An Open Letter to Robin Williams

An Open Letter to Robin Williams.

Dear Mr. Williams,

Hi, how are you? Oh, I'm fine, and thank you for asking, but this really isn't the type of letter that is going to be of a familiar or congenial tone, because I've just read that you've been asked to portray Susan Boyle in an upcoming movie about her life. Speaking for no one other than myself and a handful of people I'm happy to call my friends, I'd like to ask if you could, please, turn this one down. To quote the anti-drug television commercials of my youth, "Just say no!"

I know, I know, it would be a chance for you to stretch your acting chops in a direction they've never been stretched before, but if it's handled incorrectly it could end up playing out as a miserable sequel to "Mrs. Doubtfire." ("Doubtfire 2: Doubtfirerer", or, possibly "Mrs. Doubtfire 2: Doubt Harder") Do you really want to be associated with something that has so much going for it in the wrong direction? I'd like to think that you don't, but from what I can tell you've already started practicing "I Dreamed a Dream" in front of your friends. Man, that is just sad.

I understand that when a man of your stature gets to a certain point in his life and has gone through the trials and tribulations that you have its easy to get inspired by almost anything that looks remotely inspirational. But, this, my one time idol, is not that inspiring. Just because the music scene of today is overcrowded with uppity sex symbols singing pop songs on auto-tune doesn't mean the world needs to gush over a frumpy Brit with a legit set of pipes. For the love of Dog, man, it's not like she was blind, battled drug addiction or even had a severe mental illness to overcome; she's just, you know, not that great to look at.

"Hi, how are you? I'm a genius. Have a nice day."

I personally have nothing against Ms. Boyle and the fame that she has garnered from appearing on "Britain's Got Talent," but do I think her life story deserves an over the top, Hollywood style biography? No, I don't, and neither should you, Mr. Williams. Is it really all that awe inspiring for a dowdy looking woman of some talent to finally get a break on one of the biggest television shows in the U.K? Need I remind you of the one time Ruben Studdard chaos that swept over America when he was voted the winner of "American Idol" all those years ago? What's he been up to lately? Other than eating Cheetos and wishing he was Clay Aiken, I'd wager Mr. Studdard has done very little with the "charmed" life he was given since winning "American Idol." Does that make him any less talented? Not at all, he is for sure capable of singing songs, but, would I pay $8 to go to the local multi-plex to watch Denzel Washington portray him in a blockbuster biopic? F_ck no! It's just not that interesting.

Denzel Washington in "I Ain't Done Sh_t: The Ruben Studdard Movie"

Mr. Williams, again, I'd like to implore you to turn down this role. It will not be good for anyone involved. You're already catching flak for "insulting Ms. Boyle" by merely being cast in the movie (she's a woman, by the way, and you, sir, are a man). You haven't even shot a promotional still for the movie and people are up in arms over the decision, so imagine what it is going to be like when you don the drag and go parading about as SuBo in all her frumpy glory? I don't think I need to explain to you that people tend to get a little agitated when their favorite quasi-celebrities are made fun of( "leave Brittany Alone!" Anyone?), even if it is by accident, so why put yourself in that position? I'm not saying you wouldn't do a tremendous job, but hey, why take the risk? Everyone and their cousin knows a movie can be ruined in post-production when the studio steps in with their notes and their 'sposedahs and their audience polling, so even your most brilliant performance could get chopped down to nothing more than a musical farce of damning proportions. Sir, you are better than that.

Okay, I might be coming on a little strong, but let me just say that I still have the highest possible hopes for you and your career. As much as I feign to despise you, I secretly envy you and your ability to make audiences laugh out loud. So, I'm offering up this simple solution to the Susan Boyle quagmire that has presented itself: Let's see how "World's Greatest Dad" plays out before contracts are finalized and you are committed to appearing in a worthless pile of drek that would be the signal light for the end of your amazing career. So far the buzz generated by "World's Greatest Dad" has been positive despite the fact that it contains some risque material that is usually reserved for movies of a more hardcore nature. C'mon, man! I know how good you are, and I know you are going to knock this movie out of the mother f_cking park and for some reason my uneducated, un-credentialed and unappealing mind seems to think that if all goes according to plan you're going to be recognized by the Academy and at the very least get another nomination. I'm still not sure how you were overlooked for "Insomnia," but "World's Greatest Dad" could right that wrong! Think about it, man! You could be the king of the world again. The toast of the town, even. And, why not? You deserve it because you are just that good. Sh_t, you even made "Death to Smoochy" watchable, you can do anything, but this SuBo Bio is going to wreck you, sir.

Now, my comedy snob friends out there are probably going to give me an atomic wedgie for pleading with you to come to your senses, because it's chic in their world to hate on you as often as possible. They see you as a one trick motor mouthed pony with nothing left in the tank. They think you fell off the face of the Earth years ago and no one should bother pulling you back in, but I am not them. I begrudgingly felt the full force of a table full of stand-up comics telling me I'm an idiot for defending you, but I never back down. I, unlike so many others, would never walk off stage because you entered a room and would be happy, nay PROUD, if you saw fit to use some of my material without my permission. After all, you're not blatantly stealing like Carlos Mencia, you just can't control what comes into your mind and how it comes out of your mouth and I dig that. Also: You are ROBIN WILLIAMS.

I know I kind of trashed you in a previous post I wrote about you, sir, but I was trying to get a cheap laugh and I'm not a good enough writer to have conveyed what I truly feel without it coming off as weird. I thought I saved it by explaining the only reason I started to dislike you was because I'm an ass, but after re-reading that post I realize it's just a brush off and an easy way to end a sentence that should've been more carefully thought out. The truth is, Mr. Williams, you still are an inspiration to me, and even at your age with a monkey valve in your heart you could still beat the living sh_t out of me in a fight. You are still funnier than 90% of the people out their who make jokes for a living, and I'd be willing to trade in all my hipster cred to defend that point. I don't care if David Cross hates me for liking you, because he's kind of a prick anyway. I don't care if Zach Galifianakis thinks I'm a loser, because... well okay that one would hurt a little, but still, I'd be willing to trumpet your prowess no matter whose company I kept.

I'm from a different era, sir, and as much as I claim to be inspired by and influenced by the contemporary group of comedians working the circuit today, it was you, Mr. Williams that kick started my comedy bug. If you weren't doing stand up when I was a little boy I never would've sought out Andy Kaufman, George Carlin or Richard Pryor. I can never thank you enough for opening that door for me, so please, one more time, don't take the part of Susan Boyle. Please please please please please please please please please reconsider... unless of course they offer you some exorbitant amount of money (nothing less than $20 million to keep your dignity) then by all means, go ahead and do it. Hell, even the king of hipster d-bag comedians, David Cross, was in "Alvin and the Chipmunks," because they paid him a sh_t-Ton of money. So, I can't fault you there, but if this is an art house piece and you're getting paid scale to trot around in drag to tell the tale of a mono-browed Scot that is your fault for committing to it, sir. For that I will eventually forgive you, but it's going to take time for myself and the movie going public to gather up the eye bleach required to sanitize the image of you playing Susan Boyle from our minds. Think about it, okay? That's all I'm asking. Just think about it and when you're done thinking about it think about it some more, because hopefully you'll come to the same conclusion I have and you just won't do it.

Thank you for your time and for all the years of entertainment.

Yours Truly,

Jimbolaya


p.s- nice job on Conan a little while back, you made the other interview ( I won't name names because it was a British judge from a very, very popular reality show (not "Idol")) sufferable, it was really nice to hear you laughing again. -J

*UPDATE* As of this morning, according to Mr. Williams' representatives via a NPR broadcast I heard on my way into work, R-Dub will NOT be playing the role of Susan Boyle in an upcoming movie about her life. You can read all about it here. Sorry for taking you down the forbidden path of false information and immediate reaction, reader, I swear it will only happen almost daily.

"It's not your fault..."

For an entire decade of my life I was a Robin Williams super-fan. From the ages of 8 to 18 I went to all his movies, saw any appearance he made on T.V shows and watched any episodes of "Mork & Mindy" I could get my hands on. I was, for lack of a better education, addicted to Robin Williams. There was something about his wild, frenetic energy and manic line after line delivery that made the younger me want to be exactly like him, and much to the dismay of my mother I could spout out quotes from "Aladdin" and "Mrs. Doubtfire" so easily and quickly that eventually I was banned from ever saying "Ooooooh, Helloooooo" in a high-pitched, faux British accent ever again.

My R-Dub obsession was so all consuming that I thought "Toys" was one of the best movies I had ever seen and spent several years defending that belief. That's right, "Toys," and no one should defend that movie. I don't even think Robin William's himself would defend "Toys," if only because it gave us L.L Cool J the actor and forever set in motion a string of events that would lead to a surge in rapper/actors like Ice T, Ice Cube, Tupac, Eminem, Ludacris, that guy from "Pimp my Ride" and Lyle Lovett cashing in on various minor and major film roles that through their involvement resulted in at least 1 decent franchise (i.e: "Friday" ) and several terrible franchise (i.e: anything else Ice Cube has been in).

You see, because black people be fixin houses like this... and white people be fixin' houses like this...

I can't honestly blame Robin William's for the boom in rapper/actors, but part of me wishes I could, because there's really nothing Robin William's has done that has made me dislike him the way I do now. Not even "Jack" or "Bicentennial Man" or "Man of The Year" pushed me over the edge. No, it wasn't until I started doing stand-up and started really watching Robin Williams do stand-up that I completely lost all respect for the guy.

My reasons for the about face are still unclear to me. It's not that he's a noted joke stealer , because everyone in stand-up comedy is stealing someone else's material whether they think they are or not, and at least R-Dub pays the comedian when he does it. It's not because whenever he's on stage I wish I could punch him in the face and tell him to "slow the f_ck down." It's because at some point in time he stopped making me laugh and started doing things like the "Meet Robin" ticket package for his stand-up gigs (yes, the prices are very, very high, about $435 last I checked) and naming his tour some trite piece of word-play like "The Weapons of Self-Destruction Tour." The Robin Williams I came to know and love would never have stooped so low... or would he?

B-b-but, pants don't go on your head, Robin... oh I see. Good one.

Before I lay into the man that used to be my idol I want to say that I still believe Robin Williams is one of the best actors of the past 25 years. No, he's not on par with someone like Daniel Day-Lewis or Phillip Seymour Hoffman, but he's a tremendous talent when he works with a director that can harness his energy and put it to good use. Hell, the man has an Oscar for "Good Will Hunting," and should have at least been nominated for his uber creepy, exceptionally well done role in "Insomnia," because he actually out acted none other than Sir Loudy McScreams a lot, Al Pacino. Have you seen "The Fisher King?" If not, I suggest you put it in your Netflix queue and watch the sh_t out of that, because that's how you make the most of Robin Williams' talent, and once again, he outshines a brilliant actor in Jeff Bridges. If it were up to me, R-Dub and Terry Gilliam would do nothing but make movies with each other for the rest of my life and I would die a happy man. Do you have any idea how awesome he would have been as Sancho Panza in "Don Quixote?" No, you don't, because it never got made. But I digress...

I'm not sure but I think 1982's "An Evening With Robin Williams" was the first taste of R-Dub's brand of stand-up comedy that I ever sampled. I saw it at least 10 years after it was released to video when I was a running around acting like the Genie from "Aladdin" half the time (yep, I memorized every single song that Mr. Williams sang in that wonderful movie), so watching him do stand-up was more a retrospective initiation than an actual orientation into the manic genius of Mr. Williams and his style of comedy. As a 10 year old boy with a vivid imagination and an unquenchable hunger for comedy of all kinds, Robin Williams sated my appetite adequately enough for me to mimic his rainbow suspender wearing, Jew-fro having, cocaine snorting ass (minus the suspenders, Jew-fro and cocaine). So, the next day at school I got in trouble for swearing and making a joke about cocaine during recess. Did this deter me from loving Robin Williams? Nope, it made me love him even more, because my 10 year old brain thought it was awesome. Just. Plain. Awesome.

In watching "An Evening With Robin Williams" as an older gentleman it still stands as a great hour of stand-up comedy with everything you would expect from R-Dub. For a while the only way the world was able to watch Mr. Williams perform his stand-up routines was to wait for "Comic Relief" on HBO or a similarly themed show of some kind or re-runs of "An Evening With..." on Comedy Central. It was in that "Comic Relief" atmosphere that Mr. Williams was honestly and truly head and shoulders above the other participating comics. I remember watching the 80's holy trinity of stand-up comedians (Whoopi Goldberg, Billy Crystal and Robin Williams) one night back in the day and thinking to myself "this Billy Crystal and this Whoopi Goldberg kind of suck," and I was no more than 10 years old.

"Will, between you and me, Whoopi is a hack."

Then came the 90's, and the only time we got to see Robin Williams be Robin Williams was when he went on "The Tonight Show" or "Late Night with David Letterman" or made a mad-cap, off the wall comedy like "Hamlet" and just let it all hang out, and this, coincidentally, is when I started to realize the man I grew up worshipping was kind of unhinged and possibly insane. For minutes at a time during these interviews it seemed as if R-Dub had no brain to mouth filter like you and I probably do, so the audience would be treated to a 5 minutes laugh riot, rambling monologue about the intricacies of flatulence.

Perhaps the fault is mine. As I aged my tastes changed and I didn't find "Father's Day" as funny as I did the year before and even "Mrs. Doubtfire" seemed a little too... how do I put this... wacky for my tastes. I was into things like "Seinfeld" and "The Simpsons" and other high brow, artsy comedy fare that would lead me down the path to the comedic stylings of "Monty Python," Richard Pryor, George Carlin and eventually Lenny Bruce, Patton Oswalt, Brian Posehn, David Cross, "Arrested Development" and a bunch of other more adult oriented comedy that played to my ever increasing snobby side. This got so bad that when people brought up Robin Williams I would snort loudly and chortle out some crude remark about how he "just isn't funny," and eventually I would get mean about it and say "listen, if you like Robin Williams you'll love 'According to Jim," or 'Two and a Half Men.' " Let's face it, nobody loves "According to Jim," and the fact that "Two and a Half Men" is still the most watched comedy on American television means way, way too many Americans think Charlie Sheen and Jon Cryer making unintelligent boner jokes is funny and that's just blatantly untrue.

This makes you laugh, America? THIS! Have you even heard of "The Office," America? Have you!?

So, Mr. Williams I want to ask you a direct question: Why, after all those years away from mass consumption stand-up comedy, did you decide to do "Robin Williams: Live on Broadway?" I had heard for months that you would be performing on Broadway in New York and even considered flying down just to see your show until I heard that it would be on HBO at some point. I waited patiently and thoughtfully, hoping that you would regain the form you had when you made "An Evening With Robin Williams" and beofre then when were so f_cking funny Richard Pryor himself thought to put you in his T.V show, but did you deliver? No. No you didn't. I think it was after you used one of your 400 water bottles to simulate male orgasm that I switched off the television and started to softly cry to myself while I wondered what the hell I wasted my childhood idolizing. I needed answers and I needed them sooner than later, so I went to the only person who could answer a question of this depth and meaning: My Father.

Now, I haven't mentioned my father around this blog at all, so I should start by letting you know he doesn't laugh easily, but Robin Williams always seemed to get him going. One night 18 months ago I asked the old man what he thought of R-Dub and he summed it up beautifully, "I think he's great, don't you, you used to love everything he did." I then told my father, "Well, over the past few years I've started to, kind of, hate the guy." At this my father looked me dead in the eye and said "Well, that's because you're an ass." He couldn't have been more right.

Jimmy Carter and my father are giving me the same look right now.