Jeff Ruby Update

Lots of people who are in the public eye pursued their jobs because they knew they'd end up being, well, in the public eye.

Jeff Ruby is no exception. He's the restaurant owner who kicked O.J. Simpson out of his Louisville restaurant 10 days ago, simply for being O.J., the man who still hasn't found his wife's real killer.

I think Ruby did a heroic thing by showing some balls and telling Simpson to get out of his restaurant the night before the Kentucky Derby. It's no secret that Ruby likes rich celebrities -- white or black -- and evidence of that is plentiful in the form of framed photographs plastered all over his restaurants of himself with a bad Cosby sweater, no smile and an arm around one of hundreds of famous people who visit his establishments.

Ruby spent last week all over the national media, offering satellite interviews to the cable networks and such. Good for him. The publicity will do wonders for his bottom line.

But in typical lawyer fashion, Simpson's attorney, Yale Galanter, tried to call the kettel black over the weekend.

A few days after claiming he'd go after Ruby by trying to shut down his liquor license, claiming the restaurateur made a racist move by booting Simpson, he then said Ruby's move was nothing more than a publicity stunt.

"If we had our druthers, this would have died that night and been over," Galanter told the Associated Press over the weekend. "We are not pushing it."

We are not pushing it.

That sounds a lot like me choosing to make this blog weak, or me deciding not to sleep with Cheryl Burke, as if it were up to me.

I think when Galanter says "We are not pushing it," what he means is, "We have no case." You did have your druthers, asshole, and you chose not to let it die that night. Your boy got embarrassed, and now you both should die.

O.J. Simpson Update

The restaurant owner making national headlines for not serving O.J. Simpson is a racist, or so claims an attorney for the former football star.

Jeff Ruby has upscale restaurants in the Cincinnati area, as well as Belterra, Ind., and for about a year now in Louisville. I used to work at his flagship Cincinnati joint from 1994-2000.

One night in the late 1990s, after a book signing, Johnny Cochran or Robert Shapiro -- I can't remember whom -- called the restaurant and said he and his entourage were on the way for a late dinner. Word quickly got to Ruby, who then hustled to the restaurant, waited in front of the building and didn't allow the group to eat there.

And Friday night in Louisville, on the eve of the Kentucky Derby, Ruby came in shortly after Simpson and his party were seated. Ruby told them he wouldn't allow them to be served.

Seeing Simpson still get as much attention as he does "makes me sick to my stomach," Ruby told an Associated Press writer. I agree.

When I caught up with some friends in Louisville on Friday, they actually told me they'd seen O.J. out the night before. My two male friends, along with one of their girlfriends, were crossing the street when they noticed Simpson in an SUV -- a white one, they assured me -- with two other women. My friends called out to O.J., who rolled down a window, fixed his gaze on the girl and said, "Oh yeah, I like that."

It's no secret that many pro athletes are wired differently. Their lives are largely about money and sex and money and sex and more money and more sex. And after their glory days end, they know no other way than to continue to behave like selfish children, spending their days playing golf and objectifying women. Some even slice the heads off their estranged wives.

And our culture is so dumb that we let him get away with it, laugh at him when he considers writing a book called "If I Did It," then herd our women into SUVs and watch them giggle when he leers at others crossing the street.

But that restaurant owner sure is a racist.