Source: Esquire
I just ordered the DVD And Everything Is Going Fine, a documentary Steven Soderbergh made about Spalding Gray. I hadn’t heard of it before but have been a fan of Gray since seeing “Swimming to Cambodia.” I was looking for a review of the DVD when I stumbled upon a brief but graphic account by a 28-year-old web developer of how he and a friend came upon Gray’s washed up body in the East River. Two months earlier, in an apparent suicide attempt, Gray had jumped off the side of the Staten Island Ferry. (The DVD cover and title are thus perhaps a bit, shall I say, mordant.) Gray had evidently suffered from severe bouts of depression ever since a car crash a few years earlier.
Then they flipped him over, and we saw the face. It was like a blast wave from a bomb emanated from it. His face was totally torn off, like you see in the zombie movies. Just… red. Eyes poking out. The cops explained that in the winter, bodies sink to the bottom and get dragged around. When the water gets warm, the bodies float to the top. Apparently this one had been rubbing on the bottom for some time.
Shocking and sad. The story is told with candor, some humor, and unfailingly bizarre images: so very Gray-like.
PS: One of my favorite Gray quotes is:
“I refer to jet lag as ‘jet-psychosis’ – there’s an old saying that the spirit cannot move faster than a camel.”