After three weeks of escalating hostilities, my mother has forced a détente. I don’t know if she planned it or what, but her refusal to turn on the air conditioning has effectively short-circuited my foray into Teenage Rebellion, as I no longer have the energy to do anything but stare up at the ceiling, clammy and glassy-eyed like a goddamned beached whale. It is too hot to move, and I cannot reach the remote control, but in the immortal words of Ronnie Van Zandt, "In Birmingham they love the governor, boo, boo, boo." I’ve been hearing that a lot these days, lying here alone on the floor of the living room.

Luckily the heat has not affected my considerable mental faculties. In the three days I have been rolling around on the floor here, I have finished my novel, my will–everything is being left to the Cirque du Soleil, so do not even ask–and fifteen other people’s theses, plus I have compiled a list of Things to Know About Dean Martin. The facts included therein were taken from Nick Tosches’s Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams, and also from the Internet, and if you ask me to write a report on either Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams or the Internet, I will do it for free, or else ignore you for three weeks and pretend that I did not receive your e-mail.

Things to Know About Dean Martin, Volume One:

Dean Martin’s real name was Dino Crocetti. On movie sets he was charming and thoroughly professional, and when the part demanded it, he could play act with the finest thespians of his time. Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift adored him, so did Howard Hawks. On his television show he enjoyed telling guests to "take it up the ass" in Italian, and when he got tired of his own dinner parties he used to get up from the table and go watch cowboy movies. He never read anything but comic books. Between 1950 and 1975, Dean Martin used the phone exactly once, and that was to make an obscene call to Los Angeles Times gossip columnist Joyce Haber. His best friend, if he had one, was probably Mafia hitman Johnny Rosselli, whose remains were found chopped up in an oil drum in Biscayne Bay, Florida in 1976. When he was growing up in Ohio he had a friend called "Ape Head." He liked Sinatra all right but considered him clingy and overemotional. Martin was not interested in emotional exchanges or in the Mafia. By the mid-1960s he was not terribly interested in singing, either, and while he performed twice-nightly at the Sands he rarely finished more than two or three songs in a set. "I hate guys that sing serious," he said. By the 1980s, Martin was swallowing Percodan by the handful and showing early signs of Alzheimer’s besides. His hobbies included cursing and having sex with women, activities which were also enjoyed by Jerry Lewis, Frank Sinatra, and others. Dean Martin enjoyed fried eggs and died in 1991.

That was spellbinding, I know, but my novel is even better. It started out as a pastoral meditation on the transitory nature of love, but now it has detectives in it. It is called The Great Cannibal Caper. Here is an excerpt:

"‘You sure put that case to bed,’ said Miss Spencer.

"‘I’d rather put you to bed,’ I said. ‘And then I would join you in the bed.’

"‘Would we have to have sex?’ she asked.

"‘I guess not,’ I said, taken aback.

"‘Good,’ she said. ‘Because as remarkable as your deductive abilities may be, you are still a mouse wearing a tiny detective’s hat, and I am still the Princess of W–’ Then our limousine crashed into the wall, and her head flew off." (The Great Cannibal Caper, pg. 235)

I am taking bids on this novel right now. Meanwhile, please enjoy another excerpt:

"As soon as I got her alone, Rita confessed the whole thing, and handed over the keys to the missile silo as docile as you please. I told her I’d book her the next morning.

"Well, this case has been put to bed,’ I said to myself. That means I had sex with the case. Rowrrrr! Growly growly!" (The Great Cannibal Caper, pg. 571)

I have written other books, but I have been forced to publish them myself, mainly on the backs of envelopes. This selection is taken from the end of Chapter 32, when the narrator brought low by the ravages of time, is at his lowest spiritual ebb:

"The gangly young priest had loved me, yes, after his fashion. But as I let the earth slip from my fingers, I realized that the hours we had passed together in silence and in prayer would have meant $4,000 in additional deductions if I had been at the office itemizing the traveling salesmen’s hotel receipts like I was supposed to be doing, and I got mad. So I waited six years for him to decompose and then I dug up his grave and rearranged his bones to spell out an obscene word. Sincerely, etc., Dale Carnegie." (The Great IRS Caper, pg. 247)

That’s sort of a mystery novel too, because the narrator actually turns out to be G.I. Joe, only he doesn’t know it. Um...I gotta go.