As the Globe turns: Three tales

Loosely Speaking by Nancy Gaines

Barnicle: more scrapes

As Mike Barnicle's myopic hunt for vindication continues -- the latest shot being his attempt, nixed by the Boston Globe, to purchase a $36,000 ad defending his "parable" technique -- he seems to keep digging a deeper hole. In a recent interview with Emily Rooney on Greater Boston, Barnicle defended his recommending George Carlin's Brain Droppings even though he hadn't read it, saying, in effect, that it happens all the time. He charged that Globe ombudsman Jack Thomas "ripped" him even though Thomas had once asked him to plug a book Thomas cowrote "with Don Imus." "And I had never read it," said Barnicle, "and I recommended it," conveying the impression that Thomas was complicit in the sham.

Whoa, says Thomas. When he wrote Prison Journal with Joe Timilty two years ago, Thomas says, he asked Barnicle for a blurb and gave him the manuscript. Indeed, the cover includes a quote from Barnicle lauding the story "told superbly here." "I assumed he'd read it," says Thomas. "That was naive."

Monumental oversight

But then, Barnicle's been consistent in his favor toward none of his colleagues. Some at the Globe recently recalled the occasion a few years back when Barnicle, in his street-savvy posture, told Chronicle viewers all about Charlestown's now-infamous "code of silence." He neglected to mention that all the details about the neighborhood's murders came straight from a Globe story painstakingly researched and written by Dick Lehr.

The Charlestown episode came to mind in light of the most recent appropriation of Lehr's investigative work -- in Monument Ave., now at a theater near you. Details such as the anecdote about alleged witnesses to a barroom murder all implausibly claiming they were in the bathroom at the time of the killing came right from Lehr's 1992 article. Needless to say, with no credit. But that's okay, says Lehr: "It's not like I discovered Charlestown -- I'm glad they made the movie." In fact, he'd be glad to have it made all over again: a treatment Lehr wrote was bought by Turner Broadcasting and is scheduled to be made into a cable movie next year.

Montgomery exits Boston magazine After less than a year on the job, Boston magazine publisher Tim Montgomery is out. Saying he "missed the pace" of his previous career in radio, Montgomery, 50, resigned Monday. No successor has been named. "I'm proud of my tenure; the magazine's never been better," he says. "This was just not the perfect fit for me." He has no job lined up, but one criterion is: "I guess I need to feel a little more excited about going to work. It's pretty slow and studied here." Prior to joining the magazine, Montgomery worked for a year here at the Phoenix Media/Communications Group, overseeing radio station WFNX. For the previous 11 years, he owned a group of radio stations with mega-promoter Don Law. Coincidentally, Boston published a hard-hitting profile of Law in August, which Montgomery admits left his former partner "very upset with me." The two haven't spoken since the article appeared, he says, a situation that -- no doubt especially at this juncture -- "I hope we can repair."

Irish main streets

And while Denis Leary's Monument Ave. is being touted as "the Irish Mean Streets," another twist at the Globe has "Names and Faces" reporter Maureen Dezell about to take a year's leave from Morrissey Boulevard to pen a presumably more salubrious Hibernian tale. Dezell recently contracted with Doubleday for "an unsentimental book about the American Irish," as she puts it. Included will be an expanded explication of CWASPs (Catholic WASPs), a term coined for a Boston Business Magazine article Dezell wrote 13 years ago. Perhaps Barnicle will give her a blurb.

Such sweet sorrow

Loyalists of Brian Donnelly's ill-fated bid for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, eager to minimize the impact of recent defections of Donnelly campaign workers to the Cellucci camp, now claim that campaign manager Jack Garland, communications director Phil Hailer, and volunteer Ed Harrington were all held in low esteem, with their duties reassigned while they were still with Donnelly. "Cellucci's trying desperately to buy Democratic credentials," says John Walsh, Donnelly's former field director, and the three now plugging the GOP ticket "are just in it for the paycheck. Maybe if we get lucky Phil will handle Cellucci's press."

Road rage

Oh, the folks at Arnold, the region's largest ad agency, were none too happy with the results of this year's Hatch Awards, the industry's local Oscars. Arnold wreaked Beetlemania with its ads for Volkswagen but lost out to Mullen Advertising's work for Swiss Army Brands Inc. in the prestigious Best of Show category at the Advertising Club of Greater Boston's recent presentation. "Going in, Volkswagen seemed a clear-cut winner," says Judy Warner, editor of the trade publication AdWeek. "But the VW ads being the talk of the industry might have worked against them" with the judges, she surmises, "because they seemed over-exposed." While the VW spots garnered a number of prizes, their creators at Arnold, which has $800 million in billings, were heard grumbling that after all their effort, if they couldn't run the $200 million Mullen shop off the road, maybe the awards just weren't all that meaningful anymore.

Lighting up their life

The stars have been aligned right lately for Joann and Lisa Ricobene, the mother/daughter team who run the Robbins Cigar Shop in Somerville. First, PBS filmed the duo for a series on women in family businesses that's scheduled to air around Mother's Day. Next, mother Joann won a contest sponsored by Edy's Ice Cream, affording her and Lisa a "Day of Beauty" to be featured in Redbook. The makeover photo shoot takes place later this month at Ecocentrix on Newbury Street -- which also got its piece of Ricobene luck. Daughter Lisa would have none other than her long-time favorite stylist, John McKenna, do the hair honors, and McKenna just days earlier had defected from the Mario Russo salon across the street to Ecocentrix, where, we hear, there were stogies all around in celebration.