Someone I didn't know at all died yesterday

I wasn't a Robin Williams fan, especially. I liked him as Mork and loved Moscow on the Hudson and Good Will Hunting. But he worked a lot and consequently made a lot of drek. He also was such a scenery chewer that he frequently threw the balance of a piece off with his "look-at-me, look-at-me" improvising.

So why did I feel so awful yesterday when I heard he took his own life?

Because there was a naked vulnerability to him that I responded to. He was going to make us laugh, or cry, or at the very least pay attention, even if it depleted him. He put it all out there. Like Judy Garland or Janis Joplin. He was like those ladies in ways my antenna picked up and I just naturally felt something for him.

I also appreciated his willingness to playing against type. He played a psycho on an oft-repeated episode of Law & Order: SVU -- which was so poorly written it proves my point about his appearing in a lot of crap -- and hauntingly good as the villain in Insomnia and the desperately lonely clerk in One Hour Photo.

I hate suicide. I am sorry for the assistant who found him, sorry for his wife who has to decide whether to stay in the house where it happened, sorry for the children who now must cope with an inescapable patina of guilt on top of the pain that comes with losing a parent. Most of all I am sorry for the man who felt so smothered by circumstances that he couldn't see any point in waiting for another sunrise.

Rest in peace, Robin Williams.