Sad
I had no idea she was that young, which tells you how her life had been ravaged by drugs and who knows what else. Once a beautiful woman with a beautiful voice, she reportedly got clean a couple of years ago and it may even be true that she remained so. No doubt they will do testing to determine the cause of death.
RIP.
I’ll always remember her singing of the National Anthem, years ago at the Super Bowl. The best ever. May she find comfort in the arms of Angels.
Don’t know much about her, used to like her singing, occasionally saw pictures illustrating how she had declined and references to her erratic behavior—the trip to Israel to be baptized by the Black Hebrew sect comes to mind– but a lot of commenters today saying that it was her former husband Bobby Brown–who apparently slapped her around a lot– who was to blame for her addiction and decline.
It does strike me how many entertainers can’t handle the fame and wealth that come with success on the way up, nor that lack thereof on the way down, and who quite often screw up their lives with addictions to drugs or alcohol and other self- destructive behavior.
“I wannna dance with somebody” was my favorite. It was her smile and joy in that video that got me. Later on, even the talent and skill could not hide the pain and confusion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6pWhSCFfKA&feature=related
Shiza.
Each day I live
I want to be
A day to give
The best of me
wh
I suppose it’s sad. “All that talent” and all that. But a lot of people suffer and die in obscurity, never having had any talent or chance at success at all.
bullshit, holmes, and I’m suprised at your despair. You, of all people!
It’s not fame that supports us, but those closest to us. Fame is not a blessing but a curse. The most lonely people are those who have lost the immediate connections. Obscurity is a blessing.
You must be in a dark mood tonight.
I know a lot of famous people, and I can tell you from personal experience that they are very disciplined.
My sympathy-o-meter is registering zero.
Drugs=bad
Unprotected sex=bad
It’s time that we stop enabling losers and call them out for what they are: losers. Life is tough enough without people trying to “explain” how so-and-so should be shown “compassion” because he/she used drugs or got pregnant.
Mental illness is one thing. Personal choices are another. It’s time to reread Benjamin Franklin:
“A penny saved is a penny earned.” “Do the crime: do the time.”
It’s time for our culture to de-Opracize. Life was actually easier in the 1950s and early 1960s, when people knew that they had to toe the line. Now…lots of dead people: drug addicts, dead unborn babies, and dead slum dwellers who live in a 3rd-world society run by gang-bangers. (But they have free cellphones and birth-control pills.)
Those are definitely some worthwhile thoughts, Curtis, about the differences between fame and obscurity. I’d qualify it by saying that obscurity is only a blessing, though, if you have retained those connections, and if you can use whatever talents you possess in a meaningful way. If you haven’t and you can’t or don’t, then obscurity could be a curse, as well.
Thanks for linking to “I Want to Dance with Somebody,” as well. I remember how much I liked dancing to that song when I was in college, whether I had anyone to dance with or not.
Wow, Promethea! Ease up.
But not really, I understand where you are coming from.
Still, remember that the Christian sentiment is that God’s mercy triumphs over his judgment.
I battle that balance all the time. God help me I want to give and feel and help and hurt and make all the bad go away. I just can’t and I even stop the good in my own life, which is the why I can’t find more good than fear.
/Still I try.
Promethea wrote: I know a lot of famous people, and I can tell you from personal experience that they are very disciplined.
That is definitely true, but I don’t think it’s necessarily making excuses for them to be saddened when someone with great talent and potential who seemingly had it all lets the discipline slip and things begin to spin out of control.
I would agree that our society has gone too far in making excuses for bad behavior, but I also think that there’s a fine line between having compassion on people despite their bad choices and making excuses for them. The problems in our society stem not from having compassion but from a misguided belief that, “indeterminacy is a moral imperative,” to use Evan Sayet’s formulation of the problem inherent in modern liberal thought.
Kurt, you’ve always had someone to dance with, otherwise, you wouldn’t still be around.
“Hank Williams, he came up from Montgomery
With his heart full of broken country songs
Nashville, Tennessee, didn’t really understand him
‘Cause he did things differently
Then the way that they were done
But when he finally made it to the Grand Ole Opry
He made it stand still
He ended up on alcohol and pills
Elvis Presley, he came up from Jackson
With a brand new way of singing, Lord
And a brand new way of dancing
And even from the waist up
He gave the world a thrill
He ended up on alcohol and pills
Alcohol and pills
It’s a crying shame
You’d think they might have been happy with
The glory and the fame
But fame doesn’t take away the pain
It just pays the bills
And you wind up on alcohol and pills
Janis Joplin, she was wild and reckless
And then there was Gram Parsons
And then there was Jimi Hendrix
The story just goes on and on
And I guess it always will
They ended up on alcohol and pills
Alcohol and pills
It’s a crying shame
You’d think they might have been happy with
The glory and the fame
But fame doesn’t take away the pain
It just pays the bills
And you wind up on alcohol and pills
Sometimes somebody
Just doesn’t wake up one day
Sometimes it’s a heart attack
Sometimes they just don’t say
They pulled poor old Hank Williams
Out of a Cadillac Coupe de Ville
He ended up on alcohol and pills ” – Fred Eaglesmith
Sums it all up rather poignantly.
Parker, it is so poingnat that the lyric you posted started with Hank Williams. He was from long before the 60s, he grew up in the reddest of red states, and he may have been more messed up than any of the others. And he may have left the greatest legacy with his beautiful, haunting, timeless songs.
I should acknowldege that calling Hank Williams’ home state of Alabama a “red state” is in one way quite an anachronism since at the time he lived the “Solid South” meant of course that it was solidly Democratic, not Republican. But I think culturally the division was the same.
GR,
No one before or after Hank Williams will ever break your heart like Hank. http://tinyurl.com/2fkw7hh
Sometimes on a Saturday night, as a young boy, I would stay up late at night listening to Nashville AM radio with my dad and hear Hank, Bill Monroe, and the other Hank, Hank Snow.
The hillbilly original: http://tinyurl.com/7wssbwz
The British version: http://tinyurl.com/7lkpldh
Parker, I grew up in New England and didn’t hear a lot of country music as a kid, though I now realize that a fair amount of early ’60s pop music was country or country-oriented (Patsy Cline, Brenda Lee). After I moved to the SF Bay Area in the early ’70s I had a job as a messenger/driver and I discovered this little radio station, one of those ones that shuts off at sundown, and they played a steady dose of old country classics from the 40s and 50s as well as then-current country hits and I got a good education in the style.
Al Sharpton as a godfather? That’s a pretty big load for anyone to carry.
I also remember Whitney Houston singing the National Anthem at the Super Bowl…it was just after we had won the first Gulf War (in an amazingly short time with unbelievably low casualties) and America needed a strong dose of pride and patriotism after the mess that was Vietnam. She stood up and sang it proudly. The crowd went wild.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAr3kiPoQMU&feature=player_embedded
Her “I Will Always Love You” is one of my favorite songs of all time. A great example of country music crossing over to a different genre.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HliFMJe9jUs
I was surprised when I learned Dolly Parton wrote it.
Promethea
I’m with you.
Promethea
I’m with you and Wolla.
I am also startled that Neo posted on WH. That’s what People magazine is for.
Don Carlos: you may notice I’ve got a lot of posts on music here, and also movies (both of which Houston participated in), as well as fashion, pop culture, and even things like Dancing with the Stars and other reality shows. I post on whatever happens to interest me, plus whatever I might think might interest my readers and foster comments.
I was not a fan of Houston’s music (I don’t tend to go for the diva style of singing; I prefer very idiosyncratic voices with a lot of feeling or a unique stylistic delivery), but I recognize that as a pure voice of the belt-it-out diva type hers was spectacular, and her songs meant a lot to many many people. Plus, there were many other angles to her life that people might want to discuss: the interface of fame, drugs, and creativity, for one.
I’m not saying this in order to justify a post. I don’t feel the need to justify what I write about. But it surprises me that you haven’t noticed these topics on my blog before.
Neo
Of course I’ve noticed your posts on music before. Cohen comes to mind. My musical tastes differ, so I’ve not commented. If there’s an afterlife, I hope to find Mozart and Beethoven have been busy!
The death of WH is only another death of a popular icon. That is what the wretched popular media, e.g. People mag, are for: “The People’s Princess”, blah blahh blah. Much “grieving”, no morality.
My grandaughter and her parents were watching a network show on Snoopy yesterday; the program was interrupted by a Breaking News flash. What? Iran bombed? Nope, WH dead.
It’s a different standard for Important News. Dumbs us all down.
Don Carlos: what an odd way to look at the premature death of a human being who gave so much musical pleasure to others.
“I am also startled that Neo posted on WH. That’s what People magazine is for.”
I am shocked and saddened to hear that someone placed a gun at your head and forced you to read the post and comment here. I suggest you contact your local police immediately.
Non-snarky version: it’s neo’s blog and she can put up whatever she pleases.
Plus, there were many other angles to her life that people might want to discuss: the interface of fame, drugs, and creativity, for one.
You sometimes hear famous/talented people give up and comers advice to stay grounded and not get caught up and believe all the hubbub.
Fame is apparently as heady as drugs (I wouldn’t know), but anyway, some listen, some learn the hard way and then get right, and others fail.
Here’s one that failed and it may have killed her (waiting on the circumstances, as what she died of hasn’t officially been confirmed)
Can’t think of a single Houston song, never bought a Houston record. Death is the ultimate screw-job, but I am afraid we’ll have to name a bunch of crap after her now, as if she was some kind of hero.
It’s a chance for the entertainment industry to wallow in their own sensitivity and compassion. I will be somewhere else.
What annoyed me was the way Fox News interrupted their programming with a Fox news alert. It sounded serious, like maybe Iran had tested a nuke, or a Tsunami had hit Florida, but no, it was just the sad news that a pop singer had died. Then it was WH for the next few hours, as if it was the most important story of the year. Fox News should rename itself “Tabloid News”. I suppose they know their audience, sad to say.
You “made” (kidding) me look up the “wasteland” quote about TV
When television is good, nothing – not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers – nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there for a day without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.
I didn’t know who said it, ’till today. (or if I did, I’d forgotten)
On the subject of just how much empathy, compassion, “walk a mile in their shoes” we should extend to Houston and so many others, I happen to think that as we have gone by degrees from being rather hard-nosed and “judgmental” i.e. “discriminating”–based on what by today’s relaxed standards was a rather strict interpretation and application of the Judeo-Christian codes of morality–between good and evil, bad actions and good–there’s two terms that PC has done a number on–to gradually becoming more and more “liberal” and “understanding” about these personal failings, by becoming so nonjudgmental and compassionate, we have “defined deviance down,” and actually enabled the growth and spread of such behavior by normalizing it and not criticizing it, and the Left (here he goes again with his obsession with Gramsci) has been only too happy to help in that “transformation,” because it helps us to be “nonjudgmental” about all sorts of other things, like actions by the Left that we would have been very judgmental and disapproving of, and fought against in the “old days.”
Life is a high wire act.
So far, as I look back, it seems to me that walking the right path through life is often hard, and the path sometimes a very faint and stony one–with all sorts of temptations, drop-offs, cul-de-sacs, wrong turnings, and treacherous detours scattered all along the way–and it is very easy to go astray, especially since there are lots of paths that seem much easier, or that seem to be harmless “short-cuts,” and that sometimes only a minute’s inattention or the smallest deviation starts us down the wrong path, and that chance and luck often add even more complications, and are a chancy ally.
I’m also with Promethea.
WH never did it for me, either. Sure she had a powerful voice but I never felt her in her songs — Just powerful technical singing. She also had great beauty, and when I found myself riveted to her in performance, it was at least as much for her beauty and magnificent make-up and costumes.
I don’t regard Whitney Houston as great icon” and I actually was annoyed, like Pam, when FoxNews’ continued interruption of their regularly scheduled programming and then prattling on about her greatness, her generousity, how great all her attempts to get clean were, and comparing Houston to someone likeMichael Jackson, a her “great contributions.” And I don’t know how many times the words “icon” and “one of the greatest voices ever” were repeated. It was “politically correct” coddling coverage which I expect from the MSM, the Entertainment channel, and TMZ — celebrity gossip sites, but not from Fox.
Whitney Houston had every advantage: she grew up in a home with her Mom already a very successful and well-known singer. She had great beauty, talent, and even decent acting chops when she had the opportunity to do that, too. Instead, she threw it all away choosing a life of drugs and self-indulgence which I find particularly egregious because she was blessed with a beautiful young daughter to raise. I’m guessing she loved Bobbi Kristina, but she preferred her drugs.
As for those who said she got clean and was staging a comeback….I don’t have much faith in that. She has attempted to do so at least a half a dozen times and after appearing on every interview show existing to promote comebacks, when it came time to perform, she was erratic and clearly still drug-addled, and what I saw as more pathitic than anything else. In coverage, many excuses were made for her abuse at hands of her husbane, which “might have been the reason she turned to drugs.” Unlike many women who feel they cannot leave because they are anchored by dependence on the men in their lives, she had no such restriction. She was enormously wealthy and supported by a large phalanx of family and old friends.
I predict she died of either a heart attack or an overdose. I don’t know if the truth will be made public or not. But my main point is that her life was more pathetic than admirable and instead of the icon she is being made out to be in retrospect, she is a tragic figure.
I do agree it is sad. Very sad, but to me, the sadness is rooted in her failures, not her greatness.
Kind of surprised you had the same response I did, Neo– I had no idea she was that young. My sister texted me while I was out shopping and when I heard her age, my first thought was that she was barely old enough to be my mother. (contrast to most pop stars, who are old enough to be my grandmother, or older)
It’s an old observation that fame has different effects on different people. Simplified, I’d say that some people are able to eat up the attention of others– and others try, and find that they need something besides money and “everybody loves me.” The lack of personal attention destroys them.
It’s sad.
I remember hearing of WH before she was famous. I think some record exec said ‘we have someone who will be a real star. She just needs some songs.’ To me that was telling. She was a singer. Full stop.
Gary and Neo:
I wrote nothing to be snarky about. I have not said one bad thing about WH or her ‘premature’ death (what is premature about the death of a chronic drug abuser? Sad, yes; avoidable, yes; premature, no).
I look for more from Neo and her blog than joining the voluminous throng ‘mourning’ the death of , a ‘pop icon’. Despite your complaints, there is nothing ‘odd’ about my response to the news of the death; my ‘odd’ responses were clearly directed the the tone and manner of the reportage.
I consider Neo to normally occupy a higher plane than People Magazine, is all.
WH had a personal tragedy. Whatever sent her to booze and pills (“when I go, I’m going like Elsie”), is personally sad.
Thing is, hundreds of WW II vets die every day, people who did more for us than a score of WH and others.
I call it wrong.
As to judging her; it’s frequently called “judgmental” to predict a sour result from obviously counterproductive lifestyle choices. I guess that’s to keep us from predicting sour results from counterproductive lifestyle choices. But it isn’t necessary to judge. She got a sour result from counterproductive lifestyle choices. Nobody needs to gloat.
Don Carlos, As you can see from my post directly preceding yours, I’m pretty much in agreement with you.
Unfortunately, WH has been a virtual has-been drug-addled singer for almost 2 decades, She’s attempted numerous “comebacks” to great fanfare, with no success. On the contrary, several times her erratic behavior (read: non-sobriety) has exposed her problems all the more. That is traic; not iconic. At least as I see it.
I don’t mean to be ugly and speak ill of the dead discount her talent. But it’s one thing to celebrate the songs that were winners, but a very large part of her life has been significantly troubled. She had a very close supportive family, as much money as one could need, and most importantly of all — the blessing of a beautiful child, and she still chose her drugs!
And I believe the proper word IS choice. Getting clean is difficult, but it’s doable. I have two brothers who were addicts for very long time. One had to go to rehab twice before he realized what he had to do — and he did it. And a huge part of his motivation was his children. He lives a happy life now and that is what is important to him — peace and serenity and he is always looking for new ways to maintain that, and thus his sobriety. The second brother just doesn’t want to stop. He’s an alcoholic and a self-medicating drug user as well as recreational drug user. For a long time, he was a high-functioning user (actually both brothers were so their addictions were not obvious) and he had a mid to high 6-figure income, a beautiful 3-story townhouse in the coveted beach area of LA, a stunning trophy wife, and all the toys he wanted. He has lost everything: the wife, his home, his money, and everything is someone else’s fault. He is a pathological lliar and is abusive to all in the famly no matter how much help we have given. He went to rehab at Betty Ford (at age 51)and was more excited about celebrities who were there than working on his own problems. Three wks. after Betty Ford he was back to the bottle — and he blamed Betty Ford because their cure rate is only 2/5. Everything in his life is his fault — not the choices he continues to make. His 2 oldest children have not spoken to him in years. He has a very young daughter from his second marriage, and still he won’t quit.
I’ve always been of the opinion that the DSM classification of alcoholism or drug addiction as a disease is one giant excuse for the user, and implies that one’s will and behavior are not of importance. It throws personal responsibility out the window, and the user just rationalizes his/her continued use as a disease they can’t help and often it’s something they inherited so “it’s not my fault” is the classic fallback line.
WH’s addictions are a huge part of her life and who she was, and all the tiptoeing around the subject skirts what is — as our dear friend Obama would say — “a teachable moment.”
I don’t like speaking ill of the dead, and surely it is sad when one so young (at least from my perspective) with so much to live for dies, but no one in the media will touch the subject, and they only glorify her. She achieved success with her singing talent and her beauty and terrific marketing, but it was for a relatively short time. She spent, at minimum, a similar period of her life as a drug-addicted recluse. That’s not an icon. That is, indeed, just what neo said: sad. Very sad.
(By the way, re: her age, my first reaction, unlike some others of you, was “I didn’t know she was that old!” Funny how different our perceptions can be.)
Don Carlos: there’s tons of overlap between me and People.
But I have better commenters :-).
I would like to think no re overlap, Neo. People mag is a dumbing-down. We try to dumb up here, no?
I was saddened when Amy Winehouse died, but not with Whitney Houston.
I wasn’t a fan of either of them. I didn’t follow their careers, I never listened to their music or bought any of their records.
Yet Amy’s death hit me unexpectedly hard even though I could see it coming from a mile away. I have no idea why.
There really isn’t any point to this comment except to mention this.
Could it be racism? Maybe. I don’t know. Both women were quite beautiful in their prime, before the drugs and alcohol took their toll.
For Parker, here is The Car Hank Died In.
I had to go to the YouTube videos to get an idea of what Whitney Houston sounded like. She had a good voice.
There has certainly been no lack of people in the music world who have succumbed to drugs, from Bird to Billie to Jimi to Elvis to Whitney Houston. There is a girl in my hometown – I knew her great uncle and great aunt- who is a guitar prodigy. At age 8 she played as well as many professionals. She is now of an age to go out on her own. Some people in town have expressed concern that she will succumb to the drug life. It is a valid concern, given the above list. Hope she has the genetic makeup of Keith Richards.
I wonder how many pop singers depend on drugs to create their art. For example, I was a big fan of Jimi Hendrix, but I wonder if it were drugs that gave him his inspiration and energy.
I still love his music, but I’m sorry that he died in a smelly glop of vomit. Was there a Jimi Hendrix without the drugs?
In my current mood…thanks to Obama and his “free contraceptives” tax on my standard of living, I would like to express again my desire to see people be responsible for their choices in life.
Bitchy grandma? Yes, that’s me. I am Legion.
Off topic, but last night I listened to several songs on YouTube that were bootleg recordings of a Bob Dylan concert from December 4, 1965, including a stunning version of “Positively 4th Street”.
Today they’re gone. Poof. Just like that. I can’t find them at all.
Anyone know how to download from YouTube?
It seems like most of the posts on this thread are from people complaining that Houston’s death didn’t deserve all that attention. Parker and I got off on a tangent about someone whose legacy has proven to be and undoubtedly will continue to be more enduring, Hank Williams.
It’s kinda like the Sarah Palin threads on Hot Air that run into the thousands, most of them beeyotching about how obsessive “Palinistas” are :^).
I’m detecting quite a bit of conservative elitism in these comments. And it’s really no prettier than what liberal snobs do to someone like Sarah Palin.
The fact is, a woman couldn’t get her life together in time to save it. And but for the grace of God, there goes all of us.
Ahem…getting back to her music and music styles…
I have very eclectic taste in music. I have a deep love of classical music that was instilled in me by my 5th grade music teacher. Almost all of my CDs are classical with heavy emphasis on the Baroque period, Mozart (who by the way was quite a hell raiser and would probably have died from an OD if he lived today), Haydn, and Beethoven.
I like SOME belt it out female singers’ music. WH’s happens to appeal to me and I am able to separate her music from her personal life. Another one of my personal favorites is Barbra Streisand’s “He Touched Me”,which starts out in a very quiet and intimate way and ends in a triumphant belting out of her joy.
Check it out at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuYFZXw4c6M )
Again, I am able to separate her music from her politics which I detest.
One belt it out singer I DO NOT like is Ethyl Merman.
Here’s a very different kind of song sung (“Plaiser d’Amour”) by a female that REALLY touches me.
http://tinyurl.com/7w27nsp
Listen for the throaty tone of her voice in the middle of the song. Maybe that’s what Neo means by a unique voice.
Rickl:
You can use an extension of the Firefox browser to download YouTube files.
It’s free and you can download it at:
http://www.downloadhelper.net/
I have used it to download entire movies.
“There for the grace of God…”
Not so much. Drug abuse is not like getting hit by a meteor, or struck by lightening, it is a choice. Go to an AA meeting. Sit for a couple of hours and listen. Talk with someone who has been sober or clean a while. (AA meetings these days have as many drug addicts as alcoholics because of the high percentage of dual addiction).
The ones who recover, literally to a man or woman, all tell you the same thing. There came a day when they DECIDED to quit, and then they found help to do so. They’ll admit that it was a choice to start, a choice to keep abusing their drug of choice, and it was a choice to stop. Most of them can’t even tell you why they decided to quit or what was different on that day from the day before. The most common answer is “I just got done”.
On the radio someone said that “Whitney lost her battle with ‘her demons”, as if some evil force reached out and seized control of her life. I bear her no ill will and think her ending is sad, but the tragedy here is that the story that is front and center and larger than life is one spun by a PC media and not focused on the truth of addiction.
Promethea
I wonder how many pop singers depend on drugs to create their art. For example, I was a big fan of Jimi Hendrix, but I wonder if it were drugs that gave him his inspiration and energy.
What I read about Charlie “Bird” Parker was that one could view heroin’s effect on his musicianship in one of two ways: in spite of, or irrelevant. He was an outstanding musician without heroin use. He was still an outstanding musician when he used heroin. He was also dead at 34 from heroin use.
“There but for the grace of God and by my choices go I.”
I actually love it when neo does posts like this. The comments are usually interesting.
I say that just as I have absolutely nothing to contribute. Honestly, I associate WH with my deceased mother, who loved her music (and the Bodyguard) back in the ’80’s whilst raising two young snots known as me and my little brother. I therefore mourn the loss of another piece of connective tissue to the world in which my mother was still around.
RIP, fair world.
“But for the grace of God, there go I.” We are unable to find out why some people have self destructive impulses or how to counter them. Their is a fortune waiting for the person who can show how to overcome such proclivities with a high success rate. If it can be done, it would spare us all much pain and sorrow. Mayhap, it is not to be.
Though she could not find her way to a better life, we must be thankful that we were blessed to hear such a talent. I will only express my sadness that such tragedies happen and my most profound sympathy for her family and all the fans who loved her. It is all so very, very sad.
What bothers me most about her life and death is that the bastard who did this to her is still alive and well. Yes, I know addiction starts with a choice, but from what I’ve heard, WH was clean until she married Bobby Brown who was an addict himself. If she did have demons, he was one of them.
I have personal experience living with an alcoholic, and have had therapy and done extensive research on living with an addict. The central theme is that it’s the partner who ends up feeling crazy, angry and depressed, while the addict thinks he’s perfectly normal. I got out before my ex could pull me into the black hole with him, but others, like Whitney, don’t get out in time.
LisaM, But did YOU become an alcoholic because of him?
I also am vaguely aware of hearing that she was clean before Bobbi Brown, but who knows? She obviously was very taken with Bobby Brown — and the lifestyle he already led. It is said by some that we don’t choose whom we love. That may be so. But we humans are given the ability to think and make choices.
Promethea says:
“In my current mood…thanks to Obama and his “free contraceptives” tax on my standard of living, I would like to express again my desire to see people be responsible for their choices in life.”
I am not a grandma, but maybe I am bitchy thanks to Obama and his kinglike decrees, overstepping the boundaries of power clearly delineated by the Constitution of the United States to prevent just such a situation. (It is also decreed that citizens have the right to bear arms — and the intent wasn’t to say it’s OK to go hunting. It was to allow the citizenry have recourse to fight back should we ever (God Forbid) have an attempted takeover by a rogue government. (Never mind that our armed forces could squash us all in a NY minute should they decide to side w/ govt. — which is often the case with a coup. But this is topic for another time.)
And to SteveH who “detects quite a bit of conservative elitism in these comments. And it’s really no prettier than what liberal snobs do to someone like Sarah Palin.:
Huh??!!! First, the WH situstion does not even compare to the Sarah Palin liberal condemnation and reducing her to a cartoon of a conservative woman.
And elitism is hardly the word for those of us who take personal responsibility seriously and the continual celebration of celebs in the show business world and assigning them iconic status no matter how they chose to lead their lives.
I don’t see where any kind of elitism is present (never mind that likened to liberals’ attitudes toward Sarah Palin!) in those of us who believe that WH’s failures and drug addictions are as much a sugnificant part of her life as her successful singing career. It is observation, especially since that drug-addiction is front and center today considering it is highly unlikely that it is not the cause of her premature death in some way (either directly from overdose, or heart attack as a result of so many years of abuse of her health).
Neither is anyone saying it’s not sad. We just question whether more nonstop celebration of a famous person’s life without consideration of her unabated drug use despite enormous success, close family support, plenty of money, and with the responsibility of raising a young child is not an equal part of her life story.
Do you think such celebration ignoring the widely-known drug abuse does not send a message to society at large? I do. And, further, it’s saying (in IMHO) that celebrities are different, should be regarded differently, and treated differently no matter the facts that present to the contrary.
This is not schadenfreude — taking pleasure from WH downfall. It is sadness, and sadness with strong feelings of why her premature death came about.
It is about not dismissing the ravages of drug abuse and/or addictions of any kind no matter who lives with it. It’s not like cancer, for which there is limited cure. It’s about being able to stop addiction should one commit to it but not doing so.
Too often celebrities are given a pass — as if addiction is an integral part of their creativity. I, for one, do not believe this is so. I’ve hung out with qa number of celebrated talents who have not lived in this way. I believe first getting into addiction is a choice of lifestyle and hanging with the wrong sort of people who care not a whit what influence there own addiction has on themselves, let alone what influence it will have on others. It’s a social thing in our society today. That is very sad, too.
Because it seems like most of the celebrities we hear about through the MSM tend to be liberals, no one is saying that it doesn’t happen to conservatives as well, nor is disapproval of drugs reserved entirely for conservatives. And disapproval is not an indication of lack of regret at the loss of a life prematurely because of addiction.
goldby621 – No I didn’t become an alcoholic, but it affected me in other profound ways. If I were the type of person to become addicted, I’m sure I would have during that time. I always say I escaped that marriage with my life, but not necessarily my sanity. It took me years to shake it off.
Regardless if one believes that an addict can reach a point where they are nearly physilogically disabled to resist an addition, surely we all believe that every addict had some years where they still could have made the decision to quit?
So, WH and anyone else still has to bear responsibility with where she’s ended up. She not only had the money to seek the best treatment available, she could have actually paid people to keep the pushers away from her if she wanted too.
The only exception I might make is very young teen addicts that get heavily into hard drugs. But even then, some of them manage to get out of the cycle of serious drug abuse with no particular advantages of a WH.
(I mangled a word bad there)
Honeyimhome: It’s more complicated than that.
There is evidence that at least for some people the very first drug experience changes them physiologically, especially if it’s crack . See this (and also this):
I challenge you to read that site and not be almost overwhelmed by how difficult the task of quitting a drug like that must be.
And yet Houston apparently had stopped using non-prescription drugs. She was still drinking, however. And the current theory is that a combination of prescription drugs and alcohol may have caused her death. It’s also possible (I’m just guessing here) that some of the drugs may have been prescribed for her in order to control the brain and emotional after-effects of all those years of addiction.
Wow, some of you get really riled when you should be mourning the death of another soul. This is especially true of all you ‘true believers’. I was never a fan of WH, her music was not the style of music I cared to listen to; but obviously millions liked her music enough to buy many millions of her recordings. The circumstances of her death are not unusual. Just like Hank Williams (a far more permanent fixture in popular music) she lead a tragic life and wasted her talent. RIP WH, I can not judge you or your life for I always refuse to cast the first stone.
I yet remain a fan of the strikingly beautiful young woman with the powerful and fluidly graceful gospel voice of a goddess, which could send an electric cascade through my aural synapses …all the while, just listening, just feeling.
It was sad she lived her troubled latter days inside the darkly shadowed corners of a music industry that too often has devoured too many of its talented sojourners …
…no longer, her worries and troubles. Requisiat in pacem.
Addendum.
Whitney Houston, 1985
Home.