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SD Letterhead


From: DF & WB
To: Craig Fruin
Date: December 6, 1999

Hey Craig -


First off let me say that we were completely wowed by the Hurricane Lenny thing - how much $'s did you guys have to slip the National Weather Service to arrange to get a storm named after Lenny Kravitz? Plenty, no doubt. But you sure got your money's worth on that one! I mean, that's the kind of publicity that you just can't buy anymore these days, except of course when you can. Talk about product placement! Talk about market penetration!

Look, this is exactly the kind of thing we need to do with Steely Dan, except different. For one thing, the hurricane-name thing is old already, you know what we mean? Plus, we suspect that we may start seeing some residual high-negatives in the consumer testing as we go forward - which is the kind of thing that a Lenny Kravitz can survive but that maybe a Steely Dan can't. In any case, we shouldn't be taking any big chances at this point if we don't have to. So let's see if we can't find some other way to have our trademark incorporated into the natural world without getting involved in the disaster thing. What about having a new species named after us? It would have to be just the right species, of course. I was thinking perhaps some sort of genetically engineered corn or cucumber or something along those lines. Steely Dan Yellow Nine? Steely Dan Louisiana Big Boy? Something that's going to really hit the people, something we could sell on the website or at shows, something that makes a nice gift, a conversation piece.

Meanwhile it's Hall of Fame time again. This year we want to go with a two-pronged approach to the situation. If we win, we graciously accept, agree to do whatever they want us to do at the awards ceremony, and attempt to claim the tax writeoff on the 3M machines no matter what. This way we come off looking like grateful recipients but we head into the fiscal year with an aggressive balls-up stance on the federal taxes. We take Joey Covington and/or Jeff Baxter with us to the ceremony and we come out looking like the good guys.

If, for some reason, we are not to be inducted into the HOF this year, we go with Plan B, which is: a Full-Scale Amphibious Assault on the Hall of Fame awards ceremony. Let's assume the ceremony is going to be held in New York this year. We will make attempt to borrow or otherwise gain access to Steve Miller's new 90 foot yacht and sail it into the East River, where we will have a "Millennium Loser's Party" for those who didn't make into the hall again this year. We get Steve, we get Ozzie, we get Joey Covington and Jimmy Carl Black and Baxter and Denny and all the others and we have a hell of a time. About an hour and a half into the festivities, D & W appear on the bridge decked out in fatigues and begin to describe our plan to the assembled partygoers, who are being offered tigerstripe battlegarb of their own to wear and all sorts of interesting-looking water guns and cans of Silly String. We outline our plan: while a group of unemployed runway models attempt to deliver to the ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria 700 tins of premium quality Swedish Ginger Cookies, compliments of Steely Dan - we land our little boat, deploy our by-now heavily intoxicated forces, sweeping across East 49th Street and in through the Waldorf's service entrance, taking maximum advantage of the confusion created by the arrival of all those girls and all those Swedish Ginger Cookies - we take over the stage and begin a mock trial of the HOF's Board of Directors. One member of the board has been recruited as a "mole" to assist in the logistics of this action - he will be allowed to slip quietly away undetected and unharmed. The Revolutionary Tribunal for Rhythmic Justice will then demand the death penalty for all remaining board members who refuse to renounce their votes on membership, insisting that they are one and all guilty of "art crimes against humanity". Right before the mock executions we offer the condemned their choice of a last meal - provided of course that they choose Swedish Ginger cookies. Assuming that we have any left by that point in the evening - those little fuckers are delicious.

All the best

D & W

P.S. naturally Hall of Fame induction/Tribunal for Rhythmic Justice Night will be declared the first night of the first month of Year Zero of the Philian Calendar. For the new names of the month, please refer to our memo of earlier this year



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