The Agenda

By Ted Rao

The
"Greatest Spin-Doctor in Providence" award must surely go to Providence Public
Library Director Dale Thompson. Thompson, famous for her branch "restructuring"
program last year, a term which served as an umbrella for such other niceties
such as "layoffs," "union-busting," and "administrative pay-raises," recently
wrote the oh-so-rosiest of letters-to-the-editor to the Providence Journal last Monday. In a piece of spin that would make
Scott McClellan salivate, Thompson thanked city officials such as Mayor David
Cicilline and City Council Majority Leader Luis Aponte, for their "tremendous
and immediate outpouring of support" in closing the Washington Park Branch on
Broad Street. Roof and structural damage were cited as the reasons for the
branch's closing, which is understandable. Yet the Library Administrators gave
a scant three-day notice of the
branch's closing, which hardly gives the branch employees, residents of the community,
and above all city officials enough time to digest this news, much less prepare
for alternative plans for themselves and their children that rely on the
services that the branch provides. This is a branch that circulated 17,400
materials last year, including 13,200 books. Patrons logged onto computers
10,450 times. And yet, these patrons were given only three days' notice of its closing. The point? Cicilline and Aponte's "tremendous and immediate
outpouring of support" surely came only as a result of being railroaded into a
situation in which they had little to no foreknowledge and thus were powerless
to do anything about it. Yet her letter makes it seem as if she, in her
infinite wisdom, descended from Library Heaven, fully ordained with the knowledge
and benevolence for which we should be eternally grateful. Rubbish! Pish-Paw! Pish-Posh-Peter-Tosh!

Fortunately,
thanks to Councilman Aponte, who represents that ward, The Washington Park
Foundation will be able to be used for certain library projects such as after
school and early literacy programs while a new location is being found. Yet the
mismanagement of the institution as a whole needs to be addressed, and fast.
Bottom line: This woman needs to go, or at least be strongly reminded that she is a public
servant, not an autocratic dictator. As
was echoed by numerous city council members earlier this month, there needs to
be better representation on the library's Board of Trustees from the city and
its residents, from which the library receives three million dollars a year, equalling one-third of its total funding. Clearly, the needs and concerns of
the community are not be met by holding the occasional public meeting. There
needs to be open spots on the Board of Trustees for city officials and residents
to voice their opinions and cast an actual vote. Did I mention that she makes
more than the Governor of Rhode Fucking
Island?! Under her leadership (sic), what was once a heartwarming and
wonderful institution that every resident could be proud of has degenerated
into an environment of suspicion and mistrust, fraught with attempts at
union-busting, downsizing, and physical restructuring of some of the most
beautiful aspects of these historic buildings. The changing of the Central
Library's primary collection into a "popular titles" branch only serves as a
grand analogy for the dumbing-down that the library has experienced during her
tenure. Perhaps the Washington Park Branch could have been renovated properly,
had the library not been spending so much of its money hiring anti-union
consultants to combat the employees' wishes to organize, which they were
thankfully able to do in spite of Thompson's efforts. Dammit, I'm so upset that
I could ... kick a squirrel, if only I could catch
the sneaky motherfuckers! At least Cynthia Reed still works there. By the
way Cyn, if you're reading this; well, I'd rather not say it out loud, but
maybe I could put it to you in a special kind of ... code. "DELETE OVERDUE FINES NOW." There, that's sufficiently
cryptic. Onward.

 

How
and where did Trixie the Polar Bear expire? - Lori Ann Stone

Trixie,
the polar bear who was born in captivity and had resided at the Roger Williams
Park Zoo since 1989, died at the zoo on May 2nd, 2005, as she was being
prepared to be moved to the Indianapolis Zoo and Gardens, to be reunited with
two of the four cubs she gave birth to during her lifetime. Yet as she was
being put under sedation for the trip, she died suddenly. Boom. Just like that.
The zoo's staff soon performed a necropsy-a type of animal autopsy-that yielded
no clues as to the reason of her sudden death. The zoo's staff were stunned.
The odd thing is that Trixie was in seemingly perfect health, which makes her
sudden demise kind of a mystery, if you ask me, which you did. Yet I don't suspect
foul play. I dunno, I guess if someone wanted to relocate me to Indiana from Providence, I'd at least feign a heart attack to keep it from happening. The Midwest ... corn,
flat land, weird, near-perfect grammar ... freaks me the fuck out.

I'm curious if you knew what those strange rock sculptures were that are found
on the East Side. They are generally rectangular with a large circle in the
middle. There is one near the corner of John and Brook and one on the corner of
Governor and Pitman. Are they portals to other dimensions? Early American
jungle gyms? Lazy tunnels? - Brian Oakley

Lazy
Tunnels? Sounds like the newest addition to the Corleone Records catalog. I'll
bet they sound a little like "BBLLLARRRR BLLLARRRR CRASHHH CRASH!!!
PISSEDPISSED!!!!! RRRROOOAAARRRR!!!!!" Yeah. Anyway, the rock sculptures are
... (drum roll) OLD SIDEWALKS! And
the circle in the middle is ... A MANHOLE! How about that? They harken back to
the days when Providence's sidewalks were made of granite instead of concrete.
I'm not exactly sure when that changed, or when they were put up, but that's
definitely what they are. My esteemed publisher and I were standing in front of
the Governor Street location, scratching our heads wondering exactly what it
was, when this union pipe-fitter guy pointed to it and said "It's a manhole.
From a sidewalk." It was as if he had parted the Red Sea in front of our eyes.
We seriously almost kissed him on the mouth. But took his picture instead.

 

Do
you know how Alan Shawn Feinstein made his fortune? Is there any truth to the
accusation that he amassed his wealth from bunk mail order scams to people of
our grandparents' generation? Cheers. - Penny

Alan
Shawn Feinstein actually engaged in a mass-media blitz to convince the entire
state that he was some kind of philanthropist. In all actuality, he lives in a
two-bedroom apartment on Public Street in Providence's South Side and takes
great enjoyment in the number of people he's been able to bullshit into writing
his inane quotes about ending hunger and becoming smart on the sides of
buildings.

Okay,
that's not true. Yes, mailorder is indeed how Feinstein made his millions, but
I wouldn't necessarily call it a scam. Raised in Dorchester, Massachusetts,
Feinstein studied economics and journalism at Boston University, and later
worked as a schoolteacher. He published a novel before moving to his wife's
homeland in Bangkok, Thailand. The couple relocated with their children to
Rhode Island in 1968, and in the 1970s he began a career in direct mailorder,
publishing small books and pamphlets titled How
To Get Rich in Mail Order and The
Greatest Direct Mail Newsletter. He would purchase names and addresses for
about $50 per thousand names, eventually amassing several million potential
customers, to whom he would sell collectibles in his publications such as The Wealth Maker and International Insider's Report.

Years
later, Feinstein began his work in philanthropy, first by offering $1 Million
to Brown University in 1985 to fight hunger, or "hun-gah," as Feinstein pronounces
it. A few years later, when the Viking Orbiter Mission had picked up a picture
of rock formations on the surface of Mars, there was wide speculation that the
formations, which resembled a face, were made by extraterrestrials, thus
showing evidence of life on the planet. Feinstein was intrigued, and went about
making a commemorative stamp, working a deal with the government of Sierra
Leone, who agreed to put its country's name on Feinstein's 1990 "Face on Mars"
stamp for a fee. Feinstein sold the stamp sets through mailorder for $135,
pitching the set as a collectible that could potentially explode in value once
life was discovered on the Red Planet. Feinstein won't say exactly how much he
made on the Sierra Leone stamp, but concedes that he made "a great deal of
money," so reported the Providence
Journal last year. With that money, he started the Feinstein Foundation,
left the newsletter business altogether in 1996, and has since been able to
raise some $250 Million through his various organizations. Now, there is some degree of controversy regarding
this Mars-Stamp business, since reputed stamp-collecting authorities have
commented that the "Face on Mars" set is essentially worthless. Moreover,
Feinstein is notoriously reluctant to discuss how he amassed his fortune most
of the time, since direct mailorder does have
a certain negative connotation to it. But whatever. He probably does more good
deeds before nine a.m. than most of us do all year, so God bless 'im. But damn,
is he obsessed with writing those quotes on the sides of buildings or what? And
that accent! That shit could scare Ted Kennedy away!

 

Is
there talk of lifting the overnight parking ban in Providence? - Winsor P.

Holy
Shit, is there??!! Well, according to my source at City Planning, there is, but
before I get into that, let me talk about how the existing overnight parking
law has changed.

Up
until recently, the law was that on-street parking was banned between the hours
of 1 a.m. and 7 a.m. The police protocol was to spot the car, and eventually
ticket it if the vehicle was still present two hours later. Seems kind of
silly. So recently the law was changed to simplify the process a bit. Now,
on-street parking is only illegal between 3 and 6 a.m., but an officer on
patrol only has to spot your car once,
rather than have to wait to see if you're still there two hours later. This
seems more reasonable, and certainly less redundant. Yet for some reason, the
tags still say 1 a.m. to 7 a.m.. I know, since I get tagged about once every
two days. But apparently, that's the new rule, Providence's ever-present vagary
(vague-iosity? vague-erence?) [Vagueness.
-Ed.] notwithstanding.

Anyhow,
regarding plans for on-street overnight parking, a pilot program is in the
works in the Washington Park section of town which would allow residents to
purchase a $25 sticker enabling them to park their car legally overnight. City
Planning hopes that this program will take effect by April of this year.
Eventually, other neighborhoods will be added in, one of which will be in the
West Broadway area, and possibly the Hartford and South Side neighborhoods as
well. There are structural concerns, such as installing signs on streets, that
make the need for incrementalism more apparent when you think of it. The
program will run until June 30th, 2007, the end of the city's fiscal year, at
which time it will be reviewed. So there. You heard it here first. So long as
you don't read the Phoenix. Shit. By
the way, what the hell will Judge Caprio do with himself when there are no parking
tickets? For that matter, what will the city do for revenue? Maybe a nice
property tax increase. We haven't tried that one in a while.

 

Could
you please tell me about the huge abandoned house that sits diagonally across
from Julian's Restaurant on Broadway near the corner of Vinton Street? - Melanie Fuest

At
299 Broadway sits (or rests, rather) The J. B. Barnaby House, which many feel
to be the most impressive mansion on the street, and the one most people I know
would like to get a look inside of. First constructed in 1875, this elaborate 2
½ story mansion was later enlarged in 1885 with the addition of a four-story,
twelve-sided tower featuring a conservatory and stained glass. The building is
a great example of "stick-style" architecture, The building's initial owner, J.
B. Barnaby, owned one of the largest ready-to-wear stores in the world at the
time, in a building that still stands at 180-204 Dorrance Street downtown. He
also ran for Governor of Rhode Island in 1877 and was a prominent figure in the
National Democratic Committee, but remember, that's when the Democrats were the
bad guys, at least in my book
(publication date: 2010). Yet the story really
gets juicy in 1889, when Barnaby's wife was poisoned by her doctor, who
sent her a bottle of whiskey that was laced with arsenic. A nationally renowned
murder trial ensued, which spawned a book entitled Death in the Mail. Damn. Anyhow, after Barnaby, the house was
purchased by Mr. Charles Eddy, a prominent manufacturer and street namer-after.
Thanks to the Providence Preservation Society for help with this one.

Okay,
that's it for this issue. Yet before I go, I am happy to point out that two of
Providence's musical luminaries, Mr. Jack McKenna of Backwash, Mother
Jefferson, and the Swank fame, and the one-and-only Mark Stone, from the mighty
Medicine Ball, recently offered me their
Top Ten Favorite Providence Bands of All Time lists, and I couldn't be more
pleased. "Catch 'em while they're drunk" seems to be a modus op that has served
me well. Thanks again, and remember to e-mail your questions (or anything else)
at iamprov@gmail.com.

Jack McKenna:
10. The Masons
9. Plymouth Rock
8. Velvet Crush
7. Electric Blanket
6. Boss Fuel
5. small factory
4. Thee Hydrogen Terrors
3. Coat of Arms
2. Scarce (with Jud Ehrbar)
1. Medicine Ball (with Pete Phillips)

Mark Stone (note: list is based solely on strength of recorded output):
10. Yuhboys
9. Rash of Stabbings
8. Von Ryan's Express
7. The Amoebic Ensemble
6. Coat of Arms
5. small factory
4. Plan 9
3. Combustible Edison
2. Medicine Ball
1. Velvet Crush

Honorable Mention: The Probers, Ashley Von Hurter & The Haters, Backwash, The Masons,
The Delinquents