Motivation: Traffic. Beach balls. Anger.

No.

For weeks we’ve been seeing billboards around Rhode Island touting a Get Motivated! Business Seminar, a smorgasbord of whoop-de-doo motivational speakers that’s coming to  town to get everybody fired up about something or other. Even though there are big names (Colin Powell, Rudy Giuliani) and a couple of “excuse me, what?” names (Terry Bradshaw, Bill Cosby) involved, the billboards make it seem gimmicky and awful. Different billboards have one person’s picture bigger than the others, implying that they’re the headliner, even though I don’t think there is one. I guess some people will only show up if Lou Holtz’ picture is bigger than, say, Rick Belluzzo’s. From what I gather, it’s kind of like a religious revival without the religion, or a rock concert without music. There’ll still be expensive food, though.

Anyway, apparently this thing is a hot ($2) ticket, because today the Providence Emergency Management Agency warned everybody that on Monday morning, when the thing starts, a lot of people are going to get motivated! to create a “tsunami of cars” by trying get into – and park – downtown. That is, in addition to the people who get into and park downtown every damn day to go to work. They’re expecting a shitstorm of such magnitude that school will be delayed by two hours so school buses won’t have to navigate the traffic. RIPTA is offering attendees discounted round-trip bus fares, so that's... well, that's happening.

And so, to recap: first thing Monday morning, approximately 12,000 people will make their way to the Dunkin Donuts Center in downtown Providence, where there are about 12,000 existing parking spots. If no one already lived or worked here, that would work out splendidly. But instead, Get Motivated! seems to have left the logistics of this thing (other than the provision of lots of beach balls) to fate, so I guess it’s everyone for themselves.

Admittedly, I’m kind of safe in this whole thing. I park downtown, but in a private lot in front of my office building, and I pay my employer every month for the privilege. It follows, then, that I will get motivated! to slash some tires and key some obscenities on car doors if I find no available spots and an excess of unfamiliar cars in the lot on Monday morning. Then again, I find that I’m getting motivated! to just take a sick day and bounce a beach ball against my living room wall by myself. 

Smartypants Town

As I have mentioned before, I work in an area of downtown Providence known as the Jewelry District, so named because back in the day, when a lot of jewelry was made and assembled in Providence, it was done around here. As far as I know, very little jewelry-related business occurs here now, and with the exception of a few bright spots (the Providence Animal RescueLeague, the Children’s Museum, Rue Bis), it’s kind of a dump. Not only is it next to impossible for the uninitiated to navigate, but most of its streets look like this:

and this:

and then, of course, some RISD kid breaks loose and does something pretentiously pointless like this:

Anyway. A while back, Brown University bought up a bunch of the old jewelry factories and announced that these few blocks would no longer be called the Jewelry District. With the big, shiny new medical school building it just finished, as well as all the biotech companies that are supposedly going move in because of said big, shiny new medical school building, thisneighborhood will soon shed its workaday past and be known as the Knowledge District.

Excuse me. First of all, let me just stress that I am all for the revitalization of this neighborhood. I for one would welcome streets that don’t make me feel like I’m driving on the moon without the benefit of lessened gravity. I dream of the day that the buildings around the one where I work don’t turn into underground clubs at night, leaving broken bottles, soiled condoms, and worse (yes, it gets worse) to greet us in the parking lot every morning. That would be delightful. But “Knowledge District?” Just like “Jewelry District” is a descriptive name, in that it implies that this district is where some or most of the jewelry-related business in town is (or was) conducted, “Knowledge District” implies that every other district is knowledge-free. And while Providence does have its share of dumbasses, they move about and settle freely, and rest assured that many do now – and will soon – populate the Knowledge District.

“Knowledge District.” It just reeks of… marketing consultant. Sometime, somewhere, a group of highly-paid contract marketers sat around a conference table late into the afternoon, brainstorming ways to reinvigorate the brand of a shitty neighborhood. Why not Brainsburg? Or Entitleton? Or Smarterthanyoufordshire?

Which brings me to another annoying descriptor I hear a lot around here: “brain drain.” Most people who use the term politely refer to it as the tendency for “college students” to leave Rhode Island  as soon as they graduate, but what they mean is that Brown Students leave. Because, really, is anyone mourning the Johnson & Wales kids who go back to New Jersey? Or the RISD kids who go home to stencil "th+ink" on their own town's vacant buildings? Most of the kids at URI, Providence College, and Rhode Island College are from here anyway. But heaven forefend the shining stars that are Brown students go back to their state or country of origin, because then all you’re left with are us slack-jawed yokels, elbow-deep in chowder and Pauly D haircuts. So thanks for that.

Heeding the signs.

While grocery shopping at Dave's this weekend, I saw this:

My favorite thing about this sign is the fact that it implies that at one point, escarole was for Italians only. The rest of us, making do as best we could with kale and arugula, could only press our sad noses up against the glass and watch them chop this unremarkable leafy green into their chicken soup while they twirled pizza dough, drank Chianti, waxed their moustaches and exclaimed “Madonna,” only it sounded like “Marone.” Sure, if you really wanted it you could grow it, but you risked having Italians come into your garden at night and wrecking up the place, and writing “Escarole  not-a for you!” in marinara sauce on the side of your house. But who liberated us? Who brought escarole out of the Italian darkness to where it truly belongs, crammed into the top produce row at Dave’s market, right between the curly endive and the lemon thyme, where no one, Italian or not, will notice it? Who on earth do we thank?

In other news, this was attached to the gas can I bought at the Shell near exit 10 off 295 in Cumberland this weekend:

What this tells me is that there are people who start fires with gasoline.

Ahem.

People. Who start FIRES. With GASOLINE.

ON PURPOSE.

And not just one or two. There are enough people who make the conscious decision to start fires with gasoline to warrant a point-of-purchase PSA campaign on gas cans that’s meant to say, “Hey. Hey there. Hi. You know that stuff you’re probably going to put in this shiny new gas can? Don’t use it to start a fire, okay? It’s wicked dangerous.”

I actually saw a person start a fire with gasoline once. It was my landlord when I was living in Lake Forest, Illinois, one of the few places where burning leaves in autumn was still legal. We spent the afternoon raking leaves into a gigantic pile, and when we were all finished, my landlord poured a gallon of gasoline over the whole thing. The resulting fireball shot so high into the sky that neighbors for three miles in every direction called 911 and sent about six engines to our house. My landlord, who was a true idiot, got a scolding from the firemen and was duly embarrassed. What I took away from that experience, aside from the sheer astonishment of seeing what I saw, was that it was the dumbest thing I had ever seen anyone do, before or since. And I’ve lived in New Jersey.

Honestly. Unless you are an active arsonist, when is the need for fire so urgent that, say, lighter fluid  -- or the naturally present oxygen in the air -- just won’t cut it? Gasoline is so flammable that oily rags and nail polish remover are ashamed to call themselves fire hazards if gas is within earshot.

I suppose it shouldn’t be so surprising. After all, we live in a world where people set off fireworks indoors and keep incredibly dangerous animals as pets that ultimately kill them.

No wonder we’re the dominant species on the planet! Go humans!

Thursdays of Begrudging Respect: a follow-up.

Hey, remember when this happened? Some got-dang fool in Tiverton got all ignorant in the comments section of an online story about a kid starting a gay-straight alliance club at her high school, and some feathers were ruffled, including mine. Especially because this knucklehead is an elected official, and the kind of elected official who has nothing better to do than troll local news sites and make stupid comments to somehow bolster his self-distinguished "straight shooter" cred.

Well, yesterday his fellow Rhode Island Republicans made their caucus a No-Dan-Gordon club. It seems his hobby of being a blowhard online got him the boot, but not for his comments about the Tiverton GSA. Nope, it was the apparent bashing of fellow Rhode Island Republicans in similar forums, the details of which aren't being offered by the ones doing the ousting. (I spent exactly five minutes looking for something he said that may have been deemed derogatory to his party, and I didn't find anything, so I gave up. Already I long to get those five minutes back.) And so, in a state with only a handful of Republicans holding elected office, where they can use as many warm bodies as they possibly can, this guy got the ax. But you know who's still in their good graces? This guy! This guy got pulled over in Connecticut with marijuana in his car and cocaine in his system, and claimed the East Haven police were unduly hard on him after they found out he was a Rhode Island lawmaker. Because, you know, what a bullseye to have on your forehead, right? Everyone knows that local police forces in Connecticut have had it out for Rhode Island State Assembly members for, like, forever. It's like the Hatfields and the McCoys, people.

And so, to recap, to keep your membership in the Rhode Island Republican caucus, you may 1) publicly disparage teenagers trying to encourage tolerance and understanding in their community; and 2) get caught driving under the influence of illegal drugs and have the enormous balls to claim to be the victim of some sort of loony imaginary discrimination. You may not, however, hurt your colleagues' feelings in the comments section of any website.

Just so we're clear.