Monday
9/02/03
The Whippany Zone
So it’s Saturday night, around nine thirty or ten, and from somewhere in the distance I hear Frank Sinatra. It sounds like he’s trying to engage a small group with a bit of patter just before he breaks into Fly me to the Moon. "Strange…" I think to myself. I check my watch. Yup, still 2003. Stranger still, I’m listening to this voice in the lobby of a Marriott in Whippany, N.J.
In any case, I followed the singing (now it was about that pesky Summer Wind) around a corner, through the lounge, and into the Auld Shebeen Pub where I was greeted by a mostly empty bar being crooned to by a balding middle aged man complete with microphone and rumpled tux. (His collar was open with tie swinging freely, suggesting, I assume, an after hours feel in your favorite saloon.) A Sinatra impersonator. In the flesh, right in front of me. Ah, but really an impersonator? I don’t know what he considered himself, and I not sure what label is accurate for two notable reasons. One: you would never mistake my guy for Sinatra, as he looked much more like the cranky cop on The Rockford Files than the Chairman, and Two: My guy sounded great.
I’m willing to bet that the lookers do a fine of job standing around with that Sinatra smirk that says "Yeah, I just bitch-slapped Lawford, what about it?", but my guy sounded like the real thing. He had that throaty rumble of the mature Frank that always sounded in danger of breaking up just before the next lyric suddenly took off and soared. We moved on to All the Way. Great stuff. In any case, never being one to simply enjoy something for what it is, I began to wonder…
In the summer of 1990 some friends and I saw Frank at Radio City. We had, admittedly, gotten the tickets pretty much as a goof, but when the date finally came around, we were all actually exited to go. As it turned out, the crowd was an interesting mix that we didn’t expect. There was, as you would imagine, a fair number of older, stodgy looking white people, but the balance of the crowd was younger, made up entirely of twenty and thirty somethings, who were clearly there to enjoy themselves in a completely irony-free way. So we sat and relaxed. And thoroughly enjoyed.
At the time, Sinatra broke up his show into different parts, during one of which he took on the persona of the lonely saloon crooner doing torch songs. Angel Eyes. What’s New? One for my Baby. Yes, by that point in Frank’s career he was sort of a parody of himself, but no matter, it sure looked like he was having a good time, and I know we did too.
Which brings us back to the Whippany NJ Marriott and my guy. He had the whole tired crooner thing down pat. Urbane yet slightly rumpled around the corners. Gregarious yet slightly weary. Singing for a few people who were willing to listen even though they had never heard of him. I wondered, looking at him, how long he had been doing this? He must have realized long ago that he had real talent and a great voice, but I wondered when this act became the gig.
He looked over at our table where we were waiting for dinner and my youngest had his hands planted firmly over his ears. My guy chuckled and said "Hey, look at this kid, now that’s the kind of fan I’m used to!" Essentially he is Frank, only instead of making fun of drunks in Vegas for a couple million a year, my guy is on the wrong side of the Twilight Zone, living the persona for real in Whippany, NJ.
|
The Whippany Zone
So it’s Saturday night, around nine thirty or ten, and from somewhere in the distance I hear Frank Sinatra. It sounds like he’s trying to engage a small group with a bit of patter just before he breaks into Fly me to the Moon. "Strange…" I think to myself. I check my watch. Yup, still 2003. Stranger still, I’m listening to this voice in the lobby of a Marriott in Whippany, N.J.
In any case, I followed the singing (now it was about that pesky Summer Wind) around a corner, through the lounge, and into the Auld Shebeen Pub where I was greeted by a mostly empty bar being crooned to by a balding middle aged man complete with microphone and rumpled tux. (His collar was open with tie swinging freely, suggesting, I assume, an after hours feel in your favorite saloon.) A Sinatra impersonator. In the flesh, right in front of me. Ah, but really an impersonator? I don’t know what he considered himself, and I not sure what label is accurate for two notable reasons. One: you would never mistake my guy for Sinatra, as he looked much more like the cranky cop on The Rockford Files than the Chairman, and Two: My guy sounded great.
I’m willing to bet that the lookers do a fine of job standing around with that Sinatra smirk that says "Yeah, I just bitch-slapped Lawford, what about it?", but my guy sounded like the real thing. He had that throaty rumble of the mature Frank that always sounded in danger of breaking up just before the next lyric suddenly took off and soared. We moved on to All the Way. Great stuff. In any case, never being one to simply enjoy something for what it is, I began to wonder…
In the summer of 1990 some friends and I saw Frank at Radio City. We had, admittedly, gotten the tickets pretty much as a goof, but when the date finally came around, we were all actually exited to go. As it turned out, the crowd was an interesting mix that we didn’t expect. There was, as you would imagine, a fair number of older, stodgy looking white people, but the balance of the crowd was younger, made up entirely of twenty and thirty somethings, who were clearly there to enjoy themselves in a completely irony-free way. So we sat and relaxed. And thoroughly enjoyed.
At the time, Sinatra broke up his show into different parts, during one of which he took on the persona of the lonely saloon crooner doing torch songs. Angel Eyes. What’s New? One for my Baby. Yes, by that point in Frank’s career he was sort of a parody of himself, but no matter, it sure looked like he was having a good time, and I know we did too.
Which brings us back to the Whippany NJ Marriott and my guy. He had the whole tired crooner thing down pat. Urbane yet slightly rumpled around the corners. Gregarious yet slightly weary. Singing for a few people who were willing to listen even though they had never heard of him. I wondered, looking at him, how long he had been doing this? He must have realized long ago that he had real talent and a great voice, but I wondered when this act became the gig.
He looked over at our table where we were waiting for dinner and my youngest had his hands planted firmly over his ears. My guy chuckled and said "Hey, look at this kid, now that’s the kind of fan I’m used to!" Essentially he is Frank, only instead of making fun of drunks in Vegas for a couple million a year, my guy is on the wrong side of the Twilight Zone, living the persona for real in Whippany, NJ.
