英语听力：奥普拉：脱口秀女王-3

 The unfortunate thing is every single person, with the exception of my closest friend, Gale¹, said to me you are not gonna make it. Everybody told me that I wasn't gonna make it. Those same people now are saying, no, we never, we always knew. But that is not true. I can understand why people say that now "oh, yes, of course, we always knew", but everybody told me I wasn't gonna, because, let's face it, there was nobody who looked like me. I was overweight, and black and female, and part Jheri curl. I don't know another overweight Jheri curl person who can say I MADE IT!

 

To Dennis Swanson’s credit when I walked in and I said, look, you know, I'm black, and I'm overweight, and he said, I’m looking at you. Because I'm not gonna be able to change that, because I've been in the market in Baltimore where once I was hired, they wanted me now to be something else, they wanted me to change my hair, change my look, get a nose job, all that, God, I'm not gonna be doing any of that, and Dennis Swanson did me the greatest service any boss could ever give to anybody who’s being hired. He said to me, you know, “You know, girl, competing against Donahue over here, Phil Donahue. We know you can’t beat him, so we just want you to go on the air and do the best you can and be yourself, young lady.”

 

Phil Donahue was the talk show icon². He defined that genre³ at the time, and I had nothing but respect for him and certainly didn’t even consider myself even in the same category as him, so I was coming to do a local talk show, AM Chicago, which was airing at the same time right down the street from this national talk show done by Phil Donahue.

 

Good morning everybody, I’m Oprah Winfrey, a new host of AM Chicago and I am thrilled to be here. Coming up this morning…

 

It was on the air New Year’s Day, first day, January 1st, 1984.

 

It is a star-studded, hour long live rose bowl party next on AM Chicago.

 

Nothing worked, everything fell apart, I'm cooking, I don’t cook, I certainly didn’t cook then and certainly don’t cook on a hot plate on TV.

 

I figure this is gonna be like the Galloping⁴ Gourmet⁵. We have a stove here, you know, the whole hood⁶ and everything.

 

And it was a mess.

1 gale   

n.大风，强风，一阵闹声（尤指笑声等）

参考例句：

• We got our roof blown off in the gale last night.昨夜的大风把我们的房顶给掀掉了。
• According to the weather forecast,there will be a gale tomorrow.据气象台预报，明天有大风。

2 icon   

n.偶像，崇拜的对象，画像

参考例句：

• They found an icon in the monastery.他们在修道院中发现了一个圣像。
• Click on this icon to align or justify text.点击这个图标使文本排齐。

3 genre   

n.(文学、艺术等的)类型，体裁，风格

参考例句：

• My favorite music genre is blues.我最喜欢的音乐种类是布鲁斯音乐。
• Superficially,this Shakespeare's work seems to fit into the same genre.从表面上看， 莎士比亚的这个剧本似乎属于同一类型。

4 galloping   

adj. 飞驰的, 急性的 动词gallop的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• The horse started galloping the moment I gave it a good dig. 我猛戳了马一下，它就奔驰起来了。
• Japan is galloping ahead in the race to develop new technology. 日本在发展新技术的竞争中进展迅速，日新月异。

5 gourmet   

n.食物品尝家；adj.出于美食家之手的

参考例句：

• What does a gourmet writer do? 美食评论家做什么？
• A gourmet like him always eats in expensive restaurants.像他这样的美食家总是到豪华的餐馆用餐。

6 hood   

n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖

参考例句：

• She is wearing a red cloak with a hood.她穿着一件红色带兜帽的披风。
• The car hood was dented in.汽车的发动机罩已凹了进去。