Roasted and toasted

P&J hate to reveal how long we are in the tooth -- although we'd be happy to remark about our length in other areas -- but this year marks the 20th anniversary in Little Rhody of our cool, cool world. To celebrate this momentous event, your superior correspondents have agreed to have the tables turned on us and be roasted by some of our close personal friends. The September 28 gathering at Rhodes-On-the-Pawtuxet will benefit the much-deserving Fund for Community Progress, which continues to be a beacon of support for those who need it in the Biggest Little.

The co-sponsors of this gala are this august rag, the Providence Phoenix, and our longtime buddy, Little Big Man, Rhode Island's senior senator, Jack Reed. P&J have also persuaded our old pal Bob Kerr, BeloJo columnist extraordinaire, to get his yellow tuxedo out of mothballs and ensure that the infamous Lonnie Love will be on hand to host the shindig. Sharpening up the skewers are ace I-Team JAR-head Jim Taricani; the quietly hilarious Attorney General Weldon Shitehouse; Superior Court princess Rogeriee Thompson; the esteemed queen of the Dems, Peppermint Patty, Myrth York; and a few other notables who we cannot yet confirm, but if Mayor Buddy "Vincent A." Cianci and US Representative Boy Patrick Kennedy don't get back to us soon, they will not be sitting on the dais and carpet-bombing yours truly, trust us. Unfortunately, Ed "Gerber Baby" DiPrete, Joe "Prince of Darkness" DeAngelis and "Milkshake Matty" Smith are doing their hair that evening and will probably be unavailable.

Be there or be square, and call the wonderful folks at the Fund for Community Progress at 331-3863 for ticket information. Ducats are moving faster than Plunder Dome indictments.

Just shoot me

Phillipe and Jorge are chuckling over all the Butterfly McQueen histrionics over fears of contracting the West Nile virus, lime disease or the new pathological flavor of the month, Babesia microti, the malaria-like infection that is sending people scampering for blood tests. While these are all sometimes fatal, if you really want to commit suicide and are too chicken to pull the trigger or swallow the hemlock, just take a walk around Providence at night. You're almost guaranteed to have someone try to blow you away for free.

Other than beating up Urinal photographers, we don't know what the Providence police are up to in their spare time, but patrolling the streets does not appear to be among their hobbies. Reports of shootings in Our Little Towne have become as much of a staple in the Other Paper as The Family Circus, and it appears there's no end in sight. Perhaps our finest are content to let capital city residents keep firing when ready, believing these citizens are simply culling the herd in the drug community. But if city fathers are indeed serious about us being a Renaissance City, perhaps they should instruct Barney Prignano's troops to occasionally accost folks who have obvious bulges in their pants, even if they aren't glad to see you.

Sorry, folks, but "The Shooting Gallery" is not an annex at AS220.

Tough act to follow

Much as President Billary has come to make our skin crawl for, among other hideous traits, his transparently phony lip-biting and Bible-toting -- not to mention shoving cigars where they surely do not belong -- the boy can still talk up a storm.

Once we got over what many people described as his World Wrestling Federation entrance to the convention, walking alone to the stage through the downstairs hallways of the Staples Center in L.A. like he was about to take on The Rock in a Texas steel cage match, he delivered a stem-winder that only he could produce. Seemingly working without notes or a net, he connected with the crowd like a searchlight plugging into the New England electric grid.

The only problem is, now his caddy, Veep Al "Two-by-four" Gore, has to follow this tour-de-force on August 17, which is sort of like having Governor Bigfoot, Linc Almond, take the stage after Chris Rock. There is little to suggest that Mr. Whore will be able to extract the board he has had firmly lodged up his freckle for the past 52 years to give a less constipated speech, and we can look forward not only to his cigar store Indian look, but his pedantic tone as well. As insufferable as the little Daddy Boy's shit, George Dubya, is on the stump with his clueless smirks, having "Two-by-four" speak to you like a first-grader sets more teeth on end than nails on a blackboard.

Thanks, Billary. First you take $10 mil away from Al at Barbra Streisand's house to pay for your library (the Penthouse archives are to the left), and now you prop him up for a fall like the corpse in Weekend at Bernie's. With friends like these . . . .

Lost in the Woods

P&J got a huge kick out of George Stephanopolous's attempted interview with actor and Vo Dilun native James Woods on the first night of the Democratic Party convention, which was called to our attention by Pretty Miss P. While Georgie Boy, who is tiny but perfectly formed, tried to get Woods to air his political views, James kept trying to drag the Michael J. Fox manque over to his brother, Mike, who is running for mayor of Warwick, for a national prime-time interview.

Because Warwick does not have a Giorgio Armani outlet, Stephanopolous was unaware, of course, of its existence, so he fought to keep his Hollywood celeb in front of the camera, rather than having to speak to some politician from the sticks. But Woods insistence was a hoot, coming in a scenario devoid of any excitement to that point.

Celebrity roundup

Here's the latest on Hollyweird from your superior correspondents:

. . . Michael Douglas is being sued for $155 million by a guy named James Parker, who was caddying for the oily actor. Parker claims that Douglas, obviously inspired by former President Gerald Ford, drove a shot into his left testicle, causing it to rupture. He later had to have the non-Titleist ball removed. Douglas's defense is that his golfing partner, the unknown (and assumedly less wealthy) Mark Drach actually hit the ball in question.

. . . Rosie O'Donnell apparently sliced two tendons in her arm, requiring surgery, when she accidentally cut herself while trying to remove the price tag from a new fishing rod. This is what happens when big show biz stars actually try to do things for themselves.

. . . Michael Jackson has plans to star in the title role of the film Nightmares of Edgar Allan Poe. USA Today reports that he's spoken to Steven Spielberg about the project and Tim Burton might be the guy to direct. No confirmation yet on whether or not two P&J-penned screenplays, The Stephen King Story, starring Jackie Chan, or The Life of James Baldwin: Go Tell It On (the Caucasus) Mountains, starring Brad Pitt, have been green-lighted.

. . . the unstoppable Roseanne is also poised to begin a new television show, according to Reuters News Agency. It's being described as a game show that is "a cross between Divorce Court and Let's Make a Deal." Your superior correspondents can't figure out what the difference is between this concept and an actual divorce court.

Male Bag: Rules of the game

Your superior correspondents recently received a missive from someone accusing a member of the Vo Dilun bar of perjury and obstruction of justice. We assume the letter was sent to P&J because the writer hoped we'd put something in the paper about the alleged perp. The writer of the letter signed it, "A concerned member of the Rhode Island Bar."

While there may be something to these allegations, P&J, despite our notorious proclivity for skirting traditional journalistic conventions and rules, aren't about to make serious accusations about someone based on an anonymous letter. (We might also add here that the "evidence" offered by our writer was a conversation he overheard in the hallway of the Providence Superior Court.)

We suggest that if someone wishes to make a serious accusation against another person, they should have the courage to sign their name to it. Without that little bit of info, P&J are pretty seriously handicapped in trying to dig out the truth. Also, it might be helpful, if you're going to claim to be a member of the Rhode Island Bar, that you know how to spell the word "perjury." That it cropped out twice in the letter as "purgery" led us to assume that either, a) the writer is not a lawyer, or b) he was describing some type of bulimic activity he witnessed in court. Regardless, if you're going to be a fraudulent tipster, at the very least, your blunders should not be so egregious.

They doth protest too much

A new study by doctors from Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions claims that the addition of caffeine to most cola soft drinks is done not for flavor, but to hook consumers. Twenty-five adult participants in the research were given cola samples and asked to distinguish between the caffeinated and non-caffeinated sodas. Only two could detect any difference in taste. Naturally, the multi-billion dollar soft drink industry is up in arms about the study, claiming through its mouthpiece, the National Soft Drink Association, that the addition of caffeine is merely for "flavor."

Granted, the test sampling was mighty small and scientifically questionable, but does anyone in their right mind believe that the addictive quality of caffeine hasn't crossed the mind of the soft drink peddlers? Let's face it, there's no better product than one that is addictive. Does anyone think this fact is also lost on the McDonald's and Burger Kings of the world when they lace their burgers with the ever-so taste-flattening stuff that keeps those eight kabillion customers coming back for more? C'mon, there's too much logic and money involved here for someone to think otherwise.

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