By John Soeder
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Even if “discorporating” really is a word — sorry, it’s not in our dictionary — who uses it in everyday conversation?
Those wise guys in Steely Dan, that’s who.
We were talking about the upgrades at Blossom Music Center, where singer-keyboardist Donald Fagen and bassist-guitarist Walter Becker bring their ultra-cool jazz-rock shtick Tuesday, when a recent conference call took the first of several comical turns.
“We’ve been upgraded, too,” Becker said. “I have a wonderful new clipper I use on my beard.”
“I have a new skeleton,” Fagen said. “The old one was getting . . .”
Becker: “Ideally, you’ll only be able to infer that indirectly . . .”
Fagen: “. . .a little dicey.”
Becker: “. . .at the show, [speaking to Fagen] unless you’re planning on discorporating in some unusual way.”
The duo’s last release, “Two Against Nature,” won four awards at the 2001 Grammy ceremony, including album of the year. A few weeks later, Fagen and Becker were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
But the accolades haven’t gone to their heads. They’ve been too busy pondering the end of the world.
“It really hangs over our whole careers, probably our whole lives, for reasons beyond our control,” Becker said with regard to the apocalyptic vibe permeating the latest Steely Dan album, “Everything Must Go.”
“It makes for lovely art, we think,” said Becker, 53.
“We’re Cuban missile babies,” said Fagen, 55. On the single “Blues Beach,” he sings about “the long, sad Sunday of the early resigned,” with a nod to social critic Paul Goodman’s 1960 book “Growing Up Absurd.”
“It divided people into various categories,” Fagen said. “One was the early resigned,’ which was basically a description of Beats or beatniks.”
Another new tune, “Green Book,” name-checks a certain Hollywood bombshell from a bygone era. Speaking of Jill St. John, what does one have to do to earn such a prime shout-out in a Steely Dan song?
“You have to be famous for [sleeping with] a war criminal, I guess,” Becker said, referring to St. John’s fling with Henry Kissinger.
Fagen cracked up. “That’s going to look great [in print],” he told his partner.
Becker reconsidered. “Let me take another pass at that,” he said. “You have to have gone out with Frank Sinatra.”
When they’re not having fun at the expense of faded starlets, Steely Dan’s main men do whatever it takes to amuse themselves between gigs.
“This is going to come as a surprise to you, Donald,” Becker said. “I’ve had our tour manager rent an atomic submarine for us for the afternoon.”
“Fantastic,” Fagen deadpanned.
“So if we want,” Becker said, “we can go menace the shipping lanes.”
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