Oprah has had an interesting past couple of weeks on her show. She had the trickless magician David Blaine, (so called that by Chris Rock) attempt to break a world record on her stage live. He was to hold his breath underwater for over 17 minutes risking heart failure and even brain damage. Yes, he did it.

She visited Tom Cruise at his great looking remote home in Telluride, Colorado which had to sport one of the most beautiful landscape views from one's home that I've seen in some time. (Like I've been to alot of them-lol) And then there was the Tom Cruise sequel celebrating Tom's 25 years in the biz.

Cruise looks like one of those guys that I could hang out with. Watching dudes flicks and teasing his ass relentlessly about his jumping on Oprah's couch thing awhile back. "Hey Tom lookit, who's this man? (Cage seen jumping up and down on Cruise's couch like he was on a trampoline -lol)

And even good ol' (now pun intended) Barbara Walters appeared on her show. I only watched about 15 - 20 minutes or so out of curiousity and then it began to delve into some she say, she say thing about Star Jones. You know. A simple gabfest between the ladies. Ahhh, not for me so I deleted the rest of the show.

And then came the May 8th program which I just watched today actually. If you missed it, it had Cher and Tina Turner performing live in Las Vegas. First by themselves and then as a duet performing a great rendition of Tina's hit Proud Mary. I love it when Tina does this song. The adlibbing at the song's prologue is fiyah y'all! Who can forget Tina's words:

You know, every now and then

I think you might like to hear a lil something from us

Nice and easy

But there's just one thing

You see we never ever do nothing

Nice and easy

We always do it nice

and we do it rough

So we're gonna take the beginning of this song

And do it easy

Then we're gonna do the finish rough

This is the way

we do

Proud Mary

Ahhh dayummmm, that's that shit guys! Ahem, okay pulling it back some, I guess by now you can tell that I'm a Tina Turner fan. A HUUUUGE Tina Turner fan. She's my most favorite female artist of all time. Alexander O'Neal gets the nod as favorite male artist.

The show was hot though and Cher looked great. Yeah, she's had a couple of those nip/tuck jobs but hers aren't as extreme as others. My most memorable part of the show besides the performances were the camaraderie and playful exchange when Oprah was interviewing the ladies. It went:

OPRAH: You guys are 61 and 68. Certainly an inspiration. I mean, it's just really unbelievable. How do you feel though about getting older?

CHER: I think it sucks!
(Loud laughter and applause. I was laughing too)

OPRAH: What about all the wisdom and...?

CHER: Fuck that! (You don't hear the words, but knowing how Cher's mouth works, it appeared to be the one syllable word that fit that sentence. More laughter and applause)

TINA: I'm different from Cher on this.

OPRAH: How so Tina?

TINA: I have to say that I welcome it with open arms because my senior life is so much better than when I was young. The wisdom, the way I think- um, my attitude towards things, there is a change when you're still healthy and you (points to Cher) look good, so your whole outlook changes on everything, and you're really happy. You don't mind being 68. The number doesn't mean a thing. It doesn't mean a thing.
(round of applause)

And I loved this response to Oprah's question. Which brings me to sunny point #1. And the answers have always varied. But why isn't it polite to ask a woman her age. I have a host of theories of course, but the responses I've received from women have varied from the very interesting to the very puzzling.

One woman told me that most women don't know why they feel it's an inappropriate question. They just feel that it's something they should find inappropriate in the question being posed to them.

Go to MySpace, Facebook, Vox, Flikster and other community connect sites and I run into a host of things on a profile that goes like this:

Cool little quote: "Guaranteed to make the earth move beneath ya baby"
Name: MamaGonnaMakeUFeelGood

Age: 100 years old

Location: Tallahassee, Florida

United States Last

Login: 5/10/2008

Now, don't get me wrong ladies. What folks choose to keep private is obviously up to them and I'm sure that they have their reasons. A serial big mouth of my own business such as myself loves it that people do maintain an air of anonymity and mystery around them. But I just wonder, if you're already sporting an alias, does the age thing really matter if the real age is posted up there? One can always ask me, why do I care?

I guess I don't care so much as much as I wonder why the practice is so vehemently carried out. I'm not stupid after all. While asking a woman her age is a simple question, I also realize that it's truly in fact a loaded one as well. Knowledge of one's age can be perceived in different ways to the one asking the question.

The women I ended up falling in love with in my past were all asked their age during our first date. Every one of them answered it outright, but only Mimi gave me shit about asking it. Although in revealing her age casually, she also implied that it's not polite to ask a woman that question.

To which I came back with; okay. How old is the sister that is just above you? Answer given. How old is the sister that is just younger than you? Answer given. Okay, then you fall between this age and that age. And those ages around the hash marks work for me.

End of story. Okay, I'm 26 years old. 26 years old????? I would've said...umm... you look much older than that! Geeeeez. -lol- sometimes an air of levity is needed to loosen things up.

I was told recently that I offer alot of MY business to the average person. And I do. I recall reading something in one of Dominique's blogs awhile back where a woman came right out and said, "boy, you sure know how to put your business out there in the open don'choo?" And I suppose for folks like myself and Dominique, that can be a disaster waiting to happen.

She's had her serial blog lurker, I've yet to have one. Seeing as we are 2 people who really put our business out as well as our Christian names, yeah, I guess it can be a bit daunting if someone doesn't like something that we wrote and decides to google our asses and retrieve info about where we live, where we go to party at, heck even what comic book store I frequent and decide to launch their version of a shock and awe campaign against us. But come on. Who would want to lurk after me of all people? I'm as boring as they come.

But to folks who do say I offer alot of my info, I would tell them that there is sooo much more to me that is just as mysterious as that anonymous blogger too. You have no idea. The stuff I offer is more fodder than anything.

And even less informational than a blogger who offers up 100 things about themselves that you didn't know. (something that I've never done before because I just didn't think I had 100 things to offer that anyone would want to know - probably because they already know them all stupid!-lol)

But getting back to the whole age thing, watching that Oprah show today had me appreciating the splendor of it all. How these double Icons, (and one can make the argument that there were actually 3 icons up there if you count Oprah) simply continue to do their thing, the thing they love above all else simply because they are happy doing them is pretty fly in itself.

Whether young and old, you've got to admire the simple things in people's words. And I'll always admire what Tina said in closing. "The number doesn't mean a thing. It doesn't mean a thing."