Go, Goodman, Go

I tend to listen to Pandora whenever I happen to be building chainmail, filling out job applications, or if I happen to play a video game with a sub-par or repetitive soundtrack. One of my Pandora channels features the misleading title "Comedy." Originally developed from a Todd Snider song featured on Bob and Tom, a song by Steven Lynch, and a much less well-known song by a much less well-known artist, Cheryl Wheeler (so unknown in fact, that I almost misspelled her name). Pandora works by assessing the musical qualities of songs that you approve to find similar songs. The channel has since developed to favor "folk influences," "melodic songwriting," and much more nebulous things like "major key tonality" and "acoustic sonority" that music majors might be able to explain (as far as I can tell "acoustic sonority" is the equivalent of "sound-like sound").

Regardless, the channel ended up introducing me to an abundance of artists with interesting, lyrically-driven music that tends to feature lots of singer-songwriters playing a guitar. It's also introduced me to John Williamson and Spectrum - a means of letting me talk to Australian women by pandering to their love of 30-year-old Australian music. It also brought me Steve Goodman, who's likely the far more interesting find. He gets a spot on my site because of his sublimely timed birth. Also he died of leukemia in 1984.


Pandora introduced me to Steve Goodman through a medley he spontanteously created, which happened to be recorded during a live concert. During concerts he would ask for a cowboy hat before singing a semi-satirical country song he wrote with John Prine. When no one could produce a cowboy hat, an audience member shouts, "You want a motorcycle helmet?" The result was Goodman playing a medley of "vehicular songs" including 3 wikipedia-dubbed teenage tragedy songs with a humorous edge as he improvisationally plucked away at his guitar (while wearing the motorcycle helmet).



Goodman was well-known for connecting with the audience and keeping a friendly, personable atmosphere. A master of the guitar, he would often play so furiously and so long that a string would break mid-song. Without missing a beat he would continue singing and replace the string.

Goodman sung an abundance of humorous songs like Leroy Van Dyke's The Auctioneer (here for a tenuous YouTube link) or Shel Silverstein's Three-Legged Man - along with his own rendition of I'm My Own Grandpa (without the past-nastification of Futurama). But he also wrote many of the songs he sang, such as Talk Backwards and the afforementioned You Never Even Called Me by My Name.

Despite Pandora's inclination to give me many of his humorous songs, he was also a skilled lyricist. In years past he was actually more well-known as a writer than a singer-songwriter. His best-known song City of New Orleans refers to a 20-hour passenger train route that still connects Chicago and New Orleans (often dubbed "the least glamorous overnight train" due to the fact the majority of its passengers don't travel between Chicago and New Orleans so the train has very few luxury cars). Goodman took a sentimental look at a vanishing piece of Americana: the now-defunct rail network. Even today, it is often considered one of the best train songs ever written (again, here for a ephemeral YouTube video). I guess if we can have "dead girl songs" and "vehicular songs" we can have train songs too.

As a native of Chicago he wrote numerous fan songs for the Chicago Cubs - for the downtrodden team that has not won a World Series title in over a century (In contrast, the Brewers' franchise has been around since 1969 and managed to snag a pennant in the 1980s, something the Cubs last managed in 1945). The most famous of these songs remains Go, Cubs, Go due to its modern resurgence during winning Cubs seasons in 2007 and 2008 (and the fact it has more uplifting lyrics than his other well-known Cubs' song A Dying Cubs' Fan's Last Request).

Unfortunately, Goodman died of leukemia in 1984 at the age of 36. Mere days later the Cubs clinched their division in 1984. In a stroke of posthumous honors, he also won a grammy for songwriting for Willie Nelson's rendition of City of New Orleans.

And they called him Cool Hand Leuk. No, wait...that's what he called himself.

The Dinosaurs are Dead

I'm no literary afficianado. My time spent with reading is usually limited to my course-related historical non-fiction or (admittedly less exciting) textbooks, but I'll tell you that Michael Crichton - from Andromeda Strain to Jurassic Park, from Timeline to Prey - was my favorite author. I say "was", because unfortunately Crichton passed away due to cancer on November 4th (maybe you missed it due to that whole "electing a new President"-thing). 

A Chicago native, he majored in anthropology at Harvard and eventually wrote novels while studying at Harvard Medical. Originally he had planned on majoring in English literature, but an exchange with one of his professors changed his mind. Suspecting the professor of intentionally handing him poor grades, he plagiarized a paper by George Orwell (informing another professor beforehand). He got a B-. His first major successful novel, Andromeda Strain, was published under a psuedonym while he was still at Med School, but soon his attention would be turned towards using his new found medical terminology and academic education to create 'techno-thrillers' and 'near future science fiction' (as well as non-fiction like Travels and Five Patients and the TV show ER).

 

Now, my enjoyment of Crichton began in 4th grade SSR periods (That's Silent Sustained Reading, not that it usually followed any of those three criteria). Maybe it was my love of dinosaurs, maybe it was the inclusion of complex scientific theories (or maybe it was the copious amounts of swear words), but I loved that book. I can tell you right now that if Ray Bradbury's bibliocaustic society ever manifests itself, I'll be the first one running off into the woods and staking a claim on Jurassic Park (I'm already half way there: "The sign said ELECTRIFIED FENCE 10,000 VOLTS DO NOT TOUCH, but Nedry opened it with his bare hand...").

Despite the years of R.L. Stine and the Boxcar Children, Sideways Storys from Wayside School and Choose Your Own Adventure novels, I always came back to Jurassic Park. Even when it was tattered and torn, kicked down the halls of middle school, and missing the ending I still kept it. It's been retired now - sitting in my desk at home, its position filled by a double that cost $0.25 at the Salvation Army. Accompanied by a version of the book in German.

Appendicitis is no treat, but it's much better with Timeline and Sphere to entertain you. And weekends without video games were just that bit easier when you could borrow Andromeda Strain and Congo from the Door County Public Library. He may not be known for his sweeping literary themes and timeless masterpieces, but I can guarantee you no one's building a dinosaur themepark in the future without some careful considerations.

requiescat in pace