The Blessing/Curse of YouTube

[dgs49]

I and many of my American compatriots have over the past few days been touched by the remarkable story of one Ted Williams, a golden-voiced panhandler from Ohio who is currently experiencing his proverbial fifteen minutes of fame.

He was “discovered” earlier this week while bumming change along the exit ramp of an interstate highway near Columbus. Holding a crudely hand-painted sign that advertised his skills as an announcer and “voiceover” speaker, he was using his voice and diction training to help solicit handouts from passing motorists. Someone recorded his “schtick,” posted it on YouTube and, as the current expression goes, “it went viral.” As with Susan Boyle, the video is striking because we are hearing pleasing noises coming out of a not-so-pleasing visage. In other contexts the talent on display would be considered little better than average.

Almost within hours, he was being considered for promotional and advertising work around the country, sought after as a talk show guest, appearing on the morning news-entertainment shows, and tentatively offered a full-time job and lodgings by the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball organization. (Backpedaling a little bit, the Cavaliers now say that they want at least to interview the guy before starting to write him checks).

Aside from his formal training as a radio announcer, his background is pretty much what one would expect of a 53-year-old panhandler. Assorted minor run-ins with the law, substance abuse, a few short stays as the guest of the Ohio penal system, and so forth. He predictably boasts a couple of legitimate and illegitimate children and a broken marriage - happily, only one of them. There are the predictable claims that he has been clean for a period of time (in this case, two and a half years), that he has found religion, and he has been starting to get his life back on track – whatever that means.

There are a few interesting tidbits in his background (as it has been revealed so far), most notably the fact that he has a 90-year-old mother in New York whom he had not seen in a decade or so, and both he and the mother have dreamed of the day when he would be able to come back to her having straightened his life out, so that she can once again be proud of him. (Luckily, the old broad has good genes and lived long enough to see it).

The siblings and friends that the media have been able to locate are pretty much unanimous in saying that, yes, his life has been fcuked up for many years and they’ve all hoped that he would turn things around before he ends up dead in a ditch someplace. They are happy for his sudden turn of good fortune.

Mr. Williams himself is somewhere between whelmed and over-whelmed by the recognition and limelight. He declined to run the gauntlet of paparazzi when his plane landed in New York yesterday, instead being secretly escorted off the property by security personnel. From what I’ve seen, he has done a reasonably good job of responding to the endless and repetitive barrage of stupid questions about how he feels and what he intends to do now, and how he expects to deal with the fame that has been thrust upon him.

How can one not wish him well? America fervently hopes that he will not fcuk up this golden opportunity – that we will not read, six months from now, that he is panhandling on an interstate ramp outside Cleveland, strutting his stuff for passing motorists again.

But consider…

What is this all about? The man is the archetypal “empty suit.” His talent is saying things that someone else has conceived and prepared for him. He is like the pretty girl with the big boobs who stands next the car on the turntable at an auto show, or “Ted” from the old Mary Tyler Moore television show.

We occasionally read about an old inventor who toils for decades in obscurity, only to later find that something he invented as a teenager has become the basis of something great and he is now hailed as he maybe should have been all along. Or the musician or artist or singer who is “discovered” late in life and ultimately gets the recognition that has always been deserved. These are heartwarming stories.

But Ted Williams? He is not being hailed for anything in particular that he has done or that he has to say, but merely because he is able to say what others have conceived in a way that is pleasing to the ear. He’s like the large cadre of American celeb’s who are just “famous for being famous,” but have never manifested any talent for anything other than self-promotion.

Wouldn’t it be nice if this Great Country of ours did a better job of celebrating real accomplishment, rather than empty crap like this?

[dales]

Better to kick him into the gutter than to offer the poor SOB a second chance at life?

I for one, am delighted for this man.

[Gob]

Oh come on dgs49, your average American is such a sucker for this sort of story...

Stop being such an old grump, there's a place for you too!

And what's wrong with women with big boobs standing next to cars...

[loCAtek]

Don't think so dsg49, he humbly thanks God;