EXTRA: Could Taste of Chicago shutdown create moment in the sun for police-motivated protests?

It is one of those events that has taken on a certain aura in Chicago history – the Rev. Jesse Jackson managed to impose a boycott over the now-defunct ChicagoFest.

 

Will Saturday crowds be on the decline due to proposed shutdown?

It was back in the 1982 version when Jackson got black activists to picket the event held at Navy Pier, and several entertainers cancelled out of a sense of solidarity – including Stevie Wonder.

I CAN’T HELP but think that somebody thinks they can pull off a repeat a third of a century later with the Shutdown they’re hoping to accomplish on Saturday at the Taste of Chicago being held in Grant Park.

This event isn’t quite as adventurous, activists are merely calling for people not to go and stuff their faces with overpriced food for a four-hour time period in the afternoon. The rest of the five-day event that runs through Sunday night is fair game for people to attend.

But it seems all of the police violence being inflicted upon individuals of not quite a pure Caucasian persuasion has Chicago-area people feeling the need to do something.

And it’s not just the shooting death of Laquan McDonald that has them angered. This particular boycott, or call for one, was motivated by the activities of this week in which two separate cities saw moments when police killed black men and there was the incident where five Dallas police officers are now dead.

THAT’S A LOT of bloodshed, and I’m going to be curious to see just how many people actually bother to show up. Or perhaps I should say don’t bother to show up, since this is a call for a boycott.

I suppose that since I have no intention of going to Taste of Chicago on Saturday, I could be lame and claim I’m doing it in solidarity. Although the plans I have for the day have been in place for so long I have to say my absence has nothing to do with expressing my view about police violence.

This is an issue that is exploding across the nation. It is NOT a locally-based problem, which is part of the reason why I have had problems placing blame on Chicago political people – including Rahm Emanuel – for what happened to McDonald.

I don’t see that we have any worse a situation in Chicago than any other city does. I’d also argue that anybody who tries to dump blame on Chicago is merely trying to detract from the seriousness of the situation in their home city.

WE’LL SEE LATER Saturday if there’s any notable lack of people in Grant Park. I suspect there won’t be.

For Taste of Chicago is such a touristy event (I haven’t gone to it in years, and don’t think I’ve missed a thing as a result) that I suspect many of those feeling compelled to gnaw on giant turkey legs or wolf down pizza slices will be out-of-towners who didn’t see the “Taste of Chicago Shutdown” page on Facebook – which is how I learned of the attempt to express outrage.

For all I know, they may not have cared if they had been told. They want that turkey leg.

Personally, if I really feel compelled to have a cheezborger (yes, the Billy Goat Tavern is among the restaurants serving food this weekend), I can get one any day of the year. It’s not a weekend-only edible treat.

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EXTRA: Miami boycotting Ozzie? He’s only as smart as his won/loss record

For all the cheap, trashy rhetoric that came from the mouth of Ozzie Guillen when he was manager of the Chicago White Sox, I can’t recall a single moment when anyone seriously contemplated boycotting the White Sox on account of him.

But now he’s in Miami and we’re dealing with the Cuban exile community, which is one of the most humorless batches of people who take themselves excessively serious. They're definitely not a group that wants to hear that someone “loves” Fidel Castro.

SO I SUPPOSE we shouldn’t be the least bit surprised that Vigila Mambisa is talking about a boycott of the Miami Marlins until they get around to hiring a new manager.

Fire Ozzie!!!!!!!!!!!!! And we're not even a week into the season. Then again, White Sox fans were always going to be the most forgiving group toward Guillen because we have known him for so long! That peachy-faced rookie depicted in his baseball card above seems like he was here just yesterday.

Venezuelan native (and U.S. citizen since '06) Guillen may well have put a permanent wedge between himself and the group that Marlins officials were hoping would be the heart of their fan base (considering that their new ballpark is located in the Little Havana community). No one in Miami  is going to be thinking in terms of "retiring" Guillen's jersey number the way some White Sox fans believe that "13" should be put up on the outfield wall in tribute.

As for the rest of us baseball fans? We’ll probably wait to see if the team breaks out of the rut (a 1-3 won/loss record) with which it has started the 2012 season. If they do, he’ll be forgiven. If they don’t, the call for a boycott will take on a multi-ethnic, multi-racial characterization.

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Much moral adieu about nothing?

I can’t help but wonder if KSL-TV, the NBC affiliate out of Salt Lake City that sends the network’s programming to all those Utah-based Mormons, is going to regret their decision to refuse to air a particular new program meant for the fall line-up.

Because I can’t help but think that the television station has just given national attention to a program that might otherwise have withered away in a few weeks.

THE PROGRAM IN question is called “The Playboy Club.” It is set in the early 1960s, and is supposed to take place in Chicago. It is meant to be crime drama in which much of the action takes place at Hugh Hefner’s original attempt in Chicago at creating an elegant, yet sexy, nightclub.

Some of the characters, according to the storyline, will even be employees of the old Playboy Club.

Now some of the previews I have read try to claim this will be a serious drama – something similar to the AMC channel program “Mad Men.” That show is set in the early ‘60’s in New York’s advertising community.

Could NBC be giving us Chicagoans an equivalent program to the New York-based drama of that particular show?

KSL DOESN’T SEEM to think so. They say they won’t air the program because they don’t want to promote a company (as in Playboy Enterprises, which publishes the magazine and operates a batch of other soft-core porn and businesses that feed off that image) they find morally offensive.

They want to have more “family-oriented” programming on the air.

So now, KSL is getting national attention. Some are criticizing them for being willing to air violent programming while getting all high-and-mighty about sex, while others are claiming the station has every right to air what it wants.

Considering this is a station that does not air “Saturday Night Live” because it finds it too offensive, it may well be that the local television station’s management is too uptight.

WHICH IS WHY it would be so appropriate if people in other television markets wound up tuning in to the show just to see what the big deal is. Will “The Playboy Club” wind up doing better for an episode or two, because someone was more interested in pandering to what they perceived as Mormon beliefs?

What if this show turns out to be a clunker, quality-wise?

It is something that would not surprise me in the least, and not just because of the high-number of television shows that wind up amounting to little. Remember actor Samuel L. Jackson’s “Jules” character from “Pulp Fiction,” talking about television pilots and programs that “become nothing.”

For I still remember the program “Swingtown,” which was supposed to be a television series set in Chicago and its wealthy North Shore suburbs that was supposed to show us all about “swingers” and sex, set in the 1970s with an overbearing disco music soundtrack.

THAT SHOW LASTED all of half a season. Once one got beyond an episode or two, the PG-equivalent depictions of wild ‘70s sex just weren’t enough to hold one’s attention, and the drama, characters and quality of writing were nothing exceptional.

Is “The Playboy Club” going to be the latest version of “Swingtown,” only set one decade earlier? In fact, if I recall, one episode of that latter show was set partially at the Playboy Club in Chicago – and looked like any other generic disco scene. Will this show make Playboy look boring to a 21st Century audience?

Definitely not something worth getting all worked up over on moral issues. It wasn’t worth the time. Who’s to say this new show will be any different?

Now a part of me hopes I’m wrong. I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t seen anything of this new program except for a trailer that is available on the Internet. The key image literally seems to be girls in those old Playboy bunny costumes – the ones that make every woman put Dolly Parton in her physical prime to shame.

BUT A PART of me thinks there could be potential for such a show set in those early ‘60s days when the Chicago “Machine” of old tried scoring political points for itself by harassing Hefner.

Who’s to say that Hefner himself couldn’t have some sort of cameo role in such a show? Perhaps he could play the part of a political hack who tries to single out Playboy and Hefner for abuse – in the process revealing the moral hypocrisy of that era.

Think I’m kidding? Consider that Larry Flynt himself had a cameo role in that film about his life starring actor Woody Harrelson (Flynt played the part of the overbearing, arrogant and pompous judge in Cincinnati who sentenced the Hustler magazine publisher to a 25-year prison term – later overturned).

Hefner definitely has more time on his hands, considering that he’s NOT getting married anytime soon. And thanks to the efforts of KSL, the nation would be watching – at least for an episode or two.

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