|
Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Aug 12, 2014 11:14:53 GMT 12
(click on the picture to read the news story)
|
|
|
Post by Andy Wright on Aug 12, 2014 11:31:08 GMT 12
Can't believe it.
|
|
|
Post by suthg on Aug 12, 2014 11:46:47 GMT 12
Yeah, suicide is an ugly disease, it hurts the families so much and achieves only a personal goal - to be quit of whatever was troubling them - usually more in the mind than physical. And possibly treatable with support and encouragement. Most sad when teenagers take their lives. He was a very clever comedian - RIP.
|
|
|
Post by The Red Baron on Aug 12, 2014 12:12:24 GMT 12
Thats sad,he was brilliant.
|
|
|
Post by Dave Homewood on Aug 12, 2014 12:30:04 GMT 12
This news is awful. He was one of the funniest and most clever men on the planet. So sad.
|
|
|
Post by phil82 on Aug 12, 2014 14:02:48 GMT 12
One of the genuinely funniest men ever to grace the big screen. If you've never seen "Good Morning Vietnam" get it out on DVD now!
|
|
|
Post by TS on Aug 12, 2014 17:23:57 GMT 12
R.I.P. To a great comedian, plus remembering where he started.
|
|
|
Post by Dave Homewood on Aug 12, 2014 18:11:23 GMT 12
I also really liked watching Robin in dramatic roles. He possessed such pathos. I think his filmed Dead Poets Society and Awakenings are masterpieces, and Good Morning Vietnam has a great mix of both his comedic and dramatic sides.
|
|
|
Post by Dave Homewood on Aug 12, 2014 18:14:18 GMT 12
An interesting thing about Mork And Mindy is the writers placed points into the script that just allowed Robin to improvise and do his thing off the cuff rather than stick to the script, which he found hard to do. I really think it was this that made him stand out and become a star in that show. he also deliberately spoke as fast as he could in some points so he could get some very adult jokes past the censure who had trouble working out what he was saying.
|
|
|
Post by efliernz on Aug 13, 2014 7:11:08 GMT 12
Depression takes another... the long term solution to a short term problem. Perhaps one of the most misunderstood illnesses...
RIP Robin
|
|
|
Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Aug 13, 2014 9:32:52 GMT 12
from the Los Angeles Times....Robin Williams' ‘spark of madness’ let him soar above his demonsBy DAVID HORSEY | 5:00AM PDT - Tuesday, August 12, 2014ROBIN WILLIAMS did not have a mere spark of madness, he was a bonfire.
Given the apparent circumstances of his death — severe depression leading to suicide — some might ask if he burned too hot for his own good. Was the “spark of madness” truly the precious gift he considered it to be? Or is it a dangerous thing that we need to smother with rationality and restraint?
“You’re only given one little spark of madness,” Williams said. “You mustn’t lose it.” I very much doubt the “madness” of which he spoke had anything to do with mental illness. Rather, it is the spark of impulse, insight, enthusiasm and inspiration that is essential to creativity. It is defined negatively as madness only by the forces of conventionality and conformity, by the powers-that-be who are threatened and undermined by original thinkers, rebels, contrarians and comedians.
A rapid-fire rush of comic insight was the hallmark of Williams’ performances. He perceived the absurdities and ironies of politics, sex, identity, life and death at such a quick pace, he left us breathless with laughter and amazement.
In the midst of his manic hilarity, though, there was most often a trace of melancholy in his face and poignancy in his voice. You could see that he knew, all too well, that the human foolishness he so fiercely lampooned was tragic, not comic. It is that tragic sense that made him such a good dramatic actor; why this comic genius could inhabit serious roles, as he did in “Good Will Hunting”, “The World According to Garp”, “What Dreams May Come”, “The Dead Poets Society” and many other fine movies.
By all accounts, he was a generous and gracious man, but he struggled with his own flawed humanity — the addictions to cocaine and alcohol that kept luring him back and that contributed to his mortal fight with depression. If he’d been less on fire with creative madness, would he have been less susceptible to the things that tormented him and, perhaps, finally killed him? If he’d been more drab and restrained, would he still be alive?
I’m only guessing, but I suspect his troubles may have been with him either way. From my own observations of life and human folly, I’d argue it was his brilliant, explosive spark of madness that helped Robin Williams soar above his demons for so long.www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-robin-williams-20140811-story.html
|
|
|
Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Aug 13, 2014 9:34:18 GMT 12
|
|
|
Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Aug 13, 2014 17:59:32 GMT 12
A little spark of madnessBy Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist | 5:30PM PDT - Tuesday, August 12, 2014“You’re only given a little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it.” – Robin Williams.VERY MUCH did not want to write about Robin Williams.
Because futility. Because senselessness. Because it feels, at its core, utterly inadequate to attempt to unpack any potential meanings in Williams’ suicide, given how, like war, like disease, like abuse and ultraviolence and the endless slaughter of innocents worldwide, it requires going dark, digging into the bleak, shadowy regions of the human psyche, when all we ever really find there is phantasms, demons, glooms.
No meanings anywhere. No place to land. Just void.
Is it not true? To delve into the particularly gnarled portions of modern existence is to tacitly acknowledge that most of them are, by nature, quite thoroughly intractable, illusory, impossible to fully understand or process? Psychology and psychiatry are just elaborate educated guesses. Neuroscience is still shockingly primitive. Technically speaking, we really don’t know much of anything about the strange, divine kaleidoscope that is the human soul.The best way to remember him.Nevertheless, we have to try? We have to at least look? This is important? These are not statements.
Jesus, it’s not like we’re lacking in other opportunities, you know? It’s not like we have insufficient examples of suffering, savagery and loss in the world, such that our karma requires someone as gloriously gifted — and apparently, quietly tormented — as Robin Williams to exit this world in the way he did, so we may more thoroughly examine our psychosis and our frayed pathways.
But there it is. It happens anyway, and we can only entreaty to the Fates, God, the infuriating ambivalence of the universe: Was this really necessary?
No answer comes. This is the beautiful, brutal secret of the universe. No answer ever comes. It just keeps dancing.
So we try something else. Instead of endless processing, instead of failed attempts to define the indefinable and make sense of our various demons — in Williams’ case, depression, addiction and suicide — we instead try the next best thing: we ponder. We discuss. We reflect. Maybe we even make a few changes. Just to see.
At the very least, we open ours hearts a tiny bit more to those around us, as we realize Williams was far from alone in his torment, and even as we understand that there is no easy solution to any of it. Because this is life, stupid. There’s never an easy solution. There’s never a safe place to land. Just not how it’s built.
There is, however, some possibility. More love. More offerings of support and kindness. And, to my mind, more work to be done to see just how many of our beloved demons exist as a result of our own money-crazed, power-mad culture, our fetishes for violence and teardown, our cruel addictions to celebrity, perfection and the false gods of fame.
Really now, do we not invent many of our own demons, feed and coddle them, manufacture and amplify and make them into unstoppable armies? Given the size of the population, our rapacious rates of consumption, the dazzling reach of the Internet and the speed at which suffering can now gain traction and travel, we have more potential threats to the stability of our psyche — both personal and collective — than we’ve ever had before.An old San Francisco Chronicle shot, circa 1987, by Fred Larson.What do you think? Do you feel the modern world is more fraught with relentless messages of hatred, odium, self-destruction than ever? It would certainly seem so. It’s a bit like environmental toxins. A hundred years ago they barely existed. Now? We swim in an inescapable chemical stew, our very air, water, food and furniture and technology and even cancerous toys loaded with so many freakish artificial compounds, we can’t even keep track anymore.
I digress. But only a little. Because most of what I’ve seen so far in the wake of Williams’ death is lots of powerful, informative outpourings about the illness of depression itself, its anguish and its savage mystery. Personal stories, anecdotes, shocking glimpses into the pain.
It’s all in turns hugely illuminating, frightening and sad, even as it remains impossible to locate exactly. Hell, even the late, hyper-articulate David Foster Wallace, prior to his own depression-induced suicide, couldn’t explain his illness’ source or its significance, only the staggering agony it induced.
But then, what of the popular Jungian notion that the dark side, the shadow is ever-present and ever lurking? What do we make of the idea that we are ever at the mercy of our own treacherous temptations and inherent flaws? What of the fear that whatever took down Williams is ever breathing at all our doors?
I’m not so sure of this. I’ve recoiled hard at the notion that the darkness is somehow built in, hard wired, that everyone has a shadow side and it’s only the thinnest veil of morals, laws, guilt, silly notions of God that keep everyone from murdering each other, and then themselves.
I’m much more taken of the Tantric notion of stuckness. Of dangerously stagnating energy, all those emotions, beliefs, convictions, patterns, traumas, memories that somehow take hold of us so deeply they actually begin to calcify, turn poisonous, convince us they’ve been there all along and that’s just the way we are and there’s nothing we can do about it.
I think even Williams would call bullshit on that one. No way are we hard-wired for doom. No way are we darkly predisposed to wipe ourselves out, to steal and murder and destroy like dumb zombies. As Williams’ own genius proved, we’re far more predisposed to laugh, to find joy, to relish the wonder and irresistible humor of existence itself, even amidst the pain and anguish. When all is said and done, isn’t that the best lesson of all?• Mark Morford on Twitter and Facebook.blog.sfgate.com/morford/2014/08/12/a-little-spark-of-madness
|
|
|
Post by suthg on Aug 13, 2014 18:32:31 GMT 12
What can we learn from all this? Very insightful - thanks.
|
|
|
Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Aug 20, 2014 21:17:14 GMT 12
|
|
|
Post by Darren Masters on Aug 21, 2014 18:17:41 GMT 12
Poor, poor bugger suffering from that silent killer. Absolutely one of my favourites. May he rest in peace.
|
|
|
Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Nov 12, 2014 14:13:39 GMT 12
(click on the picture to read the news story)
|
|