Mission: Rehearsal; the Sinatra Saga Continues!

We had tickets to see Frank Sinatra Jr. at Cache Creek Indian Casino on Saturday. For months, we debated about whether we would drive up early in the hopes of “running into” Mr. Sinatra (man, I get goose bumps just typing his name, S I N A T R A, brings chills to my spine, for that name means so much to me: icon, crooner, idol, and the songs! Oh, the songs! They bring peace, happiness; contentment and fulfillment to my soul…how can songs do that? I don’t know; but, the Sinatra songs sure do).

The dilemma was that only my Grandmother and I wanted to get there early in an attempt to see the rehearsal before the evening performance. Our family doesn’t trust the two of us to go at such a feat alone, so we had to try and talk my Grandfather into accompanying us. Low and behold, we convinced him to head up there early. Dave also decided to accompany us! The drive to the casino was filled with excitement and nervous energy for my Grandma and I, who had high hopes of meeting Mr. Sinatra Jr. again; partly because if we did not get to see the rehearsal, we would need something to do at the casino for 7 hours until his show began!
The rehearsals are incredible, folks. You learn so much about music and about what goes into a production. On the drive to the casino, my Grandpa acted as backseat driver, in the front seat, while Dave drove and oh, it SO cracks me up to refer to my Papa as a back seat driver, finally the crown has been removed from my head and has been bestowed upon my Papa, who learned just how difficult it is to be a passenger and not give the driver your two cents! Having Dave and Papa along for the ride also meant that we would have people at the casino to bail us out, I mean to support us in our quest, especially if we ran in to trouble for accosting innocent people. Because, that’s how you get into rehearsals, by accosting innocent people!

We had a pocket full of miracles that day, folks, and for us, the best was certainly yet to come!

I wish I was tech savvy enough to insert a link here, in pretty blue writing, that you could click on and read about our last Frank Sinatra Jr. encounter (from October); but, I’m not tech savvy enough to do that! So, if you are interested, the story is in the October archives!

Of course, no plan comes to fruition with out it being good and my Grandma and I had just that, a good plan! Immediately upon entering the casino we found the showroom. Immediately upon entering the showroom we recognized one of the men who work for Mr. Sinatra (we recognized him because we accosted him in October, in Lake Tahoe, in an attempt to see the rehearsal there…we even know his name! I think it’s a little funny that we are on a first name basis with some of Mr. Sinatra’s staff. Although, they probably have no idea what our names are! Minor detail, folks, minor detail!). I was trying to talk my Grandma into talking to him, the man that we recognized, he was sitting at the bar in the showroom, but she didn’t want to bother him. We do have standards, I’ll have you know! You never interrupt a man and his drink! We started to make our way to the second show room entrance/exit when we suddenly looked up and saw another man who was wearing a staff badge, walking straight towards us. I didn’t think anything of it. I was feeling like we stuck out like sore thumbs in the show room, and was sure that people from Frank Junior’s staff recognized us from Lake Tahoe and that they were internally cringing and groaning at the mere sight of us, probably contemplating whether they could get restraining orders to keep us from pestering them! I just wanted to make my way to the exit, where we could formulate plan 2. My Grandma, on the other hand, had plans for that man wearing the staff badge! She abruptly did an about face and took off after this stranger. When she got his attention, she gave him her usual spiel:

“Excuse me, hello! We have tickets to see Mr. Sinatra’s show tonight (*side note: when trying to get into a rehearsal, always, ALWAYS, let who ever you’re speaking to know right away that you have tickets to see the show). He let us watch his rehearsal in Lake Tahoe in October and we were wondering if we would be able to sit in on the rehearsal here today.”

I could not hear what else she said, but it led this gentleman to believe that we personally knew Mr. Sinatra, and he recommended that we call Mr. Sinatra’s room and ask him about watching the rehearsal! My Grandma cleared him up, thankfully, because I wouldn’t put it past her to try and call his room! I can just hear her saying, “Oh, you mean we can go to a hotel phone and request to be connected to his room? Let’s do it, Miss!” The stranger was super polite and told us what time the rehearsal would begin and what time he thought Mr. Sinatra would arrive. Then, my Grandma and I made our way to the exit and brainstormed our next plan of action.
The show room had a bar in it. If the bar would remain open, we would just secure seats at the bar and watch the rehearsal from the bar. It was too early to order drinks, though and we had only eaten a little breakfast and had a few peanut butter crackers that would count as lunch. We didn’t want to have a cocktail on an empty stomach and be bombed if and when we got to speak to Mr. Sinatra! You see, we do have standards and one of those standards is that when attempting to befriend Mr. Sinatra and his entourage one need not be bombed! Dave and my Grandpa only had food on their brain! So, we shooed them away so they could eat, which would leave us to our mission!

We made our way to the bar where bar tender informed us that the bar would close at 2PM (coincidentally the same time the rehearsal would begin…hmmm…being the great detectives we were, my Grandma and I turned down an alcoholic beverage, figuring if the bar would close at 2, they would surely make the bar patrons vacate the premises).

Now, we made our way to the entrance of the show room. This show room was tricky. There were 2 entrance/exits. We were not going to split up in case we happened to “casually run into” Mr. Sinatra, we needed to be together. Mainly, to ensure that I did not 1) become tongue tied or 2) become a blubbering idiot! I am shy. I always forget how shy I am. I know that sounds silly; but, I am typically surrounded by people who make me feel comfortable, therefore, I do not usually feel shy. But, I felt out of my element at the thought of accosting Mr. Sinatra. Thank goodness that is right up my Grandma’s alley! She has had plenty of practice approaching any one of the Sinatras. We were hedging all of our bets that Mr. Sinatra would make his entrance at the location we were staking out. The staff member that she had approached earlier walked by us while we were waiting and smiled and waved at her. That is a really good sign, we thought! He cordially acknowledged our presence, which means he must sort-of like us and that we must not be nuisances! What a relief!

We knew which direction to look for Frank Jr. as we figured he would be coming from his hotel room, thus exiting an elevator. So, we were facing the direction of the elevators. See, A+ detectives! My Grandma gets so excited and she cannot stand still! We nervously chatter. She keeps looking in all different directions, I, like an Eagle, keep my eyes focused in the area which I know he will appear. My Grandma decides to bet me that she will spot Frank Jr. first! If anyone remembers our last experience with Frank Jr. they will recall that it was me, moi’, who recognized Mr. Sinatra in a split second! I was willing to accept this bet. (I knew I had a pretty good chance of seeing him first because I am taller than my Grandma and could see over all the slot machines…Grandma couldn’t really!)

Our eagle eyes were scanning, scanning and scanning when all of a sudden my Grandma gets really excited and thinks that she sees Frank Junior’s orchestra conductor! She runs off (literally runs, folks, through the casino) chasing this man and leaves me all by myself! Crap! Crap, crap, crap! This means that if I see him, I have to approach him by myself and this makes me so nervous! While my Grandma was off chasing this stranger, I practiced and practiced what I was going to say, hoping against hope that Mr. Sinatra was not going to appear while my Grandma was not there!

I know that he is just another human being, just like me, and that I should be able to approach him just like I would approach anyone else. My heart doesn’t know that, though! I think anyone would be nervous about approaching someone who has meant so much to them throughout their life…someone who has been untouchable, someone who has always been just a voice, never real, in person. Someone that you know a ton about and someone you admire; but, someone who knows diddly-squat about you.

Luckily, my prayers were answered and my Grandma returned before Frank Jr. appeared and the man that she was sure was the conductor disappeared. The staff stranger who we (well, not we, she, my Grandma) talked to earlier walked by us again. This time, he told us that Mr. Sinatra had not arrived at the rehearsal yet, but that he should be here shortly!

Wow.

WOW.

We had an inside informant!

SCORE!

That has never happened to us before!

We could relax a little now because surely this kind, nice staff stranger would make sure we got the chance to talk to Mr. Sinatra if we missed it and surely this staff stranger would inform us if we were standing at the wrong entrance that would cause us to miss Mr. Sinatra. Surely.

A-Number-1 detectives, we are, my Grandma and me!

It was quite funny waiting for Mr. Sinatra. Every time casino security would walk by, my Grandma would casually turn to me and say with a smile on her face, “OK, we’ve got security walking past us.”

Thankfully, they never approached us. I had tough shoes to fill if they did approach us! One time, security asked us to leave a show room area during one of Mr. Sinatra’s rehearsals and my Grandma was attempting to reason with him. Out of the blue, the security guard grabbed my Grandma’s upper arm and tried to move her along a little more quickly. “Oh No He Di-int!” “Yes he did.” My Uncle was with us and he was having none of that! He immediately, with a quickness that surely could have pulled a muscle, got in-between my Grandma and the security guard, causing him to let go of my Grandma’s arm. My cousin and I were there and were young and were wall-flowers at the time; so, this mini confrontation mortified us! We were proud, though, of my Uncle and his protectiveness of my Grandma.

Still relieved that no security had approached us, we were still waiting, looking for Frank Jr., Grandma is talking to me and then, suddenly, in my line of sight, Mr. Sinatra appears!

“There he is Grandma, go, Go, GO!” I push her a little!

She takes off in a sprint. I am right on her tails. If this was a marathon, my Grandma surely would have won.

She got to Mr. Sinatra first.

Grandma: Excuse me Mr. Sinatra; we have tickets to see your show tonight. We’ve seen you many times before. We saw you in Lake Tahoe…

Mr. Sinatra: Oh, I remember you!
OH MY GOODNESS. He remembers us! I honestly didn’t know whether to be embarrassed or to be tickled and thrilled!

Grandma: Oh, wonderful! Well, you were so kind and let us watch your rehearsal there, we were wondering if we would be allowed to watch your rehearsal for tonight’s show.
*I know more was said, but, at this point I am thinking, “smile and nod, Missy, smile and nod, pay attention.”

Mr. Sinatra, with the coolness and assertiveness you would expect from a man in charge very coolly and with such assertiveness that it was sexy, said, “Follow Me.”

We both died a little bit, right there, when Mr. Sinatra, conveying an attitude that said, “Stick with me, kid, and you won’t be let down; stick with me kid, no one is gonna mess with me, I’ll make sure you get into the rehearsal”.

That is what his, “Follow Me,” conveyed. With out question, we followed him, a little star-struck at his, “Follow Me.” Whatta guy, I tell ya, whatta guy.

My Grandma, at some point, had commented to Mr. Sinatra that you learn so much more about music from watching the rehearsal.

After she said that, Mr. Sinatra talked to us for the rest of the walk into the show room. He has a beautiful, eloquent, calm, intelligent speaking voice. OH! We could listen to him speak for hours! He told us something along the lines of how school teaches you the rules and to follow the rules; and then you get out into life where applying the rules won’t always get you by and that’s when you have to learn to “improv”. He was, of course, speaking of music and referring to my Grandma’s comment and I am in no way doing justice to him and his eloquence in my interpretation of what he was telling us.

I love listening to Mr. Sinatra. He gave us the time of day. That meant the world to us. It is so apparent that this man loves music and that his knowledge about music far surpasses most musicians.

When we entered the show room he invited us to have a seat anywhere; but, cautioned us about sitting too close to the speakers in case one of them blew.

Now, in my head, I have tried to come up with the words to say to Mr. Sinatra if I ever got the opportunity and I could never formulate something that eloquently summed up what he and the music means to my life.

As my Grandma wandered to a seat, I turned to Mr. Sinatra. This was my chance. I wanted him to know how much he, the music, they mean to me and so I told him:

“Mr. Sinatra, it is such an honor to meet you; such an honor.” I looked him right in his crystal, sparkling blue eyes.

And he replied, “Thank you. You are a very beautiful young lady.”

I BEAMED. I thanked him. I repeated the words in my head over and over again so I would not forget them…”very beautiful young lady.” Mr. Sinatra said that to me, I kept thinking. I was in awe. I felt feelings that day that I don’t even know how to describe because they are feelings that I’ve never felt before…

Leave it to a Sinatra to leave me feeling that way…

Thank goodness for their music.

Folks, my life, at that moment felt complete.

Some of you might be rolling your eyes at this because you just don’t understand. Sinatra family music has been a part of my life since I was in my mother’s womb, through every change in my life (moving as a military brat, the music was always there…helped to make our changing houses feel like home when those familiar tunes filled up the house; during my parent’s divorce, the music was there, unchanging; at every family dinner and affair, the music was and is there; when my Papa was in the hospital, we brought in the i-pod and the music was there). You see, there is not much, if anything, that this family does with out music. So, that compliment from Mr. Sinatra, at the very least, it made my year! It made me feel a little bit complete. Whatta compliment, whatta guy.

The icing on this cake would be, that during the rehearsal, when Mr. Sinatra circulates the show room to ensure that the speakers are all in sync and that the microphones to all of the instruments are at their appropriate level, Mr. Sinatra came over to us and talked to us some more, explaining what this part of the rehearsal was accomplishing. Then, when the rehearsal concluded, he said from the stage, “So, ladies, what did you think?” We had the honor of talking to him for a bit longer and he told us a little more about what songs he would be performing that night and why.

During the rehearsal we noticed that the nice stranger, our informant, was one of the band members and the man that my Grandma chased, the man she thought was the conductor, turns out he was the piano player!

When Frank Sinatra Jr walked onto the stage that night, I swear he scanned the room, looking for the two broads who hunt him down and bother him to watch a lil’ ol’ rehearsal because, as he told us, “I remember you.”