12:45 a.m. - 2002-10-10
God bless public television
The highlight of filming the PBS documentary was the scene where I'm half naked, wearing nothing but a pair of tattered military shorts, hanging from a wooden rack in the sweltering sun, with my hands tied behind my back, and my feet tied to a pole.
The Japs would leave the P.O.W.s like this for days.....months even.
The make-up artists did a good job. The P.O.W.s (there was 7 of us) really looked like shit, myself included. We were covered in blood and mud and fake wounds. I had fake blood leaking from my ears.
The make-up artists also applied whip marks on my back. The blood coming from my ankles and wrists was fake too.
What WAS real was the fact that I was really tied to that fucking wooden rack during filming, for approximately 3 hours in 100-degree heat. What WAS real was the fucking insects attacking me, that I could do nothing about, except half-assedly try to blow on them to shoo them away.
I was one of three lucky P.O.W.s to hang on that wooden rack for the torture scene.
Crew members had to periodically pour water into our mouths, since our hands were bound behind us.
After the first half hour, I lost all feeling in my feet. As I said, I was up there for about 3 hours total.
Other highlights of my P.O.W. shoot included me being dragged through a swamp in the middle of the night and dumped into a wooden cart being pulled by a water buffalo.
Real swamp. Real water buffalo.
There was also a nice scene of me sitting cross-legged, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers, making oatmeal in a rusty pot on a bonfire.
Real oatmeal.
I tried to sit in such a way so that my scrotum wasn't hanging out of my boxers for the camera to see.
This is PBS we're talking about after all....Not HBO.
It might be unacceptable for a World War II documentary to show my testicles hanging out of my boxers on the same TV channel that shows Sesame Street.
Still, I imagine it'll be a highlight for the ladies who watch, to see me wearing nothing but boxers, coated in mud, blood dripping off me, and my bare chest glistening with sweat.
I'm happy to know that millions of people across the country will see me wearing nothing but boxers on national TV.
It turns me on just thinking about it.
The PBS website says that each episode is watched by about 8 million people throughout America. So, I hope that number will include everybody who reads this.
It'll be on PBS sometime next Spring. The show is called American Experience; the particular episode that I'm in is entitled "Bataan Rescue".
Here's a brief plot synopsis and the soon-to-be website of the show: Bataan Rescue....if you're interested...
Plus, it'll be on DVD.
So, maybe if you pause the DVD just right and zoom in, you WILL be able to see my scrotum in the oatmeal scene....
That would be one hell of a bonus feature.
Maybe it'd be like the beaver-flashing interrogation scene in Basic Instinct that made Sharon Stone a household name.
I wouldn't mind having the most famous scrotum in America.
I wouldn't mind being able to meet somebody at a party and brag to them by saying, "Yeah, you might know me. I'm the guy whose scrotum was hanging out of my boxers on national television and eight million people saw"....
It sure would be a step up from what I brag about now when I meet people: "Yeah, you might know me. I'm the guy who sneaks into school playgrounds at night and randomly scotch-tapes Polaroid photos of my scrotum on to the swing sets, so that the schoolchildren will unexpectedly find the photos the following morning."
You know, the more I think about it, whether my scrotum is showing or not, there's no way I should be allowed on the same TV channel that shows Sesame Street.
If only they knew what kinds of things went on in my diary...
Big Bird would cry.
