I first stumbled into Spalding Gray around 1991 or so, randomly flipping through the channels late at night. A&E was somewhere near the middle of his best known work, Swimming to Cambodia, and within seconds of seeing his face framed by shadows tossing words at me like machine gun, I grabbed a semi-blank VHS tape and began taping the film even though I had no clue who or what it was until I looked up the time slot in TV Guide the next day. I later rented the video and hoped to actually be able to see his genius in person one day. I am sure I wanted, at least a little, to be him one day.
The second time I stumbled into Spalding's voice was a couple years ago, driving to work. Between segments on our local NPR station, someone mentioned that Spalding would be calling in soon in connection with his upcoming performance here. A performance I had known nothing about. Finally a chance to see the man live. I assumed that it was too late and the show was sold out but it was so close to my birthday that I decided to try to get a ticket the day of the show, from my cube at work, about 3 hours before showtime. Tickets were available, I ordered one and drove directly to Spirit Square from the office. Once there, I was very happy to see that he was performing in what must be the tiniest theater available in Charlotte. Tiny, ancient-feeling, and cozy, the room lent itself to the immediacy and intimacy of his performance. He mentioned his birthday several times during the monolog and I found myself wondering about the fact that I was sitting there celebrating my birthday by listening to a man telling us the story of his own birthday, a birthday almost exactly twice the number of mine. A man sitting alone at a table with a bright yellow jambox, listening to NPR, talking about his family. A man who stood from the table only once during the entire performance, at the very end. I guess I had waited a decade for that night. It was worth the wait.
I think today's news simply confirmed what most people knew but that doesn't make it any better. I had this unrealistic hope that he was sitting on a beach somewhere, hiding under a straw hat, laughing like the devil. Now I simply wonder how much of the problem was physical, metaphysical, medical, spiritual, or conscious decision. Passages like the one from this interview kept his story's ending from being a surprise, no matter how badly we would put our wishes ahead of his.
io: When you saw yourself on the screen in King of the Hill, did watching your character commit suicide have an effect on you personally?
SG: Yeah, at the time Steven Soderbergh cast me in that movie, I was having a lot of suicide fantasies. I was darkly convinced that at age 52 I would kill myself because my mother committed suicide at that age. I was fantasizing that she was waiting for me on the other side of the grave. Steven said I was his only choice for that role because he had read Impossible Vacation, which was about a man ruled by regret.
John Perry Barlow penned a wonderful series of posts soon after Spalding originally "disappeared" in January. I link to these so that you might catch a glimpse of how powerful Spalding Gray's life was to those who were lucky enough to have seen it.
Is Spalding Gray Finally Swimming to Cambodia? [Jan 16, 2004]
Coda [Jan 19, 2004]
Hecklers at a Funeral [Jan 21, 2004]
Depression and The Beauty that Remains [Jan 23, 2004]
Respect.