Up Chucked
Up Chucked asks the question, "Can you believe what's going on with Amy Winehouse?"
People have a lot of different names for God: Yahweh, Elohim, Allah, Abba, Haile Selassie, Shangdi, Shen, Brahman, Bhagavan, Deus and so forth (I wanted to list some Sikh names for God, but there are literally hundreds of them, so no dice). And though theologians have debated since time immemorial about the nature and purpose of an almighty being, there is one thing that must now be unanimously agreed upon: God hates Amy Winehouse.
Winehouse kicked off a new world tour on Wednesday in Birmingham, England, where she made it through three measly songs before she began to wobble around the stage and slur her words as she sang. Disgruntled fans booed the R&B star and walked out on the concert, to which Winehouse responded by shouting, "To them people booing, wait 'til my husband gets out of incarceration. And I mean that." She made it through most of the rest of the set, but walked offstage halfway through the final song.This comes on the heels of one hell of a year for the singer. Back to Black and its lead single, "Rehab," shot up the charts and made her a household name. As did her insatiable desire to consume England? entire supply of booze and snortable drugs.
A quick recap: In the last year or so Winehouse...married Blake Fielder-Civil, whom she had been broken up with for about two years and who inspired many of the songs on Back to Black, spent five days in rehab in August 2007, was arrested for possession of marijuana in Norway (an impressive feat in and of itself), canceled many shows on her UK tour and was photographed walking through the streets with her husband after a bloody fight between the two which erupted when Fielder-Civil found Winehouse in a hotel room doing drugs with a call girl (then again, who hasn't?). In the last few months Fielder-Civil has been jailed for his connection to an assault on a bartender (who was probably some pansy Tori Amos fan).
I'm not going to pass any judgments on Winehouse, because if I was young and had millions of dollars they would find me naked, ass-up, in the neighbors garden every morning clutching a bottle of wine. But I must admit that I find it annoying when fans and media outlets complain about her substance abuse problems, apparently forgetting that it was her alcohol issues that made her famous in the first place.
Going on the assumption that at least a few people have listened to the lyrics, you would think that everyone would be less shocked about this type of behavior from someone whose hit single was all about ditching rehab to go home and drown her sorrows in Jack Daniels and Motown records. Like a lot of other people, the thing that initially drew me to the song, other than Winehouse's commanding voice, was the fact that it was pretty damn rock 'n' roll of her to sing about how she refuses to go to rehab. Setting a bad precedent for the broader community and damaging one's body in a nihilistic haze of pain-blocking self-medication is what being a rock star is all about.
I'm not saying that I don't feel bad for Winehouse, because I really do. If I picked up "US Weekly" tomorrow (that's right, don't judge me) and read that they tried to make her go to rehab and she said fo sho, sho, sho, I? would genuinely be happy to hear that she is getting the help she needs. But if one more person asks me if I can, "Believe what? going on with Amy Winehouse!?", I? going to commit second-degree murder.
Yes, I can believe it. It is sort of her whole public identity. Why don't you ask me if I can believe that Jay-Z is black while we?e at it?
Posted by Ryan Peters on Nov 16, 2007 @ 12:00 am