-Tom Cochran, Executive Director, U.S. Conference of Mayors
I never had any dealings
with Vincent “Buddy” Cianci, but I’ve spoken through the years with many who
did. To a person, they all say roughly the same thing:
He was brilliant and driven, one of the smartest and best
politicians they’d ever seen. He rightly deserved credit for the economic and
cultural rebirth of Providence, Rhode Island. It was hard to work for him, or be
accountable to him, but you always learned something when you were with him. Unfortunately, you never knew when one of his
inner demons would pop out to torment you and/or create a spectacle.
We were once engaged in a
project in Massachusetts with a man who’d run the Providence Civic Center (now the
Dunkin Donuts Center) for a spell when Cianci was mayor.
“Buddy was a wild man, a
total wild man,” the man told us. “He’d
think nothing of calling you at 1:00 a.m. to ask a question about some nothing
issue. But he was a genius. He could see things in government that other
people never could. He’d make a victory
out of something everyone had missed but him.”
This man explained that
he’d been hired by the center’s board of directors and reported directly to the
board.
“That didn’t matter to
Buddy,” he said. “From the beginning, he
made it clear I worked for him, and that, if I wanted to keep my job, I would
do what he told me. Period. End of story.
That’s how it was for everyone in Providence.”
Cianci died this past
Thursday, Jan. 28, at the age of 74. Up
until a few days before his death, he was still going, fairly strong, as a
radio talk show host in Rhode Island.
Of all the things I’ve
read about the man since his passing, nothing is as good and as worthy of
recommendation as Matt Taibbi’s piece yesterday in Rolling Stone, “One
Crazy Hour With Buddy Cianci.” This is a
highly entertaining account of the time in September, 2013, when Taibbi was a
guest on Cianci’s radio show together with Stephen Day, former head of the Providence
firefighters union.
Here’s a sample from “One
Crazy Hour,” told in Cianci’s voice to Taibbi during a commercial break:
“This one time, we’re
signing a collective bargaining agreement.
There’s cameras everywhere and when I’m done signing the paper, all of a
sudden all of these firefighters are slapping me on the back and shaking my
hand. And I’m panicking. Why are they so happy? I lean over and I say, ‘Stephen, what the
fuck did I just sign?’ ”
That Taibbi is the
author of this piece provided a needed hook (excuse) to write this post: he
grew up around Boston and graduated from Concord Academy. His father, Mike Taibbi, was an outstanding TV
reporter in Boston before going on to a distinguished national career at NBC
news.
To get Matt’s entire
article, click on: 
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