Copy of personal letter sent to
Matt Mumpower from Frank Sinatra, Jr.,
Sept. 7, 2008
So, you got yourself some ink the other day for your late-night punch-out, and Big
Daddy Carl gave you your walking papers at campaign headquarters. Good for him.
Maybe you think you’re hot stuff, now. Maybe you think being a laughingstock is as
easy as waving your knuckles around at the town meat market. Listen up, pal: You
may think you’ve got what it takes to march right up those palace steps and knock
your pop off his town-buffoon’s throne, but you’re wrong. Dead wrong. Heavy is the
head that wears that dunce cap, kiddo — don’t rush it.
Take it from somebody who knows a little something about how dark the dead of
night gets when you’re sucking down scotch after scotch in the deep, black shadow of
a man of greatness. God knows I tried: Dad hits a paparazzi, I hit a paparazzi.
Dad books Caesar’s, I book the Sands. Dad pals up to Meyer Lansky, I
schmooze Bugsy Siegel. Dad has a successful career as an entertainer, I …
O.K., bad example. My point is this: The record shows I took the blows and did
it his way, only to fail time and again.
The seasoning of your dad didn’t happen overnight, bud. He didn’t just wake up
one day as a one-man Miami Vice patrolling the Civic Center urinals for under-smoked
doobies. A voting record of “No” — on everything from new sidewalks to a vote-of-confidence
in himself — didn’t just materialize all at once. It took years of going his own
way, right off the cliff, again and again.
You think that’s what you want. You think it’s your time to shine. I’m telling you
from personal experience, babe, you don’t want that kind of life. Give it some time,
Matty, and learn to be your own jackass. And do it your way.
Admiringly, Frank Sinatra, Jr.
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