Wiener World

The catchphrase “Only in Rhode Island” has a mostly negative connotation, generally referring to the population’s collective, unblinking acceptance of statewide cronyism, corruption, scandal and crime. But there are other times – we like to call them “Oiri” moments (think Yiddish reggae) – when it is the only way to describe the cultural oddities that abound here.

A case in point: While stuck in traffic on I-95 during last week’s squalls, I yo-yoed back and forth with a white car next to me that had two bumper stickers plastered on it. Since bumper stickers and vanity plates provide the only real reading opportunities during gridlock, I took the time to notice the odd juxtaposition. One was an Obama ’98 campaign sticker. Opposite Obama was a sticker that read:

OLYNEYVILLE
N.Y. SYSTEM
R.I.’s Best Hot Wieners

It’s a fair bet that no Obama supporters driving around the Other 49 would so proudly rank their political pride on equal terms with wiener love, but this is Rhode Island, where presidents rarely visit and wieners (sometimes spelled “weiners”) live in the pantheon of local culinary delights.

Side note: The next morning at the office I found a press release in my inbox headlined: “RHODE ISLAND DISH NAMED ONE OF THE 50 FATTIEST FOODS ACROSS THE NATION: HEALTH MAG REPORTS.”

And there, ranked with South Carolina turducken, South Dakota frybread, Texas corn dogs, Philly cheesesteaks, North Carolina livermush, Mississippi mud pie and Montana’s Rocky Mountain oysters is Rhode Island’s own N.Y. System Wieners. Here’s the profile:

Rhode Island
In the late 1930s, when father-son team Anthony and Nicholas Stevens moved to Rhode Island from Greece, by way of Brooklyn, they opened a small restaurant in the Olneyville neighborhood of Providence. The popular fare – New York System Hot Wieners – is still a regional favorite, and is imitated by vendors and eateries throughout the state.
Ingredients: A beef hot dog drenched in yellow mustard, onions, celery salt and ground-beef sauce.
Fat content: With 13 grams of fat for the hot dog and 15 grams of fat in a serving of ground beef, you’ll max out your daily recommended limit of fat; the ground-beef sauce is usually made with ultra-fatty shortening.

What Health magazine doesn’t say, of course, is that “gaggers” aren’t the only “heart attack on the plate” enjoyed regularly by Rhode Islanders. From hot-oven grinders to doughboys, coffee milk to clam cakes, spinach pie to strip pizza, stuffies to zeppoles and sausage-stuffed breads and meals using chourico (a Portuguese sausage) or Soupys (an Italian sausage), Rhode Island has enough distinctive foods to keep Health magazine in the expose business forever.

This week’s question: What is your favorite “Only in Rhode Island” moment?

[Blogger’s note: Posting early this week because of the Monday holiday. Enjoy the fireworks.]

Smith Hill vs. Jerimoth Hill

Politics and poetry don’t often mix. There are a few old salts that may still remember a white-haired Robert Frost reading the inaugural poem for John F. Kennedy on a bitterly cold day in Washington, D.C., setting the stage for the Kennedy “Camelot” myth. On the other end of the spectrum, during the George W. Bush administration, poets were invited then quickly uninvited to a poetry gala at the White House when it turned out that some of them were going to recite peace poems (or anti-war propaganda, depending on which side of the aisle you stand on).

Now, here in Little Rhody, a mini-controversy is brewing over the proposal of a state poem. Last May, Sen. Leo Blais, a Coventry Republican, filed Senate Bill No. 2175 with three of his colleagues to establish “Jerimoth Hill,” by Rhode Island poet laureate emeritus Tom Chandler, as the official poem of Rhode Island. The poem describes the highest point in Rhode Island as being unrecognizable “except by this bullet-riddled sign by the road that curves through these scraggled third growth woods that was once a grove of giant pines that were cut down for masts that were used to build ships to sail away to the rest of the world from the docks of Providence Harbor…”

“Jerimoth Hill” is a wonderfully rhythmic and wry poem that, in the Rhode Island style, finds humor and resonance in the local identity and sense of place – in this case an 812-foot bump in Foster that for years was protected from curious onlookers and hikers by a shotgun-wielding homeowner. The prologue is one phrase (“812 feet, the highest point in Rhode Island”). The poem is one sentence broken into 26 single-spaced lines that builds like a story-song (complete with refrains). It serves as a reflective celebration and respectful illumination of one aspect of the state’s quirky culture. Most importantly, there’s nothing boosterish about it, which is probably one of the reasons I like it so much.

Gov. Donald L. Carcieri, however, wasn’t sold. Still, give him points for creativity, since he expressed his veto in sonnet form:

Donald L. Carcieri
Governor
June 22, 2010

TO THE HONORABLE, THE PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE:

In accordance with the provisions of Section 14, Article IX of the Constitution of the State of Rhode Island and Section 43-1-4 of the Rhode Island General Laws, I transmit, with my disapproval, 2010 S 2175, “Relating to State Affairs and Government – State Emblems.”

State Emblems Bill Sonnet

Per Constitution and Rhode Island Law
Bill 2010 S 2175
I must disapprove since it holds a flaw.
It would by law a State Poem create.
A worthy poet had written those lines
Off’ring thoughts about a Rhode Island hill.
This famous bard would certainly decline
Since other poets were unheard from still.
For no contest was held or survey done
To find out what other poems might show.
Open process lets inspiration run
So I ask your support of this veto.

Art is not art if the state must decree.
Verses are best when we let poems be.

OK, so the sonnet veto is no improvement on the vetoed poem itself, but the idea that Rhody’s state poem should be a collective choice has merit – although one does worry that we’ll end up with some version of the unofficial University of Rhode Island fight song:

I’m Rhode Island born and Rhode Island bred
And when I die I’ll be Rhode Island dead
So go-go Rhode Island
Rho-Rho-Rhode Island
Go Rhode Island, URI!

Leading to this week’s question: What should be the designated poem of Rhode Island?

Rocky Redux

Today is the summer solstice, making it the longest day of the year. But even though there are plenty of picnics and barbecues, beach days and baseball games, fireworks and ferry rides ahead, I can’t get past the down note: Beginning tomorrow, we start losing the light.

To counter this nagging sensation, many Rhode Islanders move through summer in a mad dash, checking off quintessential experiences. Trips to Fenway and McCoy. A scenic drive to Tiverton Four Corners for an ice cream cone at Gray’s. Picking up chowder and clam cakes at George’s or Champlin’s and sitting on the jetties in Galilee watching the boats come and go. Breakfast at Jim’s Dock in Jerusalem. Pub-crawling and people-watching in Newport. Taking a picnic basket and a kite (or bocce balls) to Colt State Park in Bristol. A day of body boarding and Del’s at your favorite beach. Riding the ferry to Block Island and cycling around the Block before capping the day with drinks on the deck of The National Hotel.

The list is endless, but it’s missing something these days and this month the Warwick Art Museum reminds us what that is - Rocky Point Amusement Park. The once (and future?) land of summer leisure in Rhode Island is the subject of the museum’s latest exhibition, “Long Live Rocky Point: A Collection of Art and Artifacts,” a nostalgic thrill ride through the memories and mementos of a beloved park.

I had a chance to see the exhibition last Thursday (the trip turned into this week’s column, for those who like to follow my paper trail). In typically Rhode Island fashion, the collection is wonderfully weird and eclectic. There’s art by The Mad Peck. Dracula’s coffin top and the Darth Vader car from The House of Horrors. Stories spanning 150 years of Rocky Point goings-on that read straight out of the Weekly World News. Even a strangely familiar, “Animal Farm”-esque metal sign makes an appearance: “Management reserves the right on all decisions.” In a room crowded with TV and radio reporters and random Rhode Islanders, it was as if every photograph, comic book, token, tag, ribbon, Bingo card, postcard, ticket stub, newspaper ad, prop, sign, poster and piece of scrapbook ephemera served as a memory prompt and a conversation starter.

The day Leonard Nimoy showed up to read poetry and tried to sing. The day a woman taking a driver’s lesson just outside the park sent cars sprawling everywhere because a sea gull had flown in her window. The day the Viking statue inside the House of Horrors malfunctioned and scalped the hair off a child’s head.

Museum organizers said, only half-jokingly, that more people have already come to the Warwick Art Museum to see the Rocky Point show than visited during the previous 34 years’ worth of exhibitions combined.

The question is, with no Rocky Point around anymore, what has become the quintessential Rhode Island summer experience?

Rhody, Believe It or Not

Drivers entering Barrington along the Wampanoag Trail enjoy a New England-as-pictured-in-Yankee magazine kind of view, showing off watery Rhode Island in a long reach of river aiming toward an archetypal white steeple and a big white booster board fronting the high school athletic fields. That scene of river, road and The White Church –it’s officially the First Congregational Church but everyone in the East Bay knows it as The White Church – has a Hollywood movie set quality to it, which may be why we grew up believing the suburban legend that it was used in the opening scene of the nighttime soap opera “Peyton Place.” (Not so much, it turns out.)

We also believed the stories that the art deco-style Fleet Building (now the Bank of America Building) in Providence was the edifice that became The Daily Planet in the “Superman” TV serial. (It wasn’t, even though to this day in Rhode Island people call it “the Superman Building.”)

An old urban legend that circulated at the Rhode Island School of Design warned students not to fall into the canal, since such a plunge would dissolve your skin.

There are a number of local island legends about pirate treasure. Capt. William Kidd reportedly had gold and other valuables stashed away variously on Patience Island, Hog Island and Block Island. Thomas Tew may have left treasure somewhere in Newport. Another pirate, Charles Harris, bragged about hiding a chest full of jewels and coins under the Newport Cliffs. And supposedly there is some booty still to be found at Beavertail, if the tides and good fortune favor you.

Those of us of a certain vintage also may remember jumping out of the Olympic swimming pool at Rocky Point Amusement Park when Electric Boy dove in. The story was that the poor guy had been electrocuted while trying to climb a fence in the park and had his arms amputated as a result. But he happened to be a champion swimmer and diver, so despite his injuries he kept coming back to the park to dive off the high board in the saltwater pool, doing tricks and swimming laps. Because of his horrific accident, many kids believed that he was highly conductive and that they risked electrocution if they swam in the pool when he was in it. In this case at least, the man was real but his zapping power was a myth.

What Rhode Island urban legends do you know?

License to Shill

Around the world, people embrace certain status symbols: Diamond necklaces. Platinum cards. Rolls-Royces. Swiss bank accounts. Island getaways. In Rhode Island it’s a low-numbered license plate.

The idea that Rhode Islanders drive around checking out everyone else’s under-bumper is nothing new. It’s probably the main reason why nobody here uses directional signals. Blinkers waste time better spent counting the competition and deciphering vanity plates.

Rhody’s license plate angst is historic. Years ago the plates were black and white (instead of the state colors, blue and white) reportedly because the pols on Smith Hill were all Providence College Friars fans. Conspiracy theorists – most of them Keaney Blue-wearing University of Rhode Island Ram fans – will note that Friar colors are black and white. The fact that PC is a private college and URI is the state university added fuel to the license plate furor.

That all ended when the state finally settled on the latest incarnation of its plate – a blue wave cresting in a rectangle of white to represent the Ocean State. But following a trend that has been sweeping America, Rhody began to issue special edition plates to benefit charities. The osprey plate, promoting “Conservation Through Education,” jointly serves the Audubon Society of Rhode Island and Save The Bay. Mr. Potato Head graces the plate that supports The Rhode Island Community Food Bank. Proposed plates are in the works for the New England Patriots to aid the team’s charitable foundation and Providence WaterFire, to raise money for the popular but under-funded public art event.

Last November legislation was passed allowing for the creation of custom license plates that feature the historic Plum Beach Lighthouse. [The beacon is displayed on top of The North East Independent each week. Pt. Judith Lighthouse is the logo on the banner of The South County Independent.] It will generate revenue for the volunteer organization Friends of the Plum Beach Lighthouse, based in North Kingstown, to fund the upkeep of the structure.

In Jeremy D’Entremont’s “The Lighthouses of Rhode Island,” the author compiles various anecdotes of the “spark plug” by the Jamestown Verrazzano Bridge. One of the more bizarre notes that when the lighthouse was restored, cleaners removed 52 tons of pigeon, gull and cormorant guano – “up to four feet deep in the basement” – from inside the tower.

So New Englanders finally have an answer to the question, “Can there ever be too much lighthouse information?”

This week’s other question: What should be Rhode Island’s next specialty license plate?

Devil Wears Provda

Providence may never be confused with Milan, Paris, Manhattan or London. But at least the city is trying to dress the part.

The first-ever fashion week in Rhode Island’s capital city will take place June 6-12 with two invitation-only runway shows per day scheduled for the Marriott Providence, the Renaissance Providence Hotel and the Hotel Providence. A series of free receptions following the shows will allow members of the public to meet the designers and see creations up-close. In all, the work of 16 designers from New York, New England and "Elsewhere" will be featured (what Anonymous is to Biography, Elsewhere is to Geography) – including Woonsocket native and “Project Runway” contestant Jonathan Joseph Peters and at least one Rhode Island School of Design graduate.

The event is called StyleWeek Providence. Explaining the reason for bringing haute couture to DownCity, StyleWeek founder Rosanna Ortiz Sineal, a senior vice president at the Providence public relations firm Miamore Communications, was quoted in the ProJo as saying:

I just noticed that fashion events in New England are not taken seriously. I wanted to use Providence as a canvas to focus on the business of fashion.

Not to rain on the fashion parade, but methinks there is a reason why "fashion events in New England" are not taken seriously. Because nobody around here really cares whether their lime green purse was so last season or whether ruffled shirts accessorized by live parrots and eye patches are back in style. This tends to be a place that prefers things that last to things that are trendy. We've got Colonial houses still standing from the 1700s and Pilgrim hats good for any occasion that look as if they've never been out of the box.

So go enjoy yourself looking at the "glammuh" next week, but just remember that in these parts a faded Red Sox cap and a pair of Keens can get you through a whole summer.

The question is: How would you describe Rhode Island style?

Slogans R Us

Good piece by Cynthia Needham of the ProJo last Wednesday on Rhode Island’s Sisyphean efforts to brand itself to the world. Most of the ad campaigns, as the reporter points out, have been dismal failures. Consider:

“The biggest little state in the union” was meant to build state pride, which was never lacking in the first place.
“America’s First Resort” was geared toward attracting the upscale traveler to our mansions and yacht-saturated waters. A better bet might have been pitching “America’s Last Resort” to the downscale traveler interested in our duckpin bowling alleys, mini-golf courses and weiner joints.
“Rhode Island - Our People Make Us Great” was the slogan of choice preferred by former Gov. Edward DiPrete, who eventually pled guilty to charges of bribery, extortion and racketeering.
“Unwind in Rhode Island” was an appeal to daytrippers. The campaign featured lush photos of coastal drives and rides on back roads through orchards and woods crowned in brilliant foliage. It was undermined by “Rewind in Rhode Island,” the state’s “Groundhog Day” problems with never-ending road construction and potholes the size of small galaxies.
“400 Miles of Rest Stops Ahead” was another pitch to the road tripper. Enticements included photos of couples lounging on white sand beaches near gently curling blue waves. Unfortunately, most people reading the ad thought it meant how long they still had to go in order to get to Maine.
Then the call went out to families. The picture changed to a kid happily playing in the surf, accompanied by the words: “This Summer, Put Your Kids Through the Rinse Cycle.” Yeah. It’s always a good idea to alienate your customers by insinuating that they have dirty kids.

Needless to say, none of Rhody’s slogans lasted long.

It’s not entirely the fault of marketing. Distilling the essence of Rhode Island to a bumper sticker sized phrase is a metaphysical impossibility. Another problem: There can only be one “I (Heart) New York.” “I (Heart) RI,” in addition to being derivative, doesn’t have the same cachet. And with the heart already taken, the rebus approach is probably not the way to go – although “Think RI,” expressed as “I (Light Bulb) RI” has a certain Edisonian cognitive charm.

Other possibilities:
“Rhode Island: We Are What We Are.”
“Rhode Island: New England Atmosphere, New York Attitude.”
“Got Fun? Rhody-Size It.”
“Rhode Island: Not for nothin’ but we need your money.”

Actually if I were “Mad Men”-ing this thing, I’d go with a series of simple, elegant, single panel photographs (culminating in 365 images overall, one for each day of the year) showing iconic Rhody scenes, with the slogan - “Rhode Island: Wicked Awesome.”

Short. Sweet. Colloquially correct. Got your wicked. Got your awesome. What else do you need?

This week’s question: What would be a good slogan for Rhode Island?

(Note: Early blog this week because of Monday travels, and next week there will be no Monday blog since your friendly neighborhood Monday blogger plans to be in a kayak or on a tennis court or at the beach or in the pub or all of the above, in no particular order. Check back after Memorial Day.)