Dear gentlefolk from all over the world, or maybe I should say – hats and cats, I’m Tom Joe Mortel and I am new member of this beautiful society, dedicated to beautiful Bing Crosby.
       I am a writer, who have published no books yet, because I think that they “aren’t good enough for anyone else to read, I just write, write different books”. I think, I can call myself a person of art, because I can’t live without my work – without writing something.
      Now I’m writing story about Bing and Fred Astaire, called “The Thing, Fred and Bing”, about them and one little creature, called the Thing. If you know there is a song from “Bing Crosby and his Hollywood Guests: 45 golden recordings” (1997) with the same name (The Thing). This song become a short retelling of my own story, partly fantastic, but it doesn’t matter, because I try to find as more truly facts as I can, about these people, mostly about Mister Crosby, his life and living, because despite the fact I respect Mister Astaire very much he isn’t Bing, they have nothing in common (and that isn’t strange), but Bing is “one I adore” without any reason, only because he is he…
       May be if you won’t be against that, sometimes I’ll post it as Word document in Bing Crosby society, so you’ll have a chance to read it. Not soon, but I think it does not matter, because my story is about him, mostly and there is nothing what could be evaluated negatively. I do not write anything, that could offend someone and end up being closed by censorship.
      Also, if it is interesting to you I plane to write three more books about Bing and others, called: “Never been kissed”, “If I knew you were comin’, I’d’ve baked a cake” and “Poor people of Paris”.
       I already made book trailers to them, covered by songs with the same names, so it also can look like only clips on music and made a presentation to all that.
     I want to be somewhere, where Bing is alive as he is in my heart, and to talk to people who feel themselves the same and now I’m happy that I can talk to you. Everything we have is songs Crosby made, music of the past – great music and each other to talk to about him and everything, connected with him. I think that he is not only a voice of Christmas all over the world, but something much better… He is real, he is understanding kind, because he did everything for people, and as I can imagine very few for himself, and it must be remembered any way. His soft marvelous voice helps “to cure any wounds”, to feel that you aren’t alone. He seems to pity all those people, who feel bad and congratulates those of us who feel good. So he is one of the greatest people for me, and it will take long to tell all of the to you in details.
       If to say some words about how I found out about him, I can say that it is a long story, but I’ll be glad to tell you everything. I liked to listen to Elvis Presley earlier (but sometimes I thought, that his songs sound strange and now I know why it is so, because they were written for Bing and nobody, except him can sing them right), one day my grandfather and I were talking about “My way” and about Frank Sinatra. I like him to really much and after once, when I was listening to Sinatra’s “Let’s fly with me”, I find “Swinging on a star” sung by Bing Crosby and it was beautiful, but I soon lost this recording and had no way to find it again, because it was hard for me to remember the performer’s name, I remembered only the voice… After that I listened to Dean Martin too, and only between Sinatra-Martin’s recordings I saw Crosby again and after “Style” I make a decision to watch “Robin and the 7 Hoods” (1964) to see who is the most beautiful of them. And I only become more sure, that I like all of them, Sinatra, Crosby and Martin, but… But I already knew that Bing is the best singer from all others and he simply took my heart. After I learned some information about him, exactly his discography and filmography, I didn’t know who Bob Hope is, but I thought that it will be interesting to watch some films with Mister Crosby, so I find charming old comedies – “Road to…” movies. They were light like no other comedies I ever watched, and I understood that it is that. I love Bing really much, so understand me.
         So I’m totally old-fashioned and maybe Bing’s time would be the best for me to live.
         The last words I can say are: “I love Bing Crosby and will be devoted member of the society. I will be happy to talk to you and find new information to work with.”