I’m going to get this out of the way – I no longer like Ellen DeGeneres.  I’m saying this upfront so that you can stop reading if you disagree with me, or simply just skip this paragraph.  But if you’re still reading, know that I was a big fan.  How big?  I have every episode of her two sitcoms on VHS.  I have the first seven seasons of her talk show also on VHS.  Which begs the question – what am I going to do with all those videotapes?  But when she came out as gay, I felt let down.  Not because Ellen DeGeneres came out – I loved that.  But I also loved Ellen Morgan – the quirky girl with an even quirkier group of friends.  It bears mentioning that the sitcom’s original title was These Friends of Mine.  But once she realized she was gay, she stopped spending any time with “these friends of hers”.  I didn’t like that.  It might have been what happened to DeGeneres, but it wasn’t funny.  Like her friends, I felt abandoned us – her fans.  Then Ellen and I rekindled during her talk show.  I enjoyed the funny gal visiting with celebrity pals.  But I didn’t like being told “be kind to one another” by someone who reportedly wasn’t so nice.  I heard first-hand horror stories.  But let me say this – every time I’ve met Ellen, she was nice to me.  OK, she didn’t invite me over to the house to hang out with Portia.  But she never slapped me or made me cry.  In her latest special, For Your Approval, I feel misled.  The message of the show is that she no longer cares what we think of her.  Or does she?  Who knows.  I still enjoyed it – especially the stuff about her mother, Betty.  It reminded me of the Ellen I knew and liked.  Before she dumped us.

Adding insult to injury (although I don’t believe anyone was truly insulted or injured), there in the audience of Ellen’s special…Oprah Winfrey!  Believe me, I don’t begrudge Oprah turning to Stedman and saying, “Let’s go to a comedy show tonight.”  She should do whatever she wants.  But seeing a closeup of her during the special…I dunno.  It just felt icky.  But she did seem to be enjoying it – or at least they managed to find 10 seconds of her laughing!