Eight Feet Deep

I am not working today and I don’t particularly have anything to do. That isn’t to say there aren’t things I could do. I could do a lot of things, some of which would even count as constructive. But I’m just not up for constructive today. That is why I went on a bender of reading Steely Dan lyrics.

Walter Becker and Donald Fagen as Steely Dan — they once formed a band called “Leather Canary” — have put out a good number of albums over the years. So I did have to limit my lyrical bender to those works up to “Gaucho” in 1980. Still, they produced a plethora of mind-boggling lyrics during that period such as:

“I fear the monkey in your soul.” From “Monkey In Your Soul,” the album “Pretzel Logic,” 1974.

That line strikes terror in my inner mojo. For I fear monkeys in people’s souls as well. Also I fear, when I see a monkey up close, that it is going to fling some sort of bodily material at me.

Here is another SD favorite:

“Have you ever seen a squonk’s tears? Well, look at mine.” From “Any Major Dude,” the album “Pretzel Logic.”

Quite frankly, no I have never seen a squonk’s tears. I didn’t know that squonks cry. Hell, I didn’t even know what a squonk was until I looked it up on the site Steelydandictionary.com. Here is their definition:

“A mythical woodland creature, originating in Pennsylvania. Squonks spend much of their time crying due to their ugliness, and when captured, will dissolve into a puddle of tears. Also the subject of a song on the 1976 Genesis album A Trick of The Tail.”

Well what do you know? They do cry. But a mythical woodland creature from PENNSYLVANIA? Of course, one of my all-time favorite rhetorical questions is posed in this lyric from the title track of the 1980 album “Gaucho:”

“Who is the gaucho amigo
Why is he standing
In your spangled leather poncho
And your elevator shoes”

Just posing the question “who is the gaucho amigo” sounds a bit funny by itself. Perhaps it would not be particularly humorous to some one from Argentina or Uruguay. That is unless someone was making fun of a pseudo-gaucho, what we call a “drug store cowboy” here in Texas. But a gaucho wearing a spangled leather poncho and someone’s elevator shoes? I mean that is quite a freaky image, don’t you think?

Some SD lyrics are not as cryptic as others but still have something in them that leaps up and slaps me. An example:

“I’m a bookkeeper’s son
I don’t want to shoot no one” From “Don’t Take Me Alive,” the album “The Royal Scam,” 1976.

One has to ask: Would he want to shoot someone if he was a doctor’s son? The son of a Wal-Mart cashier? The son of a preacher man?

Finally, this from “Night by Night,” the album “Pretzel Logic,” 1974.

“Yes, I’m cashing in this ten-cent life
For another one”

Is he cashing in a ten-cent life for another ten-cent life? A five-cent life? An eight-cent life? Who knows. Always a great mystery (and great fun) listening to Steely Dan.

Oh by the way, Steely Dan is going on tour with former band member Michael McDonald beginning in July. I don’t know if I’ll get to see them on July 14 at the Cynthia Mitchell Woods Pavilion in Houston. But stranger things have happened. Check Steelydan.com for a listing of the shows they are playing.

Scotty pulls the old hand-buzzer trick with GW.

Presidential Press Secretary Scott McClellan announced his resignation this morning. McClellan delivered the news to the press corps with his boss by his side. Said McClellan:

MR. McClellan: I quit.

Actually, he had a little more to say including a threat to tie up Helen Thomas and drag her behind Marine One.

I have heard a little speculation as to who will be Scotty’s replacement. John Cornyn’s Box Turtle at “In the Pink Texas” suggested the short list included “Baghdad Bob, Joe Isuzu and Robert Black.” By the latter name I suppose he means the flak Robert Black.

Doggone it, I’m going to miss old Scotty with his puppy-dog eyes and his ability to say absolutely nothing of substance. But life goes on. I am wondering if Scotty is going to work on his mother’s independent campaign for Texas governor. That mother would be none other than Carole Keeton McClellan Rylander Strayhorn Foghorn Leghorn. Stay tuned, lest you play offkey.

It seems U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands, is taking a page from the playbook of an old master. That old master would be Charlie Wilson. Brady, the five-term congressman whose district covers Deep East Texas, this week launched his new “Eighth District Mobile office.” It is a recreational vehicle that will carry his caseworkers to different communities throughout the district.

“The best service is convenient service. I want to make sure my staff and I are available to help people with their problems wherever they live,” said Brady, in a news release.”

Do the constituents get fries with that?

Charlie Wilson had a mobile office for a number of the 20-some-odd years he represented the same general area in Congress. I didn’t read that Brady will actually be traveling on the RV, but even so I don’t think Brady could hold a candle to Wilson when it comes to an entertaining RV trip. I once went on a short excursion in the mobile office with Wilson and, I tell you, that guy could tell some tales.

Wilson’s three-time Republican opponent during his last terms in office, an attractive, big-haired blonde named Donna Peterson of Orange, Texas, tried to make an issue out of the mobile office. Her campaign ran TV ads portraying the RV as a rolling party.

Maybe Brady, who recently was slapped on the wrist for a DUI in South Dakota, will turn the RV into a party on wheels. Hey, there’s nothing like constituent service.

Somehow though, I don’t think a movie will ever be made about Brady with Tom Hanks portraying him, as the actor will play Wilson in the upcoming film version of “Charlie Wilson’s War.”

Some spectator sports exist that I can’t spectate when they appear on television. Golf is one example. Tennis is another. Actually, not a whole lot of sports which are televised do much for me. I like to watch football or baseball or occasionally hockey. And that is only when a team I am interested in plays.

So it would seem no big surprise that I have less than zero interest in watching “Celebrity Chef Showdown” which is running each night this week on NBC.

Now I happen to like cooking. And I like cooking shows if they are entertaining and helpful. I loved Julia Childs. Jamie Oliver is a definite hoot. Emeril, well, a little Emeril goes a long ways. But I never really got into The Food Channel’s “Iron Chef,” which often seemed at times as if some of the chefs were going to drop what they were doing and start Sumo wrestling, but as far as I know that didn’t happen.

I have been to oodles of cooking competitions — cook-offs. I hosted a chili cook-off for several years when I was in college. Although, that was more about keg dynamics than cooking. What is the attraction of competitive cooking is the tasting and eating. I’m not really interested in technique or showmanship. And since I can’t taste what is being cooked on TV, I just can’t work up any actual zeal for a show that features celebrities such as Patti LaBelle or Naomi Campbell strutting their stuff in the kitchen.

Television executives have found it’s cheaper to put on the type of drivel as a celebrity chef show than to have something that was written and thought out and acted in by real actors. How about celebrity house-cleaning? Celebrity roofing? Celebrity plumbing? I’m sure one of those would be a show someone would want to see. Just don’t mention these ideas too loudly. Some network executives might be listening.

Sir Winston Churchill doesn’t care if he is criticized. After all, he’s dead.

What? You thought I was going to stick with Fred Allen forever? For those of you who do not know what I am talking about — probably the majority of those who read this — I am referring to the new saying at the top of the page by Winston Churchill. I replaced the quote by Fred Allen with another quote by Churchill on the subject of criticism. So please do not criticize me for this. Okay?

Churchill was certainly an interesting specimen. I do not think the current PM of the UK whom I will not name but whose initials are TB would not make a wart on Churchill’s backside. But that’s just my opinion. I never lived in the UK so my opinions about the leaders of that country are, perhaps not worthless, but certainly not worth a lot. So why did I even say anything if my opinion is not worth a lot? I don’t know. We do things sometimes. That’s going to be my mantra from here on out. We do things sometimes. Why did I run that red light officer? I don’t know. We just do things sometimes. It’s kind of simple but it works, don’t you think?

If you don’t think it works, well, I’m sorry but I really don’t care. After all, I have decided that I will not accept criticism today. Now that is a concept that really works. If your boss starts chewing on your arse just tell him: “I don’t know why the job turned out like it did. We do things sometimes, okay? And besides, I’m not accepting criticism today. Try again tomorrow.”

Provided, of course, if you still have a job tomorrow.