Steve Goodman Rides Again – at Moe’s Books

IMG_4208 steve goodman jim and david

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David Gans and Jim Rothermel rock the house on Steve Goodman’s “Elvis Imitator,” part of a touching and informative reading/rocking/remembrance of the late great Goodman. Spur of the event was Clay Eals, whose new book, “Facing the Music,” gives the garrulous Goodman his due—  four pounds worth. The whole affair was in the house at Moe’s Books, Telegraph Ave Berkeley, Monday July 28, 2008.

Standing on the Cast Iron Shore: PMC 7067 XEX 709/10 Mfg. in UK ©1968

The seawall along Elizabeth Walk is where I go when I want to lose the claustrophobia.  You see the ships in the harbor, you get the endless cricket green of the Padang; it’s never crowded.  I wander along, just saw a movie at the Capital with Rimmer and Steve.  I’m alone now, walking and smelling the salt and rotting seaweed. Soundtrack plays in my head and I synchronize my steps to it and it carries me along.  “Standing on the cast iron shore yeah,  Lady Madonna trying to make ends meet yeah…looking through a glass onion.”  This jammed up tumble of words is desperate, serious, but odd for sure. The singer just insists on sticking in those “yeahs” even thought there’s no room.  And the the word beat, the emphasis on certain syllables in “looking through a glass onion”  sound like Shakespeare, or a poet speaking in another language. Mr. Leonard tells me a glass onion is a monocle.