Russell Crowe as the Bud-I? How about Hulk Hogan as Mayor Cicilline, Brad Pitt as Richard Rose, Hilary Swank as David Ead, and Sri Lanka for the State of Rhode Island and Feinstein Plantations?
A blast of fresh (and cool) air
Kudos to whomever did the copy editing for the future weather in the BeloJo of July 13. Seeing the encroaching heat wave that has been making us all clammy and uncomfortable the past few days, this nameless (perhaps minimum wage) employee decided to provide us with a bit of psychic relief by printing a graph with high and low temperatures borrowed from last winter.
Although it didn’t turn out to be true, Casa Diablo was thrilled to see a forecast with highs of 44, 41, 40, 38, 38, 35, and 35, and lows of 34, 28, 25, 26, 28, 22, and 24. As we stand naked in front of a giant box fan, clasping a Pernod & grapefruit whose ice cubes melted after approximately a minute and a half, we salute someone who just wanted to bring us a little relief.
Edison didn’t invent the radio
Last week’s Phoenix news section sidebar speculating on the return from prison of the former mayor, the once and future Bud-I, had this scintillating quote from yet another Providence mayor, “Boy” Joe Paolino, who was in office from 1984-91: “They’ll wish that Thomas Edison never invented the radio.” This was in relation to the prospect that the Bud-I will leap right into the talk-radio scene upon his return, providing endless headaches for the current administration, much as he did back in the Boy Joe era.
It was a classic Boy Joe-ism. While reaching for a clever riposte, BJ stumbled over the inconvenient fact that Thomas Alva Edison had virtually nothing to do with inventing the radio. That would be a Mr. Marconi, and, to a lesser extent, a Mr. Tesla. One would think that as one of the Biggest Little’s most distinguished Italian-American citizens, the former ambassador and mayor might have taken the occasion to remind us all of the great Marconi. To paraphrase Little Richard, the patron saint of Casa Diablo, the boy can’t help it.
After much deliberation, your superior correspondents conclude that Joe just might be musically dyslexic. He was probably thinking of that great Cole Porter tune, “They All Laughed.” (Just trying to catch you there — it’s Gershwin.) The opening stanza goes:
They all laughed at Christopher Columbus when he said the world was round
They all laughed when Edison recorded sound
They all laughed at Wilbur and his brother when he said that man could fly
They told Marconi, wireless was a phony
Joe, you see, accidentally inverted the Edison line with the Marconi line. It could happen to anyone.
The kindness of strangers
Your superior correspondents were in Georgetown, Colorado, last week to attend the wedding of Jorge’s niece, Abby, to Greg Ellis. It was a truly wonderful event. Georgetown is one of those old Centennial State mining towns that have preserved most of their late 19th-century atmosphere, even while being converted into a tourism and vacation mecca. Ringed by the majestic Rockies, it is a great place to spend a few days.
