FTT Off-Topic: August Is the Cruelest Month

What Is It Good For

Not sports, not sorry, read or don't. This is going to get random.

You can pretty much tell the age of your peer group not by whether they are posting about Robin Williams in your social feed, but what Robin Williams project is mentioned. Friends of mine are going with "Mork and Mindy", because that defined their childhood. Others are adding "Mrs. Doubtfire" moments, or maybe "Good Will Hunting," or "Good Morning, Vietnam." No one's citing his stand-up, because stand up is just too ephemeral to quote a single line, and Williams was too single-note and cocaine-driven to really make what he was originally best at to be the driving point now. And in the next day or say, one assumes, the younger trolls who only knew him when the shtick had gotten a little tired will write about his end, and, well, that's not pretty now, and won't be pretty later. You don't go out by your own hand, without a debilitating illness, and not get some scorn tossed on the memory.

For my money, Williams was a stylist and primal force who overwhelmed projects with his energy and vision, and wound up doing the same thing a lot. It was a thing that a lot of people loved, but it's also something that probably fed his demons; the man battled various forms of addiction over the decades, and kept him from doing the work that he probably respected more. (There was a remarkably downcast and humble podcast interview with Marc Maron a few years ago that makes this more than a potshot theory, but it is what it is.) And he died at 63, an apparent suicide with sordid details, at a time when he was still working a lot. Expect sadness for the better part of a week about it.

Actual real news is Gaza and Ebola and Sad Politics and the constant threat of economic scares, and of course every news network trades in fear to pump the ratings, but still.

And then there's the actual sports that are supposed to take your mind off such things, and instead it's all about how Greg Oden hit his woman and some MMA guy hit his woman and yes, there's going to be more to that Tony Stewart story...

Personally? I tore the skin on my hand (again) while golfing yesterday, which has now happened the last two times out and has made the back nine painful in ways that were beyond the ordinary. I've got a chipped tooth and a dentist that won't return calls, a car with a persistent electrical issue, a puppy that's teething, a fantasy draft prep that's not doing itself, and unexpected money issues and unexpected expenses that make the former worse. 

And, so, well, one question... when do things not suck? And can I just turtle up and sleep until that happens? (Answer: no. Gahhh.)

 Maybe this weekend, when I've got tickets to the Philly area Oddfest tour stop, and get to see Louis CK, Sarah Silverman, Dave Attell, Aziz Ansari, Hannibal Burress and others. Maybe a week from Friday, the next time my home poker game crew meets up. Maybe in a week and a half, when the football draft is over, and I'll delude myself into liking my team. Maybe in a month, when I make a road trip to Indy to add another town on the list of places where I've seen my Eagles play with the Shooter Mom.

But today? Today is about people dying too soon, and people behaving badly, and the toy department getting invaded by sadness and fatigue and depression.

Some days are just like that. Especially Mondays in August.

And I miss Lou Reed, and my dog, who died six weeks ago, and it still hurts.

Tough season. Random sadness, just piling on top of each other, making everything go too slow.

Play me out, Lou.