The Cold That Cured My Perspective

Okay, so maybe Frank Sinatra isn’t so awful after all. If I’d had survive listening to a re-released CD of his greatest hits all the while eating—I don’t know—zeppolis, I might feel differently, but leafing through Gay Talese’s encyclopedia of a profile, I got the feeling that Frank, despite his evident shortcomings, is a guy I could have been inclined to visit at Jilly’s when he was in town.

Talese’s careful reporting and attention to detail creates Sinatra’s image in an unfiltered light; his unbridled generosity and personable character, thrown into the mix with an unpredictable temper and a demanding set of needs, piece together a transparent image—one of authenticity and believability.

The most structurally pleasing element of “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” occurs between the first mention of Sinatra’s attending “the fight,” at which point Talese launches into a digression so artful I felt only my being hand held and not the backwards motion of time nor difference in backdrop, until I was launched (landing gracefully of course, Talese himself directing me to a soft patch of earth), back into the present with the complete quickly accelerating sentence:

“In 1954, totally committed to his talent once more, Frank Sinatra was selected Metronome’s “Singer of the Year,” and later he won the U.P.I. disc jockey poll, unseating Eddie Fisher – who now, in Las Vegas, having sung “The Star-Spangled Banner,” climbed out of the ring, and the fight began.”

Four very distinct and equally accounted for developments occur in this congregation of descriptors, pacing words, and emotion. I felt tricked in the way people do when they’re told, “You’re on candid camera!” I was pleased, wallowed in my own smirk for a moment, and wondered: How can I do that? This guy is good.

Also beautiful are the paradoxes Sinatra embodies; Talese provides careful, vivid lists without offering up any more explanation than is necessary:

“He has everything, he cannot sleep, he gives nice gifts, he is not happy, but he would not trade, even for happiness, what he is…”
“He is a place of the past – but only we have aged, he hasn’t…we are dogged by domesticity, he isn’t…we have compunctions, he doesn’t…it is our fault, not his…”

It is effortless, it is perfect. And in reality, knowing the torture I put myself through just to churn out a single sentence of quasi-brilliance, I’m sure it wasn’t effortless…but one for two isn’t bad all the time.

Also, as one who struggles to capture extended dialogue sequences, I especially admired Talese’s sparse but meaningful employment of it as a means of storytelling. Directly feeling the effect of an expertly captured and crafted exchange—the one between Don Rickles, Dean Martin, and Sinatra—I made a personal promise to own, if not use, a successful dialogue.

If Frank Sinatra actually did have a cold he’s lucky, because Talese succeeded in selling me what I once thought was unsellable.