The Fall of Jeff Glovsky
Showing posts with label Robin Williams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Robin Williams. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Monday, August 18, 2014
Robin Williams: Froze in Time
We tend to remember the where and when ...
When John Lennon died, I myself was in the death throes of childhood ... Lying awake, trying to sleep at my appointed bed time of 10:30pm (just upped from 10, to kick off my new teenage maturity!), I overheard Howard Cosell on Monday Night Football saying, "Remember this is just a ... game, no matter who wins or loses" ... which I thought, at the time, was odd for Howard.
And then: "John Lennon ... in New York City ... shot twice in the back".
... I was having a bed-in when John Lennon died.
A couple of months later, when Ronald Reagan was shot, I remember being asked by an 8th grade classmate, this albino Finnish kid who used to say I "walked with a stick up my ass", if I'd heard the news. We'd just come out of a dust-up several days prior, complete with punches thrown and headlocks, so I was surprised when he asked me -- passing each other in front of our school en route to classes in different buildings -- if I'd heard, and my opinion.
As he and his clique sauntered past, not really waiting for a response from me, but pleased with the knowledge that they'd told me the news and not vice versa ... I felt strangely appreciative. First of all, not to be in a headlock that day. Mainly, though, because he did ask my opinion ... a thing, at the time, I was unused to giving. I felt proud, in a way, sort of smug ... vaguely validated. I walked into class with that stick up my ass ... A national tragedy making me smile.
No inappropriate warm, fuzzy feelings, though, greeted the news about Robin Williams.
When my brother sent me an SMS, I was thinking about Robin. His name had been "trending" all day online, but I hadn't bothered to click and see why ... Still, it made me conscious of the guy again, and I was thinking about bits from Reality... What a Concept when my brother texted.
"Robin williams dead of suicide. :-/ "
Those terse five words (plus the emoji), transmitted electronically, stopped me cold. Literally froze me in place, staring down at my phone ... waiting for the timed follow-up: the ;-) or the :-) or the "JK, bitch!"
None of which followed. My bro wasn't joking. Robin Williams killed himself.
Being "hip to", as I was, the comedian Robin -- and far less into Mrs. Doubtfire, or any of the treacly, scripted and comparatively muted screen incarnations (even Mork and the Genie paled, I thought, in comparison to Robin Williams live on stage, when he wasn't trying to pander to ratings or box office) -- "knowing" and preferring that younger version, there was no way suicide would've crossed that mind!
Literally frozen ... still disbelieving ...
Keeping things hidden, at bay, so well then ...
Losing me, and himself, as our lives / work wore on.
Genie is not "free"
* * *
"If you're that depressed, reach out to someone." - Robin Williams
A couple of months later, when Ronald Reagan was shot, I remember being asked by an 8th grade classmate, this albino Finnish kid who used to say I "walked with a stick up my ass", if I'd heard the news. We'd just come out of a dust-up several days prior, complete with punches thrown and headlocks, so I was surprised when he asked me -- passing each other in front of our school en route to classes in different buildings -- if I'd heard, and my opinion.
As he and his clique sauntered past, not really waiting for a response from me, but pleased with the knowledge that they'd told me the news and not vice versa ... I felt strangely appreciative. First of all, not to be in a headlock that day. Mainly, though, because he did ask my opinion ... a thing, at the time, I was unused to giving. I felt proud, in a way, sort of smug ... vaguely validated. I walked into class with that stick up my ass ... A national tragedy making me smile.
No inappropriate warm, fuzzy feelings, though, greeted the news about Robin Williams.
When my brother sent me an SMS, I was thinking about Robin. His name had been "trending" all day online, but I hadn't bothered to click and see why ... Still, it made me conscious of the guy again, and I was thinking about bits from Reality... What a Concept when my brother texted.
"Robin williams dead of suicide. :-/ "
Those terse five words (plus the emoji), transmitted electronically, stopped me cold. Literally froze me in place, staring down at my phone ... waiting for the timed follow-up: the ;-) or the :-) or the "JK, bitch!"
None of which followed. My bro wasn't joking. Robin Williams killed himself.
Being "hip to", as I was, the comedian Robin -- and far less into Mrs. Doubtfire, or any of the treacly, scripted and comparatively muted screen incarnations (even Mork and the Genie paled, I thought, in comparison to Robin Williams live on stage, when he wasn't trying to pander to ratings or box office) -- "knowing" and preferring that younger version, there was no way suicide would've crossed that mind!
Literally frozen ... still disbelieving ...
Keeping things hidden, at bay, so well then ...
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| Robin Williams 1951 - 1979 (2014) |
Losing me, and himself, as our lives / work wore on.
May Robin Williams Rest in Peace.
* * *
* * *
Genie is not "free"
* * *
"If you're that depressed, reach out to someone." - Robin Williams
(as Lance Clayton, World's Greatest Dad)
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Labor, No Love Lost
(or, Square Peg in a Round World)
I'm ill-fitting, and self-absorbed.
Most of my writing is in the first person, and I'd never heard of Paula Deen until last month. Even in my salad days -- or more accurately, my bacon cheeseburger (medium rare), profiterole sundae days (and late night, bad life music nights) -- I couldn't care less about popular culture.
Knee-jerkingly antipathetic toward anything "mainstream", I pointedly avoided the sardonics of "Seinfeld" ... the cloying, warm fuzziness of "Friends" ... the bilious pomposities of Rosie and Oprah, the horse jocularities of Ed and Jay Leno ...
Most of my writing is in the first person, and I'd never heard of Paula Deen until last month. Even in my salad days -- or more accurately, my bacon cheeseburger (medium rare), profiterole sundae days (and late night, bad life music nights) -- I couldn't care less about popular culture.
Knee-jerkingly antipathetic toward anything "mainstream", I pointedly avoided the sardonics of "Seinfeld" ... the cloying, warm fuzziness of "Friends" ... the bilious pomposities of Rosie and Oprah, the horse jocularities of Ed and Jay Leno ...
Of course, Ed McMahon was with Johnny Carson - I stopped having time for that guy too, when he hosted the Oscars! Billy Crystal, Tom Hanks, Whoopi Goldberg, forget it. And Robin Williams ended up going the same route: essentially abandoning all that shtick about "drugs and people passing out" ... betraying his essence, reigning himself in and joining the cloying and warm, fuzzy "mainstream".
When Howard Stern became a judge on "America's Got Talent", all bets were off. That, more than anything, put a nail in the coffin of what I perceived to be my 'youth': rebellious, obnoxious, enigmatic ... Outside looking in, but not wanting to be in.
My early work life, not a whole lot different. The fake camaraderie and/or seeming pointlessness of the American "air-conditioned nightmare", as Henry Miller put it (and as it perfectly describes too many of the office work wheels I've been a cog in) provided a woefully bumpy labor ride as a young adult ... and working in restaurants, I would either stare wistfully at a couple's table, assessing their body language, watching them smile and behave with each other and wishing I had someone to do the same with;
or wistfully stare at the asses of waitresses - blithely ignoring all other needs.
I've lost jobs and had businesses fail, often through nobody's fault but mine. I've been labeled inappropriate, apathetic, inefficient, off my game, "superior to superiors", inferior to what's needed, beyond what's acceptable ... and, almost as ludicrous as the suggestion of (I guess) arrogance or condescension in the superiority comment above, I've been called unclean.
Now as you might imagine, of all of these, the complaint about my personal hygiene stinks the most. Then again, it was probably the most head-scratching and off the mark, in terms of not only my work ethic and job performance, but also (as anyone who knows me will attest), my person.
Simply put, I am clean. You're welcome to smell me. I lift up my arms, with my shirt off, and dance; I blow in your face my hot, sweet-smelling breath ... I trust you'll inspect the long middle fingernails thrust with insouciance deep into your eyeballs. And lick me.
By all means, you can lick me.
I'm clean.
This is what ricocheted through my brain, the day I got sent home from the lakeside restaurant where I used to wash dishes -- an early foray into underemployment -- and where, just a few hours earlier, Big Katy (Boss Lady) had reprimanded me that day about not chopping up some lettuce correctly.
"Make sure you really chop it!" said she ... pushing another fingerful from the salad bar into her mouth. "This way, the customers can really get at it!"
She left the dining area then -- and me, in my filthy dishwashing apron, standing there with a head of lettuce which she'd lobbed my way like a softball pitch, after peeling a leaf off and blowing her nose with it -- and a few hours later, I get sent home because I'm "unclean"!
This is how people roll, of course. The dirtiest, weakest, sickest links are always the quickest to point and think, "Do (and say) unto others ... "
And thus they do ... when they fit well.
Happy Labor Day!
When Howard Stern became a judge on "America's Got Talent", all bets were off. That, more than anything, put a nail in the coffin of what I perceived to be my 'youth': rebellious, obnoxious, enigmatic ... Outside looking in, but not wanting to be in.
My early work life, not a whole lot different. The fake camaraderie and/or seeming pointlessness of the American "air-conditioned nightmare", as Henry Miller put it (and as it perfectly describes too many of the office work wheels I've been a cog in) provided a woefully bumpy labor ride as a young adult ... and working in restaurants, I would either stare wistfully at a couple's table, assessing their body language, watching them smile and behave with each other and wishing I had someone to do the same with;
or wistfully stare at the asses of waitresses - blithely ignoring all other needs.
I've lost jobs and had businesses fail, often through nobody's fault but mine. I've been labeled inappropriate, apathetic, inefficient, off my game, "superior to superiors", inferior to what's needed, beyond what's acceptable ... and, almost as ludicrous as the suggestion of (I guess) arrogance or condescension in the superiority comment above, I've been called unclean.
Now as you might imagine, of all of these, the complaint about my personal hygiene stinks the most. Then again, it was probably the most head-scratching and off the mark, in terms of not only my work ethic and job performance, but also (as anyone who knows me will attest), my person.
Simply put, I am clean. You're welcome to smell me. I lift up my arms, with my shirt off, and dance; I blow in your face my hot, sweet-smelling breath ... I trust you'll inspect the long middle fingernails thrust with insouciance deep into your eyeballs. And lick me.
By all means, you can lick me.
I'm clean.
This is what ricocheted through my brain, the day I got sent home from the lakeside restaurant where I used to wash dishes -- an early foray into underemployment -- and where, just a few hours earlier, Big Katy (Boss Lady) had reprimanded me that day about not chopping up some lettuce correctly.
"Make sure you really chop it!" said she ... pushing another fingerful from the salad bar into her mouth. "This way, the customers can really get at it!"
She left the dining area then -- and me, in my filthy dishwashing apron, standing there with a head of lettuce which she'd lobbed my way like a softball pitch, after peeling a leaf off and blowing her nose with it -- and a few hours later, I get sent home because I'm "unclean"!
This is how people roll, of course. The dirtiest, weakest, sickest links are always the quickest to point and think, "Do (and say) unto others ... "
And thus they do ... when they fit well.
Happy Labor Day!
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| "Night Work", ©Jeff Glovsky |
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