Don't Panic! - A look back at Douglas Adams's "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" Trilogy?

You may be wondering why there is a question mark after the word "trilogy." If you are unfamiliar with the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy, then you should know that Douglas Adams wrote five books in his trilogy. This was to the sheer delight of his rabid fans, (including yours truly), most of whom, were ill prepared for the series to end after the third book. When I first sat down to write this article, I thought about writing on some of the great books that I have read. In the end, I chose the Hitchhiker's Guide series, (yes we can refer to it as a series and not a trilogy) because of how influential it was in my life.

I first discovered the series not in book form but on television sometime around 1982. I picked up the book a year later when I saw the paperback in a drug store. As a side note, the series didn't begin in book or television but was a 1970s BBC radio show that had its roots entwined in the Monty Python avant-garde humor that was popular at the time. The radio series inspired the books and the books led to the television series. Like many things British, the television series made its way across the Atlantic via American public television. Nestled in between documentaries of the Serengeti and Bob Ross painting puffy little clouds was The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It was a bizarre little miniseries with the absolute worst special effects ever attempted. The television series and book begins with hapless, earthling Arthur Dent waking up to find out his house is to be demolished to make way for a new bypass. This pales in comparison as he then learns that his best friend, Ford Prefect, is an alien and that the earth is scheduled for demolition to make way for a . . . . wait for it . . . . new bypass. The earth is blown to bits and the only survivors are Arthur and Ford who have managed to hitchhike on board the spaceship that just destroyed the earth. If that sounds like a lot, it isn't, what I just described is the opening of Book 1, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

The books follow Arthur Dent through a series of misadventures. These misadventures go back and forth through time and across all of space. What makes these books so special is that although it is a comedic series, it is superbly written from a literary standpoint and from a scientific standpoint. Through Adams's absurd humor, we are treated to a humorous look at the age old question "why are we here?" As mentioned above, the earth is destroyed in the opening of the book. Ford Prefect is a writer for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. His assignment was to update Earth's old entry in the Guide. The old entry listed the Earth as "Harmless." The new entry updated the Earth to "Mostly harmless." Adams, like any good satirist, knows that nothing is sacred. Adams addresses religion in the book stating that God disappears never to be seen again after he unwittingly gives proof of his existence, thereby destroying faith, and thereby again, destroying his existence. Evolution doesn't fair any better. In the series, the apes die out because they are supplanted by a bunch of useless hair dressers and phone sanitization workers who have deliberately been crashed into the earth by their own planet as a useful way to get rid of them. The meaning of life?—well I won't ruin that one for you but suffice to say, the answer is enough to make you laugh out loud.

The series spends a lot of time making fun of us. In Adams's universe we are backwoods ruffians who are still impressed with digital watches, (it was written in the 1970s). Per the series, we aren't even the most intelligent creatures on the planet, we come third after mice and dolphins. From a literary standpoint, the series has all the classic elements. It works so well because our "hero" Arthur Dent, is the perfect humorless straight man and foil to the greatest comedian, the Universe. The series revolves around a series of random coincidences. Adams's creates a vehicle for this, (literary and literally), via "The Heart of Gold" which is a new mode of transportation that can transport a spaceship anywhere by configuring odds of probability. The side effect is that the occupants are frequently subjected to a series of bizarre coincidences.

Douglas Adams was a closet scientist whose fascination for the subject matter gave his series far more depth than corporate science fiction or fluff humor. Since the third book, Life, the Universe and Everything, Adams would always say that the series was finished, yet another book would roll out. After his final book in the series came out, Mostly Harmless, it seemed that maybe the series had finally come to an end. During the year 2000, Adams was starting to contemplate a sixth book in the series while he was working on getting a movie version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy released. Sadly, Adams died of a massive heart attack in the spring of 2001, maybe even more sadly, a movie version of Hitchhiker's Guide did come out and absolutely failed to capture any part at all of what made the series so magical. What makes this series so special is that Adams's quirky way of looking at things comes through with such force that it greatly influences the readers to see Adams's points of view on well, life, the universe and everything. Usually satire is myopic by its nature. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a satire of all of humanity. If you can temporarily set aside what you hold precious and think you can find some humor in the foibles of humanity, then this series is for you.

Blind Melon's "Soup"-- A Requiem and a Mystery

Note:  This article was originally published at http://www.searchwarp.com/ on October 4th, 2011.

       Have you actually clicked on this article and made it this far? If you have, my guess is that you are wondering why anyone would bother to write an article about a mid 1990s one-hit-wonder band. It turns out that with Blind Melon's Soup album there comes a bit of a mystery. The answers to that mystery died with lead singer Shannon Hoon and the mystery was only created by his death.

     First let's start with a little background. If you know anything about the group Blind Melon, you know that they penned the song No Rain. No Rain was a big hit in the early to mid 1990s and it was made all the more famous through its iconic video which featured a young girl in a bee outfit. No Rain was from their first, self-titled album. Despite my better judgment I bought the album when it came out. This is the kind of purchase that nine times out of ten leads to me listening to that one song and having to suffer through the others before I grudgingly admit I have made a bad purchase. Fortunately for me, this was a one out of ten deal. It turns out that, in my opinion, No Rain was probably the weakest song off of the album and not because it was a bad song but because it was clearly added to be a pop song to drive the sales of Blind Melon's other songs. In my case, that marketing strategy worked perfectly. No Rain was wedged into a great group of alternative, blues songs that all carried a melancholy tone.

      Now you are saying, "so you think Blind Melon's self titled debut album was a good album. So what? It's not worth writing about seventeen years after the fact." In that, I would have to agree. Actually this article isn't even about that album but the one that followed it--Soup. If Soup had any recognizable, radio played song it was Galaxie. This song was probably played on the radio for about ten minutes and if you blinked you probably missed it. Soup's main claim to fame is that it was the last real album for Blind Melon. While on tour to promote the album, Shannon Hoon succumbed to an overdose of cocaine on the tour bus in New Orleans and it is here that the mystery begins.

      While attending the University of Alabama, I found a compatriot in my love of Blind Melon with my very good friend and roommate. He and I seemed to be the only people in the world aware of just how good Blind Melon was. When Soup was released we both went out and bought it and we both listened to it over and over trying to get a feel for how it compared to the first album. My first impression was that the album, although good, sounded very disjointed in parts. I don't know if it was recorded in odd time signatures but the album has a weird flow or lack of flow to it. Beyond that and maybe because of it, I realized that though it wasn't as easy to fall into as the previous album, Soup was probably the better of the two albums. It was also a very dark album. The previous album had a sadness to it but it was in no way a dark album. Soup was very dark with many of the songs having to do with death. Ironically and I am sure deliberately, the happiest sounding song was a summertime fun ditty about a real life, serial killer who used his victims' remains to make furniture. It was that kind of a dark album. There was an exception to the darkness of the other songs. The song New Life seemed more sad than dark and was more reminiscent of Blind Melon's first album. In New Life Hoon is singing about the birth of his first child Nico and is asking himself if Nico's birth is going to be enough to save him from the downward spiral of his life. Other notable songs were Lemonade which was an allusion to drugs and was deliberately recorded in a very chaotic manner to reflect the affect of the drugs. In my opinion, the best song off of the album was Mouthful of Cavities which captures the melancholy, hopeless depression of the first album and takes it to an entirely new level.

     Somewhere in the midst of still exploring this album came word of Shannon Hoon's death. I found myself thinking about Hoon's death, the circumstances of his death and the odd similarities to parts of the album. My roommate and I bounced various ideas off of each other. What we found was a very odd mystery.

     To begin with, Soup is encompassed in a New Orleans funeral. In New Orleans, it is tradition that when a body is being carried to a grave that a slow, New Orleans jazz is played. After the funeral, when the mourners are heading back from the grave site, the music that is played is a happy, up tempo, New Orleans jazz. Just prior to Soup's first song, Galaxie, the album opens up with a slow, New Orleans jazz and after the album's last song is played--Lemonade, the album closes with the New Orleans up beat jazz. Soup was clearly intended to be a New Orleans funeral. It would seem odd and highly coincidental that Shannon Hoon died in New Orleans while on tour for Soup.

     If I left it here, it would be odd but then something happened one night to add to the mystery. While I was at work, I was talking with a fellow coworker. I mentioned Blind Melon and how it was a shame that Hoon was dead. We talked about Soup and I mentioned how much I loved the album. He then told me about a hidden track. I don't remember my reaction but I probably told him that there wasn't a hidden track. I had played that album religiously and I had not heard any hidden track. He then told me that it was a uniquely hidden track. He told me how to access the hidden track. As soon as I was off of work, I ran home, pulled out Soup and followed the instructions while my roommate watched on.

      Of course he was right, there is a hidden track on Soup. Unlike most hidden tracks, the hidden track on Soup is extremely well hidden. If you put the compact disc in and play it from beginning to end, you will never hear it. It starts out with the slow funeral music and ends with the happy funeral music. To hear the hidden track, you have to put in the compact disc and immediately hit pause. Once the compact disc is paused, you then have to hold down the back button and reverse the compact disc to approximately negative two minutes and forty seconds. At that point, you can play the song. The song is appropriately titled Hello Goodbye and is a strange song with backwards lyrics. The backwards lyrics are from the song New Life. Hoon was basically telling us that he knew that even the birth of his daughter would not be enough to save him. After all what is the opposite of New Life? Now all this in and of itself would make this album a masterpiece but then Hoon's death vaults this album into territories where albums just haven't gone. Shannon Hoon, a kid from Indiana, died of an overdose of cocaine in of all places, New Orleans. Whether Hoon predicted his own death, commited suicide, or fate played tricks on him, I will never know. People have mourned the loss of Kurt Cobain as the great Rock and Roll death of the Gen X crowd and I agree Cobain's loss to my generation has been monumental but in my heart, Hoon's death has rocked me far more.