About five years ago, while waiting for a flight, there was a huge commotion at the airport.
 |
| Half-mast for Whitney Houston? Turn that sucker upside down... |
Huge. People were running. People were excited. People were confused. Whitney Houston was in the terminal.
A person waiting for the same flight, trying to make small talk, asked what I thought of her. Without thinking, I said, "Isn't she dead?"
Well, as of February 11, 2012, she is. She is one of those beloved celebrities who self-destructed in front of a worldwide audience, becoming a butt of jokes that quickly ran out when she passed away.
That her poor decisions - over more than a decade - directly led to her early death have been glossed over as we must now mourn a celebrity death for the mere sake of mourning... what exactly?
The Daily Mail ran an interesting story two days after her death that detailed the extravagant lifestyle of Houston, a true libertine who was anything but
niggardly with her fortune:
By the end, Whitney Houston had thrown away every last scrap of the poise and beauty that had made her the ultimate diva of her generation.
Leaving a Hollywood nightclub two days before her death, she was drenched in sweat and disoriented, a wad of mint chewing gum visible in her gaping mouth.
Blood from a cut trickled down her leg. But the lady herself, surrounded by party-loving hangers-on, didn’t seem to notice.
This was a woman who, despite at least three attempts at rehab in the past eight years, appeared fully in the grip of drug addiction: wired, wrecked and out of control. Inside the club, it is claimed, she nearly came to blows with a partygoer who she felt had ‘got into her face’.
So why could nobody save Whitney Houston? In truth, having spent almost two decades destroying herself, she was past saving.
er voice, with her signature, high-octave power note, had been pitifully diminished by years of abuse, particularly the smoking of crack cocaine. The soaring vocals had become a soft, whispery falsetto.
‘She don’t want to come, my soprano friend,’ she told a booing concert audience in London in 2010.
The years of material plenty were behind her, too. She was reportedly once again ‘flat broke’, even though she should have had a fortune well in excess of £100 million.
Indeed, despite earning up to £20 million with a colossal 50-date global tour only two years ago, she was reportedly this month reduced to asking her great benefactor, Clive Davis, the music mogul who ‘discovered’ her, for hand-outs yet again.
Fortune tried to gloss over these monetarily unpleasant facts, but failed to address the point that Houston's personal decisions in life contributed greatly - okay, entirely - to her early death. What has happened in the shadow of her death - a complete refusal to acknowledge that it was her personal decisions that contributed to her demise - and the quick deification of her is a reminder of the vast sickness within our society.
That a turgid, bloated white governor of New Jersey would find her death an event worthy of lowering the US Flag to half-mast for, well, that's just another indicator of the madness of Black-Run America (BRA).
Today, flags in New Jersey will be lowered to half-staff in memory of Whitney Houston and there are new details on funeral services for the legendary singer.
Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin and Alicia Keys will sing at Whitney Houston’s funeral service. And, Houston’s ex-husband, singer Bobby Brown has been invited to attend the service.
Police in Newark will shut down streets for six blocks around the church to keep the public away. There will be two staging areas for memorials.
Today, flags in New Jersey will be lowered to half-staff. In issuing the order, Governor Chris Christie says, “Houston leaves a legacy that will be cherished for years.”
But, the governor has been criticized by people who feel flags at half-staff should be reserved for service men and women or first responders.
Opinions here in the Garden State differ. Some are dubious about bestowing such an honor on a performer.
“I totally agree with that. (It) should only be for first responders. And (it’s) out of respect.”
“It boggles my mind that they can even consider something like that, but that’s the world we live in, everyone’s got to be so P.C. and make her into some huge ordeal.”
Others say it’s a fitting tribute to a legend.
“She was the greatest singer in the world, why not? I mean she was an icon.”
“No, I think it’s okay. I think times are changing. She was kind of like an icon you would say.”
Christie has ordered flags at half staff over 40 times in his term, including for saxophonist Clarence Clemons, and for every soldier who’s been killed in action, or first responder killed in the line of duty.
An icon? A legend? Only to the drug-dealing world who considered her an easy mark and profited mightily over her habits that contributed to her early death. Lowering the flag to half-mast to Whitney Houston is a bizarre act that illustrates the madness of 2012 America.
Christie's decision has been widely criticized -- 77% of USA Today readers called it "inappropriate" in one informal and unscientific poll. But he has strongly defended the order, hailing Houston as "a daughter of New Jersey" who should be honored for her "cultural contributions."
For decisions like this, there is a federal "Flag Code," which stipulates only that the flag be flown at half-staff to honor deaths of certain public officials, adding that governors can honor members of the government or military from their state.
But regardless of what the official code says, the standards around flag-flying have been fuzzy for years. Most of Christie's prior orders to lower the flag have honored service members killed in combat, yet he issued the same order after the death of Clarence Clemons, the saxophonist for Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band. Frank Sinatra received the honor years earlier.
Our old friend Clarence Clemons,
that crazy clapper, got the flag lowered too? Such is life in BRA.
Houston, Winans said, was hurt that some argued her music wasn’t “black enough.”
“They’re saying I’m not black enough. I’m selling out,” Houston would say tearfully, Winans remembered.
Larry Elder went one step further,
writing:
Whitney Houston died at the age of 48. Most articles about her death said something like, "Houston struggled with drug and alcohol problems for years ..."
But Houston also struggled with something else that black Republicans and black non-Democrats can understand: ridicule and ostracism for "selling out," or "acting white," or not being "black enough."
Ebony, the black monthly magazine, wrote about the then-27-year-old: "Black disc jockeys have chided her for 'not having soul' and being 'too white.' ... She was booed at the Soul Train Music Awards. ... It's enough to drive a good Christian girl to drink, drugs or at least to cursing. But not Whitney. Though it hurts her deeply, she handles it all with aplomb."
Did she?
After Houston's marriage to Bobby Brown, and after years of Houston's erratic behavior and rumors of drug abuse, I spoke to singer-actress Della Reese, a longtime Houston family friend. Reese and I were in the greenroom of a television studio, and we talked about Reese's career. I told her that my mother remembered having seen a young Reese at a Washington, D.C., nightclub called either "The Cave" or "The Cove."
She laughed and said, "The Cave."
We talked about then-current Whitney Houston/Bobby Brown headlines. "I have a theory about Whitney Houston," I said. "I've been called 'Uncle Tom,' and I know how that feels. I think Whitney was so hurt by being called a 'sellout' and 'acting white' -- and crap like that -- she wanted to change her image. What better way to do that than to marry a bad boy? And the drug abuse makes her a flawed person fighting to overcome her demons. Makes her relatable."
Reese, a close friend of Cissy Houston, Whitney's mom, said: "I know the family well. And there's a lot of truth in what you're saying." Reese gave me permission to discuss our exchange, as long as I made one thing clear. Reese said: "The human voice is very forgiving, and Whitney is working things out. And she will come back."
Only in death did Whitney Houston get to have her come back. Because Whitney spent most of the last decades of her life spending away her fortune on drugs, booze and other hedonistic, self-destructive activities, we'll have to ask
Patrick Bateman to illustrate for us why we should see nothing wrong with the
US flag flying at half-mast in her honor:
"Did you know that Whitney Houston's debut LP, called simply 'Whitney Houston,' had four No. 1 singles on it? Did you know that, Christie?" asks Bateman.
She is dismissive of Houston's allure, but Bateman continues:
"It's hard to choose a favorite among so many great tracks. But 'The Greatest Love of All' is one of the best, most powerful songs ever written about self-preservation and dignity. Its universal message crosses all boundaries and instills one with the hope that it's not too late to better ourselves."
Bale as Bateman then addresses the other girl on the couch: "Since, Elizabeth, it's impossible in this world we live in to empathize with others, we can always empathize with ourselves. It's an important message. Crucial, really. And it's beautifully stated on the album."
Not convinced.Wait, this story
might do it though:
Whitney Houston's funeral has inspired several of Newark's gang leaders to call for a day of calm today to honor the Brick City-born pop queen.
The push started after Hykine Johnson — a former high-ranking member of the Sex, Money, Murder Bloods who is better known around Newark by his street handle “HAK” — published a Facebook post Wednesday night, calling for citywide peace on the day of Houston's services at the New Hope Baptist Church.
"If anyone out there is gang banging lets show Whitney Houston respect by commiting no crimes on saturday ......No shootings No robbing No car jacking basically no crazy (stuff) let us show some respect she helped alot of people in Nj lets show lov," wrote Johnson, who now works as an author and filmmaker, publishing works intended to show young people the perils of gang life in the city.
Johnson’s message quickly circulated throughout the street community, largely among city and gang leaders connected to the Bloods. While Newark is home to a wide array of street gangs, the Bloods make up the majority of the city's gang populace.
It was only a few years ago that Newark had its first
murder-free month in more than two score.To go one day without a murder, courtesy of Whitney Houston... still not enough to deserve the flag flying at half-mast.
86 comments:
Anyone else find it weird how black people define not black enough to use vs. whomever might get approval from white folks? Houston wasn't black enough for black people? C'mon, Beyonce has had blonde highlights for 10 years, Rihanna is known for rihanna red hair, and Halle Berry is a half black sex symbol who had a child with a white man. They don't get the crap she got. Blacks truly can never find peace with anything.
Houston's death is a reminder, as was Michael Jackson's death, that blacks cannot properly handle the emotional trauma and stress of their community or make positive changes so they overreact to the death of a has been that they questioned the blackness of at one point who hasn't added anything to pop culture in over a decade.
Go ahead, fly the thing at half mast. Who really gives a shite? This country is over as we knew it. When white "conservatives" like Christy, parallel the honor of a drug addled black singer, with that of say, a white navy seal, the very idea of a legitimate country fades away.
The balkanization is well under way. The genocide continues with zero resistance, all brought to you by the very people who run this pathetic excuse for a country - both Liberals AND "conservatives"
The only people who could actually effect any real change; the ones who could easily afford to lose their income and inspire a revolution of reality and escape without a worry - the Limbaughs, etc - are phony supplicants to the system.
Christy should rot in hell for this, but he does serve a purpose: he exposed the whole BRA thing as nakedly as could be. He is nothing more or less than a part of it...
-Sweep the leg-
Well written and well said.
I have been sick of Whitney for a long time and this is another classic example of "Well, what did you expect to happen?" played out on a national scale. The overreaching attempts of BRA and DWL's to make a "hero" out of another dug addict are sickening and pathetic.
Patrick Bateman was but another "myth" created by DWL's in search of the "Evil White Man" who ruins everything he touches in his vain pursuit of perfection as a means of belonging to something "real". While the truth of the matter is that almost every "success" story BRA has offered up has been an outright lie that actually does hate others and hurts themselves and others every chance it gets by "KEEPING IT REAL".
Flags at half mast? Really? Which one of the millions of Whitneys' mourners can name one Navy, Marine, Air Force or Army soldier that has died in the service of their nation in the last year alone? Which one of those mourners can tell me the name of the Border Agents shot by guns sold by Holder and Obama? How many innocents have died in crack related turf wars in the past years?
The nation of BRA run by DWL's and white-hating minorities can only reward no talent hacks with crocodile tears because thats all they have.
This BRA world is coming to an end soon. They have brought destruction on themselves and shall receive no mercy or forgiveness for their actions.
No Retreat. No Surrender. No Mercy.
The fact that her branding by the black community as being "too white" led to her long path of self-destruction is an unfortunate testament of black "values," and the main reason why this country will never be post-racial. Most -- not all, but most -- black Americans just have far too much bitterness and hatred in their hearts to ever get past, which they end up using to destroy themselves and others. While Americans of all races were completely willing to embrace from the very beginning this enormously talented young black woman, the black community decided that was not acceptable and that she was theirs and theirs alone, so they destroyed her in the way that is all too common for them. (Even her first name is only one 'n' removed from being that most hated of all possible things: whitey.) The black American culture is one that I'll never be able to understand, and thank God for that.
I hope this will be taught to a future generation as the low point of BRA when a black junkie dying gets the flag flown at half mast. Decadence, perversion, this doesnt bode well to what may follow, historically.
I own and like the Preacher's Wife CD. The song "Step by Step" is beautiful. But Houston's death is pretty common: Billy Holliday, Amy Winehouse, Michael Jackson, all fit the mold. You can probably make book on Lindsay Lohan and Charlie Sheen. A LOT of entertainers tend to die of drug/booze related problems.
What is remarkable that Louis Armstrong, who had a far worse life than Houston, died soberly and staidly as an upper middle class guy. As did Ray Charles. Stevie Wonder lives staidly. So did Duke Ellington.
I don't think Houston's demons were centered around being considered "too White" -- rather being in the Entertainment industry: Jim Morrison, Judy Garland, and Janis Joplin had similar self-destructive streaks and too much money chasing too little discipline.
My guess is that singers are the most prone to this, as they don't have to practice as much as instrumentalists. Keith Richards has been soaked in substances for decades but seems to moderate it to maintain his skill level, which explains his current survival.
But this deification and obscene fawning reminds me of the frenzy over Diana's death in Britain. An out of control, maudlin sector of the public egged on by the media seeking to impose its own will upon the nation.
Here in LA, John and Ken were suspended and may be fired for saying on the air that Houston was "cracked up' for twenty years (something she admitted in 2009 on camera) and that it was no surprise, that really it took this long? They said similar things about Amy Winehouse, who was White, and got no reaction.
Houston was like Winehouse: self destructive, a celebrity indulged by her camp followers, and with some talent long ago destroyed. The difference in reaction shows the objectification of Black people as status objects, not human beings in their own right who can be judged, ignored, or liked as one pleases.
The collective idolization of a deeply flawed singer because she is Black (there was no such flag flown at half mast anywhere for Winehouse) suggests something deeply wrong with society and in particular White society. Black people are free to choose to treat Houston any way they like; others are not free to force me to have certain opinions about her.
You used the word "niggardly," and the liberals can't do a thing about it. LMAO!
Here in LA, John and Ken were suspended and may be fired for saying on the air that Houston was "cracked up' for twenty years (something she admitted in 2009 on camera) and that it was no surprise, that really it took this long? They said similar things about Amy Winehouse, who was White, and got no reaction.
Houston was like Winehouse: self destructive, a celebrity indulged by her camp followers, and with some talent long ago destroyed. The difference in reaction shows the objectification of Black people as status objects, not human beings in their own right who can be judged, ignored, or liked as one pleases.
I will beat this dead horse to paste. We need to lawyer up, there is great oppporitunity for a law firm to specialize in these types of cases. It will also bring attention to the double standard that exists.
F.I.R.E does great things against colleges and universities that crush student rights. We need an oprganization for this against private sector offenses.
I always thought of Whitney Houston in the same category as singers like Mariah Carey and Christina Aguilera and Lawd knows who else: very talented, lovely voice, but not choosing material that stands out very much. I was late teens/early 20s, i.e. listening to the radio, during the peak of Whitney's fame, and I can't name a single song by her, and if you named one for me, I couldn't hum it. Considering her talent, she should have had more iconic songs. Same for Mariah Carey, same for nearly all these overly-melismatic divas. Madonna isn't nearly as good a singer, and I paid her very little mind as well during her glory years, but at least I can sing along with about 10 Madonna songs because they pop. And it's not even a race thing: heck, I can sing along with Chuck D, and Eric B. and Rakim. Schooly D, even. That stuff had character and wit, it stood out.
Which is a long way of saying that I don't know much about Whitney Houston or her demons. But if it's true that the black communiteh hounded her for being a "sellout" or "too white" or whatever it is, then they should be collectively ashamed to be mourning her with such hysterics now. If they helped hound her to her death by driving her into the arms of thugs and drugs in order to "keep it real" (whatever tha FUCK that's supposed to mean), then her family should have stood up at her funeral and called them out, and given tha Communiteh a taste of hellfire. It should be the topic of sermons in every Black church nationwide this month.
By the way, all these Black folks who are so concerned about not being "too white" don't seem to mind driving in the white man's cars, and talking on the white man's cell phones, and listening to the white man's radios and CDs, and making 'music' using the white man's recording technology and the white man's musical notation and the white man's instruments. What a larf.
For once I agree substantially with Whiskey @ 5:56, with a few caveats:
"They said similar things about Amy Winehouse, who was White..."
Amy Winehouse was not White, she was Jewish. NTTAWWT, but Jews aren't Whites. If they want their funny little words and categories like goyim and gentile to keep us apart, well guess what, the feeling is mutual. Reciprocity: never a big tool in the Jewish kit.
"(there was no such flag flown at half mast anywhere for Winehouse)"
In fairness, Winehouse for all her considerable talent was not a public sweetheart the way Houston was. I don't mind the flag at half-staff for Whitney just in New Jersey: she was a favorite daughter of the state, so, it may be a bit much, but OTOH it's not from Mars. If the flag were at half-mast nationwide, then I'd be as outraged as others here.
It's the hypocrisy from the blacks who rejected her, weeping waterfalls for her now that's she's been ruined, that galls me. I don't even think that it's "crabs in a bucket" syndrome, which after all is found in every culture; I think it's something much deeper, much weirder, and ultimately much more repulsive.
Mo' money, mo' problems....for black people anyway.
That a turgid, bloated white governor of New Jersey would find her death an event worthy of lowering the US Flag to half-mast for, well, that's just another indicator of the madness of Black-Run America (BRA).
I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds Christie physically repulsive. Maybe the gods are punishing him for NJ's gun control laws.
But, the governor has been criticized by people who feel flags at half-staff should be reserved for service men and women or first responders.
So people who have a problem with celebrity worship have no problem with cop-and-soldier worship. And now we're supposed to worship EMTs. Maybe mail carriers and IRS employees will be next.
This reminds me of the day I spent in the ER a while back. I've become accustomed to never watching teevee, so I took it as a learning experience to see what people will sit and watch for hours on end. Here's what I saw: cop show, lawyer show, cop show, lawyer show, cop show, followed by a commercial for a movie featuring active duty Navy SEALs. The order of the day is full-on fealty to the state.
By the way, the original intent of flying flags at half mast was to make room for the Invisible Flag of Death at the top, a reminder that death is supreme even over the powerful.
Keith Richards has been soaked in substances for decades but seems to moderate it to maintain his skill level, which explains his current survival.
Genetics plays a vastly underestimated role in this, as in all things. William S. Burroughs shot heroin essentially every day of his life and lived to be 83.
I have to wonder if Christie isn't courting, so to speak, black Americans because he's going to run for something soon...like, maybe vice-president under a certain Republican candidate that he's helping?
I read this blog with great interest these past few months...both the posts & coments are riveting. I am finding such an articulation of thoughts that never seemed, before, to find a voice in me. A sorting out, you might say. I know that anytime I have felt conflicted & confused was never because of a rabid hatred for a man or woman of any other race or color than myself, but simply because I believe in the future of my (White) people, & Western culture generally speaking.
Commenters on several posts, including this one, have said that they believe BRA is coming to an end soon. Oh, how I wish. And yet, that day will be beyond horrible, I'm sure of it, whether it's sooner or much later.
OT: I've also been thinking a good deal about the whole Detroit thing. Did a little looking around on a site that led to another site that had an entire slideshow of houses that were practically being given away to people. What fires my imagination is the thought that maybe a few families could take on such an adventure. To my mind it would have to be people that adhere to pretty strict rules for themselves, have strong backs & even stronger hearts, & are willing to live in a sort of "compound" fashion, as I don't think any improvements could survive one week or perhaps even a day without some sort of barrier to keep out troublemakers...like a high fence with razorwire at the top, & maybe someone armed to keep watch.
Thanks for the post.
She is yet another crackhead who wasted her life.
That she squandered a great talent is the only element of note in the story.
I always feel sorry for these types, but mostly for their family and close friends.
Deifying such a wastrel after her death is only a reflection of the pitiful moral state of our society. The void left by turning our backs on God will be filled by something. The entertainment culture (including sports) has become our gods.
I can't believe you guys can be so callous.
After all, Whitney Houston's about to make a whole week drug free!
Maybe it's just me but growing up and hearing that horrible Negress caterwauling on radios gave me am audio preview of the soundtrack in hell.
Just imagining having her music cycle over and over on repeat would make hell torment without flames or pitchforks.
Good riddance to this POS.
Maybe my musical tastes are shared only by a minority but her music isn't what is at issue at all, it was her horrible lifestyle.
This wreck deserves no sympathy or mourning as this drug addled beast had the money and countless chances to clean up her act--and didn't.
She deserves no more feeling than any other skid row junkie.
She is the text book illustration of absolute failure at life.
What I find so tragic is how much of the US public takes celebrity death so personally. Not just the blacks, but all the celebrities who pass on.
When Elvis Presley died, the TV coverage was wall to wall. I remember one shot from a news program where, apparently, the camera was being run from a vehicle that moved down a line of people. They were waiting for Elvis's hearse to pass. The sight of women openly weeping and going to pieces, (and not a few men!), saddened me.
This sort of thing has been going on since the days of Rudolph Valentino and before.
Are the lives of these weeping people so empty, so lacking in anything meaningful, that the death of an entertainer jolts them so much? Someone they likely never met? Someone of whom the entertainer was not even aware? Have these folks NOTHING else - no ONE else - in their lives to bring them joy or meaning?
Who died? She pissed everything of value away.
Great article and great comments, as usual PK. The funeral was on every local channel here in NYC, and Fox News. For HOURS. Chris Christie is your typical liberal, pandering Republican. Completely off topic, anti-illegal immigrant Sheriff Paul Babeau won't be running for Congress because of a gay scandal. Too bad, he was tough on immigration.
Bread and Circuses.
I supported Chris Christie and though two states away, I thought he was doing a positive job as a governor in a high-tax, highly-urban, high-crime, state.
My support of him is less even now, that and the fact that he could've chosen to support Ron Paul instead of kowtowing to the Mitt Romney bandwagon. It seems like Romney is the establishment's choice for going up against 'Bama.
Anyway when I first heard of Houston's death I thought: 'Who cares?'
Well apparently people where I work thought it was a 'tragedy' and 'a shame' just like the news media but while it is indeed a shameful death tragedy implies a loss against forces beyond one's control. And while drugs are very controlling, she could've chose to not put them into her mouth or veins. I guess Christy couldn't understand that.
But this deification and obscene fawning reminds me of the frenzy over Diana's death in Britain. An out of control, maudlin sector of the public egged on by the media seeking to impose its own will upon the nation.
Whiskey,
I've turned it off and canceled my cable a few months ago. I remember Diana's death as a child and thought "why is she so important?" I also remember the "royal wedding" and their subsequent visit to the US and Canada and thought "why should anyone care?"
Life goes on and celebrities, royal or not, don't know and don't care to know the millions of people who praise them daily and buy their crap.
It's strange how our mass media tricks the average brain into thinking it "knows" a certain celebrity when they couldn't care less. Book signings? Concerts? Speeches? Magazines? They don't care about you. Even if you were to meet them, you're just another face in the crowd and just another name to forget.
Anyone who can't understand that about celebrity, or who does and panders to it anyway is already lost. So much for a majority of West.
Celebrity worship is promoted because it sells.
Go to Billboard, you'll see that The Greatest Love of All is back on the charts at #7.
Whitless' death is making someone rich.
Are the lives of these weeping people so empty, so lacking in anything meaningful, that the death of an entertainer jolts them so much?
I'd say yes.
Consider the following stats about TV use (abuse).
Most people spend about 6 hours and 47 minutes a day with their imaginary friends.
This is just TV use, it doesn't include time spent watching movies or reading pop-culture magazines, so I'd say that number's actually a bit higher.
It's a vicious circle and it's addictive. Real-life is seldom as exciting or as sexy as the celebrity world, but too much entertainment takes time away from meaningful pursuits that could bring real enjoyment instead of a temporary thrill.
One real-life example: I know a woman who talks about celebrities constantly, like they're old friends. This same woman can't tell you what's going on with her neighbors or even her own kids.
Multiply that by millions of people. Sad.
Carl Schmitt wrote that in a world without the concept of the political, that is to say, a world without the distinction between friend and enemy, (perhaps the multi-cult present?), whatever remains will be “neither politics nor state, but culture, civilization,economics, morality, law, art, entertainment, and so on.” (Concept of the Political, p53).
Leo Strauss, in commentary, suggests that the "and so on" conceals the fact that, "what the opponents of the political want is the establishment of a world of entertainment, a world of amusement, a world without seriousness.” (Notes on CP, p116).
With the state flying its flag at half mast in order to honor such a person, we surmise that depoliticization has evolved faster than had been hitherto expected.
*Sigh* .... I'm old enough to remember when flags flown at half-mast, were pretty much reserved for Presidents ... Only.
Now, it's for any 'touchy-feeley' reason at all. Dead drug-addicted negros no less.
*Sigh*.......
You've fixed the comments section, good. Now you really have to do somethning about the poor scrolling of your website and the awkwards video embeds.
One real-life example: I know a woman who talks about celebrities constantly, like they're old friends. This same woman can't tell you what's going on with her neighbors or even her own kids.
Multiply that by millions of people. Sad.
DW,
It is sad. And one of the ironies about it are that every time these people spend $5 for a magazine, or $12 on a movie ticket, watch their TV shows, or buy a CD, they're making money for the celebrities and even more money for the industry as a whole.
A second irony is that the celebs they worship don't know the people who are "buying" them, buying their brand of crap. They wouldn't care anyway and don't care when meeting and greeting their throngs of fans. You're just another face in the crowd for them.
A third is that the celebrities they elevate to godly status probably don't know who their own real friends and neighbors are, are likely very emotionally disturbed, depressed and unstable, and probably don't know what's going on with their own kids' lives either.
'turgid, bloated white governor of New Jersey would find her death an event worthy of lowering the US Flag to half-mast for, well, that's just another indicator of the madness of Black-Run America (BRA)'
Naa, Its 'Celebrity fever'
WH had lost one house and the huge mansion in NJ I read was also in trouble.
She stayed in NJ and the gov wants
the 'buzz' for NJ.
What do 'rev' al and jesse have to say?
Those limo chasers!
Whiskey.....AW was British and didnt sell a gazillion CDs!
'Here in LA, John and Ken were suspended and may be fired for saying on the air that Houston was "cracked up' for twenty years '
JOHN AND KEN ARE GOOD GUYS...
THATS OUTRAGEOUS.
I LISTEN A BIT TO THEIR SHOW.
It has always confused me why "acting white" is supposed to be a bad thing. Why didn't anyone complain that she was being unfaithful to her Native and Dutch sides?
Sorry, maybe questioning black logic isn't the best idea...
-White-acting mulatto
I think Whitney was so hurt by being called a 'sellout' and 'acting white' -- and crap like that -- she wanted to change her image. What better way to do that than to marry a bad boy? And the drug abuse makes her a flawed person fighting to overcome her demons. Makes her relatable.
It seems as though women of any color just will not learn the lesson about "bad boys". These scumbags kill their mates with clockwork precision. The only change that Houston obtained by marrying Bobby Brown was permanently cementing the perception that she was, indeed, dumber than a bag of hair.
Speaking as a singer songwriter myself, I can say that Houston, with her five-octave vocal register, had one of the finest sets of pipes on the planet. Do I own a single one of her records? HELL NO. Houston's overall school of music is so devoid of meaning and significance that I would rather listen to fingernails scratching a chalkboard.
A similar case can be made for Kenny G's saxophone work. Another skilled artist playing the equivalent of elevator music.
As to Houston "not being Black enough"; she should have taken that as a compliment. Instead, as is the case with so many Blacks, her skin color was her identity. She should have taken a cue from all the NBA and NFL thugs and distanced herself from any racial identification.
Blowing $20 million in two years is proof of idiocy all by itself. Incinerating an approximate $150 million fortune in less than 50 years transcends all boundaries. That's somewhere near the equivalent of over $8,000 per DAY.
Then again, a professional singer who's smoking crack cocaine is as self-destructive as any chef that chain smokes cigarettes, if not much more so.
At day's end, this is a just another sordid tale of all-too-typical Black narcissism. Going onstage in front of several thousand people who have paid their hard earned money for $50 - $100 seats only to hear the top bill performer inform them that "She don’t want to come, my soprano friend"; is nothing but an insult to every last attendee.
Was shaking off Bobby Brown her wisest choice? Maybe, but I guess not.
"Her most recent romantic partner was a 31-year-old rapper, Ray J, who is chiefly famous for being the man in a homemade sex tape shot in 2003, which made reality star Kim Kardashian famous.
He is also the cousin of rapper and drug advocate Snoop Dogg, so he was not the kind who might have been counted on to keep her on the straight and narrow."
Rappers famous for illicit sex tapes and advocacy of drug use; what better antidote for a flagging career which was originally boosted by wedding an addiction enabling "bad boy"?
[to be continued]
"Did you know that Whitney Houston's debut LP, called simply 'Whitney Houston,' had four No. 1 singles on it?"
How about; did you know that Sony BMG spent major bucks to increase airplay for the purpose of artificially inflating Houston's popularity with payola bribes to radio stations?
"Recording industry titan Sony BMG Music Entertainment agreed Monday to pay $10 million and stop bribing radio stations to feature its artists in what a state official called a more sophisticated generation of the payola scandals of decades ago.
…
Sony BMG is an umbrella organization for several prominent record labels, including Arista Records, Columbia Records, Sony Music International and Jive Records. Star artists signed with the Arista label alone include Whitney Houston, OutKast, Pink and Sarah McLachlan. [emphasis added]
Our politicians are not the only ones dabbling in the perverted pastime of social engineering. Corrupt corporations ― a term whose redundancy has become alarmingly ubiquitous ― also flood the marketplace with whatever they think best suits their bottom line; no matter what deleterious impact it may have upon the public weal.
There is no better example of this overweening profit motive than how (c)rap "music" is being hawked to our world's youth with total unconcern for its intrinsic message of misogyny, violence and hardcore criminal mentality.
That Witless Houston was separated by a degree or less from this unmitigated gangsta rubbish comes as no surprise. The only thing unexpected about her passing is that she was not beaten to death by some "bad boy" Black buck instead of the more pedestrian fate of drowning in a bathtub.
Evidently, the fruit doesn't fall very far from the tree.
Whitney Houston's daughter, Bobbi Kristina Brown, may be following in her famous mother's footsteps, if the National Enquirer is to be believed.
In its newest issue, the tabloid published a "world exclusive" story alleging Brown is "hooked on cocaine and booze."
The article is accompanied by a series of pictures purporting to show the 17-year-old snorting cocaine.
Bobbi Kristina Brown shares another odd similarity with her mother.
The day before Whitney Houston was found dead in her bathtub at the Beverly Hilton ... her daughter, Bobbi Kristina, fell asleep in a bathtub in the exact same hotel ...
Flying flags at half staff for this dumbass narcissist makes as much sense as lowering them for a drug addicted, gold digging, pneumatic centerfold slut like Anna Nicole Smith. The media frenzy surrounding both of these dead morons is a measure of what dangerous quantities of spare time many Americans continue to enjoy.
Sweep the leg: The only people who could actually effect any real change; the ones who could easily afford to lose their income and inspire a revolution of reality and escape without a worry - the Limbaughs, etc - are phony supplicants to the system.
Really well said!
After advocating prison time for recreational drug users, Limbaugh's arrest for illicit Vicodin possession highlighted the total hypocrisy of that carping bastard.
Anonymous (February 18, 2012 5:22 PM): Even her first name is only one 'n' removed from being that most hated of all possible things: whitey.
Effing priceless!
D J: Are the lives of these weeping people so empty, so lacking in anything meaningful, that the death of an entertainer jolts them so much? Someone they likely never met? Someone of whom the entertainer was not even aware? Have these folks NOTHING else - no ONE else - in their lives to bring them joy or meaning?
Unfortunately, yes.
Consider how soap opera fans actually send get well cards to their favorite characters when the script calls for them to be hospitalized; now tell me once again about the way that so many people lack meaning in their lives.
America's loss of any collective sense of community is, perhaps, one of the most devastating things to ever have happened. The forcible injection of Blacks into White society by Liberal social engineers is a factor in that loss and is something that they must be held accountable for.
Black. Logic.
Could someone please explain how these words go together?
Anonymous @ February 18, 2012 5:22 PM Said....
"(Even her first name is only one 'n' removed from being that most hated of all possible things: whitey.) The black American culture is one that I'll never be able to understand, and thank God for that."
Anonymous, I HAD to look up the meaning of the name 'Whitney' when you brought up the fact that minus the 'N' it would spell Whitey.
In Old English Whitney actually means "white island".
Hmmmm... just for fun... What happens when you take the N***** out of Whitney? She becomes a Whitey!
Zenster,
I think we've all come to learn that the whole liberal/multiculti/wealth-redistribution/cultural-destruction paradigm is without substance.
It's all tied in together and the string-pullers at the top are making $$$ off of it. What's the reason for diluting our culture? So that people will pay $$$ for junk. Even talented artists of any color are wasted when what backs them is without substance.
What's the reason for diluting our gene pool? Because those with less impulse control are more willing to part with their $$$, thus making $$$ for TPTB for less effort.
Why redistribute wealth? Because they know that guys like Warren Buffet live in modest homes and get their supplies from bulk-goods stores. If you've ever shopped at COSTCO or BJs it's overwhelmingly White and Asian. Why? Because people with less impulse control and who lack forward planning are more than happy spending twice as much at 7-eleven and buying homes then can't afford only to be forced back into renting when they're overextended.
This whole USA is becoming without substance. It seems the culture and way-of-life we developed from 1607 up through, say, 1940, is not being overrun, it's being undermined. They've trampled the Meritocracy, sold products that cater to the lowest quality shopper, and turned us into a cultural void.
How many people in the US would rather hear a rap concert than a symphony? How many would rather watch the next junk movie at Regal than see a stage play? How many would rather eat McDonalds than food prepared by a chef? How many would rather watch the Steve Wilkos show than read a book, do a puzzle, spend time with their families?
My guess is a lot. Zenster, there's money to be made at the bottom of the barrel.
Trust race-baiting wannabe warlord pimp Al Sharpton to come forward and say, "I Wish People Would Leave Bobby Brown Alone".
Sure thing. Let's avoid any assignation of blame to someone who very likely contributed most to Witless Houston's premature death. What a splendid display of typical Black refusal to take responsibility.
Let's also ignore Brown's predictable snit over Houston's fambly refusing to allow him to be seated near them.
Boo-effing-hoo! More pseudo-celebrity histrionics.
"While Americans of all races were completely willing to embrace from the very beginning this enormously talented young black woman, the black community decided that was not acceptable and that she was theirs and theirs alone, so they destroyed her in the way that is all too common for them."
Are you serious no question mark.
Enormously talented? Maybe to the tone deaf. The woman had a loud and powerful voice. That does not mean she was a good singer. Bigger is not always better.
It's like a woman's bust. Many people think bustier is better. But when they do, they're thinking of someone who is pretty anyway (e.g., Marilyn Monroe) not someone who just has large dugs (e.g., Oprah Winfrey).
Houston had an admittedly powerful voice. But her ability to use it expressively to convey a song's meaning was, in my opinion, very limitted. She "belted out" songs rather than artistically interpreting them. And no, I'm not just saying that because she was black. Ella Fitzgerald and Jessye Norman are two black singers who had an almost infinite ability to convey shades of meaning. Both were enormously talented.* Not so Houston, who managed to ruin not only our national anthem but also one of the most exquisite love songs ever written.
Winehouse, Houston...I'm hoping Pete Doherty decides to make up the missing third from that old saying about things happening in threes.
*I'm using the past tense for both even though Jessye Norman is still alive. She gives concerts and recitals but, now in her mid-60's, no longer sings operatic roles.
"When Elvis Presley died, the TV coverage was wall to wall...Are the lives of these weeping people so empty, so lacking in anything meaningful, that the death of an entertainer jolts them so much? Someone they likely never met? Someone of whom the entertainer was not even aware? Have these folks NOTHING else - no ONE else - in their lives to bring them joy or meaning?"
DJ, I see what you're saying about the worship of celebrities generally and the outlandish amount of grief when they die.
But, as someone with some musical training, I can't really place Elvis in that category. The man had one of the greatest voices of the 20th century. No, I didn't get all upset when he died. But listening to his recordings never fails to awe me and really does bring me joy and meaning. I think we really did lose something of irreplaceable value once his voice was silenced forever.
But you are right. The grief over his death should have been in proportion and due to his musical gifts, not his celebrity status.
W74: This whole USA is becoming without substance. It seems the culture and way-of-life we developed from 1607 up through, say, 1940, is not being overrun, it's being undermined. They've trampled the Meritocracy, sold products that cater to the lowest quality shopper, and turned us into a cultural void.
First off, excellent overall comment.
I would wager that a large part of those "products that cater to the lowest quality shopper" are a direct byproduct of television's "lowest common denominator programming". As I have noted here and elsewhere:
-----
This is one of the great modern tragedies. Imagine an electronic instrument that is capable of the following:
● Active display of real time images with full animation
● Full color output with convincing three-dimensionality
● Portable and compact form factor
● Synchronized stereo sound
● Wireless reception
Consider how powerful of an educational tool such a device could be.
That tool is television and as far back as 1958 was already being warned about as becoming a “vast wasteland” by no less than Edward R. Murrow. Instead of some painstakingly accurate Masterpiece Theater presentation of a Dickens novel, most people are watching Squeal of Fortune.
What does it say about a society that seeks to escape reality by watching so-called “Reality Shows” that are more intricately scripted than a WWF wrestling match?
Very early in television’s career, people like Rod Serling and other concerned producers involved in this nascent industry were deeply troubled about future prospects for the overall quality of television programming.
At first, television’s main goal was to supplant radio broadcast which, at that time, reached a majority of American households. In order to do this, relatively high quality content was necessary to divert public attention away from the wireless set towards this new “horseless carriage” of the media. All of this effort was with the explicit intent to sell television to the consumer.
Fast forward a decade or so; the radio is nearly dead as a form of home entertainment, especially family entertainment. The television reigns supreme and so begins the death spiral of high quality content. No longer was the television a product being sold to American consumers.
Once television’s supremacy was guaranteed it was ratings and not quality of content that became the Holy Grail for this new media. In order to garner high Nielsen Ratings, one had to maximize audience share.
With television’s stranglehold upon broadcast network entertainment assured, suddenly the viewer became the product. That product was now sold to another newer and far more lucrative consumer, the advertiser. In order to maximize market share and the evermore precious ratings, production content had to appeal to the largest possible viewing audience.
This ushered in the rise of Lowest Common Denominator Programming and the death of quality content in network broadcast entertainment.
-----
That erosion of quality content mirrors an identical decline in the quality of manufactured goods, restaurant food and nearly every other aspect of modern daily life. The efforts of Liberal social engineers to "integrate" America are just one more facet of this overall deterioration in quality of life.
Zenster, there's money to be made at the bottom of the barrel.
The irony of this is so profound as to defy all description. There was a time when actively contributing to societal decay earned you loud and public condemnation, if not jail time. Now, it is generously rewarded and a source of bragging rights. This total moral and spiritual inversion makes the term kali yuga spring to mind.
Reversing this and overturning the applecart of mass marketing needs to become a top priority if what's left of decent White American culture is to survive.
Kylie: … as someone with some musical training…
All this and "musical training"? You are a goddess!
People who wept for Elvis were, whether they knew it or not, really weeping for their lost youth. Elvis symbolized to them their young and carefree years, like Elvis, now gone for good.
So it is, very often, for public outpourings of grief for many celebrities -- including, I bet, Whitney's. The idea that it signifies the meaninglessness of people's lives is untrue; in fact, it's more or less the contrary -- they are jolted awake into the meanings and histories of their own lives.
When people said, "I remember exactly where I was when JFK was shot" the most important words in the sentence (in fact, the only important words) are the first six.
Kylie: You had me going there for a moment about Jessye Norman; glad to know she is still around. I have a very odd recording of hers; she is singing music from The Great American Songbook, but in operatic voice, rather than "straight". (This is in contrast to the Kiri te Kanawa recordings with Nelson Riddle (I think) that were done without operatic voice). As odd as it is, it "works".
As for Presley: I never cared for his style, at least not the later stuff. I will certainly acknowledge the talent, he just was not my cuppa.
One talent left us in the early 50s, but did not pass away until 2004. That was Artie Shaw. He was highly talented but was never satisfied with his own playing. He finally decided either the horn (Clarinet) was going to kill him or he was going to walk away from it. He chose the latter. He went on to other things and was highly successful at them.
My regret is that he did not carry on with his clarinet at least until the mid to late 50s when recording equipment got really REALLY good, but the gimmicky stuff was still in the distance.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/story/2012-02-19/whitney-houston-funeral-burial/53151320/1
Sheeple praising Whitney Houston. We've fallen so far as a country.
This is off-topic of Shitney Houston, but... typical black parenting:
Girl, 12, found 'naked and eating food out of TRASH BIN' as her mother is arrested for child endangerment
By Daily Mail Reporter
18th February 2012
A naked 12-year-old girl was spotted eating food out of trash cans in California Thursday after neighbours said they saw her wandering the streets with only a car mat covering her.
The girl’s mother, 40-year-old Tracy Lynn Betts was said to have taken her daughter’s shoes and clothes in an effort to keep her from leaving her BMW, police said.
Betts was taken into custody and later arrested on suspicion of felony child endangerment.
Riverside County sheriff's officials say when police responded to a 911 call Thursday, they found the girl in a car where she was allegedly left by her mother, the Press-Enterprise reported.
The girl told authorities that her mother works as a teacher’s assistant at Vail Elementary. Betts allegedly took her daughter’s shoes and clothes so she couldn’t leave the car.
Neighbours said they found the girl rummaging through their trash can, trying to cover herself with a floor mat from the car.
Avenida de Calazada resident Dominique Prado told the Press-Enterprise that she and her husband were in their yard when they saw the girl rooting through a trash can.
Ms Prado says she gave her an apple, children's snacks and a bottle of water.
Deputies found the child sitting famished in the car.
The girl is in protective custody and was given medical care at a nearby hospital for unspecified ailments.
Betts was held Thursday night on $15,000 bail, which she posted Friday. She will next appear in court April 12.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2103111/Girl-12-naked-eating-food-TRASH-BIN-mother-arrested-child-endangerment.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
True singing is not a matter of "talent"; it is an art form. See "Lakmé Flower Duet Erika Miklósa Bernadett Wiedemann Budapest" on Youtube, for an example of the art. Whitney Houston's "talent" helped her to sound trashily exciting in a middle school sort of way. That's it.
She and many others stuck in the sad shallow boat of twentieth century American culture simply ran into a few of life's completely unexceptional strong waves, capsized and died. And she wasn't out that far, either. She never left the sight of those on shore; not for a moment.
It is apropos to SBPDL blog that a famous black died broke after being paid millions upon millions of dollars to merely sing. It underscores what Kersey is pointing out to the world about blacks.
Ironic too, that Houston died from over indulgence in alcohol, drugs, and her out of control behavior in Black History Month, formerly called the month of February.
Whitney Houston, over drugged, broke, naked, all alone, and dead at 48 years old in a bath tub. There's a moral there somewhere. I know it's the white man faults, but besides that?
The Governor of New Jersey, from all appearances, seems to be a person out of control himself, and he thinks lowering the US flag for such a person is proper. It makes me wonder what's his criteria for such an event? Himself?
Anyone else find it weird how many sites in the steveosphere or manosphere end up linking to articles or columns that tear at the curatin used against the American people that are published in British newspapers? I've noticed this trend in the last year or so. It is rather depressing that it isn't just criticism of Obama that needs to be found in British papers but also reports exposing the lies of the true horror of the multiculti brainwashers in our country.
Media members will not be spared if we see a French Revo style uprising.
So Whitney Houston wasn't "black enough," huh? Just what would that have gained her? She DID outlive Tupac Shakur and a host of other thugs.
But in the end, they both wound up in the same place.
It is worth noting that Louis Armstrong, who had a genuinely tough life (to give you an example, the orphanage where he grew up gave him the trumpet ... of a boy who died of TB) did not care at all if he was called Uncle Tom. Which he was. A lot. Nor did James Brown care (and he was called that, a lot). Nor did Wilt Chamberlain, who was also called that. Nor did Jackie Robinson care, and he was called that a lot.
All these guys had genuinely, out of their control, tough lives as kids or teens or young adults. They cared about ... making money. Not about "respect" and stuff that does not put cash in wallets. Read Louis Armstrong's biography (it is well worth your while, a completely honest look at Black life in pre-Civil Rights America). The man suffered enormously as a kid, privation Houston (a child of wealth and privilege) could never possibly know.
This is a distinctly modern disease. Keeping it real to death. [Though I suppose you could argue Billie Holliday, with an equally tough life as Louis', did the Houston arc decades before Whitney Houston was born.]
Media members will not be spared if we see a French Revo style uprising.
Damn straight. Nothing will be forgiven or forgotten by this white man. That much I promise you.
Paul,
This is one of those times you show your true colors.
One down, 40 million to go. Does that just about sum it up?
-Black Guy
Black Guy said - "One down, 40 million to go. Does that just about sum it up?"
Not the sentiment here mostly. But go away and stay away from non-blacks. Consider Liberia. It's a nice place and you'll fit in. Negroes destroy everything, and you know it.
Kersey,
It was Newton Minow, former FCC chair, who referred to TV as a "vast wasteland," not Ed Murrow. Newt's still alive and kicking, and still a critic of TV.
Fun fact: Sherwood Schwartz named the ill-fated boat on his show "Gilligan's Island" the S.S. Minnow as a dig at Newt.
W74: This whole USA is becoming without substance. It seems the culture and way-of-life we developed from 1607 up through, say, 1940, is not being overrun, it's being undermined. They've trampled the Meritocracy, sold products that cater to the lowest quality shopper, and turned us into a cultural void.
From:
http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display/16
In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation.
The images detached from every aspect of life fuse in a common stream in which the unity of this life can no longer be reestablished. Reality considered partially unfolds, in its own general unity, as a pseudo-world apart, an object of mere contemplation.
The spectacle cannot be understood as an abuse of the world of vision, as a product of the techniques of mass dissemination of images. It is, rather, a Weltanschauung which has become actual, materially translated.
The concept of spectacle unifies and explains a great diversity of apparent phenomena. The diversity and the contrasts are appearances of a socially organized appearance, the general truth of which must itself be recognized. Considered in its own terms, the spectacle is affirmation of appearance and affirmation of all human life, namely social life, as mere appearance.
The spectacle presents itself as something enormously positive, indisputable and inaccessible. ... The attitude which it demands in principle is passive acceptance ...
The spectacle is the existing order's uninterrupted discourse about itself, its laudatory monologue. It is the self-portrait of power in the epoch of its totalitarian management of the conditions of existence.
If the spectacle, taken in the limited sense of "mass media" which are its most glaring superficial manifestation, seems to invade society as mere equipment, this equipment is in no way neutral but is the very means suited to its total self-movement.
The spectacle within society corresponds to a concrete manufacture of alienation.
--from the Society of the Spectacle
OK, the "guy" who wrote this was an anarchist, but he may have been on to something. And this back in the 1960s when there were only 13 channels on your television tube.
one guy flew in from UK to be
part of the crowd outside the funeral..mourning.
far as '40 million to go'..there are a billion blacks in africa and with white mens help itll be 2 billion in 30? more years????
This is an issue that transends race. I have contempt for anyone who allows themselves to die stupidly from a self inflicted condition. This is esecially the case when someone has to commit a felony ever single time they indulge in their little hobby. ("Possession Controlled Substance: Cocaine" is a felony in every state in the country...) I'm consistant in this feeling too. I feel the same way about Elvis, Joplin, Morrison, etc.
And yes, it is appaling that some over-hyped pop culture figure would be seen as warranting the flags of a State to be flown at half staff.
This is not so much a racial issue as it is a drug culture issue and a celebrity worship issue.
-Fireforce
Absolutely agree, Fireforce. Look at society's adoration and encouragement of Winehouse, Doherty, Hilton, Lindsay Lohan (who today has received another gig as host of SNL) and half the England football squad... society as an whole has degenerated beyond the colour line.
Houston's singing always reminded me of Barbra Streisand - another loud, belt-out-songs minority singer who is over-rated.
Kylie - I'm not a great fan of Jessye Norman, but I love Ella Fitzgerald. I have a couple of old tapes (that my father made for me from his records decades ago) of Fitzgerald singing Cole Porter (homosexual but master wordsmith). Lovely music, lilting voice, clever lyrics.
From Kevein Costner:
“You set the bar so high that professional singers, your own colleagues, they don’t want to sing that little country song – what would be the point?” Kevin said with a smile.../
I much prefer Dolly's versions, even the simple, bare-bones version she sang on Porter Wagoner's show.
JB: Kersey,
It was Newton Minow, former FCC chair, who referred to TV as a "vast wasteland," not Ed Murrow. Newt's still alive and kicking, and still a critic of TV.
That misattribution should have been directed at myself and not Paul. Thank you for citing the correct source. That Minow persists as a "critic of TV" comes as little to no surprise.
Sheila: Houston's singing always reminded me of Barbra Streisand - another loud, belt-out-songs minority singer who is over-rated.
A good comparison. Both of them were excessively narcissistic and just as obnoxious to boot.
STOP THIS STUPIDITY! GET A GRIP!
BLACK AMERICAN DID NOT HOUND WHITNEY FOR BEING TOO WHITE! One or two incidents don't make a trend! Black American culture produced and loved Whitney Houston; just as they love Dionne Warrick(who sings the same kind of music as Whitney), Aretha Franklin, who was her godmother and Cissy Houston the singer who is her mother. Many whites are looking for an excuse to say mean things about black people. Black America has produced the world's greatest singers, and that is a fact. And that is really the issue. There is no white singer who can compare to Whitney - not Barbara Streisand, not Celine Dion, no other white female singer that has ever been on the American scene could equal Whitney's clarity of sound. Isn't that the true bone of contention here? Jealousy? Whitney sang the National Anthem and it topped the charts for 20 weeks. She was beautiful, graceful and nice to everyone; she gave millions upon million of dollars to improve life for kids. YES SHE WAS THE GREATEST!
Neither Bobby Brown nor the viciousness of white envy can take that away from her. Her music will be her legacy. Fifty years from now people will still be listening to her music and they will say, "What a great voice!"
"STOP THIS STUPIDITY! GET A GRIP!"
Well I agree with you there, in the sense of De mortuis nihil nisi bonum (of the dead, speak only good). People here who are calling nasty names at a recently deceased person, really ought to recall their better natures. The commenter is right, that's ugly and uncalled-for.
"BLACK AMERICA DID NOT HOUND WHITNEY FOR BEING TOO WHITE!"
I'm willing to take your word for it, not being an expert myself, but the fact is the thing has received serious discussion from many quarters, not just here, even from people who knew her and from Whitney herself. It goes to social issues far larger than the tragedy at hand, and is therefore worth due consideration.
"Many whites are looking for an excuse to say mean things about black people."
Believe me, if we were looking for an 'excuse,' we have what they call a target-rich environment without this sad event.
"Black America has produced the world's greatest singers, and that is a fact."
Well, closer to a 'fact' would be that Black America has produced lots and lots and lots of very great singers, and that is plenty to be proud of. I can understand your using "world's greatest" in the context of your annoyance, but as you yourself would say: Get a grip. There is no "greatest" in these matters. De gustibus non disputandum est.
"And that is really the issue."
Um, no it isn't. The issue is whether a person, even a great artist, who destroyed themselves in such a tragic and socially regrettable fashion, should be given the honors of the state: because of the question, What message does it send? I don't think there's an easy answer, because it isn't an easy question. Try arguing conceptually for once, instead of taking everything personally.
"There is no white singer who can compare to Whitney"
Now your ignorance is showing. Singers like Whitney Houston represent the Everest of the Black musical tradition, and it's a fine and noble one. But the fact is, Streisand and Celine Dion et al are merely something like the Catskills or the Poconos of the White musical tradition. Listen to some opera. Google Youtube "Queen of the Night". Lots of brilliant Black singers in that tradition, too (Leontyne Price comes to mind), but don't throw Streisand at me, you'll just embarrass yourself.
"Isn't that the true bone of contention here? Jealousy?"
Good grief, here we go again. Black people always have this bizarre fantasy that whites are jealous of them. FFS, whites landed on the goddamn moon. We have Shakespeare, Mozart, Bach, Fellini, Bergman, Apocalypse Now. No, for the umpty-billionth time: we admire your own artistic achievements just fine, but we are not jealous of you. Now stop it, you just make yourselves look silly.
"Whitney sang the National Anthem and it topped the charts for 20 weeks."
And God bless her for it. It was a beautiful moment, and she was utterly dazzling.
"She was beautiful, graceful and nice to everyone"
OK, now I'm back to agreeing with you. Let us respect the dead, and by all means let us respect that she was a wonderful artist and it is sad to lose her.
May she rest in peace, and may choirs of angels sing her to her sleep, (although she'll probably out-do them all, right?)
Cheers to you for sticking up for her.
The Al Sharpton as in The Al Sharpton who showed his respect by tweeting during the service?
Anonymous (February 20, 2012 12:30 PM): YES SHE WAS THE GREATEST!
Sure thing. This drowned-in-a-tub Black crackhead really put to shame those Dead White Male musicians like Bach, Beethoven, Scarlatti, Handel and goodness knows how many others.
Fifty years from now people will still be listening to her music and they will say, "What a great voice!"
On the odd chance that Houston songs gets any airtime. Let's see how her song catalog compares a half century later with that of, say, The Beatles.
Zenster wrote, "'Kylie: … as someone with some musical training…'
All this and 'musical training'? You are a goddess!"
Thank you, Zenster. But I hasten to add I'm exactly what I said--someone with some musical training. Not a trained musician nor a professional one.
I play and sing for my own pleasure--certainly not for anyone else's. I'm really best at critical listening and often wish my fingers and voice were as proficient as my ears.
By the way, thank you for introducing me to Davy Graham. (IIRC, you recommended him here at SBPDL last year.) Wonderful playing, love his clean melody lines and use of marcato.
DW: "One talent left us in the early 50s, but did not pass away until 2004. That was Artie Shaw."
DW, I adore Artie Shaw. The man was a genius--composer, arranger, clarinetist--he did it all superbly. As I commented on one YouTube clip, the things he could do with quarter tones were immoral and probably should be illegal.
Sheila: "Houston's singing always reminded me of Barbra Streisand - another loud, belt-out-songs minority singer who is over-rated."
My feelings exactly.
"Kylie - I'm not a great fan of Jessye Norman, but I love Ella Fitzgerald. I have a couple of old tapes (that my father made for me from his records decades ago) of Fitzgerald singing Cole Porter (homosexual but master wordsmith). Lovely music, lilting voice, clever lyrics."
My folks had the Newport Jazz Festival 1957 LP with Ella on one side and Billie Holliday on the flip side. Ella was still in her 30's then and in excellent voice. Her version of Ellington's "I Got It Bad and That Ain't Good" is wonderful. She's in total control (the intervals of that melody are really hard to sing) and endlessly expressive. She has real vocal power, not that ear-splitting bellowing that passes for "talent" these days.
Anonymous: "I much prefer Dolly's versions, even the simple, bare-bones version she sang on Porter Wagoner's show."
Me, too. Houston's version is just an excuse to show off her powerful voice--I'm not denying its auditory power, just its power to move me--where Dolly's version is tender, just like the song itself.
What the christ may a white person be jealous of?!? are you out of your cotton pickin'(hah!) mind?!?
sigh. Performers are a half step above prostitutes, if that.
Is there something from her personal life that doesn't reflect that reality?!?
Jealous. silly negroe, we know blacks ruin everything they touch. They're a cursed people, that's why we won't voluntarily touch anything they've touched(can you blame us from not wanting to use water fountains they spit in?!? or seats on the bus they've destroyed?!? LOL jealous!
god, your 75% herpes rate in adult blacks, the ruined crime filled neighborhoods, the semi moronic IQ, the huge abortion and HIV rate from your D/L bruthaz.
your donk riding on 22s? the bling? that's what we're jealous of?
whatever. think what you want. your opinion is valueless. it wont make any difference as you're incapable of contribution to society, incapable of leaving the chains of bondage called welfare(not that you're smart enough to even know they're chains). You can't raise your children, can't educate them, can't get a job on merit, can't do anything really besides be a poverty factory and strut around like a chicken clucking about whitey be jell-us! and stingy!
how about we cut off gubmint bribes not to riot and offer a ticket to Liberia if you prefer your own culture? sink or swim is the american (white) way.
good luck to you
by the way, to the Black: your welcome for the language you speak-you know, a written one.
want to enlighten me to all the great African history prior to colonization? I know its tough since Africans didn't bother to write anything, since they couldn't.
isn't it weird after having such a rich hiatory of invention, they never quite mastered the wheel in Africa?
yes indeed, the African is a wise and noble race! that's why they, um, achieved what in the last 50 years? hacking each others limbs off or creating a bill of rights?
I guess Im ray-ciss for noticing.
g'head, take my seat on the bus. and the lunch counter. and next to my kid in school. ill just escape to the next suburb and leave you to destroy everything.
does anybody doubt if we had separate water fountains they'd destroy theirs, and most likely ours too? funny thing is white people would fix theirs, while blacks would just complain how rayciss it all is.
I don't believe for a second that she was hounded into her addiction by being deemed “too white”. She presented herself like a hood rat anytime she was left to her own devices. She wasn’t “black enough”?? Get a load of “Being Bobby Brown” and I would say she was “too Black”. Blame is being put on her ex-husband for her addiction when it is also well-known she was on drugs before she met him, while they were married and after they divorced. He, on the other hand, has gotten clean and remained so since divorcing her. It would seem she was a greater danger to him than he ever was to her.
EVERYONE knows what killed her and it galls me that yet again the Black community wants to make a hero out of a person who exemplified all that is wrong with Black people
Enough already. They knew all about Whitney and they knew all about Michael Jackson, too. Whitney Houston had every opportunity from cradle to grave. They just don’t want anyone to see that it isn’t lack of money or opportunity that keeps them where they are. Too bad it’s way too late for that.
The secret is out.
Do you know what is insane to me, the fact that you all seem to be seeing this as a "black thing" when in fact many "white legends" are the exact same way.
Elvis, Johnny Cash, Frank Sinatra, Waylon Jennings, etc are all revered in history as greats but they struggled with drugs, prison lockups and the same issues as Whitney and yet I don't see them getting called out in the same manner. Why is that?
Let's get something else straight. Being "black enough" is not defined in the way you all seem to want it defined. People were used to Aretha, Patti, and Gladys so when Whitney came out they were looking for that sort of soul and in the beginning she lacked it. Over the years it was allowed to come out as seen in her collaborations and image. Rihanna and Beyonce have a different generation of fans who are being brought up with totally different influences that their parents and grandparents so it makes sense that they can succeed with a different image. Beyonce actually shows her Southern R&B and soul roots even if they are toned down because she isn't as good a singer.
"Elvis, Johnny Cash, Frank Sinatra, Waylon Jennings, etc are all revered in history as greats but they struggled with drugs, prison lockups and the same issues as Whitney and yet I don't see them getting called out in the same manner. Why is that?"
First, because they were great. Houston wasn't, she was just loud.
Second, Houston didn't appear to be "struggling" with her drug problem so much as succumbing to it.
Third, because that is how we view her and we're entitled to express our opinions, even if they are unflattering.
"Let's get something else straight. Being 'black enough' is not defined in the way you all seem to want it defined."
No, you need to get something straight. We'll define being "black enough" any way we choose. You don't dictate terms here.
What's "insane," Tracy, is this utter devotion to and concern for a black pop singer who overdosed. Or a white pop singer who overdosed. Or any other societal misfit who takes a modicum of natural gifts, an overdose of public adulation and money, and ends up drowning in a bathtub.
I have far more important things to be concerned about - such as the fact that I can SEE.
Get a life and find another website.
Paul - it may be another paycheck or two in the future, but we still plan to contribute to your public campaign. I hope it's not too late to get on board.
Tracey: Elvis, Johnny Cash, Frank Sinatra, Waylon Jennings, etc are all revered in history as greats but they struggled with drugs, prison lockups and the same issues as Whitney and yet I don't see them getting called out in the same manner.
It might also have to do with how none of them blew $150 million in a decade or two and, at least in a few cases, left behind estates worth more than just their song catalogs. A failing that Witless Houston had in common with Michael Jackson.
Tracy- you're awesome as a rep. of black thinking!
Id kill to hear you elaborate on OJs innocence, Katrina, black flash mobs and polar bear hunting aka knockout king, etc.
You have much to contribute! Most who aren't forced to 'work' with you would never believe the Black narrative!
I've had DWL friends that couldn't believe I was right abouf black 'work' ethics until they saw for themselves. I understand. You just can't believe your lying eyes
Of course now my friend cant remember that and is back to everybody is equal.
I'm betting Tracy has some history as a screeching negress but whitey kept her down.
Whitney was a self disposeable (hah!) pop star, Johnny Cash and Frank Sinatra and Elvis were legendary singers. and white.
nobody cares about dead black singers except blacks. why should they?
Kylie: it was me who made the comment about Arthur Arshawsky, aka Artie Shaw, not DW.
Anyway, as for singers, Ella was a true gift. But the number of white singers with their sense of pitch, timing, and just plain flair:
Perry Como.
Edye Gormé.
June Christie (sp?).
Steve Lawrence.
Mel Tormé.
Rosemary Clooney.
Peggy Lee.
Margaret Whiting.
Martha Tilton.
For just plain fun: Teresa Brewer.
And one man who, for a man who could not sing, could really sing: Fred Astaire.
Black singers who I greatly enjoy to this day:
Johnny Hartman.
Billy Eckstine, who is an acquired taste, but I have acquired it.
Nathan "Nat" Cole.
Dinah Washington.
Diane Schuur.
As for Miss Houston: she took a good set of pipes, did marginal material, and then killed first the voice, and then the rest of her with the drugs and other problems. THAT part is what I find sad.
"Kylie: it was me who made the comment about Arthur Arshawsky, aka Artie Shaw, not DW."
Sorry.
"Anyway, as for singers, Ella was a true gift. But the number of white singers with their sense of pitch, timing, and just plain flair:"
I know a professional rock musician who has great respect for Dean Martin's singing ability. Dean's phrasing and breath control were so good that he always made it sound effortless. Ditto Ken Curtis.
"And one man who, for a man who could not sing, could really sing: Fred Astaire."
And Hoagie Carmichael.
Nice analysis of TV, Zenster. Ever watch "Network"?
I don't think it's fair to compare Opera singers to pop singers. The former is in a league all of it's own--far more demanding.
That being said, as a reply to the interloper who claimed Houston was the best and that all black singers are better than whites--his knowledge bing the realm of pop, obviously. I would say that Julie Andrews could easily best the likes of Houston and Streisand. And then there was Judy Garland and her daughter, though not as good, certainly as good or better than Houston.
I can't believe you guys left out Sinatra in the male category. I like Frank. I also like Roy Orbison quite a bit--never tire of listening to him. I like how his voice aged and became richer with age, like Presley and Sinatra.
Speaking of male singers, if you never heard Jim Neighbors (Gomer Pyle) sing, you should. Clearly a talent that went largely unused. I actually saw him sing for the first time on television when I was a kid and was awed--like all the adults watching. It was one of those "who woulda thunk" moments. Another voice that had so much promise was Jim Morrison's. You truly hear it in a few of the Doors songs such as "Touch Me". Very rich and smooth.
I don't buy much "new" music--unless it's on vinyl (much is) and it actually has talent--most doesn't.
RobertB: Nice analysis of TV, Zenster. Ever watch "Network"?
Thank you. As to "Network", not a single episode. I cannot think of even one relatively recent American sitcom that has ever made me come back for a scond helping. Being more of a Monty Python's kind of guy, the British cooking sitcom "Chef!" (1993-1996) was one of the most recent to snare my attention ― Lenny Henry's ability to string together several minutes of continuous invective without reusing a word rivals that of John Cleese ― but that's because I'm a cooking junkie and was once a professional chef myself.
Zenster--
"Network" was a movie made about the corrupt nature of television networks in the 1970's.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074958/
Network is a must see.
So the USA is lowering its flags for Whitney, and Her Majesty is handing out knighthoods to piano players.
Whatever, man. Whatever.
Post a Comment