Familiar with the work of Spalding Gray? (1 Viewer)

Black Swan

Abord the Yorikke!
I have a few favorite VHS movies that I put on once in a while on my old VCR.They seem to keep that special flavor that gets lost once on a dvd.

One of those movies is a monologue by Spalding Gray titled "Monster in a Box".

It starts with this book that he has started to write, that he calls the monster. He soon moves on to different subjects. I do love his humor.
I am now looking for a copy of "Swimming to Cambodia".

I did not know that he had committed suicide.
He had suddenly disappeared in 2004 and two months later, his body was fished out of the East River in New York.

http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/features/n_9787/index1.html
 
I thought that Swimming to Cambodia was much better than Monster in a Box. It's a long monologue about his experiences while doing a two or three minute bit-part in The Killing Fields (which is a great film, by the way).

Gray was an interesting guy, with a really oblique (and funny) view of people and life-in-general. He was bipolar, which is what apparently lead him to commit suicide.
 
I thought that Swimming to Cambodia was much better than Monster in a Box.

I just bought the movie "Swimming to Cambodia" on ebay for 10 dollars
(VHS version).
I saw the Killings Fields years ago, I should definitely view it again.
Your perspective changes over the years.
 
Check out SEX & DEATH TO THE AGE OF 14.
All his early monologues.
(There used to be a great audio version of him reading it on cassette, but I'd be surprised if it ever made it to digital.)
He had always been the depressive type - his mom killed herself too - but he was in a car crash a few years before he died, and was never the same afterwards.
My favorite film appearance of him is in David Byrne's TRUE STORIES, but there's one by Steven Soderburgh called KING OF THE HILL that's pretty good too. (I think his character actually commits suicide in it if I remember correctly.)
 
my favorite monologue of his is A SLIPPERY SLOPE. i like his stuff on family.
he used to live down the street from me. my mother is in his monologue, MORNING NOON AND NIGHT. his wife gave me a copy for that reason, even though my mom is in it very briefly. still, it was a great peice about sag harbor the town i grew up in.
normally i hate the artists and writers fromt this area. but i gave morning noon and night a read and loved it and have been obsessed with his work ever since. he's best.
 
Put his wife and kids through hell, jumping over the side like that, kind of selfish. Even growing up in tony Barrington with a trust fund can't keep the beast in the hole I guess.
 

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