Dear Mister Fantasy

So Robin Williams died yesterday. I can't say that I'm a huge devoted fan of his or anything. Yes, I saw Aladdin and Hook more than a couple times as a kid. Yes, I thought he did a great job in Good Will Hunting, Insomnia, and Jakob the Liar. Even seeing him in Hamlet was a pleasant surprise. I never made a point of searching out his movies though, and never passionately watched and re-watched his material. But like almost everyone in western society, we knew and recognized the guy whenever he appeared on the screen. Laughs, and at the very least a few chuckles, were sure to follow.

And consistently, too. In the same way we know that Pixar will make good movie, Coldplay will put on a good show and John Stewart will tell it like it is, we all knew that Mr Williams would simply be funny. In a way his ability to do so was almost magical. Connecting with people in a way that you can make that smile is no small feat, and he seemed to do it every time no matter the circumstances. "That relentless energy, brilliance, and comic genius..." we'd remark, if only in our heads. I could never fathom what it might be like to always be "on" in that regard, as if being ready to crack a joke is the equivalent of a bomb being armed.

So, unsurprisingly, it was a bit of a hit in the gut to see the man die at 63. If it was a stroke or car accident, we'd just shake our heads at how fickle life is and curse at how cruel the universe can be. As if it was the one getting the last laugh, in a twisted way. But instead Robin Williams killed himself.



You can't be mad at the guy. It'd be selfish to lament how much entertainment you'd be missing out on as a result of his selfish act. Yeah, I don't think anyone out there will claim that there's nothing wrong with suicide. As someone who's been graced with the ever-roaming presence of depression, though, it's hard to fault the guy. And yeah, maybe he was relatively wealthy and well off, but our problems are all relative. What I'm stressing about right now can't be too far off how those at the top and bottom of the food chain are feeling. The guy had his demons. And it just so happened that this time they got the best of him.

Because he was such a brilliant comedian, though, I think we hold him to a slightly higher standard. He had the holy calling of being one who we turned to in order to distract ourselves from our individual demons and darknesses. And because Robin was so consistently good at this calling, we placed him so much higher on the pedestal. A therapist will only help you believe that life is okay and worth living. Mr. Williams made us believe that it's worth laughing and smiling about.

We trusted him, and borrowed his belief that the world is a better place than it actually is. But apparently he didn't quite have that belief. We were borrowing something that didn't exist. In a way, maybe you could claim that he lied to us all. You can get angry and cynical about it, taking The Watchmen route. As the Comedian put it, "It's all a joke."

But instead, though, it just makes me profoundly sad. The underlying plot is not glorious or dramatic or incredible. It just turns out that sometimes the world sucks so much that the man who made so many smiles didn't have any left for himself when he needed it most.

As a user commented on one of the many online related stories, "I don't want to live in a world where Robin Williams commits suicide."

Well Mr. Williams, wherever you're at now I just want to thank you for the laughs and smiles, and I hope you're having a few of your own. You deserve 'em.
-Cril

Dear Mr. Fantasy play us a tune
Something to make us all happy
Do anything, take us out of this gloom
Sing a song, play guitar, make it snappy

You are the one who can make us all laugh
But doing that you break out in tears
Please don't be sad if it was a straight mind you had
We wouldn't have known you all these years

Steve Winwood - Dear Mr. Fantasy


While writing this out at the dining room table of my uncle's house that I'm watching over, I pretty quickly knew that Dear Mr. Fantasy was the right song to use. So I typed out the whole post, and then went to the Googles to collect the lyrics. And every single link resulted in a blank Chrome page stating "This website is unavailable." Checked the internet connectivity. Working. Searched for other songs. Working. Searched again for "Dear Mister Fantasy". Not working. Tried incognito, Firefox, and Internet Explorer. Not working. Went to a lyrics site. Searched for "dear". Worked. Searched for "dear mister". Worked. Searched for "dear mister fantasy". Not working.

WHAT. THE. HELL.

I was at the point of seriously considering that I had someone contracted the world's most obscure and oddly specific virus, when I realized that my cousin is an absolute fan fiction fiend. So much so that my uncle has to use a word filter to block out relevant sites, lest she completely disregards her homework in search of unofficial Harry Potter short stories. It's probably safe to say that "fantasy" was one of the words on that filter.

Many thanks to the steadfast Mr. Frank for copy/pasting the lyrics through a chat window at stupid o'clock.