A CHRISTMAS STORY

Francis Albert Sinatra and Bing Crosby enjoy a leisurely Christmas special in an imaginary cabin in the woods. Sinatra and der Bingle are forever associated with the so-called "Greatest Generation," and rightly so, but they remind me of my folks--especially Sinatra--even though my parents are younger than that generation. Sinatra was a tough Italian American from Jersey--my dad is the same, but from Brooklyn--and my mother grew up Italian American in Aberdeen, Washington. Sinatra was the first big Italian American pop star who refused to "Americanize" his name. "You want the Voice?" he famously told a producer, "You keep the name!" This was unheard of at the time.

Mom (second from left) and her sisters Gloria, Anita, Pearl, and Angelina

These old clips also remind me of Mom's family--especially her brothers, my uncles Vic, Joe, and Father Tony--who were older than Mom, and would gather for Christmas at Grandma's house. They were old guys with big pants and firm handshakes. The lights were twinkling, the tree was up, and sometimes they'd tease us, and tell us they heard Santa Claus on the roof, and we'd run outside. Mom was from a big family, and she also had four sisters, shown above.

Mom also had another brother, Albert, a fighter pilot who flew a P-38 and was shot down by the Germans in late November of 1943. Grandma didn't want to celebrate Christmas that year, but Mom and a friend went out looking for a tree to raise the family spirits. They searched for a Christmas tree but didn't have enough money to buy one. They were ready to turn back, but a soldier recognized them. "That's Albert's sister," he said. He knew Albert had been killed, so he bought a Christmas tree and helped the girls bring it home. Mom still gets choked up when she tells the story.

Of course, this post barely scratches the surface--the story deserves a much bigger telling. Still, this is one of my favorite Christmas stories.

WHAT A WEEK, AMERICA

What a week, America! Thank God the weekend is here! This should give you a chance to clear the adrenaline and alcohol out of your system and soothe your jangled nerves. You will never forget this week as long as you live--and not just for the record number of mini-tacos you consumed while screaming at the television. This is history, babe. Now take a breather.


In this short film from 1945, Frank Sinatra teaches a gang of street kids a lesson about tolerance, and sings "The House I Live In (That's America to Me)." This film might puzzle you now that racism no longer exists. Just kidding. The short was made to combat prejudice and antisemitism at the end of World War II, when soldiers came home from fighting Hitler's "racial superiority" overseas to find a segregated, racist America just the way they'd left it.

The film is dated, for sure, and it might make you wince in spots--the crack about "the Japs" is unfortunate--but judged in the context of its time, when it was first screened in theaters in 1945, it can be seen as an honest attempt to teach tolerance. It seems corny now, but this recent presidential election made it clear that such a message isn't completely irrelevant in some backwards corners of the country. I'm just saying...



"The House I Live In" was written in 1943, with lyrics by Abel Meeropol and music by Earl Robinson. Meeropol wrote under the pen name Lewis Allan, and had very liberal views and mixed feelings about America. He loved the constitutional rights and freedoms of America, but was sickened by its racism, antisemitism, and mistreatment of people with unpopular political views. America was at war with Nazi Germany, where those attitudes ruled, when Meeropol wrote these lyrics to explain what was right about America.

Abel Meeropol (1903-1986), poet, songwriter, high school teacher from the Bronx

It should come as no surprise that Meeropol was hounded by the US government for his liberal (some would say communist) views. Earl Robinson was also blacklisted. Like many progressives, Meeropol took an interest in the controversial case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a married couple executed as spies in 1953. Meeropol felt they were wrongly accused, and he and his wife adopted their orphaned sons, Michael and Robert. The boys took Meeropol's last name (it was easier to be a Meeropol than a Rosenberg at the time), and have spent their adult lives trying to clear their birth parents' names.

Meeropol also wrote "Strange Fruit," a haunting poem about the horrors of lynching which became the signature song of jazz singer Billie Holiday.

-information from songfacts

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY

Two songs for Father's Day from across the generations: First up, Frank Sinatra sings "New York, New York." To my father's generation, Frank Sinatra was the kid who fought his way out of the slums, who became "The Voice." who did it his way, and with style. He meant a lot to folks my father's age. Since my Dad is an Italian-American from Brooklyn, New York, he means even more.


Pete Hamill, a writer who hung out with Frank in saloons and casinos, explains: "He wasn't simply an entertainer...Through a combination of artistic originality, great passion, and immense will, he transcended several eras and indirectly helped change the way all of us lived. He was formed by an America that is long gone: the country of the European immigrants and the virulent America-for-Americans nativism that was directed at them; the country in which a mindless Puritanism, allied with that scapegoating nativism, imposed Prohibition upon the land and helped create the Mob; a country undergoing a vast transformation from a fundamentally rural society to one dominated by cities; a country that passed through Depression and war into the uncertain realities of peace. They were extraordinary times, and in his own way, driven by his own confusions, neuroses, angers, and ambitions, Frank Sinatra helped push the country forward."

Maybe the Frank Generation didn't know what to make of the next generation -- the Beatles Generation, the Dylan Generation. The world had changed drastically, the rules had shifted, and fathers looked at their sons across a great chasm. Maybe they always have, since time began. Maybe the Beatles Generation doesn't know what to make of the Radiohead Generation, or the Arctic Monkeys Generation, and so on. Anyway, here is a song about that gap, Cat Stevens singing "Father and Son."

IT'S FRANK'S WORLD, WE JUST LIVE IN IT

Long before Bing Crosby sang that hideous "Drummer Boy" with David Bowie, he had other duets. Here's Der Bingle and Old Blue Eyes singing a holiday classic.

WORLD'S MOST DANGEROUS MUSICIANS

I love this mugshot of young Jersey tough Frank Sinatra. The Guardian just put together a list of the ten most dangerous musicians, and Sinatra didn't even make the list. Oh, well. We'll have some people pay them a visit. In the meantime, here's the list THEY put together.

http://music.guardian.co.uk/omm/story/0,,2206916,00.html

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