Half-wit communications strikes again!
If you aren't British you may not be familiar with the name Amy Winehouse, but she has similar problems to Britney Spears - too much too soon - but maybe hers are even more serious.
She can't dance like Britney, but on the other hand she has shown an astounding ability to consume vast amounts of drugs. She looks like one of the Ronettes - beehive hairdo, slutty face (but unfortunately no figure), too much make-up, doesn't seem to wash too much - just one of an endless parade of white singers who have done well because they sound as though they might be black and as a result make more money than they should. Janis Joplin was her prototype, I imagine.
Anyhow, enough of the music criticism. She lives with a guy who says he is called Blake Fielder-Civil - though I wonder, seriously, is that a real name? I suspect he's really called Bert Sidebottom; but anyhow he also consumes vast amounts of drugs, presumably on her money as he has no talent we have heard of.
This morning my day was lightened when I read a piece in the London morning freesheet, the Metro , describing the latest loony antics of this prize pair of twits. In it the radiant Amy - talking about what the writer, with ineffable gift for cliche, called her "drug abuse shame" - revealed she thought she was going to die last August when she was raced to a London hospital following a reported binges on ecstasy and cocaine.
Then - and this is what made my day - someone at Metro with a sense of the ludicrous dropped in one of these quizzes for morons: "Do you think Amy is good role model? Tell us on metro.co.uk."
I believe on Monday they're thinking of running a similar piece on Adolf Hitler.
By the way, now that I've got you in the mood for the bizarre, the picture at the top is of me dressed as Dumbledore for a seminar I was doing yesterday in Durham for The Pru. Unlike Amy, I have NO shame.
5 comments:
As the Kingfisher would say, "I'se regusted."
Check out before and after pix toward the bottom of the page:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://bricksandstonesgossip.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/winehousebeforeandafter-thumb.jpg&imgrefurl=http://bricksandstonesgossip.com/category/amy-winehouse/&h=352&w=320&sz=26&hl=en&start=6&um=1&tbnid=L8HY1zum37wSDM:&tbnh=120&tbnw=109&prev=/images%3Fq%3Damy%2Bwinehouse%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26rls%3DGGLD,GGLD:2004-32,GGLD:en%26sa%3DN
Dryton - not up to your high standard - don't bother with loosers. They are not worth it.
Like the costume though not sure about the crown (or is it).
Eli
...or even "losers". Although, In Amy's case, "loosers" might be accurate.
Journalists - actually, editors - are losing (loosing?) their marbles. There's no substitute for hacks getting out with their readers, it's the only way to stay relevant. But this endless, witless call for "what you think" seems designed to create interaction with the audience at the lowest possible level. The whole point of being an editor is to channel information, events and reaction in a way that elucidates. Simplification, good; echo-chamber, bad.
Mind you, Viz has been parodying "reader wisdom" for years. LetterBocks and Readers Tips are still the best thing in the mag.
Sad as this quiz for idiots may seem, there are enough idiots out there to respond to such things - more than enough in fact. I'm reminded of Jack Dee with his routine about premium rate phone polls where people actually phone up at extortionate rates to say not yes, not no, but that they don't know!
Equally sad though is that most people probably do see her as a role model, in much the same way as many people do with Pete Doherty. I remember hearing one of the other members of Babyshambles saying, when Doherty didn't get imprisoned after one of his many arrests, that it was "good to get some good publicity for the band for a change"!
Anyway, must go - I've never been arrested or imprisoned in my life, which has to be fantastic news so I'm off to spread some PR about my proud achievement.
Actually, I really like most of her music.
As to the "role model" issue, consider that role models can cut both ways.
A role model can demonstrate how one should act and live. And a role model can show us how not to act and live.
Amy fits the latter category and, sadly, odds are she will be dead before age 30.
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