Dead Singer

D1 called from her restaurant job a few hours ago to tell me that my prophesy had come true: the singer Amy Winehouse was dead.

I rarely follow the personal travails of actors or singers, but I really dug Amy's music. The first time I heard her, I thought it might have been a newly discovered Bessie Smith record. Amy's voice is so smoky and sultry and throaty --the last thing I expected to learn is that she was a young, English Jewish girl.

Her songs were stirring. The arrangements were sparse and clear --like I was listening to a rehearsal in a small jazz club. She sang in a way that went right to my soul --you could hear the pain and suffering in her voice. I bought 2 of her CDs --and buying records is a rarity for me.

She seemed to cram too much living into her short life, and became addicted to a bunch of drugs. Her life story is cliched, of course. She died at 27, like Hendrix, Morrison, Joplin, and Cobain --the tortured artist --somehow too intense in her art to exist in this world.

I told Wifey and the D2 3 years ago that she'd be dead soon. Somehow, she eked out another 36 months or so of failed concert gigs and numerous domestic dramas, and failed rehabs.

The Facebook (tm) postings will be full of tales of the fallen diva. My friend Arnold, ultra conservative and strict Catholic, already commented showing this as a passion play in favor of tougher drug laws. Arnold's a terrific guy -- wonderful husband and father, true community leader. He's also a political retardate. As if tougher drug laws would have mattered.

Better to legalize and tax and spend more resources on treatment and drug abuse prevention.

But what do I know? All I know is that a talent is now silenced for the future. And when her hit song "Rehab" comes on, in which she sings about refusing to go, it will have a deep poignancy --deeper than it did before.

I'm so glad my family and close friends are mere mortals --no artistic geniuses among us. Our run of the mill demons are enough to battle, day by day, and night by sometimes sleepless night.