Rappin’ Rabineau

B-Town’s Raconteur of Renown
Vale mas un grito a tiempo que hablar a cada momento

Baltimore is a city of characters but no Charm City character is more curious than Michael Rabineau. Long a fixture on the public access television scene (usually in the company of videographer-about-town Eugene “Gene’s Scenes” Balbierz), he is renowned for concocting grandoise networking schemes like a cigar-chompin’ backroom Hollywood producer. One thing about Michael Rabineau is a given: it is virtually impossible to go to any free talk, art opening, film screening, outdoor festival or museum tour downtown without spotting him there. Like Kilroy, he’s ubiquitous and at any social gathering one can most certainly say without hesitation, “Rabineau was here.” Given his apparently limitless amount of spare time, his employment status remains a mystery; either he is independently wealthy and slumming about town in denial like some sort of latter day Howard Hughes, or he is gainfully unemployed. Either way, he never seems have scheduling conflicts when it comes to attending any and every happening around town and can often be seen in his weather-beaten yellow down jacket power walking (he does not own a car or take mass transportation) to and fro the many events listed each week in the City Paper Events Calendar.

I first met him about 10 year ago when Scott “Unpainted” Huffines and I were first airing episodes of Atomic TV on Baltimore City’s public access TV channel, which now calls itself Community Media of Baltimore City (CMBC) and airs on channel 75. Every time I went to a parade or festival or First Thursdays in the Park event downtown, Rabineau would approach me and chat me up about how he could introduce me to this guy or that guy who knew this guy who knew someone at some cable network who could take Atomic TV national. I had no idea who this total stranger was, so I just thanked him for the interest and moved on. But after repeated encounters, I realized that he wasn’t just a stalker or some crazy street person.

Continue reading “Rappin’ Rabineau” at Accelerated Decrepitude.

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