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Janis Joplin was the hot mess of my day and a sad day it was when she ODed. Her smack use and dispair were well-known, although I don't recall her downfalling followed with the kind of wolfish avidity accompanying Amy Winehouse.
Drug addiction goes about messy clothes. Drug addicts do not do volunteer work at the children's cancer wing. They steal and they lie and they hang out with terrible people. Amy is doing precisely what addicts do, so why all the wonderment? The amount of tabloid marveling at her is both remarkable and disingenuous. With so many dreadful happenings in the world, many beyond our human comprehension, perhaps we need Amy Winehouse to be a shrunken disaster of a size we can understand.
In the meantime, she wanders the streets weeping and snarling, accompanied by the click, click, click of many cameras, alone in the most terrible way of all.
James Hannaham's suggestion that this is a slick career move is a silly and compassionless notion. Amy Winehouse is in a dark place, devoid of controls or free will. I can only hope her best and most creative self will finally speak to her--urge her to rise and resist.
