Chicago Tribune Tweets So Funny That They Will Make Tom Skilling Laugh Again

Roger Ebert

Vincent P. Falk and His Astonishing Technicolor Dream Coats

You might never have heard of Vincent P. Falk, simply if you've been a visitor to Chicago you lot may well take seen him. He has performed for the patrons on every single tour boat cruising the Chicago River. And he is known to every viewer of the NBC/v morning time news, and the ABC/7 afternoon news. He'southward the smiling centre-aged man with a limitless variety of spectacular suits. He stands on the Michigan or Country street bridges, showing off his latest stupefying suit. He flashes the flamboyant lining, takes it off, spins it in great circles above his caput, and then does his "spin move," pivoting first left, then correct, while whirling the glaze in the air. Then he puts it on once again and waves to the tourists on the gunkhole, by now passing under the bridge, ever wearing a suit for the occasion: Shimmering blackness for Kwanzaa, ruddy for Christmas, neon dark-green for St. Patrick's Day and then blinding Mayor Daley wouldn't take the nerve to habiliment it.

For ABC/7, he stands outside the big windows of the news studio, which open up onto Land Street. You can't miss him. For NBC/five, he'south worked his way up to regular Friday morning appearances. The station's news studio overlooks Pioneer Court Plaza, and when the anchors go exterior to chat with people, there's Vincent. He's agreed to appear exclusively on the Channel five early news, where I have never seen him, because his usual spin on Fridays is merely before the 6 a.m. sign-on of the Today testify.

He also does radio; WGN talker John Williams, interviewed in the film, does his show in a Tribune Tower studio with a window on Michigan Av. "I make information technology a point to not interact with people who endeavour to get my attending," he says, "but Vincent..." Information technology'due south possible Vincent's eyesight is so bad he can't even meet Williams behind behind tinted drinking glass in the daytime, but he knows the studio is in that location, just every bit he seems to know a lot of other things.

He's well-informed on the personnel of the TV news operations, for example, recently writing me: "For months, Aqueduct seven has been cutting me out of the crowd shots. But, recently, I've been getting in the shots on weekends. This is when Michael Wall is usually the director. Just I'yard still being cut out of the shots all the time on weekdays, when Jef Kos is usually the director." How many viewers with 20/xx vision know those names?

You might be forgiven for suspecting that Vincent is a few doughnuts brusque of a dozen. I know I did. And so I saw a remarkable new documentary by Jennifer Burns named "Vincent: A Life in Color," which unfolds into the mystery of a human personality. His life is one that Oliver Sachs, the poet of strange lives, might observe fascinating. Considering that Vincent has been showing up for years and performing his "show" with flamboyant new suits, would it surprise you to learn that he is a college graduate? A computer programmer? A quondam deejay in gay North Side discos? Owns his own condo in Marina City? Buys his own suits? Legally bullheaded?

All of these things are truthful. I tin hands believe he buys his own suits. What I can inappreciably believe is that they are sold. We accompany him on a visit to his customary wear store, which maybe caters otherwise to members of the world's second oldest profession. Surely he'southward their best customer; I don't recall ever seeing the same suit twice in the film.

Jennifer Burns, who both produced and directed the moving-picture show, says that like nigh Chicagoans, she'd seen Vincent and his colorful suits around for years. How could she not? Then one day she was looking out her office window, watching him performing for a tour gunkhole, "and I was struck past the look of sheer joy I saw on his confront. I thought to myself, whatever else you accept to say well-nigh this guy, he has figured out what makes him happy and he does information technology, regardless of what anyone else thinks." She approached him, and he agreed to exist the subject area of a film--not surprising, since his pastime is drawing attending to himself. The subtext of the film is how differently life could accept turned out for Vincent.

What Burns discovered was not quite the story we might take expected. Vincent, whose surname comes from 1 of his foster families, was an orphan abandoned past his mother, and raised at St. Joseph'south Abode for the Friendless. He was already bullheaded in one middle, and glaucoma was dimming the sight in his other. Later eight years he was placed in a foster home with Clarence and Mary Falk, who he considers his father and female parent; he has had a star named after her. In the documentary, Sister Bernadette Eaton, who taught him as a boy, says at first she didn't realize he could read.

I e-mailed Vincent: "I'm missing something here. The nun says she was 'surprised' to acquire yous could read. And then she didn't teach you lot. Did you teach yourself?" He responded quickly with a electronic mail that was articulate and friendly. That was a surprise, because in the moving picture he has some difficulty in expressing himself. His words don't menses smoothly, he repeats himself, gets tangled up, deflects questions with a joke. A co-worker in the physician says if you ask him something, he'll patiently answer, and and then he's outta there. No minor talk.

Vincent wrote: "I actually don't remember who would take taught me to read. Maybe one of the other nuns. Maybe when I started going to school. I went to pre-schoolhouse (they didn't take Kindergarten), 1st course, and 2d grade at St Joseph'southward. So, I started 3rd grade my kickoff schoolhouse year after moving in with the Falks. And, I did attend all those grades at the proper time, with respect to my age (they didn't see a need to concord me back a year or so before starting me in 1st grade, or anything like that)."

I asked Burns what she thought. "I'thousand pitiful this wasn't more clear in the moving picture, Sister Anna Margaret (who declined to be interviewed) recognized that Vincent'due south problem wasn't intellectual just visual and taught him to read, forth with the rest of the class, making sure he was always pushed upwardly against the blackboard so he could see. It was the administration, who had previously written him off as incapable of learning, who were surprised to acquire that Vincent could read."

In high schoolhouse he was picked on; a classmate recalls students would sneak upwardly behind him, tap him on the shoulder, and jump away before he could whirl and try to run into them. He began to defend himself with humor, especially with puns, which are yet an addiction. He didn't want to exist considered blind any longer, Burns says, and then he stopped using a cane. He was a member of the National Honour Society, the chess order, the debate team...and the diving team, luckily never diving into a pool without water. We meet his diving jitney, who was as surprised as we are. Information technology was in high school that he started wearing colorful suits, for reasons he does not explicate. My theory: Being the grade clown was better than being the class misfit.

Vincent reads with his left eye held less than an inch from a book or computer screen. He uses a monocular telescope for spotting approaching bout boats. His optometrist says he has astringent tunnel vision; his good centre is a fraction of normal, and the visible image is like an iris shot surrounded by blur. He walks freely all over the Chicago Loop, oftentimes running a few steps or even skipping, and then high are his spirits. The motion-picture show uses graphics to represent what he can see; it is terrifying to think of him crossing a street.

On his web site, he does study one injury: "For the six week period from February 1, 2003 - March eight, 2003, there were no pictures posted to this site. This hiatus was caused by personal injury, due to existence hit by a taxicab on January 29, 2003 (specifically, a Ford Crown Victoria). The accident occurred on Clark St. correct by Quaker Belfry."

Vincent, a bright student, was accepted at the Illinois Institute of Technology, studying aeronautical engineering. Yes. Later two years he transferred to the Academy of Illinois, where he planned to study estimator science in a program where access standards are ruthless. At Urbana he became fascinated by audio equipment, not unusual among the visually impaired, "but my parents didn't like that, and hauled me back up to Chicago. They boxed upwards all my sound stuff and put it in the garage."

He got back into the audio field, and became a popular disk, starting time for the go-go boys at Stage 618, and then at the gay disco Cheeks. He didn't exactly fit the image, his one-time boss recalls, and he held the albums an inch from his confront, but he was a nifty spinner. It was during this time he concluded he was gay. For the past xx years, he's been a estimator programmer for Cook Canton, helping to track billions of dollars in tax revenue. "He's one of the well-nigh brilliant programmers I've ever met," his electric current boss says.

Upstaging the Chicago Marathon

All of which is admirable, but how does it explain the suits? Having worn them since he was a teenager, he says he gave his showtime Chicago River bridge performance effectually 2000, adding the "spin move" near a year afterwards. He knows the times when every bout boat passes his bridges, and the guides know his name and bespeak him out equally a landmark somewhere between the Wrigley Building and Marina City. To the guides on the Mercury boats, he is "Riverace" (rhymes with "Liberace"). The helm of one of the Wendella boats says you lot can set your sentry by him. His bridges and the Tv studios are inside a short walk of his home.

There is a great deal of discussion in the documentary well-nigh Vincent'southward motivation. Information technology explains zilch. Vincent himself volition only say that he likes to entertain people, to cheer them up a trivial. One person in the doc speculates that Vincent has spent a lot of his life being stigmatized and isolated, and the suits are a way of breaking downwards barriers. I confess that the kickoff time I saw him, I saw a man with unfocused squinting eyes and a weird suit, and leaped to conclusions. But by the fourth dimension I saw this documentary, things had changed in my life. Anyone seeing me walk down the street would notice an unsteady gait, a bandage around my neck, and my mouth sometimes gaping open up. If they didn't know me, they might assume I was the Village Idiot. You can easily imagine Vincent becoming an isolated agoraphobe, locked onto a computer screen. Only he spends hours every 24-hour interval in the fresh air and sunshine, picking up that tan and getting lots of practice.

That's why I reply to Vincent, and applaud him. If people have one await at me and don't corroborate of what they see, my position is: Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke. So here is a man who likes to wear pimp suits and moving ridge them at tour boats. So why not? What are the people on the boats so busy doing that they don't have fourth dimension for that? I suspect something similar 99 percent of them are more entertained by Vincent than by the information that Mies van der Rohe designed the IBM Building, which stands across the street equally an barb to the tinny new Trump Tower. As least they can smile and wave and tell the folks at habitation almost that wacky guy they saw on the span.

"Vincent: A Life in Color" played the Wisconsin Movie Festival in Madison in Apr, where Vincent brought along his orangish and blue Illinois suit, to compete with Wisconsin's red, black and golden. Jennifer Burns says she plans a limited run in a Chicago indie house quondam this summertime, as a assistance to a distribution bargain. She deserves 1. The film gathers an impressive array of people who have had roles in Vincent'southward life, including a lifelong friend who was another foster child with the Falks. It is beautifully photographed past Patrick Russo, who contrasts Vincent's life in color with the looming riverside architecture and its busy sidewalks. Vincent volition never be mistaken for a man in the crowd.

On his web site, Vincent has photos of himself with virtually every 1 of the cows that were on display on Chicago sidewalks in 1999. Likewise with many of the subsequent sidewalk globes, bobbleheads, and couches. His suits always match the artworks. He takes his ain self-portraits, using a camera on a tripod and an motorcar-timer. On the motion-picture show'southward own web site, you can notice the column Neil Steinberg wrote for the Dominicus-Times nigh Vincent in 1975. Information technology was Neil who sent me his DVD of this picture show.

Vincent writes me: "For your enjoyment, I have some Blagojevich sense of humor (I'm sure you've heard of him). Recently, he wanted to go to Costa Rica to be on the TV reality evidence. This makes me call back of someone who buys some very, very, very expensive cologne or perfume, and then splashes fashion also much of it on himself or herself. He or she would truly be a cost-a reekin!!!!??

The Ballad of Vincent

Correcting the article, Vincent writes me: Offset, NBC5. I'g no longer there on Fri AM. The producers took away my 'spin spot" in Oct, 2007. You can still encounter me at Studio 5 in one case in a (great) while in the background during one of the evening news casts (usually the 6PM news).

As for the bridges, my bridges of choice are Michigan Av and Country St (non Wabash). But, I may temporarily movement from Michigan Av to Columbus Dr. Apparently, the Bureau of Bridges is starting a repainting projection on the lower level of Michigan Av Bridge. Today (Sun), the north arroyo to the bridge was closed off due to the painting. I went to the other end of the bridge, and slipped around the barrier, so I could get on the bridge deck for my "fashion shows". (Don't worry, the Bureau of Bridges WILL get over information technology!!!!??!) But, if the painting work moves onto the span itself, I won't exist able to do that, so it'due south over to Columbus.

In a related,thing, you can thank the recession of the mid 1970's for the fact that I became a disco DJ. Information technology's been said that the 1970's recession was the 2nd worst in the last 50 years, or and so. Second only to the current recession. It was my inability to get a programming job in the period of 1974-1976 that caused me to wind up in the DJ booth.

Neil Steinberg wrote his article back in 2005, non concluding year as you said. It was written shortly before Jennifer started shooting her pic. Virtually a yr earlier, an article was written in the Tribune. That's the 1 that was "regionalized" (information technology was seen simply past people within the city, itself). They, too, took a photo of me in a bright, shiny, peach colored suit, and printed it in blackness and white (the nerve of them)!! There was an article near me concluding year, just that was the "good" Tribune article, written past Colleen Mastony.

And, for your benefit and/or enjoyment, did you know that basketball is the perfect game for a gay accountant to play?? If he launches the ball on a perfect trajectory,where information technology goes through the hoop, and touches nothing just fabric, the ball does tend to go "swish". He volition achieve his "net" result."

Vincent also writes me: "Here is something else for y'all to enjoy. At the Wisconsin Film Festival, Jennifer and I were in a radio interview at a remote broadcast site run by WORT, a public radio FM station in Madison, WI. You'll get some good insights into Jennifer's movie, and you'll feast your ear drums on some of my 'nuggets of humor.'

"I went to schoolhouse at the UI in 'Cham-bana,' and Jennifer went to UW in Madison. So, at the end of the interview, I grabbed a hazard to do something dainty and "rude and nasty". Mind for it -- you'll bask it!!

"Notation: The audio level is very depression in this video. The camera was about x anxiety behind the place Jennifer was sitting. And they did not use the radio station's audio. The audio was picked up by the camera'southward own mic. You'll need to use a figurer that is hooked upward to either amplified speakers, or a stereo arrangement. And, you'll have to crank that sucker upward very loud."