In 1982, I had the privilege of being in a head-on car crash with crooning royalty, Frank Sinatra. Though I spent the next year in traction, the friendship that developed between myself and Old Blue Eyes was worth the agonising rehabilitation. Doctors were critical that I focused on learning to croon again before learning to talk again, but when you’ve got an opportunity to learn from the master? You have to take it.

For six months, crooning was my only mode of communication. I’d croon deli orders, croon the guy in the adjacent cubicle to pass some bog roll under the partition — I was even crooning heavy breather phone calls to the girl I was obsessed with.

Then one frosty morning I awoke, and could talk again. I had mixed feelings, because my crooning suffered from the lost reliance. Therefore I decided to continue crooning my day-to-day interactions, no longer out of necessity, but discipline. This behaviour only came to a head when my wife Imelda hung herself in March 1983, directly attributing her unhappiness to an overdose of second-hand crooning. Her suicide note read simply…

I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE. CROONING, MORNING NOON AND NIGHT. PASS THE SALT, DOO-BEE-DOO-BEE-DOO, DID YOU PUT PETROL IN THE CAR, DOO-BEE-DOO-BEE-DOO. YOU’RE A F*CKING PSYCHO. CROON CROON CROON, AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Shockingly, the ‘Ahhhhhhhh’ in Imelda’s note was forty to fifty times longer than the one I’ve recounted above. Her death sent me spiralling into a weekend-long depression from which Frank eventually rescued me. He was a sturdy crutch to me during that time, and we even crooned a duet at Imelda’s funeral. It’s undoubtedly not what she would have wanted (several of her relatives stormed out), but I’ve been told we were scintillating.

Admittedly, guilt was the cornerstone of my friendship with Frank: for the crash, and all the subsequent woes that ensued. Not only was Frank drunker than a pygmy barkeep the night of the accident, but he was driving recklessly. So reckless in fact, that he wasn’t even in the car. Somehow he’d fallen asleep, rolled out the driver side door and down a steep embankment. The world could have lost Frank that night, had an old lady and her sight dog not broken his fall.

Meanwhile on the wrong side of the freeway, his 64 Pontiac was careering straight into the grill of my 82 Delorean. Thankfully I was asleep at the wheel too. Otherwise I might have taken corrective action, stymieing the chain of events that led to my brief tenure in the legendary Rat Pack.

Of course, one man’s miracle is another man’s tragedy, and the occupants of the other two involved cars would probably have judged things differently, had any of them survived. Truth be known, myself and Frank could have served some serious jail-time for our negligent driving, and been taken to the cleaners in civil actions. But Frank talked to some of his Italian friends, and the whole thing seemed to go away.

The guilt I was milking did eventually expire, at which point Frank dropped me like a new-born baby with a freshly discovered tail; but not before we delivered some electrifying, sell-out Rat Pack concerts on the Las Vegas strip. Some musicologists regard the line-up of myself, Frank, Sammy and Dean as the halcyon days. Our on-stage banter was legendary, though it did often descend into petty squabbling. I present now the transcript of our now infamous meltdown during a show in The Bellagio Hotel in 1983:

Frank Sinatra: …and I did it, my way.

(Audience applause)

Frank Sinatra: Thank you. Thank you very much. Would you now welcome on stage some friends of mine. I think you know their names.

(More audience applause)

Dean Martin: Man, I could listen to you sing that song all day long Franky Baby.
Frank Sinatra: Thanks Deano, but I doubt you could do anything all day long.

(Audience laughter)

Sammy Davis Junior: It’s like you reinvent the song every night, man.
Frank Sinatra: That’s because I can’t remember the damn words.

(Audience laughter)

Me: I thought it was shite.

(Smattering of uncomfortable laughter, receding into awkward silence)

Frank Sinatra: Why you ungrateful Paddy. Six months ago you thought a crooner was a type of fish.

(Smattering of uncomfortable laughter)

Sammy Davis Junior: Fellas, fellas, let’s have a song.
Dean Martin: A song, a song? Ring-a-ding-dong.
Me: What does that even mean Dean?
Dean Martin: Don’t talk to me like that, you God damned blow-in.
Me: You’re overrated Dean. You know it. I know it. The audience knows it.
Dean Martin: Now just a minute…

Sammy Davis Junior: Uncool man. Frank brings you in, and this is how you repay him? Embarrassing us all on stage? Unprofessional and uncool, man.
Me: Frank did bring me in. But I’m crooning at an advanced level now. He taught me everything he knows.
Frank Sinatra: Not everything, you punk. I’m gonna pop you right in the mouth, Irish.
Me: Why? Because I’m honest? It wasn’t your best performance tonight Frank. And these two jokers? They couldn’t croon their way out of a Turkish prison.

Audience Member 1: (muffled) You suck.
Me: Who said that? Come on, who said it? Why don’t you come up here and repeat that?
Audience Member 2: (muffled) Nobody even knows who the f*ck you are.
Me: Big man, shouting from the shadows. Stand up, and let’s see how brave you are.
Dean Martin: Now hold on mister. You never diss the audience.
Me: Ah, screw off Martin, you overrated fossil. I’d teach you to croon, but you wouldn’t know what to do with the sheer, raw power.
Frank Sinatra: I’ve heard enough. Vito? Salvatori? Take this scumbag out back.

Mr Sinatra’s goons dealt me a ferocious beating in the alleyway behind the hotel. Ironically, the head trauma stole my ability to croon. Easy come, easy go, I guess.