Would you live in the Trump Chgo?

Perhaps it shouldn’t be a shock that vacancies are on the rise at that gaudy tower erected on the banks of the Chicago River that stands as a focal point for all the local protest conducted against the name of one Donald J. Trump.

Space is available, if you want to live here

I could be pompous and arrogant and make a statement saying I would NEVER live there. But then again, the need to be honest overcomes me and I have to confess I’ll likely never have the kind of income that would make it possible for me to even think of living there.

TO BE HONEST, just walking past the Trump Tower Chicago feels like an alien experience – particularly when I recall the pudgy, tugboat-like building that once housed the Chicago Sun-Times on the very same site.

So the Chicago Tribune report Tuesday about how 11 percent of the building’s 486 residential units (scattered amongst its 98 stories) are for sale. The going price, depending on exactly which unit one buys and what kind of high-rise view it offers of Chicago and/or Lake Michigan is $1.5 million.

Generally, the kind of people who can afford that expect to have a certain exclusivity. Or perhaps it’s isolationism, from the riff-raff of life.

And I suspect that many of them view all the people who now feel compelled to have their pictures taken making obscene gestures in the presence of the Trump Tower Chicago as the ultimate in riff-raff.

Dodgers star won't stay here

WHO KNOWS, THEY may be right.

All I know is that I’m sure that when real estate developer Trump got involved in the idea of building one of his namesake structures in Chicago, the idea was that it would become some sort of prime address.

One that people would fight for the right to live in, and would consider it a sign of their arrival amongst the hoi polloi that they could live in something bearing those 40-foot-high letters spelling out Trump’s name for all of Chicago to see.

Which makes it impossible for anyone to possibly confuse the Trump Tower with any other high-rise building in Chicago.

LeBron won't stay at Trump N.Y. hotel

SO WHAT DOES it say about the fact that some tenants, according to the Chicago Tribune report, have been able to negotiate rent decreases (for those who didn’t buy their units), and that there are a significant number of units (36, according to the newspaper) that can be had if you’re looking for an apartment that will allow you to look down upon Chicago.

Just so you don’t mind the protesters who feel compelled to stroll by and show their contempt for your choice of a home address.

The condominiums in the building don’t sell well these days, and the apartment units for rent can be had. As for the portion of the building that’s a hotel, it seems like we’re constantly getting new reports of professional athletes who refuse to stay with their teams (Adrian Gonzalez of the Los Angeles Dodgers and the entire Milwaukee Bucks basketball team, to name just a few) at the Trump hotel here in Chicago.

Then again, this is Chicago, where we led a solid Electoral College opposition to Illinois going into the Trump column on Election Night – unlike certain other Great Lakes states where the rural portions of the population led a shift rightward.

EVEN NOW, A new poll by Personal PAC puts Trump’s “approval” rating in this state at 39 percent – with a majority 53 percent not approving.

Trump 'vibe' makes Marina 'corncob' look luxurious

Not the same impression as that cockamamie study that claims many people who voted for Hillary Clinton back in November now wish they could change their votes – enough that Trump could now win a popular vote, in addition to an Electoral College tally.

Which may make some out-of-towners want to think less of us Chicagoans. Not that many of us would particularly care, since we’re convinced the rest of the world isn’t lucky enough to call Chicago home.

And, I’m sure, many of those who eagerly backed Trump and are still among his most vociferous supporters will probably never be able to afford to live in his building either.

  -30-

Would anything be accomplished by a ballplayer choosing to take a “stance?”

Who knew?

All those seasons and all those games that Derrick Rose of the Chicago Bulls chose not to play, he was being a revolutionary. He was making a bold statement toward justice and racial equality for all!

AT LEAST THAT seems to be what certain activists in Cleveland would have us think, what with the way they say it would mean something if LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers chose to not play in the next few games his NBA team plays – as a way of showing his outrage over the fact that prosecutors in Cleveland will not be seeking criminal charges against the local cops who killed a 12-year-old black boy.

That decision was made Monday, and the outcry on Tuesday was trying to make James himself a visible part of their contempt for the police and for society as a whole.

Now as of my writing this, James himself has kept his mouth shut. He hasn’t given any indication that he’d even consider the request of the activists.

A part of me suspects that he, and most other professional athletes, live in their own little world and certainly don’t want to be bothered by anything that doesn’t happen directly on the court.

CHECKING OUT THE gams on the dance squads that many sports teams use as half-time entertainment is about as much of a statement as many of these guys want to do.

So when I hear of James being asked to make a political statement, I can’t help but think back to the days when Michael Jordan was predominant and he was asked to get involved in electoral politics – particularly to make statements against some of the most outrageous nonsense being spewed then by the ideologues on the Republican side.

Jordan, we recall, refused. He kept quiet, although he made a brief statement about how “Republicans buy shoes too,” referring to the “Air Jordan” brand of athletic shoes. He wasn’t about to risk his financial bottom line by doing anything that would offend potential customers of a product being his identity.

Why do I suspect LeBron James will be inclined to take the same attitude, no matter how much pressure any activist types decide to try to push on him. He’ll say as little as he has too.

BESIDES, I CAN’T help but think that the idea of a ballplayer deciding to sit on the bench for a few games would not have the desired result. Particularly since many sports fans most enjoy it when their professional athletes behave like dumb ballplayers who know even less than the sideline cheerleaders.

It’s why I joke about the concept that Rose was being a revolutionary when he refused to play. We all know that just isn’t true.

He may well have been recovering from surgery and decided not to rush his attempt to come back to play. But the only cause he was touting was himself and his lazy streak.

Of course, my own attitude about this issue may be swayed by the fact that I’m from Chicago, and there are many of our own professional athletes we’d rather see less of because they manage to stink up the field every time they take too it.

TAKE JAY CUTLER for instance. The quarterback of our Chicago Bears ought to be the ultimate sports figure in the Second City. Yet for as much as he manages to infuriate us, what would happen if someone were to suggest that Cutler sit out a few games to show support for those who want police punishment for the death of Laquan McDonald?

It would probably have the reverse effect of driving up support for the Chicago cop who now faces six counts of murder for McDonald’s death! Heck, we local sports fans would probably support anything if it meant that Cutler were to just wither away.

Somehow, I doubt that sports fans in Cleveland are all that much different.

Besides, any city that actually defends the image of Chief Wahoo by its baseball club isn’t going to be a place that feels the need to influence police/black people relations on its ball fields and athletic courts.

  -30-

Sports fans arguing about anything can result in some serious stupidity

It always amuses me to learn of people whose arguments about professional sports get so over the top that the cops need to be called in.


That seems to be the case this past weekend, where a man managed to get himself arrested twice by police on Saturday – with arguments that began over who was the greatest professional basketball player of all-time.

THE KID FROM Ohio, LeBron James? Or "His Airness" himself, Chicago Bulls legend Michael Jordan!

The Chicago Tribune reported that Daniel Mondelice was arrested early Saturday at an apartment building in State College, Pa., after his quarrel with someone else on that very subject got out of hand.

He was able to get himself released by police after charges were filed. Yet he returned to a nearby apartment building and then managed to get into another quarrel when he refused to leave when asked, according to the State Collegian newspaper at Penn State University.

That caused his Saturday night arrest that resulted in him spending the rest of the weekend in jail. Associated Press reports indicate he was still there as of Monday morning. He is scheduled to be in court again on Wednesday.

THE NEWSPAPER ACCOUNTS didn’t indicate whether Mondelice was a Jordan backer, or was delusional enough to think that James reigns supreme! Although considering his age (22), he might be in the latter category.

For it usually turns out in these sports-themed arguments that people desperately want to believe that their own generation’s athletic heroes reign supreme. Just as I'm sure my own remembrances of one-time (and now deceased) Chicago Bear Doug Buffone are elevated because he played when I was a kid.

This guy would have been a bit young to have seen Jordan at his peak – and might want easily to dismiss what some claim is Jordan’s ultimate piece of evidence as to his superiority.

As in those six NBA championships in an eight-year period (two strings of three straight titles apiece) that gave Chicago its only taste of what it’s like to be a New York Yankees fan with perpetual strings of championship teams to root for.

THEN AGAIN, THE Yankees of the past two seasons didn’t even make the playoffs – thereby giving Yankees fans a taste of what it’s like to root for a Chicago ball club.

So what should we think of Mondelice – who may well have got the moment of infamy that now will perpetually crop up on search engines any time anyone does an Internet search of his name (and may wind up producing the bulk of the people who will ever read this particular commentary)?

I was amused to read the typical anonymous reader commentary that turned up on the Tribune website for the people who recalled the film “Bad Teacher.”

Because those of us whose minds have a knack of collecting clutter and trivia will remember the scene where actor Jason Segal’s gym teacher character argues about Jordan versus James with a student – ultimately saying the six titles is “the only argument I need” in Jordan’s favor!

EVEN THOUGH I’M sure there are those who want to think of Jordan as the aging (at 52, he’s only a couple years older than I am) owner of a mediocre basketball team in Charlotte, N.C.

Although I’m sure those James fans will get their comeuppance a couple of decades from now when some smart mouth will argue that some kid ballplayer yet to be born shows LeBron for the foolish old man he truly is.

These kind of sports arguments go on and on for generations, and we only hope that people have enough sense to keep their behavior in check so the police don’t have to get involved.

Because if you do wind up getting arrested, you might not be able to watch “Bad Teacher” for its classic scene – the one where Cameron Diaz in her short shorts shows off her physical attributes and gets soaking wet while washing cars!!!

  -30-

LeBron can take his 2nd title and stuff it; he’ll never top the Jordan image

Personally, I find the whole Michael Jordan vs. LeBron James argument to be silly.

Anybody who seriously follows professional athletics (not those who paint themselves all kinds of funky colors to try to get themselves on television) knows there is no definitive way to compare ballplayers of different eras.

IN FACT, ONLY a fool would try to make such an argument seriously. Then again, we have a lot of fools amongst us.

So I’m sure we’re going to hear many people claim that LeBron (whose Miami Heat team won its second-straight NBA title this week, beating the San Antonio Spurs 4 games to 3 in the championship series) is the greatest. We can forget about anything “MJ” accomplished.

We’ll even get those people who will start screaming “six” over and over until they keel over dead from a heart attack. As in the fact that Chicago Bulls teams with Jordan managed to win 6 NBA titles.

Does this mean that if James-led Miami teams manage to come up with five more titles before the kid hangs up his sneakers, he will be the undisputed greatest dribbler ever??!?

IT’S A BATCH of nonsense to think either way. Because there’s nothing James could ever do to detract from the overall image that Jordan created – which went well beyond anything he ever did on the basketball court.

LeBron James is an athlete. Jordan took his skills into creating an image that for many will forever define professional basketball – often taking it to extremes where it seems like we couldn’t escape his image.

His restaurants. His shoes. His cologne. It was everywhere.

The closest one can find to Jordan in terms of celebrity professional athletes is baseball’s Babe Ruth. It doesn’t matter what “numbers” James puts up – his image doesn’t come close. Shaquille O'Neal was more of a celebrity than LeBron. Anybody who tries to get worked up is being ridiculous.

I BRING THIS issue up because I’m trying to anticipate many verbal brawls that could get way too physical (leave it to sports fans to think that their favorite team creates “life or death” issues).

I’m not arguing here that Jordan is better. Although if Jordan were just a ballplayer, I doubt Bulls fans would remember him any more fondly than Bob Love or Horace Grant, or basketball fans remembering Wilt Chamberlain or Kareem Abdul Jabbar!

They certainly wouldn’t have felt compelled to let him have his own NBA franchise – one that shows any skills he has about basketball are limited purely to what he once could do on the court. Nobody expects the Charlotte Hornets to match the Bulls anytime soon. One wonders if the Hornets will ever be as good as the Charlotte Knights -- the underachieving Chicago White Sox minor league affiliate?

In fact, in my mind, the thing for which LeBron James will be most remembered is that he seemed to trigger the modern trend of top-notch high school athletes skipping out on college altogether to jump to the NBA.

IT WORKED OUT for him, although most of them wash out. Anybody remember Eddy Curry – the onetime star of suburban Thornwood High School who didn’t lead the Bulls to anything significant and – the last I heard – was playing professionally in China?

I’m willing to concede that Jordan was the top ballplayer of his era, and James the best of what we see now. Although it’s bound to happen that in a couple of decades there will be somebody on the basketball court whom everybody will want to believe is THE BEST!!! because that’s all they’ve seen in person.

And a whole generation of kids of the future will think of LeBron as some old fool, the way that kids of today are too eager to think of Jordan as just another old fogy.

Besides, those of us in Chicago know full well that the sports team that “matters” these days is the Blackhawks – who could on Saturday put themselves only one win away from a second Stanley Cup hockey championship in four seasons.

  -30-

Will the Bulls “satisfy” the nation? Or show themselves to be a Chicago team?

The talk going about the sports fans is that the REAL championship of the National Basketball Association is being played out this week and next, what with the Chicago Bulls taking on the Miami Heat.



Rooting for Bulls/against LeBron?



The winner of that best-of-seven series gets to take on the winner of Memphis/Oklahoma City in the NBA Finals. Which has basketball fans saying the real two top teams are Miami and our very own Bulls.

I’M SURE THE fans of whichever team prevails in the eastern conference finals will wind up remembering this series more than whatever they do against Memphis. Or Oklahoma City. Both of which sound to me like they ought to be playing minor league baseball against each other in a southern-based league.

That will be particularly true if the Bulls do manage to beat Miami and advance to the finals.

Being able to say that our city’s professional basketball team managed to make it to the NBA Finals (or perhaps even win a league championship) WITHOUT the presence of LeBron James or the other two of the unholy trio (including Chicago-born and and one-time suburban Richards High School star Dwyane Wade) that used free agency last year to suddenly turn Miami from a nondescript franchise to a serious contender will be one of those talking points that gets used for years to come – if it happens.

Remember how it was the Bulls that seriously thought they were going to be the team that got James when he decided that his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers were no longer worthy of his esteemed talent?

BEATING ON THE Heat would help ease the pain that Bulls fans felt when James had the gall to think that Chicago wasn’t worthy of his esteemed talent either.

Looking at the television ratings, it seems that the eastern conference finals are the ones that are drawing the viewers. Crain’s Chicago Business reports that television executives think seriously that people are tuning in – hoping that Miami and James get taken down a notch in their esteem for themselves.

So that literally puts the Chicago Bulls in the position of being “America’s Team” – at least for a week.

And it also means the Bulls made the nation happy, so to speak, when they managed to win the first game of this round of the playoffs by a 103-82 score.

SO THE QUESTION becomes, Can the Bulls make America happy? Will this karmic energy create a mood that enables the team to think itself worthy of its first NBA title since the days of Michael Jordan?

Or will the karmic energy of being a Chicago team ultimately impose itself, leading the Bulls to a defeat in the best-of-seven playoff series (Game Two of which is Wednesday at the United Center)?

To a younger generation that sees a White Sox World Series title in ’05, a Black Hawks’ Stanley Cup victory in ’10 and a Bears Super Bowl appearance in ’07, this may seem odd.

But I came of age back in the 1970s when it was completely conceivable that in any given season, every single Chicago sports team could finish in last place.

THERE’S A REASON why in the year of the Bicentennial I was watching the New York Yankees (including former Cubs manager Lou Piniella) win their first league pennant in over a decade; the Chicago teams were unwatchable – even with future Hall of Fame ballplayers like Rich Gossage and Bruce Sutter on the rosters that year.

That run in the 1990s of two sets of three NBA titles each for the Chicago Bulls was so un-Chicago-like. Thinking back to that era when one of our local teams was a renowned power that was feared, respected, and possibly even hated by some fans similar to how Miami is thought of these days seems like a fantasy.

Did it really happen? Or is that Michael Jordan statue outside the United Center somebody’s idea of a joke to play with our minds?

All of this means that a part of me is fully braced to accept the idea that the Bulls are about to blow this series. Heck, they’ll probably win again tonight to give them a two games to nothing lead in the series – only then to start blowing ballgames worse than the 1919 White Sox.

OR ANY CUBS team ever in existence in the past two-thirds of a century.

Will nation wear hair like Noah?



Personally, I’d like it if about a week from now, somebody sends me a sarcastic e-mail or two reminding me of this commentary and telling me how ridiculous I was for doubting the Chicago Bulls’ ability to move forward.

Perhaps this is the year that people stop thinking of the Bulls as a team that could only win with Michael Jordan, and hasn’t been able to do a thing since.

It could be interesting to see Derrick Rose and crew gain the love of a sports nation eager to see Miami gain nothing this season, instead of being just a losing ballclub that only a Chicago sports fan could possibly love.

  -30-

Miami?!??

This is going to be a sacreligious thought for some. But I didn’t care enough about where LeBron James wound up to want to watch ESPN’s hour-long stint of prostitution where they let the now-former Cleveland Cavaliers forward announce which basketball team he was going to bless with his presence for the next few years.

In fact, I’m glad that when the World Cup final is played Sunday, there will be so many alternatives that I can avoid paying attention to the television network that would like to think it is reporting on sports, but is really making athletics all the more trivial.

A PART OF me wants to start boycotting anything having to do with ESPN on account of the way they so willingly gave up their airtime for this nonsense. I’m sure they think they scored a “scoop” and will try to dismiss people like me as merely being bitter that we didn’t get the story first.

Yet treating this self-indulgent trite trash as something ever so significant makes me want to puke – especially since too many people think that ESPN is somehow the significant news media entity, rather than just another infotainment channel among the hundreds that many of us can access on our cable television packages.

Which means the people who might be the most sane are the ones who are willing to put up with the “luddite” label and get their television signals over the airwaves.

Now in a sense, I don’t blame LeBron James. He’s a ballplayer, and he has an ego like many professional athletes. I expect him to pull ego-centric silliness such as he has conducted the past week to turn himself into a presence that must be catered to.

MY PROBLEM IS with people who are too willing to play along with that, instead of doing our best to try to knock down the hype and try to report on whether or not there truly is any benefit to having LeBron James in ones’ line-up.

With James and the other players the Miami Heat (the stupidest franchise name in professional sports, even moreso than the Utah Jazz or the Tampa Bay Rays) picked up in recent days (including Chicago-area native Dwyane Wade), that team had better win something.

They had better make a clean break from their history of nothingness and start to amount to something as a sports franchise. Or else James is going to find that he’s the biggest bum in all of pro sports (he’s going to make Alex Rodriguez appear to be well-loved).

He dumped on his home town of Cleveland, and managed to string along the franchises of the major cities of this country. He’s going to have a lot of people hoping that his career fizzles into a pile of dog-do.

WHAT CRACKS ME up is that much of the early speculation saw the free agent battle for James’ services as a good ol’ Chicago vs. New York brawl. Some even put Los Angeles into the equation.

But this was supposed to be about what metropolis would turn James into the symbol of their city for the upcoming decade.

Instead, it truly seems that this was nothing more than a Cleveland vs. Miami battle, with the big cities (including our own) strung along to feed his ego.

I’m not shocked that James could ignore all those people who behaved as though they were Chicago Cubs fans (don’t any of these people have jobs?), carrying those black signs reading “home!” and trying to create an almost intimidating presence to keep the one-time Cleveland-area high school prep star with his hometown NBA franchise.

Instead, James gave up the hometown memories for nice weather, which as far as I’m concerned is about the only real difference between Cleveland and Miami (unless one wants to factor in the lack of Cubanos in Cleveland).

SOME WILL CLAIM that it was the chance to create a “super team” with Wade and Chris Bosh that could win something in Miami. Yet I’m wondering if they could produce a lot of teams that fall just short.

Perhaps it is because I have seen too many baseball teams that think they can buy their way to a championship. It is true that a team can usually spend money to get that final remaining part to a team that actually wins something.

But thinking that they can go on a checkbook spree this week to suddenly make Miami an elite NBA franchise? That’s nonsense. They could wind up being the best second-place team in the league, or the one that consistently gets knocked out of the playoffs in the early rounds.

But maybe James will be entranced by the flash of Florida, which depending on the type of person one is can be more appealing than anything coming from the Big Apple or the Second City. Why do I suspect that if the NBA had a team in Las Vegas, that would have been the preference of LeBron, and just about every other ballplayer on the planet today.

BESIDES, I STILL wonder if Chicago sporting luck would have had its way with James and brought down his talent?

In which case, the Chicago sporting scene is better off without the additional disappointment. The Cubs will give us enough of that in coming years.

-30-

James parade borders on absurd

I could care less about the NBA, and will never hear the letters LBJ without thinking about Lyndon and wondering if he would still be showing us his scar if he were alive today.

So perhaps I am not the kind of person who is going to think it at all significant that basketball star LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers is engaged in serious negotiations these days to determine which professional franchise of the National Basketball Association will get to employ him come the 2010-11 season.

DEPENDING ON WHOM one speaks to, LeBron is a natural for the Chicago Bulls. Others think there’s no way he’ll go to any cowtown, and must play in New York City.

Los Angeles and Miami also are in the equation (got to have warm weather towns to get away from the snow and cold of winter months). Some even think he’s going to stay in Cleveland – which is his hometown team and where he has played his entire career.

Personally, I find the actual negotiation process to be a big yawn . If anything, I find the hype and the willingness of the sporting press to play along with this event – pretending it is a momentous event of great significance – to be more interesting.

Now although I am not much of a basketball fan (what I do follow of the game is at the college level), I understand that James is one of the top professional basketball players these days. Any team that does manage to sign him for the next few seasons will be giving themselves a jolt of talent.

WITH THE RIGHT surrounding cast of players and some luck, it could even mean some championship seasons. If marketed right, it could make a basketball franchise all the more profitable.

What amuses me is the degree to which each city has people who want to believe that James is a natural to play for them – and them only. When something comes along that threatens that image, the snotty little comments come crawling out of the woodwork.

I happened to read the New York Times the day they had a national exclusive – that James was going to be a Chicago Bull, and that the only reason he was proceeding with talks with the Miami Heat, the Los Angeles Clippers and the two New York teams was to be polite.

After all, they were traveling to his hometown.

OF COURSE, THAT same story went on quoting all the people as to why a big star belongs in New York with the Knicks (or even the Nets), and even threw in an explanation of what constitutes tampering and improper negotiations.

Since talks weren’t supposed to begin until Thursday, why would anyone think about James in Chicago, unless something dirty was taking place.

Which is why I have to laugh in reading the story that was published in the New York Times on Thursday, which says it will be several days before James picks his new employer, “which in the end might be Cleveland.”

Of course, there also have been reports about private deals that would have him play in Miami, and even some meetings between James and other players, including suburban Chicago native Dwyane Wade.

WHICH CAUSED THE Chicago press to point out that no such meeting could have taken place, because Wade was seen at U.S. Cellular Field attending White Sox games against the Chicago Cubs.

If anything, I would get the biggest chuckle out of James if he were to sign with the Los Angeles Clippers, which would give that franchise a jolt of attention that normally would go to the NBA Champion Los Angeles Lakers.

I’m sure Lakers fans would resent having to share public attention with the Clippers – who have been such a sorry franchise during their existence. But if this really comes down to a matter of money, perhaps the Clippers will be willing to mortgage their future for that jolt of attention that they’ll never get otherwise.

Insofar as the thought of James coming to Chicago, I’m not sure what to think. People are pushing the idea that James could set himself up to be the successor to Michael Jordan (whose presence took a nothing franchise like the Bulls and turned it into those six-times-in-eight-seasons champions of the 1990s that we all fondly remember).

BRINGING A BASKETBALL championship to Chicago could help set him up as a Chicago icon – similar to how Venezuelan native Ozzie Guillen is a Chicagoan-For-Life on account of managing the White Sox to that World Series victory in 2005. For the record, even Ozzie got into the James act, saying there are too many people in New York and too many tourists in Miami. “Chicago is a real sports city,” Osvaldo said. “I think Chicago will be good for him.”

So what should Bulls’ fans be thinking in the days leading up to Saturday – the day in which Jerry Reinsdorf’s basketball minions get their chance to pitch the Second City to LeBron James?

Perhaps it is paranoia on my part, but I can’t help but wonder if Chicago’s influence would negatively impact him. Would the biggest star who ever bypassed college ball to jump straight to the NBA suddenly morph into an uncertain kid by putting on the red and black of the Bulls?

If so, I’d just as soon see him sign elsewhere. For the Chicago Bulls have already done the Eddy Curry experience. We don’t need an encore.

-30-