Tuesdays, 8-10 AM

The friends of "Frank, Gil, and Friends" are BACK, baby!

Look at this WFCS "Total Listening Hours" on-line listener chart from August 2010...I was on air on the 3rd, out of town on the 10th, on air on the 17th, out of town on the 24th, and back on air on the 31st.

WFCS Intramural Softball

Game I: pitched two innings (called in as a reliever aftter first inning); 0-1 batting; lost 19-2

Game II: called on account of lightning (before game had begun)

Game III: Rained out

Game IV: Played left field; caught one fly-out; ran after several more; 0-1 batting; lost 20-0

The New Ava Gardner Museum Blog and other Ava News

I'm quite excited that the Ava Gardner Museum now has its own blog -- a chance for all of us who aren't in shouting distance of Smithfield, NC to keep up with events, exhibits, etc. at the Museum.

Other news...

Just heard from my publisher, Entasis Press, that we're looking at an April release for the new anthology, Ava Gardner: Touches of Venus.

And the free Ava film series at CCSU, "Fridays with Ava," sponsored by Alumni Affairs Office, will include a pre-screening reception at each movie! Ava with snacks on a Friday afternoon. What could be better that that?

I'm also trying to arrange with Playhouse on Park a free morning screening of Ava's One Touch of Venus. Details as they become available.

And this Tuesday at 9:00 AM on the "Frank, Gil, and Friends" radio show, we'll mark this Monday's 20th anniversary of Ava's passing with a special Ava playlist!!!!! (Just return here on Tuesday and click on the WFCS station link right on this blog!)

Ava Gardner-- alive and well in central Connecticut!

Statistical Anomaly Day was a winner!

Yesterday, for my morning radio show, I encouraged as many members of the "Frank, Gil and Friends" distribution list to log on during the show as possible to demonstrate to the student members of WFCS, the radio station of CCSU, how a little leg work in building audiences could produce results. An anomaly indeed!

(NB: TLH stands for "Total Listening Hours")

Darlene Zoller's "My Show"

This is the latest show by my tap dance instructor, Darlene Zoller, and her troupe, stop/time dance theatre.

She's a wonderful dancer and choreographer -- and a martyr of a dance instructor (with yours truly's poor physical skills and even poorer sense of rhythm as her primary torments).

I'll be giving away a pair of tickets on my radio show next Tuesday, 23 June, between 8 and 9 AM. Listen to WFCS 107.7 fm or on-line at www.live365.com/stations/wfcs to win! (Of course, buying a ticket or two or three is always an option, too.)

Feeling the love...

Go to www.ccsu.edu/, and, under"Featured Sites,"

click on "Commencement Gallery" and check out pictures:

#9 (WFCS General Manager Emerita Hilda Sullivan and I)

and

#48 (My reading one of the 1300+ names that morning...in toto, I only read half of that number, sharing the duty with ESPN producer John Totten)!

I really do love commencement and don't quite understand why every faculty member doesn't. It is, after all, a celebration of our students' success.

And we get to wear the cool outfit!

Sinatra: No (X-)mas! No (X-)mas!

On Tuesday, 23 December, I did my annual WFCS Christmas radio show on "Frank, Gil, and Friends," during which I played a good chunk of Sinatra's official Christmas albums from Capitol and Reprise Records.

While I'm a huge Sinatra fan (why else would I have hosted a Sinatra program for the past 15 years and published two books?), I've never warmed to his post-Columbia Christmas recordings.

To put it bluntly, they ain't Bing (or even Andy Williams, for that matter). Only yesterday's show brought out the "why" to me. Unlike almost everything else he recorded (and, most certainly, unlike his very best songs), I don't believe a word he's singing.

If, as is commonly believed (and, to my mind, as is correct), Sinatra's remarkable strength as an interpretative performer comes from telling stories through his songs, and if, in doing so, he makes his audience believe he's telling those stories to each of them alone, then way too much of A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra, arranged by Gordon Jenkins (1957), Twelve Songs of Christmas (with Bing Crosby and Fred Waring) (1964), and The Sinatra Family Wishes You a Very Merry Christmas (1968), sounds as if he's reading a phonebook into a megaphone on Main Street. Almost none of the recordings, and certainly none of the traditional hymns or carols he recorded in the '50s and '60s, is subtle, sincere, or intimate...which may be a tall order for any singer, but he IS Frank Sinatra, so it should NOT be too tall an order for him.

Aside from "Mistletoe and Holly" and "The Christmas Waltz," both written specifically for him, the songs come off stiff and stagy: too somber to be enjoyed (much less joyous), not heartfelt enough to be heartwarming, or too kitschy to ring true. The frequent choral arrangements don't help the intimacy, but, even alone, he never actually convinces me that it matters whether "All ye Faithful" actually come or whether "It" indeed "Came Upon the Midnight Clear."

His recording for Columbia Records in the '40s fare far better, perhaps due to his more angelic voice and swell Axel Stordahl arrangements, but Sinatra seems equally comfortable balladeering -- e.g., "Christmas Dreaming (A Little Early This Year)" -- and swinging -- e.g., "Santa Claus is Coming to Town."

Most importantly, however, the proof that they work is plain: I believe.