Robin Williams RIP

[8bitagent]

Damn. We need more humor in this world, not less.

There's seems to be something invading our reality that is snuffing out joy and humor.

Everywhere.

I'm walking to work this morning and had a realization that so many people are taking themselves too seriously. Now that I'm single, I've gone to a bunch of concerts and events where I'm around crowds again. I haven't been in such surroundings for decades. To me, it really seems that almost everyone has become so damned humorless. They are defensive and self-absorbed; more interested in being seen at events than actually taking part in them. Almost to the point of being desperate about it.

Or, more likely, I probably don't know what the fuck I'm talking about.

Reality seems to be getting uglier, and with the passing of Robin Williams, the level of ugliness just jumped higher.

Virtually everyone so absorbed in their touch screen devices, now of all ages. That's how I found out about Robin Williams passing immediately as it came on the wire, people in line at the grocery store started talking about it. On their smart phones. A thick malaise indeed. I mean just look at the sterile, bland HUMORLESS recent remakes of Total Recall, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Robocop. Those were three pioneering movies that while were a bit cheesey, were very creative and had a kind of dark humoress weird streak...now rebranded as just bland apple store michael bay shit.

I've been going to concerts for awhile now, but yeah seems a lot of people are just "there". Cept the punk youth shows, the kids still have it by golly.

I been saying fascism and tyranny wouldnt come by way of a cross and the sword, but by way of Apple gadgets and madison avenue marketing

[KUAN]

An insightful piece from Russell Brand:

I’d been thinking about Robin Williams a bit recently. His manager Larry Bresner told me that when Robin was asked by a German journalist on a press junket why the Germans had a reputation for humourlessness that Williams replied, “Because you killed all the funny people.”

Robin Williams was exciting to me because he seemed to be sat upon a geyser of comedy. Like he didn’t manufacture it laboriously within but had only to open a valve and it would come bursting through in effervescent jets. He was plugged into the mains of comedy.

I was aware too that this burbling and manic man-child that I watched on the box on my Nan’s front room floor with a Mork action figure (I wish I still had that, he came in a plastic egg) struggled with mental illness and addiction. The chaotic clarity that lashed like an electric cable, that razzed and sparked with amoral, puckish wonder was in fact harvested madness. A refinement of an energy that could turn as easily to destruction as creativity.
He spoke candidly about his mental illness and addiction, how he felt often on a precipice of self-destruction, whether through substance misuse or some act of more certain finality. I thought that this articulate acknowledgement amounted to a kind of vaccine against the return of such diseased thinking, which has proven to be hopelessly naive.

When someone gets to 63 I imagined, hoped, I suppose, that maturity would grant an immunity to adolescent notions of suicide but today I read that suicide isn’t exclusively a young man’s game. Robin Williams at 63 still hadn’t come to terms with being Robin Williams.

Continued here:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... oken-world

Sad

[The Consul]

Which way does your penis point? Thanks to RW we know that on average, high average it points to the left. This is probably has something to do with the high percentage of right handedness. Always having to push it down, down boy, down.

Suicide is always in the breeze. When you see or hear how someone does it, your realize just how frantic they were to get it over with. Sudden as an irrepressible fart. Oh shit, this just stinks too bad. Someone is leaving you. Celebrity net worth says you are worth millions but your accountant says you need to sell at least six of your cars. And really, did you get drunk yesterday? Really? Did your wife says she's about had it? Did the girl say she knows you better from watching Netflix? Did you tell a joke and nobody laughed? Did you know it wasn't a joke? Has your whole life been a meaningless struggle against meaningless bullshit? Okay, that's it, I'm outta here. Wait, one more joke, nah, fuck it. Someone will say I was out of the closet. Seated, pointing toward hell.

At least it wasn't his daughter who found him. That is part of the job of being a celebrity assistant: Body finder. In the job description. So when you become famous, and you have been real down and depressed, your wife can ask your assistant to go to your bedroom and see if you're still alive. I saw him talk once about his first divorce. You could tell it ate him alive.

He was a special part of a special wave of guys like Pryor and Carlin...the children if you will of Lenny Bruce. But there is hope, there is always hope. Life goes on. The fucking laughter never ends.

[elfismiles]

Robin Williams, Former Trident Busboy, Dies By The Sea
http://copycateffect.blogspot.com/2014/ ... liams.html

Weird Coincidence: Robin Williams Family Guy ‘Suicide’ Episode Airs Before News of Actor’s Death
BBC viewers shocked by bizarre synchronicity
by Paul Joseph Watson | August 12, 2014
http://www.infowars.com/weird-coinciden ... ors-death/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAA50BwG3FY

https://uk.yahoo.com/movies/bbc-airs-ro ... 03471.html
http://time.com/3104047/robin-williams- ... e-on-bbc3/
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news ... de-4040030
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-enter ... 64290.html

[brekin]

Completely stunned as everyone else. I still can't believe it. I'm only holding on to the hope that "asphyxiation" is code for death by misadventure or that erotic sort of asphyxiation instead of the standard sort. Williams seemed so full of vitality and ever-need for an audience I thought he would live to be a 100. I believe he was as an avid bicyclist in the wine country as he was a video gamer. He really was a larger than life living cartoon. In fact, did he really need any make up or prosthetics to pull off Popeye? The only person I think who comes close is, Jim Carrey, and while I hope he lives a long time, his darkness is on his sleeve and I would not have been as surprised if the headline was for Carey and not Williams.

I really appreciated Williams growing up. All his later stuff Fisher King, Awakenings, Dead Poets Society, Toys, etc were marvels and many are timeless but I remember him fondly sometimes more for his earlier quirkier work. Mork & Mindy was very anarchic, surrealistic, and Pan-like while being sweet and innocent at the same time. Hard to imagine such a balance today in a performer and show. Williams (Mork) was complete Id, which was interesting to see portrayed as wild yet innocent and so willing to learn and grow. The standard "lesson learned" sign off with most sitcoms was actually intriguing and heartfelt at times when Mork struggled to understand how to be human sharing what he learned with Orson.



Also, Williams did a string of movies in the 80's which were full of unforeseen pathos or intensity that were still delivered with a tenderness that is rare today.
I remember the scene from Moscow on the Hudson where he is drunkenly playing the saxophone on the fire escape bemoaning the reality of the American dream.



There are just so few situation comedies now that actually deal with real human problems in a funny but sensitive way. Steve Carrel seems to be in some and he is almost as hairy as Williams was. Moscow on the Hudson, was one of those funny, sweet movie about a foreigner coming to America. Williams gave us: "Kiss the bears for me. Love Vladimir." What did Borat give us?



The Survivors was another off beat Williams early film. Its funny too to think how a culture can deal with its anxieties. During the height of the cold war we had Williams in a movie lampooning the off the grid, survivalist, doomsday ethos while empathizing with the causes of it. Now with America the victor of the cold war and working to bring the rest of the world to lick its heels we have reality shows genres geared towards doing nothing but promoting the survivalist ethos which is anti-culture. Like NeonLx said we just take ourselves too seriously now.



I could go on. The World According to Garp, Being Human, even some of his Fairy Tale Theatre stuff still blows my mind. In the end, though, I guess I'm just saying I appreciate what he shared with me and I'm sad he is gone.

[NeonLX]

Humans like Robin Williams are so sensitive, they protect themselves with humor. At some point they can't take it anymore.

This. God DAMN IT, this.

At some point, nothing can be funny anymore.

[sw]

I also loved Robin Williams,

I have always wondered if Robin was DID/ MPD. I have never heard anyone say he was but after he bought the rights to the book, First Person Plural, I wondered if he was.

Whether he was DID or just had depression, I always hoped he would fulfill his wish to see the book made into a movie. He would have done a great job because of his sensitivity. A wonderful soul indeed.

[8bitagent]

Please explain to me how we live in a world where Robin Williams, Maya Angelo, Jim Henson, Keith Haring, Philip Hoffman, etc are dead...
but creatures who exude nothing but pure hate and vile like Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh are still here?

Also LOVE this photo

[82_28]

I've been trying to think of someone, a celebrity that it is impossible to hate FOR ANYONE and all I can come up with is Williams. Next, might be Tom Hanks, but not close.

[Project Willow]

I also loved Robin Williams,

I have always wondered if Robin was DID/ MPD. I have never heard anyone say he was but after he bought the rights to the book, First Person Plural, I wondered if he was.

Whether he was DID or just had depression, I always hoped he would fulfill his wish to see the book made into a movie. He would have done a great job because of his sensitivity. A wonderful soul indeed.

You are the second survivor who's said that in the wake of his death. I don't know. I see something very tender, sweet, but solid behind the characters.

[RocketMan]

Please explain to me how we live in a world where Robin Williams, Maya Angelo, Jim Henson, Keith Haring, Philip Hoffman, etc are dead...
but creatures who exude nothing but pure hate and vile like Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh are still here?

Also LOVE this photo

That picture is indeed a classic. Thanks.

As for Tom Hanks, 82_28, I dunno... His shilling for American triumphalism (WWII etc.) and toeing the party line on JFK have kind of soured me on him.

[stefano]

Shame, RIP.

I never thought Williams very funny - in fact I thought him actually unfunny, though part of that is just a personal preference for drier humour. But he was really fantastic in every dramatic role I saw him in, especially One Hour Photo and Insomnia. And his classic, classic turn in Dead Poets Society.

Humans like Robin Williams are so sensitive, they protect themselves with humor. At some point they can't take it anymore.

Yeah. One of the things that annoyed me about him was the way he'd showboat and act and go mad when someone tried interviewing him at an event, like he couldn't just stand there and talk about his movie for a minute. But many actors do that, especially ones who get into comedy - they can't not act, not let down the defences. Poor man.

[82_28]

Yeah, Hanks is out. Robin Williams was one in 7 billion. I find it astonishing that no matter who you are, man woman. Right left. Gay straight. Black, Asian, white etc. Religious atheist. There was only one person in this existence like him. I wasn't a huge fan as in I didn't rush out to see every single movie and probably haven't seen most of them. I don't have many memories of Mork and Mindy as, dare I say, I'm too young and yet I am about to turn 40.

Perhaps had Hanks taken his life sometime after Forest Gump the observation would stand, maybe. That's too morbid though and not worth speculating over. However, I will say this -- I've never been more affected by a death of someone I did not personally know. Robin Williams has been on my mind every time I gaze into the distance. I really actually do feel a bit of emptiness with him not sharing existence together with the rest of us even though I hadn't thought of him in probably months before his death.

It takes a special person. A special soul.

[coffin_dodger]

Hate to be a party-pooper, but I'm keeping an open mind as to why Williams topped himself - possibilities beyond what the msm trotted out.

[RocketMan]

Yeah, Hanks is out. Robin Williams was one in 7 billion. I find it astonishing that no matter who you are, man woman. Right left. Gay straight. Black, Asian, white etc. Religious atheist. There was only one person in this existence like him. I wasn't a huge fan as in I didn't rush out to see every single movie and probably haven't seen most of them. I don't have many memories of Mork and Mindy as, dare I say, I'm too young and yet I am about to turn 40.

Perhaps had Hanks taken his life sometime after Forest Gump the observation would stand, maybe. That's too morbid though and not worth speculating over. However, I will say this -- I've never been more affected by a death of someone I did not personally know. Robin Williams has been on my mind every time I gaze into the distance. I really actually do feel a bit of emptiness with him not sharing existence together with the rest of us even though I hadn't thought of him in probably months before his death.

It takes a special person. A special soul.

Nyah nyah. Bathos/sentimentality/hero worship is the dominant mode in these cases, agreed, but it does seem like Williams's death has contributed to the discussion on depression and suicidality.

Plus, he did seem like a mensch, though a tortured soul, who tried to do good as best he could.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/brai ... ot-selfish
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014 ... rt-suicide
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... depression
http://www.salon.com/2014/08/12/why_dep ... r_sadness/

Also, he was a helluva serious actor... Insomnia was his best as far as I'm concerned (incidentally also Christopher Nolan's most human, affecting work):