So I can enjoy a lot of what Dean off-handedly tossed off on his Fifties Capitol label recordings, the Italian pop songs, the bleached Dixieland, even "That's Amore." Dino couldn't sing anything straight unless it was already something he needn't empty of meaning emotion. Eventually, by the 1970s, he could hardly do a song all the way to the end, it was so pointless to him.

Still, there was something wrong about it. Now I'm sure Dean was wrong. Not because the lyrics weren't bullshit, or because of how audiences paid big bucks so they could toss aside reality wallow in Frank's dramatic renditions, turning everything into big band Verdi, then get suckered at the slots after the show, too.

Dean was wrong because the music was great, he still wouldn't trust it. There were other singers who recognized the lies in their own ways refused to tell them. Ella Fitgerald broke through with numbers like "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" "(If You Can't Sing It) You'll Have to Swing It (Mr.

Paganini)," songs even more meaningless than "like a big pizza pie." Her voice was a brilliant instrument, so she scatted. Most lyrics were only syllables she pronounced so she could bounce, stretch tweak the melody be part of the band.

She recorded nearly every classic pop song in the catalogue as pure music. she learned it from the master, Louis Armstrong, at once the greatest musical genius, the greatest self-parodist, the greatest leveller of material in the history of American entertainment. Knocked the Beatles out of #1 with the idiotic "Hello Dolly" just because he could.

Whenever Satchmo was tempted to say "Fuck it all" he emptied his spit valve rolled another number. Or the superb Vegas lounge performers, Louis Prima, Keely Smith, Buddy Greco. Prima partied with Sam Butera honking up his ass on a sax.

He was just a gigolo spouting non sequiturs. Keely went blank-faced like a porcelain doll, something quite different than the neurotic detachment of Peggy Lee. Buddy started out at the jive ass border on "The Lady Is a Tramp" even Sinatra didn't dare trespass, totally manic, taking an axe to Larry Hart's Broadway show lyrics.

Dean was an excellent singer. He couldn't believe that his voice would always tell the truth no matter what the words said, so he took the whole song, crumpled it up lobbed it toward the nearest trash can. The more accomplished he became using his voice, the more surely he would get the message across.

But even that much, even his growing skill confidence, had value only because he could spend more time playing golf. Which may have been all he ever really wanted. Maybe it was like punching a clock at a Steubenville steel mill, only absurdly easier in his own estimation, he earned an insane amount of money, more money than any human deserved.

Did Dean's view of the universe justify getting on stage throwing himself away? In some way, Dean did grasp the trap he was in, began extricating himself from it the first real chance he had, on a nightclub stage in New York when he first let Jerry Lewis interrupt his act. # posted by Bob : 8:29 PM 0 tips comments Blanton's Ashton's, since DBK switched to writing about the really important news when Democrats decided they were given control of Ccngress in order to support the Iraq War.

He's the megalomaniac architect who designed the most uncomfortable major art exhibition space in New York, The Guggenheim Museum. So I can enjoy a lot of what Dean off-handedly tossed off on his Fifties Capitol label recordings, the Italian pop songs, the bleached Dixieland, even "That's Amore." Dino couldn't sing anything straight unless it was already something he needn't empty of meaning emotion.