ONE FLU OUT (WHEN IN ROAM...)

Originally published on December 27, 1996

Read your incredulous note in the wee hours this morning after a full day of Bracken's breath yesterday, finishing up his Debord photoscanning. Ninety-nine pictures of Frenchy fried brains in all...today we work on converting his text to Mac format, and probably some PageMaker work will do us until after the New Year.

I will be busy with work, guests, and doctor's appointments until after the new year so I guess I'll see you down the road in 1997. Had enough of this say anything, do nothing camp for one year, if not a lifetime. In other words, try these on for size SAST. Stay Away Steve Taylor. Sick And Steve Tired. And between the two of us, you won't be missing anything you haven't already mastered.

Our limosine plans are now quite iffy. Our friend, the owner, was rushed to the hospital Christmas Eve, spent the whole next day having tests run to no conclusive end. He was released sometime yesterday. Still no solid lead on a driver, but Sue has a maybe up her sleeve. Since you cannot resist playing coy with details on your end, I think we should simply disengage. In Dollhouse vernacular, I am pulling a Blumstein of 1986 (sic) by disinviting you for that holiday drive in the jingle jungle jangle which may not even happen anywaze, and ALL activities sandwiching the wild duck. You deal with the consequences on your end. I'll deal with them on this end. Hey, that's the way we've been playing the game all this time anyway, right? Very little teamwork, a whole lotta garbage mouth, promises, vows, big plans, narcissistic meanderings, hip to hop to hap flap we go, to ground zero where nothing ever happens but an effort to cheat the chatter of reality. Can't play that man. That seems to be your game, and I just can't deal with it for the next few weeks, hey even months. As for you seeing Jennifer, if she wants, she can meet you elsewhere, but I am commandeering control of the Dollhouse at this point in time, and as SAST, you simply can't seem to commit to anything but the moment, and then the moment's gone...

You want me to toss the ball around with you in the coming months before Howrey hits the diamond in the rough? Well, I will honor that commitment even as you struggle with pecking order on your side of the moral equation. Meanwhile I am still GT. Yesterday I invited Bracken to join us at the cage. Len's quite the sportsman himself, although I think his game of choice is the game of hoops. But now you hint that you may not even break spring training wind as you may spin off to web wonderland in the taunting twists of fate we both can appreciate for its razzle and its dazzle, but only one of us will be worn to a frazzle chasing the dreams of the other. And I think we know who that person is. Good luck, and get well, Steve, of winter aches and gains, and this enfilading brain seizure gripping your soul, a hellava ride, but one always threatening to spin outa control...

Sometimes friendship is only a foul investment in the trickle down nonsense of time's ruthless monopoly. Sometimes it is GOD.

I drugged up last night with a handful of pills and a swallowful of green death as I too felt the oncoming freight train of disease approacheth. This morning I am groggy but clear minded on the issues. Read this note twice, read it five times if you must, but read it clearly. Gabriel is marking SAST up for insubordination, NOT FOR SPILLING BEER TWICE, NOT FOR ALL THE FAIR ARGUMENTS YOU PLACE UPON MY NECK, HEY, NOT FOR ANYTHING YOU HAVE OVERTLY ACHIEVED, BUT, BUT, BUT, FOR WHAT YOU HAVE COVERTLY IGNORED IN THIS SHORT AFTERMATH OF THE PLANNING STAGES OF THIS, THAT, AND THE OTHER THING...

Sorry we won't have the opportunity to meet Della, but then, DID WE EVER?

I too am resolved to take better care of myself, starting RIGHT now. Hence all these doctor's appointments. Hosting the Steve Taylor Straight Past Sunday Show at the Dollhouse DOES NOT improve my chances for achieving this goal. Sorry my take on world events differs so much from your own; the harsh dovetones of this note are not easy for me, because you are very dear to me, but fact is stronger than fiction, and fiction is what we seemingly feast upon to help ourselves get through another speeding mist of mindswirl. So please, do me this favor, leave me alone. Let ME play it by ear, hearing nothing and all things simultaneously in damned well due time to prove whether or not I can survive your toying serpentlike silences. Bracken will soon be gone, as well may Shipman in the beckoning future of Dollhouse fates. Needless to say, there are plots and counterplots already in the works. Meanwhile I will light a candle to wedge into my ass for all eternity for each of my adversarial friends, each who believe in their deepest of competitive souls that they possess something of vigorously vital interest to me. That's just not so. I cannot sustain the conflicting desires of conflicted minds without losing my own endowments to the howling winds of inconstancy. I might even boast that I have history on my side in these abrupt appraisals, my friend. You play it by ear, so now hear this: STAY AWAY STEVE TAYLOR BECAUSE GT IS SICK AND STEVE TIRED! Is that enough SAST for you? Maybe these are my fevers making themselves known in words today. Test them as I know you shall, but be aware, not a line on this page is bogus.