Last night I dreamt I married Johnny Depp. He was handsome and sweet and filthy rich, but on the honeymoon I realized I'd made a horrible mistake. He was also deadly dull.

"Honey," I told him, "why don't we play a little game? Every day you pretend you're somebody else."

He protested, but I held firm and he caved. After that life was wonderful again. One day he pretended he was a pirate, and it was the funniest thing I ever saw. One day he pretended he was Willie Wonka, and I nearly laughed myself sick.

Then one day he pretended he was John Dillinger. "Bang bang!" he'd yell. "Take that, coppers! Your pathetic little jails can't hold me!"

I watched for about five minutes before my eyes began to droop. "Sweetie," I said with a yawn, "why don't you hold these scissors for a year or two?"



There are exactly two interesting things about John Dillinger. One, every time he heard music or watched a movie, it made some kind of comment about his life. He danced with a gorgeous stranger and the lyrics described the woman. He listened to the radio and the song described his mood. At the movies he was confronted with scenes that uncannily presaged his downfall.

And two, everybody thought he had a giant dick.

The first phenomenon, I'm guessing, is an invention of Public Enemies, Michael Mann's latest gangster film. A coda to the film says it's "fictionalized," which means the truth is so boring they had to make stuff up, but this little fiction sticks out like a sore thumb in a supposed biography. If this same phenomena afflicted me, in fact, I'd have listened to the Velvet Underground's I Can't Stand It Any More during most of the screening last night.

The second phenomenon is supposedly also a legend, sparked by this morgue photo of Dillinger:


The photo made the newspapers, gossip spread, and pretty soon everybody believed that Dillinger had such a whopper the Smithsonian chopped it off and kept it in a long, skinny jar full of formadehyde. Laugh if you want, but I know eight thousand people who'd go see that exhibit over a painting of an Italian chick with a mysterious smile.

Me, I'm leaning towards believing the story, if only because I don't see any other explanation for the photo. Dillinger wasn't fat. Arms don't hang that low. Men aren't usually buried with zucchinis in their pants. Plus it gives me the happy ending I like to see. Because though Mr. Dillinger's life was short and violent, it sure does look like he died happy. And he left us a picture that's far more interesting than Public Enemies, a picture that will spark conversation long after the movie is gone.

Is it possible? Could it be?

And who put The Look of Love on my iPod?