There he is, sans rug [which he called "squirrel"] in the November 5th edition of THE NEW REPUBLIC: Vincent "Buddy" Cianci. The article is titled "Buddy System: A Corrupt mayor's kitschy comeback" and is written by James Kirchick.
Clearly, according to Kirchick, the Prince of Providence is back. He has three gigs. One is his day job promoting a lux condo complex in Providence. Another is his radio talk show. The third is his TV assignment to be the Chief Political Analyst for the Providence ABC affiliate. Publishers are also after him to write books. He has started on one, his memoirs.
His sense of humor is less full of self-pity [less Lucky Sperm Club ruminations] and more ironic and self-deprecating. For instance, Buddy reflects on the great services in the slammer: "They even open your mail for you." He also got to read 1000 books, some of great gravitas such as the historical works of David Halberstam and David McCullough. That reading has inspired him to initiate a book club on his radio talk show.
His creativity is still intact. He used that driven imagination while mayor to help re-build Providence from a dying town to a cool place that could morph into one of those upscale need-to-be cities for gays, artists and other visionaries. THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL had opined that Providence could become P-Town II. For his radio talk show he invented via sound effects a barking dog named RICO. Talk about still being an in-your-face or rather in-your-ear sort of character.
From Kirchick's article, I could see that maybe Buddy Former Jailbird has more career runway than Buddy Former Mayor. The slammer was one of those life-altering events. His story is so much more provocative now. And leave it to Buddy to leverage that.
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