He spent a lifetime turning his unraveling into a lifeline for everyone else, confessing every fear as if survival depended on saying it out loud. His jokes were never about mocking weakness; they were an invitation to admit we were already breaking, and to laugh anyway. In his shaking hands and restless pacing, people saw their own private panics briefly illuminated and somehow made bearable.
He never seemed convinced he belonged onstage, yet that doubt became his most human quality. Watching him was like watching someone argue with their reflection and still show up again tomorrow. Now that he’s gone, the quiet feels wrong, like a setup missing its payoff. But in every breathless rant and interrupted thought, he left us a kind of map: you don’t escape your anxieties—you carry them, name them, and keep talking until they loosen their grip.
