An Open Letter to Amy Winehouse

Dear Amy,

I’ve always prided myself on being a fan of yours; my ex got me listening to your first album Frank when you weren’t anorexic and you didn’t have any tattoos or freaky beehive hairdos. When I learned you were working with Mark Ronson I was thrilled, and when you won a Grammy in the brief moment you were sober or not [noticeably] on crack I turned to my friends and said, “see? I could totally be an A&R guy,” even though I’m in tech and, let’s face it, I could NEVER be an A&R guy.

And then you became a mess. A hot, tragic mess.

Now I hear about the video about you going off doing some racist sing-song rant, singing about Paki’s, Chinks and Nips and pulling back your eyes in front of a video camera to your rockstar-lifestyle boyfriend. And here’s the thing: given that I’m writing this open letter on a website called 8asians.com, this is usually the part where I wave my arms at how outrageous and inappropriate a remark like that is, and how shocked and appalled I am as an Asian American to see entertainers engaging in this type of behavior, blah blah fuckity blah.

As an Asian, I’m kinda like, “yeah, that’s fucked.” As a Winehouse fan, I’m all, “Girl, YOU’RE SINGING THIS FROM A CRACKHOUSE.”

Making fun of Amy Winehouse nowadays is like making fun of Whitney Houston three or four years ago: the “crack is whack” meme was hilarious for a while, but the story would get more tragic in passing. When it gets to the point that you see photos of her cracked out in a fur coat at a gas station at two in the morning and all you can really say is something like, “man, I hope she finds Jesus.” And I’m Agnostic.

With Amy, it’s the same thing. I would say something like “I’m so offended I’ll never listen to your music again,” but that’s not really true, because you were probably so twacked out you have absolutely no recollection of saying it, and there are other perfectly legit reasons why I may never listen to your stuff again: you keep getting dropped from labels, and the stuff you HAVE been doing sounds a little lackluster. (Your cover of “Cupid” is still good, but seriously, it sounds like you’re hitting the bottle between takes.) I would keep writing, but it really just depresses the living hell out of me.

Amy Winehouse, from one non-religious person to another: you need to find Jesus. That is all.