It's a Marshmallow World

Partly Cloudy - Hi 69 Lo 48 for Baghdad, Iraq
Rain - Hi 65 Lo 37 for Qandahar, Afghanistan
Flurries - Hi 26 Lo 21 for Northern KY, USA

Song of the week: Marshmallow World, Music by Peter DeRose, Lyrics by Carl Sigman and Performed by Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra

Ramble:

Saturday morning we woke up to see our first real snow of the season. It took us by surprise as snow wasn't in the forecast. And as usual... folks here in the tri-state area forget how to drive on the white stuff so needless to say there were countless accidents.

Seeing the snow made me think of the song, Marshmallow World--- which made me think of Mark Steyn. Mark Steyn was on Bill Bennett's Morning in America plugging his single (OK... talking politics)... it's too much fun. You can buy the CD here. It is currently sold out at Amazon.com. Anyway, thinking of Mark Steyn singing Marshmallow World made me think of the Rat Pack version... There is no one more cool than Dean Martin--- except of course Frank Sinatra-- The Chairman of the Board. In the video you can see Dean is escorting Frank down the piano keyboard stairs. Then the two men get to there marks in front of the camera and you can see Frank pulling up his socks.... Dean glances down with a "do what you gotta do" look... cracks me up... they make even the mundane look cool.

Oh how the world has changed...

Paul Beston wrote a nice article on Frank Sinatra in the October 2008, American Spectator.

Sinatra sounds like an American man, or the way American men used to sound, anyway, back in the days when men wore suits and hats, before presidential candidates danced on ladies’ talk shows, before baseball players talked about psychotherapy and—well, you get the idea. In his famous 1966 Esquire piece, Gay Talese wrote that Sinatra was “the embodiment of the fully emancipated male, perhaps the only one in America.” Forty years on, that’s an enviable title indeed. Younger American men know that this older time existed, and though they mock it easily, their mockery is not always easy to distinguish from envy. Especially when they hear something like “Luck Be a Lady,” in which Sinatra sings, with joyfulness but also a hint of threat:

Let’s keep this party polite
Never get out of my sight
Stick with me baby, I’m the guy that you came in with

They might be reminded of how constricted they are in their dealings with the fairer sex, even as, it seems, all the barriers have come down. Part of Sinatra’s old-style manliness was also about sophistication and knowingness, of course; his up-tempo music (always played by the top hands in the business) exudes a class and refinement that rock, devoted to spirit over craft and rooted despite its best efforts in the adolescent, simply does not possess.

I also found this wonderful piece by Bobby Lamb at The Jazz Professional when trying to find out what brand of whiskey these men drank.

For the November 16 concert all the film stars were there: Frank’s friends: Gregory Peck, Roger Moore, Kirk Douglas, you name them, they were all sitting there, row after row. The most outstanding film stars in the world, all keen to partake in this exciting concert. The lights went down, and in walked her serene highness Grace Kelly, the Grace Kelly from High Society and all the great Hitchcock films. She was a very longtime friend of Frank Sinatra. She came on and began to tell the story of the time when Frank Sinatra visited the set of Mogambo, which was being made in West Africa with Clark Gable and Ava Gardner. She told the story of how, on Christmas Day, Frank came out of the jungle with a cake and a bottle of champagne, singing White Christmas to cheer the crew up. He had gone to West Africa to be near to Ava Gardner; they were having a big romance at the time.

Indeed...

To your health, may you live to be 400 years old, and may the last voice you ever hear be mine!
-Frank Sinatra