Bill Zehme - The Way You Wear Your Hat: Frank Sinatra and the Lost Art of Livin

A fella came up to me the other day with a nice story. He was in bar somewhere and it was the quiet time of the night. Everybodys staring down at the sauce and one of my saloon songs comes on the jukebox. One for My Baby, or something like that. After a while, a drunk at the end of the bar looks up and says, jerking his thumb toward the jukebox, I wonder who he listens to?

This concerns a YOUNG MAN whose CHICK HAS JUST SPLIT . She flew the coopwith ANOTHER GUY and ALL THE BREAD , and left him with five gallons of some VERY BAD sweet muscatel wine from the San Joachim Valley or Old Hee-Ho. Consequently, in order to become a winner, this FELLA proceeds to get himself PROPERLY BOMBED , grabbin the grape for about five days. Hes FRACTURED , stoned; hes gassed , NUMBSVILLE . Its his ONLY WAY OUT . He cant figure it out sensibly. Then he decides one morning, at ABOUT ONE OR TWO A.M. , to come out and get among the mainstream to see if he can live with us again. Hes looking for SOMEBODY TO TALK TO . Its obvious that hes got a lot of PROBLEMS . And its all summed up in TWO WORDS: A BROAD . Now lets face itwars you can win. Hitler you can beat, but NOT A DAME . Oh, its murder, doc, I tell you moider ! (Shake hands with the vice-president of the club!) Now, he doesnt want ANSWERS ; he just wants to speak his piece. Finally, near CLOSING TIME , he falls into a small , DIMLY LIT BAR , a very tiny place, where a pianist is playing quietly in a corner. And the BARTENDER is his victim. So if you will now assume the position of the bartender, youll hear HIS TALE

SALOON SOLILOQUY,
A COMPOSITE SKETCH FROM A THOUSAND NIGHTS

W AKE UP ! Y OU KNOW WHAT LONERS ARE: L OSERS .

F rank Sinatra did not like to be alone. Alone, he was anxious, even a little fearful. Alone, he was not himself. And if he were not himself, all loners would be lonelier, more lost, without a beacon. Irony: Did you hear the story about the fellow who was walking around New York? he would say, starting a favorite joke that haunted him always. The town gets hit with an A-bomb-hows that for an opener?and hes the only man left. Hes walking around, takes four or five days, and hes finally lonely. Theres nobody to talk to. So he goes up to the remains of some tall buildingand he goes over the side. Hes passing the sixteenth floor-and thats when he hears a phone ring. That joke never really got laughs, but the point resonated hard. He would never be that guy.

And so, for only the lonely, he sang the rhetorical question: When youre alone, who cares for starlit skies? Not him, thats who. When he was alone, night was a bitch, a black hole, a bitter void. Night required company, required fortification and reinforcements. Since the forties, he would not take on the night, any night, single-handedly. So he marshaled troops to sit with him, to drink and to smoke and to laugh with him. The thing Frankie doesnt seem to understand is that the bodys got to get some sleep, a bedraggled friend complained four decades ago. At that moment, the New York Times declared: He fights a relentless battle against sleeping before sun-up. Even in the sixties, messing around on his cockamamie two-way radio, he gave himself the handle Night Fighter.

The fight never ceased, not ever.

Sleep: dullsville, numbsville, weakness. He wouldnt even do it on airplanes. Awake, he was aware, which was all. Be aware , he always told Nancy Jr., had the words inscribed on her St. Christopher medal, on her first keychain. Its the number one priority, she says.

He would break more dawns than most mortals. Each one was his triumph, the death of each night. He had survived yet another one. He feels reborn in the morning light, his daughter Tina once attested. When horizons brightened, he exulted over the spoils of war. Look at the colors! he would say, pointing bleary comrades toward thousands of sunrises. What kind of blue would you call that? He called the tint of sky that offered him most peace Five OClock Vegas Blue. You have to see it to know it, he dared disbelievers. Steve Lawrence, who saw his share of Vegas Blue, says, Ive told him hes probably the last of the Italian vampires.

How Frank did it: P OWER NAPS sustained him. Long ago, he learned to doze on band buses rumbling across lost highways. After that, planes notwithstanding, he could do it anywhere, anytime, sitting up, and still maintain the creases in his tuxedo trousers.

H ERES TO ABSENT FRIENDSFUCK EM !

W oe to those missing. More woe to those who greeted dawns by his side. It is there that scores of men slumped, trapped, for he insisted nobody leave. They could not hit the hay before he did, and they had to drink apace with him until the finish. It is a sore, but proud, subject among them all. They groan, lovingly, when they speak of it. Hank Cattaneo, who oversaw all technical aspects of the later concert years, would recall, By four in the morning, Id had enough Jack Daniels, so I got a bartender to color Coca-Cola with water so hed think Im still with him. Sinatra usually caught on anyway, for he was omniscient in this area: Road manager Tony Oppedisano, or Tony O., nearly half the Old Mans age, around him for the last decade, says, Ive been with him nights where he put away a gallon of booze, and I wasnt too far behind him. He made sure. Because every once in a while hed say, Hows your drink? Let me taste it. That way he knew it wasnt iced tea.

Begin to nod off, he would say, Hey! What are you doing? Wake up! Rise from the table, he would say, Where the hell are you going?

Best excuse: To the bathroom. Well, thats all right then, Frank would allow, if suspiciously. Big lovable Jilly Rizzo, who ran Franks favorite New York joint and later traveled everywhere with him, would always use it as his exit line and disappear. Others took advantage of the Sinatra code of chivalry: If a woman in the group decided to retire for the night, most every man present, excluding Frank, would leap to his feet and offer to escort her safely to the door of her hotel room. Often they pushed and shoved each other, vying for their out. But many who crept away were summoned back. God help you if he knew what room you were in, says Cattaneo. Frank himself would light firecrackers outside your door.

That was road life of the not too distant past. But even in the fifties and sixties, even in his plush Palm Springs compound, men sought escape; swell house guests like Yul Brynner and David Niven and Humphrey Bogart and screenwriter Harry Kurnitz and publisher Bennett Cerf and film producer Armand Deutsch, they wanted bed with a vengeance. Deutsch recalls, We were a sleepy, potentially mutinous crew with a resolute host who kept an eagle eye on all the exits. Bennett, ever the pragmatist, came up with the solution. We would rotate. Two of us each night would stay the distance. It was not perfect but it worked well enough. Kurnitz, whom Sinatra believed to be the funniest man he knew, once said, Frank is the only person I know who invites you to a black-tie party and, as he is hanging up the telephone, says, B E SURE TO BRING YOUR SUNGLASSES .