Blue Eyes

Friday night was meant to be a few quick drinks on the way home. As all good nights end up, a random act of complete spontaneity saw yours truly out til 4am Saturday (according to the AMEX bill).

Now that I do not drink during the week, it seems to only suppress the piss fairy in a more condensed and vile fashion than before. By Friday I am not necessarily desperate for a drink, but desperate to go out and have some good food, see friends and more importantly have some fun, because in essence “That’s Life”.

Everyone needs an outlet and mine is Frank Sinatra. So when having a few happy hours I start to hear Frank bellowing from an adjacent bar, the tab at one place is quickly closed and as I am paying everyone soon follows “My Way” and off we venture to hear Frank. My love of Sinatra goes back now for a decade. Not coming from a very musical family (Mum and Dad are still unable to work a CD player correctly), I was starved of the greatest gift that can be handed down from generation to generation….an appreciation of the greatest entertainer that the planet has ever seen, Frank Sinatra. I was gifted the love of Sinatra from a fellow ACT supporter. He would frequently play it at his parents’ house as we mulled over who we would axe in a supreme party political coup.

I am jealous of all older people for this one reason. They had the chance to hear Sinatra live. I never did. He died when I was 22. If I had the power to bring back one person for one day from the dead, fuck JFK, Hitler, Nixon, Mother Teresa or Einstein, I would bring back Frank and ask him to play a concert just for me. He could go back to being dead as it would be enough.

Frank has in the past cost me an extraordinarily large amount of money. I was in a hotel lobby in New York once waiting to check out to catch my flight back to the Caribbean. Out of the corner of my eye I see Tony Bennett walking into the hotel lobby bar. It was late and he was accompanied by a short man dressed in a tux (no not Billy Joel). The tux man sat at the piano and started playing warm-up notes of “showtune” Sinatra and Bennett got up to join him. I rechecked my bags immediately in with the porter and pulled up a stool at the bar and listened to them play. It was the closest I was ever going to get to hearing Sinatra live. And so to an audience of around 30 people Tony Bennett and tux man played for in sessions of about an hour then sat in the bar alone drinking for another couple. Not because Bennett was paid, but because he wanted to. It was one of those moments in life when you wonder whether to go get an autograph, however the poor man wanted to be alone in the company of others. There was obviously a reason behind it and it was May so perhaps Bennett was playing a tribute to his mate, so we all let him be. I missed the flight and had to rebook accommodation as well as grovel (words to the tune of “Fuck you I was leaving, it was Tony Bennett”) for two extra days annual leave. But it was worth it. I got him to sing “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown”. My favourite Sinatra sung song ever.

So back to Friday where it was Sinatra appreciation night at a bar I had never ventured to. Of course the “unproper” fans stay for an hour while the A sides are spun as they sing the only song they really know “New York, New York”. The real fans however stay for the “B”’s. I have pretty much the whole back catalogue down pat and unfortunately stayed right through. I say unfortunate not for the great music and food but the alcohol. By midnight I was steaming enough to dance.

There are only 2 types of music I can dance to – Caribbean (with substances) and Sinatra (with alcohol). I ended up dancing pretty much with every man over 40 in the bar. By then there were a few. Most of the women had given up and gone home. In a usual environment I would then be completely in my element however Friday I was pissed enough to dance but too pissed to not spew up completely if any man tried to tongue kiss me. There were at least four men in the bar who under normal operations I would have found hot enough to take home. Tonight though once I stopped dancing I knew I was going to have to run for the exit and get to the ceramics at home or I would do “Something Stupid”. I was dreading the taxi ride. It was the longest ten minutes in my life after dancing to the last song of the night which of course was my request, “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown”.

So after ruining Saturday with bed rest I woke up that night and got out of bed to order dial a dinner. Then I could feel it. The back. It was completely fucked. Not even sore but thermonuclearly rooted. Sunday I spent in massage therapy screaming every time the overenthusiastic Swedish trained monster would touch any of the aching muscles and Monday I spent very grumpily and quietly at the computer.

I add in more expense down to Sinatra, food, drink, urgent taxi, Advil pills and a masseuse.

Will I do it all again? Too damn right I would.