Playboy of the Western world

A hilarious tale is told in regard to our mention last week of US Senator Jack Reed’s wedding being the featured ceremony in the New York Times’ wedding section of the previous Sunday.

Phillipe & Jorge happened to be speaking with Jack’s spokesman on another topic when he said he had a great story to share. The Times reporter who did the wedding piece had been getting pertinent information about the event and the happy couple, all the better to provide the text accompanying the large photo. During the conversation, the reporter asked, "Well, Senator Reed has quite a reputation as a playboy, doesn’t he?" This came as a surprise, since Little Big Man makes an Eagle Scout look like a Hell’s Angel. It turns out the Times scribe had come across an item while doing research that said Jack had gone out with Paris Hilton and Winona Ryder. The source? None other than the Providence Phoenix. That proves it, as we like to say. Naturally, the Reed staffer put her wise immediately.

When the writer Googled information for the piece, one of the results was a "Cool, Cool World" item that had appeared when the good senator announced his engagement to his new wife, Julia. Playing off Jack’s well-known straight arrow rep, your superior correspondents absurdly suggested that the Washington, DC, scene would lose one of its most famous party animals, who stayed out all night long drinking Champagne and howling at the moon with a celebrity entourage. Fortunately, his staff, P&J suggested, would at least be happy, since they wouldn’t have to sneak hotties like Paris and Winona down the back stairs from Reed’s apartment in the wee hours to avoid the paparazzi outside the front of the building anymore. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

It’s good to know that all of P&J’s writings are taken as gospel, so yes, you should believe from our past pieces on the Casa Diablo New Year’s Party that Linc "Bigfoot" Almond used to swing from the chandelier, Bruce "Captain Blowhard" Sundlun lost his teeth in the Pernod and grapefruit punch bowl while bobbing for sushi, and that JARheads Patrice Wood and Doug White were once caught making out in the Boom Boom Room, with Doug wearing "Holly’s" pantyhose over his famous hairdo.

We are as gods of journalism.

WILD, WILD WEST

Yes, your superior correspondents have found our favorite New Republican. A "New Republican" can be distinguished from an "Old Republican" by his or her values. For instance, the old Republicans believe in things like fiscal responsibility and smaller government, with an emphasis on local control (think John McCain, Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe). The new Republicans, however, believe in hypocrisy, perversity, and an attraction to the sort of bizarre hairdos that one would expect to find on a television anchor in Sandusky, Ohio (think any high official in the Bush Administration or its friends in Congress, Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, Trent Lott).

Meet James West, mayor of Spokane, Washington. A longtime political powerhouse in the Northwest (prior to becoming mayor, he spent 20 years in the state legislature, eventually becoming leader of the Senate), Mayor West has more recently morphed into someone trolling on the gay.com Web site, allegedly offering some of the fruits of his public office as an enticement.

P&J’s attitude about the sexual orientation of someone in public office is generally pretty simple: we’d like to see quite a few more superior behaviorists in office. This is because it might cause some of the flourishing moronic homophobia to subside, since people would come to the startling revelation that trans, bi, gay, and lesbian folks are JUST LIKE US. In fact, they are us.

Back to Jimmy West. In his long political career, West has been a staunch opponent of virtually all gay-rights initiatives. He went so far as insisting that a resolution praising women of all races and sexual orientations, proposed for an International Woman’s Day celebration, would not pass if the reference to orientation was left intact.

Persistent speculation about Jimbo’s own sexual proclivities (such as a rumor that he had molested two boys 25 years ago, when he was a Scout leader) prompted a local paper, the Spokesman-Review, to hire a forensic computer expert, basically, to entrap West. This was accomplished by having the expert create the fake online persona of a 17-year-old gay male, to see if West could be lured into online chats. Not only did West chat up the fake lad, he told his on-line bud, after revealing his own identity, that he had a lot of sports memorabilia in his office for him and could arrange for the young man to become an intern. They just needed to be a little friendlier.

P&J can’t say that we greatly admire the Spokesman-Review for the way it played this (although, compared to what our federal government does daily in terms of violating people’s privacy and civil rights, this is ring around the rosy stuff). More to the point: West is a complete hypocrite, a hate-monger, and, it would seem, a self-loathing gay or bi man. Oh yeah, and get this: while acknowledging that he had mulled homosexual relationships online, West has vowed to the press that he will not relinquish his office (he subsequently decided to take a leave). In short, James West is a New Republican icon. Congratulations.

PIMP MY BUS RIDE

The esteemed Tom Sgouros, Phillipe & Jorge’s old pal, sent us an envelope with a handful of the now infamous "Rhode Island Official" car windshield stickers, a spaccone must-have here in the Biggest Little. The only thing better to show you know somebody who knows somebody is a low-numbered license plate.

However, as Tom points out, this Vo Dilun "peacock plumage" is of little use to those of the great unwashed who ride the bus. Then again, how can you really be somebody who knows somebody when RIPTA is your ride? As Mr. Sgouros notes, "It seems that once again our state is overlooking the needs of bus riders . . . . Hope these will help the car-less compete."

Many thanks, Tom. For your own "Rhode Island Official" bus rider decal (which you can apply to your forehead before boarding one of RIPTA’s finest), contact us at p&j[a]phx.com. The stickers are free, but wire us $500 for shipping and handling if you want that table at Capriccio, or we may forget to send them out. (OK, yes, the sticker will be on backward, but they will look fine in the driver’s rear view mirror and impress him or her greatly, no doubt)

WHAT’S A PO’ BOY TO DO?

Heartbreak at Casa Diablo upon learning that Uglesich’s in New Orleans, one of the best and coolest restaurants in America, is closing its doors.

P&J have dined there many times, enjoying the view under looking the interstate on Barrone Street, on the restaurant’s corner next to a vacant filling station and empty lot. The food, with Gulf shrimp and oysters as centerpieces, abetted by po’ boys, fried green tomatoes, and other N’Awlins delights, brings in a clientele that has to be seen to be believed. P&J once observed Henry Louis Gates, Harvard’s famed cultural historian, patiently waiting in line outside Uglesich’s (as does everyone — such is the demand for a seat at the tiny joint). But you are just as likely to see local construction workers. No velvet rope high-hatting here. Uglesich’s was a place where the best way to order, we found, was to say, "Give us two-dozen oysters and enough food for four." You’d then wait at an outside table in the sun, downing the oysters with a justly famed bloody Mary while awaiting the surprise meal, which never failed to please.

Give us a couple cold Abita and Dixie beers when the food comes, if you’d be so kind. Amen.

RUNAWAY PRESS

Have we seen the last of Jennifer Wilbanks, the "runaway bride"? We certainly hope so, but the way overly long shelf life of this story has already heaped piles of disgrace on the news business in general. All mediums are guilty of pandering in the first degree.

What did you learn from the runaway bride story, dear readers? P&J came out of it with the knowledge that there is a Duluth in Georgia. We think that’s about it.

Yes, when someone disappears, it’s a serious news story. And, when that person returns and it is discovered that the missing person was not murdered, was not kidnapped, and, in fact, had run away, that is also part of the story. At this point, "The everybody in the hometown is pissed at Jennifer," and "She will have to reimburse the sheriff’s department" stories should be relegated to page B-20.

But nooooo! A battalion of reporters stayed on the case when it was not even a story, so we eventually got stuff we don’t need or don’t want to learn: Ms. Runaway Bride is supposedly frustrated because the soon-to-be (if he doesn’t wise up here) Mr. Runaway Bride is a "born-again virgin" who will not engage in pre-marital sex with her. That was some fine enterprise reporting that gave us this massive non-story.

Last Friday, May 6, the Rhode Island Press Association held its annual awards banquet in Providence. P&J were sitting at the Phoenix table across from veteran Vo Dilun reporter Brian C. Jones. The runaway bride non-story came up, and almost in unison, Mr. Jones and P&J blurted out that the only dignified thing for a reporter to do, at the point where the "story" had become about the sexual relationship, would be to call up his/her editor and say that’s it, there’s no story here any longer.

RIPE FOR RIPA

Since we mentioned the Rhode Island Press Association awards, your superior correspondents would like to note that the Phoenix won a handful this year. Congratulations in particular go to Tim Lehnert whose story about pawnshops ("Pawns in the game") in the edition of April 23, 2004, took a first-place prize for feature writing. Beth Schwartzapfel nabbed third-place in features for her story ("Between two worlds," September 3, 2004) about Southeast Asian immigrants in Rhode Island. The aforementioned Brian C. Jones landed a third-place news award for his February 13, 2004, report on Rhode Island day care workers’ campaign to unionize and the resistance they received from Governor Carcieri. And finally, Phoenix news editor Ian Donnis garnered an honorable mention in the news category award for "Mission possible: the GOP targets Smith Hill" (January 30, 2004), and third-place in the personality profile category for "What makes Steve Laffey run?" (July 23, 2004).

It was a wonderful night honoring, in particular, the great work being done at many of the state’s smaller newspapers. Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline gave a brief address after dinner and fielded some questions from the audience. He gave some of the most melodious and articulate non-answer-answers we have ever heard. The only mystery of the evening was what Jim Gillis of the Newport Daily News was carrying in his left pants pocket. Whatever it was, one would have thought the Homeland Security people should have been called in to investigate.

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