Tag: Robbie Williams

Can we just start?

Live & Learn10 Comments

Last night, in the middle of the night, I got up. I’d been awake all night. When it comes time to sleep, my body goes, “We’re not! We’re not!” Four hours of just tossing and turnin’ and dealing with an amorphous blob of stuff. Fear. Shame. Pain. The whole gamut of human emotions. I’m nearly 50. I’m a dad, dad of four, with a loving wife. It’s astounding what’s happened in my life. But, it feels as though the past has me in a headlock. Something else to give.

I am trying to sort out the wreckage of the past. And I’m picking a rather particular way to exorcise these demons right now. I’m a hermit. If I’m not on stage, I’m in bed… Can we just start?

— Robbie Williams, from opening scene of “Robbie Williams“, a Netflix documentary filmed behind the scenes for over three decades. (S1:E1: “Let’s Get Wrecked”)

Reviews:

  • The Irish News: Robbie Williams Netflix review: An addict who can’t seem to walk away from fame
  • Stuff.co.nzL Robbie Williams is a Netflix series about mental-health, not music
  • Daily Mail: Robbie Williams found watching his own Netflix documentary series ‘deeply unpleasant’ as it documents his ‘descent into mental illness’

In that fierce embrace, even the gods speak of God

Live & Learn32 Comments

robbie_williams_portrait_black_and_white

Self Portrait

It doesn’t interest me if there is one God
or many gods.
I want to know if you belong or feel
abandoned.
If you know despair or can see it in others.
I want to know
if you are prepared to live in the world
with its harsh need
to change you. If you can look back
with firm eyes
saying this is where I stand. I want to know
if you know
how to melt into that fierce heat of living
falling toward
the center of your longing. I want to know
if you are willing
to live, day by day, with the consequence of love
and the bitter
unwanted passion of your sure defeat.

I have heard, in that fierce embrace, even
the gods speak of God.

— David Whyte
from Fire in the Earth

Minutes after learning of Margaret Thatcher’s death yesterday, I came across this poem from David Whyte.  Coincidence, hmmmmm.  From Death. To embracing that fierce heat of living.  The image is of Robbie Williams, as we continue to ride the UK train this morning…whose portrait…if you can look back with firm eyes…seemed to captured the spirit of Mr. Whyte’s marvelous poem.  This is where I stand...

Source: Thank you (again) WhiskeyRiver.  Image: SolarNavigator.net