The featured photo is of a cake I baked in 1993 for my boss at the time. I was the cook at a Presbyterian church camp and there was a nasty stomach bug that came through and made a lot of us sick, including the camp director, whose birthday it happened to be. I decided to bake the cake in honor of the virus– it says “Hurling into #33”. And yes, it was a huge hit! Presbyterians, mostly being very Scottish in origin, usually do not lack an appreciation for ribald humor.
For some reason, this morning I found myself singing “MacArthur Park”, a song that was written by the great songwriter Jimmy Webb. I am most familiar with Donna Summer’s version of that song, since I was a youngster when it was popular. But, in the course of reading up on “MacArthur Park”, I learned that it was actually written in the late 1960s and has been covered by a lot of different artists… including Waylon Jennings, of all people!
I am a big fan of Jimmy Webb’s music. He’s written some really beautiful songs. I didn’t know anything about his personal life before this morning, when I read about his first wife, Patsy Sullivan, whom he met when she was twelve and he was 22 years old. They appeared together on a cover of ‘Teen magazine. The next year, they started a relationship and married in 1974, when their son, Christaan, was 17 months old. Patsy was just 16 years old when she had him. She had five more children with Webb before they split in 1996. When he published his memoir in 2017, he left Patsy out of it and reportedly didn’t mention their son, Christaan. I’m not sure why he did that, since it’s not like it wasn’t known that they were married and had children. Anyway, Webb is remarried as of 2004, having wed his wife, Laura Savini.
Sometimes I think it’s better not to know too much about the people you admire. I’m not sure I approve of Webb’s relationship with the very young Patsy in the 1970s… but I guess it was considered a different time. Webb was also using a lot of substances– drugs and alcohol– and has since given them up. I still think it’s shitty that he’s denied his first marriage in his memoir. Seems pretty fucked up to me.
I have funny memories of “MacArthur Park.” Although I had heard it many times when I was growing up, I never paid much attention to the lyrics. It wasn’t until I went to college that I heard the line about the cake in the rain. My old friend– brother from another mother, Chris Jones– was going around singing it badly. “Someone left my CAKE out in the RAIN…” Chris can’t sing under the best of circumstances, but he’s also a natural comedian, so his version of that song was hilarious. I remember saying to him, though… “are you sure those are the right words?” Or maybe I just thought he’d made them up, as we were both likely to do in those days (and in my case, today).
Chris assured me that the song, as ridiculous as it was, was actually written with those lyrics.
Today, I read that the lyrics by Jimmy Webb were based on actual things that he saw as he and his friend/girlfriend were breaking up in view of MacArthur Park in California. Someone actually HAD left a cake out in the rain. The mind boggles at the backstory potential. What happened? Was someone’s birthday party rained out? Did a romantic date go badly? Did some people run off and leave the cake because they’d rather stay dry than save their sweet treat? Who knows… but what a weird visual. I guess the truth really is stranger than fiction.
I still like Jimmy Webb’s music and respect his immense talents. I suspect he didn’t want to address his first wife’s age because he’s a “different person” now. Actually, I’d say that if you aren’t willing to own up to the past, maybe you haven’t changed that much, after all… I’m sure his life story is still interesting, even though he omitted a big, major chunk of it from his memoir. I haven’t read the book, but I can see from Amazon reviews that a lot of people didn’t think it was very good. They claim he name drops a lot and is apparently a “moral midget” who has affairs with married women. I dunno… Maybe I’ll read it so I can decide what I think of it. If I do read it, it won’t be for awhile. I have a bunch of books to read right now and only so many conscious hours.
And there are many, many other versions of this song, as well as other songs Jimmy wrote that are fantastic. I’ll just try to focus on those.
Interestingly, there’s a new book, “Monsters: A Fan’s Perspective,” by Claire Dederer, that explores problematic artists (mostly men like Hemingway, Picasso, Cosby, and Polanski, but some women, as well) and whether it’s possible to separate the art they make from the toxic creators.
I have not read “Monsters,” but there’s a feature article in the May 8/May 15 issue of Time magazine. I thought I’d let you know, cos your blog post about Jimmy Webb called the book to mind.
Thanks for pointing it out to me. I would probably find that an interesting and enjoyable read!
I think you’d like it!
From the book’s Amazon page:
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK • A timely, passionate, provocative, blisteringly smart interrogation of how we make and experience art in the age of cancel culture, and of the link between genius and monstrosity. Can we love the work of controversial classic and contemporary artists but dislike the artist?
“A lively, personal exploration of how one might think about the art of those who do bad things” —Vanity Fair
“Monsters leaves us with Dederer’s passionate commitment to the artists whose work most matters to her, and a framework to address these questions about the artists who matter most to us.” —The Washington Post
“[Dederer] breaks new ground, making a complex cultural conversation feel brand new.” —Ada Calhoun, author of Also a Poet
From the author of the New York Times best seller Poser and the acclaimed memoir Love and Trouble, Monsters is “part memoir, part treatise, and all treat” (The New York Times). This unflinching, deeply personal book expands on Claire Dederer’s instantly viral Paris Review essay, “What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men?”
Can we love the work of artists such as Hemingway, Sylvia Plath, Miles Davis, Polanski, or Picasso? Should we? Dederer explores the audience’s relationship with artists from Michael Jackson to Virginia Woolf, asking: How do we balance our undeniable sense of moral outrage with our equally undeniable love of the work? Is male monstrosity the same as female monstrosity? And if an artist is also a mother, does one identity inexorably, and fatally, interrupt the other? In a more troubling vein, she wonders if an artist needs to be a monster in order to create something great. Does genius deserve special dispensation? Does art have a mandate to depict the darker elements of the psyche? And what happens if the artist stares too long into the abyss?
Highly topical, morally wise, honest to the core, Monsters is certain to incite a conversation about whether and how we can separate artists from their art.