Oh, well done.

From today's Providence Journal:

PROVIDENCE -- Luigi "Baby Shacks'' Manocchio, the former longtime boss of the Patriarca crime family, was indicted Thursday morning on extortion charges for shaking down the owners of several adult entertainment businesses in the city including the Cadillac Lounge and Satin Doll strip clubs.

The charges come as federal agents this morning arrested more than 100 suspected mobsters in multiple investigations of organized crime families in New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island.

The charges against Manocchio, 83, allege that he received monthly protection payments -- paid in cash -- from the owners of the strip clubs. Failure to pay, would result in "the use of intimidation and implied threats of force, violence and fear," the indictment alleges.

Hey, Rhode Island! Congratulations. Really. Look who's all grown up and playing with the big boys! Here's the whole world not even remembering that you have a mob, and there you are, mentioned in the same exact sentence as New York and New Jersey! Oh, Providence mafia. From now on, whenever I take the Dean Street exit off of Rte. 10 and pass under the mural of the city's most notable made men (because how better to honor one's organized crime syndicate than with an off-ramp mural?), I'll remember that today's Cosa Nostra don't just sit menacingly in Federal Hill bakeries, sipping tiny espressos while not smiling. They also shake down strip clubs! None of that cyber-crime nonsense that so many other mafias are dabbling in these days, and likewise none of the messy drug stuff that's so... untoward. No, today's Providence mobsters extort protection money from good, old-fashioned gentlemen's establishments. The kind professional athletes and other hard-working types from Massachusetts and Connecticut cross state lines to patronize, because they're unlucky enough to live in states that require their girly dancers to wear underpants. Pfft. Until recently, ours didn't even have to be old enough to vote!

I have to take issue, however, with the mob nicknames our esteemed criminals are choosing. "Baby Shacks?" Are mobsters like racehorses or show dogs, where no two can ever have the same name? Even if the name once hearkened to his reputation as a ladies' man, once he hit grandpa territory, it really should have been changed. To just about anything else. Would being known as Luigi "Grandpa" Manocchio or Luigi "Get Offa My Lawn" Manocchio really diminish his cred with the other gangsters? If the answer is yes, Grandpa Get Offa My Lawn, then those gangsters were never really your friends to begin with.