Dr Jew

estranged yet professional acquaintance who periodically favored Glassdick with work (despite exorbitant cost and the feeling that most of Glassdick's "projects" were crap) also called Glassdick's film soundtracks atmospherics – but this was done to humor Glassdick and not out of respect for the music. Truth be told, he was sick of Glassdick and Glassdick's music, its holy pretentiousness and overstretched yawn of awe. But everyone else at Simpaticofilm seemed to like it.
    In truth, most people at Simpaticofilm didn't like Glassdick or care about his music one way or the other. They didn't like his exorbitant fees that funded life-size elephant cheese sculptures and other nonsense, but they knew he was a friend of Simpatico, so the producers usually asked Sergio if he wanted Glassdick for his next film. Sergio would sigh, sometimes say no and suggest another artist, but usually just say fine, fine, see if Glassdick's available.
    M onths over schedule, the Swine-AIDS epic was sucking life like a vampire from everyone working on the film, except Sergio. The studio partnering with Simpaticofilm on the distribution didn't care if the farts of the homeless were used as a soundtrack. They didn't care if the film was good. They had shown sections to so many test audiences and gotten so many contradictory reactions that they had no idea what was good or bad any longer. But no one wanted to upset Sergio.
    "Philip," said Sergio Simpatico.
    "Sergio," said Philip K. Glassdick.
    "What do you have for me, Philip?"
    "About three minutes for the underwater scene."
    "Which one?"
    "With the dolphins. When Gilbert falls off the pier and realizes he can no longer be a dancer because Swine-AIDS has destroyed his sense of balance."
    "Right. How much did you say you have?"
    "Three minutes."
    "Right. Is it a loop?"
    "What… why… why do you ask, Sergio?"
    " Really, Philip? Another loop?"
    "It works good. Three minutes is the optimal duration."
    "Okay. How long is the actual material?"
    "Three seconds."
    "Right. So you want me to run a three-second sample in a loop for three minutes. That's… I'm bad with math, what is that?"
    "Sixty times."
    "Right."
    "It doesn 't really sound like a loop though."
    "Alright, let 's hear it."
    Philip handed the headphones to Sergio, who didn't leave the headphones on for long. Certainly not three minutes.
    "It soun ds like a loop," said Sergio.
    "It 's a good loop though."
    "Philip, any fifth grader could make that. Are you drying up?"
    "Am I what?"
    "Are you drying up? You know… running out of material. I know we've been at it a while. But we can still get someone to fill in the scenes I need. There's only a few left that I'm unhappy with. The disco scene. The family dinner scene where the kids get drunk –"
    "I thought you were good with that one."
    "Hm? No. You keep giving me inappropriate material. Try again and try harder. Let's see… what else? Ah, the montage where Gilbert has sex with 400 women in 13 international cities to inadvertently spread Swine-AIDS and it's ambiguous whether he knows he has it at that point so the morality of his actions is arguable –"
    "Oh yeah," said Philip. "Were you still gonna show a bar graph or something behind him kind of misty –"
    "Jim 's got it. He didn't show you the cut? Jesus, what's wrong with that man? Yeah, they did some kind of graphic. Looks good, and covering the right genitalia when necessary – Jim thinks we'll still be PG. And I thought the math shit would be horrible but they've got this cute little diseased pig climbing like a firecracker as the incidents of Swine-AIDS climb on the chart."
    "That 's… that's great."
    "Philip, you sound deflated. You look tired. Have you been sleeping?"
    "Sleep? Yes, yes, I think so."
    "Hm. Say, did you see that doctor Johnny referred you to – what's wrong? Why that look?"
    "That – that doctor…"
    "You haven't seen him?"
    "No, I saw him."
    " Well?" said Sergio.
    "Well, there 's something else. Something I didn't tell you. My regular doctor told me a few months back. It's gone from HIV-positive to full blown AIDS. My doctor changed my medication."
    "Oh Jesus, Philip. I wish you'd told me. That's horrible. I'm sorry. What can I say? I'm sorry."
    "It 's okay. Really. I'm okay with it. But the new medication – the side effects were driving me crazy. I stopped taking them."
    "You… you what? Are you fucking nuts?"
    "It was horrible. I was getting sick every morning and my skin was on fire. I'd rather