A former lifeguard, Valk pulled a man from a Cadillac Seville which had plunged into a creek and revived him. "Bystanders rescue five from car in Indian Creek," the Miami News headline read. When she returned to New York, Becker sent a limo to the airport to pick her up and then feasted with her on a box of stone crabs she had brought back. Valk's comments on the whole episode? "Everybody knows press agents use their mouths more than their heads anyway."
"Donald and Walter? Yeah, they've been down to hear us this week. They offered to record the band, mainly to have a record of it, if only for themselves." So said Warne Marsh in 1980 after some dates at New York's Village Vanguard. And Fagen and Becker, who rarely appear in public, weren't the only wones who crawled out of the woodwork to catch him. A few months later, Fagen and Becker asked New York Times journalist Robert Palmer to write the sleeve notes for Apogee, the album they had produced for Marsh and Pete Christlieb. When Donald Fagen visited Palmer's apartment and scoured through his 10,000 album collection, he pulled out the only disc he wanted to hear: a particular Becker and Fagen favorite, Warne Marsh's All Music on the Nessa label.
Neighbors/Everybody needs good neighbors/Full of love and understanding...
Tell that to Mitch Miller, famous for his sing-alongs and one of the world's best-selling recording artists in the 1950s, who does not think much of contemporary music. "Most of it is very bad. This guy from Steely Dan -- Walter Becker? He lives in my apartment building in New York. He plays the same licks all night long. I feel like calling the cops on him. To get into rock, you on't have to be a very good musician."
Steely Dan Breakfast Meat?! This was the cure suggested by Walter Becker for a Creem journalist's severe case of writer's cramp.
Journalist: Is it non-fattening and non-calorific?
No, it's extremely so. It's go a lot of cholesterol and gris gredue.
Walter, is it true you have the metabolism of a sea slug as a result of eating Steely Dan Breakfast Meat?
Yeah, that would definitely give you the metabolism of a sea slug.
Fagen: We're gonna market it like Fotomat. There's going to be these little stands where you drive up and give the guy a dollar and he gives you some Steely Dan Breakfast Meat. If you don't like it you just bring it back, and it's like a donation because you shouldn't waste food.
Becker: What about the starving children in China?
Fagen: I'd like to have a telethon to raise enough money to send three or four 747s filled to the brim with Steely Dan Breakfast Meat to China and othr impoverished countries.
Becker: Hey! Pat Boone sausages are gonna be about as stylish as white sheets after Steely Dan Breakfast Meat sees the light of day.