Wasting a life
I guess I am just a jaded old fart.I don’t think I am really old in age, but I tend to be a funny blend of old and new in mind. I took from my dad that pragmatic old school grumpy bastard attitude of his, I got his grumpy old fart mood as well. I cherish it every day, while Catherine and the kids duck and cover. The new must be Nancy’s, but I don’t remember her being much of a futurist.
Don’t get me wrong this isn’t a blog about discovering my inner grumpy bastard at the ripe age of 48. This is about my tolerance – or lack of it.
I watched a You Tube clip moments ago as I seem to do more and more often these days. This was a clip posted by a friend on Facebook – again the world is changing when you go to the internet to find the news clips you have yet to find in your online newspaper. I digress however, as this blog has absolutely nothing to do with anything I have written so far.
There in front of me was Kevin Costner saying a tearful and emotional good bye to his friend and costar Whitney Houston.
Enter jaded old me.
Listening to a conversation the other day between a group of women regarding the funeral for Whitney, I realized that I couldn’t care for Whitney. I couldn’t care for Amy either and Lyndsay Lohan isn’t a favourite either these days. Cold and heartless isn’t it?
Don’t get me wrong, before there was an Amy or a Whitney, there was a Jim, a Jimi, a Keith and a Janis of course. Sad, life consuming musicians who’s artistry and psychoses’ were overwrought with depressions and anxieties that could only be soothed by living a life in a make-believe world of purple clouds and flying elephants. These artists were failed by their handlers, their agents, their families, their fans and their enemies.
These people are just that. They are people.
I can’t believe I would ever do this in a blog, but to quote Barbra, they are people who need people.
The people seemingly failed them. Be it A friend or a Bobby Brown, they are dead because they were failed and because they failed.
Death by drugs and alcohol for these people is their legacy and with everything that is around them, with all the interventions, with all the money and all the help available to them, they snubbed their noses at it and were allowed to carry on.
We can blame ourselves too. We placed and continue to place these people on these pedestals, and when their world crashes around them, we seek solace in the fact that we’re not like them and that their fairytale styling’s will allow them to get better with a wave of their wands; as such we buy more of their works and deepen their pockets so that they can enjoy their riches so much more.
Yes – they are human and in this humanity we know that to err is human.
To worship these people is what I can’t really get my head around. These people were given chances and opportunities that none of us will ever be given. They have talents that we can only dream of and they quickly wash it away with the snort of a line or the pop of a pill. Because they can.
They live a surreal life of mansions, parties and limousines. Their reality is blurred by the flash of a camera or the signing of a fan’s hand in a restaurant. Their reality is blurred by drugs and alcohol and in their corner of the world, that’s okay.
Well it’s not okay. Drugs? No, that’s not what I meant. Drugs are, well drugs are a part of life in this 21st century world in which we live. Marijuana is here to stay, coke, heroin, pain killers, heroin, alcohol, all drugs, all here to stay.
Eradicate drugs and the problem goes away? Good luck with that one.
Drugs are the ends to the problem for these people, the beginning of the problem is them. The middle sadly is us. We are those friends, those families, those fans. We seek them, we buy them, we support them, we ostracize them before we tell them we love them. But most sad of us is that we elevate them in their deaths.
Whats the difference between Whitney and some street person in Detroit who both died last week of drug overdoses? Whitney had a chance. She had a chance to win a battle, she was given everything she needed and yet she failed. The street person, had nothing, was given nothing and had no chance. Today, both dead and who does society turn their support and love to? The one who needed it the least.
Sad for me. Very sad.
So you’ll have to understand that for me, there are no tears for Whitney. My sympathy is not there. Another life wasted in its prime, despite the help and support? Pretty much that’s it – what a waste.
posted by G.M. Shier @ Sunday, February 19, 2012
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