While continuing on with the complete Bach set I ripped a couple of Frank Sinatra collections tonight. I don’t know what it is, but I tend to respect a business more if I occasionally hear Frank Sinatra playing in it. Our favorite grocery store has Ol’ Blue Eyes playing over the speakers every now and then, I always felt like I was cooler at Tower when Frank Sinatra was playing over the speakers, and I will always remember Rod at Wall Berlin singing along with ‘Witchcraft’ at 12:30am. Unlike a lot of the CDs I have done so far though, I can’t really think of a time that these have fallen out of playing rotation… even when the CD player was unplugged, these discs were probably in my computer at least once and listened to. Mira and Celia have both heard Frank Sinatra a good amount, and why not? So beautiful love ballads here and there, so up tempo swinging tunes as well. And I don’t think they can listen close enough to the words of ‘South of the Border’ for me to be concerned yet.

Around the time that Sinatra died, there was a joke I heard once that I modified a bit to make it seem more like a personal family story… it was something like:

“Ah – Frank Sinatra is gone, god-bless his soul… he saved my grandfather’s life once you know! Grandpa had run up a pretty high debt at a casino in Vegas in the 50s once, and the owner had him taken out and beat up since he couldn’t cover the debt… and Frank, god-bless his soul… steps in and says ‘OK boys, he’s had enough!”

If you know about the possibly shady sides to Frank’s past (and if my timing was right) this joke would get a very serious ‘Really?’ from almost everyone I told it to, followed a few seconds later by a pretty good laugh once someone realized they had been had. If you’ve been reading any of the other blog entires you might remember that I mentioned that my grandfather DID once say to me that ‘sure, if you’re Italian you have to like Frank Sinatra, but REAL Italians like Louis Prima more’. While I did hear much more Louis Prima and my grandparents house, Frank Sinatra was on quite a bit there as well (especially after they got their first CD player). So while I do associate Frank Sinatra with cool places to shop / have coffee, mostly I think of Frank Sinatra when I’m cooking since he was often the soundtrack at my grandparents as well. Frank on the speakers, red sauce on the stove… mmm…