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[Howard Rodman's remarks made as keynote address on the occasion of the re-naming of the corner of 112th Street and 72nd Drive in Forest Hills, Queens as ‘Walter Becker Way.’] In his legendary essay, “Paris, Capital of the 19th Century,” the German-Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin talked about the ways in which Paris, with its boulevards, its arcades, its poets, was truly the capital of the 19th century. But an equally compelling argument can be made: that Forest Hills, the community that spreads out from the very corner on which we stand now, was indeed the capital of the twentieth. Think about it: how many of the disparate musical and cultural strains that define the second half of the twentieth century had their origins right here. Paul Simon grew up at 137-62 70th Road. Jeffrey Hyman, later Joey Ramone, grew up at 102-10 66th Road, and John Cummings, Tommy Erdelyi, Doug Colvin – later Johnny, Tommy, and Dee Dee Ramone respectively – came up a street or two away. It’s hard to think of Bridge Over Troubled Water and Beat on the Brat [with a Baseball Bat] as coming from the same planet. But in fact: they came from within blocks of each other. The Ramones and Paul Simon were not Forest Hills’s only odd pairings. Leslie West and Pia Zadora. Donna Karan and Thelma Ritter. Wilhelm Reich and Anthony Wiener. But in weighing the contribution of this piece of outer-borough soil to the country, and the larger world, we inevitably find ourselves speaking of Walter Becker. Who when I first knew him, age ten, lived right there. Like many of the friends and comrades with us this morning, we went to PS 196, whose anthem I can still sing, “PS one hundred and ninety six, we raise our voices high…” I wish Walter were here to sing the rest. Though in theory there were no ‘tracks,’ everyone knew that 5-5 and 6-2 were the IGC classes. In theory that stood for Intellectually Gifted Children. In practice: smart-ass wiseacres, using whatever intelligence we could muster in service of mocking the world into which we’d been born, fueled by transistor radios and Mad magazine. And even then, just kids in Miss Bishop’s class, in Miss Cathey’s class, Walter’s lead was the one we followed. In Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth, as deep as they go, cavern after cavern, they again and again come across a scrawl or a sign of Arne Saknussem – the 16th century Icelandic magician who’d always gotten there first. Walter was our Saknussem. There was something older about him, and most certainly wiser. He had his aesthetic down cold, as if received. And was extravagant about letting the rest of us know what to listen to, what to read, what to watch. He gave me my first Borges, my first Nabokov, my first Burroughs. He told me what movies to see. He’d toss music my way — I remember, in particular now, Albert Ayler’s Spiritual Unity. And if I balked, or was unreceptive, he’d say, “You’re going to like this in a year or so, so why don’t you start now and save yourself some time.” While the rest of us were (awkwardly; clumsily) fashioning our personas, his seemed always to have been there. Part Terry Southern, part Lenny Bruce, but always — as was the case with him, and not yet with us — far more than the sum of his influences. We’d drink Romilar, bought over there, and watch re-runs of The Million Dollar Movie, in his apartment right up there. Somehow, the movie was always Panic in the Year Zero. On another night Walter and my mother and me got so stoned that we listened to a record skip-skip-skip for half an hour before we realized it wasn’t intentional. An evening I had forgot entirely about, until Walter chose to recount it, forty-five years later, at a Steely Dan concert during the vamp of Hey Nineteen. At the Greek Theater in Los Angeles. In front of six thousand people. In detail, and with my mother’s name carefully pronounced. (Word travels fast. When I got home that night my fifteen-year-old son had a Cheshire Cat grin. And said, “Dad, is there anything you want to talk about?”) But back to days and nights in vintage Forest Hills. We had our peacoats, our McCreedy & Schreiber boots, we walked like this, we’d take the E train to the Village on Friday nights to hang at the Café au Go-Go. I see a few people out there who will know exactly what I mean. We were, face it, tragically hip bridge-and-tunnel teenyboppers. As John Boylan, one of Walter’s early collaborators would put it, “E train, to Forest Hills. E train, so easy to find. E train, home from the Village, let mother take care of your mind.” But Walter didn’t have a mom to come home to. Perhaps this accounts for why he was getting stoned with mine. Perhaps this accounts for how he was able to run so wild, and so free: with no mother at home, and a father so often away, and a grandmother whose threats terrified no one, Walter could do as he pleased. We’ve long recognized the astonishing, revelatory work that this enabled. But let us take a moment, too, to acknowledge the pain. He taught those of us who knew him, and millions who didn’t, how to become what he and Donald would call “gentlemen losers.” But all of that came at a real cost that neither he nor we would often want to name or to face. Which is why my favorite of Walter’s songs might be This Moody Bastard from 11 Tracks of Whack. These days it's like a tomb/ Amid in the stacks of gloom/ Looking out the window/ In the downstairs room And the time goes by/ And the time goes by/ Sometimes it goes so slowly/ You know a man could cry Till the day goes down/ In deep disgrace/ With empty pockets/ And a dirty face This moody bastard remembers/ You were some kind of friend even then Once in a great while/ He needs one... I think we all of us know what “once in a great while” means. We’re left with memories, to be sure. Glorious memories. And we’re left with the music, which is indelible, music which was never was quite in sync with its time, and because of that will never grow old. Nor will the world he limned: an unparalleled gallery of local losers, smalltime hoods, dive-bar cynics, rooming-house romantics, would-be has-beens; the autodidacts, the isolatoes; the carneys, shills, junkies, dealers, conmen, fugitives – all of them on the run from the one thing they cannot change: who they are. We feel large and uneasy empathy for them, even as we know they’re getting exactly what they deserve. We know them better than they know themselves. And Walter knew them best of all. This would be the place to mention the obvious: that if you’re looking for a top-40 hit, you don’t use as your hook, “Even Cathy Berberian knows there’s one roulade you can’t sing.” Yet Walter and Donald did, anyway, and sold forty million records, anyway. They did it not by reverse-engineering what an audience might like, but by being deeply, obsessively, cannily true to themselves. The success of Steely Dan was because, not in spite of, its celebration of the marginal. With the passage of time one learns to look past Walter’s brilliance, past his astonishing way with words and with music – strike the Mu Major chord! – past the sensibility he helped forge, past the obsessive dedication to getting it right— Past all of these to Walter’s true generosity of spirit. Reaching deep inside himself, taking the joys and pains he found there, and making them our own. As Walter Benjamin put it: “The flâneur stood at the margins of the great city. He sought his asylum in the crowd.” It took Walter Becker – indelibly cool, impossibly droll, triumphantly cryptic, unimaginably hip, with the intelligence to see life as it is, and the heart to set it down in ways that have now circled the globe it took Walter Becker to look out at this suburban landscape of postwar six-story housing, and recognize it for what it was: not a bedroom community, a bridge or a tunnel or an E-train away from Manhattan, but as something grand and glorious in and of itself. Forest Hills. A place he saw as the capital of the 20th century. And then: made it so.

Image: Jon Neidert [Scroll down for August 2024 Update} Doubtless you know the sad news from Maui. The phrase utter devastation has been overused to breaking. But that’s pretty much it: Utter devastation  --  and devastating heartbreak.  Most of the world knows Lahaina Town as a quaint, delightful tourist mecca. But Lahaina was home for over 12,000 Kama'aina, many of whom worked as backbone for the “hospitality” (tourist) industry. It was also once the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom, and has been witness to — and survivor of — wave upon wave of quasi-colonial stressors relentlessly seeking to extract, not plant: to earn, not invest. In many ways, Lahaina holds the historical, cultural Braveheart of Aloha.  With the exception of over 100 lost souls (and counting), Lahaina’s amazing people are still here. But everything else is leveled: businesses, cultural and historical artifacts, homes, too many beloved pets — now nothing but ash.  Upcountry also suffered grievous losses in the (relatively) smaller wildfires during the same period. Although the rest of the island  —  including the Becker burg  — was physically untouched, the ripples of dislocation and disruption (along with waves of grief, confusion, and anger) have quickly engulfed us all. Anyone who's moved to help can visit  MauiNuiStrong for some ideas. From my local vantage point, emergency and short-term goods and supplies appear well stocked, thanks to the generosity of all. But now the real work begins: clean-up: rebuilding: somehow reconstituting a new Lahaina while fending off the vultures. With that in mind, you might especially consider local, grassroots groups who, long after the alphabet agencies decamp, will be on the front lines for the long haul. The Maui United Way (not the National United Way!) is just one for your consideration. Note to potential visitors: all other areas of the island are most definitely ‘open for business'  and rely on your spending to survive. And if you do visit, perhaps you'll consider donating some of your time in Paradise to one of the many restoration activities and projects available to vacationers. Mahalo Nui Loa ----------------------------------------- Update August 2024 “Lahaina” One Year After  It’s a year since wildfires leveled the community of Lahaina, Maui, killing 102 people. At least 2,200 structures were reduced to ash: businesses, shops, historical sites, apartments, multigenerational homes. An estimated 8,000 people lost shelter, along with every other earthly possession — jobs, clothes, keepsakes, furnishings, heirlooms, documents, pets. Over 3,000 students were without schools. Expanding waves of disruption, grief, and loss widened to engulf the whole island, and beyond. I’d like to say that various governments and agencies stepped up to effectively and efficiently re-home the displaced and stand up the town again.    I’d like to say that.  [John Oliver’s recent episode touches on but a few of the issues here]  On the other hand, the people of Maui Nui have been nothing short of astounding — from the very first hour up until today — creating collectives, organizations, and projects that offer substantive support and immediate community solutions. Perhaps the most dispiriting aspect of this year has been watching how many of these people-powered projects are slowed or obstructed by sclerotic bureaucracies and/or the usual bigwig and corporate interests. [:-{   Still, these are resourceful, resilient folks — and fundamentally optimistic at heart. Matt’s reflection on his 2021 visit rhymes with this vibe (below). That said, it's haunting to think that Matt's first trip will be his last; Lahaina is somehow “Lahaina” now, as whatever comes next, the only place we’ve ever known is consigned to memory. Matthew’s Thoughts:  Just over a year ago, fire tore through the town of Lahaina, on the west side of Maui, claiming over 100 lives and reducing much of the historic town to rubble. Among the many losses was the iconic banyan tree in Lahaina’s park, which had just celebrated its 150th anniversary. When my family visited Maui in 2021, I spent an enjoyable afternoon sitting under that very tree, thinking about that stanza from the title track of Aja. It was a place that embodied serenity and history, but a year ago it was engulfed in flames, consumed in the conflagration, and partially reduced to charred remains. The tree, like the town itself, faced an uncertain future. Remarkably, despite the intense flames that charred its branches and scorched its trunk, the banyan tree has begun to show signs of life. Much like Lahaina’s determined effort to rise like a proverbial phoenix from the literal ashes, the tree’s new growth is a testament to the unyielding spirit of this community. Arborists and volunteers have worked tirelessly, nurturing the tree with water and nutrients, hopeful that it will fully recover in time. The banyan’s revival mirrors the town’s own journey—a slow but steady rise from devastation, embodying the undeterred resilience of a place and its people who refuse to be broken. As new leaves sprout from the charred branches, Lahaina and its banyan may never be what they once were, but are well on their way to whatever they will become.   The tree when I visited.                        The tree and vicinity just after the fire.

w/ a Bagel on the Side

Hi, Thought I'd post this Steely Dan concert from 1993 featuring Peter Erskine, Drew Zingg. Not sure why I've never come across this before? Great show, some weird stills between the songs though and some visual/audio interference in the middle of Book of Liars :-( I really enjoyed watching this last night, some relief from everything that's going on. Stay safe halC

The new front page at walterbecker.com shows the insert, front and back, included in Sonic360's UK/International distriution of Circus Money. [Make sure to "refresh" or "reload" the page for the latest revision. Graphics also below]. I've always liked that picture. We had a day's notice to get "art" for the insert...so we wandered around the building and finally found our spot in the laundry room :-). He insisted that I not correct the green florescent ambience... Bittersweet to read Walter's words, acknowledging the hard work of all the musicians, and hoping that we, their "imaginary playcousins", their " cherished and hoped-for listeners", will be pleased ("amused", he said) by their efforts. Don't know about you, no need to preach to the choir here, but I for one am going to transform myself this evening into one of their cherished and hoped-for listeners, and spin CM once again. o I do so miss you, honey. So many of us miss you. [Edit: Don't forget there is still more of the Chalk Miller Saga in the hidden lyrics of Dark Horse Dub, posted a while back]

Sometime around the release of 2VN, Walter and Donald had an online question and answer chat session. Here's my favorite question, with Walter's answer: Q: "In the song 'Sign in Stranger', why does the character have 'a scar from ear to ear'?" Walter's answer: "Because shriveled little dick doesn't rhyme with disappear!" To that, I say "brilliant"! I think it captures his sharp wit perfectly!

This gets at something I've been thinking a lot about lately...the difference between the appreciator of Steely Dan and the "stan." Ostensibly the introduction to a review/recommendation for Quantum Criminals, Wayne Robbins says: "The Second Arrangement," which got left off Gaucho when the painstakingly recorded tape was accidentally erased. It’s very You Tube viral. Pieced back together using modern technology, Steely Dan originalists shrugged, while the new SD stans posted comments on You Tube comparing this discovery to that of the Dead Sea scrolls, the Rosetta Stone, and a sign of the arrival of the moshiach. But at its core, "The Second Arrangement" is not a very good song, which makes it a unicorn among Steely Dan tracks. "Understandable why Becker and Fagen dumped this one," said one You Tube commenter. The Stans love it because it's new, but that's what stans are for: uncritical admiration." It's hard to think of myself as an originalist, as I was born in 1979, grew up listening to a Steely Dan that was done by the time I was aware of them...but I find myself at odds with some of the "uncritical admiration." One of my own controversial opinions: It was worth The Second Arrangement dying so that Third World Man could live. Also, the fact that the death of the "Second" led to the life of the "Third" is an irony/coincidence that should be discussed more. Anyway, as I watch the "Danaissance," see the reactions to the unheard, and see the stans clamor for more, I think about my relationship with Steely Dan, and specifically with Walter, mostly musically but also to the extent that we formed a personal relationship. I think about why this site exists, and what I hope it will mean for the serious study of Walter as a songwriter/artist in the future. So, yeah, this one made me think, I guess.

Just happened upon Gandhi's ‘Seven Social Sins’ transcribed onto the first page of one of W’s many pocket notebooks.  His heading was 7 things that will destroy us