March 9, 2004 ~ There will be no more Spalding Gray tales from the dark, quirky, ironic side. No more life stories to tell. No more life. No more Spalding
It wasn't unexpected. Spalding Gray had threatened, even tried suicide before and, on a bitter cold morning two months ago, in January - that month of quickly broken promises of new beginnings and resolutions to heal, help, change, morph and be better - he slipped into the night, lying to his wife about where he was going and, perhaps, went to meet a destiny etched on his soul a long time ago when his mother killed herself... and he slipped off the Staten Island Ferry and into the freezing dark waters.
He
didn't swim to Cambodia. He didn't come bobbing up, chattering and blue, presenting
himself to a rescuer. That was the way it should have happened. Think of the
headline. Think of the review: "Writer Spalding
Gray's Suicide Attempt Inspires Brilliant New Monologue on Life and Near
Death." It would
have been darkly funny, of course - like all his monologues and performances
and books. It would have made us all shake a little and not just with laughter
but with the cold reality that this so talented, so quirky a man with such
an inquisitive, piercing intellect had come so close, so close, to sinking
into the dark, deep forever abyss of despair and suicide.
"Doubt is my bottom line. The only thing I don't doubt is my own doubt." ~~~ Spalding Gray, "Gray's Anatomy" (l996).
But now we know he didn't just threaten and disappear somewhere. No more doubts and theories about what really happened. Spalding Gray's body has been found.
I have met many famous people, darlings. But I never met Mr. Gray. I always wanted to. I always wanted to tell him how I sat, riveted, watching "Swimming to Cambodia."... how it was one of those moments that changes things, changes how you see the possibility of translating life and humor into words and entertainment and, even, art.
There was that connection - the "ah ha" factor when you recognize a writer with a singular presence and cock-eyed viewpoint that cuts to the quick. And there was the simpatico connection of discovering another person thrown into bizarre places, connections, situations ~ and here he was making life-as-theatre and even life-as-gloom-and-doom-insanity funny, compelling and mysteriously more outlandish than fiction because it was plugged into, directly, the reality of being Spalding Gray.
"How
therapeutic it is to surround yourself with people weirder than yourself!"
~~~ Spalding Gray , "Monster In A Box"(l992)
He made us laugh and think. of if you do not know Spalding Gray's work, of if you already miss him on this planet that could use far more wit and creative ways with words and tales, go rent "Swimming to Cambodia" and "Gray's Anatomy" and "Monster In The Box". And read his books, including "Morning and Night and Sex and Death to the Age of 14" and "It's a Slippery Slope." And you can find his image and acting talent in everything from a Simpson's episode to "The Killing Fields", from a turn in "The Nanny" to "Beaches".
"Hey... I didn't know why those guys were pointing at me... I just knew they wanted me to follow them. I did... I followed them. Because I'm curious.... and I love to be wanted." ~~~ Spalding Gray,"Gray's Anatomy" (l996)
His life was curious. There was the Christian Scientist suicidal mom, the 1960's and attendant characters and "raves" and drugs and the l990s break-up with his long time partner and marriage to the woman, the neighbor, he had gotten pregnant and then his seemingly idyllic, but brief, existence as a family man....
And then came a horrendous car crash in Ireland that left him damaged, drained and some might say, lost. His brain, that wonderful brilliant brain, was addled and depressed and injured and hurting and confused. But he seemed to know where he was heading... Always, it had to do with reaching his story's end (he had threatened suicide, even leaving notes, many times) and water and following his mom.
"Now Athol Fugard seemed to like hearing my stories, and also, he had just given up drinking so he was buying me drinks and kind of living vicariously through me. 'Spalding! I am going to have an orange and you will have yourself some beer. Now. What's been going on? Tell me all about your day.' And I told him. I told him about the Perfect Moment in the Indian Ocean and he said, 'Spalding. The sea's a lovely lady when you play in her, but if you play with her she's a bitch.'" ~~ Spalding Gray, "Swimming to Cambodia"
Before
Spalding left his family and walked out into that final January night, he
went to see the movie "Big Fish". In this
wonderful movie, the elderly father lies dying in the hospital, and his son
conjures his own fantasy of his father's demise. He sees the stricken man
striding down to a riverbank in his native Alabama and throwing himself into
the flowing water in front of his lifetime of friends ~ but instead of drowning,
he miraculously changes into a giant fish and simply swims away.
Spalding Gray's wife, we've heard, said he cried and cried after seeing the movie. And then he went away.
On the cover of his novel "Impossible Vacation", a man is under water, his arm held only held up, holding a flag. The book is the funny and restless and painful story of a character named Brewster - disillusioned but searching for the place he longs to be, where he will belong, if only he can find it.... Stoned and star gazing, thinking of suicide, traveling on.
Spalding Gray loved to be by the water. He found his comfort there, in life and maybe in death it swept away his inner monsters.
We like to think his funny, quirky, brilliant soul morphed into something even brighter and swam right away to a place where his brain and heart and mind, his being, are finally soothed...
And where the sun is always sparkling on the water and the neighbors don't drive you crazy and people forgive the failings of tired and weary hearts. All in all, we bet he could come up with a humdinger of a monologue about the whole thing - his death, his swimming on. And we'd like to think he's rehearsing it right now.
|
|||||||
|
 |
Copyright © 1995
- 2008, ®B
And S Productions,
™ Brazen Hussy, ™Brazen Hussies, and
™Brazenhussies, ®All Rights Reserved