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By day, Carl Winter is a mild-mannered Cooperative Extension food toxicologist
in the food science and technology department, and director of the campus's
FoodSafe program. But when dinner is over and the kids are tucked in bed,
he climbs the stairs to the spare bedroom, slips on the headphones and hunkers
down behind the keyboard and synthesizer.
For a few late-night hours, he's 20-something again and just "Stayin'
Alive."
The old disco hit is the title song for a new compact-disc parody, created
by Winter to spread food-safety messages while having a healthy serving
of fun. Trained as a chemist and toxicologist, he devotes his work days
to educating and informing the public about the relative risks posed by
everything from pesticide residues on food to microbial contamination. And
he maintains an active research program, currently focused on naturally-occurring
food toxins and dietary pesticide risk assessment.
Vintage rock songs
By tinkering with vintage rock songs, Winter hopes he can put some food-safety
issues in perspective, make use of an effective teaching tool and revive
his own musical interests. Consider how he's taken the words right out of
the BeeGees' mouths and kindly replaced them with the following refrain:
Don't want hepatitis or
that gastroenteritis
I'm just stayin' alive, stayin' alive
Scrubbin' off my veggies and I'm
heatin' all my burgers up to
one-eighty-Þve, one-eighty-Þve
Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive,
stayin' alive
Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive
It all started about a year and a half ago when Winter decided to get
back into his music after a 17-year hiatus. While in college during the
late '70s and early '80s he had played the keyboard and a little bit of
guitar in rock and jazz bands, appearing at downtown-Davis establishments
such as the Antique Bizarre (now La Esperanza) and the Brewery (now Cafe
California.)
After launching his career, getting married and starting a family-the
era Winter dubs as "being responsible"-he realized how much he
missed music.
"Life is a difÞcult balance, particularly if you're a professional
person and trying to raise a family," Winter says. "Everyone needs
something they can hang their hat on and say, 'This is me.'"
So he dragged out the old sport bag stuffed with electrical cords, microphones
and keyboard couplers, and purchased a new synthesizer and a software program
that would enable him to compose and record straight from his computer.
The modern synthesizer, which electronically mimics the sounds of more than
600 musical instruments, provides the drums, bass, guitars, piano and a
myriad of special effects.
"The technology has changed so much," Winter says. "Now
with a synthesizer and computer I can be my own band."
Food-safety parodies
He began to play old tunes, listening to how he might alter the lyrics
to produce a good scientiÞc or food-safety parody. The old Beach Boys'
favorite, "SurÞn' USA" easily was transformed into-you guessed
it-"Clonin' DNA":
If everybody had a lab bench
Across the U.S.A.
they'd be cranking out products
Nearly every day
You'd see them waving their test tubes
Just like Genetics 1A
Everybody's gone cloning
Cloning DNA
"I get my best lyrics on airplanes, going places where I can get
away from my 'other world,'" Winter says. Colleagues now send him suggestions
for lyrics, and other verses come from past experience. His personal favorite,
"Rat Number 49"-a take-off on "Love Potion Number 9"
memorializes a lab rat from his undergraduate days:
I looked at it, it snarled at me,
and showed me its rage
A million things I'd rather do
than reach in that cage
I didn't have a choice so I
covered my skin,
I held my breath, I said a prayer
I reached on in
It's clear to see just why I had
such fright
It started biting every thing in sight
And now I know that my
Classmates weren't a-lyin'
You'd better watch out for
Rat Number 49
"It's a real story," Winter says. "When I was a senior
in environmental toxicology, there was this one rat that scared everyone
in the class."
Only later, when they did the pathology exam on the rat, did the young
researchers discover that its brain was riddled with holes-undoubtedly the
explanation for its vicious behavior.
Winter was able to compose and record all 10 songs for "Stayin'
Alive"-including two original instrumental pieces-in just six months.
The compact-disc cover was created by Debra Browning, an agricultural and
environmental chemistry graduate student who was formerly a graphic designer.
She started with a "Saturday Night Fever" image of John Travolta
in classic disco pose, then used the wonders of computer technology to paste
Winter's head over Travolta's and place a clip-art hamburger in his outstretched
hand. Finally she penciled in a white lab coat, complete with the requisite
pocket full of pens and pencils.
"Stayin' Alive-A Hearty Helping of Food Follies and Science Serenades"
reads the compact-disc cover.
Winter has already played "a few gigs," performing in November
at a gathering of the Institute of Food Technologists in Chicago and is
booked for a return engagement before the same association this summer.
"It's deÞnitely for a niche audience," he says with a
smile. "For example in 'Clonin' DNA', the lyrics say, 'of course there's
T and A.' Well, if you don't understand that T and A stand for the complementary
bases, thymine and adenine, you won't get it."
But for science types, the songs are guaranteed to tickle a funny bone.
Winter hopes that he can use the songs for educational purposes, including
guest classroom lectures.
"Science tends to be pretty straight-forward," he says. "Presenting
things in non-traditional ways can be very effective."
Putting pesticide regulations to music
He plans to keep adding to his repertoire, possibly something about organic-produce
labeling. And he's writing a parody of the "Rocky Horror Picture Show"
theme song that will address the issue of pesticide regulations.
"It's a bit of a stretch, but it's really cool music," says
Winter with a grin.
And someday, he may audition real singers so that he can put down the
mike and concentrate on the keyboard.
"I'm really not a singer, but as long as my act is campy enough,
there's a certain amount of charm in being a little rough around the edges,"
he says.
Colleagues seem to enjoy the music, which also has been well-received
by his family. His two young sons get a kick out of their dad's musical
high jinks while his wife "tolerates it," he says.
Winter has made just 40 copies of "Stayin' Alive," and will
make more if requested. But there won't be any money changing hands over
the compact disc.
"I don't know where it will go," he says of his musical gambit.
"But it's definitely not a get-rich-quick scheme-I'll keep my day job."
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