I’m about the furthest thing from a badass that I know.
There is a distinction between being a badass and being tough. If someone is tough, they are strong enough to withstand adverse conditions. They have the ability to endure the rough things.
A badass, on the other hand, is someone you don’t really want to mess with. They can be uncompromising and intimidating. They might be on the good side of things, or they could be on the bad side of things. But, if you cross a badass, you are likely to wind up with a permanent mark.
I’ve not met too many. In fact, I’ve come across a lot of pretenders, those big bullies. Being a bully is much different than being a badass. Bullies are just physically strong cowards with little wee-wees.
So. Now that I’ve laid all of those definitions out for you. I’d like to talk about Frank Sinatra. I read an article about him not too long ago that gave a surface blur of his life. Little facts about him.
He may have been a badass. Then again, maybe not.
Like, when he was born, he almost wasn’t. He was given up for dead at birth. He came into the world on December 12, 1915, right there in the kitchen of his parent’s apartment in Hoboken, New Jersey.
He was a huge baby — a 13-pounder. And it was tough to get him out. They had to pry out that bowling ball of a kid with forceps. After the entire ordeal, everyone thought he was stillborn. Blue as a Smurf and not breathing. So the doctor just laid him on the counter while he took care of the mother.
But Frank’s grandmother ambled over and picked him up. She started running him under cold water and slapped his back a few times. That did the trick. Hello little Frankie. Thanks, Gammie.
That wasn’t his only brush with death. He attempted suicide several times. The first time came in the early 1950s. His stardom had really dropped off and he felt like his career was over. So, put his head in the oven and turned on the gas. It didn’t work, obviously. But. His manager later found him lying on the floor, sobbing.
Later on in life, he was much in love with Ava Gardner. But their relationship was tumultuous. This upset him so much that he tried to commit suicide three times while he was still with her.
But most of us know Frank Sinatra for his fame. A crooner , an Academy Award-winning actor, and the oldest of the Rat Pack. A lot of fans loved old “Blue Eyes.” But they weren’t the only people who wanted to be near him. So did the FBI.
It’s true. The Federal Bureau of Investigation tracked Sinatra for over 40 years. They amassed a file on him that contained thousands of pages, all about Frank. These files were made public after Sinatra’s death in 1998. And they revealed his life with the underworld.
Sinatra’s had many ties to known Mafia members. He always denied he was connected to the mob. Yet, he hung around with many famous Mafia figures like Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana. Franky and Sammy were close friends.
Apparently, Sinatra introduced Giancana to John F. Kennedy‘s campaign in 1960. He was trying to get some union votes for JFK. In turn, Frank played a gig at Giancana’s Chicago club to repay the favor for those votes.
Old Blue Eyes also introduced JFK to Judith Campbell Exner. She was Giancana’s girlfriend. But. Kennedy and Exner started a long love affair. As such, she allegedly acted as a go-between for Kennedy and Giancana. In that connection, a plot evolved for the Mob to assassinate Fidel Castro. Of course, that didn’t pan out.
The FBI files are filled with many other ties between Frank and his mafioso friends.
So there is the badassery of Frank Sinatra, for what it is worth. He always sang that he “did it his way.” I don’t doubt it.
The other thing I don’t doubt is that I have never been, and never will be a badass. And that is probably a good thing. Mostly, though, I hope I can be tough whenever I need to.
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“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.”
― Frédéric Bastiat
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“For the powerful, crimes are those that others commit.”
― Noam Chomsky
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“Criminals should be punished, not fed pastries.”
― Lemony Snicket, The Blank Book
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