I thought and thought and thought about whether I should repost the Narional Enquirer's picture of Whitney Houston in her coffin. I very nearly did it. Whether you believe in a life after death or not, I don't see how you can consider a corpse sacred any more than you can consider an empty bottle of wine intoxicating.
And as an editor at a music, I can't think iof any starker visua of the cost of addiction than a pix of a woman in the prime of her life quite obviously dead.
I took a look at the picture myself, it is easy to find, just google Whitney in her coffin, and I didn't find it particularly disturbing. We have all encountered death, often of someone we love, it is hardly a shocker. Plus, death doesn't bring dignity to the person who died. If they were dicks they remain dicks, and most dead people were dicks. Or if that's too cruel, or perhaps untrue, than most people are just like me.
What wouild I have done to my corpse? I don't give a toss what's done to it. Gang rape it, draw a moustache on it, throw it out with the garbage. Show it as much respect as you would a steak dinner. Eat it. All the same to me.
Put it this way, there are bottles of wine worth $10,000. How much are they worth when they are empty.
So why don't I post the picture?
Because it upsets other people.
Not her family, National Enquirer has, they wouldn't notice rock nyc. But readers, friends, my co-editor. I can imagine a very pissed off world… and it isn't important enough. Instead I picked the pix you see here.
Death demands very little of us but we should respect what we absolutely know for certain. That whatever aninated our body has stopped doing so. EVERYTHING else is unknown. So the corpse holds a special place in life: it is our vision of the future, rotting flesh. Now, that's a somewhat harsh future but it is the only one we know for certain.
And in most cases it isn't the business of a rock and roll blog: we can ignore it. But this time we can deal with it by showing Whitney's corpse. Who would that help? I dunno? Anybody who was thinking of offing emself for one….