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SHEIK YERBOUTI

 Flakes

Notes and Comments
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Flakes! Flakes!
Flakes! Flakes!
They don't do no good
They never be workin'
When they oughta should
They waste your time
They're wastin' mine
California's got the most of them
Boy, they got a host of them
From: Don Baake (baake@irt.com)
  Flakes can be anyone who does shoddy, incompetent work, including plumbers, mechanics, carpenters, accountants, lawyers, programmers, etc. Note that they mostly come from California (we "got the most of them").
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*Take it away, Bob...*

I asked as nice as I could
If my job would
Somehow be finished by Friday
Well, them whole damn weekend
came 'n' went, Frankie
*Wanna buy some mandies, Bob?*
'N' they didn't do nothin'
But they charged me double for Sunday
From: batlas@uctvms.uct.ac.za
  As far as I know it stands for "Mandrax" which is a popular downer. Coincidentally Mandrax happens to be the most popular illegal drug in South Africa.
From: scialli@primenet.com (John V. Scialli)
  Mandrax was the British brand name of methaqualone, called Quaalude in the U.S.
From: "Matthew T. Isom" <isom@mail.sdsu.edu>
  "Mandies" most likely refers to "Mandrax," a long-forgotten pharmaceutical pill momentarily favored by the sixties druggie set -- Keith Moon refers to Mandrax (in a nun suit) in "200 Motels." The intended drug reference in the Dylan portion of "Flakes" is clear from Frank's substitution of "Wanna buy some acid, Bob?" (rather than "Mandies") in certain live performances.
From: walter5@brewich.com (Walter Five)
  "Mandies" are slang for "Mandrax" a popular pill of pharmecutical drug abusers, just like "Dexies" are slang for "Dexedrine."
  From michellepickering@cwctv.net Mandrax was a very effective sleeping pill used widely in England. It became notorious because a side effect was 'hyper sexuality' and it lowered inhibitions and caused sexual pleasure -
From: s012msg@desire.wright.edu (MARC S. GREENBERG)
  Zappa gets even more direct regarding Dylans drug use on the Saarbruken '78 Boot "Wanna buy some acid, Bob?" Made me laugh.
From: flavver@aol.com (Flavver)
  That explains something I saw at Springfield in 1988: During (I think) the speaking part at the end of "Who Needs the Peace Corps?" Bobby Martin did a Dylan voice and FZ said "Wanna buy some acid Bob?"
From: dankitti@gnn.com (Dan The Kitti Man)
  ..in Baby Snakes (live in NYC) he offers "Bob" something else: "Wanna buy some acid, Bob?" Bob answers, no. SY version taken from UK concert so he uses UK slang.
From: spb0377@ocvaxa.cc.oberlin.edu
  In fact, he said "acid" in every version of this song that I've heard except for the Sheik version (which was recorded in London).
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I'm a moron, 'n' this is my wife
She's frosting a cake with a paper knife
From: Evil Bob <evilbob@tbag.tscs.com>
  Once upon a time in America there used to be a tv ad campaign for a type of Betty Crocker (a large US corporate body that specializes in baked goods and misc. instant crap) EZ Cake Frosting. Normally, when you buy a "ready-made" cake mix it comes with a package of powder that you have to add various ingredients to and mix to create the cake. Sometimes inside the box there'd be another pack of powder which contains the frosting base but most of the time you have to purchase a separate box of the frosting stuff.
  Around the late 70s, Betty Crocker (and later their arch-rival Duncan Hines) came up with little plastic tubs containing ready-made frosting that you didn't have to do anything to but spread on the finished cake (then you throw the non-recyclable plastic tub in the trash and never give it a second thought). In order to allay the consumer's suspicion that these ready-mades were hard and dry and not at all easy to spread (which in fact they were), the ad campaign featured some nameless housewife cutting a paper knife out of the center of a standard paper plate. She was then seen using the paper knife (held at a very low angle to the cake and gripped with a curve which utilized the utmost tensile strength of the knife) to spread the frosting mix on the cake with the greatest of ease (of course we weren't shown the part where they probably warmed up the frosting first in a microwave oven to make it softer). As she did this she explained the singular joy and wonder of this immensely gratifying cake frosting to her bewildered husband (in tv-land ALL husbands are completely ignorant of any aspects of food preparation - after all it is women's work). It was a VERY SERIOUSLY DUMB commercial and I'm glad that Frank immortalized it.
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We are millions 'n' millions,
We're coming to get you
We're protected by unions
  CC
CHUNGA'S REVENGE (Rudy Wants To Buy Yez A Drink)
200 MOTELS. Lonesome Cowboy Burt.
Joe's Garage. Scene One. Entrance Of The Central Scrutinizer
MAN FROM UTOPIA (Stick Together)
FZ MEETS THE MOTHERS OF PREVENTION (Yo Cats)
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