Perhaps the predictability of the unpredictability is the issue, because she behaved exactly as most observers were expecting; the audience could see it coming, the media could see it coming, so why would those who no doubt put their invoices in with Germanic efficiency for their slice of the mighty financial cake which Miss Winehouse seems to consistently bake (5 million album sales, new DVD blah blah blah) let her perform in front of thousands while in such a fragile mental state? What kind of career move do they think it is to let her perform a raw emotional autopsy in front of thousands, calling your audience “mug c***s” for buying a ticket because they had the temerity to voice their opinion with boos after having had a cigarette butt flicked at them? Where is the duty of care for her that somebody must have? How much longer will she be allowed to publicly implode, seemingly abandoned in a compassionless desert, left for tabloid carrion, her musical ability left to wither along with her mental stability?

It would seem for the moment that the financial juggernaut rolls on regardless of who gets hurt when it careens out of control. I just hope very soon somebody puts Miss Winehouse’s welfare first, before we are speaking her name along with Billy Holiday and Janis Joplin as we recall the litany of supremely talented but tragically dead female blues singers we have observed self-destruct. To paraphrase Hunter S. Thompson from Generation of Swine: “The entertainment business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the music industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason.”