WHAT KIND OF fuckery is this? Why do I keep showing up as Amy Winehouse each October, when she is long since discredited as a human being?
I don't care what anybody thinks. Amy is my favorite singer. I've said why before, so I shan't repeat myself. But I've been thinking about Amy a lot lately. When she says, infamously: "No, no, no"...
I'll go out on a rather shaky limb and say she has a point. If you are a complicated, sensitive, artistic sort like Amy, Twelve Step paint-by-numbers may not do the trick.
Which is not to say she doesn't need rehab; addiction is serious and requires serious care. In fact I'm sure she has gained from rehab, having now made various trips there. Just that her objections are legitimate. To be ham-fistedly analyzed or plied with Help is fine, but to be loved and understood is infinitely better. I've always called Blake an asshole, but maybe she thought she was--or actually was--getting those things from him. And if I'm blaming all the bloody mutual destruction on him, I might be missing the point. And fans are nice, but they are not friends.
(Ame, if you're looking for a man--and I don't know whether you are, as explained below--I still think you should give Weezy a call. You guys would understand each other.)
WHEN AMY is feeling blue (black), she'd rather hang out "with Ray [Charles]" or "Mr. [Donny] Hathaway." Which I totally get, because when I'm miserable, I'd rather hang out with Amy. (Or Lauryn, who is just as brilliant and screwed-up. Or Erykah, who has a self-deprecating sense of humor, and keeps it together, and therefore can be artistically prolific and also offer the most trustworthy advice.) Maybe in future I should explore the notion of real-life 'girlfriends.'
Eh. Maybe not.
GOOD ART works hard to tell the particular truth. Therapy is lazier, generic. When those record execs were telling her to go to rehab, that's a variation on You should really get some help. Which is an unkind thing people say when they are too pre-occupied, lazy, selfish, confused or scared to try to give you any portion of said help themselves.
I'm not gonna spend ten weeks Have everyone think I'm on the mend
She doesn't want to let them off the hook. Doesn't want to be hauled off to get-better-quick-so-we-can-make-money-off-you camp. She would rather feel her pain in her own honest way. Amy goes black well. She makes the ugly beautiful, which a smart person taught me is the artist's cardinal skill.
AMY SAYS WE should just listen to her music, because that is the best of her. And from now on, I'm respecting her request. No more Google News searches. Just Back to Black. Her art is the only part of her we ever had any right to consume. We should listen to her sing and not gawk in sordid curiosity at her trainwreckiness. Because rubbernecking hurts if you are a sensitive soul like Amy; all that toughness and sarcasm is just an exoskeleton protecting her tender insides. Tattoos connote invincibility, but don't be fooled.
I bet she doesn't enjoy putting her biz in the streets, either. She probably covets privacy as much as the next person. I'd venture to guess that her personal life became public because her music and her drug-addled lunacy were the only adequate outlets she had for what was tearing her up inside.
Poor Amy. She just needs a friend. The hutch offer stands, girl. []
~BONUS~ FAVE QUOTES FROM MS. WINEHOUSE:
He left no time to regret Kept his dick wet With his same old safe bet
--"Back to Black"
I played myself again Should just be my own best friend Not fuck myself In the head with Stupid men
--"Tears Dry on Their Own"
If I was my heart I'd rather be restless Second I stop the sleep catches up and I'm Breathless Cause this ache in my chest As my day is done now The dark covers me And I cannot run now
--"Wake Up Alone"
What kind of fuckery is this You made me miss the Slick Rick gig And thought I didn't love you when I did Can't believe you played me out like that
COCOONING looks like a bad idea. General wisdom holds that if you're going through a lot you should be surrounded by advice-mongering people. But pupae are fragile and easily crushed underfoot by accident. It can be hard to hear yourself when other people are talking; hard to see yourself when other people are looking.
There's not much to do in the cocoon, so I mostly just listen to New Amerykah Part I and file my nails and write weird stuff like this here. The cocoon is a bit stuffy, but the acoustics are superb. Chrysalization is not often fun. But hopefully I earn some wings.
WHEN CRIM MOVED OUT, little Paulie Walnuts--light of my life, fire of my loins, my sin, my soul--coped by becoming an even bigger asshole. So if you're wondering why I have bruisey scratch/bite marks all over my calves: that's why.
The majority of his evening hours are spent at tomcatsluts.com, and he doesn't feel guilty about it anymore. That's if he gets stuck inside; he prefers to stay out all night prowling for the real thing.
And speaking of freedom from guilt, he's been hanging out by the coop taunting the hens about how much chicken The Other One eats these days.
But I told the girls not to peck back, because he's going through a lot. He misses his pops. He misses flirting with the rappers who used to rehearse for shows in the living room and smoke blunts with him on the porch. Matter of fact he misses having any of the human species around to flirt with, since appearances suggest to him that I am a loser with no friends.
He moans that Daddy always had on such good music, whereas my listening habits are so low-brow and repetitive. He says if he hears that "Doorbell" song one more time he'll blow his brains out. And I still fall for:
W: Who sings that? C: The Chiffons! they're like a sixties girl gr-- W: Let's keep it that way.
He came back from his sleepover at the Musiquarium with so much attitude talking about he'd totally go live there if he thought Carmela and I could survive without a man in the house. He said he spent hours fishing and the tank looks so awesome and sucks to be me that I don't get to see it.
In the past he's been a good listener--what are gaycat besties for, after all--but by now I'm trying his patience. He's quite sure the Temescallion Stallion is imaginary. Seeing is believing, Mummy (dripping with condescension).
But he's a good friend in that he'll say to me straightup, Why are you so weird? All that pacing at four am is disturbing his beauty sleep. (But as long as I'm up, His Highness could do with some nourishment and access to the great outdoors.) And he ribs me about the inverse proportionality of journal pages covered : coolness. (For the record, in three months ≈ 600 pages. I am not cool.)
He bites my calves and like a sucker I spoil him with a new Scratch Lounge and high-grade Canadian catnip, because I can be nurturing to a fault when it comes to those I love. Even when he is being an A1 dick, I understand the delicate feelings behind the dickish behavior. And I want to cheer him up. I know he really just misses getting shiatsu from four human hands.
IT IS A TRUTH universally acknowledged that hens love their soul music. And Bay hens take special pride in their rich Bay soul legacy. Visit any local coop at the right time of day and you might hear a flock cackling as they re-enact the backstage opener skit off Funky Divas. (Note to self: future flock members to be named Dawn, Maxine, Terry, Cindy.)
Nothing soothes nervous pullets on their first night out in the coop quite like Bay soul lullabies. There may be peeping without ceasing, but with those first softly-sung strains of "I used to think that I wasn't fine enough" or "As summer was ending, you were walking in" all will be well.
FOR WEEKS NOW Ximena has been losing neck feathers. And I scoured my poultry library for answers, to no avail. Then it hit me. Betsy's been plucking her. They are fighting again about who is queen of Bay soul.
In Betsy's corner, we find Keyshia Cole. Betsy says Keyshia may not have a lot of fancy lyrics or expensive beats, but she's hella fine, and girl knows how to sang. Pure Oakland-grown ghetto fab flavor. Which describes Betsy as well; you don't know the meaning of funky chicken until you hear her belt out "Love." Granted: no one belts it out like Keyshia. Bets and I watched this incredible interview Keyshia did with Sway for an MTV special on Oakland, and they were out in her old neighborhood in like the 60s or 70s in East Oakland and she hit the chorus right there on the street.
IT SHOULD surprise no one that Ximena is all about Goapele. They both have that odd beauty, and foreign pedigrees. One Araucana, one Israeli-South African. But both came up Oaklandish.
Of course Ximena in her Goapele sophistication finds "First Love" played out. Her top jams are "Closer," "Love Me Right" and "Crushed Out." She loves the intelligent sensitivity and tender voice that are Goapele's signatures, but clucks disdainfully about the poor production value on both her old albums. We haven't dug into the new album yet, but aren't crazy about the first single; only Michelle Bachmann should be Auto-Tuned.
When I saw Goapele live a couple months back, she announced she'd do one song that wasn't her own--and broke out "Maps" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I sang along and sounded terrible and tingled to my toes. I rushed home to tell Ximena, and she laid a fucking egg right there on the roost we were both so excited. (Chickens never get to go to shows.) Now I just need to hear Aretha do "Heavy Cross" and I'll be straight. Rock & soul => emergent property.
I also once saw Goapele strolling at the Grand Lake Farmer's Market, because it is so goddamn great. (Sorry, Temescallions.)
FORTUNATELY, I HAVE an odd-numbered flock, so it was on Marianne to break the tie. She's at the bottom of the pecking order (read: was gonna get her ass beat either way). Ever the squawking contrarian, she says, no, actually the reigning soul queen doesn't come from the Bay at all. (This ruffles some feathers.) She contends the throne-holder is an LA chick, one whose version of "Don't Speak" Gwen should be embarrassed to know is out there. The other two hens are stumped, but I smile, because I know she means Leela James:
Sip me up like lemonade From a mason jar Make it good like [some chicken]* Fried in a pan of lard I'm gettin spoiled like old beans And I can't lose my head Cause when you're not around I'm crumblin like cornbread
*This part is mumbled.
And once you hear Leela slay "A Change Is Gonna Come," you'll surely agree.
