouldering in a pauper’s grave. (His remains are disputed to be at three different locations.) http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20110515/FEATURES05/305150002/Bluesman-Robert-Johnson-remembered-Clarksdale-Mississippi-centennial-nears He’s at rest, awaiting the words, “Robert Johnson, rise up” and the kingdom come.

Those old 78’s are obscure, nearly impossible to find, but Robert Johnson and his joy-giving music belongs to all of us. He’s in our DNA – the waters that feed the Mississippi River, the wind that blows along U.S. 61 – our American mythology.