RAT PACK REVUE: "THE GREAT AMERICAN SAILING HERO" ~ By Absolutely*Kate of Harbinger*33

THE GREAT AMERICAN  
SAILING HERO

By ~ Absolutely*Kate

Chance, circumstance, rights of birth -- when winds scuttle tides to change, is the outcome all about being aboveboard? Or do you captain your yawl and yell the hell with it all? After all, wasn't that the devil-may-care attitude of the 60's sensation, the raucous Rat Pack revelers heightening a raised bar on drinking up a hep high life? Booze, blondes, swinging songs, swanky spotlights, and making all the right connections for all the right bookings in all the right places to be charismatically memorable to all the right audiences -- as if it appeared, effortless? 

Yes, I suppose I should accept the swagger of life in good grace, be captain of my destiny and hoist high my mains'l.

It hasn't always been such smooth sailing but the currents certainly are ripping our way now. The coordinants at the top of my charts point to an overpowering father of endless reaches of power, and a sainted older brother who could deal nothing less than aces at any game or table. Longitude aside, that duo dramatically cast strong shadows o'er my shoulder. I towed the family line or payed the price. 

Take my very first regatta -- granted, I was only twelve, but age wasn't a reckoning that undercut achievement with Pop. Like Vince Lombardi, winning was the only thing. But a first regatta as youngest crew? They should've let me at the lines with more to do. We came in fifth, after breaking our rudder grudgeon in the last downwind leg. Actually, with an early on four-point lead over the Australian contender, we could've won. We tried to keep her on a plane and use displacement when we realized we didn't have enough wind. We were at 8 knots, cranked her up to about an unlucky 13. Right after we got our spinnaker up to the top of the mast of The Camelot, hell if the halyard didn't come uncleated. That was it.
 

That's when I remembered Pop's face and heard what he told me with that look he had way back in the silent scream of his determined eyes. Eyes you could see kingpinning Hollywood in, rumrunning dangerous nights in, taking chances by hedging bets to go all in. Those kind of deep blue steely eyes. The kind that would naturally pre-fathom any surprise. Pop's eyes told me not only not to come home to dinner where Mother and all the others would be waiting, if I didn't have a shiny trophy to add to the oak case in the library facing the bay, but not to show my face if I wasn't top mast all the time. I played enough rugged family football to always hear Lombardi's voice in my father's eyes. 

 

By my St. Christopher's medal, I swear that race was the last I ever lost. True, I didn't go home that night. I stayed with Patrick Shawn whose mother called mine, but I couldn't face Pop when a win was on the line and I wasn't part of it. Indeed, that was the heart of it. From then on, I studied the courageous and swallowed the secrets of those profiles, the better to know how to effortlessly push the elements and, more significantly, when to throttle back. Frank does it that way when he makes a song his own story and gives it back with a catch to his breathing in all the right places so the society ladies in the first row and the bobby-soxers in the thirty-third row and gals all the way back are jolted into feeling the lyrics were crooning love only to them. Effortlessly.

Yes, you could say I jolted. I jolted achievement, I jolted Success. World-class yachtsman, sportsman, bon vivant and thinker of forward ideas  of which I could ask countries to make all the difference.

 

Staying the course though, as tactician and helmsman, bringing home conquest Cups and the bragging rights to go with them is what I did. I did it with a top mast gentleman's grace. Effortlessly. I was on the starboard tack Pop wanted me on. I was who he could count on when our above average Joe wasn't around. But a good ship needs balance. There were times I took shore leave and turned off the limelight for the nightlife. Hell, I cut loose like any sailor new in town would, like any guy should. That's why I took up with cutting the casino rug and letting off some wind in my sails with the Rat Pack. We had a boat-load of fun and kept our profiles showing our better sides. You never knew who was looking, you know? They made me an honorary member. I had a room at the Compound in the Springs, right next to Frank's. We all had nicknames. I was Chicky Baby and could do no wrong. Come to think of it, my brother-in-law Peter was often along. In retrospect, Pop must've been the quiet tiller hand more times than I thought I'd charted my own courses. He's always wanted the epic regatta.

Joseph, Mary and Jesus, now the powers that be say I have to bring another Cup home. Pop murmured now that I've been  friendly running with the Rat Pack, -- since Frank's tight with big Sam, he's the one to get Giancana to make just a coupla calls to West Virginia to get those Labor boys on deck with us and then . . . well, then I'll be the great American sailing hero.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

I'll do it my way. I'll ask Frank up to Hyannis this weekend. He can angle that goofy boating cap he sports trying to out bing Bing and I'll urge out his landlubber pipes; maybe Pop wants him to sing for his supper. 

I know Pop likes Dean, but what if he puts up a fuss about having Sammy at the 'house? That's not right. Will he get my little brother Bobby to handle that?  Chance . . . circumstance . . . rights of birth.

(c) 2011 ~ Author Absolutely*Kate

Rat Pack Revue ~ AT THE BIJOU

Absolutely*Kate musters moxie when writing to the attunement she hears, (usually in the key of Dean or Frank, Sammy, Satchmo or Ms Billie). It is with great rollicking joy that she presents the swing and swagger of the authors who have joined her in the creation of the RAT PACK REVUE AT THE BIJOU.  

This entertaining (and thought-evoking) show features dash, splash and the honour of circumstance to the legend of pulp prolifics, in crime, in westerns and currently in a resounding six pack of Rat Pack Mysteries. (Lucky #7's mentally on its way.) Please give applause and ample book-buying zeal from your red velvet reading seats to Mr Robert J Randisi, appearing again on our stage come this Sunday's matinee . . . as well as working AT THE BIJOU Lounge before he plays the Main Room.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

RAT PACK SHOWS 

PLAYING AT THE BIJOU

         

RATPACKREVUE

Tuesdays.

Thursdays.

Sunday Matinees too.

Be there or be square.

RATPACKREVUE 

AT THE BIJOU

Always swell to see you here.

~ Absolutely*Kate,

and our swanky renown

THE PACK DON'T WANT YA TO MISS A SHOW:

Sinatra: "If power doesn't mean that you have the opportunity to work with the people that you love, then you haven't really got any."

Opening Night: "RAT PACK REVUE TO YOU"

RAT PACK REVUE: ROBERT J RANDISI TAKES THE STAGE

RAT PACK REVUE: "How Did All These People Get Into My Room?"  By Robert J Randisi, working the lounge before he hits the main room

RAT PACK REVUE: "Ain't That A Kick In The Head"  By Robert J Randisi, paying homage to Ocean's 11, the original . . . for all the right reasons

RAT PACK REVUE:  "Who's Got The Action" By Kevin Michaels, knowin' more than the night club scene  

RAT PACK REVUE:  "STAR" By Julie Morgan,  hitchin' TinselTown to a dick's star

RAT PACK REVUE:  "OH SOUL O'MIO" By Absolutely*Kate,  mirroring where scars shine bright

RAT PACK REVUE:  "Divorce Your Loved One With Dignity" By Anthony Venutolo,  oozing atmosphere, over the border

 

RAT PACK REVUE:  "Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime" By Paul D Brazill, giving Dino a whole new swan song

RATPACKREVUE 

  

~ ON OUR SWANKY STAGE ~

BIJOU AUTHORS ~  ERIC BEETNER ~ PAUL BRAZILL ~ KEVIN MICHAELS ~ ANTHONY VENUTOLO ~ and ABSOLUTELY*KATE

BIJOU DEBUT ~ JULIE (LEWTHWAITE) MORGAN ~ SEAN PATRICK REARDON

PLUS STAGE AFTER PAGE AGAIN ~ OUR HEADLINER ~

STARRING IN AUTHORS-TO-AUTHOR INTERVIEWS, 

MORE OF RAT PACK MYSTERY AUTHOR ROBERT J RANDISI

WITH A FINALE OF AN RJR ~ ROAST ~ AT THE BIJOU

~ ~ ~ ~

STAY TUNED. 

You're nobody til somebody love you,

and we love you AT THE BIJOU.

ENJOY.

~ ~ ~ ~

LOVE LETTERS OF SPRING ~ from Scott and Zelda, presented by their fan, Absolutely*Kate, sparking Double*Feature Thursdays & Tuesdays ~ AT THE BIJOU

Spring 1919

Sweetheart,

Please, please don't be so depressed -- We'll be married soon, and then these lonesome nights will be over forever -- and until we are, I am loving, loving every tiny minute of the day and night -- Maybe you won't understand this, but sometimes when I miss you most, it's hardest to write -- and you always know when I make myself -- Just the ache of it all -- and I can't tell you. If we were together, you'd feel how strong it is -- you're so sweet when you're melancholy. I love your sad tenderness -- when I've hurt you -- That's one of the reasons I could never be sorry for our quarrels -- and they bothered you so -- Those dear, dear little fusses, when I always tried so hard to make you kiss and forget -- 

~ Love, Scott

 

Scott -- there's nothing in all the world I want but you -- and your precious love -- All the material things are nothing. I'd just hate to live a sordid, colorless existence -- because you'd soon love me less -- and less -- and I'd do anything -- anything -- to keep your heart for my own -- I don't want to live -- I want to love first, and live incidentally -- Why don't you feel that I'm waiting -- I'll come to you, Lover, when you're ready -- Don't don't ever think of the things you can't give me -- You've trusted me with the dearest heart of all -- and it's so damn much more than anybody else in all the world has ever had --

How can you think deliberately of life without me -- If you should die -- O Darling -- darling Scott -- It'd be like going blind. I know I would, too, -- I'd have no purpose in life -- just a pretty -- decoration. Don't you think I was made for you? I feel like you had me ordered -- and I was delivered to you -- to be worn -- I want you to wear me, like a watch -- charm or a button hole boquet -- to the world. And then, when we're alone, I want to help -- to know that you can't do anything without me.

I'm glad you wrote Mamma. It was such a nice sincere letter -- and mine to St. Paul was very evasive and rambling. I've never, in all my life, been able to say anything to people older than me -- Somehow I just instinctively avoid personal things with them -- even my family. Kids are so much nicer. 

~ Love, Zelda

Jazzed'up lovers? Well yes. The beautiful and the damned? Of course ~many times, both of them, but they've been my literary heroes through love-to-read and adore-to-write years. I scribed my college thesis in Honours Communication on "Elegy to a Poor Son of a Bitch", with more research on Fitzgerald than most libraries at that time had in stock in stacks.  I got an A+ with comments by Professor Bard, (honest - that was his name ~ even I can't make up good stuff like that), in red flowing ink along margins of crisply typed papers. (Remember those? And the joys of 'erasable bond' when it papered out?) The insightful comments and the esteemed professor must surely have manifested into my psyche . . .  for to this day I bear an ongoing regard for comments on-the-flow and professors in the know. Well, one very special sage and tender one in particular.

But this isn't my story. It's Zelda's and Scott's. Past all the folks who hanker Hemingway's way, I've clung to loyalties, as loyalties should be clung to, in the lyrical phrases-make-a-difference Fitzgerald's way. Fellow writers I admire know loyalty's influence too. Author Laurita Miller does it with how Poe fascinates through her certainly not-of-the-ordinary wonder'pieces, while author Anthony Venutolo of Bukowski influence favouring, 'gets it' -  my Fitzgerald appeal and that time in the world of writers in jazzy sassy don't-mean-a-thing-if-it-ain't-got-that-zing mode. You all do. Somewhere inside. Something that moves you, grooves you . . . yes, even behooves you.

Which it did me.

To ponder and write the following Double*Feature piece in a challenge to voice out in one's literary hero's style. My Fitzgerald saved-fave now joins the showcase grace AT THE BIIJOU. This piece endured and THE BIJOU ensued from how swirlcomestances came at me. Phoenix from asses stuff. Isn't that how it goes? When you're open for goodness, it can sail right in.

Thank*You.

For reading this preamble into

my sailing ditty of 'perfect response'.

Absolutely glad am I to know you in how words and worlds sail . . . and how you stroll or saunter in, find your favourite row of red velvet seats AT THE BIJOU, and add to moments of a particular perfect response.

It makes me a far finer person, writer, promoter.

~ Absolutely*Kate

ZELDA SAYRES FITZGERALD ~ The original Roaring 20's American flapper, beloved and damned wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Zelda is a hazy crazy life-endowed incarnation of the most perennial of all fashionable inspiration of that time ~ jazz and liquor. Her poetically troubled marriage intermingled with artistic glamour and ballerina ambitions dancing by. This inspired not only Scott, but an ebullient America on the rise with set curls, creamy pearls, raised jewels, dropped waists and magpie eyes, both innocently and cynically - wide open. 

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD ~ Born poor but lived proud, particularly of his family's relation to Francis Scott Key. Scott was his own brand of eternal-young, dashing, handsome and ambitious. As an Army lieutenant stationed in Alabama he found it smooth and easy to impress girls by talking up his literary ambitions, asking, "What sort of heroine would you like to be?" Perspicaciously he knew it would demand more to attract the wealthy and capricious 17-year-old rebel debutante, Miss Zelda Sayre. Local Southern boys waited around the porch for months for the pleasure of a date. Army aviators vying for attention soared risky fly-by stunts over the Sayre family home, oft times with calamitous collisions.

Scott not of a calamity nature, switched to his other best uniform, the one of the classic Brooks Brothers cut, cutting a rug, regaling his intent to become a famous author, suggesting that the female lead in his novel-in-progress was a girl quite a lot like her. He intrigued her. She took him seriously, and tried him out sexually, as the story likewise was regaled. A tacit agreement was reached. As she expressed it to one of his Princeton classmates, "If Scott sells the book, I'll marry the man, because he is sweet."

SCOTT AND ZELDA ~ were the golden couple who charmed the 1920's, epitomizing the roaring potential of promise. Both brilliance and excess glimmered in their creativity and their marriage. All was grist for the Fitzgerald grin, gin and writing mill ~ tabletop dancing, fountain diving at The Plaza, Zelda letters and Zelda diaries, neighbors, friends, and even spurred on affairs . . . Inspiration was the art for life. 

Scott and Zelda were fabled, fact and fictionalized into Fitzgerald novels as legend and embodiment of the triumphs and tragedies which simultaneously glorified and afflicted their times. 

As writers write

and life imitates art,

passion and poignancy 

will always have their pages.

~ Absolutely*Kate