The New York Times’ Jack Curry ran into the former Robbie Van Winkle the other night dining at Boston’s Legal Sea Food. Sadly, he didn’t get a chance to ask the performer more commonly known as Vanilla Ice about being being dangled by his ankles outside an office building window by Suge Knight. But at least Curry was classy enough not to make any snide remarks about the diminishing value of a Northeastern degree (link provided by Matt Watson).

Unlike me, Ice wasn™t in town to see the Red Sox. He said he gave a speech at Northeastern University on Monday night. I asked him if college students knew much about his music and Ice insisted that they did. Ice, who said he does about 100 shows a year, now plays what he called, œhardcore, radio unfriendly music.Of course, I had to know if he still sings, œIce, Ice Baby at his shows.

œSometimes, I do, Ice said. œI do a hardcore version of it.

Ice knew sports, calling out the names of various Memphis players between sips of lobster bisque. He wondered why Boston had become the place for sports success with the defending champion Red Sox, the three-time Super Bowl Champion Patriots and the surging Celtics.

œWhat™s going on here?, Ice asked. œIs it something in the water?

Since I have written about Pete Nash, one of the members of the rap group Third Bass who is now a baseball historian, I had to ask Ice a question. What did he think of Third Bass™s song, œPop Goes the Weasel, in which they verbally slice and dice Ice? In the video, they also pummel a Vanilla Ice look-alike. Serious rappers, like Nash and MC Serch, his partner, were disgusted by Ice™s mega-success, which, by the way, faded fast.

œI loved what they did, Ice said. œIt showed how I was having an impact. I sold 17 million albums. Let them do whatever they want to me.

Then Ice revealed that he tried to verbally slam Third Bass, but he was rebuffed.

œI wrote about them, but the record company wouldn™t let me use it, Ice said.

When I said I was leaving the restaurant to watch the rest of the game at my hotel, Ice offered words of wisdom. He said something like, œMay you enjoy wherever your journeys take you. I thought that was pretty cool. And, dare I say it, so was Vanilla Ice.