By Adam Siegel

The New York Times profiled former Providence mayor and current WPRO radio host Buddy Cianci on Monday, and one doesn’t have to be intimately acquainted with Providence politics to understand the, uhm, divide between Buddy and the current administration.

But any notion that the shedding of a hairpiece reflected newfound humility was soon dispelled when a Providence Journal reporter cheekily asked Mr. Cianci if he had encountered much homosexual activity in prison.

“Not really … there are more gays in City Hall than in jail,” Mr. Cianci replied, a reference to the fact that Mayor Cicilline is gay.

Uh-oh.

The piece goes on to detail the differing opinions on Buddy’s influence in Providence. Police chief Dean Esserman tells the Times that Buddy is

an insecure, frightened man. “Frightened to be forgotten,” he says. “Frightened to be on the margins.”

But Cianci gets the last word(s) in

From small radios almost hidden among the municipal paper clutter there emanates that unmistakable voice, mixing acid observations with smirking half-truths, all but filibustering a city from calling in and asking him: Exactly whose buddy are you?

I guess the Governor caved in and made an appearance on Buddy’s talk show this afternoon. From an old Brian Jones blurb:

So what will Carcieri do when former Providence Mayor Vincent A. “Buddy” Cianci, freshly sprung from the federal pen, resumes his role as a talk show host, as is widely expected?

“I knew Buddy when I was in the private world,” the governor says, noting the ex-mayor is “very bright, very personable . . . with a terrific skill set.”

On the other hand, Carcieri says he knew business people who wouldn’t open up shop in Providence when Cianci was there, and that his public corruption conviction is “a very sad chapter in the city.”

So will the governor do the Cianci show? “Probably not.”

I can’t say I spend much time listening to talk radio — oldies for me, exclusively. I’ve heard literally 5 minutes of Buddy’s show, while in my roommate’s car. He was pushing for school consolidation — a cause I support, and which he was vocal about while still mayor. (I remember reading an op-ed he’d penned on the subject, soon after I moved to Providence.) Have any of you folks been listening? Do you take him seriously?

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…and didn’t even know it. It’s worth taking a peak at the debate on RIFuture, over how the Governor just had his office painted with crushed pearls, in the same week he announced the lay-offs of hundreds of state workers.

RIFuture has this post on Dan Yorke’s apparent desire to repeal the 19th amendment, following in Anne Coulter’s steps in suggesting that women shouldn’t be able to vote. I’d love to be able to ignore or laugh at all the Rhode Island talk radio loonies, but they’ve sadly actually got some influence.

The Phoenix has Megan Hall’s update on the infamous Shaw’s at Eagle Square - once a major selling point of the Feldco development that got a lot of tax breaks to knock down a number of buildings, destroy Fort Thunder, and put up some strip-mall style shopping and “artists’ lofts” nobody wanted to rent.

And we’re all famous! What with the AP having picked up the Mike Townsend-and-crew living-in-the-mall story. I don’t think Providence has made news this big since, well, that Providence-built terrorist submarine story from August. Feels about right.

Thank goodness Media Matters keeps tabs on John Depetro’s inanities, so we gentle folk don’t have to: 

On MSNBC Live with Dan Abrams, discussing Bill O’Reilly’s recent controversial comments about his visit to Sylvia’s restaurant in Harlem, Rhode Island radio host John DePetro stated: “It was a discussion on race and we’re talking about Harlem. And by and large — I lived in New York for years — white people don’t go to Harlem.” He continued: “If Dan Abrams and John DePetro, Bill O’Reilly, some white guys are sitting around a table, and Dan Abrams said, ‘Yeah, I was up in Harlem last night.’ We would think you were either, a) looking for drugs, or, b) looking for a prostitute.”

Dude keeps on trying to sully this white boy’s good name: I spent four years in-and-out of Harlem while I was in college.  (No drugs or prostitutes… my college years weren’t too exciting.)  I’m proud to have been sniped at by Depetro even more directly: “That little Green weasel,” I think it was. 

And is back on the radio starting tomorrow.

“The move came on the eve of his first day back as a talk radio host. Cianci begins he stint as a talkmeister on WPRO-AM at 10 a.m. tomorrow.

Cianci was given a friendly welcome by several City Hall employees. He enrolled as an independent — called an unaffiliated voter in Rhode Island political argot — and said it was important to him to register because a talk show host who is going to criticize politicians ought to be registered.”

I should probably know already — but where is he living?

WRPO has announced what everybody has known all along: Buddy Cianci will make his return to the airwaves Sept. 20 on News Talk 630 AM. Joining Buddy’s Prov-centric laff-fest will be current morning news comedian Ron St. Pierre. Expect intermittent hilarity.