1 00:00:54,360 --> 00:00:56,692 Thanks. 2 00:01:00,466 --> 00:01:02,400 Thank you. 3 00:01:26,024 --> 00:01:30,120 I can remember riding around on the back of my mother's bicycle in her little seat... 4 00:01:30,295 --> 00:01:32,456 the basket seat on the back... 5 00:01:32,630 --> 00:01:35,793 because we were celebrating the end of World War II... 6 00:01:35,967 --> 00:01:38,400 because we, the Americans... 7 00:01:38,569 --> 00:01:42,471 had dropped the bombs on the Japs in Hiroshima... 8 00:01:42,639 --> 00:01:47,076 and we were celebrating because my mother's brothers, Tinky and John... 9 00:01:49,213 --> 00:01:51,078 were coming home from the war. 10 00:01:51,248 --> 00:01:55,116 Maybe I should just tell you some of the facts as I remember them. 11 00:01:56,420 --> 00:01:59,719 I grew up in Barrington, Rhode Island... 12 00:01:59,890 --> 00:02:03,154 in a clapboard house. 13 00:02:03,326 --> 00:02:05,226 At the time I was a child... 14 00:02:05,395 --> 00:02:08,592 I guess I was told that it was 75 years old. 15 00:02:08,765 --> 00:02:11,598 It had a well - a bucket well... 16 00:02:11,768 --> 00:02:14,362 and an artesian well - two wells. 17 00:02:14,537 --> 00:02:16,368 A well you could drop a bucket down into... 18 00:02:16,539 --> 00:02:19,099 and hoist it up and drink fresh water in the summer. 19 00:02:19,275 --> 00:02:22,438 It had a barn, which we kept garden tools in... 20 00:02:22,612 --> 00:02:24,443 and cars as well - two cars. 21 00:02:24,614 --> 00:02:27,980 And an attic upstairs and a cellar in the barn. 22 00:02:28,150 --> 00:02:31,142 A lovely garden that my grandfather and father... 23 00:02:31,319 --> 00:02:33,617 grew everything in... 24 00:02:33,789 --> 00:02:36,349 including peanuts, Swiss chard. 25 00:02:38,727 --> 00:02:41,924 My Grandmother Gray, my father's mother, lived with us. 26 00:02:42,097 --> 00:02:45,089 I was the middle of three boys... 27 00:02:45,267 --> 00:02:47,633 so my parents had three sons. 28 00:02:47,803 --> 00:02:49,998 And so I got a little kitten, Mittens. 29 00:02:50,172 --> 00:02:53,937 I called it Mittens 'cause it had those little white, you know, paws. 30 00:02:54,108 --> 00:02:56,770 And so this Mittens... 31 00:02:56,944 --> 00:02:59,879 I hadrt had it very long before it was killed by Mrs. Adams... 32 00:03:00,047 --> 00:03:02,413 driving a large black Chrysler at dusk... 33 00:03:02,583 --> 00:03:05,643 On Rumstick Road. 34 00:03:05,820 --> 00:03:07,913 Mrs. Adams was a very big woman. She had two daughters... 35 00:03:08,088 --> 00:03:10,181 that my brothers and I called "piggy big sisters. " 36 00:03:12,359 --> 00:03:14,203 They were very big, and they looked like pigs. 37 00:03:14,216 --> 00:03:15,794 That's the most I can remember of them. 38 00:03:15,962 --> 00:03:18,522 And Mrs. Adams was mortified. She realized what she'd done. 39 00:03:18,698 --> 00:03:20,632 She stopped the car and she chased me, and I ran. 40 00:03:20,800 --> 00:03:24,668 I couldn't face her. I couldn't breathe. I was so - 41 00:03:24,838 --> 00:03:27,432 I couldn't catch my breath, and I ran to my room, and she chased me. 42 00:03:27,607 --> 00:03:29,700 I think she made it as far as the front door... 43 00:03:29,876 --> 00:03:33,505 and my mother, I suppose, stopped her and talked with her, but she never got to me. 44 00:03:33,680 --> 00:03:36,649 I went and locked myself in my room. I was catatonic. Couldrt catch my breath. 45 00:03:36,816 --> 00:03:39,410 Something like my brother actually couldn't - He'd go through that too - 46 00:03:39,586 --> 00:03:41,416 extreme anxieties - my older brother. 47 00:03:41,587 --> 00:03:44,078 We were sleeping in the same bedroom, and I'd wake up in the middle of the night... 48 00:03:44,256 --> 00:03:47,282 and he'd be holding his throat, blue in the face... 49 00:03:47,459 --> 00:03:50,155 telling my mother and father he was dying because he couldn't breathe, you see? 50 00:03:50,329 --> 00:03:52,593 And they'd be sitting at the edge of the bed, trying to calm him down. 51 00:03:52,764 --> 00:03:55,665 He was standing on the bed. Finally, they would calm him down... 52 00:03:55,834 --> 00:03:58,234 and my father would go to bed, and my mother would stay with him... 53 00:03:58,403 --> 00:04:01,531 and she'd turn out the lights and sit on the edge of his bed... 54 00:04:01,707 --> 00:04:04,175 and we would look up at the ceiling, which the only light... 55 00:04:04,343 --> 00:04:06,469 was these fluorescent decals of the stars - 56 00:04:06,644 --> 00:04:09,579 the Big Dipper, a new moon, Saturn. 57 00:04:10,948 --> 00:04:14,213 And my brother would start in. He'd say... 58 00:04:14,385 --> 00:04:18,344 "Mom, when I die, is it forever?" 59 00:04:19,724 --> 00:04:23,421 She'd go, "Yes, dear. " 60 00:04:23,594 --> 00:04:26,461 He'd go, "Mom, when I die... 61 00:04:26,631 --> 00:04:28,360 is it forever and ever?" 62 00:04:28,533 --> 00:04:32,093 She'd go, "Mm-hmm, dear. " 63 00:04:32,269 --> 00:04:35,136 Then he'd go, "Mom... 64 00:04:35,305 --> 00:04:39,071 when I die, is it forever and ever... 65 00:04:39,242 --> 00:04:41,301 and ever and ever?" 66 00:04:41,478 --> 00:04:44,174 She'd go, "Mm. " 67 00:04:44,347 --> 00:04:46,781 And I'd just fall asleep to this. 68 00:04:51,221 --> 00:04:54,781 It would put me right out, and he would always get upset with me... 69 00:04:54,957 --> 00:04:57,517 for being the calm one, you see? 70 00:04:57,693 --> 00:04:59,923 Well, there were two extreme nervous breakdowns... 71 00:05:00,095 --> 00:05:04,361 and probably a lot of nervous "in between" that she had... 72 00:05:04,533 --> 00:05:08,629 and the first one was when I was I think ten years old. 73 00:05:08,804 --> 00:05:10,738 And it was in the summer... 74 00:05:10,906 --> 00:05:15,036 and, uh, it was - 75 00:05:16,145 --> 00:05:19,841 She was just very nervous and pulling at her hair... 76 00:05:20,014 --> 00:05:22,505 and unable to concentrate and talking to herself. 77 00:05:25,253 --> 00:05:29,121 Then I think at that time, she was sent away to a Christian Science nursing home. 78 00:05:29,290 --> 00:05:33,386 I tell you, the most difficult thing about it for me was that... 79 00:05:33,561 --> 00:05:35,461 the denial that was going on around the house. 80 00:05:35,630 --> 00:05:38,463 My Grandmother Gray lived with us at the time - my father's mother - 81 00:05:38,633 --> 00:05:41,067 and no one was ever coming... 82 00:05:41,235 --> 00:05:44,897 to me or my brothers... 83 00:05:45,072 --> 00:05:48,098 and saying... talking about it. 84 00:05:48,275 --> 00:05:51,108 So that I'd be in the playroom with my friends in the summer... 85 00:05:51,278 --> 00:05:53,371 and all of a sudden I'd hear Mom... 86 00:05:53,547 --> 00:05:57,847 shrieking in the - in the kitchen... 87 00:05:58,018 --> 00:05:59,781 crying out to Jesus and going... 88 00:05:59,953 --> 00:06:02,080 "Oh, Rock! Oh, no! Oh!" You know... 89 00:06:02,255 --> 00:06:04,485 just in distress, like she's being attacked. 90 00:06:04,658 --> 00:06:08,457 I can remember pausing, and my friends would be afraid. 91 00:06:08,628 --> 00:06:12,120 We'd all be afraid and be looking at each other, and no one would say... 92 00:06:12,298 --> 00:06:14,198 "Was that your mother?" Or "What was that?" 93 00:06:14,367 --> 00:06:16,631 It was like a ghost. 94 00:06:16,802 --> 00:06:19,430 I think that some people are born people... 95 00:06:19,605 --> 00:06:22,165 and they grow up as people and then they decide to become professionals... 96 00:06:22,341 --> 00:06:24,002 'cause they have to make a living, right? 97 00:06:24,176 --> 00:06:26,610 And they become a dentist, doctor or lawyer, whatever it is they study for... 98 00:06:26,779 --> 00:06:30,646 and then they go through life as that, and then they die, and that's that. 99 00:06:30,815 --> 00:06:34,774 You know, even some people study acting. They become actors through studying acting. 100 00:06:34,953 --> 00:06:36,750 Other people are born actors. 101 00:06:36,921 --> 00:06:39,549 It's an ontological condition. There's no way out. 102 00:06:39,724 --> 00:06:43,751 They are simply acting out all the time, you know? And I think I was in that state. 103 00:06:43,928 --> 00:06:46,192 For instance, I was 12 years old... 104 00:06:46,364 --> 00:06:49,891 and some fireworks would go off, just a whole package of lady fingers outside. 105 00:06:50,068 --> 00:06:52,593 And I'd take the cue and rush to the window... 106 00:06:52,771 --> 00:06:55,102 and go, "Mom! Mom, come quick! 107 00:06:55,272 --> 00:06:59,208 Russ Russell, our neighbor, is up on his roof shooting his children!" 108 00:07:02,613 --> 00:07:05,241 And that was before that happened so often, you know? 109 00:07:05,416 --> 00:07:08,112 In the old days. It wasrt a common occurrence. 110 00:07:08,285 --> 00:07:10,879 And my mother would buy right into it. She'd rush over going, "What? 111 00:07:11,055 --> 00:07:14,456 Oh! Oh! Oh - No, no. 112 00:07:14,625 --> 00:07:16,525 Oh, Spuddy dear, no. " 113 00:07:16,694 --> 00:07:19,594 She would be... 114 00:07:19,762 --> 00:07:23,528 well, very, very forthcoming, and helping me with my spelling words... 115 00:07:23,700 --> 00:07:25,634 and taking me on my paper route... 116 00:07:25,802 --> 00:07:28,430 and telling me intimate stories... 117 00:07:28,604 --> 00:07:33,064 about her relationship to my father that I probably shouldn't have heard. 118 00:07:33,242 --> 00:07:36,643 And then all of a sudden one day when I was 14... 119 00:07:36,813 --> 00:07:41,512 and had failed seventh grade and tried to knock myself out. 120 00:07:42,318 --> 00:07:45,946 We used to take 20 deep breaths after a hot bath... 121 00:07:46,121 --> 00:07:48,316 and blow on your thumb. 122 00:07:48,490 --> 00:07:51,118 What was I doing? I don't know. Some crazy thing. 123 00:07:51,293 --> 00:07:53,261 And I got knocked out, and when I came to, my arm... 124 00:07:53,428 --> 00:07:55,794 this arm, was against the radiator... 125 00:07:55,964 --> 00:07:59,832 and I had a third-degree burn - it looked like rare roast beef - 126 00:08:00,001 --> 00:08:02,196 and it was a miracle I was still alive... 127 00:08:02,370 --> 00:08:05,430 that I didn't break a blood vessel in my head or just, you know. 128 00:08:05,607 --> 00:08:08,234 And my parents were downstairs watching television - 129 00:08:08,409 --> 00:08:10,741 Gunsmoke, I remember - in the playroom. 130 00:08:10,911 --> 00:08:15,041 And I walked down, shaking all over with this incredible burn... 131 00:08:15,216 --> 00:08:17,047 and my mother looked at it and went... 132 00:08:17,218 --> 00:08:20,244 "Oh, put some soap on it, dear, and know the truth" - 133 00:08:20,421 --> 00:08:22,651 the truth being that there is no... 134 00:08:22,823 --> 00:08:25,553 pain or suffering in God's world, there's no imperfection. 135 00:08:25,726 --> 00:08:29,628 That is enormous distance, you see? 136 00:08:29,797 --> 00:08:32,560 That's what I mean by "alternating current. " 137 00:08:32,732 --> 00:08:35,633 Any mother, I don't care what religion she's in... 138 00:08:35,802 --> 00:08:39,898 would, I would think - Intuition would be to fly to that child. 139 00:08:40,073 --> 00:08:45,272 But for her, it would represent acknowledging the condition. 140 00:08:45,445 --> 00:08:49,643 She really believed in the power of mind. Our pipes used to freeze in a bathroom... 141 00:08:49,816 --> 00:08:53,047 from the wind off Narragansett Bay, which is very ice-cold in February... 142 00:08:53,219 --> 00:08:57,018 and she was sure that the wind was caused by the disturbed thinking... 143 00:08:57,189 --> 00:08:59,157 of the Red Chinese in Communist China. 144 00:08:59,324 --> 00:09:01,155 You see? 145 00:09:01,326 --> 00:09:04,853 And she told me that Mary Baker Eddy said there was a man who was so afraid... 146 00:09:05,030 --> 00:09:08,227 when he was on the operating table, he was sweating, he thought it was blood... 147 00:09:08,400 --> 00:09:10,231 and he died of fear, you see? 148 00:09:10,402 --> 00:09:13,838 So we were always afraid of being afraid. It was never-ending. 149 00:09:14,039 --> 00:09:19,773 My father, he said, "Why don't we go play golf together?" 150 00:09:19,945 --> 00:09:22,742 Now, we had never played golf together. 151 00:09:22,914 --> 00:09:24,905 We never even joined the country club. 152 00:09:25,082 --> 00:09:27,243 My uncle said there were two kinds of people in Barrington, Rhode Island - 153 00:09:27,418 --> 00:09:30,444 those who belong and those who don't - to the Rhode Island Country Club. 154 00:09:30,621 --> 00:09:32,111 We didn't belong. 155 00:09:32,290 --> 00:09:34,622 Later, my Grandmother Gray told me that my father's father... 156 00:09:34,792 --> 00:09:37,317 told him the facts of life on a golf course... 157 00:09:37,495 --> 00:09:39,827 so this is where my father got the idea from. 158 00:09:39,997 --> 00:09:42,932 So we went out - We had to go to a public course... 159 00:09:43,100 --> 00:09:47,468 in Seekonk, Massachusetts, called Wampanoag. 160 00:09:47,637 --> 00:09:50,367 Now, mainly when it rained, it was underwater... 161 00:09:50,540 --> 00:09:52,474 so we called it Swampanoag. 162 00:09:52,642 --> 00:09:54,769 So we get out there. I think we were on the fourth hole... 163 00:09:54,945 --> 00:09:57,812 and my father went... 164 00:09:57,981 --> 00:09:59,972 "You know" - This just came out of nowhere. 165 00:10:00,150 --> 00:10:03,779 He said, "There's a gal in our plant. " 166 00:10:03,954 --> 00:10:05,474 He worked in a factory. He called it a 167 00:10:05,487 --> 00:10:07,253 plant. It was a very conservative factory... 168 00:10:07,424 --> 00:10:11,359 where they made screw machines, machines that made screws... 169 00:10:11,527 --> 00:10:15,827 and they didn't even allow Coca-Cola in this plant until a few years ago. 170 00:10:15,998 --> 00:10:18,796 And he said, "There's a gal in our plant... 171 00:10:18,968 --> 00:10:21,960 who has a turkey in the oven... 172 00:10:22,137 --> 00:10:24,469 and she won't admit to it. " 173 00:10:30,312 --> 00:10:34,146 "It's, uh - It's as plain as the nose on her face. 174 00:10:34,315 --> 00:10:37,842 She won't admit to it because she doesn't have a man. She's not married... 175 00:10:38,019 --> 00:10:40,886 and she keeps coming to work because she has no one to support her. 176 00:10:41,089 --> 00:10:43,956 People are saying, 'Why don't you go have the turkey... 177 00:10:44,125 --> 00:10:46,753 and come back when you're through? ' But she -" 178 00:10:46,928 --> 00:10:49,192 "Now, you wouldn't want to get a gal... 179 00:10:49,364 --> 00:10:51,832 in a situation like that, would you?" 180 00:10:52,000 --> 00:10:54,969 And I said, "Well, I guess not. No. No. " 181 00:10:55,136 --> 00:10:57,798 And then there was a pause. We were kind of going with our clubs... 182 00:10:57,972 --> 00:11:01,270 and walking and putting, and he said... 183 00:11:01,441 --> 00:11:05,070 "Um, you know, there are diseases that can make you blind. " 184 00:11:07,014 --> 00:11:10,279 Now, I didn't know what he was talking about then. I didn't know. 185 00:11:10,450 --> 00:11:12,509 I was a little paranoid then, and I thought... 186 00:11:12,686 --> 00:11:15,120 "Oh, Jeannie Lamb's mother has found out. 187 00:11:15,289 --> 00:11:18,053 She's told Dad to take me out on the golf course and say... 188 00:11:18,225 --> 00:11:22,025 'Tell your son that if he fucks my daughter, he'll go blind. " 189 00:11:22,195 --> 00:11:24,662 - We played golf out on the - - We did. That's right. 190 00:11:24,830 --> 00:11:27,594 Wampanoag Trail, the public course. 191 00:11:27,767 --> 00:11:31,464 And in fact, that's where you first attempted to tell me the facts of life. 192 00:11:31,637 --> 00:11:33,696 - Was it? - Yeah. 193 00:11:33,873 --> 00:11:36,535 - We were out to the fourth hole. - On the fourth hole? 194 00:11:36,709 --> 00:11:39,769 And you told me about a woman that got pregnant at Brown & Sharpe - 195 00:11:39,946 --> 00:11:42,244 - On the fourth hole? - Yeah. 196 00:11:42,415 --> 00:11:46,181 I don't think you said she had a turkey in the oven, but you might have. I don't know. 197 00:11:46,352 --> 00:11:48,546 Would that be something you'd say? Or did I make that up? 198 00:11:48,720 --> 00:11:50,881 Sometimes I don't know when I'm fictionalizing or not. 199 00:11:51,056 --> 00:11:54,184 I sometimes don't know whether you are either, but - 200 00:11:54,359 --> 00:11:57,328 My Uncle Tinky introduced me to wine. 201 00:11:58,930 --> 00:12:00,830 His name was Ted. We called him Tinky. I don't know why. 202 00:12:00,999 --> 00:12:04,935 But he brought wine - two bottles of Great Western sparkling Burgundy... 203 00:12:05,103 --> 00:12:08,664 every Thanksgiving and Christmas - to my grandmother's house. 204 00:12:08,840 --> 00:12:12,002 Now, I sat next to my Grandmother Gray, and she didn't like sparkling Burgundy... 205 00:12:12,176 --> 00:12:16,135 so I got two glasses, which means I was twice-over happy twice a year. 206 00:12:16,313 --> 00:12:18,281 I was happy on Thanksgiving and Christmas. 207 00:12:18,449 --> 00:12:21,509 The rest of the year was mainly waiting for the sparkling Burgundy. 208 00:12:22,519 --> 00:12:26,615 And I told my friend Duke Watts, I said, "This wine is good. 209 00:12:26,790 --> 00:12:29,520 Wine is a good thing. We must find it. " 210 00:12:32,496 --> 00:12:34,896 "To have it more days of the year. " 211 00:12:35,065 --> 00:12:37,123 The way we would do it, we discovered a plan - 212 00:12:37,300 --> 00:12:39,234 he had his drivers' license, I didn't have mine yet - 213 00:12:39,402 --> 00:12:41,870 was to drive down toward Newport, the naval base... 214 00:12:42,038 --> 00:12:45,064 but not go over the Mount Hope Bridge, because we didn't want to pay the dollar. 215 00:12:45,241 --> 00:12:46,982 It was owned by Haffenreffer, and he was charging 216 00:12:46,995 --> 00:12:48,642 a dollar to go over and a dollar to come back. 217 00:12:52,048 --> 00:12:55,609 So we would go, and they would say, "All right, what do you want?" 218 00:12:55,785 --> 00:12:58,515 And we always wanted to say to them, "We would like two bottles... 219 00:12:58,688 --> 00:13:01,383 of Great Western sparkling Burgundy. " 220 00:13:01,556 --> 00:13:03,387 But we were afraid to. I don't know why. 221 00:13:03,558 --> 00:13:05,958 We were afraid that the sailors would think we were - 222 00:13:10,198 --> 00:13:13,031 So they'd say, "What do you want?" You know? 223 00:13:13,201 --> 00:13:15,829 And we'd say, "We want wine. " "Well, what kind?" 224 00:13:16,004 --> 00:13:17,869 "Red wine," we'd say, 'cause we didn't know the kinds. 225 00:13:18,040 --> 00:13:21,441 And they'd always come out with a quart bottle of Petri port. 226 00:13:21,610 --> 00:13:24,374 Which we started to like. It was sweeter. 227 00:13:24,546 --> 00:13:27,571 It was 20 percent alcohol, although it didn't have the little bubbles. 228 00:13:27,748 --> 00:13:30,774 And so we were having - 229 00:13:30,951 --> 00:13:33,647 We liked drinking in the afternoons, when our energy was at the highest. 230 00:13:33,821 --> 00:13:38,554 We called these afternoon drinking sessions "luncheons. " 231 00:13:38,726 --> 00:13:42,093 That was our code word so my parents wouldn't know what was going on. 232 00:13:42,263 --> 00:13:45,164 And a typical luncheon would be a bottle of Petri port... 233 00:13:45,332 --> 00:13:48,699 and we would listen to Sidney Bechet full blast on Duke Watts's record player... 234 00:13:48,869 --> 00:13:51,803 and then jump out his second-story window after we got drunk, land... 235 00:13:51,971 --> 00:13:55,498 come around, come back upstairs, drink some more, jump out the window, land... 236 00:13:55,675 --> 00:13:58,075 while the music was playing, just letting off steam. 237 00:14:02,449 --> 00:14:05,976 And I thought I would try out for the junior play. 238 00:14:06,152 --> 00:14:10,714 And not only was I dyslexic, but I was so nervous I couldn't hold a book. 239 00:14:10,890 --> 00:14:14,222 I was... 240 00:14:14,393 --> 00:14:17,021 So I didn't get the role. 241 00:14:17,196 --> 00:14:19,892 So my senior year, they did The Curious Savage as the class play... 242 00:14:20,065 --> 00:14:23,228 and I said, "By God, I'm gonna try out the way I read... 243 00:14:23,402 --> 00:14:25,597 and I'm gonna hold the book down so it won't move"... 244 00:14:25,771 --> 00:14:27,762 and I just read it the only way I could read it. 245 00:14:27,940 --> 00:14:30,670 "Cheese, eggs, milk, meat. Ha, ha. 246 00:14:30,843 --> 00:14:34,210 I drink about four pints of milk a day - 247 00:14:34,379 --> 00:14:36,244 Channel Island milk- ha, ha - 248 00:14:36,415 --> 00:14:39,383 and eat about a pound of steak. " 249 00:14:39,550 --> 00:14:42,041 And I got the role... 250 00:14:42,220 --> 00:14:44,552 Because it took place in an insane asylum. 251 00:14:45,890 --> 00:14:48,552 They thought I was perfect for the role... 252 00:14:50,161 --> 00:14:52,061 of the man who thinks he's Hannibal. 253 00:14:52,230 --> 00:14:55,563 He's deluded. He has delusions of grandeur, and he thinks not only is he Hannibal... 254 00:14:55,733 --> 00:14:57,084 that he can play the violin - And at the end 255 00:14:57,097 --> 00:14:58,429 of the play, everyone's fantasy comes true. 256 00:14:58,603 --> 00:15:03,198 They put on violin music, and I'm - sawing away. 257 00:15:03,373 --> 00:15:07,207 Now, opening night - and of course we only played two nights at Fryeburg Academy - 258 00:15:10,780 --> 00:15:14,614 It wasrt at rehearsal. And I remember I had to do a downstage left cross... 259 00:15:14,784 --> 00:15:18,117 and I improvised a hopscotch, in character, on the squares. 260 00:15:18,288 --> 00:15:21,189 And the entire audience laughed. 261 00:15:22,292 --> 00:15:24,760 Like that. Only everyone, complete. 262 00:15:26,962 --> 00:15:28,793 And I was hooked. I was hooked. 263 00:15:28,964 --> 00:15:32,422 It went through me like a "thoop!" Like a "whoo!" Like a you-know-what. 264 00:15:32,601 --> 00:15:35,229 And I didn't want to do anything else. 265 00:15:35,404 --> 00:15:39,534 There was nothing else I wanted to do before that, so this was a novelty. 266 00:15:39,708 --> 00:15:43,667 I remember that a very important thing happened in that Curious Savage. 267 00:15:43,846 --> 00:15:46,610 The stage manager kept trying to give me my lines... 268 00:15:46,782 --> 00:15:50,377 because my timing - they didn't appreciate my timing. 269 00:15:50,553 --> 00:15:53,988 And Ruth Hartz - I remember Mrs. Hartz, the director, said... 270 00:15:54,155 --> 00:15:57,022 "Don't ever give Spud a cue. 271 00:15:57,192 --> 00:15:59,319 Don't ever give him his line unless he asks for it... 272 00:15:59,494 --> 00:16:01,894 because he has excellent timing. " 273 00:16:02,063 --> 00:16:04,623 And that's the first time anyone had said... 274 00:16:04,799 --> 00:16:07,029 the word "excellent" in relationship to anything I did. 275 00:16:07,202 --> 00:16:11,195 And to say it around timing - well, that's everything, isn't it? 276 00:16:32,359 --> 00:16:34,759 I was a virgin when I entered college. 277 00:16:37,764 --> 00:16:39,595 And I was at a party... 278 00:16:39,765 --> 00:16:42,290 and my friend Randy came up to me and said... 279 00:16:42,468 --> 00:16:44,299 "You see that girl? 280 00:16:44,470 --> 00:16:46,495 Her name's Pam, and she goes down. " 281 00:16:51,877 --> 00:16:55,108 "And I'm going to go down with her before the night's over. " 282 00:16:57,416 --> 00:16:59,907 And I thought I'd try to beat him out, and I went up and said... 283 00:17:00,086 --> 00:17:02,816 "Hi, Pam. My name's Spud, and I hear you go down. " 284 00:17:10,028 --> 00:17:11,928 And we spent the night together. 285 00:17:13,765 --> 00:17:16,825 I began by licking her breasts. 286 00:17:17,002 --> 00:17:19,095 She said, "What do you think I am, your mother?" 287 00:17:26,878 --> 00:17:28,777 Um... 288 00:17:29,980 --> 00:17:33,040 then we had intercourse. 289 00:17:42,426 --> 00:17:45,020 And I came in about 30 seconds... 290 00:17:45,195 --> 00:17:49,097 and I ended up lying there for the rest of the night, staring at the ceiling. 291 00:17:49,266 --> 00:17:51,427 And I have to tell you I was a little anxious... 292 00:17:51,602 --> 00:17:53,899 because my bed was right by the window. 293 00:17:54,070 --> 00:17:55,935 I kept rearranging the bed, but the room was 294 00:17:55,948 --> 00:17:57,699 so small that no matter where I put it... 295 00:17:57,874 --> 00:18:00,707 it was basically by the window. 296 00:18:00,877 --> 00:18:05,712 Why was it upsetting for me? Because I was reading Freud for the first time... 297 00:18:05,882 --> 00:18:08,942 and I read that Freud had discovered an unconscious. 298 00:18:09,118 --> 00:18:12,383 I don't remember how, but he had. 299 00:18:12,555 --> 00:18:17,117 And this was a shock for me, because up until then, I thought I was here. 300 00:18:21,763 --> 00:18:25,221 I didn't know there was a whole part of me missing. I didn't know... 301 00:18:25,400 --> 00:18:27,925 there was this "un"... 302 00:18:28,103 --> 00:18:31,163 which, if you don't know how big it is, could go on forever. It could be huge. 303 00:18:31,340 --> 00:18:33,448 And I thought it was housing all the 304 00:18:33,461 --> 00:18:36,039 self-destructive shadow aspects of myself... 305 00:18:36,211 --> 00:18:38,145 and that if I went to sleep by that window... 306 00:18:38,313 --> 00:18:40,247 the "un" would take over my body in the night... 307 00:18:40,415 --> 00:18:42,348 and jump out the window with it. 308 00:18:42,516 --> 00:18:44,814 And halfway down, the conscious self, waking up... 309 00:18:44,985 --> 00:18:47,453 would be desperately grasping at the bricks. 310 00:18:47,621 --> 00:18:49,984 Now, this upset me so much that I transferred 311 00:18:49,997 --> 00:18:51,751 to Emerson College down the road. 312 00:18:52,893 --> 00:18:56,624 But you know what I was curious about was that... 313 00:18:56,797 --> 00:18:58,919 what you thought about when I first starting 314 00:18:58,932 --> 00:19:00,733 going into acting at Emerson College. 315 00:19:00,901 --> 00:19:03,699 - I thought you were absolutely nuts. - Yeah. 316 00:19:03,871 --> 00:19:06,464 How anybody could make a living in the theater... 317 00:19:06,639 --> 00:19:10,666 particularly one that was a shy, backwards sort of young fellow - 318 00:19:10,844 --> 00:19:12,812 I just knew you couldn't do it. 319 00:19:12,979 --> 00:19:16,278 Long Day's Journey Into Night. This was a role I really got into. 320 00:19:16,449 --> 00:19:18,508 I was playing Edmund, the O'Neill role. 321 00:19:18,685 --> 00:19:20,710 I was drinking whiskey, Irish whiskey. 322 00:19:20,887 --> 00:19:23,219 I was suffering. I was reading the O'Neill biography. 323 00:19:23,390 --> 00:19:25,084 I was living in a big Victorian house. It was 324 00:19:25,097 --> 00:19:26,951 Theatre by the Sea, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. 325 00:19:27,127 --> 00:19:29,459 Tugboats out there. Perfect sound effects. 326 00:19:29,629 --> 00:19:31,994 Me drinking the whiskey and refusing to turn up the heat... 327 00:19:32,164 --> 00:19:34,632 in this very cold Victorian house with a widow's walk... 328 00:19:34,800 --> 00:19:38,827 and the owner of the house who's renting me this room is saying, "Please, please. 329 00:19:39,004 --> 00:19:41,472 I'll lower the rent if you turn up the heat. " 330 00:19:41,640 --> 00:19:44,234 And I wouldn't do it. And the pipes were bursting, and he was down there. 331 00:19:44,410 --> 00:19:47,607 He had such a beautiful disposition. It was unbelievable what I put him through. 332 00:19:47,780 --> 00:19:50,476 There was ice on the toilet in the morning. I had to pee on top of ice. 333 00:19:50,649 --> 00:19:54,380 There was a sheet of ice there. And we were playing this thing four hours long... 334 00:19:54,553 --> 00:19:58,682 to seven people in subzero weather at this warehouse on a Sunday night. 335 00:19:58,856 --> 00:20:01,689 Seven people in the audience. And my brother had been in Chile. 336 00:20:01,859 --> 00:20:05,158 Rocky had been in Chile for three years, and he came back to see me. 337 00:20:05,329 --> 00:20:07,290 He hadrt seen me in three years, and in order 338 00:20:07,303 --> 00:20:09,060 to deal with my new theatrical career... 339 00:20:09,233 --> 00:20:12,828 he sat in the front row and took notes throughout the whole production. 340 00:20:13,004 --> 00:20:15,996 He was very intellectual. 341 00:20:16,174 --> 00:20:21,008 And the woman who was playing the mother was swearing in the dressing room - 342 00:20:21,178 --> 00:20:24,113 "Who the fuck is that asshole in the front row taking notes? 343 00:20:24,281 --> 00:20:26,181 We've already been reviewed!" 344 00:20:26,349 --> 00:20:28,510 She was throwing ashtrays around the dressing room. 345 00:20:28,685 --> 00:20:30,812 I said, "It's my brother, Rocky. " 346 00:20:30,987 --> 00:20:33,820 And when Rocky and I got home... 347 00:20:33,990 --> 00:20:36,390 the first thing he did was give me his notes. 348 00:20:38,562 --> 00:20:41,622 After I left Rhode Island, you see, I wanted to go across country... 349 00:20:41,798 --> 00:20:43,628 and I didn't have enough money to do it. 350 00:20:43,799 --> 00:20:47,098 I had this fantasy idea that I thought every great actor... 351 00:20:47,269 --> 00:20:51,171 should both play Hamlet in his lifetime and also fuck on stage. 352 00:20:51,340 --> 00:20:53,171 You know, should run the gamut... 353 00:20:53,342 --> 00:20:56,573 or else try to incorporate both in Hamlet. 354 00:20:56,745 --> 00:21:00,237 But Hamlet wasrt playing this summer, or I didn't know about any auditions for it... 355 00:21:00,416 --> 00:21:04,580 so I ended up - To try to make money, I ended up applying for a pornographic movie. 356 00:21:04,753 --> 00:21:07,654 And I got the role. I was really surprised. 357 00:21:07,822 --> 00:21:10,290 She would work on us. She would work on me, say, with her mouth... 358 00:21:10,458 --> 00:21:12,722 and him with the hand, and then vice versa. 359 00:21:12,894 --> 00:21:15,863 And then as soon as I was up... 360 00:21:16,030 --> 00:21:18,260 I'd start down as he went up... 361 00:21:18,433 --> 00:21:21,425 And we would never get it together. 362 00:21:21,603 --> 00:21:23,867 So finally he said, "Clear the room. " 363 00:21:24,038 --> 00:21:27,007 So the director would go out of the room, and we'd work together... 364 00:21:27,175 --> 00:21:29,643 and we'd both get up, and he'd say... 365 00:21:29,811 --> 00:21:31,836 "All right. Quick. Bring the cameras back. " 366 00:21:32,013 --> 00:21:36,005 And by the time the camera's set up, we'd be down again. 367 00:21:36,183 --> 00:21:39,516 So it was a lot of work. 368 00:21:39,686 --> 00:21:43,281 We finally finished the shot. It took about all afternoon. 369 00:21:43,457 --> 00:21:46,858 The director was very upset and running around me, saying... 370 00:21:47,027 --> 00:21:49,359 "Make more noise, Gray. Make more faces. " 371 00:21:57,803 --> 00:21:59,498 The Knack. 372 00:21:59,672 --> 00:22:03,005 Not a very good play by Ann Jellicoe. 373 00:22:03,175 --> 00:22:05,302 I happen to have a copy of it here. 374 00:22:05,478 --> 00:22:08,311 I was in this play at Theatre by the Sea... 375 00:22:08,481 --> 00:22:11,245 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. 376 00:22:11,417 --> 00:22:15,820 I thought I should have played the role of Tolen... 377 00:22:15,988 --> 00:22:19,446 but I got cast as Colin, who was the stud. 378 00:22:19,625 --> 00:22:22,991 My father brought my mother to see this play... 379 00:22:23,161 --> 00:22:26,130 while she was having an incurable nervous breakdown. 380 00:22:28,400 --> 00:22:32,461 She thought she was coming to see Long Day's Journey Into Night. 381 00:22:35,607 --> 00:22:38,633 Now, that wasrt because she was having a nervous breakdown. 382 00:22:38,810 --> 00:22:41,904 That came after this play. It wasrt completely an illusion... 383 00:22:42,080 --> 00:22:44,412 but my father brought her to this because he thought... 384 00:22:44,583 --> 00:22:46,743 Long Day's Journey would upset her too much... 385 00:22:46,917 --> 00:22:50,444 and I'm afraid that this one was worse. 386 00:22:52,623 --> 00:22:54,454 I'm right up to this section... 387 00:22:54,625 --> 00:22:57,287 where the character, Brewster, is trying to get away from his mother. 388 00:22:57,461 --> 00:23:00,988 It's the summer of 1966. She's having a very severe nervous breakdown. 389 00:23:01,165 --> 00:23:04,430 He's trying to help her through it. At the same time, he's very aware... 390 00:23:04,602 --> 00:23:06,433 that he must flee the nest. 391 00:23:06,604 --> 00:23:09,300 He must run away and begin his own life, or he won't have one. 392 00:23:09,473 --> 00:23:11,736 And he desperately wants to become an actor... 393 00:23:11,908 --> 00:23:15,844 and he wants to get his actor's equity card at the Alley Theatre that season. 394 00:23:16,012 --> 00:23:18,981 They have a very good reputation. Also, what is very important for him... 395 00:23:19,148 --> 00:23:21,878 is that they're doing Chekhov's play The Sea Gull... 396 00:23:22,051 --> 00:23:24,144 and he is sure that he is perfect for the role... 397 00:23:24,320 --> 00:23:27,619 of Konstantin Gavrilovich Treplev, the young writer... 398 00:23:27,790 --> 00:23:31,248 positive he'll be cast in it because he's sensitive like Konstantin... 399 00:23:31,427 --> 00:23:34,793 his relationship to his mother is not unlike Konstantirs to his mother... 400 00:23:34,963 --> 00:23:37,591 and the other thing is that Konstantin gets to shoot himself in the head... 401 00:23:37,766 --> 00:23:41,759 at the end of every play and come back the following night to play himself again. 402 00:23:41,937 --> 00:23:43,768 Brewster likes this. 403 00:23:43,939 --> 00:23:46,430 And I'm there with my mother in Rhode Island... 404 00:23:46,608 --> 00:23:48,200 and she is going mad. 405 00:23:48,377 --> 00:23:50,183 She's having a nervous breakdown. She's tearing 406 00:23:50,196 --> 00:23:51,710 her hair out from the back of her head. 407 00:23:51,880 --> 00:23:55,281 And I'm trying to calm her down by reading to her from Alan Watts's book... 408 00:23:55,450 --> 00:23:58,146 Psychotherapy East & West. 409 00:23:58,319 --> 00:24:01,345 Laboring under that romantic idea of R.D. Laing's... 410 00:24:01,522 --> 00:24:05,686 how every person who has a nervous breakdown is so lucky... 411 00:24:05,860 --> 00:24:09,660 'cause they get to come out the other side of it with such great wisdom... 412 00:24:09,830 --> 00:24:12,128 provided they come out the other side. 413 00:24:12,299 --> 00:24:14,563 And I was trying to help my mother through to the other side... 414 00:24:14,735 --> 00:24:16,600 but she wasrt listening to Alan Watts. 415 00:24:16,771 --> 00:24:19,501 She was reading from Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy... 416 00:24:19,674 --> 00:24:21,574 and from The Christian Science Monitor. 417 00:24:21,742 --> 00:24:24,403 And I remember that vividly, that warm July day - 418 00:24:24,577 --> 00:24:26,772 she in her pajamas, curled up on the couch... 419 00:24:26,946 --> 00:24:31,679 with The Christian Science Monitor between us like a Japanese paper wall. 420 00:24:31,851 --> 00:24:34,376 And I am so annoyed finally that I can't get through to her... 421 00:24:34,554 --> 00:24:36,886 that I reach down and just flick the paper. 422 00:24:38,058 --> 00:24:42,586 And she pulls the paper down and looks me right in the eyes and says... 423 00:24:42,762 --> 00:24:45,060 "How shall I do it, dear? 424 00:24:45,231 --> 00:24:47,425 How shall I do it? 425 00:24:47,599 --> 00:24:50,500 Shall I do it in the garage with the car?" 426 00:24:51,737 --> 00:24:54,501 The day I found out was that - 427 00:24:54,673 --> 00:24:56,800 My father didn't tell me over the phone. 428 00:24:56,975 --> 00:25:00,376 I'd called him from - let's see, from Houston... 429 00:25:00,546 --> 00:25:02,446 'cause I'd taken a train up to Houston... 430 00:25:02,614 --> 00:25:04,741 and was gonna fly in from Houston to Providence. 431 00:25:04,917 --> 00:25:07,943 And he picked me up. It was a very hot August day. 432 00:25:08,120 --> 00:25:10,554 And I remember I had a bottle of tequila in a brown bag. 433 00:25:10,723 --> 00:25:13,384 I'd been carrying it on the plane. 434 00:25:13,558 --> 00:25:16,755 And I was sipping it outside the Providence airport. 435 00:25:16,928 --> 00:25:21,365 And he picked me up in his Ford LTD with the air conditioner on. 436 00:25:21,532 --> 00:25:23,363 I remember it was very hot. The windows were up. 437 00:25:23,534 --> 00:25:25,832 And he said, "Tying one on, are you?" 438 00:25:26,003 --> 00:25:28,563 I had the bag of tequila... 439 00:25:28,740 --> 00:25:31,800 and we rode in silence for a bit, and I said... 440 00:25:31,976 --> 00:25:34,001 "So how's Mom?" 'Cause I knew she'd been having... 441 00:25:34,178 --> 00:25:36,168 this nervous breakdown for two years... 442 00:25:36,346 --> 00:25:38,280 in and out of shock treatments. 443 00:25:38,448 --> 00:25:40,541 And he just started to - 444 00:25:40,717 --> 00:25:43,845 He broke down while he was driving. He started to cry. 445 00:25:44,020 --> 00:25:46,818 Like, whimper. It wasrt really full-blown. 446 00:25:46,990 --> 00:25:49,254 He said, "She's gone. " 447 00:25:49,426 --> 00:25:53,328 And I remember, looking back on it... 448 00:25:53,497 --> 00:25:55,328 turning to stone like a statue. 449 00:25:55,499 --> 00:25:58,798 And I just heard "gone. " "Gone. " I was trying to make sense of "gone. " 450 00:25:58,969 --> 00:26:01,698 And I remember "gone," like "died of a broken heart. " 451 00:26:01,871 --> 00:26:04,066 I heard that Grimm's fairy tale line. 452 00:26:04,240 --> 00:26:07,732 And then I had an image - and all of this may be fictionalized since then. 453 00:26:07,910 --> 00:26:10,606 But this is what I remember. I had an image of a dandelion... 454 00:26:10,780 --> 00:26:14,113 when it's turned to fluff at the end of the - 455 00:26:14,283 --> 00:26:17,719 Gone. Just gone. 456 00:26:18,954 --> 00:26:20,979 Not "dead," not "killed herself. " 457 00:26:21,157 --> 00:26:24,217 Again, that was avoidance language that was going on in Rhode Island. 458 00:26:24,393 --> 00:26:27,520 And when my mother's obituary appeared, it was "deceased"... 459 00:26:27,695 --> 00:26:31,028 and the rumors were she died of cancer. There was no mention of suicide. 460 00:26:31,199 --> 00:26:34,191 So when I began to talk about it, and the Providence Journal did... 461 00:26:34,369 --> 00:26:37,236 a profile about me doing my first piece... 462 00:26:37,405 --> 00:26:39,305 Rumstick Road, with the Wooster Group... 463 00:26:39,474 --> 00:26:42,841 in which we did an exploration of my mother's suicide in 1967... 464 00:26:43,011 --> 00:26:47,107 as a group piece - with tape recordings and slides - it was a mixed-media piece... 465 00:26:47,282 --> 00:26:49,647 and that really led me into my monologues. 466 00:26:49,817 --> 00:26:53,184 When they did a profile in the Providence Journal, it was scandalous. 467 00:26:53,353 --> 00:26:56,083 I mean, my relatives were upset that it would come out... 468 00:26:56,256 --> 00:26:59,555 that it was this suicide. 469 00:26:59,726 --> 00:27:02,251 My mother committed suicide. Shortly after she committed suicide... 470 00:27:02,429 --> 00:27:05,227 the woman down the road, her husband drank himself to death. 471 00:27:05,399 --> 00:27:08,766 So my father and this woman got together to try to make a good marriage... 472 00:27:08,936 --> 00:27:11,166 and forget about the pain and move into a perfect house. 473 00:27:11,338 --> 00:27:13,169 They moved into this kind of a ranch house... 474 00:27:13,339 --> 00:27:15,466 that was like a very modern, fully equipped motel... 475 00:27:15,641 --> 00:27:18,303 where you pull in the asphalt driveway. On the right is a huge tennis court. 476 00:27:18,477 --> 00:27:20,377 You pull in, push a button in the car... 477 00:27:20,546 --> 00:27:22,446 one of the three cars, a three-car garage door goes up. 478 00:27:22,615 --> 00:27:25,015 Three cars are in the garage. You go around to the front door... 479 00:27:25,184 --> 00:27:26,786 ring the doorbell. It plays 40 different tunes. 480 00:27:26,799 --> 00:27:28,312 My father's always adjusting them every day. 481 00:27:28,487 --> 00:27:31,285 That particular day it was the William Tell Overture, or next day would be... 482 00:27:31,457 --> 00:27:33,482 "The Whole World is Waiting for the Sunrise," with a polka beat... 483 00:27:33,659 --> 00:27:35,786 or it might be "Jingle Bell Rock," according to the seasons. 484 00:27:35,962 --> 00:27:38,088 And you go in and there's a whole weather station there on your left... 485 00:27:38,263 --> 00:27:40,754 with the barometric pressure and the wind velocity and the temperature. 486 00:27:40,932 --> 00:27:43,799 And it's wall-to-wall carpeting and Muzak playing in all the rooms. 487 00:27:43,969 --> 00:27:46,204 And in their bedroom, between the twin beds, 488 00:27:46,217 --> 00:27:48,463 there's a little box that makes white sound. 489 00:27:48,640 --> 00:27:51,734 You can turn it to static, you can turn it to water, you can turn it to wind. 490 00:27:51,910 --> 00:27:54,572 My father likes to sleep with the static. Said he couldn't get to sleep without it. 491 00:27:54,746 --> 00:27:57,544 Down in the basement - And everything is going fine. 492 00:27:57,716 --> 00:28:00,844 Down in the basement, there are two freezers filled to the top with meat. 493 00:28:01,019 --> 00:28:03,646 Up in the attic, there are rows and rows of bourbon, rows and rows of Scotch... 494 00:28:03,821 --> 00:28:05,686 rows and rows of gin, just like a liquor warehouse. 495 00:28:05,856 --> 00:28:08,791 There's an automatic generator that goes on automatic pilot when the lights go out. 496 00:28:08,959 --> 00:28:11,155 And everything is going fine, and everything is going 497 00:28:11,168 --> 00:28:13,089 fine, and the cocktail hour begins about 5:00. 498 00:28:13,264 --> 00:28:15,664 We usually start in front of the TV with Zoom. 499 00:28:15,833 --> 00:28:18,825 And after Zoom, 6:00 news, the 6:30 news... 500 00:28:19,003 --> 00:28:21,904 the 7:00 news, and we're eating somewhere around The Odd Couple. 501 00:28:22,072 --> 00:28:24,870 Now, I never know whether I'm talking to my father, my stepmother, or The Odd Couple. 502 00:28:25,042 --> 00:28:27,168 It all kind of blends in. 503 00:28:27,343 --> 00:28:29,675 And everything is going fine, except this particular day, it's summer... 504 00:28:29,846 --> 00:28:32,178 and we're eating outside, and the only problem is flies. 505 00:28:32,348 --> 00:28:35,010 "There's a fly. Look out. Close the door. Get out the bomber. " 506 00:28:35,184 --> 00:28:38,517 My father got out this big fogger and set it off by the picnic table out back... 507 00:28:38,688 --> 00:28:41,623 and my stepmother, who collects antiques, got out the antique fly gun. 508 00:28:41,791 --> 00:28:44,385 You pull it back like this and line it up a certain distance from the fly... 509 00:28:44,560 --> 00:28:48,326 and if you're all right, the thing goes "thump. " 510 00:28:48,498 --> 00:28:50,931 And everything is going fine, and everything is going fine... 511 00:28:51,099 --> 00:28:53,499 except someone stole his flagpole twice with the flag on it... 512 00:28:53,669 --> 00:28:56,069 so he's had to cement this one in, and everything is going fine... 513 00:28:56,238 --> 00:28:58,304 except the swimming pool has cracks in it, 514 00:28:58,317 --> 00:29:00,538 it's leaking, and the AstroTurf is shrinking. 515 00:29:02,811 --> 00:29:04,451 And everything is going fine, and everything 516 00:29:04,464 --> 00:29:06,042 is going fine, except for the squirrels... 517 00:29:06,214 --> 00:29:09,115 the gypsy moths, and a pig farmer named Rocky. 518 00:29:11,920 --> 00:29:14,889 Now, these pigs - It's a good ways away, but if the wind is wrong... 519 00:29:15,057 --> 00:29:17,354 you smell the garbage when you're in the swimming pool. 520 00:29:17,525 --> 00:29:20,358 And this is driving them nuts, because it's an imperfection, you see. 521 00:29:20,528 --> 00:29:23,622 It's an imperfection. So what they found out was - 522 00:29:23,798 --> 00:29:26,028 They investigated. There's a town ordinance... 523 00:29:26,200 --> 00:29:28,100 that you can't have pigs next to private property. 524 00:29:28,269 --> 00:29:30,330 But there's a good chunk of very expensive property 525 00:29:30,343 --> 00:29:32,296 between their property and Rocky the pig farmer. 526 00:29:32,473 --> 00:29:35,567 And there's another problem too, because my father's name is Rocky. 527 00:29:38,479 --> 00:29:41,470 So there's a very big, expensive piece of property between there and there... 528 00:29:41,648 --> 00:29:44,811 and so they go down and buy it, and the next day they take Rocky to court - 529 00:29:44,985 --> 00:29:47,749 the pig farmer - and they say, "You can't have pigs next to our property. " 530 00:29:47,921 --> 00:29:50,253 He says, "You don't own that property. " And he says... 531 00:29:50,423 --> 00:29:52,482 "We bought it this morning, my friend. " 532 00:29:56,463 --> 00:29:58,522 It was 1967... 533 00:29:58,698 --> 00:30:03,032 and I just escaped the draft by the skin of my... whatever- 534 00:30:03,203 --> 00:30:06,069 chance, luck- that I didn't go to Vietnam... 535 00:30:06,238 --> 00:30:08,729 and I got very disillusioned with theater, regional theater... 536 00:30:08,907 --> 00:30:11,239 and the lack of adventure... 537 00:30:11,410 --> 00:30:14,402 and experimentation, and I started reading... 538 00:30:14,580 --> 00:30:17,310 about Andre Gregory being thrown out of Theatre for the Living Arts... 539 00:30:17,483 --> 00:30:19,678 for doing Rochelle Owens's play, Beclch. 540 00:30:19,852 --> 00:30:21,438 And the board of directors had fired him. He'd 541 00:30:21,451 --> 00:30:22,878 gone to New York City to start a company. 542 00:30:23,055 --> 00:30:25,080 So I read that in The New York Times, and I thought... 543 00:30:25,257 --> 00:30:27,088 "Well, someone's getting fired for doing something. 544 00:30:27,259 --> 00:30:30,694 I wonder what that something is, and I'm gonna take a check-out in New York City. " 545 00:30:30,862 --> 00:30:33,956 My first publicity shot in New York City. 546 00:30:34,132 --> 00:30:36,293 I didn't know who to go to when I came here. 547 00:30:36,467 --> 00:30:39,800 I just took a Backstage magazine, you know, and I took it out. 548 00:30:39,971 --> 00:30:41,871 I took the first ad that said "photographer. " 549 00:30:42,040 --> 00:30:44,201 I go. This guy must have had... 550 00:30:44,375 --> 00:30:46,843 his great-grandfather's camera from the Civil War. 551 00:30:47,011 --> 00:30:50,344 He had a canopy he threw over his head, and there was a wooden cup over the lens... 552 00:30:50,515 --> 00:30:52,982 and he took it off and counted the exposure - one, two - 553 00:30:53,150 --> 00:30:54,981 and then put it back like this. 554 00:30:55,152 --> 00:30:58,815 A 1969 publicity shot. 555 00:31:05,095 --> 00:31:07,063 I was doing a workshop with the Open Theater... 556 00:31:07,230 --> 00:31:10,222 which was an experimental group run by Joe Chaikin... 557 00:31:10,400 --> 00:31:13,130 and Joyce Aaron was running the workshop as a free, open workshop... 558 00:31:13,303 --> 00:31:16,761 and we were asked - and this was in 1969, in New York City - 559 00:31:16,939 --> 00:31:19,237 to come in and just bring in a story and jam on it... 560 00:31:19,408 --> 00:31:21,344 in a kind of way that if you didn't remember 561 00:31:21,357 --> 00:31:23,174 the whole story, you could repeat a word. 562 00:31:23,345 --> 00:31:25,142 And I didn't repeat anything once. 563 00:31:25,314 --> 00:31:28,477 I just did a story of my day as fast as I could speak it. 564 00:31:28,651 --> 00:31:31,211 And at the end of the workshop, Joyce, who was running it... 565 00:31:31,387 --> 00:31:34,151 asked me who wrote it. 566 00:31:34,323 --> 00:31:36,655 She thought it had been prewritten and memorized. 567 00:31:36,826 --> 00:31:39,192 And in 1969, I had a little hint... 568 00:31:39,361 --> 00:31:41,453 that I had some sort of talent for storytelling... 569 00:31:41,629 --> 00:31:45,588 but there was no place for it then, and it didn't come out till ten years later. 570 00:31:45,767 --> 00:31:48,075 It wasrt my choice to go to India. I was going with 571 00:31:48,088 --> 00:31:50,363 a performance group to do Brecht's Mother Courage. 572 00:31:50,538 --> 00:31:53,098 I don't know why. 573 00:31:54,542 --> 00:31:57,909 We had gotten a John D. Rockefeller llI travel grant... 574 00:31:58,079 --> 00:32:01,640 to do this. That paid for our tickets over. 575 00:32:01,816 --> 00:32:05,308 But when I was in India - I began searching for a guru when I was in India... 576 00:32:05,487 --> 00:32:08,922 because, well, I started getting interested in tantric gurus. 577 00:32:09,089 --> 00:32:11,751 I was looking for tantric masters because I had become... 578 00:32:11,925 --> 00:32:14,189 sexually obsessed in India. 579 00:32:15,963 --> 00:32:18,295 I think it had to do with the fact that I knew... 580 00:32:18,465 --> 00:32:20,660 there was a lot of sexuality going on in the country... 581 00:32:20,834 --> 00:32:23,064 because there were so many people and so many children... 582 00:32:23,237 --> 00:32:26,138 but I didn't know where it was operative... 583 00:32:26,306 --> 00:32:28,433 Where it was happening. 584 00:32:28,609 --> 00:32:31,702 I couldn't understand it through my cultural view of my eyes. 585 00:32:31,878 --> 00:32:35,837 And so I was searching around for these tantric masters that could teach me... 586 00:32:36,015 --> 00:32:38,210 and there were supposed to be a few tantric masters left... 587 00:32:38,384 --> 00:32:40,284 that practiced this tantric sexuality. 588 00:32:40,453 --> 00:32:42,353 You get in a tantric pose and you say... 589 00:32:42,522 --> 00:32:45,582 "I am one who is doing this. " You know, "I am one -" 590 00:32:49,562 --> 00:32:51,587 I waited two weeks, applied for an audience. 591 00:32:51,764 --> 00:32:55,130 And then what you have to do is you must come to his gate... 592 00:32:55,300 --> 00:32:58,326 around 6:00 out back, because you go around the back of his house. 593 00:32:58,503 --> 00:33:01,233 And you're not to wear any scented soaps... 594 00:33:01,406 --> 00:33:05,172 or perfume or shaving lotion, anything - or cut flowers - 595 00:33:05,343 --> 00:33:07,311 because any kind of scent... 596 00:33:07,479 --> 00:33:09,970 will cause the guru to leave his body. 597 00:33:12,150 --> 00:33:16,587 And he had been leaving it by accident, you know, as a result of these scents... 598 00:33:16,755 --> 00:33:19,621 and the sannyasis were afraid he wouldn't come back. 599 00:33:19,790 --> 00:33:23,021 Some people came and knelt, and he shone a little penlight in their eye... 600 00:33:23,194 --> 00:33:25,185 and then gave them a holy name and put the mala around. 601 00:33:25,362 --> 00:33:28,559 Well, when I knelt down, it was obvious I wasrt about to take the mala. 602 00:33:28,732 --> 00:33:32,099 I really wanted to just say, "Look, which workshop is the orgy?" 603 00:33:35,839 --> 00:33:38,330 I met this American expatriate on the plane that was living in Paris... 604 00:33:38,509 --> 00:33:40,272 and he had friends down in Greece. 605 00:33:40,444 --> 00:33:44,140 He said, "No problem at all. Come with me. Take a room in the hotel I'm staying in... 606 00:33:44,314 --> 00:33:47,340 and then we'll go out to eat, we'll have some drinks. 607 00:33:47,517 --> 00:33:50,884 You go up and see the ruins first. Then we'll meet, have drinks and eat. " 608 00:33:51,054 --> 00:33:54,046 By then, I knew that this guy was a homosexual. He was gay. 609 00:33:54,224 --> 00:33:59,093 He told me, "It's much better to be gay if you're traveling a lot, you know? 610 00:33:59,262 --> 00:34:03,221 It's just much more convenient. You have more sexual activity. " 611 00:34:03,399 --> 00:34:06,562 "Oh, really?" I said. "Yeah," he said. "No, this is true. " 612 00:34:09,104 --> 00:34:11,334 I got into bed, and I started feeling - mm - 613 00:34:11,506 --> 00:34:15,465 that kind of springtime feeling in the base of my spine, a little slight itch. 614 00:34:18,647 --> 00:34:20,740 And I thought, uh... 615 00:34:23,552 --> 00:34:26,282 "I wonder why he didn't try to seduce me. 616 00:34:29,858 --> 00:34:31,723 What's wrong with me?" 617 00:34:35,830 --> 00:34:37,821 "What's wrong with him?" 618 00:34:39,667 --> 00:34:42,761 And I thought, "Maybe I should go ask him. 619 00:34:43,938 --> 00:34:45,269 Yeah. " 620 00:34:45,439 --> 00:34:47,373 So I got up, I got dressed... 621 00:34:47,541 --> 00:34:49,270 and I went out and I knocked on his door. 622 00:34:49,443 --> 00:34:51,843 He said, "Who is it?" I said, "Spalding. " 623 00:34:52,013 --> 00:34:55,073 He said, "Come in. " So I kind of went along the wall. 624 00:34:55,249 --> 00:34:57,307 I came in, and I said... 625 00:35:02,155 --> 00:35:04,282 "We've got to, uh, do something. " 626 00:35:06,026 --> 00:35:08,153 He said, "Uh, go take a shower. 627 00:35:08,328 --> 00:35:10,193 You can use my shower, and then we'll talk. " 628 00:35:10,363 --> 00:35:12,695 So I came out of the shower dripping, and, um - 629 00:35:12,866 --> 00:35:14,925 Look, I figured it was safe. 630 00:35:15,101 --> 00:35:17,569 He was clean. 631 00:35:17,737 --> 00:35:20,205 He was nice. He was - 632 00:35:20,373 --> 00:35:22,272 It was better than one of those - It was a private room. 633 00:35:22,441 --> 00:35:24,705 I figured I was going to be traveling in Greece. 634 00:35:24,877 --> 00:35:26,777 I might as well get initiated. 635 00:35:29,014 --> 00:35:31,482 And, uh... 636 00:35:31,650 --> 00:35:35,142 I thought it was better than one of those steamy New York City gay baths... 637 00:35:35,321 --> 00:35:38,620 and, uh - 638 00:35:38,791 --> 00:35:40,759 And who would ever know? 639 00:35:42,828 --> 00:35:46,524 So he said, "What do you like to do?" 640 00:35:46,698 --> 00:35:48,598 And I said, "Oh, huh. " 641 00:35:51,536 --> 00:35:53,595 "I don't know. I don't know. What do you like to do?" 642 00:35:53,771 --> 00:35:57,605 He said, "Oh, I like having my cock sucked. " 643 00:35:59,610 --> 00:36:01,441 I said... 644 00:36:04,849 --> 00:36:07,010 "I would never do that. " 645 00:36:09,986 --> 00:36:12,181 Next thing I knew, I was in bed with him, like on automatic pilot. 646 00:36:12,356 --> 00:36:15,189 It was such a surprise. I was in there, I had my arms around him... 647 00:36:15,359 --> 00:36:18,886 and it was a real surprise, because he was soft like a woman. 648 00:36:19,062 --> 00:36:22,395 His skin was very soft, and it was good to be next to someone... 649 00:36:22,566 --> 00:36:25,399 after traveling around all that time and just - 650 00:36:25,569 --> 00:36:28,299 But I didn't relax with it, you know? It was too much for me just then... 651 00:36:28,472 --> 00:36:30,565 and I just went right down on him. 652 00:36:30,741 --> 00:36:32,572 I didn't waste any more time. And while I was doing it... 653 00:36:32,743 --> 00:36:34,573 I was thinking in my head all the time like this: 654 00:36:34,744 --> 00:36:37,838 "I am a homosexual, I am a homosexual, I am a homosexual, I am a homosexual... 655 00:36:38,013 --> 00:36:39,844 I am a homosexual, I am a homosexual. " 656 00:36:40,015 --> 00:36:42,540 And suddenly it broke like a bubble in my head, you know... 657 00:36:42,718 --> 00:36:44,583 and I was suddenly finding myself sucking... 658 00:36:44,754 --> 00:36:47,780 on this kind of disconnected rubber garden hose... 659 00:36:47,957 --> 00:36:50,482 semi-choking. 660 00:36:50,659 --> 00:36:54,151 And - I don't know. Some of you may know what I'm talking about. 661 00:36:54,330 --> 00:36:57,231 This disconnected feeling. 662 00:36:57,400 --> 00:36:59,867 He said, "Oh!" He caught on. 663 00:37:00,034 --> 00:37:02,832 He said "Spalding, ease down, ease down. 664 00:37:04,506 --> 00:37:07,304 You don't have to do anything you don't want to do. 665 00:37:07,475 --> 00:37:10,740 I mean, there's no sense torturing yourself. 666 00:37:12,013 --> 00:37:14,106 Is there?" 667 00:37:15,750 --> 00:37:17,911 Every morning I was calling up and saying to the airplane... 668 00:37:18,086 --> 00:37:21,886 "This is Mr. Gray. I have an open ticket. I'd like to fly at 6:00 tonight. " 669 00:37:22,056 --> 00:37:24,023 "Anything you say, Mr. Gray. You have an open ticket. " 670 00:37:24,191 --> 00:37:26,159 And I'd go have a couple beers, and I'd think about Greece... 671 00:37:26,326 --> 00:37:30,023 and I'd come back and call and say, "No, cancel it. I'm going to fly another time. " 672 00:37:30,197 --> 00:37:32,028 "Anything you say, Mr. Gray. You have an open ticket. " 673 00:37:32,199 --> 00:37:34,759 I was beginning to like this, you know? 674 00:37:34,935 --> 00:37:38,029 No. It was more power than I'd had in all my life. 675 00:37:38,205 --> 00:37:40,867 Big Royal Dutch 747. 676 00:37:41,041 --> 00:37:42,941 So Liz said, "You better go back with me. " 677 00:37:43,110 --> 00:37:45,578 I said, "Sure. You make the reservation. You do it. 678 00:37:45,746 --> 00:37:48,213 You call them, tell them we'll show up. " We showed up at the airport, right? 679 00:37:48,381 --> 00:37:50,747 We got to the airport, and I started pacing around. She said, "What's wrong?" 680 00:37:50,917 --> 00:37:54,409 I said, "I can't go. I have to go - I -" 681 00:37:54,587 --> 00:37:57,351 And she said, "Wait a minute. You'd better get your bags off the plane. " 682 00:37:57,523 --> 00:38:01,459 So I went over to the woman and said, "Can you -" 683 00:38:01,627 --> 00:38:03,686 "No, skip it. Just leave my bags on. I'm not going. " 684 00:38:03,863 --> 00:38:06,923 She said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Gray. You have to accompany your bags back to New York City. 685 00:38:07,099 --> 00:38:09,192 They can't go without you. " I said, "Can you take them off?" 686 00:38:09,368 --> 00:38:11,358 She said, "I think we can. " She got her walkie-talkie out. 687 00:38:11,536 --> 00:38:13,834 - She said, "Do you want -" - I said, "Yes. No. Uh - 688 00:38:14,005 --> 00:38:16,200 Yes. No. " 689 00:38:18,743 --> 00:38:20,802 I started barking at her. It was unbelievable. 690 00:38:20,979 --> 00:38:24,380 And her eyes were rolling in her head, and Liz just walked on ahead... 691 00:38:24,549 --> 00:38:26,983 as though she didn't know me, you know? 692 00:38:27,152 --> 00:38:30,383 I had a rather - 693 00:38:30,555 --> 00:38:34,548 a kind of nervous collapse that lasted maybe four or five months. 694 00:38:34,726 --> 00:38:38,126 A lot of not being able to stay awake and very depressed... 695 00:38:38,295 --> 00:38:41,162 and it was triggered by a lot of regret, of saying... 696 00:38:41,332 --> 00:38:42,387 "I should've done this in India, and I 697 00:38:42,400 --> 00:38:43,630 could've done that, and I didn't do that"... 698 00:38:43,801 --> 00:38:45,632 rather than looking at things I did do. 699 00:38:45,803 --> 00:38:49,899 So coming out of that breakdown, I started keeping a journal, a diary. 700 00:38:50,074 --> 00:38:53,737 And it was just a regular diary. That was a real daily diary. 701 00:38:53,911 --> 00:38:57,244 And each morning I would write in that day... 702 00:38:57,414 --> 00:38:59,382 saying, "This is what I did the day before. " 703 00:38:59,550 --> 00:39:01,983 I let sleep be the filter system. 704 00:39:02,151 --> 00:39:04,551 And it was healing in the sense of saying... 705 00:39:04,721 --> 00:39:07,349 "This is what I did, not what I didn't do. " 706 00:39:07,524 --> 00:39:10,254 This developed a very - 707 00:39:10,426 --> 00:39:13,827 And this was seven years I did this without missing a day. 708 00:39:13,997 --> 00:39:16,864 And this developed a terrific... 709 00:39:17,033 --> 00:39:19,900 like almost "cinemagraphic" or photographic memory for detail. 710 00:39:20,069 --> 00:39:24,266 And slowly I began to understand that what my art form was - 711 00:39:24,439 --> 00:39:26,304 and bless them, it was the Wooster Group... 712 00:39:26,475 --> 00:39:28,443 that pushed me and was the first audience. 713 00:39:28,610 --> 00:39:31,704 Elizabeth LeCompte and I had some time on our own... 714 00:39:31,880 --> 00:39:35,509 to develop our own pieces, and we just started playing around in the garage. 715 00:39:35,684 --> 00:39:38,414 And we began to use my memories and life experiences 716 00:39:38,587 --> 00:39:41,078 as a kind of source material to build our pieces on. 717 00:39:41,256 --> 00:39:44,623 We did a trilogy called Three Places in Rhode Island... 718 00:39:44,793 --> 00:39:47,091 and Liz LeCompte and the group would tape-record them... 719 00:39:47,262 --> 00:39:49,252 transcribe them, and I'd look at them and go... 720 00:39:49,430 --> 00:39:52,866 "Aha! That's writing!" 721 00:39:53,034 --> 00:39:56,595 And what happened was that the writer's voice began to push the actor's voice out. 722 00:39:56,771 --> 00:39:58,671 When I say "writer's voice," what do I mean? 723 00:39:58,839 --> 00:40:02,331 I couldn't spell. I couldn't write. I could barely read. 724 00:40:02,510 --> 00:40:04,569 I didn't know that had nothing to do with writing. 725 00:40:07,148 --> 00:40:09,708 This self-reflector's writer's voice began to - 726 00:40:09,884 --> 00:40:11,943 I couldn't memorize my texts properly. 727 00:40:12,119 --> 00:40:15,519 I was always interpolating or adding my own words. 728 00:40:15,689 --> 00:40:18,214 So the little voice began to whisper to me... 729 00:40:18,391 --> 00:40:21,224 "What if, in fact, you were speaking your own words? 730 00:40:21,394 --> 00:40:24,591 What would they be?" And I began to do that. 731 00:40:24,764 --> 00:40:28,325 In 1979, at the Performing Garage in downtown Manattan... 732 00:40:28,501 --> 00:40:30,765 I did my first monologue and called it... 733 00:40:30,937 --> 00:40:33,963 Sex and Death to the Age 14. 734 00:40:34,140 --> 00:40:36,472 I sat down at this table in front of whoever came. It was word of mouth. 735 00:40:36,643 --> 00:40:41,272 Maybe there were 15 or 16 people there, or less - or 12 people - 736 00:40:41,447 --> 00:40:44,007 and I put on the Donna Diana Overture and just played the opening... 737 00:40:44,183 --> 00:40:47,016 and lifted the needle, and I had my little outline... 738 00:40:47,186 --> 00:40:50,246 and it was everything I could remember about sex and death till the age 14... 739 00:40:50,422 --> 00:40:53,118 which was the name of the monologue, and I tape-recorded it. 740 00:40:53,292 --> 00:40:57,422 And the first night it was maybe, oh, 50 minutes long. 741 00:40:57,596 --> 00:41:00,531 Then I went back and listened to the tape, and I had all these massive... 742 00:41:00,699 --> 00:41:02,996 associations and memories and restructured the outline. 743 00:41:03,167 --> 00:41:05,533 Went back the next night. It was 60 minutes. 744 00:41:05,703 --> 00:41:08,968 Then it was an hour and five, hour and ten, hour and 30- 745 00:41:09,140 --> 00:41:12,337 almost all 19 monologues have come in at an hour and 30- 746 00:41:12,510 --> 00:41:16,105 and it just fell into that form, and it became my first autobiographic monologue. 747 00:41:16,280 --> 00:41:19,716 And what it did was trigger enormous amounts of memory. 748 00:41:19,884 --> 00:41:22,045 I went right on to the next one, Booze, Cars, and College Girls... 749 00:41:22,220 --> 00:41:24,051 then A Personal History of the American Theater. 750 00:41:24,222 --> 00:41:27,987 But, you see, this unlocked a whole new method of working. 751 00:41:28,158 --> 00:41:30,956 I became like an inverted method actor. 752 00:41:31,128 --> 00:41:32,823 You see? 753 00:41:35,132 --> 00:41:37,657 I was using myself to play myself. 754 00:41:38,935 --> 00:41:42,029 I was playing with myself. 755 00:41:42,205 --> 00:41:46,301 It was a kind of creative narcissism. And this began to develop, you see? 756 00:41:46,476 --> 00:41:50,673 More memories came, and I began to develop this little cottage industry. 757 00:41:50,846 --> 00:41:52,541 And I began to tour. 758 00:41:52,715 --> 00:41:54,910 Wherever people would ask me to go, I'd take these monologues. 759 00:41:55,084 --> 00:41:57,450 And sometimes I'd go out alone. Sometimes I'd go with my girlfriend, Renée. 760 00:41:57,620 --> 00:41:59,053 Now how did you meet? 761 00:41:59,221 --> 00:42:01,155 Oh, God, we met in Studio 54. 762 00:42:01,323 --> 00:42:03,518 Couldrt have been a more ludicrous meeting place. 763 00:42:03,693 --> 00:42:06,184 I mean, it was a downtown celebration of the arts. 764 00:42:06,362 --> 00:42:08,956 I got an arts award, and we were - 765 00:42:09,465 --> 00:42:12,559 I saw her across a crowded room, and her face lit up, and I loved it - 766 00:42:12,735 --> 00:42:15,726 a very open, soulful face. 767 00:42:15,904 --> 00:42:18,031 And I asked her to dance... 768 00:42:18,206 --> 00:42:21,198 and she said I tried to come on too much. 769 00:42:21,376 --> 00:42:24,607 I was, like, too physical with her, and she fled. 770 00:42:24,779 --> 00:42:26,440 She thought I was married. I wasrt. 771 00:42:26,614 --> 00:42:28,582 I was living with someone at the time, but we were breaking up. 772 00:42:28,750 --> 00:42:31,241 And I pursued her and I found her, and we had a date... 773 00:42:31,419 --> 00:42:33,319 and we went out, and those were the days - 774 00:42:33,488 --> 00:42:35,718 I think on the first date we were back in bed... 775 00:42:35,890 --> 00:42:38,586 and she was nervous and drank the wrong drinks and said... 776 00:42:38,760 --> 00:42:40,590 "Excuse me. I'm gonna throw up. " 777 00:42:40,761 --> 00:42:43,662 So in the middle of our first making love, she threw up... 778 00:42:43,831 --> 00:42:46,197 and I held her head and put a pot under it... 779 00:42:46,366 --> 00:42:47,856 and that was our bonding, I think. 780 00:42:48,035 --> 00:42:51,266 We bonded around that vomiting. 781 00:42:51,438 --> 00:42:54,032 And we had a horrible fight when we started out. 782 00:42:54,208 --> 00:42:57,507 I think it was, Renée missed her New York support system. 783 00:43:00,314 --> 00:43:04,477 That was the first item. Then she said that sex was a red herring... 784 00:43:05,918 --> 00:43:08,284 and we started talking about what a red herring was. 785 00:43:10,656 --> 00:43:13,853 And then she said, "But we're not equals, you see?" 786 00:43:14,026 --> 00:43:15,926 And then she finally said, "Look... 787 00:43:16,095 --> 00:43:19,826 I feel like I'm driving you 3,000 miles to work!" 788 00:43:22,902 --> 00:43:24,130 See? 789 00:43:24,303 --> 00:43:28,170 I started asserting myself, you know? 790 00:43:28,340 --> 00:43:30,052 I said, "I don't give a shit if you go, 791 00:43:30,065 --> 00:43:32,003 really. I can't take this arguing anymore. " 792 00:43:32,177 --> 00:43:36,443 And my assertion made us both incredibly horny, and we, uh... 793 00:43:36,615 --> 00:43:40,813 we pulled the car over, and we had the best sex of the whole trip, you know? 794 00:43:40,986 --> 00:43:44,717 It had nothing to do with positions or where the car was parked. 795 00:43:44,890 --> 00:43:46,824 It was just something - 796 00:43:47,926 --> 00:43:50,520 I get tired of talking about myself. 797 00:43:50,695 --> 00:43:52,889 And when I do, I do the conversations with the audience... 798 00:43:53,063 --> 00:43:56,055 and it's a way of getting outside of myself and hopefully empathizing... 799 00:43:56,233 --> 00:43:58,098 with another persors story. 800 00:43:58,269 --> 00:44:00,294 So the conversations are always guided... 801 00:44:00,471 --> 00:44:02,371 toward trying to bring up a story in someone... 802 00:44:02,540 --> 00:44:05,475 about whatever topic we're dwelling on that day. 803 00:44:05,643 --> 00:44:07,577 It's a beautiful piece... 804 00:44:07,745 --> 00:44:09,872 because people don't have any public conversations in America. 805 00:44:10,047 --> 00:44:13,448 They're always 12-step programs. They always have an agenda. 806 00:44:13,617 --> 00:44:15,585 There is no agenda in this. 807 00:44:15,753 --> 00:44:18,915 And the audience has to find what's interesting for them. 808 00:44:19,088 --> 00:44:21,079 They have to do the editing, you know? 809 00:44:21,257 --> 00:44:23,088 And they will or they won't. They're in and out of it. 810 00:44:23,259 --> 00:44:25,090 Some people are more interesting than others. 811 00:44:25,261 --> 00:44:28,355 But I've gotten more intuitive of choosing people that will be able... 812 00:44:31,367 --> 00:44:34,097 - Did you try to kill yourself? - No. No, no, no. 813 00:44:34,270 --> 00:44:37,137 It was - I would never kill - I mean - 814 00:44:37,307 --> 00:44:39,707 You never tried to kill yourself? 815 00:44:39,876 --> 00:44:43,140 Um, never. 816 00:44:43,312 --> 00:44:46,748 - Mm. Did you think about it? - No. I, um - 817 00:44:46,915 --> 00:44:48,815 I think it's a real bad joke. 818 00:44:48,984 --> 00:44:51,885 - Huh? You think it's a bad joke? - Yeah. 819 00:44:52,054 --> 00:44:54,818 - You don't like it. - I don't like it. It's a real bad joke. 820 00:44:54,990 --> 00:44:57,083 Real, you know, bad joke. 821 00:44:57,259 --> 00:44:59,193 I get - And makes me angry. 822 00:45:02,197 --> 00:45:05,325 No, it's the least you can do. It's so short, you know? 823 00:45:05,499 --> 00:45:07,490 It's the least you can do. Just hang in. 824 00:45:07,668 --> 00:45:10,933 You never know, you know? You just never know. 825 00:45:11,105 --> 00:45:13,505 Do you know anyone that's ever killed themselves? 826 00:45:13,674 --> 00:45:17,201 You know, that guy I was married to the first time, he did. 827 00:45:17,378 --> 00:45:20,506 - Just two or three years ago. - He killed himself? 828 00:45:20,681 --> 00:45:24,048 And I haven't seen him for 20 years, or 30. 829 00:45:25,386 --> 00:45:29,083 And it's been very upsetting to think, you know - 830 00:45:29,257 --> 00:45:31,190 I hadrt seen him. I hadrt thought about him. 831 00:45:31,358 --> 00:45:34,623 He did that. And it's true: It does have a kicker. 832 00:45:34,794 --> 00:45:37,194 I mean - 833 00:45:37,364 --> 00:45:39,855 If you can't make it any other way, you can do it that way. 834 00:45:40,033 --> 00:45:42,763 It's gonna have a real impact, but it's a shock. 835 00:45:42,936 --> 00:45:45,598 It just doesn't - doesn't do it. 836 00:45:45,772 --> 00:45:47,364 Mm. 837 00:45:47,540 --> 00:45:50,634 But it, like, removes things. It doesn't add. 838 00:45:53,747 --> 00:45:57,409 - I just don't like it. It scares me. - Right. 839 00:45:57,583 --> 00:46:00,711 - I don't want you to do it. Anybody. - Right. 840 00:46:00,886 --> 00:46:02,376 That's all. 841 00:46:02,554 --> 00:46:04,886 I was taking them on. I was taking on their stories. 842 00:46:05,057 --> 00:46:07,582 - I was interviewing them onstage. - Who were you interviewing? 843 00:46:07,760 --> 00:46:09,990 I was interviewing people from the streets of L.A. 844 00:46:10,162 --> 00:46:12,790 I was interviewing a woman who had just been picked up in a mother ship... 845 00:46:12,965 --> 00:46:14,990 a flying saucer on the Ventura Freeway... 846 00:46:15,167 --> 00:46:19,125 and her car was going west, and then an hour later it was going east... 847 00:46:19,304 --> 00:46:21,795 and she had to be deprogrammed to figure out she'd been on a spaceship. 848 00:46:21,973 --> 00:46:24,168 So the next person I have in is a person... 849 00:46:24,342 --> 00:46:26,105 who's the head of the Aetherius Church out there... 850 00:46:26,277 --> 00:46:29,405 that believes flying saucers are 15,000 miles up... 851 00:46:29,580 --> 00:46:31,480 above the Earth, sending down positive energy. 852 00:46:31,649 --> 00:46:34,015 In this church, they have a big battery that looks kind of like... 853 00:46:34,185 --> 00:46:36,119 a small radiator on stilts... 854 00:46:36,287 --> 00:46:39,222 and they receive the energy from these flying saucers. 855 00:46:39,390 --> 00:46:42,621 Then, when there's a natural disaster in the United States, they aim the battery. 856 00:46:42,793 --> 00:46:45,728 They go up and aim it at that disaster and send out the positive energy. 857 00:46:45,896 --> 00:46:47,733 I say to him, "Wait, have any of your people 858 00:46:47,746 --> 00:46:49,388 ever been picked up by flying saucers?" 859 00:46:49,566 --> 00:46:51,466 He said, "No, they're 15,000 miles up. " 860 00:46:51,635 --> 00:46:54,763 I said, "We had a woman in here the other night that was on a ship," and he goes... 861 00:46:55,939 --> 00:46:59,204 - "Crazy. " - She's nuts. She's nuts. 862 00:46:59,376 --> 00:47:01,207 Do you have any fears? 863 00:47:01,378 --> 00:47:03,346 No. Well, actually, yeah. 864 00:47:03,513 --> 00:47:05,413 What? 865 00:47:07,017 --> 00:47:09,416 Going home and getting beat up - beaten up. 866 00:47:09,585 --> 00:47:13,316 - Have you ever been beat up? - Once. 867 00:47:13,489 --> 00:47:16,947 What happened? People - Who beat you up? 868 00:47:21,364 --> 00:47:23,423 Large people. Yeah. 869 00:47:23,599 --> 00:47:25,794 A large gang of people. 870 00:47:25,968 --> 00:47:28,766 Was there any way of getting back at them? 871 00:47:28,938 --> 00:47:31,099 - Me? - Yeah. 872 00:47:31,273 --> 00:47:33,297 No. By myself? 873 00:47:33,475 --> 00:47:35,500 - Right. - No. 874 00:47:35,677 --> 00:47:37,577 Did you talk to your father about it, or anyone bigger? 875 00:47:37,746 --> 00:47:39,407 No. 876 00:47:39,581 --> 00:47:41,845 I couldn't. Well, never mind. 877 00:47:42,017 --> 00:47:44,076 You kept it a secret? 878 00:47:44,252 --> 00:47:46,083 - Yeah. - Right. 879 00:47:46,254 --> 00:47:49,451 Well, now I'm not. It's on television now. 880 00:47:49,624 --> 00:47:53,321 Are there any secrets that I have? 881 00:47:53,495 --> 00:47:56,657 Are there stories that I don't tell? 882 00:47:56,830 --> 00:47:58,388 Yes. 883 00:47:59,767 --> 00:48:02,429 If I'm going into a situation that I know is gonna be loaded... 884 00:48:02,603 --> 00:48:04,434 like the making of The Killing Fields, for instance... 885 00:48:04,605 --> 00:48:08,041 I kept a pretty tight diary for the facts, for the details. 886 00:48:08,208 --> 00:48:11,939 Then, when I get home from The Killing Fields, three months after... 887 00:48:12,112 --> 00:48:15,206 because I do refer to myself as a poetic journalist... 888 00:48:15,382 --> 00:48:17,316 in the sense that any good journalist... 889 00:48:17,484 --> 00:48:19,611 would try to get the story in as quickly as possible... 890 00:48:19,787 --> 00:48:24,280 I am working on a story, but I like it to gel... 891 00:48:24,457 --> 00:48:28,655 and sit in my unconscious or my dream state or my regular life for a while... 892 00:48:28,828 --> 00:48:31,388 and then after three months' time, I'll make an outline. 893 00:48:31,564 --> 00:48:35,432 Swimming was a radical - and I'd always been rooting for that - breakthrough. 894 00:48:35,601 --> 00:48:38,434 So I was out in L.A., performing at the Mark Taper Forum... 895 00:48:38,604 --> 00:48:40,504 Taper Two, Swimming to Cambodia... 896 00:48:40,673 --> 00:48:43,403 and of course, I was in film land, and everyone was approaching me... 897 00:48:43,576 --> 00:48:46,601 and they were doing, "Let's just get it down real quick on 16 mm. 898 00:48:46,778 --> 00:48:49,872 Don't bother with the contract. We want to just document this. " 899 00:48:50,048 --> 00:48:52,016 And Renée said, "You take control. 900 00:48:52,184 --> 00:48:54,550 You got everyone wanting to do it. I'll produce it. 901 00:48:54,719 --> 00:48:56,949 You choose the director. " 902 00:48:57,122 --> 00:49:01,218 It really reached a larger audience, and I became more popular. 903 00:49:01,393 --> 00:49:03,588 Did you read any of Swimming to Cambodia? 904 00:49:03,762 --> 00:49:06,094 I read about half of it. I should have read it all... 905 00:49:06,264 --> 00:49:09,630 but I got involved with other things, and I like it very much. 906 00:49:09,800 --> 00:49:13,395 - You were able to read it, though. - Oh, it's very amusing in places. 907 00:49:13,571 --> 00:49:16,972 I can just picture some of these things, doing them myself. 908 00:49:17,141 --> 00:49:18,733 Really? 909 00:49:18,909 --> 00:49:20,934 Well, those scenes in New York... 910 00:49:21,112 --> 00:49:23,842 where you would go down the street snapping your fingers three times... 911 00:49:24,014 --> 00:49:26,312 or six times or whatever for some reason - 912 00:49:26,484 --> 00:49:28,509 - I've forgotten what it was now. - The compulsive behavior. 913 00:49:28,686 --> 00:49:31,018 Yeah, but I've done the same thing myself... 914 00:49:31,188 --> 00:49:33,553 - Yeah. - When I was younger. 915 00:49:33,723 --> 00:49:35,782 Now you're over it, right? 916 00:49:35,959 --> 00:49:39,486 I like telling the story of life better than I do living it. 917 00:49:39,662 --> 00:49:41,493 I'm very reflective. 918 00:49:41,664 --> 00:49:45,498 I mean, I just enjoy telling the story, and the event feeds that. 919 00:49:45,668 --> 00:49:47,829 But how does that quell your fears of living? 920 00:49:48,004 --> 00:49:50,666 Uh, control. See, I'm afraid of life. 921 00:49:50,840 --> 00:49:53,400 I don't know how you deal with this, but everything is chance. 922 00:49:53,576 --> 00:49:56,170 It's a miracle to me that I'm here, that the plane made it. 923 00:49:56,346 --> 00:49:58,779 That the sun came up. 924 00:49:58,947 --> 00:50:02,246 As soon as you don't have any form of God or meaning in your life... 925 00:50:02,417 --> 00:50:04,248 then you make it up as you go along. 926 00:50:04,419 --> 00:50:07,547 And certainly, doing the monologue is making it up, getting control over it... 927 00:50:07,723 --> 00:50:10,988 giving it structure to what is normally chaos to me every day. 928 00:50:11,160 --> 00:50:14,186 The monologue you're going to hear tonight is a monologue about a man... 929 00:50:14,363 --> 00:50:17,855 who can't write a book about a man who can't take a vacation. 930 00:50:23,905 --> 00:50:26,897 Now, as soon as I signed the contract for the book... 931 00:50:27,074 --> 00:50:29,167 I decided that I would give up doing monologues. 932 00:50:29,343 --> 00:50:33,439 I'd just completely give them up. I felt they were making me too extroverted. 933 00:50:36,751 --> 00:50:39,151 Perhaps even pandering. 934 00:50:39,320 --> 00:50:41,811 And what I wanted to do was pull in to my more introverted self... 935 00:50:41,989 --> 00:50:44,253 that I hadrt been in touch with in 20 years... 936 00:50:44,425 --> 00:50:48,724 and just begin to work on writing in a private way... 937 00:50:48,895 --> 00:50:51,022 and go away to a writers' colony, if I could get in one... 938 00:50:51,198 --> 00:50:53,530 'cause I thought that would prove I was a writer if they'd accept me... 939 00:50:53,700 --> 00:50:55,531 and just write the book. 940 00:50:55,702 --> 00:50:57,363 No living. Just writing. 941 00:50:57,537 --> 00:51:01,906 And finally I did get down to the writing, and I got down to it, and it was awful. 942 00:51:03,076 --> 00:51:07,012 I don't know why I'd romanticized it. It's disgusting. 943 00:51:07,180 --> 00:51:10,308 Writing is like a disease. It is a disease. 944 00:51:10,483 --> 00:51:13,508 It steals your body from you. There's no audience. 945 00:51:13,686 --> 00:51:16,348 There's no feedback. There's - There's - 946 00:51:16,522 --> 00:51:19,787 It's - My hand was swelling up - 947 00:51:19,959 --> 00:51:23,019 my knuckle, from the pen pressing against it, 'cause I was writing longhand. 948 00:51:23,195 --> 00:51:25,186 I was losing my sight in my left eye. 949 00:51:25,364 --> 00:51:28,333 I was going blind in my left eye, which was horrible for me... 950 00:51:28,500 --> 00:51:31,401 because here I was, working on all my Oedipal themes. 951 00:51:31,570 --> 00:51:33,800 And I thought... 952 00:51:33,973 --> 00:51:37,464 "There goes the first eye. " 953 00:51:37,642 --> 00:51:39,303 Which is more frightening - 954 00:51:39,477 --> 00:51:42,310 to go out on a stage as yourself... 955 00:51:42,480 --> 00:51:44,710 or to go out on a stage as a character? 956 00:51:44,882 --> 00:51:47,407 Well, it's flip-flopped. Now it's more frightening... 957 00:51:47,585 --> 00:51:51,954 to go out on the stage as a character, because I was - 958 00:51:52,123 --> 00:51:55,581 I got to the point, I think, that I was hiding behind myself. 959 00:51:55,760 --> 00:51:57,591 The self became like a mask. Not hiding... 960 00:51:57,762 --> 00:52:00,025 but there was a persona there that I was working behind. 961 00:52:00,197 --> 00:52:03,724 Now I'm playing. Now I am rehearsing for the role of the caretaker... 962 00:52:03,900 --> 00:52:05,731 in the Broadway revival of Our Town... 963 00:52:05,902 --> 00:52:07,893 that's going on at the Lyceum, and I'm terrified. 964 00:52:08,071 --> 00:52:10,938 - Why? - Because I am having to do... 965 00:52:11,108 --> 00:52:13,303 a role that's not dissimilar from myself... 966 00:52:13,477 --> 00:52:16,776 but I'm having to say someone else's words, and in a very tight girdle. 967 00:52:16,947 --> 00:52:19,848 And I have this terrific rebellious feeling... 968 00:52:20,017 --> 00:52:22,008 like I had back in school... 969 00:52:22,185 --> 00:52:25,085 to do a parody of the play - My subconscious - 970 00:52:25,254 --> 00:52:27,586 I want to tell a story about - I'm discursive. 971 00:52:27,757 --> 00:52:29,588 I'm associative. That's how I work. 972 00:52:29,759 --> 00:52:32,489 So every time I say a line from Our Town, I have an association... 973 00:52:32,662 --> 00:52:34,448 and I start spinning off on that association, 974 00:52:34,461 --> 00:52:36,063 and I'm having all these internal films. 975 00:52:36,232 --> 00:52:38,200 I'm really supposed to be just speaking the lines. 976 00:52:38,367 --> 00:52:40,892 So it is going to be - It's like putting on a girdle. 977 00:52:41,070 --> 00:52:43,868 It's gonna be very, very difficult for me to do this. I'm very nervous about it. 978 00:52:44,040 --> 00:52:46,770 The little boy playing Wally Webb over here, Emily's brother... 979 00:52:46,942 --> 00:52:50,001 whose appendix burst in New Hampshire on a Scout trip - he's 11 years old. 980 00:52:50,178 --> 00:52:54,512 He is not blinking an eye for 40 minutes while I talk about eternity and say... 981 00:52:54,683 --> 00:52:57,413 "You know as well as I do... 982 00:52:57,585 --> 00:53:01,487 that the dead don't stay interested in us living for very long. 983 00:53:01,656 --> 00:53:05,387 Gradually, gradually, they lose hold of the earth... 984 00:53:05,560 --> 00:53:08,586 and the pleasures they had, and the things they suffered... 985 00:53:08,763 --> 00:53:12,221 and the people they loved, and the ambitions they had. 986 00:53:12,400 --> 00:53:14,367 They get weaned away from the earth. " 987 00:53:14,535 --> 00:53:17,333 That's the way I put it - "weaned away. " 988 00:53:17,504 --> 00:53:20,166 Except often when you're doing a long run, you often have... 989 00:53:20,341 --> 00:53:22,741 what I refer to as a "unifying accident"... 990 00:53:22,910 --> 00:53:26,073 in which something so strange happens on the stage that it suddenly... 991 00:53:26,246 --> 00:53:28,476 unifies the audience and the cast in a realization... 992 00:53:28,649 --> 00:53:31,379 that we are only here together in this one moment, for this show. 993 00:53:31,552 --> 00:53:34,180 It's not television. It's not a film. 994 00:53:34,355 --> 00:53:36,332 Because of the nature of the accident, we all 995 00:53:36,345 --> 00:53:38,290 know it will never be repeated, most likely. 996 00:53:38,458 --> 00:53:40,517 And somewhere in the middle of the run, it happens. 997 00:53:40,693 --> 00:53:43,924 I'm turning to the dead, saying, "They're waiting. 998 00:53:44,097 --> 00:53:46,327 They're waiting for something they feel is coming. 999 00:53:46,499 --> 00:53:48,729 Something important and great. " 1000 00:53:48,901 --> 00:53:51,734 And I turn to watch them wait, and just as I turn... 1001 00:53:51,904 --> 00:53:55,237 the little 11-year-old boy projectile-vomits. 1002 00:53:57,343 --> 00:54:01,074 Like a hydrant it comes, hitting one of the dead on the shoulder. 1003 00:54:01,247 --> 00:54:05,376 The other dead levitate around him out of sheer fear and drop back down. 1004 00:54:05,550 --> 00:54:08,986 Frannie Conroy in the front row, in deep meditative trance, is thinking... 1005 00:54:09,154 --> 00:54:11,384 "Why is it raining onstage?" 1006 00:54:11,556 --> 00:54:15,083 The little boy flees from his chair, vomit pouring from his mouth. 1007 00:54:15,260 --> 00:54:18,593 Splatter, splatter, splatter! My knees are shaking. 1008 00:54:18,764 --> 00:54:20,527 The chair is empty. 1009 00:54:20,699 --> 00:54:23,293 The audience is thunderstruck. 1010 00:54:23,468 --> 00:54:25,698 There is not a sound coming from the audience... 1011 00:54:25,870 --> 00:54:29,362 except for one little ten-year-old boy in the eighth row. 1012 00:54:29,540 --> 00:54:31,906 He knows what he saw. 1013 00:54:34,412 --> 00:54:36,573 He is laughing! 1014 00:54:40,885 --> 00:54:42,614 And I don't know what to do. 1015 00:54:42,787 --> 00:54:45,654 I don't know whether to go on with Thornton Wilder and be loyal to him... 1016 00:54:45,823 --> 00:54:47,688 and do the next line as written... 1017 00:54:47,858 --> 00:54:50,155 or attempt what might be one of the most creative improvs... 1018 00:54:50,326 --> 00:54:52,226 in the history of American theater. 1019 00:54:54,731 --> 00:54:58,223 And I decide to be loyal to Wilder and go on with the next line... 1020 00:54:58,401 --> 00:55:00,801 and turn to that empty chair and say... 1021 00:55:01,971 --> 00:55:06,101 "Arert they waiting for the eternal part of them to come out clear?" 1022 00:55:08,278 --> 00:55:11,805 When I think of Monster in a Box... 1023 00:55:11,981 --> 00:55:15,108 the film, which is being released... 1024 00:55:15,284 --> 00:55:18,048 any day now... 1025 00:55:18,220 --> 00:55:21,018 I have a story that I tell over and over again that I think I know... 1026 00:55:21,190 --> 00:55:23,021 because I've told the story... 1027 00:55:23,192 --> 00:55:25,660 and it has to do with how, at the end - 1028 00:55:25,828 --> 00:55:29,457 I talk about when I came home from Mexico on my vacation... 1029 00:55:29,631 --> 00:55:32,327 all I found left about my mother - 'cause she committed suicide... 1030 00:55:32,501 --> 00:55:35,436 and had been cremated - was ashes in an urn... 1031 00:55:35,604 --> 00:55:37,936 in a box by my father's bed. 1032 00:55:38,106 --> 00:55:41,563 And I'd tell that story over and over again, and then I suddenly realized... 1033 00:55:41,742 --> 00:55:44,210 how long he actually kept that box by the bed... 1034 00:55:44,378 --> 00:55:46,903 before casting the ashes over the sea... 1035 00:55:47,081 --> 00:55:49,572 and what a kind of loving gesture it was. 1036 00:55:49,750 --> 00:55:53,982 And I'd seen it just that - He wasrt procrastinating or waiting... 1037 00:55:54,155 --> 00:55:56,214 but he was actually living with... 1038 00:55:56,390 --> 00:55:58,585 and sleeping next to those ashes. 1039 00:55:58,759 --> 00:56:01,023 And it was just a very strong, powerful image - 1040 00:56:01,195 --> 00:56:03,095 the thought of him alone with that box at night. 1041 00:56:03,263 --> 00:56:06,061 And I never, never really felt it... 1042 00:56:06,233 --> 00:56:08,701 or looked into it until I had spoken it so many times. 1043 00:56:08,869 --> 00:56:11,838 And yet the box in which you put the fragments... 1044 00:56:12,005 --> 00:56:16,101 that will contribute to your next work - is that a monster too? 1045 00:56:16,276 --> 00:56:20,110 Yes, and I've only started doing that with the box since Monster in a Box. 1046 00:56:20,280 --> 00:56:22,407 I got a box and put it by my - It was a new idea... 1047 00:56:22,582 --> 00:56:25,813 and I think it grew out of that, yeah. 1048 00:56:25,986 --> 00:56:28,146 Is the monster of those fragments - is that chaos? 1049 00:56:28,320 --> 00:56:31,016 Yes, that's what it is. And of course it's all about organizing that... 1050 00:56:31,190 --> 00:56:34,591 and how frightening that is, and why any artist is an artist... 1051 00:56:34,760 --> 00:56:37,456 and what their main work is to - 1052 00:56:37,630 --> 00:56:40,724 Yeah, that chaos is - Yeah. 1053 00:56:40,900 --> 00:56:43,960 I just feel that all the time when I'm not performing or organizing. 1054 00:56:44,136 --> 00:56:47,333 I'm out there in it, but it's what makes the monologue, so I try to keep a journal. 1055 00:56:48,574 --> 00:56:50,769 What next? What to do? 1056 00:56:50,943 --> 00:56:52,807 Another monologue. What else is there to do? 1057 00:56:52,977 --> 00:56:55,138 There's always a new crisis, a new "impingency. " 1058 00:56:55,313 --> 00:56:58,714 I hoped I wasrt making them up, creating them just so I'd have material. 1059 00:57:00,552 --> 00:57:03,146 The new one was that I was losing my sight in my left eye. 1060 00:57:03,321 --> 00:57:06,620 I certainly hoped I wasrt bringing that one on myself for material. 1061 00:57:06,791 --> 00:57:10,488 And I did a monologue about it and called it Gray's Anatomy. 1062 00:57:10,662 --> 00:57:13,631 Gray's Anatomy was gonna be a cover story for The New York Times. 1063 00:57:13,798 --> 00:57:15,650 I said, "It's not ready. " My agent said, "It's 1064 00:57:15,663 --> 00:57:17,255 for The New York Times, a cover story. " 1065 00:57:17,434 --> 00:57:20,562 I said, "It doesn't exist yet. " She said, "Well, make it exist!" 1066 00:57:20,737 --> 00:57:22,079 I said, "I don't have a performance until 1067 00:57:22,092 --> 00:57:23,638 March. " She said, "That's too late. Make it. " 1068 00:57:23,807 --> 00:57:26,241 So I hired an editor, John Howell, a friend of mine. 1069 00:57:26,410 --> 00:57:28,378 He sat across from me, and I told him the story. 1070 00:57:28,545 --> 00:57:31,070 He was my first audience. Just like you, it was one-on-one... 1071 00:57:31,248 --> 00:57:33,148 but I was telling the story from an outline. 1072 00:57:33,317 --> 00:57:34,716 It's oral composition. 1073 00:57:34,885 --> 00:57:37,046 I was about to turn 52... 1074 00:57:37,220 --> 00:57:39,347 and clearly I had - 1075 00:57:39,523 --> 00:57:41,353 My mom killed herself when she was 52... 1076 00:57:41,524 --> 00:57:43,856 and I had, somewhere in the back of my mind, thought I was gonna - 1077 00:57:44,026 --> 00:57:46,051 in my "un," perhaps - going to do it too. 1078 00:57:46,228 --> 00:57:49,095 Now, I had witnessed two severe nervous breakdowns... 1079 00:57:49,265 --> 00:57:51,426 the second one ending in her suicide... 1080 00:57:51,601 --> 00:57:53,933 so I was very attuned to it... 1081 00:57:54,103 --> 00:57:57,698 and was so sure that I was going to join her either unconsciously... 1082 00:57:57,873 --> 00:58:00,171 where I would contract some disease... 1083 00:58:00,343 --> 00:58:04,006 or in an accident, or maybe just actually do a suicide. 1084 00:58:04,180 --> 00:58:08,707 And around this time, what began to happen was suicide fantasies. 1085 00:58:08,883 --> 00:58:12,216 Like films. I mean, I wasrt manufacturing them. 1086 00:58:12,387 --> 00:58:14,981 They were coming into my consciousness, and I was watching them... 1087 00:58:15,156 --> 00:58:17,420 and embracing them as fantasies and nothing more. 1088 00:58:17,592 --> 00:58:22,052 I mean, the first one I remember was, I was touring Ireland with Renée... 1089 00:58:22,230 --> 00:58:26,690 and we went down to the Cliffs of Moher, those 400-foot-high rock cliffs... 1090 00:58:26,868 --> 00:58:30,303 at sunset, you know - an Irish sunset - 1091 00:58:30,471 --> 00:58:33,031 gray sky over gray sea. 1092 00:58:35,643 --> 00:58:37,804 Gray observed by Gray. 1093 00:58:39,113 --> 00:58:41,138 And I was standing there - it was cocktail hour - 1094 00:58:41,315 --> 00:58:43,681 drinking a can of Guinness Stout, looking out over - 1095 00:58:43,851 --> 00:58:47,787 Most of the tourists had gone. And this fantasy came to me... 1096 00:58:47,955 --> 00:58:51,982 this desire to commit what I would call a "Roadrunner suicide"... 1097 00:58:52,159 --> 00:58:55,218 in which I got back in a field, and shot by Renée full speed - 1098 00:58:55,395 --> 00:58:57,795 beep-beep! Voom! - out over the cliff. 1099 00:58:57,964 --> 00:59:01,661 And just before I went down, I turned and saw her face... 1100 00:59:01,834 --> 00:59:05,031 and it was that expression on her face that I took with me... 1101 00:59:05,204 --> 00:59:08,230 as my last vision to my watery grave. 1102 00:59:08,408 --> 00:59:11,343 And as I thought about this, I couldn't stop crying... 1103 00:59:11,511 --> 00:59:14,446 and I could not stop telling Renée the fantasy... 1104 00:59:14,614 --> 00:59:16,912 over and over... 1105 00:59:17,083 --> 00:59:19,243 and over again. 1106 00:59:19,418 --> 00:59:23,047 Now, around the time I was being plagued by these silly fantasies... 1107 00:59:23,221 --> 00:59:25,587 a very powerful synchronistic event happened. 1108 00:59:25,757 --> 00:59:30,319 Steven Soderbergh, the film director of Sex, Lies, and Videotape and Kafka... 1109 00:59:30,495 --> 00:59:33,396 approached me to be in his new film, King of the Hill. 1110 00:59:33,565 --> 00:59:36,728 And he said he was choosing me for the particular role of Mr. Mungo... 1111 00:59:36,902 --> 00:59:38,961 because he'd read my book Impossible Vacation. 1112 00:59:39,137 --> 00:59:41,628 "What a strange way to cast," I thought. "From this book!" 1113 00:59:41,807 --> 00:59:44,502 And he said the character in Impossible Vacation - 1114 00:59:44,675 --> 00:59:47,610 the "character," right? - Brewster North - 1115 00:59:47,778 --> 00:59:50,212 was clearly ruled by regret... 1116 00:59:50,381 --> 00:59:53,976 and the character in his movie, Mr. Mungo, that he wanted me to play... 1117 00:59:54,151 --> 00:59:57,416 was ruled by regret to the extent that he kills himself. 1118 00:59:57,588 --> 00:59:59,419 "Oh, really?" 1119 01:00:01,859 --> 01:00:04,555 "And how does he do that, Steven?" 1120 01:00:04,729 --> 01:00:07,196 "Right now I have him slitting his wrists. " 1121 01:00:07,363 --> 01:00:09,524 "I'll do it!" 1122 01:00:09,699 --> 01:00:13,362 So here was a chance, I thought, to work out this fantasy in a creative way... 1123 01:00:13,536 --> 01:00:16,437 with a good director. 1124 01:00:17,741 --> 01:00:20,175 I think it's a watershed monologue. I think the other monologues... 1125 01:00:20,343 --> 01:00:23,210 were always about me being the victim and having the audience be the mother... 1126 01:00:23,379 --> 01:00:25,210 and me crying out, "Look, look, I'm drowning. " 1127 01:00:25,381 --> 01:00:28,509 And also in my relationship with Renée Shafransky... 1128 01:00:28,685 --> 01:00:32,279 which was similar to with the audience, of always being... 1129 01:00:32,454 --> 01:00:34,547 in need of being nurtured and mothered. 1130 01:00:34,723 --> 01:00:38,386 And in this monologue, I say... 1131 01:00:38,560 --> 01:00:41,188 "Hey, I did this," and I take more responsibility. 1132 01:00:41,363 --> 01:00:44,423 My shadow's showing in this. I mean, I'm not a good guy. 1133 01:00:44,600 --> 01:00:47,660 Renée knew I had affairs. She was not happy about it. 1134 01:00:47,836 --> 01:00:51,169 She had some - not to the degree that I had - 1135 01:00:51,340 --> 01:00:55,071 and so I suppose there was an unspoken relationship - 1136 01:00:55,244 --> 01:00:57,734 or we thought we had this modern relationship where... 1137 01:00:57,912 --> 01:01:01,473 if the affair existed outside there and didn't come back and haunt us... 1138 01:01:01,649 --> 01:01:04,083 then it was all right. We kept a distance on it. 1139 01:01:04,252 --> 01:01:07,312 Also, the other thing was that we were both so into riding... 1140 01:01:07,488 --> 01:01:09,786 on the magic carpet of my celebrity... 1141 01:01:09,957 --> 01:01:12,892 that we just didn't look at the underbelly of the relationship for a lot of time. 1142 01:01:13,060 --> 01:01:16,518 Things were rolling so fast. 1143 01:01:16,697 --> 01:01:19,723 So Kathie - that was breaking the boundaries... 1144 01:01:19,901 --> 01:01:22,733 because I was never supposed to have one in New York City. 1145 01:01:22,903 --> 01:01:24,803 But I had met Kathie on the road, and she moved to New York. 1146 01:01:24,971 --> 01:01:27,565 She moved to Thomas Street in downtown Manattan. 1147 01:01:27,741 --> 01:01:29,800 Now, the odd thing about that was I grew up... 1148 01:01:29,976 --> 01:01:32,069 near Thomas Street in Barrington, Rhode Island. 1149 01:01:32,245 --> 01:01:34,338 But I didn't have a girlfriend when I was 16... 1150 01:01:34,514 --> 01:01:38,143 because I dated my mom until I was 23. 1151 01:01:38,318 --> 01:01:41,378 So to some extent, I think I was going back to that. 1152 01:01:41,555 --> 01:01:44,217 And I'm not saying I was having an affair with the street. 1153 01:01:44,390 --> 01:01:47,382 I'm saying that people were becoming like signifiers to me. 1154 01:01:47,560 --> 01:01:51,087 It was like I was in a movie, and I didn't know whose film it was... 1155 01:01:51,263 --> 01:01:54,960 and I was going through the motions, and it was feeling good but confusing... 1156 01:01:55,134 --> 01:01:58,297 and I was approaching 52, and things were really getting complicated. 1157 01:01:58,470 --> 01:02:00,495 Renée wanted to get married again. 1158 01:02:00,673 --> 01:02:03,233 "Again" - we'd never been married, but she was pushing for it again. 1159 01:02:03,409 --> 01:02:05,502 And I thought, "I should be able to give her that gift. 1160 01:02:05,678 --> 01:02:07,976 We've been together so many years. " And if I got married... 1161 01:02:08,147 --> 01:02:10,341 that would automatically end the affair. 1162 01:02:10,515 --> 01:02:12,676 But I was so timid about it... 1163 01:02:12,851 --> 01:02:15,718 I had to propose to her in front of my therapist... 1164 01:02:18,289 --> 01:02:20,519 Who knew I was having an affair with Kathie... 1165 01:02:20,692 --> 01:02:23,092 and said nothing about it. 1166 01:02:23,261 --> 01:02:25,593 In fact, I brought Kathie in to meet him... 1167 01:02:25,763 --> 01:02:29,790 and we had a session, and afterward she went to use his bathroom, and he said... 1168 01:02:29,968 --> 01:02:34,097 "She's quite European in her attitudes. 1169 01:02:34,271 --> 01:02:36,136 She's like a French woman. " 1170 01:02:36,306 --> 01:02:40,242 I said, "Well, you dog! You want to fuck her, don't you?" 1171 01:02:40,410 --> 01:02:42,537 He said, "No, no!" 1172 01:02:42,713 --> 01:02:44,977 And then he had a very bad countertransference... 1173 01:02:45,148 --> 01:02:47,378 and died of a heart attack before I could kill him. 1174 01:02:49,553 --> 01:02:51,384 I didn't think I could do another monologue. 1175 01:02:51,555 --> 01:02:56,492 I pretty much almost cracked up just before this monologue was - 1176 01:02:56,660 --> 01:02:58,627 Are you serious? Come on. 1177 01:02:58,794 --> 01:03:00,819 Yeah, was told that I was manic-depressive... 1178 01:03:00,997 --> 01:03:05,024 was on Klonopin and lithium and seeing a top psychopharmacologist - 1179 01:03:05,201 --> 01:03:07,294 - Are you serious? - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 1180 01:03:07,470 --> 01:03:09,461 I don't know if that monologue gives a flavor... 1181 01:03:09,639 --> 01:03:13,302 of the - of the crack-up. 1182 01:03:13,476 --> 01:03:15,535 And I- 1183 01:03:15,711 --> 01:03:19,112 Skiing really gave me a sense of balance in the middle of that crack-up. 1184 01:03:19,282 --> 01:03:21,477 But what was the question? 1185 01:03:21,651 --> 01:03:23,743 What didn't you tell us we might want to know? 1186 01:03:23,919 --> 01:03:27,480 Oh, my God! That was in the therapist's office. That's what helped me through. 1187 01:03:27,656 --> 01:03:29,487 I had a very good... 1188 01:03:29,658 --> 01:03:32,559 woman therapist that - 1189 01:03:32,727 --> 01:03:36,527 I laid out the stuff. I laid out my shadow in her lap, as it were... 1190 01:03:36,698 --> 01:03:40,259 and we began to figure out what was public and what was private. 1191 01:03:40,435 --> 01:03:42,767 When Kathie told me she was pregnant, I fell down on the floor... 1192 01:03:42,938 --> 01:03:44,906 and went into a fetal position... 1193 01:03:45,073 --> 01:03:47,199 and when I got up, I said... 1194 01:03:47,374 --> 01:03:50,832 "Get rid of it. Get rid of it. " 1195 01:03:51,011 --> 01:03:52,842 And she said, "Not so fast. 1196 01:03:53,013 --> 01:03:55,311 This is my body. I have to think about it. 1197 01:03:55,482 --> 01:03:58,747 If I have this child, I will raise it. I will be committed to it. " 1198 01:03:58,919 --> 01:04:01,581 And I got out of there, and I went out on tour... 1199 01:04:01,755 --> 01:04:05,657 and I sent her money for an abortion, and I called her and sent her letters... 1200 01:04:05,826 --> 01:04:09,557 and on September 27, 1992... 1201 01:04:09,730 --> 01:04:11,890 Kathie gave birth to a son... 1202 01:04:12,065 --> 01:04:16,229 and named him Forrest Dylan Gray. 1203 01:04:16,402 --> 01:04:19,303 This was extremely traumatic. 1204 01:04:19,472 --> 01:04:21,997 Renée cried. I cried. 1205 01:04:22,175 --> 01:04:25,474 Kathie cried. Forrest cried. 1206 01:04:25,645 --> 01:04:28,876 And Renée requested me... 1207 01:04:29,048 --> 01:04:33,041 not to see this child until there was some reconciliation between us... 1208 01:04:33,219 --> 01:04:36,085 and I couldn't deal with any of it and went out on tour. 1209 01:04:36,254 --> 01:04:38,222 And out there, I got more and more agoraphobic... 1210 01:04:38,390 --> 01:04:40,221 and wasrt going out of my hotel... 1211 01:04:40,392 --> 01:04:43,122 and Renée called and said, "You've got to come back. 1212 01:04:43,295 --> 01:04:47,755 I've seen the baby in a snuggly in Kathie's arms, and I am in bed, devastated. " 1213 01:04:47,933 --> 01:04:50,094 And I said, "You've got to give me a day. " 1214 01:04:50,268 --> 01:04:52,793 And she said, "If you take a day, I won't be here for you. " 1215 01:04:52,971 --> 01:04:55,201 I took two days. I took two days... 1216 01:04:55,374 --> 01:04:57,774 because I couldn't even find myself... 1217 01:04:57,943 --> 01:05:00,342 to walk out of the hotel, I was so split... 1218 01:05:00,511 --> 01:05:03,446 with an image of myself sitting on the bed, comforting Renée... 1219 01:05:03,614 --> 01:05:05,741 and an image of myself standing next to Kathie... 1220 01:05:05,916 --> 01:05:08,146 meeting my son for the first time. 1221 01:05:08,319 --> 01:05:10,685 And the split was so great, it took three people... 1222 01:05:10,855 --> 01:05:13,119 to get me out to the San Francisco airport... 1223 01:05:13,290 --> 01:05:15,121 jerking and barking all the way. 1224 01:05:15,292 --> 01:05:18,159 This time, the captain of the American Airlines came out. 1225 01:05:18,329 --> 01:05:21,958 My friend talked to him, and the captain said, "I don't care who he is. 1226 01:05:22,133 --> 01:05:25,431 Do you know what it costs to land this plane in Kansas?" 1227 01:05:28,038 --> 01:05:30,404 And somehow - and I don't know how Bill did this - 1228 01:05:30,573 --> 01:05:35,101 he convinced the captain I was rehearsing for a psychotic role in a Scorsese movie. 1229 01:05:37,047 --> 01:05:39,572 And Renée said, "This is it. I can't - 1230 01:05:39,749 --> 01:05:44,516 I have to draw a boundary here. I'm moving out with a friend for a while. " 1231 01:05:44,687 --> 01:05:47,485 And when she left the loft... 1232 01:05:47,657 --> 01:05:49,624 she took the feeling with her. 1233 01:05:49,792 --> 01:05:52,454 There was no heart left in that room. 1234 01:05:52,628 --> 01:05:55,495 I turned to stone. I turned to a dead thing. 1235 01:05:55,664 --> 01:05:57,689 And I had not realized for 14 years... 1236 01:05:57,866 --> 01:06:00,767 Renée had been filling the room with the feeling. 1237 01:06:00,936 --> 01:06:03,769 And I took a bottle of vodka and knocked down a few shots... 1238 01:06:03,939 --> 01:06:05,998 and began to feel my breath and thought... 1239 01:06:06,175 --> 01:06:08,370 "What do I want to do?" 1240 01:06:08,544 --> 01:06:12,036 And I thought, "I would like to see my son. 1241 01:06:12,214 --> 01:06:14,204 He's eight months old. I've never seen him. " 1242 01:06:14,382 --> 01:06:17,613 And I called Kathie and I said, "I'm coming down. " 1243 01:06:17,785 --> 01:06:20,151 And I came down, and she took him out of the crib... 1244 01:06:20,321 --> 01:06:22,653 and he went right for her breast... 1245 01:06:22,824 --> 01:06:25,725 and I knew there was no need for a blood test. 1246 01:06:28,629 --> 01:06:32,531 I saw the shape of my father's head in the back of his head. 1247 01:06:32,700 --> 01:06:35,635 I saw my brother Rocky's eyes in his eyes. 1248 01:06:35,803 --> 01:06:39,499 I saw a distant mirror. I saw a little lust flower. 1249 01:06:39,673 --> 01:06:41,834 I saw a completely formed human being. 1250 01:06:42,008 --> 01:06:45,205 I saw a glorious accident. 1251 01:06:45,378 --> 01:06:48,575 And I had a perfect paradox at that moment, where I thought... 1252 01:06:48,748 --> 01:06:51,774 "Now you can die, and you must stay alive... 1253 01:06:51,952 --> 01:06:53,783 to help this little guy through. " 1254 01:06:53,954 --> 01:06:56,946 My dad died three days after I saw my son... 1255 01:06:57,124 --> 01:06:59,092 not knowing he had his first grandson. 1256 01:06:59,259 --> 01:07:01,123 I didn't even know my father was dying. 1257 01:07:01,293 --> 01:07:04,285 My stepmother didn't call to tell me he was in the hospital... 1258 01:07:04,463 --> 01:07:06,761 she was so angry with me at the way I portrayed her... 1259 01:07:06,932 --> 01:07:09,867 in my book Impossible Vacation. 1260 01:07:10,035 --> 01:07:13,562 Sorry you can't stick around and spend a little time here. 1261 01:07:13,739 --> 01:07:15,730 Yeah. As always... 1262 01:07:15,908 --> 01:07:18,240 I'm off on another toot. 1263 01:07:19,345 --> 01:07:23,509 - Back to Boston? - Yeah. You should come up. 1264 01:07:23,682 --> 01:07:26,878 Well, maybe we will. Except for the traffic. 1265 01:07:27,051 --> 01:07:29,485 Right. I hope we don't hit it. 1266 01:07:29,654 --> 01:07:33,556 But I don't know when - next time we'll see each other. 1267 01:07:33,725 --> 01:07:35,955 Well, you're going to Florida at Christmas. 1268 01:07:36,127 --> 01:07:40,359 Yeah, and then to Australia on January 11. 1269 01:07:40,532 --> 01:07:43,023 So we won't see you again till probably March, hmm? 1270 01:07:43,201 --> 01:07:45,499 - Uh, April, more like. - April. 1271 01:07:45,670 --> 01:07:48,036 Are you going up to the house in the mountains in April? 1272 01:07:48,206 --> 01:07:50,765 - I think I'm gonna try to sell that house. - Oh, are you? 1273 01:07:50,941 --> 01:07:52,772 What are you going to do about the foundation? 1274 01:07:52,943 --> 01:07:55,969 Try to sell it. They say there's a sucker born every minute... 1275 01:07:56,146 --> 01:07:58,444 and if there is, I'll let them take it over. 1276 01:07:58,615 --> 01:08:00,810 We want to get a house out in the Hamptons... 1277 01:08:00,984 --> 01:08:04,283 believe it or not, closer to the water. 1278 01:08:04,454 --> 01:08:06,684 What's it like being a dad? How has that changed your life? 1279 01:08:06,857 --> 01:08:09,917 Being a dad is fantastic. It's very grounding, very connecting. 1280 01:08:10,093 --> 01:08:12,926 And it's got me out of myself, because believe me - and you must know this... 1281 01:08:13,096 --> 01:08:16,826 and everyone that has children knows it - their needs are bigger than yours... 1282 01:08:16,999 --> 01:08:19,490 and they are so obviously bigger. 1283 01:08:19,669 --> 01:08:21,967 - That's right. - It really relativizes yours. 1284 01:08:22,138 --> 01:08:24,197 You talked about your dad in the excerpt a moment ago. 1285 01:08:24,373 --> 01:08:26,568 What did you learn from your dad about raising kids? 1286 01:08:26,742 --> 01:08:29,472 It's all been learned now, after his death, I'm sad to say... 1287 01:08:29,645 --> 01:08:33,308 'cause I'm a father late in life, and I'd love to thank him... 1288 01:08:33,482 --> 01:08:36,417 for what he went through with us, his three boys. 1289 01:08:36,586 --> 01:08:38,678 And I've learned to appreciate him in absence. 1290 01:09:02,410 --> 01:09:04,400 Yeah! 1291 01:09:22,796 --> 01:09:24,889 Yeah! 1292 01:09:25,065 --> 01:09:26,760 - That's greatl - Stick your foot out. 1293 01:09:26,934 --> 01:09:28,457 Oh, my Godl 1294 01:09:28,635 --> 01:09:30,728 So the new monologue is called Morning, Noon and Night... 1295 01:09:30,903 --> 01:09:33,770 and it's about my life living with the family here in this house. 1296 01:09:33,940 --> 01:09:36,568 And of course, my fear is that once I tell the story... 1297 01:09:36,743 --> 01:09:39,234 or organize the chaos about the family... 1298 01:09:39,412 --> 01:09:41,880 I'll be looking for the next story, which means I'll have to leave the family. 1299 01:09:42,048 --> 01:09:44,016 So that's the risk of the work. 1300 01:09:44,183 --> 01:09:47,243 And when she moved to New York City with her daughter, Marissa - 1301 01:09:47,420 --> 01:09:50,981 and Marissa was three - I continued to meet her there. 1302 01:09:51,157 --> 01:09:55,183 And I first met Marissa at a party in downtown New York City. 1303 01:09:55,360 --> 01:09:59,353 And Marissa had a sense that the name Spalding Gray existed... 1304 01:09:59,531 --> 01:10:03,023 because I'd call the loft a lot to talk with Kathie... 1305 01:10:03,201 --> 01:10:05,499 but she could never get her imagination around "Spalding Gray"... 1306 01:10:05,671 --> 01:10:08,731 so she referred to me as "Splendid Café"... 1307 01:10:10,842 --> 01:10:14,938 Which I thought was a great stage name if I ever needed one. 1308 01:10:15,113 --> 01:10:18,343 I think we're going to get away with this one story about the family. 1309 01:10:18,516 --> 01:10:20,416 I wouldn't want to turn it into Ozzie and Harriet... 1310 01:10:20,584 --> 01:10:23,712 and make an ongoing soap opera, because the children would then be... 1311 01:10:23,888 --> 01:10:26,652 minor heroes before they were greater people. 1312 01:10:26,824 --> 01:10:29,918 We move into the house, and new life comes. 1313 01:10:30,094 --> 01:10:32,494 Kathie gets pregnant. 1314 01:10:32,663 --> 01:10:35,632 How did this happen? 1315 01:10:35,800 --> 01:10:37,700 "I don't think I want this child. 1316 01:10:37,868 --> 01:10:41,701 I'm content now with our new home and the family configuration as it is"... 1317 01:10:41,871 --> 01:10:45,398 I told my therapist. 1318 01:10:45,575 --> 01:10:49,511 Kathie's sure it's gonna be a girl. She's convinced me it's gonna be a girl. 1319 01:10:49,679 --> 01:10:51,943 We're gonna name her Eliza Ann Gray. 1320 01:10:52,115 --> 01:10:55,607 Eleven hours into labor here, the storm is still raging. 1321 01:10:55,785 --> 01:10:59,277 It's the next day, and Kathie can only find one comfortable position. 1322 01:10:59,456 --> 01:11:01,720 She's on all fours, like a wild animal. 1323 01:11:01,891 --> 01:11:04,587 The nurses are not approving. I know it's not Northern California. 1324 01:11:04,760 --> 01:11:08,958 I'm trying to get the hermetically sealed window open to get a little air in there. 1325 01:11:09,131 --> 01:11:11,531 Marissa's dozing in the corner with her little camera... 1326 01:11:11,700 --> 01:11:14,533 and all of a sudden, it starts to come. 1327 01:11:14,703 --> 01:11:18,434 And I just have time to get on my scrubs and roll Kathie over. 1328 01:11:18,607 --> 01:11:21,474 I'm helping. I'm pushing one knee back. The other nurse has the other knee... 1329 01:11:21,643 --> 01:11:25,477 and I look down and - Oh, my God! 1330 01:11:25,647 --> 01:11:29,083 It looks like she's giving birth to a dead beaver! 1331 01:11:31,686 --> 01:11:33,984 "What is that hairy blue football... 1332 01:11:34,155 --> 01:11:36,282 and how is it gonna fit through that -" 1333 01:11:36,457 --> 01:11:38,357 Pow! And it's out! And I go... 1334 01:11:38,526 --> 01:11:41,586 "Whoa! Look at the balls on that girl!" 1335 01:11:46,634 --> 01:11:49,728 And I lean over and kiss Kathie and cry... 1336 01:11:49,904 --> 01:11:53,896 and bend down and cut the umbilical cord, and the crimson blood flies... 1337 01:11:54,074 --> 01:11:58,067 and I look down at this glorious accident, Theo. 1338 01:11:58,245 --> 01:12:00,304 We just grabbed that name out the air in case it was a boy. 1339 01:12:00,480 --> 01:12:03,449 "Theo," short for nothing. 1340 01:12:03,617 --> 01:12:05,585 Short for "the study of God. " 1341 01:12:05,752 --> 01:12:07,743 Theo Spalding Gray. 1342 01:12:07,921 --> 01:12:12,722 And back at me is coming this totally perplexed face with the big "Why?" 1343 01:12:12,893 --> 01:12:14,724 "Why this? 1344 01:12:14,895 --> 01:12:16,988 Why something and not nothing?" 1345 01:12:17,164 --> 01:12:20,428 And I totally identify with it. And I know that he's not mirroring me. 1346 01:12:20,599 --> 01:12:23,568 He hasn't been in the world long enough to pick up on my face. 1347 01:12:23,736 --> 01:12:25,863 He's brought this in with him. 1348 01:12:26,038 --> 01:12:29,439 And I think, "Oh, little one, you may have already spent... 1349 01:12:29,608 --> 01:12:32,839 the best days of your life... 1350 01:12:33,012 --> 01:12:37,574 In there. " 1351 01:12:37,750 --> 01:12:41,550 I think of poetic journalism as telling a relatively true story... 1352 01:12:41,720 --> 01:12:45,485 but after you've digested it, filtered it through your own imagination... 1353 01:12:45,657 --> 01:12:49,354 and then tell it with poetry, with flavor... 1354 01:12:49,527 --> 01:12:52,428 with innuendo, with hyperbole... 1355 01:12:52,597 --> 01:12:56,033 so that it starts as a true story... 1356 01:12:56,201 --> 01:13:00,194 but it's filtered through my imagination. 1357 01:13:00,371 --> 01:13:03,431 So at its best, it comes out as a form of poetry. 1358 01:13:03,608 --> 01:13:06,338 Forrest came to me very early on with questions about death. 1359 01:13:06,511 --> 01:13:09,570 He wasrt even four. And I just was very honest with him. 1360 01:13:09,746 --> 01:13:12,738 I said, "You know, everyone that comes in has to go out. 1361 01:13:12,916 --> 01:13:15,714 That's just the whole rule of it. That's how it goes. 1362 01:13:15,886 --> 01:13:19,845 And it's probably, in a way, comforting. It's the only thing we really know. 1363 01:13:20,023 --> 01:13:22,583 And the funny thing, Forrest, about death is - or not funny, really, 1364 01:13:22,759 --> 01:13:24,590 because I don't think there's anything funny about death - 1365 01:13:24,761 --> 01:13:27,594 but the odd thing is, is that, you know... 1366 01:13:27,764 --> 01:13:29,857 everyone knows they're going to die... 1367 01:13:30,033 --> 01:13:33,968 but no one really believes it. " 1368 01:13:34,136 --> 01:13:37,128 All of my life - Or so many of us were brought up with the idea... 1369 01:13:37,306 --> 01:13:39,706 of the ethereal-ness of death... 1370 01:13:39,876 --> 01:13:43,869 and you're going to go off into the vapors and to heaven. 1371 01:13:44,046 --> 01:13:46,037 And I think that we return to the elements... 1372 01:13:46,215 --> 01:13:50,845 and that age is a great pain but also a great comfort. 1373 01:13:51,020 --> 01:13:53,511 It's a great paradox, because the older I get... 1374 01:13:53,689 --> 01:13:56,122 the more weight I feel and the more aware of gravity. 1375 01:13:56,291 --> 01:13:58,122 You know, I only live once. 1376 01:13:58,293 --> 01:14:00,761 I'm sure the configuration of Spalding Gray... 1377 01:14:00,929 --> 01:14:04,421 there's only room for it one time around, so I know I won't be reincarnated. 1378 01:14:04,599 --> 01:14:07,329 One of the ways to reincarnate is to tell your story. 1379 01:14:07,502 --> 01:14:10,027 And I get enormous pleasure from that. It's like coming back. 1380 01:14:10,205 --> 01:14:12,673 They're probably gonna go in and play in front of the fire... 1381 01:14:12,841 --> 01:14:14,968 and put music on, maybe. 1382 01:14:15,143 --> 01:14:18,977 If Marissa wins, and she usually does, it'll be Spice Girls. 1383 01:14:19,147 --> 01:14:21,239 If Forrest gets his way, it'll be Hanson. 1384 01:14:21,415 --> 01:14:23,280 Kathie and I are gonna just hang out here a little more... 1385 01:14:23,450 --> 01:14:25,475 and have more chardonnay with Theo and relax. 1386 01:14:25,653 --> 01:14:29,214 "Keep it down in there. Please keep it down. " 1387 01:14:29,390 --> 01:14:31,415 Sounds like a compromise, huh? 1388 01:14:31,592 --> 01:14:33,423 I don't know what they chose. 1389 01:14:33,594 --> 01:14:37,052 What is it? 1390 01:14:38,766 --> 01:14:40,666 We'll be singir 1391 01:14:41,969 --> 01:14:44,664 - I get knocked down, but I get up again - Wow! 1392 01:14:44,837 --> 01:14:47,362 Hey! It's Chumbawamba! 1393 01:14:47,540 --> 01:14:50,407 I can't resist. Pumpir out. 1394 01:14:50,577 --> 01:14:53,842 - Whoo! - I get knocked down but I get up again 1395 01:14:54,013 --> 01:14:57,176 - You're never gonna keep me down - And I'm out there with 'em. 1396 01:14:57,350 --> 01:15:00,581 Wow! Hey! Whoo! 1397 01:15:00,753 --> 01:15:04,052 Marissa's doing ballet leaps across the living room floor. 1398 01:15:04,223 --> 01:15:06,817 Forrest enters, twirling like a dervish. 1399 01:15:06,993 --> 01:15:10,792 Theo comes in and starts doing pliés on the wingback chair. 1400 01:15:14,433 --> 01:15:17,334 Kathie enters, walkir like an Egyptian. 1401 01:15:19,538 --> 01:15:23,565 Oh, Danny boy, Danny boy 1402 01:15:23,742 --> 01:15:27,576 Hey, we're dancing. The whole family's dancing to Chumbawamba. 1403 01:15:27,746 --> 01:15:32,149 I get knocked down but I get up again You're never gonna keep me down 1404 01:15:32,317 --> 01:15:36,616 I get knocked down but I get up again You're never gonna keep me down 1405 01:15:36,787 --> 01:15:41,588 I get knocked down but I get up again You're never gonna keep me down 1406 01:15:54,005 --> 01:15:56,303 And we all go downtown for ice cream. 1407 01:15:56,474 --> 01:16:00,569 I always felt that I would always be publicly talking about something... 1408 01:16:00,744 --> 01:16:02,678 and I never know what the next thing is gonna be... 1409 01:16:02,846 --> 01:16:05,838 but I suspect that as long as I have a voice... 1410 01:16:06,016 --> 01:16:08,712 there will be a story, you know? 1411 01:16:11,087 --> 01:16:13,419 This is a great entrance. 1412 01:16:13,590 --> 01:16:15,649 Boy, we had so much - 1413 01:16:15,825 --> 01:16:19,192 It was hard to film at Robbie's with all the planes, and they're over here too. 1414 01:16:19,362 --> 01:16:22,797 But I now know how to get up the steps. I'm able to jump steps, so - 1415 01:16:22,965 --> 01:16:26,332 - That's an acquired skill. - It's a new breakthrough for me. Yeah. 1416 01:16:26,502 --> 01:16:28,868 So I've gotten to this real stationary place... 1417 01:16:29,038 --> 01:16:31,404 where I don't have to do anything... 1418 01:16:31,573 --> 01:16:34,303 and people wait on me, and I just observe. 1419 01:16:34,476 --> 01:16:37,070 I feel like a real outsider... 1420 01:16:37,246 --> 01:16:39,305 kind of like I'm half dead. 1421 01:16:43,952 --> 01:16:46,010 In a funny way, it's a treat... 1422 01:16:50,358 --> 01:16:53,020 just to be a witness. 1423 01:16:53,194 --> 01:16:55,355 I don't want to see the ocean. 1424 01:16:55,530 --> 01:16:58,055 'Cause the last thing I picture myself was, I was Boogie-boarding in June... 1425 01:16:58,232 --> 01:17:02,225 and I said, "I don't want to leave here. I don't want to go to Ireland. 1426 01:17:02,403 --> 01:17:05,167 I'm riding the waves with Forrest, and this is great. 1427 01:17:05,339 --> 01:17:07,136 You know, my life is good. " 1428 01:17:07,308 --> 01:17:10,401 And I said, "The past five years have been the best five years of my life. " 1429 01:17:10,577 --> 01:17:13,341 - And then boom. - And then it happened like that. 1430 01:17:13,513 --> 01:17:15,777 - When did it happen, anyway? - June 23rd. 1431 01:17:15,949 --> 01:17:19,544 - When did you guys arrive in Ireland? - The day before, the 21st. 1432 01:17:19,720 --> 01:17:22,689 Yeah, we celebrated the longest day there... 1433 01:17:22,856 --> 01:17:24,983 and Kathie and I had the master bedroom... 1434 01:17:25,158 --> 01:17:27,592 and we had one great, erotic night... 1435 01:17:27,761 --> 01:17:30,992 and the next day, end of story. 1436 01:17:31,164 --> 01:17:32,791 End of story line. 1437 01:17:32,966 --> 01:17:34,796 You were coming back from dinner from your birthday? 1438 01:17:34,967 --> 01:17:38,061 From a restaurant. We were one mile from home. 1439 01:17:38,237 --> 01:17:40,728 And, um... 1440 01:17:40,906 --> 01:17:44,069 And you guys were just in the car, and you came around a curve and you got hit? 1441 01:17:44,243 --> 01:17:47,542 No, he came around a curve. Kathie slowed to stop to turn... 1442 01:17:47,713 --> 01:17:50,511 and this van came hurtling right into her. 1443 01:17:50,683 --> 01:17:53,550 I don't think he even broke. I could see it coming. 1444 01:17:53,719 --> 01:17:57,553 It looked like a video game, like I was playing a video game. 1445 01:17:57,723 --> 01:17:59,553 You just can't accept it. 1446 01:17:59,724 --> 01:18:02,249 And then... huge crash. 1447 01:18:02,427 --> 01:18:05,555 And the car just - Our car spun around. He pushed it around. 1448 01:18:05,730 --> 01:18:08,460 The next thing, I was lying in the road in a puddle of blood... 1449 01:18:08,633 --> 01:18:10,897 and there was this woman nursing me. 1450 01:18:11,069 --> 01:18:14,732 She was the Good Samaritan. Somehow - She lived in the neighborhood... 1451 01:18:14,906 --> 01:18:16,635 and heard Tara screaming... 1452 01:18:16,808 --> 01:18:20,244 and she lost her nine-year-old son there a year ago. 1453 01:18:20,411 --> 01:18:23,709 - In a car accident? - He fell out of the car. 1454 01:18:23,881 --> 01:18:27,044 The car skidded, and he was almost decapitated. 1455 01:18:27,217 --> 01:18:30,243 And I was her son, in a way. She kept talking me down... 1456 01:18:30,420 --> 01:18:32,547 and nursing me and saying, "You're gonna be all right. " 1457 01:18:32,723 --> 01:18:34,918 And I couldn't see out of this eye, which is my good eye... 1458 01:18:35,092 --> 01:18:37,060 'cause there was so much blood. 1459 01:18:37,227 --> 01:18:40,560 So I couldn't see past the blood. And there was all this... 1460 01:18:40,731 --> 01:18:43,791 they told me, cow medicine everywhere, and the weird thing - 1461 01:18:43,967 --> 01:18:44,738 Cow medicine? 1462 01:18:44,751 --> 01:18:46,299 Because it was a veterinarian that hit us. 1463 01:18:46,470 --> 01:18:48,460 And the weird thing was just earlier in the day... 1464 01:18:48,638 --> 01:18:51,573 I saw a very sick calf that couldn't get up... 1465 01:18:51,741 --> 01:18:54,835 'cause its leg was - Something was wrong with its hip. 1466 01:18:55,011 --> 01:18:57,445 And I went to a farmer, I said, "That cow should be... 1467 01:18:57,613 --> 01:18:59,444 put out of its misery or taken care of. " 1468 01:18:59,615 --> 01:19:01,583 And the guy said, "Yeah, I know. We're gonna call a vet. " 1469 01:19:01,751 --> 01:19:03,981 So my fantasy is that I set it up. 1470 01:19:04,153 --> 01:19:07,680 It's hard to be relative and hard to - I mean, when I was complaining... 1471 01:19:07,857 --> 01:19:11,156 to a nurse one day, she said, "Shall I take you to the spinal ward, then?" 1472 01:19:11,327 --> 01:19:15,057 You know? In a way, that sobered me up and made me thankful... 1473 01:19:15,230 --> 01:19:19,326 and in another way, I was annoyed that she's not honoring the place that I'm in. 1474 01:19:19,501 --> 01:19:23,597 I never thought I'd want to rush back from Ireland to have head surgery... 1475 01:19:23,772 --> 01:19:27,208 but there's some reconstruction of my skull that will have to be done next week. 1476 01:19:27,375 --> 01:19:29,843 So now I've got another comparison... 1477 01:19:30,011 --> 01:19:32,912 of New York hospitals versus Irish ones, so who knows what it's about? 1478 01:19:33,081 --> 01:19:35,777 But I think there's enormous amounts of material there... 1479 01:19:35,951 --> 01:19:39,044 that, once processed, will be something. 1480 01:19:39,220 --> 01:19:41,654 - You have everything you need? - I think so. 1481 01:19:41,822 --> 01:19:44,120 Want to bring the cards over, Marissa? 1482 01:19:52,032 --> 01:19:54,296 Hi. Come on over. 1483 01:19:54,468 --> 01:19:56,060 - Are you ushering? - Yes. 1484 01:19:56,237 --> 01:19:57,966 Okay. 1485 01:19:58,138 --> 01:20:00,436 Does that mean you get to watch the show? 1486 01:20:01,774 --> 01:20:06,438 Would you be interested in being interviewed tonight? 1487 01:20:06,613 --> 01:20:08,877 Um, I'm not up to it tonight, no. 1488 01:20:09,048 --> 01:20:10,879 What's that? I can't hear you. Come on over. 1489 01:20:11,050 --> 01:20:14,110 No, actually, I'm not feeling too great tonight, so - 1490 01:20:14,287 --> 01:20:16,278 - You're what? - I'm not feeling too great tonight. 1491 01:20:16,456 --> 01:20:18,617 - Oh, I know the feeling. - How are you, by the way? 1492 01:20:18,791 --> 01:20:21,123 - What's wrong? - I don't know. 1493 01:20:21,294 --> 01:20:23,694 I woke up and - I actually woke up - I didn't sleep. 1494 01:20:23,863 --> 01:20:26,797 Oh, you didn't sleep. I didn't last night either. 1495 01:20:26,965 --> 01:20:28,796 No. I, uh - It was one of those. 1496 01:20:28,967 --> 01:20:31,367 - Yeah? It's hard. - How are you, by the way? 1497 01:20:31,536 --> 01:20:34,767 Oh, so-so. I'm coming along. 1498 01:20:34,940 --> 01:20:37,602 - I had a few of those. - Oh, you did? 1499 01:20:37,776 --> 01:20:40,540 Accidents? You had a few accidents? 1500 01:20:46,652 --> 01:20:49,620 I'm going onstage now. Going backstage. 1501 01:20:50,755 --> 01:20:52,916 Are we going to watch? 1502 01:20:53,090 --> 01:20:56,025 - Yeah. Where's Mom? - Can I watch you? 1503 01:20:56,193 --> 01:20:58,991 You can watch from the audience. 1504 01:21:06,470 --> 01:21:11,169 Many people asked me about the crutches... 1505 01:21:11,342 --> 01:21:15,539 and some people had heard about this, uh, accident - 1506 01:21:15,712 --> 01:21:19,239 which I hope that that's all it was, was an accident. 1507 01:21:19,416 --> 01:21:21,782 So I'd like to begin, if I could... 1508 01:21:21,952 --> 01:21:24,978 if you don't mind being an opener... 1509 01:21:25,155 --> 01:21:27,487 and you can come right up this center stage here. 1510 01:21:28,758 --> 01:21:31,420 And I'm not even going to say your name... 1511 01:21:31,594 --> 01:21:34,586 'cause I know you want to be anonymous. 1512 01:21:34,764 --> 01:21:37,892 There's one Irish nurse that stuck with me in that St. James Hospital... 1513 01:21:38,068 --> 01:21:40,433 that I'll never forget named Carmella. 1514 01:21:40,602 --> 01:21:43,730 Irish nurses stand for 12 hours. I kept telling her to sit down. 1515 01:21:43,906 --> 01:21:46,466 She said, "We're trained to stand for 12 hours at a time. " 1516 01:21:46,642 --> 01:21:49,270 She stands at attention by my wheelchair, you know? 1517 01:21:49,445 --> 01:21:52,175 And I'm just going crazy from just boredom... 1518 01:21:52,348 --> 01:21:55,112 and so I start to interview her, and I said, "Carmella... 1519 01:21:55,284 --> 01:21:58,515 how do you - Do you go to church?" 1520 01:21:58,687 --> 01:22:01,884 "Oh, no, no. I'm not real keen on the Catholic Church. " 1521 01:22:02,057 --> 01:22:04,991 - "Why?" - "With their stand on abortion and all. " 1522 01:22:05,159 --> 01:22:07,650 And I said, "Well, aren't you afraid of dying, then? 1523 01:22:07,829 --> 01:22:10,024 Because you won't have the priest there to do the Holy Communion... 1524 01:22:10,198 --> 01:22:12,166 and if you're not going to Mass -" 1525 01:22:12,333 --> 01:22:15,166 She said, "Ah, no. I'm not afraid of death... 1526 01:22:15,336 --> 01:22:18,567 because the only sin is hurtir someone... 1527 01:22:18,740 --> 01:22:20,833 and I haven't done that. " 1528 01:22:21,009 --> 01:22:24,035 And I looked at her and I knew... 1529 01:22:24,212 --> 01:22:26,043 - she hadrt. - Wow. 1530 01:22:26,214 --> 01:22:29,376 - And it was startling. Startling. - Wow. 1531 01:22:29,549 --> 01:22:33,485 - 'Cause I sure couldn't do it, couldn't say - - What are you worried about? 1532 01:22:33,653 --> 01:22:37,214 The next accident, because I - 1533 01:22:37,391 --> 01:22:40,224 Fuck it all! I know this one isn't clearing the air. 1534 01:22:40,394 --> 01:22:44,057 The next plane crash, getting home from here. 1535 01:22:44,231 --> 01:22:47,428 When I was in Ireland, the first thing I did when we were in that country home... 1536 01:22:47,601 --> 01:22:49,865 was to climb this hill to look out over... 1537 01:22:50,037 --> 01:22:54,473 the whole of the countryside of Westmeath. 1538 01:22:54,640 --> 01:22:58,872 And fields and fields and fields and fields and farmyards - 1539 01:22:59,045 --> 01:23:01,036 "No water" was the first thing that - 1540 01:23:01,213 --> 01:23:03,340 - My eye went for that. - For the water? 1541 01:23:03,516 --> 01:23:08,249 Yeah. Wherever I am, I'm setting up myself by direction of water. 1542 01:23:08,421 --> 01:23:13,381 So would you be able to help me with this rooting issue? 1543 01:23:13,559 --> 01:23:15,424 What did you call it? 1544 01:23:15,594 --> 01:23:19,495 This issue of not feeling you can stay in one place? 1545 01:23:19,664 --> 01:23:23,566 - Yeah. - I don't know. I'm not sure. 1546 01:23:23,735 --> 01:23:26,033 I'm not sure if it isn't a hopeless case. 1547 01:23:28,206 --> 01:23:31,642 We've been out here five years, my family and I. 1548 01:23:31,810 --> 01:23:34,574 - Kathie and the three children. - How do you like it? 1549 01:23:34,746 --> 01:23:37,874 I have problems with it in the winter. 1550 01:23:38,049 --> 01:23:40,949 Um, it's not New Age enough for me. 1551 01:23:43,220 --> 01:23:46,747 I'm very attracted to alternative therapies... 1552 01:23:46,924 --> 01:23:49,984 and-and diet... 1553 01:23:50,160 --> 01:23:53,823 and I think I drink too much out here. 1554 01:23:53,997 --> 01:23:57,023 It's a drinking culture. Either everyone drinks or no one drinks. 1555 01:23:57,201 --> 01:24:00,398 People say that it has to do with the sea - the mother, the sea. 1556 01:24:00,571 --> 01:24:03,438 The sea is your mother. You must know that one. 1557 01:24:03,607 --> 01:24:06,507 And that a way to get to the mother is through inebriation. 1558 01:24:06,676 --> 01:24:08,871 I mean - 1559 01:24:09,045 --> 01:24:12,344 When I drink, I feel like I'm coming closer to the mother. 1560 01:24:13,549 --> 01:24:16,484 That-That old thing of when you're stuck on the breast, that great - 1561 01:24:16,652 --> 01:24:20,247 That, you know - that bliss. 1562 01:24:20,423 --> 01:24:23,324 Do you have anything you want to ask me? 1563 01:24:23,493 --> 01:24:27,327 Um, what are your thoughts on the meaning of life? 1564 01:24:31,700 --> 01:24:33,827 Well, now that you ask - 1565 01:24:36,438 --> 01:24:40,340 I'm not - Well, I don't believe in fate. 1566 01:24:42,144 --> 01:24:45,739 I'm rather a chaos person. 1567 01:24:45,914 --> 01:24:48,644 There's a series of interviews out... 1568 01:24:48,817 --> 01:24:52,844 with different philosophers, and it's called The Glorious Accident. 1569 01:24:53,021 --> 01:24:55,250 Consciousness. The definition of consciousness. 1570 01:24:55,422 --> 01:24:58,619 The Glorious Accident. So that's kind of my take on life - 1571 01:24:58,792 --> 01:25:01,260 "the glorious accident" - although my accident was - 1572 01:25:01,428 --> 01:25:03,362 - Not too glorious. - Yeah. 1573 01:25:03,531 --> 01:25:05,624 Up until now, I'd said that I've always felt... 1574 01:25:05,799 --> 01:25:08,165 that I was an embracer of accidents... 1575 01:25:08,335 --> 01:25:10,496 'cause my life has been... 1576 01:25:10,671 --> 01:25:13,071 serendipity and accident and not a lot of planning. 1577 01:25:14,441 --> 01:25:17,342 Thank you for coming. 1578 01:25:34,227 --> 01:25:37,355 I was always worried that my epitaph, which I will never see, will read... 1579 01:25:37,530 --> 01:25:39,930 "Spalding Gray, who found a niche of talking - 1580 01:25:40,099 --> 01:25:42,658 making a living of talking about himself". 1581 01:25:42,834 --> 01:25:46,736 And the dog is already howling for the dead Spalding Gray. 1582 01:25:46,905 --> 01:25:50,773 And I would hope that it would say, "Talking about himself... 1583 01:25:50,943 --> 01:25:54,037 and his loved ones and people he's encountered... 1584 01:25:54,213 --> 01:25:56,738 in his travels. " 1585 01:25:56,915 --> 01:25:59,816 You know? I mean, I am not Samuel Beckett. 1586 01:25:59,985 --> 01:26:01,816 I'm not a navel-gazer. 1587 01:26:01,987 --> 01:26:04,285 Beckett's a great writer, but I'm not a minimalist in that way. 1588 01:26:04,456 --> 01:26:06,946 I'm talking about the world as I see it. 1589 01:26:18,436 --> 01:26:21,139 God, that's just wild. It's like Chekhov. 1590 01:26:23,841 --> 01:26:26,742 It's become a great sound effect. 1591 01:26:29,513 --> 01:26:31,503 I'll think of that at night. 1592 01:26:34,517 --> 01:26:36,678 It's a lamentation.