Fuck Apologies

I met Robin Williams once-- during November of last year. At the time I even commented to some people that he seemed as if he was down about something. He was nowhere near as ebullient and happy as he seemed even during his candid moments. Yet he was kind enough to speak with us and sign things for us in a barren alley in Los Angeles.
The autograph dealers looked at him expectantly as he is was making his monthly rounds of chumming a school of fish.
I respected him because he was an outstanding entertainer. I knew long before he committed suicide that he studied acting in a very exclusive advanced class at Julliard in which he and Christopher Reeve were the only students. He was also a great stand up performer.
With these things being written, I agreed with almost everything that Henry Rollins wrote for the L.A. Weekly about him in a piece that he titled
"Fuck Suicide."
Obviously I do not agree with his comment that when someone kills himself he doesn't understand why people are sad about the death because the suicidal person made a choice.
But the heart of his statement rings true to me: fathers should fight hard against abandoning their children in that manner by whatever means they can avail themselves of. Also, I agree with him wholeheartedly that Williams was a good man.
The L.A. Weekly is published every Thursday. Rollins' piece was not printed during the week that Williams killed himself, so I assume that he had plenty of time to consider his words carefully, which made his subsequent apology baffling to me.
As I've gone deeper and deeper into the stand up world I've learned that the heart of the craft is basically standing by your words and owning anything that comes up-- regardless of how embarrassing it is to you at the time. As Chris D'Elia puts it, "I will never, ever apologize for anything that I've said on a stage." Hell, my last blog post touched on this topic as well. How the hell can I regard anyone as truthful and real when his stance changes during the course of just a few days?
A true comic never backs down... a truly strong commentator never backs down.
So I see this world of apologists and p.c. nonsense for what it is, and I have lost respect for many people during the last four years in which I've hit the stages. I'm tired of malleable, meek people who are just trying to gain popularity or more Twitter followers by staying in the middle of the road.
As you've probably heard in the past, only roadkill is in the middle of the road.