Bad Sneakers & a Fina Salada

[Robin Landseadel]

Yeah, but with the wisdom that comes from surviving into old age, the  
Decky-Dance Duo eventually improved both eyes and ears:

	One night we're playin' gin by a cracklin' fire
	And I figured I'd make my play
	I said babe with my boyish charm and good looks
	How can you stand it for one more day

	She said maybe its the skeevy look in your eyes
	Or that your mind has turned to applesauce
	The dreary architecture of your soul
	I said - but what is it exactly turns you off?

On Sep 7, 2010, at 2:17 AM, Dave Williams wrote:

> Sometimes when I listen to Becker and Fagen I think, God, these guys  
> can't be serious. Then I realize that they left the NY Metro area  
> snd Barrytown People to live with the show biz kids and I think,  
> well, they ain't even close to serious. Fina and the boyz should use  
> the double negative.

Are you, like, for sure?

> ANy kid from the guyland who took a job in a resturaunt for the  
> summer would know that Angel should say, "She don't like [nobody] in  
> the office." But how many kids from out in gatsby-land could put an  
> angel in a swewer woth a benny profane?

Alright Alice—sit right where you are. I ain't from no gatsby-land,  
dig/? I'm from the low-lands, where everything looked hipper up in the  
northlands, though, like William Saroyan, My heart's in the  
Highlands . . .

Well my heart’s in the Highlands gentle and fair
Honeysuckle blooming in the wildwood air
Bluebelles blazing where the Aberdeen waters flow
Well my heart’s in the Highland
I’m gonna go there when I feel good enough to go

Windows were shakin’ all night in my dreams
Everything was exactly the way that it seems
Woke up this morning and I looked at the same old page
Same ol’ rat race
Life in the same ol’ cage

I don’t want nothing from anyone, ain’t that much to take
Wouldn’t know the difference between a real blonde and a fake
Feel like a prisoner in a world of mystery
I wish someone would come
And push back the clock for me

Well my heart’s in the Highlands wherever I roam
That’s where I’ll be when I get called home
The wind, it whispers to the buckeyed trees in rhyme
Well my heart’s in the Highland
I can only get there one step at a time

I’m listening to Neil Young, I gotta turn up the sound
Someone’s always yelling turn it down
Feel like I’m drifting
Drifting from scene to scene
I’m wondering what in the devil could it all possibly mean?

Insanity is smashing up against my soul
You can say I was on anything but a roll
If I had a conscience, well, I just might blow my top
What would I do with it anyway
Maybe take it to the pawn shop

My heart’s in the Highlands at the break of dawn
By the beautiful lake of the Black Swan
Big white clouds like chariots that swing down low
Well my heart’s in the Highlands
Only place left to go

I’m in Boston town, in some restaurant
I got no idea what I want
Well, maybe I do but I’m just really not sure
Waitress comes over
Nobody in the place but me and her

It must be a holiday, there’s nobody around
She studies me closely as I sit down
She got a pretty face and long white shiny legs
She says, “What’ll it be?”
I say, “I don’t know, you got any soft boiled eggs?”

She looks at me, says, “I’d bring you some
But we’re out of ’m, you picked the wrong time to come”
Then she says, “I know you’re an artist, draw a picture of me!”
I say, “I would if I could, but
I don’t do sketches from memory”

“Well,” she says, “I’m right here in front of you, or haven’t you  
looked?”
I say, “All right, I know, but I don’t have my drawing book!”
She gives me a napkin, she says, “You can do it on that”
I say, “Yes I could, but
I don’t know where my pencil is at!”

She pulls one out from behind her ear
She says, “All right now, go ahead, draw me, I’m standing right here”
I make a few lines and I show it for her to see
Well she takes the napkin and throws it back
And says, “That don’t look a thing like me!”

I said, “Oh, kind Miss, it most certainly does”
She says, “You must be jokin’.” I say, “I wish I was!”
Then she says, “You don’t read women authors, do you?”
Least that’s what I think I hear her say
“Well,” I say, “how would you know and what would it matter anyway?”

“Well,” she says, “you just don’t seem like you do!”
I said, “You’re way wrong”
She says, “Which ones have you read then?” I say, “I read Erica Jong!”
She goes away for a minute
And I slide up out of my chair
I step outside back to the busy street but nobody’s going anywhere

Well my heart’s in the Highlands with the horses and hounds
Way up in the border country, far from the towns
With the twang of the arrow and a snap of the bow
My heart’s in the Highlands
Can’t see any other way to go

Every day is the same thing out the door
Feel further away then ever before
Some things in life, it gets too late to learn
Well, I’m lost somewhere
I must have made a few bad turns

I see people in the park forgetting their troubles and woes
They’re drinking and dancing, wearing bright-colored clothes
All the young men with their young women looking so good
Well, I’d trade places with any of them
In a minute, if I could

I’m crossing the street to get away from a mangy dog
Talking to myself in a monologue
I think what I need might be a full-length leather coat
Somebody just asked me
If I registered to vote

The sun is beginning to shine on me
But it’s not like the sun that used to be
The party’s over and there’s less and less to say
I got new eyes
Everything looks far away

Well, my heart’s in the Highlands at the break of day
Over the hills and far away
There’s a way to get there and I’ll figure it out somehow
But I’m already there in my mind
And that’s good enough for now.

Speaking of interminable quotations with only marginal acquaintance  
with the topic at hand . . .


> I could never figurw why Benny didn't stay with Fina for a while.  
> Hell, lookin at Owlglass and Fina from his world, she musta been  
> maria maria.

Benny's such a Goddamned dick head, his balls completely shut off his  
brain. Sweet Jesus but I want to kill the bastid and put him out of  
our misery.