Robin Williams RIP

[Netpackrat]

It is NEVER the answer.

It's an answer that indicates misunderstanding of the question.

[Dub_James]

I always figured he was bipolar or something, and did his comedic work during his manic phase. His comedy seems very manic, kinda like Jim Carrey.

Carrey wishes he was a fraction of Williams' capabilities.

[Aesop]

It is NEVER the answer.

It's an answer that indicates misunderstanding of the question.

As a rule, there's batshit crazy, that doesn't understand that flapping your wings will not enable flight from high places, and there's seriously long-term depressed.
I'm guessing Williams was the latter.
Suicide at that point is generally just an extreme attempt to make the pain stop, when one can't conceive of any other way to go about that.
In a unfathomably selfish, shortsighted, hurtful, wasteful and stupid way, but it does achieve the desired results.
At least here, if not hereafter.

[kapikui]

It is NEVER the answer.

It's an answer that indicates misunderstanding of the question.

As a rule, there's batshit crazy, that doesn't understand that flapping your wings will not enable flight from high places, and there's seriously long-term depressed.
I'm guessing Williams was the latter.
Suicide at that point is generally just an extreme attempt to make the pain stop, when one can't conceive of any other way to go about that.
In a unfathomably selfish, shortsighted, hurtful, wasteful and stupid way, but it does achieve the desired results.
At least here, if not hereafter.

I know the place he was in. I've been there. I spend most of my time there. It isn't pretty, and you spend a great deal of time thinking about it, planning it, and even preparing for it. You can't help it, and someone saying "Snap out of it." is an idiot. If you could, you would.

[Darrell]

A good article, found via Transterrestrial Musings:

Robin Williams and Why Funny People Kill Themselves

By David Wong August 11, 2014 2,161,211 views

You ever have that funny friend, the class-clown type, who one day just stopped being funny around you? Did it make you think they were depressed? Because it's far more likely that, in reality, that was the first time they were comfortable enough around you to drop the act.

The ones who kill themselves, well, they're funny right up to the end.

By now you know that Robin Williams has committed suicide, but I'm not here to talk about him. He's gone, and you're still here, and suicidal thoughts are so common among our readers and writers that our message board has a hidden section where moderators can coordinate responses to suicide threats. And in case you're wondering, no, that's not a joke -- I remember the first time John tracked down a guy's location and got an ambulance dispatched to his house. Then we all sat there, at 4 in the morning, waiting to hear if they got there in time (they did).

Because Cracked is driven by an army of aspiring comedy writer freelancers, the message boards are full of a certain personality type. And while I don't know what percentage of funny people suffer from depression, from a rough survey of the ones I know and work with, I'd say it's approximately "all of them." So when I hear some naive soul say, "Wow, how could a wacky guy like [insert famous dead comedian here] just [insert method of early self-destruction here]? He was always joking around and having a great time!" my only response is a blank stare.

That's honestly the equivalent of "How can that cow be dead? She had to be healthy, because these hamburgers we made from her are delicious!"

Here's how it works for most of us, as far as I can tell. I'll even put it in list form, because who gives a fuck at this point:

1. At an early age, you start hating yourself. Often it's because you were abused, or just grew up in a broken home, or were rejected socially, or maybe you were just weird or fat or ... whatever. You're not like the other kids, the other kids don't seem to like you, and you can usually detect that by age 5 or so.

2. At some point, usually at a very young age, you did something that got a laugh from the room. You made a joke or fell down or farted, and you realized for the first time that you could get a positive reaction that way. Not genuine love or affection, mind you, just a reaction -- one that is a step up from hatred and a thousand steps up from invisibility. One you could control.

3. You soon learned that being funny builds a perfect, impenetrable wall around you -- a buffer that keeps anyone from getting too close and realizing how much you suck. The more you hate yourself, the stronger you need to make the barrier and the further you have to push people away. In other words, the better you have to be at comedy.

4. In your formative years, you wind up creating a second, false you -- a clown that can go out and represent you, outside the barrier. The clown is always joking, always "on," always drawing all of the attention in order to prevent anyone from poking away at the barrier and finding the real person behind it. The clown is the life of the party, the classroom joker, the guy up on stage -- as different from the "real" you as possible. Again, the goal is to create distance.

You do it because if people hate the clown, who cares? That's not the real you. So you're protected.

But the side effect is that if people love the clown ... well, you know the truth. You know how different it'd be if they met the real you.

I keep mentioning Chris Farley for a reason -- in the end, he was so alone that he was hiring prostitutes just to hang out with him. Here's an account of how his last days played out:

"Farley partied for four straight days, smoked crack and snorted heroin with a call girl, then took her back to his apartment. When they argued about money, she got up to leave. He tried to follow but collapsed on the living room floor, struggling to breathe. His final words were 'Don't leave me.' She took pictures of him, stole his watch, wrote a note saying she'd had a lot of fun, and left. He died alone."

You can read the rest here:

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

Remember Richard Jeni, the comedian? I discovered him on cable, back in the day when stand up comedy became the "in" thing again, with comedy shops opening everywhere. He had a show on Bravo, or A&E, or such. He offed himself as well:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Jeni

[308Mike]

Patch Adams was one of my all-time favorites of his!! I really LOVE the scene where he welcomes the gynecologists to the campus by having them walk into the pair of spread legs set around the doorway!!! I laughed so damned hard!!!

[Steamforger]

Remember Richard Jeni, the comedian?

"Don't look at those titties!"

"Hold on up there, we're gonna take a look at these titties..."

[Aesop]

A good article, found ...etc. etc.

He doth protest too much...

What that amounts to is a whole lot of internet pop sockologizing from one purveyor of the nation's most second-rate humor magazine.
Anytime someone leans in and says "Hey, listen, this is how it goes down behind the curtains on the Internet, so this is real" is in serious need of a life.
Unfortunately, none of the principals are around to dispute the dubious contentions, but what it amounts to is a thinly-veneered argument that the less funny you are, the more "normal" you are, which simply doesn't fly on any level, at either end of the equation, and ignores a few thousand obvious counter-examples.

But it's a handy excuse for why one's employer is where it is on the comedy spectrum, and a backhanded way to defame the defenseless dead without getting tagged too hard for it. I also smell a whole lot of projection in that screed.

[kapikui]

A good article, found via Transterrestrial Musings:

You can read the rest here:

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

You just got me sucked into cracked for about 24 hours.

[D5CAV]

Coward's way out.

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
'Good-morning,' and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich - yes, richer than a king -
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

Edwin Arlington Robinson