I have some thoughts on Amy, the tragic documentary on the life and death of Amy Winehouse that I watched yesterday.

First, maybe it didn’t have to end this way. 1. At a rehabilitation facility, when her husband and 2 others were mocking her song “Rehab,” saying she’d have to change it. (The lyrics were, “they try to make me go to rehab, I said no, no, no.”) They pushed like mean middle school kids, and she quietly answered, “I like it here,” clearly embarrassed. 2. Her bodyguard said, towards the end of her life, “She just wanted someone to say no.” I’m angry that she felt she couldn’t.

This amazing talent had an eating disorder and a wide number of addictions, and because of her lovely gift, she was forced (by everyone from record executives to her own fame-thirsty father) to live these disorders and addictions in public. The disorders and addictions that became punch lines on late night tv, “news” programs, and countless conversations by people like me. People exactly like me, as it turns out. I remember laughing at her issues and meltdowns, too, as if she were a singing, dancing machine and not a human being.

We all knew she would die early, and of course she would pass at 27, like so many other tortured souls. Now, she’s gone and only her memory and the music remains. I love the music, but as I get older, wiser and softer (something thought impossible), I wish I would have never heard “Back To Black,” “Rehab,” or my favorite, “Tears Dry On Their Own,” and she would still be here instead. I wish we would not have kept shoving her on stage and cashing checks at the expense of her life. I wish making and offering her beautiful art would not have such a high cost, that she could’ve walked down the street without assault, or gone to an island without her dad bringing a camera crew.

But I did, she’s not, we do, and it does. And did we learn anything at all from this celebrity sacrifice? Maybe. Probably not. She’s gone and there will be more. I wonder what and who it will take to shock us back into sanity. Amy (the documentary and the person) was one of the saddest masterpieces I have ever seen.