Whitney Houston: Death Becomes Her

I never saw her movies. I never even heard her sing, anywhere, ever. I just wasn't into her kind of music. Actually, for quite a long time I had her confused with Natalie Cole. (My son will consider that racist, but two beautiful black female singers about the same age can easily be confused.) So all I know is that she was a major star and then she married another big star named Bobby Brown and they had a reality TV show wherein they both looked like a couple of drunk drug addicts and had a lot of nasty fights.

Eventually, somewhere in the 90s, Whitney's career began to crumble. Some concerts were canceled and then when she did appear, some audience members walked out while she was singing. Pictures of her looking disheveled and unkempt started replacing the retouched glamor shots on tabloid covers. I gleaned all this information from Internet news stories or while standing in the checkout line at the supermarket, and never once did I ever hear or think or know that she was considered to be a national treasure. Now she is dead at the age of 48, most likely from drugs and alcohol but who knows-- maybe she had a heart attack; either way, her death is apparently a devastatingly huge loss to the entire world.

Since Whitney's lifeless body was discovered in a hotel bathtub in Beverly Hills yesterday afternoon, her Has-Been status has been reversed to that of a Goddess/Legend without whom the country cannot possibly survive. Photos of her when she was young and beautiful and in favor with an adoring public fill the airwaves, quite unlike the photos that were circulating for years as her popularity declined (see above). Now nobody has a bad word to say about her.  The Rev. Al Sharpton, who always pops up when anyone of color does anything at all, has called for a national prayer today in her honor.

Fame sure is funny when you're dead.