Archives for March 10, 2015

As some of you may recall, I spent several hours last year being interviewed for a two-part TV documentary about Frank Sinatra. I was much impressed at the time by the seriousness and industry of the producers, who had not only done their homework but had very clearly profited from it. It’s easy to be superficial about Sinatra, but they assured me that their interest was not in retailing gossip but in exploring his artistry, and I took them at their word.

The fruits of their labors are about to be harvested. Sinatra: All or Nothing at All will air on HBO on April 5 and 6. A minute-long trailer has just been posted on YouTube, and it seems that I figure prominently in it.

If you’re curious, take a look:

UPDATE: An old college friend writes: “I just heard your voice on an advertisement for a documentary about Frank Sinatra on HBO! I haven’t heard your voice in decades!”

From 2005:

Of all my peculiar claims to singularity, this one may be the most revealing: I’ve never met another person whose head was crammed full of so much miscellaneous information about people like Fred Allen, most of it utterly useless. To put it another way, I can be boring about more subjects than anyone I know. Fortunately, I’m painfully aware that I suffer from this chronic disability, and sometimes even manage to guard against inflicting it on my friends….

Read the whole thing here.

“One always writes comedy at the moment of deepest hysteria.”

V.S. Naipaul (interviewed in the New York Times, Apr. 24, 1994)