Who they?

As the state police investigation into the now infamous Narragansett smoke shop brawl was being presented to Governor Don "The Don" Carcieri and the public, P&J found the Urinal’s photo coverage a bit odd. To accompany its ongoing reporting of the tribe-vs.-state legal battles, last week The Other Paper ran a large shot that anyone who saw the newspaper or TV coverage of the fiasco would recognize: a trooper in a black windbreaker beginning his march toward the smoke shop with uniformed support behind him, as a Narragansett tribe police officer attempts to stop them. However, the only person identified in the caption is Rodney Champlin, the tribal officer. Is there a reason for this? Why would the BeloJo be loath to name state troopers, but quite comfortable singling out Narragansetts to publicly I.D.? Certainly the mass media coverage on the scene and the high profile the lead statie cut prior to the mini-riot would make him easily identifiable, which is why your superior correspondents see this as a bizarre omission.

And you wonder why the Narragansetts seem paranoid at times.

SMOKE ALARMS

Speaking of smoking, two items from the August 4 New York Times caught P&J’s eye.

In a "Berlin Journal" about "flash mobs" — groups of young adults who suddenly converge on a place, do something bizarre together which is dictated by a cell phone or Internet network, and then promptly disperse, a practice which got its start in New York City — a German tour guide, Tobias von Schonebeck, had a great observation. When informed that the first flash mob had assembled in the rug department of Macy’s, saying they were all there to buy a "love rug," he shook his head and remarked, "This is just the sort of thing that happens when you forbid New York to smoke."

And we are sure Marlon Brando’s character in The Wild One or James’ Dean’s Rebel Without a Cause would be disappointed to see what now stands for rebellion in the Big Apple. In a review of a John Mellencamp concert, critic Jon Pareles wrote: "Many of the songs he chose tied into Mr. Mellencamp’s long-running themes of stubbornness and defiance. (At Town Hall he casually smoked a cigarette onstage.)"

Smoking a cigarette onstage is defiant? Wow. Bow-wow. Sleep tight, Lenny Bruce.

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS VIOLENTLY

P&J were taken by some Internet buzz about the universally panned Ben Affleck-Jennifer Lopez "vehicle," Gigli. (Is there a worse actor working today than Affleck, the one-hit wonder who got lucky with and carried by Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting?)

The story has it that focus groups at advance screenings for Gigli demanded a new ending in which both stars die "in as brutal a manner as possible," sources at Sony Pictures supposedly said.

"The movie is pretty good, I guess," read one comment from a Culver City, California audience described in the e-mail. "I liked the Al Pacino character, but I had a hard time buying Jennifer Lopez as a lesbian. I also really, really wanted Larry and Ricki [Affleck and Lopez’s characters] to die, to get shot or blown up or run over by something. I would prefer to see the blood and the looks on their faces."

Other suggestions from around the country that were cited included suggestions to have the characters "shot to death point blank through head from right side," "both at once with single shot from elephant gun," and "several hundred times, with multiple camera angles showing their bodies jerking as they’re shredded with a heavy hosing of lead, spraying the lens with gobbets of meat and bone and blood, with the sheer number of fist-sized exit wounds obviously precluding any sequel."

Ben and J-Lo — America’s first couple of the silver screen. As Spence and Kate spin like lathes in their graves . . . .

FUTURISTIC THINKING

Now filed under the "ketchup is a vegetable" category made famous by Ronnie Reagan’s administration is the incredibly boneheaded Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s abandoned futures-trading market for predicting assassinations, terrorism, and other events in the Middle East, assembled by the barking mad John Poindexter and his equally addled pals at the Defense Department. Not surprisingly, Pointyhead served as a national security advisor under Mr. Rayguns before he made the mistake of being convicted of conspiracy, lying to Congress, defrauding the government, and destroying evidence in the Iran/contra scandal in 1986. But guess who pardoned him? If you said Poppy Bush, Dubya’s Daddy, you get 10 points. So Boy George, recognizing a brilliant mind when he saw one, brought Pointy back into government, where he proceeded to immediately horrify anyone remotely concerned with civil rights and democracy with his Total Information Awareness program, which would have made Josef Goebbels whinny with delight.

Unfortunately, even GOP hardliners were appalled at this second bright idea of wagering on political killings or terror attacks in the Middle East, and you didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when it was explained in all its detail. (Although they never did mention if you were allowed to bet on harm befalling the likes of Rummy, Wolfie, or George Perle during their sojourns to visit our allies among the sons of the desert.) So Pointy is handing in his cards, no doubt feeling the muzzle of Karl Rove’s six-shooter in his back as he heads out the door. But isn’t it nice to see the type of people Dubya the Dumb brings in as administration leaders? And you thought John Ashcroft was deluded and dangerous.

PRIZE QUOTE

"I think this is the worst government the US has ever had in its more than 200 years of history. It has engaged in extraordinarily irresponsible policies not only in foreign policy and economics but also in social and environmental policy. This is not normal government policy. Now is the time for [American] people to engage in civil disobedience. I think it’s time to protest — as much as possible."

— 2001 American Nobel Prize laureate for Economics George A. Akerlof, who teaches economics at the University California in Berkeley. (Maybe Mr. Akerlof should earn another Nobel for political science.)

WELCOME BACK, KIM

About 20 years ago, the Biggest Little was blessed with one of the best jazz singers anywhere. Kim Marcoux, a native of Maine, was living in Vo Dilun and playing regularly around the state at various clubs and concert venues. With a smoky, knowing voice and a unique ability to dig into a lyric, Kim was a real find. She was a favorite of many veteran jazz players in the region and worked with most of them.

Then, about 15 years ago, she disappeared from the scene. The story is that Kim had gone back to school, got a teaching degree in elementary education and, for the past decade and a half, has been educating toddlers.

We were surprised and delighted to hear from Kim last week and find out that she has been getting back to music. She wrapped up a new CD a couple of months ago, working with a guitar, bass, and drums trio (with the estimable guitar whiz Gray Sargent on board), and will be doing her first live gig in a long, long time this Sunday at an afternoon session at Narragansett’s Coast Guard House. The show is from 4 to 7 p.m. If you were fortunate enough to hear Ms. Marcoux back in the ’80s, we don’t have to tell you what to do. But if you have not had that pleasure and have the slightest interest in quality jazz, you ought to do yourself a favor. It’s a CD release party and, yes, Mr. Sargent will be there, as well as the great reed player, Dick Johnson. Don’t miss this one.

THE OTHER BUD-I FILM

Yes, we’ve all been awash in Bud-I updates due to the release this week of Mike Stanton’s long-awaited book and the New York musical. Somehow, P&J doubt that the highly touted "hit" song from the stage show, "The Ass You Kiss Today," is headed for the top of the adult contemporary charts, but what do we know? Jorge’s the guy who, along with Thom Enright, wrote the counter-renaissance tune "Providence, USA" with the opening lines, "What cheer, Netop, what the fuck you lookin’ at?" And, by the way, more information on the musical can be gleaned by checking out buddyciancithemusical.com.

But we digress. While there was a big titter about a year ago when it was announced that Biggest Little native filmmaker Michael Corrente and Robert De Niro had purchased rights for a Bud-I feature film project, the flick that Vo Dilanduhs and worldwide Bud-I-philes should be checking out is Cherry Arnold’s upcoming documentary. (Full disclosure: Jorge is a consultant on the film.)

Ms. Arnold, another Ocean State native, has established a web site, www.buddycianci.com, as a marketing and fundraising tool. She has already received three grants, two from the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities and one from the Rhode Island Council for the Arts, and is waiting on a couple more. She has been working on the film since early 2002 and has assembled an impressive array of interviews, great news file footage, and access to The Man himself before he went bye-bye.

While the longtime mayor may be currently residing in New Jersey and no longer lighting up (and lighting up at) Federal Hill boîtes on a nightly basis, one has to ask how can we miss him if he won’t go away?

LOOSE TALK

So, were the last-minute allegations about the Rev. Gene Robinson, the Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire who was elected by the entire church on Tuesday, nothing more than a desperate attempt to smear the man who would be the first openly gay bishop of the church? If so, it was pretty despicable behavior on the part of his accuser. The claims of sexual misconduct merely played into a number of still strongly held stereotypes about gay men.

Likewise, were revelations early this week that Colin Powell is angling to step down as Secretary of State if Bush is re-elected (perish the thought) something planted by his enemies to force his hand? We’ve already seen other inklings of behind-the-scenes attempts to discredit Powell, one of the few half-way reasonable figures in the current Administration. Once again, we suspect dirty dealing here.

Not so loose, however, appears to be the report from Germany that one Charles Augustus Lindbergh fathered a couple of kids on the side with a German mistress. The evidence appears to be pretty solid and, while Lindy’s biographer, Scott Berg, has his doubts, they are primarily based on Berg’s belief that such behavior would be uncharacteristic of the man. But then again, when it comes to control over "Little Lindy," who knows? Many admired, indeed, revered figures (exhibit A: Martin Luther King, Jr.) suffered from priapic weakness, so why not Lindbergh? We suspect that time will tell, and not the magazine.

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