by Jim Zartman
“These bikes have no tires on them!”
“Oh, picky picky.”
“Oh Captain my Captain.”
The tragic news of a celebrity death is always a bit shocking, but then I go back to my life and think about other things. It doesn’t affect me much and I move on quickly because I didn’t know them personally. They are abstract and distant and and I don’t easily feel personal about any celebrity.
So why is Robin Williams so different? Why did my facebook newsfeed fill up as it never has before and why did I want to keep looking at what people were saying about this man I never met?
Maybe it’s because Robin got in the side door of our hearts. We may not have known him, but unlike other performers we feel like he tipped his hand to show himself in all of the humanity of the crazy kid in all of us we can’t let go of. His voice snuck into the lives of kids who saw him as a big blue genie and adults as a vicarious outlet for all the stuff they would want to say if they could. He just snuck in, that goofy outrageous comedian snuck in the side door and just when we thought we were going to bust out laughing again he could do something so profoundly deep and powerful that we were beside ourselves.
It was right before my 7th grade year when “Aladdin” came out and I literally had the entire movie memorized. I tried to do all of the voices and got even more interested in manipulating my voice to do funny characters.
When a saw an edited version of “Good Morning Vietnam” on VHS in my friend Joel’s basement, I laughed till it hurt, fell in love with music from the 60s, and felt completely broken down by the journey he went on through the end of the film. As a kid who was pretty bad at sports, I thought that maybe I could learn to be funny and people would like me and enjoy life a bit more. It was raw and real.
When I was trying to figure out what to be when I grew up as a young teen I saw, “Dead Poet’s Society” and wanted to be a teacher. I thought that inspiring people with what you are passionate about is one of the best things you could do with the best parts of you.
Basically, he did so many things that made me want to be like him because they weren’t physical accomplishments but moved from the mind and the heart in the most relatable way. From hilarious crotch honking stand up routines talking about the history of golf to the disturbing look at a mild mannered person’s inner world in “One Hour Photo” I couldn’t help but be drawn in by what he was doing. Even “Death To Smoochy,” “Hook,” and “Man of the Year” got in there somehow through the hilarity and human.
I felt like he was one of the few people saying, “It’s ok to be you,” to an adolescent that didn’t quite fit anywhere. Maybe that was one of his greatest gifts. Most of us try to fit in and don’t feel like we really belong and in so many ways his whole career put that emotion on display. How we would want to be insane and mess up the flow of a meeting or feel the freedom to let out the scary parts of us. Maybe he helped make us a little braver, even from a distance. That’s how he got in the side door of our hearts. That’s why his voice rings in my head the way some of my favorite songs do. That’s why seeing his face everywhere shakes me to my core. I can’t imagine what this feels like to his family and closest friends, who saw the truest side of all his brokenness, so I’ll pray for them. So from me, I’ll simply say thank you. Thank you for your voice in our world, we needed it.
Source: https://jimzartman.wordpress.com/2014/08/12/why-robin-williams-matters-to-me/
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