She could have been so much more. RIP, Amy Winehouse, 1983 - 2011

[blue2blue]

My "lucky break" happened on June 25, 1989, when my friends dragged me, semi-conscious, into a hospital. I was 20 years old. That was the end of my old ways, and gradually, I began to lose the appeal for any kind of intoxication. It got much easier in my early 30s, when I developed an allergic reaction to the slightest amount of alcohol. So, for ten years or so, I've been a boring mother{censored}er, but one who is alive and well.

I was a great drunk. All my friends told me so when I stopped drinking.

 

And I knew how to throw a great party. My parties were, well, I don't like to brag (OK, I do, but I know how it makes a guy look) but my parties, particularly Memorial Day parties, were pretty famous among my set. I liked to get home from work or decide, say, at breakfast on a holiday to throw a party that night and start calling folks (I knew 73 phone numbers by heart; I counted one time) and be able to field 30 or 40 people by 6 or 7 at night, often including a band. I'd typically throw two or three parties that would have as much as a couple hundred people. One outdoor party with a couple bands had maybe 350 people and the cops came out 4 times before they finally made us take everyone inside or send them home. (That party, actually, was the one that burned me out... my good friends mostly got stupid drunk but there were so many strangers wandering through, pawing my guitars, looking at my multitracks and other gear that I couldn't get as drunk as I would certainly have liked -- and finally did about 1:30 am when the last stranger finally left [it was a workday the next day]. One guy who I had once even considered a friend, even climbed on top of a girl passed out on the couch and started kissing her. Fortunately, her boyfriend simply poured about 32 ounces of draft beer on them (not knowing what the situation was). But I kicked the SOB out and was hoping he'd give me an excuse to deck him (he was smaller than me, which isn't how I was raised but I would have loved a hint of an excuse).

 

But sometimes you have to give up the stuff of youth.

 

One day, when I was 43, I looked at my face in the mirror and I could see the fine roadmap of broken capillaries starting to light up my face. Less than ten years before, I'd worked for a pretty brilliant but enormously troubled and often hard drinking electronic design engineer -- a legend in his industry -- but as much for his outrageous behavior and the string of companies he'd started and then either bankrupted or been forced to sell -- along with groundbreaking designs that kept on making money for other people. I'd come in at 7:45 in the morning and he'd be working, the end of a quart of liquor on the desk or bench next to him. (And then there were the guns. He was a gun nut and he loved to talk as he gestured wildly with a gun in his hand. Can't tell you how many times I had to ask him not to point guns at me as we talked. And how many times he'd slur, Don't you think I know when my guns are loaded. An amazing guy. In a lotta ways.) Anyhow, that morning I drank my regular two beers with breakfast and, after my 5 pm 'coctail hour,' proceeded to drink at my normal pace. But at 11:20 that night, watching a Cheers rerun for the 8th time and finishing my 12 beer -- which was my average -- every two days I'd bring two 12 packs of bottle Bud from the supermarket around the corner -- and I thought, Man, maybe it really is time. The next morning I didn't even finish my first breakfast beer... I just didn't feel good. (Liver, I'm thinking now.) During the course of the day I slowly came to the conclusion that it was time. (In '89, after drinking pretty much every day since 1974 [except for 2 months in the hospital after a very nasty motorcycle wreck that wasn't alcohol related, but during which I continued to drink a few beers every week, with my Doctor's permission -- in fact, at his suggestion, I swear to you, you can ask my XGF who was there with me when he said, You're a drinking man, aren't you? It's OK if you have your friends bring you in beer from time to time. The regular nurses, the non-registry nurses who worked days, loved me for some reason and were happy to keep a couple beers in the nurse station fridge for me. This was even though for most of that time I was filled full of morphine, then Demerol, and finally Dilaudid (after weaning myself of injections, some clumsy x-ray techs managed, I'm 99% sure, now, to rebreak my femur (my leg had almost been torn off in the wreck, I was in the process of bleeding out into the gutter when the parameds got there) but, hey, that is another story (but was why I spent almost 5 years on crutches or a cane until a new doc quickly diagnosed my femur as still broken and held together by the big steel rod in it -- bio-ostegenic electromagnetic therapy [and 6 months back on crutches] finally healed it).

 

Anyhow... where was I?

 

Ah, yeah. I was a fun drunk. Everyone told me. (Of course, they all still drank plenty, too. Years later, people started admitting that, yeah, maybe 7 roadside sobriety checks [but no arrests, yo!] and over 20 years of enthusiastic daily drinking might not have been all that good an idea going forward.)

 

And, I have to admit -- but not without definitely mixed feelings -- alcohol was like the magic key for me to being able to tolerate and enjoy the company of my fellow humans. My intense (and often volatile) moodiness was smoothed right over. The same people I thought were crashing bores when I wasn't drinking (which was almost never) were, like, fascinating when I was drinking. Or at least I could drink myself down to their level. It worked for me. I'm an arrogant SOB (no, not you blue2blue ), but when I had a few [5 or 10] drinks in me [beer was just the base for drinking... I was big on tequila with beer chasers and then chasing the beer with more tequila], I was everybody's best friend.

 

Hell, that part was hard to give up. But, happily, by the time I quit, the actual drinking wasn't. (Hard to give up, that is.) I'd been hanging out with a lot of recovering heroin, coke and crack addicts and I knew program think pretty well. I called on my higher power for help and never looked back. It's been 17 years and, thank that higher power, I've never really been tempted, despite the realizations outlined above. It's a sacrifice giving up that bon vivantary and easy camaraderie -- but giving up the booze? I was lucky. I drank until I didn't want to drink any more and I've never really looked back.

 

I just wish it wasn't too late for Amy.

 

 

 

PS... you may notice that I diverged from my usual practice of mostly bite-sized paragraphs above. Just separating the people who really feel the need to know from the casual curiosity seekers.

[blue2blue]

 

Speaking of the LBC, Sublime's Bradley Nowell could be considered another...but he missed the club by 3 months, passing at 28.

I actually thought about that at the time. I didn't really know Bradley but a number of my friends were close to him. In fact, one of Eric and Bud's junior high school bands practiced in my buddy's Belmont Shore garage, and my pal's kid was their 'roadie.' I remember giving them my deathless insights into the music biz one afternoon when I was feeling big because one of my projects was getting a lot of local airplay in LB's old, pre-metal KNAC and on the college station out in Claremont (and, of course, on Rodney's Sunday night show). I felt like a big guy talking to the kids (beer in hand [sigh]).

 

A lot of people, of course, were really bummed when Brad died. He'd been clean for some time (but was slipping, obviously) and had a baby on the way. And, of course, their music was getting a load of play on KROQ and across the country. I'd just seen them one last time (they played the old Bogarts a lot) at a small, unannounced (but somewhat hinted at) show they did on the anniversary of one of the 'funky 4th street' used clothing shops that had helped them out early on (Meow) that I knew would be my last chance to see them in a small show. Of course, I didn't dream how sadly true that would be.

 

It's tough when a hometown hero dies.

[nice keetee]

Sad, not laughing water over the dam. There are a lot of past 27 club possibles who are still viable. Like 50% of marriages end in divorce. We never hear about the 50% which don't.

[John Sayers]

just another moth playing with the flame that eventually got her. How many do you know who have done it all before her.

[nice keetee]

just another moth playing with the flame that eventually got her. How many do you know who have done it all before her.

 

 

too many.

[MrKnobs]

Sad, not laughing water over the dam. There are a lot of past 27 club possibles who are still viable. Like 50% of marriages end in divorce. We never hear about the 50% which don't.

 

The other 50% end in death. Only two possibilities.

 

Terry D.

[blue2blue]

The other 50% end in death. Only two possibilities. Terry D.

I'm going to remember that, the next time someone asks why a guy who had fifteen girlfriends (not counting momentary assignations) never got married. As though that question didn't answer itself.

[Paul McCartney]

If the substance is too strong for you, then you are too weak.

[Vito Corleone]

Disturbing news indeed. I was a big fan of her albums and was always rooting for her to clean up and get her act together. Sadly that was not to be.

I often wonder though, with such troubled artists, how much the demons that haunt them drives their creativity. Had she cleaned up would she have soared? Or quickly become boring?

[MrKnobs]

I often wonder though, with such troubled artists, how much the demons that haunt them drives their creativity. Had she cleaned up would she have soared? Or quickly become boring?

 

As someone on OJ pithily said, "another role model, self euthanized, now deified."

 

As for the answer to your question, just follow the adventures of Saul T. Nads here on this forum. I say his internal demons drive his creativity, Ms. Flier bets the other side of the line. Perhaps we will see. We've both unbanned him several times so that the drama may play out.

 

Terry D.

[LRon Butterfly]

I've only been aware of this girl for less than a year and can't say I've seen a more obvious instance of a troubled young person crying for help. The people around her should be ashamed. Someone should put a boot up her fathers ass.

 

 

Her father seemed to try to help. It's her management and the people who sold/gave her all the drugs that have blood on their hands.

[Han]

Comment on the most tragic

about this poor kid:

 

 

This video literally tears my heart apart! I am so ANGRY and full of rage against those that stood around and watched this young woman totally fall to pieces. To sit here and watch this makes me sick to my stomach. She was in such a need of a friend...God grant her the peace? that no one on this earth seemed to offer her. May she finally have the love she so desperately was missing.

 

[Paul McCartney]

if he only would sing


[video=youtube;j1_1R-sx62c]

[kurdy]

I never had her last CD on regular rotation, though it was very good.

[blue2blue]

 

If the substance is too strong for you, then you are too weak.

I'm curious. What do you mean to say, there? It's all pithy sounding -- but what does it mean?

 

Also, I've been meaning to ask, what possesses someone to adopt as a user name the name of a famous artist. Surely you're not trying to fool people into thinking you are Paul McCartney. Are you trying to suggest that you're as good as Paul McCartney? Or, am I barking up the wrong tree and, though you're not an ex-Beatle, that is actually your real name and you've had enough of that other Paul McCartnety forcing you to use a different name? I could sort of understand the latter. I used to go by Tom Major because that was what folks called me since I was a little kid, but then David Bowie (and others) started writing songs 'about' Major Tom and so I started using my initials because I got sick of Ground control to... jokes.

 

But I'm curious, what possesses someone to adopt the name of a famous living artist as his forum user name?

[blue2blue]

I'm not sure that's exactly the message I took from "Rehab" -- that she was happy abusing -- and which actually seems to be about alcohol rehab -- and a song in which she claims she never wants to drink again. That said, while I mostly averted my eyes from the sad and, well, tawdry, events of her life, I did get the impression that alcohol was not her only substance problem.

 

As someone who has known more than a couple of junkies, crack heads, and alcoholics -- and seen deaths in all those camps among people who mattered to me -- I'm not sure how much friends and loved ones can always do. But, of course, in many but certainly not all cases, such folks are surrounded by other damaged people. Love -- and tough love -- which, by the way, does not mean turning one's back on the addict, but rather having the strength to not let oneself be manipulated into supporting and sustaining the addict's addiction -- which, as many folks know, is often harder than just giving the addict what he or she wants -- can only go so far.

 

There are seldom easy answers -- if there were, there would likely be a lot less addicts and a lot more happy people.

 

All I really know is it's a damn shame.

[Paul McCartney]

I'm curious. What do you mean to say, there? It's all pithy sounding -- but what does it mean? Also, I've been meaning to ask, what possesses someone to adopt as a user name the name of a famous artist. Surely you're not trying to fool people into thinking you are Paul McCartney. Are you trying to suggest that you're as good as Paul McCartney? Or, am I barking up the wrong tree and, though you're not an ex-Beatle, that is actually your real name and you've had enough of that othe r Paul McCartnety forcing you to use a different name? I could sort of understand the latter. I used to go by Tom Major because that was what folks called me since I was a little kid, but then David Bowie (and others) started writing songs 'about' Major Tom and so I started using my initials because I got sick of Ground control to... jokes. But I'm curious, what possesses someone to adopt the name of a famous living artist as his forum user name?

 

 

 

It means that all substances are poisons; there is none which is not a poison. The right dose differentiates a poison.

 

 

I am as much Paul McCartney as you are Picasso's blue period.

 

Would you have less stress when I change my forum name to Black Sabbath, or to Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band?

[blue2blue]

 

It means that all substances are poisons; there is none which is not a poison. The right dose differentiates a poison.

Ah. I was wondering. Which was why I asked.

I am as much Paul McCartney as you are Picasso's blue period. Would you have less stress when I change my forum name to Black Sabbath, or to Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band?

Ah. I was wondering.

 

With regard to Picasso and his blue period, maybe it's a sign of lack of erudition, but I don't know why using blue2blue as my username would be analogous to using Pablo Picasso as a username. Elucidation?

 

 

By the way, in trying to answer the Picasso question for myself, I just googled blue2blue and was reminded that, apparently since at least 2006, a property management services company (they claim to offer services ranging from IT management to gardening and landscaping; their customer support page has said Coming soon! for, as I recall, many years) has been using the name blue2blue. My use of the name goes back considerably longer, across a number of forum and other sites. Maybe I should point out that they have utterly no connection to me.

[Vito Corleone]

[Paul McCartney]

Pablo Picasso



Great idea. Next forum reincarnation will be Pablo Picasso, then I can talk about art and not music.

[Paul McCartney]

that girlie Amy got her voice by mistake in a similar way many forumites got their brains

[urca]

One less junkie off the street. Maybe people will start to wisen up.....

[flemtone]

that girlie Amy got her voice by mistake in a similar way many forumites got their brains

 

 

Rudy, go away. Serious.

[temnov]

Yeah, Rudy. It looks like you never been even drunk.

[Bookumdano2]

Rob Grill, Dan Peek, and Amy Winehouse all in the same two week period. Better stop fussing about gear and get to recording whatever you want to leave.