they're giving out goats on oprah

Well not anymore, but they were. About two years ago, Susan Sarandon and Goldie Hawn were on Oprah plugging their new movie, "The Banger Sisters". I don't remember what I was doing at the time, but I think I was just backgrounding the television, engrossed in something I was writing. I stopped what I was doing because all of a sudden there was a goat and a fifteen-year-old tribal-looking chick standing there with Oprah. How did we get from "The Banger Sisters" to Billy and the tribal girl who tended to him and all the other goats? Just for ease, let's call the tribal girl Moya. One of my sorority sisters was tribal and her name was Moyofune Deas Balewa. Never saw her on campus without her goat. I wonder what ever happened to her?

I grab the remote and zip back to when Oprah first brought them out. So far no surprises, Susan and Goldie applaud their personal lives, their relationships (well that does deserve applause), their charity works, their children, their workouts and how well-preserved they both look. Susan looks great, Goldie looks like she's been pumped full of formaldehyde.

So they're multi-tasking, simultaneously plugging "The Banger Sisters" and The Heifer Project, a charity that gives livestock to poor families all over the world. One family in Uganda, specifically. Then they trot Moya out to read a prepared thank you letter to Susan. It reminded me of that Jack Nicholson movie, "About Schmidt". I love that scene where Jack Nicholson corresponds with the poor African boy, Mbutu. In halting English, Moya tells of her life before the goat. Moya and her 20 brothers and sisters helped out around the house, but her family was having a hard time making ends meet. So someone gave Moya a goat or someone won it in an African shell game, it doesn't matter. What mattered was that Moya had a goat. They milked the goat and what the family of 22 couldn't drink, they sold to the local Starbucks. The gift of a goat was good.

Then Oprah, to thank Moya for taking a break from helping feed her poor village to come to America to be on her show, tells everyone that the Oprah show is donating 40 goats to her village! They're giving away goats on Oprah! The studio audience went wild - until they realized they weren't getting a goat, but Moya's friends and neighbors would.

The reason I bring up this insane Oprah episode from two years ago - yesterday, Susan Sarandon was on the Jane Pauley show with what I think was a different goat. People move on.