Robin Williams

Beer commercials usually show big men, manly men, doing manly things: “You’ve just killed a small animal. It’s time for a light beer.” Why not have a realistic beer commercial, with a realistic thing about beer, where someone goes, “It’s five o’clock in the morning. You’ve just pissed on a dumpster. It’s Miller time.”

 — Robin Williams (1951-2014)

Too many times it takes a public figure’s death for you to stop and realize that they had touched you in some way….that they mattered to you in your life.

It happened for me when I learned that Heath Ledger had died. I’d seen him in movies, thought him smart and more authentic then other actors of his generation…but no more than that. Yet his death, an overdose, stayed with me for a while and affected me much more deeply than I expected…

More recently, Phillip Seymour Hoffman died…another overdose.  I thought he was a great actor and again I was surprised how sad and troubled I felt about his passing.

And now this…

I hadn’t thought about Robin Williams in years, but like many of my generation, his work has been part of my life. His manic brilliance was like nothing we’d ever seen and it could have been troubling if not for the deep down warmth that he conveyed in his quieter moments. And unlike other comediennes and actors who achieved the level of fame that Robin Williams did, he never came off as hard or inaccessible – just the opposite. And maybe it was that vulnerability that finally took him down.

So, a toast to you Robin, you mattered to me as you did to so many of us…And I hope you’re at peace now, my man.

— Tom Bobak / Editor-In-Chief