Spalding Gray

The late Spalding Gray was a hero of mine in that he told the truth. Make that his truth in all its neurotic, narcissistic & brutal honesty. Spalding was a man without a spine, infuriating in his self-obsession. However, in being so, he gave us the chance to see the weaker, charming part of ourselves...and for that, we should be grateful.

As an occasional movie actor he described himself as:

"...I've enjoyed my eccentric castings. I stretch between two Dalis - the Dali Lama and Dolly Parton..."

...but it's for his funny, eccentric monologues that he will be remembered. His work is simply one of a kind...

Swimming To Cambodia

Gray's breakthrough work would have had a more accurate title if it were Swimming To Cambodia...And Back.

The monologue (it's one of several in this bumper-sized book) is about his involvement in the genocide-in-Cambodia movie The Killing Fields...and his recovery from that experience, all told from the point of view of a neurotic, solipsistic WASP, whose charm is his endless capacity to make every detail of his frequently funny life IMPORTANT!!!

Like Woody Allen's Manhattan, it's also a brilliant documentation of a certain type of mid-1970s East Coast artiste...obsessed with Sex and occasionally, personal development fads.

Monster In A Box

Spalding's agent gets in his ear and sells him the idea that he should write a novel. Bad move: Spalding can only write the truth...and the truth is that he feels the need to write about his mother's suicide...even in badly disguised fiction.

Monster In A Box is the hilarious retelling of all the reasons, diversions and dramas that Life threw at him to prevent him writing the sprawling manuscript, the monster that sits in the box on the table in front of him, while he delivers the monologue.

Gray's Anatomy

Spalding Gray totters towards official middle-age, convinced that his body is falling to pieces...and can't accept his doctor's diagnosis that all he needs is a minor corrective operation.

Instead, he runs to help from alternative healers across the USA, some extreme, some just plain weird...in an attempt to cure himself, hilariously retold in all its pathetic detail in the punningly-titled Gray's Anatomy.

In June 2004, it's believed that he committed suicide by jumping off the Staten Island Ferry. His passing is still mourned by many. Here's what CNN reported.

Extras:

I hope to do a review of Spalding's monologue about skiing, entitled It's A Slippery Slope soon...

"...Master monologist Spalding Gray is feeling like he's on the downhill side of life...(and in) this latest episode has Gray dealing with his breakup with long-suffering girlfriend Renee and his sudden fathering of a child with a new woman. Along the way Gray ponders, in patented Gray style, what this means about his own aging, whether he's now living his life to provide material for his monologues, and how much it all resembles the peculiar plummeting rapture of a ski slope..." Amazon blurb

It's A Slippery Slope Audio

"... Saw this monologue live in Pittsburgh and could barely stay in my seat. Major epiphanies & hilariously sad. The recording does a great job of maintaining Gray's drive, stream-of-consciousness, and vulnerability.I recommend it most for a 100 mile drive. Pulled into my destination just as he summed it all up so beautifully..." Jay Oberski

...but in the meantime, here's a wonderful interview by Jeanne Carstensen with Spalding about it.