Staff writer Tom Mooney has a great story on the front page of today’s Providence Journal about democratic Congressional District 1 candidate David Segal and his grass roots campaign. The piece includes a nice profile of a recent and ardent supporter, Lisa Beade, and her efforts to spread the word and get his name out there.

. . . in July, Beade attended a candidates’ night at a local library, sponsored by the state chapter of the Progressive Democrats of America. Segal, whose verbal delivery is more akin to policy wonk than impassioned orator, was, nevertheless, “so impressive, so articulate,” she said.

“He goes after what he believes is right no matter who is behind it.”

Amen to that. (And somebody get some lawn signs to this gal, asap!) Dave has been working long days, meeting and listening to voters from Woonsocket to Newport, and sharing his vision of the future.

Special Video Feature After the Jump. Dave has just received an unusual endorsement from Tom, a.k.a. The Fake David Segal. Tom is the handsome actor hired by the Bill Lynch campaign to portray David in a televised Lynch ad, and Tom wants everyone to know — he supports Dave Segal for Congress!

more »

Clean Water Action Invites you to ELECTOBERFEST!

Help us Elect Pro-Environment Candidates:

Wednesday, October 6th
5:30-7:30pm
Hot Club — 574 Water Street, Providence

Donations welcome. (Suggested contribution $25 and up)

To RSVP or for more information, call Clean Water Action at 401-331-6972

Call today to be listed as a sponsor for $50-1,000. (includes your ticket, too!)

Proceeds from this event with benefit Clean Water Action’s work to elect pro-environment candidates and to pass and enforce laws to protect our environment and health. Please be as generous as possible as we head into the home stretch toward Election Day!

Please make checks payable to Clean Water Action and send to:

741 Westminster St., Providence, RI 02903

Because of our extensive lobbying work, tickets are not tax-deductible.

Attention landlords and renters! The recent tax hike on non-owner occupied rental property affects the property owners and their tenants alike. It is well to remember that not many landlords around here are evil absentee tycoons  — many are small investors. One such property owner has just contacted us here. Artist Peter Gemei has this to say,

This evening at 5:30pm at City Hall there will be a rally in response to recently received property tax bills. “Is it worth it to keep property in Providence?”, I asked myself as I saw my property tax soar from under $6000 last year up to over $10,000 for this year. (I have a mortgage on a 3-apartment house at Fox Point on Ives Street and am a self-employed artist who works on projects in the garage located on this property. At present, the rents don’t cover all the expenses and I’m struggling). I searched online to find where the outraged could be found and discovered that they are rapidly growing at Fixprov.com, The Providence Apartment Association. Last night I attended an open meeting at Abe’s Pub on Wickenden Street and got informed. Last week there were 30 members, now there are 200 and growing. I spoke to many property owners like myself who struggle to maintain property on the East Side, slashing rents to convince prospective tenants to submit an application, paying taxes and insurance from dwindling savings, and paying a mortgage to keep a step ahead of foreclosure.
Many of us are not making any profit from our investment in this city but thought to hold on in expectation of a positive outcome in the future. East Side property owners have been unfairly targeted with the perception that we are all very wealthy and therefore immune to financial hardship. Landlords are expected to afford these almost doubled tax hikes. What’s the point in investing in Providence?

And there is nothing to say a person can’t make a profit on investment property (it is predatory, unregulated capitalism that bugs us here). At any rate, what affects these landlords will soon come down on the head of the renters. Our interests are aligned on this issue. So head down to the rally on the steps of the City Hall, and then head inside to the scheduled council meeting and make your voice heard. This is no way to fix the city.

5:30pm, Thursday, Rally in front of City Hall/ 6:30pm City Council Meeting/Providence Apartment Assn.

[DITTO: Thursday, September 2nd. BC]

The Department of Environmental Management has declared Wednesday, September 1st an ‘Air Quality Alert’ day.

The poor air quality will be due to elevated ground level ozone concentrations. Ozone is a major component of smog and is formed by the photochemical reaction of pollutants emitted by motor vehicles, industry and other sources in the presence of elevated temperatures and sunlight.

Rhode Island residents can help reduce air pollutant emissions. Limit car travel and the use of small engines, lawn motors and charcoal lighter fuels. Travel by bus or carpool whenever possible, particularly during high ozone periods.

This means all RIPTA routes, excluding special services, will be free. Just hop on a bus or trolley, and then hop off.

[Additional note: Right you are Jef, the new rate hike will kick in as soon as the air clears — up to an even $2. (ProJo) BC]

According The Providence Journal the City of Providence Board of Licenses has heard a proposal for a new pub in the Wayland Square area,

. . . the proprietors of Monahan Drabble & Sherman Funeral Home propose to open a pub in an old garage space attached to their business at Wayland and Waterman avenues.

The license board began a public hearing on the application last week and then tabled the request temporarily while the proprietors, brothers Mark E. Russell and Robert Russell, both of Country Club Drive, Warwick, consult with Stephen Lewinstein, who has extensive real estate investments in the vicinity.

The plan is for a 60-seat eatery to be called McBride’s Pub, complete with an outdoor patio where the cars now park.  They’ll need a bouncer with a velvet rope — people are already dying to get in. (More pix after the jump.)

more »

By all accounts our current Lieutenant Governor is a fine person — I just don’t care. The only candidate of interest to me is Cool Moose candidate Robert J. Healey who wants to abolish this costly and pointless position. Attorney Healey has also filed suit to abolish the Master Lever (Secretary of State Mollis lacked the political spine to take this position) an issue I care about. Go to VoteHealey.com and download this and other very cool posters for the only candidate with brains and integrity, and as always. . . the best artwork. (Also at FB)

Glengarry Glen Ross
by David Mamet
directed by Fred Sullivan, Jr.

Gamm Resident Director Fred Sullivan, Jr., recently compared Mamet’s award-winning play to the popular 1992 screenplay,

Mamet calls Glengarry “a gang comedy about vicious ambition.” Ten years after he wrote the play, Mamet expanded it into a screenplay and added a brutally hilarious speech for Alec Baldwin, which has become legendary. Several amateur stage productions try to add Baldwin’s “Coffee is for closers” speech onto the play and, admittedly, who wouldn’t be tempted? But besides being illegal, Mamet insists that they are different animals. He says a play and a film are as different as a plane and a car: “You can add extra parts to a car but you really don’t want extra parts on a plane!” So since Glengarry had won every prestigious award as a play, why not revisit it in exactly the form it was originally conceived — live onstage.

Glengarry runs from September 2 through October 3. Tickets are $25, $30 and $40 (depending on day/time). Recommended for mature audiences only. Discounts for subscribers, groups of 10 or more, seniors and students.

For tickets call 401.723.4266 or go to gammtheatre.org.

Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre, 172 Exchange Street, Pawtucket

Editors Note: Promoted from the Side Blog, and image added during promotion:

Only Angel Taveras would keep the ‘Creative Capital’ logo. I like the ‘P’. Besides that, it cost $100,000 and taking down all those signs an making new ones is not how I want the next mayor to use my tax dollars…

Governor Carcieri does not seem able to distinguish between jobs and the promise of jobs. And what does this man know about the video game industry?  Gubernatorial candidate Lincoln Chafee however is not blinded by celebrity and asks the RIEDC to slow down before  guaranteeing the $75 million loan to Curt Schilling’s 38 Studios video game company. Writing in Saturday’s ProJo Chafee expressed concerns that the product itself is not even getting good press.

. . . even more troubling, are recent reports that 38 Studios’ lead product, the video game “Kingdoms of Amalur,” received a guarded forecast of success from game bloggers and gaming professionals at the recent Comic-Con trade show in San Diego. Why has Rhode Island gambled so much for an unproven company that seeks to compete in a volatile, high-risk industry?

Chafee joins a loud and growing chorus of those wondering why — if this is such a great idea — we are the only ones in line for this deal.

NME has named dreamy L.A. pop duo Kisses one of the ‘50 Best New Bands of 2010′ — number 40 to be exact — saying “This duo are so laid-back, they sound like Erlend Oye in a crushed velvet smoking jacket.” (Okay, I had to look that one up. . . Norwegian guy . . . Kings of Convenience.) Kisses songwriter Jesse Kivel describes their sound as “nerdy, cheesy, popular music that’s a whole lot of fun”. I might add ‘languid’ and ‘tranquilizing’ and I mean that in a good way. Their first single ‘Bermuda’ got noticed right out of the gate, and now ‘People Can Do The Most Amazing Things’ is also garnering attention (The Guardian). In October they go on the road to Japan, England and parts beyond. (Prediction: Paris is going to love them.)

And yes, there is a local connection — the fetching girl on keyboards is Providence native and Lincoln School grad, Zinzi Edmundson, who moved to the West Coast for college and seems to be fitting right in.

Matthew, go here for Saint Etienne remix. (Videos after the jump.)

more »

Friday — @Club Hell, Surgeon, Metal 101, the Evening @AS220, Leather Bastard, Interplay, Max Cudworth Experiment @Jerky’s, Negative Approach, Wisdon in Chains, COA, Pow, Bear Trap, Tabernackle

Saturday — @Firehouse 13, Mrs. Six Eyes, Tomorrowcats, Whack Sabbath, Undercover, Drum Class @AS220, Mockingbird, Before the Eyewall, Acariya, She Rides @Jerky’s, Jahpan, Juan Duce, Team Franchise, Chi, Blak, Mongo @the 201, Sonorous Gale, Innerds

Sunday — @AS220, Peelander-Z, Math the Band, Lemon Lime Tennis Shoes, Hank Sinatra Jr.

(Photo of Peelander—Z by Daisuke Yoshida)

It would seem that the Dose can no longer completely ignore the Christopher Young ‘thing’ — Lizz Winstead opened with it last night — but I’ll be damned if I ever put a picture of that guy on our front page. Instead I give you the new Bieber-licious Tom Brady who appears to be wearing his helmet to the barbershop. (Thanks to Dose reader, Nic, who saw Rhode Island once again make the national news (ABC) for all the wrong reasons.)

[Additional Note: Since my posting of this item another editor has overridden my 'Depictions of Christopher Young' ban and inserted one below. I don't think I was wrong. BC]

Art installation/book/art/music type thing,

COMEX OR BECAMUS will be debuting at Machines With Magnets on Saturday, August 28th.  Barton, a RISD graduate, and Anagnostis, a URI graduate, have spent the last year and a half constructing COMEX OR BECAMUS, a large-scale multimedia art installation and literary publication.  This collaboration represents the Providence artists’ ambition, criticism, and overwhelming search for truth.

Barton’s meticulously constructed installation consisting of eleven oil paintings and fundamental geometric elements melds with Anagnostis’ aphoristic written landscapes in a 13-square-foot, 40-page arc of hypnotic aggression, conflict, and beauty.  Coupling the visual with the written, the artists offer a complementary dialogue that intends to challenge and antagonize the audience.  Having lived and studied together in Providence as undergraduates, Barton and Anagnostis elaborated upon their shared musical, philosophical, and cultural constellations in this collaborative effort.

7pm, Saturday, Machines With Magnets, 400 Main Street, Pawtucket

One great bit featured on the old ‘SCTV’ television show was a ‘commercial’ for a business called Logos ‘R’ Us. The logo for this business was of course an over-designed tangle of illegible scribbles and letters. I suspect the designers of the ‘P’ sign did not see that particular episode, but they did have this awesome new font suite.

Last night the Providence mayoral candidates met again at the Wheeler School (ProJo) and discussed many of the same issues covered on the Channel 12 debate on Tuesday (ProJo). But last night the issue of the artistically bogus and irredeemable ‘Creative Capital’ campaign was broached.

All the candidates, with the exception of Taveras, said they would get rid of the city slogan (“the Creative Capital”) and symbol (an orange capital ‘P’) that Cicilline spent more than $100,000 to develop.

I personally support Angel Taveras for the job, but he got this one wrong. Frankly, it’s a pretty minor issue and he may not have given it much thought.  But I would like to frame it within a larger issue — that of the excessive flag-and-banner crappage (much of it advertising) that increasingly clutters and spoils the visual landscape of the city. A policy should be put in place limiting this increasing blight. Sometimes a lamppost should just be a lamppost.

Officer Dan Famiglietti of the Providence Police Mounted Command is patrolling the Thayer Street area today — presumably to greet and guide the out-of-towners — on board this utterly imposing and gorgeous piece of horse flesh. According to the ‘Meet the Horses’ page at the Command website,

The majority of the mounts are “draft crosses” (heavily boned work horses such as Clydesdales, Percherons and Belgians, crossed with the lighter boned saddle breeds such as a Thoroughbred, an American Quarter Horse, a Morgan or an Arabian). These draft crosses are very strong boned, and, as such, they can handle the weight of heavy riders [insert obligatory lame donut joke here: ed.] and walking on hard surfaces for long hours. They also tend not to shy easily, meaning that they are not easily startled and can readily be trained to perform their police duties. Most of the horses have been purchased in Canada.

I believe Cassidy here is a Percheron mix. While useful for crowd control, the horses’ true value lies in the immeasurable goodwill they engender wherever they go. The police horses should always always be with us. (You can probably help Dan out, and do yourself a favor, by avoiding the Angell/Thayer/Waterman/Brook maelstrom whenever possible this weekend.)

And not in a good way. Fox and HuffPo featured the singing candidate and the ProJo has the conditional marriage proposal. Jeez, I should run for mayor to boost my blog hits.