Let the geezers listen to whatever we please

There are certain benefits to becoming an old codger that make up for the shortness of breath and inability to do things that were once so simple.

I no longer have to listen to the same old rock ‘n’ roll all day. I don’t even have to play former old favorites Bonnie Raitt, Lyle Lovett, Randy Newman and Dwight Yoakam.

Now I just sit around listening to “Frank’s Place” on XM satellite radio and don’t care about the mounting criticism. “What are you listening to?” is asked at least once a day.

“Hey, I’m old,” is my answer. Now I can do anything I want since I am mere weeks from my 65th birthday. Yow!

I got XM mostly for sports, but it does provide 150 channels, so after a year or so, I ventured beyond ESPN and baseball. There was “Frank’s Place.”

I started with Sinatra at Northeastern University in the early 1960s – yow! – when the older guys advised that Sinatra was the best thing to get women “in the mood.” Hey, what did I know?

I tried it and it worked just about as well as everything else I tried. Not at all.

But along the way, returning from still another unsuccessful date with some cunning coed, I would listen to Norm Nathan on Boston radio station WHDH in the wee, wee hours. He specialized in Sinatra, but he also seduced us into appreciating Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan, Joe Williams, Mel Torme and Tony Bennett.

Those were good times, screaming along Route 1 in my father’s V-8 Lincoln, just me and the music streaming from the dashboard. If the flow was just right, sometimes you would sit in the driveway with the engine off, listening to just one more song.

Then along came the Beatles and the Stones. I landed in San Francisco just in time to see Hendrix and Big Brother and the Dead and all the rest. There was a musical bypass for a few decades.

Now that I don’t have to work anymore – Social Security is a wonderful invention – I get to sit around the cabin and listen to just as much music as I can stand.

Along came “Frank’s Place.”

The program is an invention of famous Sinatra fan Jonathan Schwartz who has deified “the chairman of the board” for 35 years on New York radio. He features the “American Songbook,” works by Rodgers, Gershwin, Berlin, Kern, Van Heusen, Sondheim and other giants in the biz. He is a music columnist for GQ, Village Voice and the Sunday “Today” show. Not surprisingly, Schwartz is quite close with the Sinatra family and gets rarely heard concert performances for the radio show.

“Frank’s Place” has become the new background for my life, playing in the house, in the truck, morning till night. It is a perfect companion for those four-hour trips to Boston, when ESPN is just too repetitive. Damn the criticism from those stuck in the rock ‘n’ roll stall.

“You’ll get over it,” says one persistent critic.

Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t.

But for the moment, I will listen to “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” by Sinatra, “When the World was Young” by Peggy Lee, “Dancing in the Dark” by Tony Bennett and “Oh, Look at Me Now” by Nancy Wilson.

I can do anything I want.

I am old.

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmeara@msn.com.