We don't need yet another photo of Robin Williams now. Good writers provide real comedy. And since Danny Mininni runs a real theater (Act II Stages), here in Puerto Vallarta and staged this gem, I used a "local variant" on this graphic.
>>> TWO COMMENTS came via email. I pasted them in at bottom.
Last night, I felt like I must be the only one who was getting nauseous over Robin Williams' suicide -- not the event, which I'm surprised hadn't happened previously -- but nearly all the public reaction, which I was watching on CNN, but feel it is safe to say was similar everywhere else in the media.
Although I've always liked Robin Williams' dramatic acting, I've never thought he was funny in comedy. I simply could not watch Mork and Mindy, or any later comedies (Mrs. Doubtfire was one of the worst, as I recall, dimly), and especially not his hosting gigs. To me, who has dealt with at least some extreme symptoms of Bipolar mania and depression many years ago now, his comedy act was a combo of the manic fast mind, but he never really HIT any of his targets dead center, and relied on his hyper-physicality to make them funny, usually. He was certainly fearless in doing this and no one knew when he might break into his schtick or where it might go. The element of surprise is important in comedy -- and this he had in spades, sort of. He DID always do something "Robin-Williams-ish".
So watching Robin Williams do comedy, was like watching him boldly display the symptoms of mental illness -- in a way that never redeemed him or them, and got the audience to laugh and accept untreated or mistreated mental illness as something consumers should laugh at in a way that ridicules the mentally ill. This would be similar to getting a mentally challenged spastic to walk a tight rope about three feet off the ground. Everyone can laugh their ass off at him or her, knowing when they fall it won't be far enough to get hurt.
Robin fell too far, yesterday, and it is telling too that his wife saw him last at 11:00 PM (presumably all of this in their house), but did not find him dead until 11:00 AM. Robin had burned through two previous wives, and apparently his third no longer sleeps with him. People with significant mental illness are not FUN to be with all the time!
I feel certain Robin never intended to INCREASE society's hypocritical and refuse-to-face-it-realistically attitude, but he found a PAYING SCHTICK and stuck to it all these years. One of the worst parts of depression is that in a REAL ONE, one feels it will never lift for the rest of one's life, and with everyone paying and applauding him to be a fool, that schtick was his prison-more-real than the depression, even.
But there was "good news" too, in that I called a friend who is very stable in his treatment of chronic depression, although I have railed against his taking a dangerous drug that no country allows except the USA -- HEY, it works for him, so who am AYE to judge -- and I certainly remember the hell of depression, which I haven't suffered for as long as 24 hours since about 1992. I was instinctively correct in assuming he was not mood-affected by Robin's death, and I was pleased to find he shares many of these same ideas with me.
But with CNN, after a very long absence due to only reporting on International Crises for so long, bringing back that "pop-eyed pickaninny", whom they got from race-car reporting on FOX NEWS, Ms. Nischelle Turner (I'm sorry, but some blacks, like some whites, AIN'T what they pretend -- although many on CNN are terrific). The girl had no idea who Ethel Merman was in American Culture (Nischell claiming that Ethel was the "Kim Kardashian of her day"), and CONTINUALLY (last night and this morning), kept saying "ree-PRIZE" instead of "ree-PREEZ" for reprise (which she seemed to be showing off as a "big word", cementing her competence).
Anyway, Nischelle Turner exemplifies the glorification of cheap and shallow culture, and knowledge of culture, that drives ratings -- but further deteriorates American Civilization, something CNN seems PROUD to do.
And then I checked to see if Chris Cuomo, showboat extraordinaire, had been fired since he was not on at all and no one said he was on vacation or traveling for distant reporting, but that was another disappointment -- no such luck.
The BEST news was that none of this plunged ME into depression and I hope it doesn't you, either. I only hope that with Robin Williams' death, more serious reporting on depression and other mental illnesses makes it into the media. Americans are in DENIAL about the whole issue, and unfeeling idiots tell the ill to just "Buck Up!!!" or go to Christian Church and get the Demons run out of ya -- that SIMPLE!!!
Well AYE am not in denial -- not even of the fact I begrudgingly admit: Chris Cuomo has LUSCIOUS nipples -- for a "hairless guy":
And I trust that having gotten this curmudgeonly rant off my chest, that I can now slip back into my natural ebullience in this blog -- LOL!!!
Scott
>>> TWO COMMENTS:
1. From a Southern white male: "The pickaninny jibe is beneath you - " I will expand on this one in the next posting.
2. From a white male who has suffered serious depression: "Very well written post, enjoyable to read. Ya might wanna fix Ethel, I said ethEl, Merman."
Thank you, I fixed it. Usually, I am trying to remember the difference between Ethyl and Methyl alcohol, so have that spelling in mind -- which I never remember which is which, much like my ability to understand the difference between Shia and Suni Muslims.
Scott
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