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by Peter Selgin
(Page 2)

What's it like to be Frank Sinatra Jr? In a world full of men no one would want to be, Frank Sinatra Jr. must rate in the top ten.

And yet... and yet.

These days he comes to New York infrequently, playing mostly to Vegas crowds who line up in designer jogging suits to hear him for free. He doesn't grant interviews. Rumor has it he's a mean man, a nasty, jaded man, a man with a mile-wide bitter streak. "It's from growing up in his father's shadow," the white-haired lady next to me leans close to confide. When it comes to Frank Sinatra, Jr., everyone has a theory.

"The man has no joy," someone else at the table theorizes. Yet she, like most of those in the room, is a fan. "I like him better than his father. Of course, I'd never say that to his face."

The crowd are mostly in their fifties and up, old enough to remember these songs when they were new. New or old, they're great songs, as great as any from Old Blue Eyes' repertoire. And the twenty-piece orchestra, it's as good as any you've ever heard. One by one, the musicians take their solos; they're amazing. You find yourself swinging to the beat, though you've never swung before, though you thought you were too old or too young to swing.

It's the wrong place for love...

It's the wrong place to find Frank Sinatra, Sr., if that's who you're looking for. But it's the right place to find his son; a room seating fewer than a hundred people, who are eating, drinking, and keeping up a constant chatter as the man sings. Nor does he seem to mind at all that the food and drink are being served while he serenades. For here is a man who seems to delight in being upstaged. He stands there, ventriloquist to himself, lips scarcely moving as he sings. Now and then there appears on his face something close to an emotion, but it's hard to tell. He turns his attention to the orchestra, inviting us to do likewise, to help him disappear. You get the feeling he doesn't want to be there. He doesn't want to be anywhere. If he could, he'd transmit his voice by satellite.

Children everywhere when you shoot
at bad guys shoot at me...
And yet... and yet.
...This is all I ask...

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