Expanded Thoughts on Amy Winehouse - Thanks to Jim

Amy Winehouse is gone.. how WILL we survive?

Well.

The readers have spoken.

Apparently, the more significant posting today was not related to a right-wing extremist who killed 93 people in Norway, it was the passing of Amy Winehouse.

Which isn't surprising, I suppose.

It seems that my short and dismissive commentary on Winehouse's passing struck a raw nerve with "jim", who responded thusly:

jim said...


asshole,u make consevatives look
like assholes
fuck off

I responded somewhat critically to both his sentiments and his lack of effort in expanding on his point, and a few other readers also suggested that jim was a little bit off base.

So - I thought I might, perhaps, expand upon my thoughts regarding the demise of poor Amy Winehouse.

To add to the "piling on" of poor jim, who, clearly is in mourning today..


jim (he has an aversion, apparently, to capitalization);

We diminish the accomplishments of people who truly succeed in life when we reward, even posthumously, the example of excess and stupidity.

While people in this world struggle against formidable odds just to have enough food to eat or to over-come other great obstacles not of their own making, in Amy Winehouse, we see, yet again, an entertainer who was given everything she needed in life, and yet, was still by all accounts a mess of a human being.

She attended private schools to facilitate her talent, she enjoyed early commercial success, and, one assumes, financial success.. and yet, poor Amy, she was depressed and consumed with self-destructive behavior, which included massive abuse of narcotics.

In the passing of Amy Winehouse, we see the media, yet again, giving excessive attention to people who are essentially court jesters.. who liven up our otherwise dull lives - but whom we elevate to god-like status, such that our children, instead of dreaming of being doctors, firemen, farmers and other people who actually deliver productive services to society - instead, seek to emulate O.J. Simpson, Mike Tyson, and Heath Ledger..

Is that really what we should celebrate and revere?

Don't get me wrong - I love music, and my own collection varies from The Beatles, Frank Sinatra, Hank Williams (Jr. and Sr.) to Led Zeppelin, Alice in Chains, Lady Gaga, Nicky Minaj, Eminem and Tupac.

I have great respect for true talent.

However, I'm not impressed with Amy Winehouse from a "talent" point of view - though perhaps that's a matter of personal taste.

Beyond that, and more importantly, I don't think the example of a life based in excess and self-destruction should be celebrated. It should be derided and ridiculed.

We see people with nothing giving up their lives for liberty in Egypt and Libya.  We see men and women in our armed forces giving up their lives for OTHER people's liberty.

And yet - pages and pages of commentary on the tragedy of the passing of Amy Winehouse.

The message, as I've said before, is if you waste a life by being an idiot, you should be remembered as in idiot.
 
No more, no less.
 
She was an idiot.
 
Her life, in my opinion, serves as little more than an example of how NOT to live - and nothing more.