Archive for the ‘Rhode Island’ Category

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Obligatory Rhode Island content.

Tuesday, June 13th, 2023

This is actually not quite obligatory. It seems to be a big story in both Little Rhody and Philadelphia (though I think I-95 has knocked it off the front page in the later). And it has been a minute since I used the “Rhode Island” tag.

Two Rhode Island officials visited Philly. They were so rude their state launched two separate investigations.

They went to Philly to visit Bok. Bok is an old vocational school that’s been turned into a “workspace”.

The building, spanning a full city block, is filled with furniture makers, restaurants, tattoo artists, product showrooms, jewelers, videographers, architects, fashion designers, product designers, artists, charitable organizations, and a pre-school — among others — in the previously empty classrooms.

The people behind Bok had made a deal with Rhode Island to re-purpose an old state building. But that was under a previous administration, and now they were trying to convince the current administration in Rhode Island to go ahead with the deal, which was worth $55 million.

Hilarity. Ensued.

Lindsey Scannapieco is a managing partner at Scout, the company behind Bok. David Patten is (or was) the director of the state’s property management division. James Thorsen was the “director of administration”.

But the way the Rhode Island representatives allegedly behaved was so “bizarre, offensive, and unprofessional” that Scannapieco and colleague Everett Abitbol wrote an email to a hired lobbyist documenting all that happened. The email ended up with the governor of Rhode Island.

Here’s the email.

Some highlights from the press coverage:

“A text received at midnight (12:01AM) the night before their visit saying “Please have french coffee (with milk and sugar) and the best croissant in Philadelphia ready for me upon arrival. Director Thorsen likes Diet Coke. Have a cold six pack waiting on the table in your conference room. You have three hours to convince us to give you $55M.”

The group visited the headquarters for Diadora, the Italian sportswear and sneaker company, where an employee offered Patten a pair of sneakers. “Are these made in China?” Patten asked. “I hope not, because I really hate China.” He then turned to an Asian American female staffer in the room and said, “No offense, hun.”

According to the email, there was “…an irate phone call from the US CEO of Diadora, Bryan Poser, at 5:12pm asking us ‘who these people were and why we would have allowed them into his space (with many expletives in between)…He is also married to a Chinese woman and has two half-Chinese children.”

Irwin’s, one of the best restaurants in Philly, is only open for dinner. During the tour, Patten and Thorsen said they wanted to eat lunch there. When Scannapieco told them the restaurant was not open, they said, “Well you can call in a favor if you want $55M in funding.” Scannapieco said she organized a private lunch for them, which she had never done before.

Quote from an earlier article:

About the lunch at Irwin’s, where entrees start at $28 on the dinner menu — and no lunch menu is featured — [Patten] wrote: “Those reading this memo should know that Irwin’s looked like it was vandalized just before our arrival at 11:30 a.m. for lunch.”
“Imagine my surprise when I learned that Bon Appetit magazine rated it one of the top ten restaurants in the United States! The cuisine at Irwin’s did not disappoint. The word ‘understated’ comes to mind.” (The Journal has not yet been able to reach anyone at the restaurant for elaboration on why the dinner-only restaurant opened for lunch.)

“Patten at almost every visit insisted on taking something from the tenant home with him, whether that be vegan cheese, hand blown glass or a pair of sneakers…At each instance of taking something he turned to Thorsen and said something to the extent of “I don’t have to declare this right” in which Thorsen replied ‘its de minimis’.”

Speaking of vegan cheese, they also apparently made “condescending remarks” to the vegan cheese maker and a glass blower: “…there were questions about paying above a minimum wage and shock that these businesses made any money or could pay rent.”

There was also an argument about someone’s dog being overweight. And I’m leaving out the “Mazel tov” conversation. And the vanilla syrup. But I can’t leave this next one out.

In the morning as the tour began, Patten commented on Scannapieco’s appearance, asking her, “Lindsey, where is your husband? Why is he in Australia? Good thing you’re married or I would move to Philadelphia.” He also said, “If I knew your husband wasn’t going to be here, I would have come last night.”

“We will not permit Patten or Thorsen to return to Bok ever again,” the email said. “[We] are shocked at how this reflects on the state of Rhode Island and the lack of competence there.”

Patten is currently on “paid administrative leave” and seems to be attributing his behavior to a mental breakdown. It sounds like he was the main source of the issues. If it really was a mental breakdown (or a substance abuse problem, as some suggested) I hope he makes a full recovery and amends to the folks he hurt. If he’s just a jerk, I hope he has a long unhappy life asking people if they want to supersize that lobster roll.

Thorsen didn’t do anything about Patten, even though people were pulling him to one side and telling him “this s–t needs to stop. NOW.” However, he’s the former director of administration: he resigned before the trip and now works for the Treasury Department. I’m thinking he was probably like honey badger, just don’t care.

It makes me miss the class and sophistication of Buddy Cianci.

Posted in Rhode Island | 2 Comments »

Obit watch: September 20, 2022.

Tuesday, September 20th, 2022

Marva Hicks, actress.

Other credits include “Mad About You”, “Babylon 5”, and one of the spinoffs of a minor 1960s SF TV series.

This pushes the boundary of obits a bit, but: two decomposed bodies were found yesterday in the home of the former mayor of Woonsocket, Rhode Island. As far as I can tell, the bodies have not been identified yet, but the police also apparently do not suspect criminal activity.

The pilot who died on Sunday at the Reno Air Races has been identified as Aaron Hogue. He was flying a L-29 in the Jet Gold race.

Mr. Hogue was also one of the owners of Hogue Inc., which makes various firearms accessories (including grips) and knives. (I touched on them briefly in my NRAAM coverage.)

Posted in Guns, Obits, Planes, Rhode Island, Theatre, TV | Comments Closed

Rhode Island content.

Friday, April 29th, 2022

Because we haven’t had any in a minute.

[Don] Winslow: My strong feelings about clams—and I do have very strong feelings about clams—have more to do with the chowder. You ask me about steamers and all that, no, I eat my little necks raw, thank you very much. But I am a fanatic on the subject of clam chowder. The only proper clam chowder is with clear clam broth, not cream like that baby food many of them serve and for God’s sake not with tomato juice as in the ultra vile Manhattan clam chowder. All those variations are abominations on the Lord.

I had clear broth chowder a couple of times when I was in RI, and I like it. Now that Mr. Winslow has brought up the subject, I’m halfway tempted to whip up a batch of my own, since you can’t get it around these parts. (I’m okay with a good white broth chowder.)

What I really miss is stuffies.

And I hope you guys are enjoying those $10 lobster rolls: my favorite local Connecticut roll is $22.

(I bet Winslow would probably hate me, but I’m a Connecticut guy. Mayonnaise is vile, and that’s pretty much what the Maine roll is: you’re paying $10 for flavored mayo.)

(I can’t figure out if McDonald’s in New England still sell lobster rolls. There are a lot of references to McD’s lobster rolls on the Internet, but they’re all several years old.)

Murphy: I caught that chowder detail in City on Fire. The moment I knew I was in a Don Winslow book was the characters started passionately discussing chowder.

Yeah…might have to pick up a copy of that.

Edited to add: meant to add a link, for reference: Rhode Island Clear Broth Clam Chowder.

Posted in Books, Food, Lobsters, Rhode Island | 2 Comments »

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 178

Thursday, September 24th, 2020

Travel Thursday!

I thought we’d go back to France this week. But this time, in English, and on one of our favorite defunct airlines, Pan Am.

“Voici La France”.

Bonus: since I’ve kind of been neglecting my responsibilities to the United States, “The First and the Small”. This is a 1960s episode of a TV series called “America!” and covers Delaware and Rhode Island. (I think that’s four states down, 46 to go.)

Posted in History, Rhode Island, Travel | Comments Closed

The most fun I’ve had recently with my clothes on…

Thursday, November 14th, 2019

…or, for that matter, off.

I’ll start with the musical interlude. I rather like this, though the banjo player should put on a damn shirt.

So, last night, I was down at the Austin Film Society. (It sounds more amusing if you say it with kind of a snooty accent.) What was I doing there? Getting some culture into my system…

(more…)

Posted in Endorsements, Movies, Music, Rhode Island | Comments Closed

Pork chop sandwiches!

Friday, February 8th, 2019

A Florida Woman is facing a domestic battery charge after allegedly clobbering her boyfriend in the face with a frozen pork chop during a dispute Friday night in their residence.

Remember, folks: when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have frozen pork chops.

(Hattip for the submission: Mike the Musicologist. We also would have accepted his suggested title: “Roald Dahl, call your office, please.” even though that’s not quite technically accurate. Hattip for the title.)

Also by way of Mike:

Boston cop on leave after service weapon allegedly stolen by strippers

Strippers. Always the strippers.

A Boston cop who had his city-issued gun allegedly stolen by two strippers after a night out bar-hopping last week in Rhode Island is not being identified because he is “a victim,” police told the Herald today.

Note that the arrest report values the Glock at $5,000. Should we be calling the unnamed police officer “The Man With the Golden Gun” from now on?

Posted in Food, Guns, Law, Rhode Island | Comments Closed

Podcasters hate this one weird trick!

Monday, October 1st, 2018

Or, how to get me to stop listening to your podcast:

The rest of this season of Crimetown will be available exclusively on Spotify.

This is a shame: I liked the first season of Crimetown. I’ve even written about it here previously, since (as you know, Bob) I have an abnormal interest in Rhode Island politics.

But if you can’t put your show into an RSS feed, like “Gimlet Media” did with the first “season” of Crimetown, I’m not interested. I’m not signing up for yet another account, even if I can get a Spotify account for “free” (translation: give up your personal data), just to listen to your damn podcast.

(I would point out that “Gimlet Media” is losing my potential advertising views as well by going this route. But since “Crimetown” season one had some of the worst podcast sponsors there are, since I fast-foward through podcast advertisements whenever I can, and since I make it a policy never to buy any product advertised on a podcast, technically, “Gimlet Media” isn’t losing anything from me.)

(Also: podcasts do not have “seasons”. Stop saying that. If you want to do a block of thematically related episodes and take a break between them, fine: just don’t call it a season. TV shows have “seasons” and they have seasons because they take a break between spring and fall for ratings and demographic reasons. Podcasts are not TV shows and do not have to follow that model. Calling your block of episodes a “season” makes you sound like maroons, as far as I’m concerned.)

Posted in Media, Rhode Island | Comments Closed

Obit watch: April 17, 2018.

Tuesday, April 17th, 2018

Mike the Musicologist and I have a running joke: the decline of Western civilization began when men stopped wearing hats on a daily basis. We’re both doing our part to bring back the hat era.

I bring that up now because one of the great hat wearers of our time passed away yesterday.

Harry Anderson. Asheville Citizen-Times (more of a retrospective than an obit)

Of course, he wasn’t just a guy in a hat:

While he earned critical acclaim and amassed a devoted fan base on “Night Court,” Mr. Anderson never fancied himself an actor. “I’m a magician, or a performer, by nature, and that’s always what I’ve been,” Mr. Anderson told WGN-TV in Chicago in 2014.
“I was never really an actor,” he said. “I was a magician who fell into a part on ‘Cheers.’”

He was a good one, too. And for what it’s worth, I loved “Night Court” then, and I love it now. (I wish I could find video of Harry Stone revealing his custom bowling ball. If I could find someone to make me a bowling ball like that, I’d take up bowling.)

In honor of the late great Harry the Hat, why not go out and pick up a nice hat for yourself, or someone you love? Not a ballcap or a gimmie hat: I mean a real, genuine, honest to God hat, like a fedora or a porkpie or something. Let’s bring hats back, for Harry, and for civilization.

Posted in Hats, Magic, Obits, Rhode Island, TV | Comments Closed

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas… (part IV)

Saturday, December 23rd, 2017

Well, I got an early Christmas present this year. And it sits at the odd intersection of musical theater, law, politics, Christmas…and Rhode Island.

The folks at the Crimetown podcast did a partial reconstruction of “Buddy Cianci: The Musical”.

“There was this whole bunch of possibility. You could write a musical about pee and then you’d be on Broadway. We thought, you know what’s better than pee…is Buddy Cianci.”

—Jonathan Van Gieson

The musical had seven performances at the New York Fringe Festival in 2003. It has not been performed since, and there was no original cast recording.

This made me tear up a little: Jacksonville Jaguars fans decided to send trash cans to Houston Texans defensive end Jadeveon Clowney after he called their quarterback “trash”.

Jadeveon Clowney’s response? Fill the trash cans and a van full of toys and give them to needy children. Like Lawrence, I’m still mostly checked out of the NFL, but this is a good story.

Posted in Christmas, Law, NFL, Rhode Island, Sports, Theatre | Comments Closed

A couple of random notes: March 16, 2016.

Wednesday, March 16th, 2016

How did I not have a “Lovecraft” category before now? Fixed.

What brought this to mind? Anther AP story, this one about the relationship between H.P. Lovecraft and Providence.

Lovecraft aficionados, drawn to Providence, leave trinkets and notes at the author’s gravesite in Swan Point Cemetery. The Lovecraft council has a store downtown and holds conventions and events to celebrate Lovecraft’s work and influence.

When I visited Swan Point on one of my trips, I was told Lovecraft’s grave was the most visited one in the cemetery. This struck me as interesting, because Sullivan Ballou, aka “the guy who wrote the letter from the Ken Burns series that everyone but me loves” is also buried in Swan Point. My recollection is that this was near the peak of “Civil War” mania, but I guess Lovecraftian horror beats banjos and sentiment at least five out of seven days of the week.

Tam has a very nice obit up for Todd Louis Green, noted pistol trainer, class act, and “Archer” fan.

I never got to take a class with him, and I wish I had: I think I would have enjoyed both learning from him, and finding out if he hates Bionic Barry as much as I do.

Posted in Clippings, Guns, Lovecraft, Obits, Rhode Island | Comments Closed

Buddy.

Friday, January 29th, 2016

In another life, I used to travel between Austin and Rhode Island regularly (once a year or so).

The first time I went, I stayed downtown, at the Biltmore. This was 1995, I think, and it seemed that downtown was dead.

But I kept going back (this was the business I had chosen) and downtown Providence got better. They built a big new mall within walking distance of the Biltmore. They started Waterfire. The last time I was in Providence, it was a fun, exciting place to be. I miss it.

Buddy Cianci was responsible for a lot of this.

===

He wasn’t a hero of mine, and I never really “met” him. I did encounter him a couple of times.

It was a running joke among my coworkers (and the folks we worked with in Rhode Island) that you should eat at Joe Marzilli’s Old Canteen at least once; not only was the food good, but if you got lucky, you might see Buddy.

Well, one night I was in there with some of my coworkers and some of our Rhode Island contacts. So was Buddy. He actually came over to our table and commented on how cute and well-behaved the young child who was with us was. (As I recall, he was accompanied by a stunning, and very young, woman.)

Later on that trip, I shared an elevator ride with him. I didn’t say anything to him; didn’t seem like the time or place. I kind of wish I had said something nice to him now.

===

The Prince of Providence is a swell book about Buddy and Providence politics, though I don’t know if it has been updated since 2003.

===

Buddy reminds me some of Robert Moses. Both were examples of The Man Who Got Things Done. And it seems that both were also examples of the “rude to the waiter” rule. (I watched him get kind of snippy once with a desk clerk at the Biltmore who didn’t recognize him. To be fair, though, he was actually living in the Biltmore at the time…)

I was always conflicted by him. As a Libertarian, he represented a lot of what I hate about big government. As a connoisseur of politicians, especially crooked ones, he was one of the last examples of a type we probably won’t see again.

And I always thought his second conviction was questionable. He was charged on 27 counts, and was acquitted on 26. The one thing he was found guilty of was “racketeering conspiracy”. What the hell does that even mean? What “racket” was he “conspiring” in, if he wasn’t guilty of the other 26 charges?

Then again, I Am Not A Lawyer, and maybe I’m inclined to make excuses for someone I kind of liked.

===

He may have been a crook. But he was my crook, damn it.

Posted in IANAL, Law, Obits, Rhode Island | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 29, 2016.

Friday, January 29th, 2016

Paul Kantner, guitarist and founding member of Jefferson Airplane. SFGate. NYT. A/V Club.

In the ‘70s, Kantner and Jefferson Airplane singer Grace Slick recorded Blows Against The Empire, a sci-fi concept album that was even nominated for a Hugo Award.

Perhaps someone more familiar with Hugo history can answer this: was Kantner the only guitarist ever nominated for a Hugo (either individually or as part of a group)?

This was by way of Lawrence, who asks, “Has there been a huge number of important deaths this month, or is my view just distorted?” If his view is distorted, mine is, too.

I think there have been studies that show a peak in deaths in January: people who are on the edge try to hold out through Christmas and the new year, but after January 1st there’s nothing to hold out for and they’ve used up a lot of their strength. Even taking that into account, this January has been one of the worst months I can remember.

At some point, I may run a comparison of how many obit watches I’ve posted in January since I began this effort. If I do, I’ll post it here. (And I know that will be kind of skewed, too, but it is at least a start.)

NYT obit for Buddy Cianci. That’s something else I’ll try to get posted today.

Posted in Music, Obits, Politics, Rhode Island | 2 Comments »

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