WINDY CITY'S NO CINDY CITY
By CINDY ADAMS
EXCUUUUSE me? I read in last week's paper that The Second City - Chicago - is now calling itself the Number One City in America. Chicago, that toddlin' town, The First City?
Excuuuuse me? Take away Al Capone, the Merchandise Mart, O'Hare and Sinatra's favorite song and what have you got? A nice little gritty city that has decent beef, a few tolerable restaurants, some OK hotels, the stockyards and The Loop. But let us all calm ourselves . . . New York it's not.
Chicago's population is a piddling, shriveled 2.7 million. Please. I mean, please! P. Diddy has more than that in his bed alone.
What's it known for? Burglaries? OK, so New York's got them, too, but ours are bigger and better. Our guys who rob are top of the line. Take Dennis Koslowski of Tyco and $6,000 shower-curtain fame. Let's face it, this is no piker taker. And he's one of us. Who in that itty bitty Second City glommed onto the kind of money he did? Who they got in Chicago that comes near Dennis Koslowski? Who in that Midwestern cattle town ever threw a party where the statue's penis peed champagne? Nobody. Only Koslowski. Let's hear it for Koslowski. A true New Yorker. We are proud to call that big-time bum one of ours.
We aren't into cockamamie criminals here. We got us the big daddies. OK, so you had a trial of the Chicago Seven. That was a good thing. But, hey, we had Jack Grubman a k a. the Wall Street meat. He had the rep of being "the worst analyst ever." Who they got in Chicago that comes near Grubman? They got maybe a Second Worst Analyst Ever? Grubman allegedly coughed up $1 million to some private school so his kid could get in. I mean, you people out there in the Windy City should stop blowing all this wind. We are the tops in everything.
Chicagoans, get with it. You once had Wrigley, you once invented Crackerjacks, you once paraded hometowners Jane Addams and Upton Sinclair, you once had Mrs. O'Leary whose cow had a cow. But for right now, other than the freezingest coldest iciest lousiest weather anywhere, what are you the Number One in (other than the most flights a day to New York)?
I don't say you're not nice people. You're very nice people. You've had some of the niftiest mayors money can buy. And nobody - not any single body - could ever beat Mayor Daley for popularity. Everybody was for Mayor Daley. Even dead people voted for him. So I'm not knocking your citizenry. But let's get real here. You just have to stop thinking you could ever beat the Big Apple.
Just take the creativity of our politicians. Like when we had a bad traffic problem. One councilman came up with the solution: encourage car theft. Hey, you got to admit, nobody in your town came up with that one.
Yeah, you were big enough and important enough to have a World's Fair. But, dear ones, dear sweet misguided Chicago persons, that was 1893. What have you done lately? We had us a World's Fair in 1939. Another in 1964.
Your tourism group burbles about Ada's Famous Deli. Well, wowwee! Well, now, shut my pastrami. We got us the Stage, Carnegie, Katz's, PJ Bernstein and, until an hour ago The Second Avenue Deli. We got us as locals Regis and Rudy and Rosie, Katie and Conan, Julianne and Julia, Liza and Lizzie, Woody and Whoopi, Dustin and Derek. We got us Barbara and Diane and Matt and Sarah Jessica. We got Bloomberg and Bloomingdale's. We got Steinbrenner and Sharpton. We got Yanks, we got franks. You got Oprah.
Art? You want to talk art? Picasso's "Garcon a la Pipe" was sold at Sotheby's. That's New York City. The record price was $104 million and some small change. Maybe some pitiful additional little dribble like maybe another hundred thou or so. You got what? Some cartoon from the Chicago Tribune?
Zoo? You want to talk zoo. We got us the A-Number-One in the whole world Bronx Zoo. You know why? Because we know that in New York animals must be kept behind bars - for their own protection.
Surveys prove we got us the largest number of rich people. Now if these billionaire folks were wealthy enough to buy wherever they liked and live wherever they liked, you'll notice they did not move to Chicago. I mean, you're a very nice little town and everything, you even have some nice little shops and everything - but, dear ones, what is wrong with you? You are not New York. Even folk in downtown Atlanta know that.
Do you have New York cheesecake? New York sirloin? New York bagels? New York water? New York Post? New York attitude? Of course not. And that is why I am being so easy and gentle with you because I realize you are a deprived lot.> |
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