Watching a drama or a thriller unfold, the music cleaves so tightly to the actors that you don’t believe they could even breathe without Richard’s harmonious accompaniment.
Music and Performers Embrace in a Dance
Running late yesterday morning after dropping off his daughter Rachel at her school, Richard was hurrying toward The Plunge, which he loves, for his daily morning swim.
Just enough time for an exhilarating refresher before reversing his direction, returning to his favorite work enclave, his magnificently outfitted studio at home.
He presses buttons and spins knobs on some of the planet’s most recently produced technology. Lights begin flashing. Soon musical strains that would make an angel blush are emanating from forebodingly dark machinery shaped like robots, and you have been transported into a parallel universe.
Frankly, I thought the temperature was crisp-y enough to give birth to several goosebumps. I was going to lift a light jacket out of my car — after Richard was out of sight.
At sixty degrees, the thermometer was perfect for my friend. Even on seriously brisk, even rainy, Saturday mornings, the muscular Richard arrives unfailingly at our synagogue in Venice with his trademark short-sleeved shirt flapping in a breeze.
He makes well-conditioned gym rats look scrawny.
A witty raconteur, he takes his politics well-done, in a permanent state of simmer. No kidding, please. His wit, but not his wits, is stored in a separate compartment. His picnic-basket of humor never closes.
The outdoor pool that is The Plunge was as gorgeous as the weather, and Richard was going to try to squeeze in a blurred twenty-minute workout.
He looks as if he could suit up for the National Football League, which is why he visits The Plunge every a.m.
Richard may be cool, but one of his dependable values is that it never is too cool for him to swim. After all of the years he has lived in Southern California, I don’t think he yet has seen weather that would necessitate more than a see-through jacket.
The Difference Between Us
Signing in quickly with The Plunge’s Rec Coordinator, Elizabeth Price, Richard slipped inside to change while I entered the pool area.
As one who prefers to confine his physical workouts to mental gymnastics, conserving my energy for later life, the sparkling blue water of the eight-lane pool was a delightful revelation. A dozen stretching swimmers were dutifully, splashingly stroking down their lanes while a barrel of gleaming early morning sunlight filled the pool.
As Richard stood there explaining why The Plunge has become his new best friend since re-opening last summer, I heard echoes of my mother, urging me to go ahead and experience the water.
“I like it because it’s wet,” Richard said seriously. “I call this pool ‘Starbucks for the Body.’ You get in there, and it’s nice, cool and healthy.
“Since my time is short this morning, I will have to sprint to do five hundred meters. Other days, it’s a thousand or two thousand meters.”
Does it make a difference who else is in the pool?
“It does. Sometimes fast guys like to egg each other on.
“People are very friendly and sociable,” says Richard, who never has encountered a stranger. There isn’t anything arm’s length about him except the span of his baby steps. “There is no social status when you’re naked. People don’t know who you are. You could be a lawyer or a musician.”
How Do You Say It in French?
A moment later, Richard swims up to my end of the pool, his new French-speaking friend Joel Virgel in tow. Apologizing for shaking hands wetly — not a towel was in sight— Mr. Virgel is an artist who grew up in Paris before migrating to Culver City. He recently attracted ink in Vanity Fair as a top-ranked up-and-coming songwriter/singer/drummer.
He sounded even more enthusiastic than Richard about working out in water. “I come here six times a day, I mean a week,” he laughed.
This week, the two of them have schmoozed over the waves about the Academy Awards balloting. The exotic-minded Mr. Virgel and Richard, brandishing his sword of wilt-proof wit, have swapped contrasting opinions about the results, especially the taste-challenged Song of the Year. Richard’s face fell off to a scowl. Mr. Virgel asked what the fuss is about? The Oscars are mainly about partying.
“I don’t take them seriously,” he said. “The results not only do not ruin my day, they don’t ruin even one lap.”
At the onset of dawn, Mr. Virgel practically steps straight out of bed and takes The Plunge. “I come here for conditioning and to relieve stress,” he says. “For me, swimming is very meditative and calming. Good for the body and good for the mind. My gear is always in the car. Wherever I am, I go swimming.”
He is partial to The Plunge because it is fastidiously maintained, and better, it still is a secret, even if it does front along busy Overland Avenue.
“Afterward,” Mr. Virgel says, “it is so calming to walk through the park.”
With that, both men pushed off into the depths. Barely one stroke later, they had bobbed out of sight.
Postscript
When I came back inside to inquire of Ms. Price about The Plunge’s daily schedule, I needed two pencils, simultaneously, to catch the entire grid: Monday through Friday, 6 a.m. to 9 a.m., and 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. About then, I began to regret failing math. Monday-Wednesday-Friday evenings, 6:30 to 8:30. Tuesday and Thursday evenings, 6 to 8. Saturdays, 7 to 9 a.m., and Saturdays and Sundays, 12:15 to 2.