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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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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