Friday, July 01, 2005

No Gods, No Masters

What a great way to start a Friday; reading this excerpt of an interview with Frank Sinatra from the Feb '62 Playboy at The Big Blowdown, then reading the rest here.

For those of us too young to remember, the Rat Pack seemed like some louche sexist mob-based slice of Americana that represented everything worth protesting against in the 60s. To read Frank citing Bertrand Russell, Albert Schweitzer, and Albert Einstein as role models and actually having some sort of coherent and progressive code of decency, well, that's just mind-blowing, you dig?

5 comments:

Martin said...

A progressive code of decency that involved punching Ava Gardner as I recall.

John said...

That'll be the louche, sexist, mob-based slice of Americana that represented everything worth protesting against in the 60s, then.

Glad you recall it, I'm too young.

Reidski said...

The point of me posting the interview, Martin, wasn't to say that Frank was some sort of perfect human being, but only that there was another side of him that isn't particularly well known. Yes, of course, he was a louche, sexist, mob-based slice of Americana that John describes, but he was other things too.

Martin said...

I did appreciate that Reidski, it is a fascinating insight and hard to imagine coming fom Frank's mouth. I just couldn't resist a dig, ya dig?

Reidski said...

I dig!
And, apropos of nothing - only watched a tiny bit of Live8, just switched it off and thought: "What could be the best antidote to that fucking apolitical shite?" The answer: Sandanista by The Clash, it's now on and, as it does every time I listen to it, giving me goosebumps.