The Glade 4.0

Veteran film and television comedic actor Robin Williams was found dead on Monday. He was 63.

The cause of death is believed to be suicide via asphyxiation, according to the coroner’s office in Tiburon, Calif. He was found in his home.

According to his publicist, who confirmed the news, the actor had been battling depression of late and had recently entered 12-step rehab stint for drug abuse.
http://variety.com/2014/film/news/robin ... 201280386/

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Holy shitsnacks!

Nanu nanu, Mork.

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This is a gutpunch. Rest in peace.

Yea, not something I ever wanted to think about.

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Raell Kromwell

RIP Mr. Williams.

I loved him in everything I saw him in. Such a great talent, such a great waste.

I guess everything got the best of him.

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"Said I never had much use for one, never said I didn't know how to use one!"~ Matthew Quigley

"nothing like a little meow in bed at night" ~ Bruskey

"I gotta float my stick same as you" Hondo Lane

"Fill your hand you son of a *****!"

Dammit. Had to ramble about this.

http://mgoldenblog.wordpress.com/2014/0 ... 1951-2014/

That sums up my reaction. Thank you, FarSky.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Once more, mental health issues and addiction have combined to kill a talented person. The sadness is overwhelming. RIP Mr. Williams. Godspeed. Second start to the right and straight on till morning.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

His career was such that there always seemed to be a performance "at my level" as I grew older. What this meant is that I never "outgrew" Robin Williams. He was always there and always providing good entertainment. It's like Bugs Bunny, Luke Skywalker, Seinfeld, Batman, Sheldon Cooper, Jim Kirk, and Denzel Washington all died at once.

Not a staple from my childhood, a staple in some fashion from every era.

This is actually so true.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

There was a piece on the radio this morning, mostly from Good Morning Vietnam of his improvised stuff in that movie. Was balling and laughing simultaneously almost had to pull over.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Kudos, Blizzard. http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/08/12/ ... zed-in-wow

Let me preface this post by saying that I mean no disrespect to Williams or to anyone who has been emotionally impacted by his death. My impression is that he was a decent person and his work was obviously a positive contribution to the world, and folks are perfectly entitled to feel however they feel about his passing.

That said, I've never personally felt any sense of loss or sadness or whatever at the death of any famous person. If I consciously think about the loved ones they've left behind, I feel sympathy, of course, and if I actually witness their grief, I empathize, but that's different. It always intrigues me when I see other people reacting with what seems to be a sense of personal loss and sadness. For those of you who do feel affected by Williams' death or have been similarly affected by other celebrities' deaths in the past, and if you care to discuss those feelings, I'm curious to know whether it really does feel like a personal loss/sadness rather than just a sympathy/empathy thing. If so, is it the same kind of feeling as when you lose someone close to you in your own life - though presumably of a lesser intensity - or does it differ in kind as well as degree?

Robin Williams, the Man, is the purview of his family and those losses are what you describe in the beginning of this paragraph.

Robin Williams, as defined by his collective catalog of performances, belongs to the world and his audiences. Whatever demons and difficulties he faced, he made a career of bringing happiness to other people, particularly the less fortunate. We are lamenting the loss of his presence and the fact that he tried to change the world one smile at a time.

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Walter Elias Disney 1901-1966
John William "Johnny" Carson 1925-2005
George Dennis Patrick Carlin 1937-2008
Robin McLaurin Williams 1951-2014

I put Robin Williams in some rather elite company up there. Those four people in the entertainment business affected me more than any others who have passed on. They are all gone now.

What do these four have in common? They were integral in forming, creating, or revolutionizing the culture that I grew up in. Walt died long before I was born, and I still feel his passing. It's not the type of grief you feel for a loved one - this is different. This is the change of the environment - the change of the world around you. It's like when a cherished landmark is bulldozed, or you visit a favorite spot by a stream in the wilderness where you grew up, and it's now surrounded by commercial towers. The inevitability of change, the impermanence of everything hits me harder and harder as I get older. I feel nostalgia for decades I never even experienced. Our cultural history has so much to offer - bygone eras so steeped in rich flavor that I missed, and now another peice of it is gone. There's always nagging worry in the back of my mind that the peices of culture that helped form who I am will be lost to the ages, and that would be a tragic loss to humanity.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I couldn't agree more. In particular what hits me about his suicide is that act in contrast to some of the most warm, caring and profound humanity that he showed in his performances and interviews. I still can't wrap my brain around how someone who brought such joy to people and who was so universally loved felt so much pain.

I'm a mushy ball of exposed nerves on a good day, so your mileage my vary. But yeah, the whole loss of the body of cheery work in conflict with succumbing to his own demons and the uncertainty of his eternal destination that does it for me.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

I find it amazing how someone who was so charitable throughout his life could commit such a selfish and violent act. I guess people don't always do things that make sense.

I think for me the only celebrity I felt truly saddened over the loss of was Jim Henson. The man truly loved what he did, was not out to make a buck, and made the world a better place by being in it.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

I don't get it either. He is a human and died as all humans do. He provided mirth and laughter and for that I appreciate him but his passing is little more than the passing of anyone I did not know.

I watched The Birdcage when he died, I laughed. That was it.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

I agree with this. Famous people are going to die sooner or later, much like the rest of us. I'm sorry for his family, and he did have some excellent work, but he was a senior citizen, and while 63 is far from ancient, it's far from unheard of to die at that age. My dad and my grandmother both died at that age. That said, he definitely had a wide variety of strong performances in his field, and represents a real loss of talent.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I feel a personal loss in that there was a connection (one-way obviously). In the same way you feel sadness when you discover the arcade you frequented as a child is now a gas station. Additionally, there is the sense of loss in knowing there will be no more performances to enjoy. Beyond that, though, no - it's just sympathy and the general sense that the world is slightly worse off when folks dedicated to laughter are lost.

Nothing even closely resembling the feelings related to a family loss or something.

I don't know that I'd call it particularly violent as far as suicides can go. He sat down and fell asleep.

Thanks for the replies, folks. That all makes sense to me.

I'm sure there was lots of muscle spasm-ing and his face turning purple and stuff... Probably looked pretty violent.