The greatest tabloid detour of all: Whitney Houston
Shameful, yes, but trust me, I needed this. News-wise, it's been a heavy week, what with the immigration stir in D.C., the conservatives out-bitching each other like queens backstage at a Marc Jacobs show, the rallies and school walkouts, and everyone else sniping insufferably. Needless to say, history in the making is never pain-free; the country's divided, and so am I. Being able to see both sides of an issue can be a blessing and a curse, though, and this week's news overload has brought that to life, very much akin to being torn apart by two pit bulls. To be honest, I've wanted to lob pee-filled balloons at the the extreme wings of both camps, because they're all working my last nerve. Can't we all just move along here? The U.S. and Mexico simply can't live without each other, like the fabled old can't-live-with-'em, can't-kill-'em-either couple - not quite Bobby Brown & Whitney Houston, but an uneasy yet long-standing relationship nonetheless. And one I'm holding out more hope for than Bobby & Whitney's, for sure.
Still, I've been completely engrossed with the latest saga involving Whitney, in a back-handed effort to not get too bogged down with the other downer stuff. In these conflicted times, one needs mind candy to cope, so consequently it's been a fairly lightweight week in the reading department. I started with Marley and Me, the best-selling man-and-his-dog memoir written by Philadephia Inquirer columnist John Grogan (and a must-read for any dog lover worth their salt), and ended up INSIDE WHITNEY'S DRUG DEN! - sucked in while standing in line at Walgreen's, reeling at the screaming headline and accompanying images on the cover of that widely-respected beacon of stellar reportage, The National Enquirer. The inset photo shows a gaunt, dazed Whitney, while the main photo boasts what's purportedly her bathroom vanity area, covered in garbage and a plate holding obvious paraphernalia to the left of the sink. "Wow!" Danny remarked. "That's impressive! I never lived in such squalor even when I was drugging every single day."
The photos were taken by Bobby Brown's sister Tina, another former drug buddy turned opportunistic shithead. Freshly clean and ready to milk this trough of Whitney woe for all it's worth, she told a reporter from the U.K.'s Sun, "The truth needs to come out. Whitney won't stay off the drugs. It's every single day. It's so ugly. Everyone is so scared she is going to overdose."
Yeah, right. Call me cynical, but why do I have the feeling that everybody's just waiting for her to overdose so they can sell their stories to the tabs? Patronizing statements to the press should be the first clue.
Anyway, for those who've been following the sad chronicle of Whitney's rise and fall, it's painfully obvious that the person everyone should be worried about during all this is little Bobbi Kristina, the 13-year-old daughter of Bobs and Whits. Here's hoping there've been some interventions involving Mama Cissy at least, because adolescence is hard enough when your parents haven't been off smoking rock during a big chunk of your childhood. Here we have a girl who might be losing her mother to either death, jail or rehab - or any combination of the three - and who knows what she's already been though and how she's coping now? And as all this unravels before her, I do hope that Miss Bobbi Kristina has a solid support system and is surrounded by compassionate, loving people who'll let her thrash this out in a healthy way, so she won't end up in the loony bin or in jail for shooting some unlucky fucker point blank in some roadside motel altercation by the time she's 16.
Last summer, I admit to not being able to tear myself away from the televisional train wreck that was Being Bobby Brown on Bravo. We're talking three steps below low-brow, yeah, but I did take a special interest in the welfare of Bobbi Kristina, a rather shy and reserved pre-teen, obviously mortified and disgusted by her parents' behavior on camping trips and jaunts to London and Las Vegas, watching on in helpless resignation like one would with the elderly family dog who has a tendency to shit on the carpet in front of dinner guests. The look on her face always seemed to read: I really don't wan't to be here right now. God love her. I pray it doesn't turn out to be the kind of world where she and Frances Bean Cobain end up collaborating on a book someday, mashing up some Mommie Dearest with a dash of self-help and we end up with lurid 'adult children of rock and roll horror stories' titles in the cutout bins, though. You know these girls have stories the tabloids would spill blood for.
A few years back, one of the reporters from the Fort Worth Startle-Gram called me to ask what I thought of some silly Mariah/Whitney hoo-hah going on at the time, and I was quoted in the paper as saying that Whitney was the one destined for a comeback, that we'd seen it all and heard it all from Miss Mariah. Jeezus, was I ever wrong on that call. Mariah's the one who ended up with an armload of Grammys recently, and here's Whitney in this week's National Enquirer - in a snap taken at 4 a.m. as she was coming out of some Atlanta convenience store, wearing this freaky fun-fur coat, a crazy-hazy smile and disheveled hair, carrying an armload of what looks like candy bars, packets of cold tablets and God only knows what else. Anyone who's had experiences with substance abuse knows that look, and how easy it is to convince yourself that you must have a strawberry-kiwi Gatorade, even though it's 4 in the morning, your car has no gas, and the only other people out and about at that time are the after-hours drunks and the powder-tweakers like you.
Luke's convinced that all this stems from the media needing a new person to pick on, now that Michael Jackson's been run out of the country. When he mentioned that Whitney's best bet would be to head for France, or that some Gulf sheik probably wouldn't mind her hanging around, I immediately flashed back to that trip she and Bobby took to Israel a few years back, and briefly envisioned her enjoying a life of exile in Monaco or Dubai, hooking up with the son of some African dictator, someone flush enough to keep her in functional-addict mode.
Of course this wouldn't be the most ideal situation in this tragedy, and it's not one I'm hoping for either. But at the moment, it's keeping me from getting into endless and exhausting political debates, which is fine with me. My head's been spinning. It's really just another occupational hazard, like hearing loss.
So please, come back to the five and dime, Whitney Houston, Whitney Houston. And don't forget to say a prayer for little Bobbi Kristina.
Still, I've been completely engrossed with the latest saga involving Whitney, in a back-handed effort to not get too bogged down with the other downer stuff. In these conflicted times, one needs mind candy to cope, so consequently it's been a fairly lightweight week in the reading department. I started with Marley and Me, the best-selling man-and-his-dog memoir written by Philadephia Inquirer columnist John Grogan (and a must-read for any dog lover worth their salt), and ended up INSIDE WHITNEY'S DRUG DEN! - sucked in while standing in line at Walgreen's, reeling at the screaming headline and accompanying images on the cover of that widely-respected beacon of stellar reportage, The National Enquirer. The inset photo shows a gaunt, dazed Whitney, while the main photo boasts what's purportedly her bathroom vanity area, covered in garbage and a plate holding obvious paraphernalia to the left of the sink. "Wow!" Danny remarked. "That's impressive! I never lived in such squalor even when I was drugging every single day."
The photos were taken by Bobby Brown's sister Tina, another former drug buddy turned opportunistic shithead. Freshly clean and ready to milk this trough of Whitney woe for all it's worth, she told a reporter from the U.K.'s Sun, "The truth needs to come out. Whitney won't stay off the drugs. It's every single day. It's so ugly. Everyone is so scared she is going to overdose."
Yeah, right. Call me cynical, but why do I have the feeling that everybody's just waiting for her to overdose so they can sell their stories to the tabs? Patronizing statements to the press should be the first clue.
Anyway, for those who've been following the sad chronicle of Whitney's rise and fall, it's painfully obvious that the person everyone should be worried about during all this is little Bobbi Kristina, the 13-year-old daughter of Bobs and Whits. Here's hoping there've been some interventions involving Mama Cissy at least, because adolescence is hard enough when your parents haven't been off smoking rock during a big chunk of your childhood. Here we have a girl who might be losing her mother to either death, jail or rehab - or any combination of the three - and who knows what she's already been though and how she's coping now? And as all this unravels before her, I do hope that Miss Bobbi Kristina has a solid support system and is surrounded by compassionate, loving people who'll let her thrash this out in a healthy way, so she won't end up in the loony bin or in jail for shooting some unlucky fucker point blank in some roadside motel altercation by the time she's 16.
Last summer, I admit to not being able to tear myself away from the televisional train wreck that was Being Bobby Brown on Bravo. We're talking three steps below low-brow, yeah, but I did take a special interest in the welfare of Bobbi Kristina, a rather shy and reserved pre-teen, obviously mortified and disgusted by her parents' behavior on camping trips and jaunts to London and Las Vegas, watching on in helpless resignation like one would with the elderly family dog who has a tendency to shit on the carpet in front of dinner guests. The look on her face always seemed to read: I really don't wan't to be here right now. God love her. I pray it doesn't turn out to be the kind of world where she and Frances Bean Cobain end up collaborating on a book someday, mashing up some Mommie Dearest with a dash of self-help and we end up with lurid 'adult children of rock and roll horror stories' titles in the cutout bins, though. You know these girls have stories the tabloids would spill blood for.
A few years back, one of the reporters from the Fort Worth Startle-Gram called me to ask what I thought of some silly Mariah/Whitney hoo-hah going on at the time, and I was quoted in the paper as saying that Whitney was the one destined for a comeback, that we'd seen it all and heard it all from Miss Mariah. Jeezus, was I ever wrong on that call. Mariah's the one who ended up with an armload of Grammys recently, and here's Whitney in this week's National Enquirer - in a snap taken at 4 a.m. as she was coming out of some Atlanta convenience store, wearing this freaky fun-fur coat, a crazy-hazy smile and disheveled hair, carrying an armload of what looks like candy bars, packets of cold tablets and God only knows what else. Anyone who's had experiences with substance abuse knows that look, and how easy it is to convince yourself that you must have a strawberry-kiwi Gatorade, even though it's 4 in the morning, your car has no gas, and the only other people out and about at that time are the after-hours drunks and the powder-tweakers like you.
Luke's convinced that all this stems from the media needing a new person to pick on, now that Michael Jackson's been run out of the country. When he mentioned that Whitney's best bet would be to head for France, or that some Gulf sheik probably wouldn't mind her hanging around, I immediately flashed back to that trip she and Bobby took to Israel a few years back, and briefly envisioned her enjoying a life of exile in Monaco or Dubai, hooking up with the son of some African dictator, someone flush enough to keep her in functional-addict mode.
Of course this wouldn't be the most ideal situation in this tragedy, and it's not one I'm hoping for either. But at the moment, it's keeping me from getting into endless and exhausting political debates, which is fine with me. My head's been spinning. It's really just another occupational hazard, like hearing loss.
So please, come back to the five and dime, Whitney Houston, Whitney Houston. And don't forget to say a prayer for little Bobbi Kristina.
posted by No, You Can't Watch at 12:07 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home