Sunday Rerun: I had a braunschweiger called "The Wurst That Could Happen"

 Unless you're of an uncertain age, the name Jimmy Webb doesn't mean much to you. But if you've ever ridden in an elevator, you have heard his music, or someone's version of one of his songs.

He wrote hundreds of songs way back when, stuff like MacArthur Park, Wichita Lineman, The Worst That Could Happen, Galveston, Up, Up And Away, Honey Come Back, By The Time I Get To Phoenix  and Where's The Playground Susie?

His own website modestly proclaims him to be "America's Songwriter," and invites you to subscribe to his emails on the "World Wide Webb."

So now he has published his autobiography, "The Cake And The Rain." The title, of course, refers to the line in "MacArthur Park" about someone leaving a cake out in the rain, and Webb took that allusion from poet W.H. Auden, who said that when he looks in the mirror his face looks like a cake someone left out in the rain.

I don't think that I can take it.

I read the book because I am interested in popular music, but Webb should stick to writing lyrics, because the book is disjointed in the extreme. He jumps between vignettes from the 1950s and the 1970s, he talks of characters in his life without bothering to tell us who they are (there is one person present with him at many events who is only referred to as "the devil") and he leaves out many details. 

But two things he never fails to mention are what a genius he thinks he is, and how unfair it is that the "left-wing folkie exclusivity" fails to give him the respect he is due. Webb was a fine songwriter, no doubt, but that never meant that people wanted to hear him sing his own songs.  Time after time, he tried to mount a performing career, only to receive solid evidence that people preferred The Fifth Dimension and Glen Campbell singing his songs over Webb's weak-throated bleating.

I'm harsh on him because he has obviously had an interesting life but failed to tell us about it clearly. Reading this book, I kept feeling like I was trying to watch a movie on a bad DVD player that kept skipping and stalling. He has stories to tell but he didn't tell them.

He did mention that he consumed an awful lot of drugs, shoving pills down his throat and powder up his nose to ease the pain of his wealth and success. And time after time, he tells of how harshly and cruelly he treated women and fellow musicians. That sort of thing leads to karmic consequences, you know, Jimmy?

I can't recommend this book unless you have a kitchen table with one leg two inches too short.

The Saturday Picture Show, May 17, 2025

 

It's been awhile since there was a 7-alarm fire in Baltimore, but here it was the other night. It burned for well more than 24 hours at a multi-story mattress warehouse at North Bentalou Street and Edmondson Avenue. What's left of the building will be torn down. If you live here in the Northeast, this is why Amtrak was shut down for a while between here and DC...this is right by the tracks. 

Apparently, Paul was the cause of the formerly-high labor rates, but they tied a can to him, so come on over and get your transmission overhauled for much less!

Here's what can only be called an "idyllic English countryside scene." 

I have seen the Weinermobile, but the LL BeanBoot car has not driven down here, as far as I know. I'd go!

Popeye and Olive Oyl take in the carnival!

If you ever see me out at a swanky restaurant, that's not I. But if someone forces a side of asparagus on me, come on over and help yourself. Nice joke, though!

The new Pope is a baseball fan, so Jason Perash, an Orioles fan from Colorado, took some baseballs to the Vatican in hopes of getting a papal-autographed ball. Before he signed it, Pope Leo XIV asked Perash the key question: "White Sox or Cubs?" Perash got it right and the Pope got write to it.

 

Perhaps it will help you get the joke if I tell you that the beret is sort of raspberry-colored...

Anyone sharing their home with a cat knows, you can buy all the Karpeted Kitty Kondos they make, and Felix would rather have a shoe box. 

One was considered to have "made it" in the cultural world of the 50s and 60s and maybe the 70s by being depicted on the cover of TIME Magazine. Everyone saw your mug on their coffee table, the doctor's waiting room, and the checkout stand at the Try 'N' Save. Today, I don't even know if there is a print edition of TIME, and all you see at the cash register is skinny pictures of Ariana Grande. Sad times.

He got you, babe

 The talk turned to Sonny Bono the other night. The topic had been "people who are born to be salespeople." That list did not include me. I couldn't sell a bucket of water to someone whose pants were on fire. Whatever facility of language I have does not involve persuading people to part with their money, so no sales career for me.

But now, you take Sonny Bono. You might only know him as the shorter, less-attractive half of Sonny & Cher, but he had that gift.

He was born Salvatore Phillip Bono in Detroit, moving with his family to Southern California when he was seven. Even as a kid, he wanted to be in the music business, and started writing songs for others. He was selling meat door-to-door in Los Angeles when he got a job as an all-around office guy for Phil Spector, the greatest producer of rock and roll records ever (but not a great man.) Sonny learned the record business from Spector and lost his job for daring to criticize one of Phil's decisions. By then, he was writing more songs, e.g. "Needles and Pins" for The Searchers and "She Said Yeah" for the Rolling Stones.

By that time, Sonny was ready to make his move. He found Cher and formed a singing and personal partnership with her. They had hit records as a duet and individually.  They made a movie. You wanted entertainment; he was ready to sell it, even if he had to wear a vest that make him look like a yak, and take insults from Cher on national TV about his height, his looks, his atonal singing.

He did not mind this. Sonny knew that the wives at home, in the days when family TV viewing presented a choice among CBS, NBC, ABC, and whatever 1/2ass local station was showing "Highway Patrol" reruns, made the decision on what to watch. Women enjoyed seeing skinny Cher in her Bob Mackie gowns, and their show was a hit for years, until S&C couldn't stand each other any more and went to divorce court. Believe me, showing their divorce proceedings on live TV was something that Sonny would have done had this all taken place in 2025, instead of 1974.

Out on his own, Sonny was not finished selling, so he went into the restaurant business to sell food in Palm Springs, and then sold himself as a politician when he grew frustrated with the machinations of local politics. He became the mayor of Palm Springs and eventually was elected to the US Congress from California's 44th District, where he was serving when he died in a skiing accident in 1998.

To date, Sonny Bono remains the only member of the US Congress to have had a #1 Billboard hit. He was only 62 when he died, and I have absolutely no doubt that if he had lived, he would have become the president of the United States.

I mean, why not?

On and On

Michael Bosworth Jr. was all set to celebrate the culmination of 12 years of school with his graduation exercises this week from Massaponax High School in Fredericksburg,  Virginia.

The exercises will go on, sadly, without Michael, who was killed on Saturday while filming what people are calling a prank for a social media trend.

Those final seven words are nothing but trouble. Bosworth and two other teens were doing that stupid "ding dong ditch" game, and, Spotsylvania County police say, Tyler Chase Butler, a resident of the pranked home, opened fire. Police say someone had called 911 reporting an attempted residential break-in in progress.

One of the other teens was shot and lived to tell about it.  A third was not injured.

Butler, 27, stands charged with second-degree murder and other offenses. He's being held without bond.

Khamoni Keys, a fellow soon-to-be-graduate, and a close friend of Bosworth, told a Washington TV station, "It's been very emotional, honestly, because you know we graduate (this) week." 

I remember kids in our neighborhood doing this stunt a long time ago. Doorbell rings, you go to the door, no one is there, maybe they do it again, ha ha. Dumb. I get the feeling that the only reason someone 17 or 18 is up to this nonsense is because of the elevated thrill of putting your stunt on TalkTalk or whatever that social media is. 

And when you read more about this, more questions come up. Butler's neighbors say the shooting took place in the back yard, which is not where doorbells are usually located. Clearly, this prank was all wrong.

Your mother used to tell you, "It's all fun until someone falls off the ladder," or whatever minor harm could befall a kid fooling around. But the pranks now intersect with an overly-armed nation. Private Francis Sawyer, in "Stripes," spoke for a huge group of people who are just itching to have a reason to haul out their Smiths and Wessons when he said, "All I know is, I'm finally gonna have a reason to shoot somebody."

Well, in Fredericksburg, on the banks of the mighty Rappahannock River, there was a significant Civil War battle in 1862.  And here we are, 163 years later, and Americans are still shooting Americans for no good reason. 

Isn't it about time to stop it? I think the Bosworth family and all of Fredericksburg might agree. Now, if we can just get the rest of the country to do so...

 

 

Guidance

This is a perfect example of what the news business calls "burying the lead."

You may have seen this story on the news, about a Kentucky mom who allowed her son to play on her phone "as a reward," only to find out that he went on Amazon and ordered $4,200 worth of Dum-Dums lollipops, without her knowledge, of course.

The woman involved is Holly LaFavers of Somerset. Last week, she told "Good Morning America" that he had the urge to check her bank account last Sunday before church, and found out she was deep in the red because of the $4,200.

Fun fact: 4200 simoleons will get you 70,000 Dum Dums from the big A. That is 70,000 more Dum-Dums than I have ever had, being a Tootsie Pop kid in my day.

Holly does allow her son, Liam, to window-shop on Amazon, but he's a second-grader, so he might not know the difference between "just looking" and "ordering."

Old joke from my childhood: "My girlfriend can't stop window shopping. Last week she went out and came home with 47 windows."

Back to Holly's house...there was a mixup for sure. The Amazon guy dropped off 22 cases of suckers on the front porch and was coming back with more, but Holly contacted Amazon and got the whole thing credited back. So in the end, no harm, no foul.

BUT only if you read all the way to the end of the story do you learn that Liam  lives with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD). His mom says he was diagnosed at age 4.

FASD is defined as "a range of physical, behavioral, and cognitive impairments resulting from alcohol exposure during pregnancy. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) is the most severe form of FASD. It's characterized by specific birth defects, developmental disabilities, and neurodevelopmental problems due to prenatal alcohol exposure."

I'm no expert in this field, but it's plain to see that the young man will need professional help with the sort of problems that come along with his syndrome, namely, low birth weight, slow growth, physical deformities, learning disabilities, behavioral issues, and mental health challenges, according to experts. 

Can't blame the boy for playing on the phone, and it's probably good for him with his development. BUT can the mother not find a way to disable the app from placing orders? Or give him a phone that doesn't connect to the internet, maybe. 

I feel bad because the mother has allowed the situation and the publicity to point out her son's mistake, and that might not be the best thing for him. I hope someone who is trained in early childhood development can step in and help them both.  

Give me your tired, your poor, and your money

By the time one gets to be 85 years of age, most people, at least, have figured out the path forward, and have put it in autopilot for the descent.

I don't know any other way to say it, but if you don't have your life plan in place by the time you hit four score and five, you might as well forget it.

OR, you can be like Televangelist Jim Bakker, who with his bizarre wife Tammy Faye was deep into one of the biggest religious scandals since someone swiped the bingo money. Jimbo says he’s in desperate need of cash right now, and if you don't shell out a million clams but quick, he will lose errthang and be homeless.

I'll wait while you dry your eyes.

“If everyone that watches this program will give $1,000, we’ll be able to pay our bills and stay on the air,” he said on his show the other day. “Otherwise we got about another, maybe a month.”

And... 

“If they foreclose on this ministry, they will take my house too, so I’ll be on the street,” he said.

He says he doesn't take a salary out of the all the moolah he rakes in, and that he has no money to call his own. He even adds that an unnamed "they" has been ripping him off for millions! 

It seems that his financial woes began during the pandemic, when he began selling something called "Silver Solution," which he said was an "Enhanced Colloidal Silver Liquid – Ultimate Immune Support Supplement... Immunity Boost & Immune Booster for Adults.

One of the inevitable lawsuits that landed on his altar wound up as a settlement with the Missouri attorney general that involved a restitution of $156,000.

Like all these shifty sinbusters, Bakker used the threat of impending bankruptcy to beg his flock to sheepishly replenish his coffers.

And now he goes with this hoary pitch: if you give him your money, "I guarantee you God’s going to do something. God’s gonna bless you as you give, because when you give, you’re gonna receive.”

And while he asks for your money to line his future with your gold, he continues to claim that we are in the "end times," so he is selling food buckets and prepper items on his shows and website.

So stock up on food for the future that might not take place.

Sounds right.

I see a sad career

I remember watching that "Sixth Sense" movie a long time ago. I think the writers and producers were trying to turn the sentence "I see dead people" into a national catchphrase, but it didn't work out. I think that was because that picture came out just a few years after "Titanic," and that's the movie where, when it (finally) ended, relieved theatregoers were walking out, saying, "Icy dead people," and there was too much confusion.

But that wide-eyed kid from the "6th" movie is back in the news, and not for anything good. For lack of anything else to do, he apparently got himself a little buzzalilly on, went to a ski resort in California, and turned the air fetid with some antisemitic slurs about the officer who was fitting him for a pair of handcuffs.

He's 37 now, well past the age at which he should have known better. He is also the older brother of Emily Osment, who plays Mandy on  "Georgie and Mandy's First Marriage, " so he should stay home on Thursdays and watch that show, rather getting shafaced at ski lodges. 

And Haley Joel Osment wants you to know that he is “absolutely horrified by my behavior. Had I known I used this disgraceful language in the throes of a blackout, I would have spoken up sooner.”

He used some really, really offensive language while discussing his arrest with the officer. The district attorney out in Mono County, Calif., said that Osment was  charged with possession of cocaine and disorderly conduct under the influence of alcohol in public, both misdemeanors.

He blames all this on having lost his house in the recent Altadena Fire in California, but tell me: if you lost your house in a fire, horrible as that is, would you a) shove cocaine up your nose and booze down your neck and go skiing, or b) get to work rebuilding your life?

Come on, son. Pull it together. There are always parts in movies and TV shows for odd-looking former child stars.

Osment's mud shot (left) and movie still (right).