Should Amy Winehouse be denied residency status based on her look and attitude? Is that even in the criteria?

By Jeff Fedee

I had dismissed the idea of wasting ink on the bulimic looking Amy Winehouse, until I read that the authorities were considering granting residency status to this deeply troubled tortured soul.
To exacerbate it even further the news reported that Winehouse was to engage in helping St Lucia’s youth. I had also been perplexed by the number of St Lucians going public to express sympathy and tolerance to the nauseating antics of Amy Winehouse in
St Lucia, among them my good friend Nicholas Joseph in Atlanta, a misguided Minister of Tourism laying down the red carpet and extending carte blanche treatment, as well as our revered Star Publisher Rick Wayne.
We are all prone to lapses of judgment, but I see a double standard being displayed by a gullible and hypocritical
St Lucian public in the generous and sympathetic attitude being extended to Winehouse. I had dutifully trekked to Pigeon Point during the Jazz Festival to see how our tax dollars were being wasted, because evidently to our Tourism officials a notorious reputation for obnoxious behaviour and not necessarily musical ability was the main criteria for including Amy Winehouse in the Jazz line-up.
For me it was a stomach churning experience to witness a reptilian looking character with a skeleton frame, staggering onto the stage, barely fitting into what appeared to be a size zero dress, cut just above an unsightly crotch, images of which were transmitted all over the world via the British tabloids.
My immediate reaction was that if a St Lucian artiste appeared on stage in such a state, evidently under the influence of a mind-altering substance, the morality police would quickly get her offstage. I thought Amy Winehouse should be locked up, be put in compulsory rehab and force fed to put some flesh on her insect frame.
Yet Amy’s disgusting performance was compounded by a misguided Tourism Minister, instead of admitting a major faux pas, defending the indefensible that Amy Winehouse had performed as expected and had attracted a large contingent from the UK for the Jazz festival. I wish factual figures instead of risible statements could be presented to show how many more British visitors came to St Lucia for our 2009 Jazz Festival because of Amy Winehouse compared to previous years.
It is my considered opinion based on her performance that Amy Winehouse is an overrated artiste beyond her abilities, doing untold damage to the youth by her outrageous antics.
The tolerance of Amy Winehouse stems from her attributed £10 million fortune, gained from the cretinous people who buy her records of no redeeming value or lasting quality. On current form, none of her songs will be remembered one year from now. A career destined to bomb spectacularly. The notoriously fickle public will soon tire of her louche behaviour.
That St Lucians are falling over themselves to accommodate Winehouse leads me to conclude in street line that “money talks and bullshit walks.”
The image being portrayed by Amy Winehouse is contrived. Why would her handlers strategically put several glasses of what appeared to be rum and coke next to her microphone stand, which she quickly gobbled up, affecting a faux sexual middle eastern contortion of her body like a reptilian character in Dante’s Inferno.
Her outrageous behaviour is expected to gain sympathy from a gullible public who will characterize her as “a poor little girl who needs help.” The same tolerance and sympathy extended to Amy Winehouse has never been extended to some of our own homegrown talent, afflicted by alcohol. Has anybody said a kind word about Jimmy Heavens, with his impeccable baritone voice, who has hit the skids, with no attempt to rehabilitate him? Do we remember the best master of ceremonies for calypso shows that St Lucia has ever produced? Tony Martino was allowed to languish and die. Have those in authority ever attempted to forcefully rehabilitate the talented Ashanti?
Those who sing the praises of Amy Winehouse are missing the point: she is not a good model for St Lucian citizens, particularly the youth, despite the music. Which begs the question: what positive message is Amy Winehouse conveying to the young people out there? Is there any redeeming value in her most famous song, “They want me to go to rehab, but I say no, no, no.” And the effrontery of this character who reminds me of a tattooed reptile, offering to help St Lucian youth when it is Winehouse who needs help.
I challenge anyone to hum any of Amy Winehouse’s songs when she goes into inevitable obscurity. It is reflective of much of today’s music that is purely ephemeral and has no lasting quality.
I wish to contrast this with music of the 70s, which is not purely an indulgence in mindless nostalgia. As a young announcer in his early twenties I worked for the most powerful radio station that has ever operated in the region, Radio Antilles, from 1971-1975 transmitting on 500,000 watts of power, when the standard for all other stations in the region was a mere 10,000 watts. It was a period when the music was inspiring, the words were poetic, and we presented an eclectic mix of music that was diverse, dynamic and dramatic. The 70s was a period of music that has stood the test of time. A few examples that one can access on the Internet, and even if one was not alive in that era, the music will still blow your mind because they had a lasting quality. The groups were superb, their harmonizing and the musical dexterity incomparable. Among them Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes, with The Love I Lost, Bad Luck, the Chi-Lites, Oh Girl, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Barry White to name a few. Access Neil Diamond, and the song Be, which had profound lyrics. Nothing comparable is being produced by today’s artiste.
My acquaintance with STAR Publisher Rick Wayne goes back to that era, when as an adventurous young man I visited Rick Wayne, working for Weider magazine at the time in Los Angeles, California. At that time the word “condo” was not yet in our vocabulary, but I stayed at Rick’s condo in Los Angeles, where he had ensconced a long legged blonde. I was awestruck as a young man to be taken to Weider headquarters, by a Mr Universe, to walk along the corridors and see along the hall of fame, larger than life paintings depicting the god-like physiques of four of the world’s leading body builders. They were Joe Weider, Larry Scott, Arnold Schwarchenegger and yes, Mr Rick Wayne of St Lucia. I was dumbstruck. These paintings must be priceless today. No hint of arrogance or haughtiness about the man who befriended me, but always exuding supreme confidence.
So I was astonished when Rick Wayne, who has been unforgiving and lacerating in the past of those who pollute the sacred temple of their bodies, stated without apology that St Lucia has prospered from the visit of Amy Winehouse. The only evidence he provided was the free publicity and the blogs on the Internet. He didn’t say whether the publicity was positive or negative, or talk about the $250,000 of our tax dollars that our misguided Minister of Tourism paid for her ludicrous performance. He even asked what I considered to be a perverse question: “What if Winehouse croaked when she was expected to sing?” So value for money is not a consideration for artiste performing at our Jazz Festival!
I doubt Rick would extend that same level of tolerance to a St Lucian performer. He would sure be calling for non-payment for such a woeful display.
But we can all recall, if our memories are not selective, how Rick has railed in the past on his Talk show about St Lucians’ predilection to gather at what he disparagingly calls rum shops, drinking themselves into a stupor from the poison of alcohol, the inane arguments they indulge in, and the horrible physicality of obesity which is rampant in St Lucia, especially among politicians who before election to office are lithe and lean, but become huge and sluggardly from over indulgence in hotel food as they embark on their frequently unnecessary travels overseas when their presence at those meetings are of no consequence. He was particularly scathing of foreign minister George Odlum and his humongous girth. For Rick, obesity symbolizes a lack of discipline, slothfulness and poverty of mind and spirit.
So why tolerate a character like Amy Winehouse who portrays a reptilian image with obnoxious tattoos all over her skeletal frame?
I would strongly urge that Amy Winehouse be denied residency status to purchase property in St Lucia. Is she being given special treatment because police records and statement of character are required for the granting of an Alien Landholding license to foreigners? She would be a menace and a dangerous influence to St Lucian society, because the demons that inhabit her tortured body will still have to be fed and I ask whether the authorities are going to ignore the indulgences in illegal substances for which ordinary St Lucians are arrested and incarcerated.
Finally a word from the book of wisdom. People who do not believe in the spiritual realm do not understand the laws of life and nature. Those who inhabit a world of debauchery and filth will, according to the five deadly sins, live an existence marked by turmoil and be whipped by demons that will afflict them right here on earth. There are those who suffer and cannot explain their pain and the tumult in their lives. With all her riches Amy Winehouse does not enjoy spiritual enlightenment and simple happiness.
But for those who abhor drugs and are compassionate to the unfortunate among us there is a peace and elevation of that individual to a tranquil plane.
If you draw unsavoury characters or evil persons within your orbit, your life becomes miserable and you become subject to unassailable demonic forces.
The protective shield that has protected St Lucia from calamities in the past through the prayers and spirituality of our people will dissipate, and I predict that the relative peace and tranquility that we enjoy in this country will desert us and untold misery and disasters will visit us.
We cannot put the future of our country in jeopardy for the sake of the sale of a house to a character that will draw to St Lucia untold human suffering.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites