A voice that evokes memories of The Voice

For decades, he lived and sang in the shadow of his famous father. While Frank Sinatra took the bows in packed stadiums around the world, Frank Sinatra Jr. sang for  sometimes sparse crowds in out-of-the way, no-name lounges. It wasn't that he didn't have a great voice -- he did and does -- but inevitably comparisons were made with a singer who defied comparison. And it didn't help that, early in his career,  Frank Jr.'s very real kidnapping was tagged a hoax by the lawyer for the guilty party. But after his father died, the younger Sinatra's fortunes improved. That was evident in an appearance at Rhode Island's Twin River Casino last Saturday when he packed a very big hall and won a well-deserved standing ovation. Unlike when his father was alive, Frank Jr. nowadays mainly sings numbers associated with Ol' Blue Eyes in a voice that is as close to his dad's as anyone is going to get. In a sense, that is too bad because the non-Sinatra songs he began the concert with were excellent, yet the audience response was tempered. The people, of course, comes for the songs and the memories of the greatest entertainer of the 20th century and that is why the place was jammed. As Frank Jr. replied when someone asked if he'd ever played in Rhode Island before, when he was young and seeking his own path, "I played in places you don't even know existed."

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When I was driving to the concert, my text-to-speech GPS told me to "take the Lincoln Ree exit." I puzzled over that until I realized that Gina the GPS was translating "RI" as "Ree." She must not be from these parts.

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Finally getting a sunny day and spending it at the zoo with my grandson -- it doesn't get a whole lot better than that.

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Speaking of the zoo, the people who run it recently made a bogus claim that budget cuts would lead to closing the zoo and euthanizing animals. That reminded me of that wonderful National Lampoon magazine cover picturing a dog with a gun to his head. The accompanying words were, "If You Don't Buy This Magazine, We'll Kill This Dog."