For the record

We owe Attorney Chris Russo, and by extension his law firm, an apology.

In an item in Philippe and Jorge’s column of March 7 concerning the unusually aggressive tactics employed by some lawyers in seeking business in the wake of the tragic Station fire, we indicated that Russo was soliciting business at Rhode Island Hospital and other places. Although we didn’t realize it at that time, we were wrong.

We also compounded the error when we later ran Russo’s letter to the editor, by which he sought to set the record straight, and added a response from P&J saying we stood by our story. At the time we believed our facts were correct. We now know they were not.

In his letter, Russo denied being at the hospital and denied soliciting business there or anywhere else. "The way the article described me is not who I am," Russo wrote, "and is not how I practice law."

After Russo’s letter was published we received information casting doubt on the accuracy of the original Philippe & Jorge item and the subsequent response by P&J.

Upon further checking, we concluded that the Russo item was incorrect and P&J’s response was inaccurate.

That’s why were are running this correction — to set the record straight.

We were wrong about Attorney Russo. We are sorry and we apologize.

The book on Buddy

Phillipe and Jorge were delighted to recently lunch with the Providence Journal’s Mike Stanton, the man who has written the book on former mayor Buddy "Vincent A." Cianci and the Plunder Dome scandal. The Prince of Providence: The True Story of Buddy Cianci, America’s Most Notorious Mayor, Some Wiseguys, and the Feds is due out August 5, but some early reviews are already in, and it sounds like the midnight oil will be burning from Block Island to Burrillville in a few weeks. While The Bud-I is said to be furious that Mike’s book will be out before his own memoirs, and is refusing any and all requests for interviews, P&J will be among the legions that want to hear Stanton’s inside account of the rise and fall of our rascal king. (The Phoenix will also be running a special pre-publication look at Stanton’s tome, with contributions from various Cianci watchers.) Here are a few quotes, pulled from Publishers Weekly and The Kirkus Review, that bode well for those interested in all things Bud-I:

Publishers Weekly: "More than just a biography of Providence’s first Italian-American mayor, once considered one of America’s most vibrant young politicians, this exposé also captures Rhode Island’s and Providence’s turbulent political histories and their direct effect on Buddy Cianci, one of America’s most successful and most notorious politicians. Rhode Island, a haven for outcasts and freethinkers, earned the ‘colonial reputation as ‘Rogue’s Isle,’ a city of hustlers, gamblers and ward-heelers’ that continued to be warranted well into the 1980s thanks to Providence being a home base of the American Mafia, an Irish-American Democratic political machine and a cast of dirty politicians."

Kirkus: "A blistering and memorable portrait of a man and a city whose politics went bad a long time ago and stayed that way . . . Providence, Rhode Island, was the ‘America’s first safe house,’ a haven for freethinkers and the persecuted in Puritan New England. But the colony’s wide-open mores also made it, as Cotton Mather so elegantly noted, the fag end of creation . . . Though Cianci ran on an anti-corruption ticket, he soon learned that ‘once you came down from the East Side and crossed the river into the rest of Providence, you needed political grease and muscle. You had to cut deals. You needed an organization.’ "

How low can we go?

It’s almost unfathomable how deep into decadence we Americans can slide, but two recent stories show how our depravity seems to know no bottom. First, there’s the trial in Fort Worth, Texas, where Chante Jawan Mallard is accused of hitting a man with her Chevrolet Cavalier with such force that his head and shoulders jammed into the windshield. Did she stop and try to help the man? No, she hurried on home, where she parked the car in her garage and allegedly waited for him to die.

Does it get more disgusting than that? Well, try this on for size.

In El Cajon, California, three men have been arrested for paying homeless men and women to beat each other while being videotaped. The men sold more than 300,000 copies of their tape to alleged human beings. Apparently, they also paid other homeless folks for pulling out their teeth on tape. The performers were renumerated with food, alcohol, and small sums of money.

Not content to be entertained with the likes of MTV’s Jackass, it seems that a few of our fellow Americans have resorted to behavior so sordid and despicable that it defies belief.

We’re sure that certain right-wing Republicans have already figured out how to blame all of this on the ’60s, even though there’s no connection. (The three morons in California were not even alive at the time, let alone the ’70s.) We suggest that all those with right-wing/left-wing explanations for this sort of behavior take a deep breath. They should realize that all sorts of forces have formed our culture. It ain’t especially politics, but something a lot more insidious. Take a deeper look, right-wing boneheads, and see how unrelenting marketing and consumerism have turned people into mindless automatons.

We’ve got a few different theories from what simpletons like Bill O’Reilly, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and our own little far-right personality, John DePetro, have to offer. We await the growing up of America.

Second coming

A noted death in the sports pages of Larry Doby, the first black to play in the American League, and just the second African-American in the major leagues, after the famed Jackie Robinson. Doby joined the Cleveland Indians three months after Robinson broke the color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Doby reportedly had an even tougher time with racism than Robinson, as four of his teammates on the Indians refused to even shake his hand when he was brought on to the team. But he went on to become an all-star centerfielder and played in the bigs for 13 years. Quite a man, and he deserved more recognition for his achievements than he received.

So Joe

Speaking of baseball, P&J were in awe of one of the exhibits from the American Folk Art Museum’s exhibition, The Perfect Game: America Looks at Baseball. The artwork in question is an embroidery of the New York Yankees’ cult legend, Joe Pepitone, a semi-star in the 1960s, who was famous for his wild clothes, a preposterous, high-roll toupee, and a subsequent turn as a hairdresser. After retiring, he also spent some time in the can on drug and gun charges. Not only does the embroidery honor Pepi, a Connecticut prison inmate reportedly made it, while doing time for armed robbery, with thread from unraveled socks and shoelaces. Joe must be quite proud.

You go, girl

Congrats to our good pal Marisa Quinn for being named assistant to Brown University president Ruth Simmons. We knew Ruthie was sharp, and this is further proof. Sounds like a good team up on College Hill.

Heavy hands

While we should be quite used to lies coming out of the White House, like bullets from a machine gun, it appears the Bushies aren’t even trying to hide their duplicity of late. The latest example is the draft report issued by the Environmental Protection Agency, which was heavily edited by the White House junk science boys. They removed a little line that said, "Climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment." Many EPA workers were upset with this flagrant disregard for the actual threats from global climate change, and according to the New York Times, "An April 29 memorandum circulated among staff members said that after the changes by White House officials, the section on climate ‘no longer accurately represents scientific consensus on climate change.’ "

Maybe Dubya and his troops can try to rectify their blatant lying — by claiming that global climate change caused Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction to disappear.

Dining news

One of those restaurants always on the Cool, Cool edge, Julian’s at 318 Broadway in Providence will be undergoing remodeling during the month of July. Despite this, Julian’s intends to remain open, taking all the operations outdoors on the back patio and serving a special menu. So, don’t fear if you stop by and it looks like the joint isn’t open. Full bar service will still be available as well.

By the way, Julian and company are keeping the new interior design secret (refusing to even give your superior correspondents a hint — which is really disgusting, but what can you say? The guy’s an auteur). So P&J, like everybody else, will have to wait until August to see exactly what Julian is up to. We’ll take it this time, pal, but that’s it. Don’t forget, one of the top joints in the West End is still there — it’s just a little more secret for the next month or so.

Short outs

• Despite the bad weather, Pride March 2003 carried on as usual and, we suspect, old time GLBT ju-ju accounted for the rain holding off for as long as it did. The all-day activities across from the Providence Place Mall went off without a hitch and the March was as fabulous as always. Just can’t keep superior behaviorists down. A big tip of the sombrero to Hizzoner, David Cicilline, for making this Pride particularly memorable. The crowds, the enthusiasm, the entertainment (and let’s not forget the after-parties that went on and on), were all robust again this year. Our superior community is as vital and exciting as any in the US, and once again, we proved it last weekend. There’s plenty of unfinished business, but it’s happening, folks.

• Your superior correspondents are looking forward to an excellent dining event, courtesy of CNN’s right-wing blowhard, Tucker Carlson. Tucker was very explicit about pledging that he’d "eat his shoes" if the new Hillary Clinton tome, Living History, sold more than a million copies. Well, after only a couple of weeks, Hillary’s book is up to about 700,000. We’d suggest that Tucker check out Bookbinder’s Hot Horseradish Mustard as the right condiment to go with his snack.

Send savory reading and Pulitzer-grade tips to p&j[a]phx.com.