RIP Mr. Williams

[Arlos]

Robin Williams, gone. I can hardly believe it. 99% of the time when a celebrity dies, the amount of fucks I give over it is zero. This one hurts. He's been an iconic entertainment figure my entire life, it seems. From Mork & Mindy when I was in elementary school in the 70s, to years of his standup... I'll always think of him most with his standup, as few of his other roles truly let him fire off with the same manic free-flowing hysterical insanity that his standup did. That said, he was brilliant in Good Morning, Vietnam, and as the Genie in Aladdin. Then there were his dramatic roles, where he really got his film recognition. The one I'll most remember is Dead Poet's Society, of course.

From all accounts, he was warm and friendly in person, too, with none of the usual celebrity asshole factor.

We will not see his like again any time soon.

Farewell, Mr. Williams. Time for you to be making the gods laugh in whatever afterlife you end up in...


-Arlos

[brinstar]

edit: i am not posting this to be flippant. if any of you fuckheads who still read these fora ever feel so hopeless that suicide feels like the only way out, you can always reach out to me. and i mean anyone, even that cunt mindia.

edit2: watch s3e6 of Louie if you have netflix

[Jay]

He was a semi regular customer of mine when I had my food stand businesses. Nice guy, very shy and low key but really gracious when people approached him to tell him they loved him in X movie. I might pop in my copy of Hook later tonight. Sad sad times.

[leah]

his manic style of comedy was always a little too much for me—i always felt like maybe he was overcompensating for something? and who knows, maybe he really was—but it's undeniable that this is a really sad loss for the entertainment industry. he was very good at what he did, and he brought a lot of joy to a lot of people and seemed to be a genuinely nice dude. and what a body of work! just a shame.

[Kramer]

yeah man....

so sad. especially because of how he died. he was apparently recently in rehab again.

someone who brings so much to others can feel and think that death is better, it's heavy.

[Drem]

he wasn't overcompensating, he was just frenetic. trying to keep up with all the hilarious shit constantly streaming thru his mind i imagine. his standups were so out of control

also just recently watched What Dreams May Come

what's been really awesome is seeing all the instant memorials. the doubtfire stoop being covered in flowers, the good will hunting bench with chalk all over the sidewalk. disney changing its facebook page to the genie leaving the lamp

sad. really sad

[Arlos]

I thought there was no new level of terrible human being that Rush Limbaugh could reach. He somehow managed to do that yesterday. He claimed that Robin Williams died because he had "A leftist political attitude"..... I am revolted beyond words. This certainly reaches, and may surpass, Fred Phelps levels of terrible human being.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/08/12/r ... -attitude/

-Arlos

[brinstar]

i'm sure coulter will find a way to out-awful him, just give her a week

[Gypsiyee]

Was super sad about this one.. I never really was one for his more comedic roles, always thought he was so much better in the more profound. Good Will Hunting is tied to some very important memories of mine, and even without those memories it's probably my very favorite of his. I mean, aside from Aladdin, which to this day is the only movie I can recite by memory from start to finish.

World's Greatest Dad was less popular, but I saw that last year some time and when I looked at the plot I thought it was going to be stupid, maybe poking fun at a serious issue.. he plays a high school teacher and the father of a teenager who dies via autoerotic asphyxiation and he tries to cover it up to preserve his son's reputation. Turned out to be a really wonderful movie with one of my favorite quotes: "I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up all alone. It's not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people that make you feel alone."

If you haven't seen it (it kinda slipped under the radar I think) it's worth a watch. Nothing groundbreaking or anything, but I really liked him in it.

What I always loved about him was how he struck me as a truly humble and gracious person despite his fame. He wasn't a braggart about the charitable things he did.. wasn't just someone who donated money, but he was generous with his time too. Didn't ask for recognition for it, just went and did it.

He seemed to always have a bit of a hard time finding the right roles to suit him, but when he hit one, it was always solid gold.

It makes me sad to know how deep into detail the media has gotten with his suicide.. I didn't need to know it was with a belt, I didn't need to know there was a knife on the floor and cuts on his left wrist, I didn't need to know he was "slumming it" on tv because he was having financial trouble. Suicide is a serious issue that hits very close to home. I know he chose to live in the limelight which basically signs away a lot of your right to privacy, but I think there's a line. To reveal that it was suicide was enough. Deeper details weren't necessary. I dunno if it was the PD or the assistant who found him sharing that information or a creepy "journalist" but my hope is that it wasn't the assistant, because that'd be pretty reprehensible imo.

The funniest and seemingly happiest people often harbor the darkest demons. the world lost one of the good ones, and I'm sad he was dealing with such a rough internal struggle.

[brinstar]

deep into detail

thanks a fuckin lot gyps i didn't know that shit until i read your post and now i can't unknow it

i think the media reports that shit because the public consumes it, just like how every shitty-ass michael bay movie that doesn't flop is just further license for him to keep shitting out new ones

edit: and it's mostly unfair to blame the media, they're just giving the people what they ask for. if you're tired of the grisly TMI reporting the only answer is to look in the mirror and make a conscious decision to stop fucking consuming it

[Spazz]

Brinstar Bay movies arent life changers or anything but they are fun and the hatred is a bandwagon thing. Im not shocked rush had the shit he had to say he never says anything nice about anyone and is a very mean man.

My fave rob williams moments gotta be watchin good mornin vietnam with my pops back in the back in the days. He loved that movie and we watched it alot.

[Gypsiyee]

deep into detail

thanks a fuckin lot gyps i didn't know that shit until i read your post and now i can't unknow it

i think the media reports that shit because the public consumes it, just like how every shitty-ass michael bay movie that doesn't flop is just further license for him to keep shitting out new ones

edit: and it's mostly unfair to blame the media, they're just giving the people what they ask for. if you're tired of the grisly TMI reporting the only answer is to look in the mirror and make a conscious decision to stop fucking consuming it

you're right, kind of fed into my own complaint there =\ my apologies.

When I heard it, I wasn't intentionally consuming it. Was flipping through radio stations on the way to work and it was all said within like 40 seconds, didn't even know they were talking about Robin Williams til they mentioned the TV thing, was just a morning radio DJ discussion. It caught my attention because the details were almost identical to the suicide of a family member. Human nature to be inclined to stories that you can relate to on a personal level, however masochistic it may be.

It's easy to say I just won't consume it, but the shit is everywhere. Just like you inadvertently read it here due to my thoughtlessness, I could've just as easily read it in a facebook feed. And in fact, I did last night via a photo of the cover of a new york rag that had all of those exact same details plastered big and clear; the photo was tied to a news site's feed, and they were writing a scathing response to how the rag poorly handled the story with that cover. Obviously, they made the same counterproductive mistake I did above.

At the end of the day, the information spreads like wildfire anymore, and if you follow the path through the people you accidentally hear it from, it goes back up to the media source that shared it in the first place. And I don't disagree with you that they give people what they're asking for and they're a business and their whole intention is to supply the demand, but even still, once upon a time there was journalistic integrity, there was a line defined. Now we have a population who thinks that intimate details like that are akin to celebrity gossip that belongs on TMZ; the line is so blurred anymore that people don't bother to discern the difference between the serious issue of a very real struggle that plagues a huge portion of the population every day and whether or not a Kardashian got ass implants this week.

[Harrison]

http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/robi ... hemselves/

This is a very depressing read but, worth it. I don't feel like getting emotional this early in the day so I'll just leave it at that.

[brinstar]

http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/robin-williams-why-funny-people-kill-themselves/

This is a very depressing read but, worth it. I don't feel like getting emotional this early in the day so I'll just leave it at that.

it was a very good read, thanks for sharing

[Gypsiyee]

http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/robin-williams-why-funny-people-kill-themselves/

This is a very depressing read but, worth it. I don't feel like getting emotional this early in the day so I'll just leave it at that.

really great read.

[Harrison]

Robin Williams' wife just said that he had been going through the early stages of Parkinson's and that was likely the push that sent him over the edge.

[leah]

another good read: http://tomatonation.com/stories-true-an ... razy-ones/

[Harrison]

I don't exactly know why this particular celebrity suicide is haunting me so hard but, that one had me in tears too.

[leah]

same. for me, i think maybe i overidentify with the need to cultivate an outer shell to keep people from finding out i'm nothing special. it's just hitting a little close to home, i guess. reading what sarah wrote really hit me in the gut.

[brinstar]

for realz ya'll, i had way more typed out on my previous post and i deleted almost all of it, but the thing is that what both these articles mention about performers is fucking dead on

i am no real rock star by any stretch of the imagination, and i can count on one hand the number of times i've been recognized in public by complete strangers with a "hey aren't you in [xyz band]", but i will tell you one goddamn thing i know for sure after 20+ years of performing on stage in front of thousands of people and it's that when you see me grinning and twirling my sticks behind the drumkit and cool shades, well that's literally one of the only times in my life i'm ever even remotely close to being the person i feel like i'm expected to be. i'm in control, i'm relaxed, i'm smiling at everyone, i know what i'm doing, everyone else relies on me, and i feel every beat and every single Hz that vibrates up through the floor into my feet and spine and skull and every time my sticks smash into my drums and/or cymbals it fills me with the cleanest joy i've ever known. but to be a performer and to open yourself to this joy is to also open yourself to the insidious feeling that maybe you don't deserve it, or maybe you haven't worked hard enough to earn this feeling, maybe you're not good enough, or maybe you're a fraud or a fake or a lie and you should just roll the fuck over and hang it up and leave it for the real artists and the real sonic wizards out there and just start fucking dying already. but the joy is so strong that you do it and and you do it and you do it and you pour every last drop of yourself into it in hopes that you'll convince yourself that it's okay to feel that bliss! at the end of the day you're never really sure you've done enough to deserve that rush, but when you're faced with the alternative - not feeling it at all - it sounds like a fate worse than death. so you keep plugging away and reaching for what may very well be the last stolen ecstasies you ever get to swipe

now try and imagine feeling all that when you're already suffering crippling depression and crushing addiction and - AND - enduring the early stages of parkinson's? if you can imagine all that, you might begin to catch the slightest whiff of what RW was going through each and every fucking day of his life

[Gypsiyee]

Man.. I think sometimes you don't realize how close it hits to home until you read these beautifully written pieces. Not a lot of people who have met me since adulthood know, but k went through a tough time at around 16, exacerbated by a misdiagnosis resulting in the docs putting me on a drug cocktail that was completely inappropriate for my age and created way more problems than I started with. Close to the end, prior to me refusing to take the medications anymore, I spent 3 or 4 days in ICU and a few weeks in a hospital after flatlining from an overdose (around 4 bottles worth) of the medications I was prescribed. The meds had made me a zombie, made me gain about 75 pounds (and it was over summer break, so when I got back to school you can imagine the reaction to the funny pretty class president international bacculaureate student who was very active in sports and a myriad of other school programs and a homecoming court representative turning into a glazed over filthy blimp of a former human being.)

Basically, I constantly overloaded myself to prevent being able to socialize with any one person for too long and let my insecurities surface (and there were a lot, I think Jay knows most of the fucked up shit I dealt with way too young, but very few do) and when my dad moved away and my best friend for 13 years died in a crash, it was pretty much lights out meltdown time. And the past 3 years have been very difficult for me, so it's sometimes difficult not to be thrown back in a time machine and revisit that pain. So you gloss over it, crack a joke, blanket yourself in sarcasm, wit, pretend you don't give a fuck what people think or say, and keep putting one foot in front of the other because that's the only option you have. I tend to cloak myself in unrelenting honesty woven into humor so that I can air my truth, but without betraying the history of pain underneath it. I think that's a pretty common thing to do.

So yeah, on a number of levels, this particular loss strikes really close to the heart for me. And I can't even imagine finding out you have Parkinson's when you're already dealing with so much.

Anyway, this was my favorite tribute I think, tho I've avoided stuff about Koko mourning like the plague. But in the video you can see such true genuine joy in their interaction. I just love Koko.

[leah]

i was kind of a mess in junior high. alex maybe doesn't even know the full extent, i don't think anyone in my immediate family does, but we had some family dramz unfold that took me quite a while to get over—stupid as it now seems—and i kept clashing with our dad and getting further and further into this black hole where i started to think "well, maybe it would be easier for everyone if i just wasn't here" and started considering my options for maybe making that a reality. on one particularly dark day, i even toyed with writing out a note. i'm not sure what changed or how i got out of that dark place, but thankfully i did. it took a long time to rebuild my relationship with our dad, too, but thankfully that's better now, too. age and maturity, methinks, plus a lot of good changes on his part.

i haven't been that low since, but i do still struggle sometimes. this month has been a tough one because two of my best friends moved away and i'm taking it kind of hard. but i feel like i'm in a much better place to deal with these feelings than i was when i was younger, and i have a good friend who's recommended some therapists i can talk to if i need to.

this thread is really dragging out some real talk, isn't it? sometimes you just never know what someone's been dealing with until something rips off the scab.

[Gypsiyee]

it took a long time to rebuild my relationship with our dad, too, but thankfully that's better now, too. age and maturity, methinks, plus a lot of good changes on his part.

same here. it took years and years to recover, specifically with my dad (which is such a long story spanning 2 decades that i can't even fathom explaining), but I tell you.. things come full circle. sometimes the one who was a primary contributor to the darkness you once endured turns out to be the light pulling you out of your current darkness. not sure where i would be without him these past few years.

real talk for sure, but honestly, I think that's a good thing. If nothing else good comes from this tragedy, it's gotten people to stop sweeping it under the rug and come out of hiding to actually discuss this shit. Being in that darkness is a very lonely place.. you feel like an outcast, that you're the only one who goes through it, that you're the only one who has these thoughts, that you're crazy and you can't talk to anyone about it because they won't care and you're already enough of a burden as is. it's not until people actually openly acknowledge their own personal struggles with this unbelievably common issue that you actually get the opportunity to realize that you're not alone.. that so many people you know go through the same exact shit, and just like you never knew it about them, they never knew it about you because you all hid it from everyone else.

I have a co-worker who just went into officer school for the Navy Reserve to become a chaplain. Part of his training included going around to people of different faith beliefs and asking their story as to how they came to believe as they do, and also to ask them their thoughts on suicide. The number of suicide deaths in the military is staggering, and often someone looking for help may not have someone of their faith available at one base or another when they need it the most, so in OCS for chaplains they try to get the future chaplains to understand how to provide solace and help for someone of another faith who is at risk for suicide. He knew I was an atheist, not because I openly discuss it at work but from another situation (long story, but basically a horrible boss who continuously tried to force me to pray and sabotaged my work often, once to the extent of almost losing half a million dollars on a project by drastically modifying, locking and passwording associated financial documents to alter fund sources for wire transactions so I couldn't fix them so she could then declare my incompetence).. anyway, as a result against a whole big thing with her, he knew i was an atheist so he came to me to ask those questions. we ended up talking on it for 3-4 hours, because I was the first person he had talked to who had personal experience with suicide, both with myself and with family and friends. He told me that information like that is invaluable, because most of the future chaplains he knows and even some that he's mentored with have no insight when it comes to that and consequently are haunted by thoughts of those they couldn't save because they just had no idea how to respond. That sure, they can read the how-tos and go through the training, but it's just not the same if you haven't actually interacted with someone who has been there. So yeah, I think the open communication is such an important step.. the lack of awareness and understanding and the stigma attached just do so much more harm than we realize, I think.

[Tossica]

The World According to Garp, The Fisher King, World's Greatest Dad, etc etc etc... really missing this guy.

[Harrison]

I think it's mainly the survivor's guilt. I still struggle to make it through a significant amount of time without a meltdown. There's triggers all over the place. I think seeing someone generally thought to be one of the most happy, untouchable people in that respect go down to it, hits hardest.

Shit just moves too fast to slow down to stop and think about it, to deal with it. You don't want to talk to anyone about it because it's been years now. They never really understood it before and they still don't but now think it's time for you to be over it.