Monday, February 13, 2012
Monday, February 6, 2012
Wiener Love
A little blog-on-blog love today, as Half Shell gives props to Fork in the Rhode, an Ocean State food blog, for its annual ranking of the top 10 New York System Wieners in Rhode Island.
Nice to see they included Rod’s Grill, my wiener local, in Warren. No surprise that the West Warwick wiener joints of Ferrucci’s Original New York System and Nick’s New York System made the list, along with the Providence classic, Olneyville N.Y. System. Three Warwick locales are featured, including perennial favorites Cosmic Steak, Pizza & Wieners, along with Sam’s New York System and Timmy’s Restaurant. The Cranston standby Wein-O-Rama also returned to the top 10, which this year extended a long arm to Ben’s Chili Dogs of Newport and Santoro’s Pizza of Coventry.
Fork in the Rhode’s RhodeCrew and 48 other judges visited 50 wiener joints around the state to make their selections. All wieners were ordered “all the way,” as they should be, (meaning dressed with meat sauce, chopped onion, mustard and celery salt). Each individual wiener was scored based on the following categories: Appearance, Steamed Bun, Wiener Texture, Meat Sauce, Onions and the vampiric-sounding Overall One-Bite Taste.
South County was shut out, even though locals have plenty of wiener options. On the other side of the parking lot from the Independent offices, Jessica’s Quick Rick’s serves them, while just down the road Kingston Pizza (the long-ago Anton’s on the back side of the Peace Dale Flats rotary) advertises “WILD WIENER WEDNESDAYS!” Even the University of Rhode Island is well-stocked, wiener-wise, with a handful of establishments in the Kingston Emporium offering them. Last week, prior to an interview at URI Theatre, I stopped in at Albie’s Place as a young man next to me asked for “nine wieners all the way.” The cook didn’t even blink at the request.
Fork in the Rhode, founded by bloggers David Newell, Scott Friedman and David Tagliatela, was created to cultivate a greater appreciation for Rhody’s unique cuisine (most of which involves wieners, clams, coffee, fried dough or some combination) and ordinary places (diners, pubs, greasy spoons, clam shacks, grinder joints, pizza houses and the like) in which you can partake in the Rhodyliciousness of it all – the dives and drive-ins and stay-a-long-times that are a staple of the Rhody gastronomic landscape. It’s a worthy quest. Here’s hoping Fork will one day consider Half Shell as a wiener judge. We would be humbled and honored to serve. All we ask is a coffee milk chaser to go.
Where can you find the best wieners in Rhode Island?
Nice to see they included Rod’s Grill, my wiener local, in Warren. No surprise that the West Warwick wiener joints of Ferrucci’s Original New York System and Nick’s New York System made the list, along with the Providence classic, Olneyville N.Y. System. Three Warwick locales are featured, including perennial favorites Cosmic Steak, Pizza & Wieners, along with Sam’s New York System and Timmy’s Restaurant. The Cranston standby Wein-O-Rama also returned to the top 10, which this year extended a long arm to Ben’s Chili Dogs of Newport and Santoro’s Pizza of Coventry.
Fork in the Rhode’s RhodeCrew and 48 other judges visited 50 wiener joints around the state to make their selections. All wieners were ordered “all the way,” as they should be, (meaning dressed with meat sauce, chopped onion, mustard and celery salt). Each individual wiener was scored based on the following categories: Appearance, Steamed Bun, Wiener Texture, Meat Sauce, Onions and the vampiric-sounding Overall One-Bite Taste.
South County was shut out, even though locals have plenty of wiener options. On the other side of the parking lot from the Independent offices, Jessica’s Quick Rick’s serves them, while just down the road Kingston Pizza (the long-ago Anton’s on the back side of the Peace Dale Flats rotary) advertises “WILD WIENER WEDNESDAYS!” Even the University of Rhode Island is well-stocked, wiener-wise, with a handful of establishments in the Kingston Emporium offering them. Last week, prior to an interview at URI Theatre, I stopped in at Albie’s Place as a young man next to me asked for “nine wieners all the way.” The cook didn’t even blink at the request.
Fork in the Rhode, founded by bloggers David Newell, Scott Friedman and David Tagliatela, was created to cultivate a greater appreciation for Rhody’s unique cuisine (most of which involves wieners, clams, coffee, fried dough or some combination) and ordinary places (diners, pubs, greasy spoons, clam shacks, grinder joints, pizza houses and the like) in which you can partake in the Rhodyliciousness of it all – the dives and drive-ins and stay-a-long-times that are a staple of the Rhody gastronomic landscape. It’s a worthy quest. Here’s hoping Fork will one day consider Half Shell as a wiener judge. We would be humbled and honored to serve. All we ask is a coffee milk chaser to go.
Where can you find the best wieners in Rhode Island?
Monday, January 30, 2012
Howdy Doody Time Warp
While talking with Rhode Island marionette artist extraordinaire Dan Butterworth last week, I was reminded of an odd, only-in-Rhode Island conversation I had more than a decade ago during a visit to Westerly.
Sparking the memory, the puppet master from Pascoag related a story about Howdy Doody, America’s first puppet star. The unlikely TV celebrity got his start in 1947 on a show produced at NBC at Rockefeller Center. The people who first worked on the show didn’t really know puppeteering and didn’t expect the series to be such a hit. When it became a success, Howdy went Hollywood, where producers hired professional manipulators, aiming for a slicker, more polished puppet. According to Butterworth:
Flashback to Westerly, circa 1999. I was walking by The Washington Trust building downtown, near the Pawcatuck River, when a man nearby pointed to the bank and said:
“Howdy Doody’s trapped in there.”
I looked at him blankly.
“You know the puppet? Howdy Doody?”
I told him I had heard of him.
“They’ve got him in a bank vault in there. He’s being held for safe keeping until they can settle a lawsuit.”
“Howdy Doody?”
“The original Howdy Doody. He’s been stuck in a bank vault in Westerly for over a year now.”
As it turns out, the stranger was telling the truth. Howdy Doody spent more than a year of incarceration in a Westerly bank vault, the victim of a custody dispute. After the death of Buffalo Bob Smith, who hosted the show, providing Howdy’s original voice, a legal battle erupted between the heirs of Smith and Rufus Rose, one of the original puppeteers, and a museum, the Detroit Institute of Arts, to which Howdy Doody had been bequeathed. The puppet’s saga made headlines around the world. One of the better ones was “Original Howdy in Deep Doody.”
During one day of the deposition, a puppetmaker named Alan Semok, who had worked on the first Howdy marionette, was asked to unseal a trap door on the back of the puppet’s head. According to Wikipedia:
Back when I was in college, a satirical, LA-based TV show called “Fridays” used to spoof Howdy Doody. It featured a voiceover by Larry David (of “Seinfeld” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm” fame). Howdy Doody, never actually seen on camera, was presented from the camera’s point of view as the stereotypical Hollywood celebrity, always being fawned over wherever he goes. In the inaugural sketch, David plays a plastic surgeon who agrees to give a patient (Bruce Mahler) the face of celebrity – turning him into Howdy Doody. Next we see scenes from Howdy’s viewpoint as he enters various locations in his distinctive, staggering, herky-jerky style, while David would be heard fawning: “Good morning, Mr. Doody. How are you, Mr. Doody. Nice to see you, Mr. Doody.” Great stuff from a sketch comedy series that is severely underrated in the annals of TV history. (The same folks did a brilliant breaking news segment on the brutal practice of “Muppet bashing” on southern California beaches. So they had the puppet demographic covered.)
This week’s question: What was the strangest Rhode Island court case?
Sparking the memory, the puppet master from Pascoag related a story about Howdy Doody, America’s first puppet star. The unlikely TV celebrity got his start in 1947 on a show produced at NBC at Rockefeller Center. The people who first worked on the show didn’t really know puppeteering and didn’t expect the series to be such a hit. When it became a success, Howdy went Hollywood, where producers hired professional manipulators, aiming for a slicker, more polished puppet. According to Butterworth:
They quickly found out that the people didn’t want that. That wasn’t Howdy Doody. So in the parlance of puppetry, “Howdy Doodying” means to just bang the puppet around.
Flashback to Westerly, circa 1999. I was walking by The Washington Trust building downtown, near the Pawcatuck River, when a man nearby pointed to the bank and said:
“Howdy Doody’s trapped in there.”
I looked at him blankly.
“You know the puppet? Howdy Doody?”
I told him I had heard of him.
“They’ve got him in a bank vault in there. He’s being held for safe keeping until they can settle a lawsuit.”
“Howdy Doody?”
“The original Howdy Doody. He’s been stuck in a bank vault in Westerly for over a year now.”
As it turns out, the stranger was telling the truth. Howdy Doody spent more than a year of incarceration in a Westerly bank vault, the victim of a custody dispute. After the death of Buffalo Bob Smith, who hosted the show, providing Howdy’s original voice, a legal battle erupted between the heirs of Smith and Rufus Rose, one of the original puppeteers, and a museum, the Detroit Institute of Arts, to which Howdy Doody had been bequeathed. The puppet’s saga made headlines around the world. One of the better ones was “Original Howdy in Deep Doody.”
During one day of the deposition, a puppetmaker named Alan Semok, who had worked on the first Howdy marionette, was asked to unseal a trap door on the back of the puppet’s head. According to Wikipedia:
Velma Dawson, the puppet’s original builder, who was 88 years of age at the time of the deposition, was present and given the opportunity to examine the inside of the head in an effort to verify that the puppet in question was the original that she created. Despite 50 years of numerous repairs, repaints, and replaced body parts, Dawson eventually declared the head of the puppet to be the one she originally made in 1947. The Detroit Institute [of] Arts, which has one of the largest collections of historically significant puppets in North America, ultimately prevailed in the case and now has custody of the original Howdy.
Back when I was in college, a satirical, LA-based TV show called “Fridays” used to spoof Howdy Doody. It featured a voiceover by Larry David (of “Seinfeld” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm” fame). Howdy Doody, never actually seen on camera, was presented from the camera’s point of view as the stereotypical Hollywood celebrity, always being fawned over wherever he goes. In the inaugural sketch, David plays a plastic surgeon who agrees to give a patient (Bruce Mahler) the face of celebrity – turning him into Howdy Doody. Next we see scenes from Howdy’s viewpoint as he enters various locations in his distinctive, staggering, herky-jerky style, while David would be heard fawning: “Good morning, Mr. Doody. How are you, Mr. Doody. Nice to see you, Mr. Doody.” Great stuff from a sketch comedy series that is severely underrated in the annals of TV history. (The same folks did a brilliant breaking news segment on the brutal practice of “Muppet bashing” on southern California beaches. So they had the puppet demographic covered.)
This week’s question: What was the strangest Rhode Island court case?
Monday, January 23, 2012
White Out
Apparently, reports of the death of Old Man Winter were greatly exaggerated. Last Thursday’s overnight snowfall followed by Saturday’s all-day white-out left New Englanders with the sense that the universe had righted itself again – a feeling accentuated by yesterday’s victory/escape by the New England Patriots over the Baltimore Ravens sending the home team back to the Super Bowl for the fifth time during the Belichick/Brady era.
A weekend of bunkering, shoveling, football and stew cooking – Narragansett porter turns out to be a good water substitute when simmering in combination with pork, potatoes, carrots, onions and garlic – felt like Rhode Island in January again. So maybe those fat backyard squirrels (referenced in a previous blog) were onto something after all. (One is pictured here indulging in a bit of leftover fruit from the compost pile at my parents’ property in Barrington, courtesy of a photo taken pre-snowstorm from my sister, Kai, visiting from England.)
For nature lovers, one of the signature signs of a Rhode Island January is the sighting of snowy owls. According to the Audubon Society of Rhode Island’s “bird alert,” one has been spotted for the past couple of weeks at Island Rocks off Sachuest Point in Middletown. The owls nest in the Arctic tundra but winter south and have been reported in Rhode Island with regularity in recent years. They primarily feed off lemmings up north but will make do with any small rodents, birds, rabbits, fish or carrion in the Ocean State (in owl circles, Rhody road kill is known as New York System Carrion). Adult males are virtually pure white, which combined with their large size and hunting skill, gives the birds a mythic reputation.
Yesterday’s New York Times had a story on America’s “unusual spike” in snowy owl sightings. According to Denver Holt, director of the Owl Research Institute in Charlo, Mont.:
One showed up at the airport in Hawaii, and they shot it. It’s the first ever in Hawaii and they shot it!
As reported by Jim Robbins: “The owl was killed on Thanksgiving by federal officials who feared that the bird would interfere with landings and takeoffs.” A valid concern, perhaps, although Boston’s Logan Airport, which attracts large numbers of snowy owls “because the airfield looks like tundra,” traps and removes them – 21 so far this year, closing in on the record of 43 in 1986.
Why so many are showing up all of a sudden remains a mystery. But with a plethora of white owls suddenly in our midst, coupled with last year’s sighting of a white hart in Dartmoor, England, isn’t it about time we saw a white lobster pop up in Narragansett Bay? (For the record, by “white lobster” we mean the albino crustacean. White lobster is also the term used in Central American fishing villages to describe the bounty of discarded cocaine from drug dealers fleeing federal agents that washes ashore or circulates in local fishing grounds, inspiring a trade that turns thatched hut communities into islands of mansions and satellite dishes.)
What is your most memorable animal encounter in Rhode Island?
Monday, January 16, 2012
Squeezebox Idol
Among the many classic Gary Larson cartoons that form “The Far Side” oeuvre was a split-panel showing on one side an escalator of the dead going to heaven with St. Peter at the top handing out harps to the incoming angels while below on the down escalator the devil greets rookie demons with accordions.
The much-maligned squeezebox, although a staple of folk music around the world, barely ranks above the kazoo in the minds of many. But a Rhode Island man may change all of that.
Cory Pesaturo, a 23-year-old Cumberland native, recently won the World Digital Accordion Championship in New Zealand. Like breaking the 4-minute mile or landing on the moon, he has done for mankind what was once considered impossible: Making the accordion cool. (In fact, he does for the accordion what Hawaiian Jake Shimabukuro does for the ukulele.)
The guess here is that Pesaturo is already on the short list for the newly created R.I. Music Hall of Fame, which inducts its first class next month. The inaugural roster includes Roomful of Blues and John Cafferty & the Beaver Brown Band, along with Dave McKenna, Eileen Farrell, Oliver Shaw, Ken Lyon, Anders & Poncia and Gerry Granahan.
I’ve told my Beaver Brown story before, but it’s worth repeating here. Once, when I was on a bus in Australia’s Outback, the driver played the band’s "Eddie & The Cruisers" soundtrack album (featuring “On the Dark Side”) over and over. Eventually I worked my way up to the front of the bus and casually mentioned that it was nice to hear a Rhode Island band so far from home. The driver asked what I meant by that.
“Beaver Brown. They’re a Rhode Island band.”
“Sorry, mate. That’s an Aussie band.”
I started arguing with him, but he got more animated, no doubt thinking yet another stupid septic (rhyming slang: septic tank = Yank) was trying to take credit away from a hardworking, blue-collar Oz band. At that point it occurred to me that I was in the middle of a vast wasteland of red clay and scraggly bush, and getting in a heated argument with the bus driver was probably not the best use of my time.
“How long to Darwin,” I asked.
“About 14 hours.”
“Right. Aussie band it is, then.”
This week’s question: What is Rhode Island’s signature instrument?
Rhode Sized
Kudos to Betty Cotter, managing editor of Independent Newspapers, for catching the following size-of-Rhode Island reference in a recent edition of The New York Times. The item appeared in the second paragraph of a story about New Year’s Day violence between Russia and the former Soviet republic of Moldova, which just celebrated 20 years of independence.
The much-maligned squeezebox, although a staple of folk music around the world, barely ranks above the kazoo in the minds of many. But a Rhode Island man may change all of that.
Cory Pesaturo, a 23-year-old Cumberland native, recently won the World Digital Accordion Championship in New Zealand. Like breaking the 4-minute mile or landing on the moon, he has done for mankind what was once considered impossible: Making the accordion cool. (In fact, he does for the accordion what Hawaiian Jake Shimabukuro does for the ukulele.)
The guess here is that Pesaturo is already on the short list for the newly created R.I. Music Hall of Fame, which inducts its first class next month. The inaugural roster includes Roomful of Blues and John Cafferty & the Beaver Brown Band, along with Dave McKenna, Eileen Farrell, Oliver Shaw, Ken Lyon, Anders & Poncia and Gerry Granahan.
I’ve told my Beaver Brown story before, but it’s worth repeating here. Once, when I was on a bus in Australia’s Outback, the driver played the band’s "Eddie & The Cruisers" soundtrack album (featuring “On the Dark Side”) over and over. Eventually I worked my way up to the front of the bus and casually mentioned that it was nice to hear a Rhode Island band so far from home. The driver asked what I meant by that.
“Beaver Brown. They’re a Rhode Island band.”
“Sorry, mate. That’s an Aussie band.”
I started arguing with him, but he got more animated, no doubt thinking yet another stupid septic (rhyming slang: septic tank = Yank) was trying to take credit away from a hardworking, blue-collar Oz band. At that point it occurred to me that I was in the middle of a vast wasteland of red clay and scraggly bush, and getting in a heated argument with the bus driver was probably not the best use of my time.
“How long to Darwin,” I asked.
“About 14 hours.”
“Right. Aussie band it is, then.”
This week’s question: What is Rhode Island’s signature instrument?
Rhode Sized
Kudos to Betty Cotter, managing editor of Independent Newspapers, for catching the following size-of-Rhode Island reference in a recent edition of The New York Times. The item appeared in the second paragraph of a story about New Year’s Day violence between Russia and the former Soviet republic of Moldova, which just celebrated 20 years of independence.
Russia has roughly 1,100 troops based in the separatist enclave of Transnistria, a ribbon of territory roughly the size of Rhode Island that has large ethnic Russian and Ukrainian populations.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Beyond The Onion
If you know anything about Rhode Island, you’re probably not surprised that the state’s most popular New Year’s tradition is playing the Rhode Island Lottery’s Million Dollar Raffle. The way it works: Buy a ticket for $20 for a shot at a million bucks, with the drawing to be held on New Year’s Eve.
So while the rest the country watches a ball drop in Manhattan, Rhode Islanders are watching numbered ping-pong balls being sucked out of an air-mix machine during a live telecast on WPRI-12.
A North Providence man won the million-dollar ticket this year (playing 033122). Again, if you know anything about Rhode Island, you’re probably not surprised that he bought the winning ticket at Club Fantasies, a Providence strip club.
Providence, once known as a city of churches, where tolerance for religion in all of its forms and expressions became a stamp of honor, has morphed into the strip-club capital of the North Atlantic, where tolerance for undressing in all of its forms and expressions has become part of the culture. Between the patrons and the strippers, that’s where we get most of our news.
So people don’t even blink anymore when a longtime police chief gets arrested after allegedly chasing down an ex-stripper in an unmarked car, losing her on foot, taking the cash out of the purse she left on the front seat, handing it to a subordinate and telling him to go spend it in Vegas. (The police chief from North Providence is being sued by the ex-stripper from the Satin Doll to the tune of $250,000.)
Rhode Island is living satire. Which is why even though we are grateful The Onion, “America’s Finest News Source,” has introduced hard copies of its newspaper to the state’s café, coffee shop, bar and diner culture, its humor is somewhat diminished by the fact that what actually happens in Rhode Island is funnier than anything a satirist could ever write. Give the paper’s franchisee – Gaspee Publishing in Providence – credit for trying. It chose Buddy Cianci to headline the launch party. The twice-former mayor of Providence, who sold pasta sauce, flicked cigarettes and spent time in a federal prison before embarking on a new career as a media personality, was the perfect choice to introduce America’s premier spoof newsweekly to the irrelevant yet endearing universe that is Rhode Island. Maybe that will change our Onion luck.
The last time the Ocean State got decent play in The Onion was in a story under the April 18, 2007 headline: “Rhode Island Votes to Move 2008 Primary to Tomorrow.” So we might not be the brightest bulbs in the Onionverse, but here’s hoping that Rhode Island, as one of 16 markets now carrying the print edition, will find its way into a few Onion-worthy “breaking news” headlines. Like these:
Rhode Island No Longer the Size of Rhode Island: Experts Blame Global Warming, Faulty Rulers
Scientists Discover Black Hole in Ocean State Job Lot
First Apple Grown from Tree Root of Roger Williams Accidentally Eaten by Connecticut Tourist
Impact from Rhode Island Pothole Causes Rift in Time and Space
Big Blue Bug Topples, Injuring Pogo Dave, Santa George during Morning Commute
Rhode Island Becomes First State to Place Entire Budget on Black 13 and Let it Ride
New York System Wiener Joint Cook Fired for Short-Arming Customers
Tiverton Hermit Believed to be Only Rhode Islander Who Doesn’t Know a Guy
Rhode Island Man Invents Hybrid Car that Runs on Dunkin’
G.I. Joe Confesses to Intimate Relationship with Mysterious, Potato-Shaped Boy Toy
Newport Loses Latest Bid to Host America’s Cup – City Officials Hoping Tourists Throng to First Ever Twelve-Meter Rubber Duck Race
What Rhode Island headline would you like to see in The Onion?
So while the rest the country watches a ball drop in Manhattan, Rhode Islanders are watching numbered ping-pong balls being sucked out of an air-mix machine during a live telecast on WPRI-12.
A North Providence man won the million-dollar ticket this year (playing 033122). Again, if you know anything about Rhode Island, you’re probably not surprised that he bought the winning ticket at Club Fantasies, a Providence strip club.
Providence, once known as a city of churches, where tolerance for religion in all of its forms and expressions became a stamp of honor, has morphed into the strip-club capital of the North Atlantic, where tolerance for undressing in all of its forms and expressions has become part of the culture. Between the patrons and the strippers, that’s where we get most of our news.
So people don’t even blink anymore when a longtime police chief gets arrested after allegedly chasing down an ex-stripper in an unmarked car, losing her on foot, taking the cash out of the purse she left on the front seat, handing it to a subordinate and telling him to go spend it in Vegas. (The police chief from North Providence is being sued by the ex-stripper from the Satin Doll to the tune of $250,000.)
Rhode Island is living satire. Which is why even though we are grateful The Onion, “America’s Finest News Source,” has introduced hard copies of its newspaper to the state’s café, coffee shop, bar and diner culture, its humor is somewhat diminished by the fact that what actually happens in Rhode Island is funnier than anything a satirist could ever write. Give the paper’s franchisee – Gaspee Publishing in Providence – credit for trying. It chose Buddy Cianci to headline the launch party. The twice-former mayor of Providence, who sold pasta sauce, flicked cigarettes and spent time in a federal prison before embarking on a new career as a media personality, was the perfect choice to introduce America’s premier spoof newsweekly to the irrelevant yet endearing universe that is Rhode Island. Maybe that will change our Onion luck.
The last time the Ocean State got decent play in The Onion was in a story under the April 18, 2007 headline: “Rhode Island Votes to Move 2008 Primary to Tomorrow.” So we might not be the brightest bulbs in the Onionverse, but here’s hoping that Rhode Island, as one of 16 markets now carrying the print edition, will find its way into a few Onion-worthy “breaking news” headlines. Like these:
Rhode Island No Longer the Size of Rhode Island: Experts Blame Global Warming, Faulty Rulers
Scientists Discover Black Hole in Ocean State Job Lot
First Apple Grown from Tree Root of Roger Williams Accidentally Eaten by Connecticut Tourist
Impact from Rhode Island Pothole Causes Rift in Time and Space
Big Blue Bug Topples, Injuring Pogo Dave, Santa George during Morning Commute
Rhode Island Becomes First State to Place Entire Budget on Black 13 and Let it Ride
New York System Wiener Joint Cook Fired for Short-Arming Customers
Tiverton Hermit Believed to be Only Rhode Islander Who Doesn’t Know a Guy
Rhode Island Man Invents Hybrid Car that Runs on Dunkin’
G.I. Joe Confesses to Intimate Relationship with Mysterious, Potato-Shaped Boy Toy
Newport Loses Latest Bid to Host America’s Cup – City Officials Hoping Tourists Throng to First Ever Twelve-Meter Rubber Duck Race
What Rhode Island headline would you like to see in The Onion?
Friday, December 30, 2011
Winter Slush
A miscellany of holiday remnants…
Except for the freak pre-Halloween snowstorm that added a chilling grace note to the weekend of molten iron pours and trick-or-treating zombie brides, late autumn and early winter were unseasonably warm this year, as the southern New England landscape never got out of its bleak brown-gray bathrobe day after day. So even the most hardened cynic might be forgiven for believing in a little Christmas magic on the morning of Dec. 25, when a few fat snowflakes tumbled down and the neighborhood cove cascaded in flurries for an hour or so, giving us a taste of a white Christmas, if not the feast that many had hoped for.
There was less poetry in the real world, but no shortage of holiday weirdness, at least in the news pages. The following item comes from the South Kingstown police beat in yesterday’s South County Independent:
The item goes on to describe the woman’s bizarre behavior. According to the photographer on the scene, Santa handled the situation with the dignity one would expect from a centuries-old elf. Before allegedly stealing five DVDs, the woman managed to get the photo of herself on Santa’s lap from the photographer, telling him and St. Nick to “come watch her dance at Cheater’s [a Providence strip club].”
Another item, this time from the North Kingstown police beat in yesterday’s North East Independent, falls under the Grinch category:
While we certainly don’t condone the theft, it does strike us as odd that a winged pig would go missing around the holidays. We have heard that animals can speak on Christmas Day. Perhaps pigs can fly, too.
Finally, we also noticed in our papers that one local senior center plans to hold its New Year’s Eve celebration on Saturday at 10:30 a.m. “with the ball to drop at noon.” We like this idea. Beats having to spend another midnight watching Z-List celebrities complain about the cold in New York and Fergie introducing lame musical acts from Los Angeles.
Having said that, perhaps it’s appropriate that, in households across America, “dropping the ball” is the signature moment of New Year’s Eve. Isn’t that the year in a nutshell? We begin with hope and promise and resolutions of change; we end worn-out, beaten down, glad it’s over. Year after year, fumbling through, mostly dropping the ball. And yet there it is again, lying in front of us, waiting to be picked up and carried across the goal line.
What’s your New Year’s resolution?
Except for the freak pre-Halloween snowstorm that added a chilling grace note to the weekend of molten iron pours and trick-or-treating zombie brides, late autumn and early winter were unseasonably warm this year, as the southern New England landscape never got out of its bleak brown-gray bathrobe day after day. So even the most hardened cynic might be forgiven for believing in a little Christmas magic on the morning of Dec. 25, when a few fat snowflakes tumbled down and the neighborhood cove cascaded in flurries for an hour or so, giving us a taste of a white Christmas, if not the feast that many had hoped for.
There was less poetry in the real world, but no shortage of holiday weirdness, at least in the news pages. The following item comes from the South Kingstown police beat in yesterday’s South County Independent:
A LITTLE HO-HO-HO
A North Kingstown woman is under arrest after she allegedly tried to give the Wakefield Mall Santa a lap dance and then stole DVDs from one of the stores.
The item goes on to describe the woman’s bizarre behavior. According to the photographer on the scene, Santa handled the situation with the dignity one would expect from a centuries-old elf. Before allegedly stealing five DVDs, the woman managed to get the photo of herself on Santa’s lap from the photographer, telling him and St. Nick to “come watch her dance at Cheater’s [a Providence strip club].”
Another item, this time from the North Kingstown police beat in yesterday’s North East Independent, falls under the Grinch category:
LARCENY
Greg Pignolet, of 91 King Phillip Drive, reported on Friday that his decorative winged pig was stolen from his front yard overnight.
While we certainly don’t condone the theft, it does strike us as odd that a winged pig would go missing around the holidays. We have heard that animals can speak on Christmas Day. Perhaps pigs can fly, too.
Finally, we also noticed in our papers that one local senior center plans to hold its New Year’s Eve celebration on Saturday at 10:30 a.m. “with the ball to drop at noon.” We like this idea. Beats having to spend another midnight watching Z-List celebrities complain about the cold in New York and Fergie introducing lame musical acts from Los Angeles.
Having said that, perhaps it’s appropriate that, in households across America, “dropping the ball” is the signature moment of New Year’s Eve. Isn’t that the year in a nutshell? We begin with hope and promise and resolutions of change; we end worn-out, beaten down, glad it’s over. Year after year, fumbling through, mostly dropping the ball. And yet there it is again, lying in front of us, waiting to be picked up and carried across the goal line.
What’s your New Year’s resolution?
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