How enamored ought we be of pseudo-celebs who set foot in Chicagoland

Every time I think that Chicago has the potential to be one of the most sophisticated cities on the face of Planet Earth, I stumble across something that reminds me of a St. Louis native I once knew who described Chicagoans as “hicks in nice suits.”

WINFREY: Sold her home she never lived in

As much as I’d like to punch him in the mouth for suggesting such a thought, I have to admit there are times he may well have hit our Midwestern populace right on the mark!

FOR I COULDN’T help but notice the names of Oprah Winfrey and Kanye West popping up in the news Friday, just one day after I saw the moniker of Michael Jordan pop up as a Chicagoan

Which anybody who has been paying attention knows really isn’t the case anymore. The one-time Chicago Bulls star has long ago broken his ties to the Second City.

As has Winfrey, the queen of daytime talk show television programming – who long ago stopped producing her show at a studio on the near West Side. She’s now a California girl – as in a part of the entertainment industry that views “the world” as not extending much beyond the greater Los Angeles area.

Any ties she had to our city streets are nothing more than history.

SO IT WASN’T a surprise to read a Chicago Tribune report about how Winfrey sold off what it calls her “final piece of Chicago-area real estate” – as in a house in suburban Elmwood Park.

WEST: Finding dining in suburban Naperville

Which she bought for $298,000 back in 2001, never actually lived in herself, and managed to sell off for a $72,000 profit over what she paid for it all those years ago.

The downtown condo where Winfrey actually lived, along with a high-rise apartment she had in the Gold Coast for awhile, were long-ago sold off. As the Tribune reports, Winfrey still has a house in Merrillville, Ind.; which technically could be regarded as a part of the greater Chicago area.

But the one-time “World’s Greatest” newspaper apparently wants to view State Line Road and the Cook/Lake, Ind. County line as an impenetrable barrier. So Oprah is history as a Chicagoan.

JORDAN: Still trying to sell suburban home

AS IS, ONE could argue, Michael Jordan, whose one-time home in suburban Highland Park was included in a story I recently saw about luxury homes that celebrities own – which clearly identified Jordan as a Chicago resident.

Even though he has been trying to sell that mini-mansion of his for more than five years now. It seems the kind of people who could afford such a garish structure want something built to custom for their own desires – not something that was meant to cater to the whims of Jordan when he was the world’s biggest celebrity professional athlete.

Yet there are those who continue to cling to the images of Winfrey and Jordan as though they’re ordinary people who we run into every time we go to the neighborhood supermarket, or pump gas into our cars.

Perhaps we fantasize that Oprah came up a couple of bucks short while grocery shopping, and we just happened to be the ones who were there who could give her some cash to fulfill her tab.

OR MAYBE WE want to think of Kanye West, who was in the news last week to meet with President Donald Trump about public policy issues, then managed to catch the attention of the Naperville Sun newspaper when they found out he was at a Pepe’s Mexican restaurant in suburban Naperville on Thursday.

TRUMP: Thank goodness he doesn't come here

For the record, Kanye ordered chicken tacos for dinner, then went to the pool table set up in the restaurant, and shot some billiards, while also signing autographs and generally playing the role of celebrity for the restaurant patrons.

It’s good that there are people out there who had a pleasant time. But really, I would think interrupting someone when they’re trying to dine is boorish behavior. It’s downright rude.

It’s the kind of thing I’d expect in Indianapolis. Then again, perhaps even people in “Nap-town” would conduct themselves better than that. After all, if West really thinks Pepe’s is decent Mexican food, he has bigger issues in life than his nonsensical babbling with the president in the Oval Office.

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I’m sure the ‘crackpot’ in Pepe’s restaurant incident thinks he’s the 'hero’

There’s a reason why I have problems with anybody who feels compelled to complain about “political correctness” and what they want to describe as the censoring of anybody who dares speak their mind.
 

How many are bothered by story's slant?

Usually, it turns out that the individual is some sort of jerk who’s upset that the bulk of society (the real majority, not the so-called silent one) is lambasting them for saying something stupid. For treating their ridiculous thoughts as absurdly as they deserve.

AND FOR REFUSING to give them the “last word” on the issue; which is what they really want – the ability to talk trash and have no one call them out on their inanity. Or more appropriately, to be rude in public and get away with it!

That sentiment popped into my mind when I learned of the incident Monday at a Pepe’s restaurant in suburban Hickory Hills where a customer felt compelled to make derogatory remarks to teenage girls who also happened to be eating there.

The girls were Muslim and were wearing headscarves (the gesture of modesty that is part of their religious faith), and it seems the customer was offended by their presence at the same “Mexican” restaurant he chose to dine at.

When the girls tried confronting him about his comments, the customer’s response was to tell them to “leave the country.” When one of the girls called the customer “disgusting,” he responded by becoming physically aggressive, although the girls managed to leave before anyone got hurt.

THE DAILY SOUTHTOWN newspaper reported Thursday that the incident was reported to police by the restaurant’s management and by one of the girls, and that police are studying various videos to try to figure out who the customer was.

Although the newspaper also reported that restaurant management knew the customer as a semi-regular patron of the Hickory Hills restaurant, and plan to inform him he’s no longer welcome to eat there.

Looking at this incident, it is kind of reassuring. Someone who is bothered by the presence of the teenage girls has some sort of hang-ups of their own to deal with. I doubt he would have been as emboldened to speak out if there had been any male presence with them.

But I also suspect that, in his mind, the customer thinks he’s the victim. Just saying what he wants to believe is true and being publicly lambasted for it – since the story also got television coverage on Wednesday and is one of those incidents that will gain national notoriety.

HE PROBABLY WILL go through life thinking he’s the one being picked on just because he spoke out because, in this Age of Trump that we’re now in, his views are supposed to predominate.

Of course, that’s a simple-minded way of viewing the incident, and that’s usually the problem with people who want to get all worked up over political correctness becoming too predominant. They want to think their usually-warped views are entitled to legitimacy.

Even though by the most literal interpretation of Freedom of Expression, the girls in this incident were just as entitled to speak out and put the man in his place as he was to make stupid comments about their presence.

Free speech doesn’t mean people are forced to agree with you, or even give you the last word. We all have a Right to be Wrong, and everybody has a right to speak out against the crackpots of our society.

SO WHOEVER THIS customer was (personally, I could care less because I doubt he and I would have anything worthwhile to talk about), he may well be wondering how his behavior got onto the front page of a newspaper Thursday and he he’s not welcome anymore at a restaurant.

But do we really want to be coming to the defense of anybody who thinks they can lash out against others who just happened to be getting a meal at the same restaurant. There are many times when I eat someplace where I am bothered by the behavior of others. But so long as they don’t directly bother me, what can I say.

There is one part of this incident I find amusing – it seems that Pepe’s management has issued its own apology to the teenaged customers; even though it seems they were unaware of what happened until after it was over. It was because of customers who felt compelled to use their cellphones to record the incident, then post it on various websites, that we know of this.

Pepe’s is sorry that some of their customers can be jerks, and they’d really like it if we don’t hold that fact against them. Even though personally, I can’t recall the last time I ate in one of their restaurants – just because I know of other places that are better and I suspect are “too authentic” for people like this customer to appreciate.

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