Today Spalding would be 67

66 looks like a set of wheels, running smooth over rough terrain and gentle. But 67 is ornery. It questions, it is awkward,it sticks like glue, and it is memorable.

Today Spalding Gray would have been 67 if he had not planned his own desperately literary demise, into the cold waters of a black river in New York. Is it strange to wish the anniversary of birth to someone who is dead? To someone who wanted to be dead so much that he rehearsed it and conducted his own passing with precision?

No matter, for Spalding at 67, even if he is not alive is still asking his strange questions somewhere. And coming up with the answers that sometimes have no questions. A perfect 67.

Here is a clip from Swimming to Cambodia, my favorite Gray monologue, though Monster in a Box does come close. Here is Spalding, young, still fighting his demons, still winning...still making us laugh, and making us think. As only he could do.