{"id":2141,"date":"2014-08-18T02:52:43","date_gmt":"2014-08-18T00:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=2141"},"modified":"2022-10-17T18:10:59","modified_gmt":"2022-10-17T16:10:59","slug":"death-of-a-funny-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=2141","title":{"rendered":"Death of a Funny Man"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"robin-williams-dead\"<\/a>Once, when I was thirteen years old, I snuck downstairs to watch a softcore Cinemax flick. They had recently gained my attention and drew me downstairs most nights, and I would sit and ogle boobs and imagine all the things I could do to get them near me once I got to college. This night, however, I stumbled upon Robin Williams: A Night at the Met.<\/em><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know anything about cocaine, marijuana or alcohol. President Reagan was some distant guy who spoke like he was constipated and talked to us about the Challenger disaster. Dr. Roof made a little sense to me as I had begun listening to her radio show in search of sexual tidbits. All I knew was that this random manic guy in a Hawaiian shirt had stymied my obsessive search for boobs. And I could not stop laughing.<\/p>\n

Thus began my fascination with comedy.<\/p>\n

Like most people, I was stunned and upset to hear of his death. More horrified still as the details became known. And then, like many people, I remembered my admiration for the man and felt sadness at his early departure from Earth. And right after that I thought: Shit, I\u2019ll never meet him for a Frappuccino.<\/p>\n

I have developed a series of highly unlikely and disturbingly detailed fantasies about meeting famous people. To be clear, there is never sex involved and they will never happen outside of an astronomically improbable airport meeting or a kidnapping. But there are beers with George Clooney, badminton games with Christopher Moore, and a midnight ghost story session with Cormac McCarthy. There is also a drinking session with Tina Fey and an inexplicable rafting trip with Anna Kendrick.<\/p>\n

And there is a Frappuccino with Robin Williams. Well, there was.<\/p>\n

If you think I\u2019m being flippant or silly, I am not. I am terribly upset by his death and by the fact that he killed himself. I guess I\u2019m just being a little selfish.<\/p>\n

But then, so are a lot of people.<\/p>\n

While much of the reaction was supportive and loving, I was surprised to read some negative comments about Robin Williams on Facebook and some news outlets. Words like \u201ccoward\u201d and \u201cdisappointment\u201d were flung around. I don\u2019t understand why one would think that they are capable of judging another person\u2019s life (or death) choices. Is it just because that person is a celebrity?<\/p>\n

Maybe. I mean, we judge celebrities for getting divorced, for cheating, and for gaining weight. So why not judge one who has killed himself? There are entire newspapers and websites whose sole purpose is to judge celebrities. So I shouldn\u2019t have been so surprised.<\/p>\n

But then I wondered if some people reacted more harshly because he was a comedian.<\/p>\n

Perhaps a comedian\u2019s death or suicide is more upsetting to the public because they are funny people, the people we go to for laughs. Chris Farley was the fat guy in the little coat, but his drug overdose is an ugly asterisk to his comedy. Richard Jeni was one of the greatest standup comedians of the 1990s, and yet I can\u2019t watch his comedy routines now without picturing him with a gun in his mouth.<\/p>\n

So while I find it ridiculous that people think they have a right to judge someone else for choosing to commit suicide, I am not completely amazed by their disappointment or anger. But is that Robin Williams\u2019 problem or is it ours?<\/p>\n

Would he be judged so harshly if he were deeper and darker in some way or if his demons had been more transparent? And does that mean that Robin Williams should have quelled his demons in order to make us all feel safer and more comfortable? No. It was part of his personal life, something we\u2019re all entitled to. Perhaps we should keep this in mind when we hear talk about disappointment and cowardice.<\/p>\n

On a far smaller scale, the funny person deals with this sort of thing often. I usually walk into my office making jokes, laughing, and being the overall attention getter I have always been. But there are certainly days when I don\u2019t feel like joking; I don\u2019t feel well, I\u2019m glum, busy, distracted, hungry, horny, or tired. Any number of reasons someone else might not feel like chatting. And on those days I get this:<\/p>\n

What\u2019s wrong with you?<\/em><\/p>\n

What\u2019s bothering you? <\/em><\/p>\n

Why are you in such a bad mood?<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s times like these I feel that I\u2019m not allowed my demons, bad days, or simply a different mood just because I\u2019m a funny person. And that\u2019s when I learn how to say \u2018fuck off\u2019 in Swahili or write bad Viking pornography starring those who have displeased me.<\/p>\n

And then I make people laugh, because I\u2019m funny.<\/p>\n

I guess the positive out of Robin Williams’ suicide, if there is one, is that it’s spurred a discussion on depression related topics. Meanwhile, there has reportedly been a rise in the number of people calling suicide hotlines and therefore more people might get help for their issues.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t need to point out the negative. Nevertheless, the situation doesn\u2019t need additional negativity in the form of sanctimonious judgment.<\/p>\n

So, just meet me for a Frappuccino. We\u2019ll find some boobs on TV or write some Viking porn. Or we can share our deranged celebrity fantasies.<\/p>\n

Or we can watch a comic genius rip it up at the Met.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once, when I was thirteen years old, I snuck downstairs to watch a softcore Cinemax flick. They had recently gained my attention and drew me downstairs most nights, and I would sit and ogle boobs and imagine all the things I could do to get them near me once I got to college. This night, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-yx","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2141"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5628,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2141\/revisions\/5628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}