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You Gotta Have Lost a Couple o’ Fights

Bono

im still starstruck, it doesn’t wear off … frank sinatra gave me a solid gold cartier pasha watch with sapphires and an inscription … to bono with thanks FRANCIS A SINATRA … WATER RESISTANT … im not gonna get over this … Frank likes me … hell ive hung out with him, drunk at his bar, eaten at his table, watched a movie at his place … in his own screening room … dig that asshole … i usually drink j.d. straight up without ice, its a tennessee sipping whiskey, so why did i go and blow it by ordering ginger ale … ‘jack and ginger’ a girls drink’ … FRANK looks at me and my two earrings and for the first time in my life i felt effeminate … i drank quickly to compensate and worse i mixed my drinks … over dinner (mexican not italian) we drank tequila in huge fishbowl glasses, never drink anything bigger than your head i thought as FRANK pushed his nose up against the glass like it was a hall of mirrors …

later asleep on the snowwhite of FRANK and BARBARA’S screening room sofa i had a real fright i woke up to wetness, a damp sensation between my legs … hmm … dreams of dean martin gave way to panic … first thought: ive pissed myself. second: don’t tell anyone. third: dont move theyll see the stain … yellow on white. fourth: make a plan … and so i sat in my shame for twenty minutes, mute, waiting for the movie to end, wondering as to how i would explain this … this … irish defeat to italy … this sign that what was once just verbal incontinence has matured … and grown to conclusive proof that i didn’t belong there/here. i am a jerk. i am a tourist, i am back in my cot age 4 … before i knew how to fail – mama – ive pissed myself … again.

well i hadnt, id spilt my drink. i was drunk, high on him, a shrinking shadow boxing dwarf following in his footsteps … badly … STARSTRUCK … “what now my love? now that its over?” i went back to the hotel … (turn left on frank sinatra boulevard), i would never drink in the company of the great man again … i would never be asked to. wrong, twice.

NOTE: IF YOU’RE GONNA DROP ONE, DROP A BIG ONE … A NAME … A NAME TO HANG ON YOUR WALL. EPISODE NO. 1. december 93, u2 had just got back from TOKYO, the capitol of zoo tv, it was all over … i felt wonderful. i felt like shit. my TV had been turned off … it was christmas … there was a parcel from FRANK a large parcel … i opened it … a PAINTING, a painting by FRANK SINATRA and a note … ‘you mentioned the jazz vibes in this piece well its called JAZZ and we’d like you to have it. yours Frank and Barbara’ this is getting silly … there is a SANTA CLAUS and hes Italian … (opera, Fellini, food, wine, Positano, the sexy end of religion, football, now grace and generosity?) … heroes are supposed to let you down … but here i am blown away by this 78 year-old saloon singer and his royal family … starstruck … a skunk on the outskirts of las vegas with my very own Frank Sinatra, last seen in his very own living room, on the edge of his very own desert, in palm springs … THE PAINTING, a luminous piece as complex as its title, as its author … circles closed yet interlocking, like glass stains on a beermat … circles with the diameter of a horn … Miles Davis … Buddy Rich … rhythm … the desert … theyre all in there … on yellow … to keep it mad … fly yourself to the moon!

EPISODE NO. 2 MARCH 1. im not an alcoholic im irish, i dont drink to get drunk do i? i drink because i like the taste dont i? so why am i drunk? im drunk because Frank has just fixed me another stiffy thats why! jack daniels this time straight up and in a pint glass.

its the ‘Grammys’ and ive been asked to present the boss of bosses with a life achievement award … a speech … i know im not match fit but of course i say yes.

and now im in NEW YORK CITY and so nervous i am deaf and cannot speak … two choices; BLUFF or concentrate on the job at hand, i do both and end up with a rambling wordy tribute with no fullstops or commas … that might explain how i felt about the man who invented pop music … and puncture the schmaltz … a little …

anyway we’re in FS’S dressing room (the manager’s suite) where the small talk is never small, im talking to Susan Reynolds, Franks p. a. and patron saint and Ali (my wife and mine). Paul McGuinness (U2’s manager) asks Frank about the pin on his lapel … ‘its the legion of honor … highest civilian award … given by the president …’ which one? enquires paul … ‘oh i dont know … some old guy … i think it was lincoln …’ cool … do you have to be american to get one? i think to myself … already feeling my legs go …

next up the award for best alternative album u2 are nominated for this … better get ready … whats the point … we’re never gonna win that … that belongs to the smashing pumpkins one of the few noisy bands to transcend the turgid old-fashioned format theyve chosen … you have to go downstairs … you might win … whats there to be embarrassed about … youve been no. 1 on alternative/college radio for 10 years now … its the most important thing to you … tell them … its your job to use your position … abuse it even … tell them … you’re not mainstream you’re slipstream … tell them … you’ll make it more fun … that you’ll try to be better than the last lot … tell them you’re mainstream but not of it and that you’ll do your best to fuck it up … TELL THEM YOU KNOW FRANK … tell the children … so i did.

the speechifying below wasn’t heard in the uk so loud is the word fuck over there but Frank heard it and Frank liked it … so here it is:

Frank never did like rock ’n’ roll. And he’s not crazy about guys wearing earrings either, but hey, he doesn’t hold it against me and anyway, the feeling’s not mutual.

rock ’n’ roll people love Frank Sinatra because Frank Sinatra has got what we want … swagger and ATTITUDE … HE’S BIG ON ATTITUDE … SERIOUS ATTITUDE … BAD ATTITUDE … Franks THE CHAIRMAN OF THE BAD.

rock ’n’ roll plays at being tough, but this guy’s … well, he’s the boss of bosses. The Man. The Big Bang of Pop. I’M NOT GONNA MESS WITH HIM; ARE YOU?

who is this guy that every swingin city in america wants to claim as their own?. this painter who lives in the desert, this first-rate first-take actor, this singer who makes other men poets, boxing clever with every word, talking like america … Fast … straight up … in headlines … comin’ thru with the big schtick, the aside, the quiet compliment … good cop/bad cop in the same breath.

you know his story because it’s your story … Frank walks like America, COCKSURE …

Its 1945 … the us cavalry are trying to get out of Europe, but they never really do. They are part of another kind of invasion, A.F.R. American Forces Radio, broadcasting a music that will curl the stiff upper lip of England and the rest of the world paving the way for Rock N’ Roll – with jazz, Duke Ellington, the big band, Tommy Dorsey, and right out in front, FRANK SINATRA … his voice tight as a fist, opening at the end of a bar not on the beat, over it … playing with it, splitting it … like a jazz man, like miles davis … turning on the right phrase in the right song, which is where he lives, where he lets go, and where he reveals himself … his songs are his home and he lets you in … but you know … to sing like that, you gotta have lost a couple o’ fights … to know tenderness and romance like that … you have to have had your heart broken.

people say Frank hasn’t talked to the press … they want to know how he is, whats on his mind … but y’know, Sinatra is out there more nights than most punk bands … selling his story through the songs, telling and articulate in the choice of those songs … private thoughts on a public address system … generous … this is the conundrum of frank sinatra left and right brain hardly talking, boxer and painter, actor and singer, lover and father … troubleshooter and troublemaker, bandman and loner, the champ who would rather show you his scars than his medals … he may be putty in barbaras hands but I’m not gonna mess with him are you?

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, ABE YOU READY TO WELCOME A MAN HEAVIER THAN THE EMPIRE STATE, MORE CONNECTED THAN THE TWIN TOWERS, AS RECOGNISABLE AS THE STATUE OF LIBERTY … and LIVING PROOF THAT GOD IS A CATHOLIC … will you welcome THE KING OF NEW YORK CITY … FRANCIS … ALBERT … SINATRA.