The day I saw Robin Williams in his element
Francis Moriarty recalls an early live performance by the comic genius
There are times when talents gather in a certain place, drawn as filings to a magnet. That's how it was in the San Francisco Bay Area of four decades ago, a time of circus clowns and cyclotrons, activists and accelerators, particles and poets. I write of this now because someone very special, even by the standards of that era, has just died.
The first time I saw Robin Williams was in one of the comedy clubs that were proliferating in vacated corner stores and the back rooms of old spaghetti houses. On the day in question, I was going though hard times and needed some comic relief with my coffee.
The first act was a guitar-wielding comic whose childhood was so deeply scarred by The Wizard of Oz that he devoted himself to mimicking the voice of every character.
The next performer was a man who'd been subjected to education at the hands of Catholic nuns, a rich vein of material in better hands than his. Then came a fellow who relied on profanity to generate embarrassed laughter.