The title of this posting refers to that silly book, Little Altars Everywhere, by Rebecca Wells, a favorite author of Oprah. My distaste for all things Oprah, including tv show, magazine, book club, aftershow, and network, make me shiver in revulsion. If Oprah married Deepak Chopra, she would be Oprah Chopra, and an author by that name is the only thing that could make me dislike the self-help genre even more than at present. Here are some more reasons why Oprah irritates the living hell out of me:

Oprah is Always On a Damn Diet: Whenever Oprah goes into svelte mode, whether it is by liquid-only diet, actual exercise, or inner cleansing [yipes], her disciples take up the advocated activity. It’s sickening really. Women are starving in many countries, including North Korea, Africa, and even in America. Starving equates to weakness, yet women in general yield to notions of popular culture and refuse to eat, therefore reinforcing the skinniness-as-glamour notion. Since when is denial of basic life needs considered to be a virtue? This is a prima facie promotion of decadence and arrogance. American women might as well just turn back to the days of involuntary servitude, because we might as well be putting ourselves in shackles and labeling it a hip, fashionable thing to do. Dieting only makes your body think it is trapped in the Sahara Desert. Consequently, it then conserves calories like the cacti to water. Don’t believe me? I’m ten pounds lighter than when I used to diet. Awareness of one’s self, and being realistically tuned into one’s bod certainly should be the gauge of whether to eat less, not Oprah ‘Ya-Ya’ Winfrey.

Oprah Throws Springtime Fairytale Weddings: Think of the fairytales taught to us when we were naive little girls. Snow White was comatose until a Prince rescued her. Cinderella was destined to spend her life dusting and busting for her evil stepmother until a Prince rescued her. Rapunzel was trapped inside a tower until her hair grew so long [basically until she was good enough] to be rescued by yet another Princely man. Oprah throws such spectacular weddings, undoubtedly because she and old Stead-Man just never can get to the altar. Talk about living vicariously.

What really happens in a fairytale when you are young and beautiful, play the role of coquette to perfection, and find a Prince who sweeps you off your feet? Our realistic version of the story is Princess Diana, who was young and pretty, as well as immaculately dressed and accessorized. Perfect. Yet Prince Charles still left her for the older Camilla who, let’s face it, is a whole lot like our very own Patricia Arquette. And I do happen to know quite a few men who think Ms. Arquette is “Da Bomb,” although they just cannot explain why.

Screw the fairytale wedding with the nightmare bridesmaids’ dresses, multiple showers, [not the sexy kind either], registries, invites. Screw all that – it just isn’t necessary. These days, with the disposable nature of internet dating, finding a committed male who meets the “essentials” list apparently is more difficult to meet than one would think by looking at the list. That in and of itself is enough, so who gives a crap about a wedding? Why spend the marketing recommendation of a year stressing and spending tens of thousands of dollars? Seriously, your guests don’t want to be there, and your bridesmaids will inevitably hate the dresses. A male friend of mine just eloped with his girlfriend of two years. They simply went to a judge’s chambers and Voila. That makes me and a few hundred other potential guests and relatives ultimately happy. This way, we can be happy for them, congratulate them, even buy gifts for them, but damned if we want to spend yet another Saturday afternoon in a hot, stuffy church, only to leave and attend a crappy reception for hours. Reasons do exist that the most romantic place in existence really is Vegas, baby. Vegas.

For even better Oprah bashing, visit Beautiful Atrocities A Message From the Big O®.