Amy Winehouse, Michael
Jackson, and now Whitney Houston has joined the 'Hollywood Hills of
the Celestial Hereafter'/VIP Room to Club Wormfood (delete where
applicable). Once more, we witness The Bovine Masses jump on the
Grief Tourism bandwagon and are united in an outpouring of fake
sentiment and grief.
Not me, in this
instance – as usual, I have what I feel is a unique train of
thought to what The Bovine Masses believe and as a result I'm not
subscribing to any of it due to the fickle nature of the proceedings.
The above artists (and many more that I shall not mention) have all
fell on hard times and had their names dragged through the mire and
lost their credibility. Due to various reasons – the most common is
becoming a patron saint of personal abuse by turning into a human
drink and drugs cabinet, snorting and drinking cheap anything because
the fame has gone to their heads and have become entirely detached
from the normal realms of reality that you or I live and dwell in.
The Bovine Masses, with
their short attention spans looking for a quick fix and 'next big
thing' to follow that is fashionable dropped the above artists like a
hot potato; their empty eyed stares and short attention spans
swanning off to follow the next 'deity' – Marilyn Manson had it
down to a tee with the song Dope show “They love you when you're on
the covers, when you're not they love another”. Never a truer word
sung, even though his music is a 'Marmite Thing' in alternative
circles to some people.
These particular
artists are no longer here, and they also share the same common
denominator; the simple fact that a little as a week or so before
their deaths, people were calling them all the unsavoury names under
the sun. Guess what? As soon as they shuffle off the mortal coil so
to speak, people buy their albums in droves. People are interviewed
on the TV, Radio, and internet based media saying how much they love
them and are crying oceans of insincere crocodile tears. The big
question is, how many of those people are being sincere?
I wager that less than
half of them stuck with the artists through thick and thin, and were
hardcore fans of theirs. In fact, if you asked them who Whitney
Houston is a week before she died I reckon they would either
struggle to remember or say something along the lines of “Oh, the
one that sounds like Mariah Carey whose turned into a massive drugs
cabinet?”.
If you like an artists
that much, you stick with them through the good times and the bad
times. Countess Bastardo, for example – absolutely loves Duran
Duran and sticks with them. She seen them during their heyday, she
seen them when half of the band members walked out and she bought
their albums when they were declared bankrupt. THAT, my friends, is
liking an artist. Not this fickle outpouring of mock grief.
A typical example of
this is album sales. Again, a week prior to their deaths, their
albums littered all the bargain bins in music stores up and down the
land. You couldn't even give their albums away in some instances in a
'buy one, get one free' offer. If you check certain sources online,
you will find that online download prices from music stores leapt up
a few pounds as soon as news hit that she died. She was practically
still a warm and very fresh corpse and yet some slick haired
marketing wanker decides to cash in on her death. I care little for
Whitney Houston and I was never a fan of her music – I found her
stuff to be the sugary nonsense of the 1980s that certainly wasn't
the wheat in the chaff; even as a child I preferred the music of Kate
Bush, Depeche Mode, OMD, Madness, Art of Noise, Sting, and The Police
and probably had the makings of becoming an 'alternative' all the way
back then. It was the dreadful nonsense that emitted from my sisters
room when she was a teenager with the likes of such crap like Belinda
Carlise and Five Star which by no means is a good memory.
But notice one thing
here in this blog? I've not jumped on the Grief Tourism bandwagon
here. and called a spade, a spade. Cared little for her back then,
and care even less right now. Because, as a principle I can't stand a
bandwagon and the notion of herd conformity on many different levels
and definitions. It's a shame that such free thinking people like
myself are in the minority and can see through the vast oceans of
bullshit, double standards and hypocrisy that we encounter in our day
to day lives.
As a closer to this,
and as a free thinking individual please check YouTube for a clip
from the Australian TV show 'The Chasers War on Everything'. One of
the script writers made a song called “Arseholes Become Top Blokes
After Death” - which explains all of what I mean beautifully and
can be applied to the next time a celebrity drops dead, when The
Bovine Masses start singing their praises from the hilltops. While as
little as last week, they called them all the miscreants under the
sun.
To deliberately
misquote the the late Mrs Houston:
“It's not right, and
it's not okay”.
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