Just a cotton pickin' minute

Loyal notes with disapproval that another biography of Frank Sinatra has come out, once again telling the same ol' crummy tales. Once again, the apocryphal is reported as fact. The authors have trotted out the old "Horse's head" story again.

Come on, people. Come on, all you hack writers out there. If you're going to slander a legendary vocalist and icon, be original. Do you realize how hackneyed that story is? How many times it's been used? If you're going to lie, make it an original one. Like, instead of the role in "From Here To Eternity," which rocketed Frank back to stardom, why not say that the Mafia helped him get a role in "Dirty Dingus Magee," his ill-fated and lugubrious comic western from 1970? That at least would have a head-scratching factor in it. No one would be able to figure out why Frank would employ the head-cracking tactics of La Cosa Nostra to get the role. And the mystique would increase.

Just a suggestion.