Hard as it is to believe, this month marks three years since Robin Williams’ left us. Doing this blog, I write about a lot of celebrity deaths, but in the time that I’ve been doing it, and in my life really, the death of Robin Williams hit me like I’d lost a family member. Good times and bad, the man had a boundless joy running through him in such volume that you weren’t sure if it was going to actually make it to his mouth or go bursting out his ears. All that being said, his suicide didn’t surprise me, it just made me profoundly sad. People look at funny people like Robin and think how happy they must be, but humor doesn’t come from happiness; humor is the best bad way to cope with deep pain. The theory being that if you can’t escape your own demons and be happy yourself, maybe you can bring a smile to someone else’s face. I think Williams was happy when he was making others happy, but the need to be ON all the time and to do that must have been tremendously exhausting. I miss him, like I miss a friend gone on before, and this video from Goalcast which manages to take his graduation speech from Jack (NOT one of his better movies) and marry it to a beautiful montage of his career, is just beautiful. I think it’s the way he’d want to be remembered. Then if you find yourself tearing up after the first one, check out this interview with Craig Ferguson a few years before his death and you’ll remember the joy of just watching the man talk. We miss you Robin, and thank you.
Dave, did you ever see the music video for the song Don’t Worry Be Happy? Robin Williams was in it along with Bobby MacFaran. The video makes it quite clear that this was not just a novelty song, and that people who took it at face value were missing the point.
Early in the video a man commits suicide after losing all his money in the stock market. There is a moment, later on, when we see a close up of Williams’s grim, depressed face, and a forced smile slowly stretches across it. It’s like the act of smiling is causing him pain. Back in the 80’s people were tapping thier toes to this song, and laughing at Robin’s movies, and no one realized that these guys were lost in the darkness, sending up SOS flares.
I wish I lived in an easier world.
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The first video made me cry, and the second had me laughing for the entire twenty-six minutes. Thank you for the reminder of what a truly special man he was.
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I thought I’d balance it. I think he would have preferred to leave us laughing.
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Nicely done!
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