DIE, TIME, DIE!

100 Things in 20 Minutes, With Frank Sinatra and Julie Andrews

I, too, flog this dead pony of a writing prompt

So the gist of this prompt is to write for 20 solid minutes and hope that 100 chunks of delicious brain salsa spew out. Action painting. Pollock. That vibe. Advanced wits like Paul Combs, Hogan Torah and Gunner Barrett and Carol Lennox have done this already. And I mean done. But as my mom used to to say, “Anything worth doing is worth doing late and with lowered expectations.”

Here’s it is, raw AF. From 5:19 to 5:39 a.m. Go.

1. “From Here to Eternity”
2. And back
3. That’s a hell of an Uber
4. Frank Sinatra lobbied hard for the role of Maggio
5. Which would win him the Academy Award
6. Before that, Sinatra was considered washed up
7. Has been
8. Used goods
9. A skinny little nobody from Hoboken
10. Who kept getting his heart broken by Ava Gardner
11. Who liked to break hearts, let’s be honest
12. Frank didn’t like rock and roll and couldn’t do it
13. That special where he welcomed Elvis back from the army was mostly for show
14. But he wanted the part in “From Here to Eternity”
15. His character is a little wiseacre who dies
16. Oscar bait
17. He’s also in it with Burt Lancaster, a huge mountain of a guy
18. He doesn’t die
19. He’s Burt Fucking Lancaster
20. Don’t fuck with guys named Burt
21. Thinking Reynolds here
22. Not Convy
23. Pretty obscure, Google it
24. But if you’re gonna go through life as a Burt, you gotta own it
25. Burt Young in “Rocky”
26. Terrific actor, looked and probably smelled like stale baloney
27. Nobody names their kid Burt anymore
28. Some female supermodel should change her name to Burt
29. No last name, just Burt
30. Anyway Sinatra got the part in “From Here To Eternity” and his career survived
31. The drunk misogynistic party never ends with that guy
32. The Rat Pack had no actual rats
33. They named it after Humphrey Bogart’s Rat Pack
34. They were alcoholics enjoying the company other famous alcoholics
35. Frank admired that about Bogie
36. And both had it bad for Lauren Bacall
37. Who somehow didn’t grow tired of those pushy boozers
38. She was 19 in her first movie with Bogie
39. Bogie wasn’t 19
40. He had underwear older than that.
41. But no one thought that was creepy then, the age thing
42. It was though
43. But because it was Bogie and Bacall, it was cool
44. Context is everything, right?
45. Frank Sinatra never got another Oscar
46. He hated “The Godfather” because there’s a plot line that’s basically about him trying to get the part in “From Here to Eternity”
47. Frank didn’t want people to think he was chummy with gangsters
48. People don’t want to think about that when they are listening to his music trying to get laid
49. The Frank’s chummy with gangsters part, I mean.
50. He made his best music when he was miserable
51. In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning
52. That’s the time you miss her most of all
53. When he sang that, he was cheating on his wife
54. and the mother of his children
55. The heart wants what it wants
56. It wanted Ava Gardner
57. Who was a piece of work
58. He suffered for his art
59. I just typed “heart” so that’s deep
60. Frank later married Mia Farrow
61. Totally different vibe there
62. She had super short hair
63. Called a pixie cut
64. Starlets discover it every three years like it’s new or something
65. Frank didn’t have a pixie cut
66. because he was rapidly balding
67. Frank Sinatra was no fucking pixie
68. He and Mia had movies come out at the same time
69. She had “Rosemary’s Baby”
70. He had “The Detective”
71. “Rosemary” kicked its ass
72. Huge hit about a devil baby
73. That’s the 70s for ya
74. Hey honey, let’s go see that movie about the devil baby
75. With Mia Farrow
76. And her pixie cut
77. No cable, No Streaming back then
78. You went out and movies were dark as shit
79. “Serpico”
80. “The Parallax View”
81. “The Conversation”
82. “Rosemary’s Fucking Baby”
83. “Patton”
84. “The Sound of Music”
85. “Star Wars”
86. Wait, all those came later
87. Except “The Sound of Music,” which was earlier
88. Julie Andrews, man
89. No pixie cut for her
90. Wait, Sound of Music. Proto-pixie, at least
91. She was never in a movie with Frank Sinatra
92. What could have been, huh?
93. Great voice, Julie
94. “Victor/Victoria”
95. “Mary Poppins”
96. No pixie cut for “Mary Poppins”
97. She was also not in “From Here to Eternity”
98. Why would she be?
99. No Oscar for that one obviously
100. But an Oscar for “Mary Poppins.” Fuck yeah!

***

Thanks Carol Lennox!

101. The T. Kent Jones omnibus never closes. Free Parking!

And now for the prompt from Hogan Torah:

And more stuff from me:

There’s so much comedy behind this blue-eyed cat.