Who are your heroes?

It's not so much a specific person, but you left out all and any artists! How could Stephanie Izard, whose restaurants are closed or constantly "in progress" be more of a cultural influence in Chicago than someone like Kerry James Marshall? How odd....

Bill Veeck should have made the list. among other things, the exploding score board and shower would be MIA at Comiskey w/ out him as well as the Ivey and manual score board at Wrigley. Enough said.

I would have liked to have seen some other influential theatre folk included (particularly Mary Zimmerman and Barbara Gaines). I was surprised not to see Koko Taylor, Scott Turow, Rick Bayless. I will also put in a plug for a Hyde Park hero, Leon Despres.

What?! No Tom Skilling?! I just read the list and was shocked to find that Chicago's own weatherman did NOT receive his credit. We're a weather-obsessed city in a weather-obsessed part of the country, and we have a weather-obsessed weatherman who feeds us precipitation updates like no other, often with more zeal than our mayor responding to a McCain attack ad. Traders on the floor go silent when his weather reports come on. And he's known nationally too! Please apologize to Tom.

Uhm, Michael Jordan doesn't write you back, so he's not in the list? Talk to his former teammates, maybe a guy who had season tickets back then.

I think leaving out Ira Glass was sad, as well as Oprah. And where is Kanye West? I am very happy to see Billy Corgan and Joe Shannahan on the list- They definitly are the kings of culture in Chicago. But most importantly is Lois Weisberg, Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs . Without her, we wouldn't have ANY cultural events going on.

How could the late-great list not include Mike Royko? Are you just a bunch of New York transplants who learned about Chicago from articles in the New Yorker? (Then again, you also left out Frank Lloyd Wright, so let's just call the process arbitrary and leave it at that.) Re the living, you should've included Rick Kogan and Lois Weisberg. They have more Chicago cultural capital in their pinkies than Jerry Springer would have if he were cloned 20 times like Michael Keaton in "Multiplicity."

Oh and as TOC's editor in chief puts it here, we are still waiting for Michael Jordan to call us back: http://www.timeout.com/chicago/article/cultural-heroes/62681/letter-from-the-editor And here's our list of late greats: http://www.timeout.com/chicago/articles/cultural-heroes/62671/late-great-heroes

Lindsay: Our list reflects only those heroes who are still living. So that accounts for why a few of the people you mention aren't on the list. - Scott, TOC Web Ed.

How'd you leave out Lois Weisberg?

Thanks for giving Stuart Dybek, Curtis Mayfield and Thrill Jockey their due, but there were a few glaring omissions... I know he's from Belleville originally, but where the heck is Jeff Tweedy? Without him, our (modern, non-blues-related) musical legacy would consist of Styx and Peter Cetera. And more importantly, where are the '91-'93 Bulls? Michael Jordan has replaced Al Capone as our city's most recognizable figure internationally. Also, where are Harry Caray, Mike Royko and Benny Goodman?