Comic/actress/talk-show host/EGOT ( Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony ) winner Whoopi Goldberg will be performing at the famed Highland Park venue Ravinia on Friday, Aug. 3—and when Windy City Times asked her what she'll discuss, Goldberg did not hesitate.
"Listen, Andrew, it's going to be about me—and getting old," she said. "Chest is falling, ass is expanding, can't pass gas without fear—because everyone else is going through it. You can't push out air because you don't know what else might come with it."
"It's not the days when we were the hottest things on the block," she continued. "Suddenly, we're discovering that not only that we have to move over, but that it's a brand-new world. People speak in ways that we never recognize—internet stuff and trying to keep up—and we're still trying to keep up because we look in the mirror and see someone who's 25, but we're not quite.
"We're the one generation having this issue. We come from a time when an adult said, 'Shut the fuck up,' you didn't question it. But we were also free, and people were able to be out and proud—so we have a lot of thought processes that we're trying to balance.
"Some of us are 60; I don't see that when I look in the mirror. I still see the hot, young thing—but come on! It's the shift, and trying to balance what you were with what you are—and who you are.
"I've got grandkids and great-grandkids, and I'm still a weedhead. So I don't say to anyone, 'Pull your pants up' because I remember people asking me, 'Is there more to that skirt?' And you suddenly discover you become them, and you've got to have a sense of people about kids, yourself and the world. There's a lot of really rough stuff going on."
Goldberg also stated that she yearned for something from yesteryear: "I want to go back to paper ballots. You can't hack [one of those]. It's so easy to get information; people can stay in their houses now and rip you off, and steal from your bank account."
And she had a few choice words for those who are constantly on social media ( another show topic ): "Stop posting pictures of your fucking food—I don't care. I don't wanna know what you did last week. I don't want to know all of your stuff. It's not important to me—but it's important to you to impress people. And then you have to say to yourself, 'Why is [that] important?' We are better than people are telling us we are.
"[The show is] a good 65 minutes of being ridiculous and funny and silly and glad to be alive."
As many of WCT's readers know, Goldberg has been a longtime ally of the LGBT community. However, there was a clarification she made regarding a past quote that seemed to say that, at one point, the LGBT community was the only group to accept her. "I think what I was trying to explain to people that gay folks understood everything I was doing because I was up in San Francisco working for years. We all live the same life: We're all trying to make a living and be ourselves. Watching all of my friends—and then this insane sickness comes along and wipes out most of the creative community. Then you have people who stopped talking about [AIDS] and pretend like it wasn't there. That's why I said [LGBTs] are the audience I will always stand for—because they stood for me."
And WCT had to ask Goldberg one last question, and it was rooted in her love of Broadway. As much as she adores Broadway productions, has there ever been one that was so bad that she left in the middle of it? "No—I could never do that to the folks on the stage," she said. "I've been at those shows but I couldn't do it to someone else. Especially because you know my face. If I got up and left … I couldn't do it—but I've wanted to." [Laughs]
Goldberg's performance at Ravinia will begin at 8 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 3; visit www.ravinia.org .
