Loose Leaf Notes

He lives up the road from where “The Sopranos” is filmed, stays at Chelsea Hotel when on assignment in New York City, and grows hot peppers in his New Jersey backyard. A guy who wears a ponytail and is editor of a Chemical Engineering magazine is almost guaranteed to be interesting. And he is. Vanx is Rick, an accomplished artist who says things about painting that make me stop and think, like “Blue is the most important part of my favorite orange.” (Rick's "Self Potrait" is posted here.)

His business card says he’s a “mere scribe,” but I think I read somewhere that he was a doctor of journalism. Is that how he came to interview Shamu the killer whale in Orlando’s Seaworld?

Not only that, but he played the part of Jesus in a 3rd grade play: They “nailed” me to a white cardboard cross up against the coat closet. I remember now that the sheet I wore was dyed purple--my mother had helped me dye it in the utility sink by the washing machine. I had a white rope for a belt. Things got a little melodramatic toward the end of this scene, as I rolled my eyes Heavenward asking, “Why have you forsaken me?”— a popular act in my repertoire to this day.

He’s been to Istanbul: The streets of Istanbul are full of feral cats. Sometimes theymeet each other under the outdoor café table where you’re having lunch. It’s best if you see them coming so that by the time they explode into claw-drawn combat, you will have already retracted your legs…The waiter apologized--I think that's what the shurg meant.

He’s crossed paths regularly with Opera Man: In front of my building, every day, on the same square of the sidewalk, was Opera Man, a street guy who sang phony opera with a canteen around his neck and a can in his hand. Adam Sandler got the idea for his Saturday Night Live Opera Man character from this man—he even dragged him onto the Conan O’Brien Show one night in the early 1990s for a round of dueling nonsense opera. Conan, by the look on his face, realized he’d gone too far letting this happen.

And he does everyday stuff like the rest of us, as his post about his daughter being asked to go to the prom, "Drive By," attests to: Honorable Daughter Number One (HDNO) was asked to the prom today. By a senior. To the senior prom. (She’s a junior). Apparently, the young man did a drive-by before asking. He spotted “Mom” on the front lawn, and kept on rolling. He called it in from around the corner.

From my point of view Vanx is someone worth living vicariously through. Go on over before he starts charging admission.