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1
00:01:30,790 --> 00:01:34,970
Saturday, June 18th, 1983.
2
00:01:36,690 --> 00:01:41,050
Waihin, Gulf of Siam, Thailand.
3
00:01:44,100 --> 00:01:46,640
It was the first day off in a long time,
4
00:01:47,560 --> 00:01:51,120
and about 130 of us were trying
to get a little rest and relaxation
5
00:01:51,440 --> 00:01:54,600
out by this pool at this very modern hotel
6
00:01:54,600 --> 00:01:58,100
that looks something like a very modern prison.
7
00:01:58,160 --> 00:02:00,240
Something like the prisons
people or private prisons people
8
00:02:00,240 --> 00:02:02,800
are investing in here in the
United States instead of hotels.
9
00:02:03,280 --> 00:02:05,800
Something like a pleasure prison.
10
00:02:06,920 --> 00:02:09,500
A kind of place that, say,
if you were taking a trip to Bangkok
11
00:02:09,500 --> 00:02:11,160
and you took a side trip down to Waihin,
12
00:02:11,200 --> 00:02:12,560
you might come and stay at this hotel,
13
00:02:12,800 --> 00:02:14,080
but you probably wouldn't go off the grounds
14
00:02:14,080 --> 00:02:16,100
because of the high barbed
wire fence around the hotel
15
00:02:16,100 --> 00:02:17,780
to keep you in and the bandits out.
16
00:02:18,200 --> 00:02:20,220
You probably wouldn't even
go down to the Gulf of Siam
17
00:02:20,220 --> 00:02:22,060
because of the dogs, some of them rabid,
18
00:02:22,340 --> 00:02:24,540
that tend to intimidate you
and drive you up against a wall
19
00:02:24,540 --> 00:02:26,240
until you learn to pick up a piece of seaweed,
20
00:02:26,400 --> 00:02:28,440
shake it in their face,
and everything is hunky-dory.
21
00:02:28,860 --> 00:02:30,820
And it was the first day off in a long time,
22
00:02:30,900 --> 00:02:32,860
and the Thai waiters are running and smiling
23
00:02:32,860 --> 00:02:37,140
and bringing us more closter,
closter, closter beer.
24
00:02:37,380 --> 00:02:38,760
Everyone is ordering the closter.
25
00:02:38,860 --> 00:02:40,080
No one is drinking the local beer,
26
00:02:40,140 --> 00:02:41,340
which is exported to the United States,
27
00:02:41,380 --> 00:02:43,460
because they say it has formaldehyde in it.
28
00:02:43,680 --> 00:02:46,260
And the Thai waiters are
running and jumping and smiling,
29
00:02:46,360 --> 00:02:47,880
and they can't get to us fast enough,
30
00:02:47,880 --> 00:02:49,160
and there's a saying that says
31
00:02:49,160 --> 00:02:51,700
the Thais are the nicest people money can buy.
32
00:02:52,080 --> 00:02:55,100
And it's not a silly smile, it's a deep smile,
33
00:02:55,240 --> 00:02:57,200
because they have a philosophy, sanug.
34
00:02:57,520 --> 00:03:00,460
Sanug, loosely translated, means fun, pleasure.
35
00:03:00,740 --> 00:03:03,020
And they don't do anything if it isn't sanug.
36
00:03:03,200 --> 00:03:05,160
And they ask you first, and if it isn't sanug,
37
00:03:05,220 --> 00:03:07,000
they won't touch it with a 10-foot pole.
38
00:03:07,420 --> 00:03:09,520
Also, another idea that may have to do
39
00:03:09,520 --> 00:03:11,320
with the rather radical Thai Buddhism,
40
00:03:11,760 --> 00:03:13,140
after they have the sanug,
41
00:03:13,260 --> 00:03:15,340
they don't have to suffer for it afterwards.
42
00:03:16,060 --> 00:03:18,480
And it was the first day off in a long time,
43
00:03:18,680 --> 00:03:21,540
and some of the British crew
had the good sense or bad sense,
44
00:03:21,680 --> 00:03:23,740
depending on how you look at it, to buy women
45
00:03:23,740 --> 00:03:25,460
as soon as they arrived in Bangkok.
46
00:03:25,880 --> 00:03:27,360
I heard each man bought two,
47
00:03:27,480 --> 00:03:28,880
so he wouldn't risk falling in love
48
00:03:28,880 --> 00:03:30,340
when it came time to leave.
49
00:03:30,540 --> 00:03:34,140
And there the crew were like
these 250-pound beach whales
50
00:03:34,140 --> 00:03:35,800
out by the swimming pool desk,
51
00:03:35,900 --> 00:03:37,800
lying there with these skivvy little chickadees,
52
00:03:37,880 --> 00:03:40,300
90-pound,
in from the country in two-piece bathing suits,
53
00:03:40,560 --> 00:03:42,840
walking up and down on them, giving them shiatsu.
54
00:03:43,520 --> 00:03:45,320
And it was the first day off in a long time,
55
00:03:45,340 --> 00:03:48,220
and the Thai waiter is running to jump over hedges
56
00:03:48,220 --> 00:03:50,000
to bring us more Closter beer.
57
00:03:50,260 --> 00:03:52,420
And all of a sudden, the waiter trips, falls,
58
00:03:52,780 --> 00:03:54,040
the Closter beer is full,
59
00:03:54,100 --> 00:03:55,980
and explodes on the cement by the pool.
60
00:03:56,180 --> 00:03:58,600
And the waiter looks up
with a great smile and says,
61
00:03:58,880 --> 00:04:02,320
Sorry, sir, we've just run out of Closter.
62
00:04:06,020 --> 00:04:08,980
And Ivan, devil in my ear,
63
00:04:09,800 --> 00:04:12,520
Ivan Strasberg, head of the second camera unit,
64
00:04:12,620 --> 00:04:14,180
a bit of a Mephistophelian figure,
65
00:04:14,280 --> 00:04:16,100
gray-beard, handsome man, South African,
66
00:04:16,120 --> 00:04:17,280
comes up to me and says,
67
00:04:17,420 --> 00:04:19,680
Spalding man, hey, there's a party tonight
68
00:04:19,680 --> 00:04:20,540
up at the Gulf of Siam.
69
00:04:21,100 --> 00:04:23,220
One of the workers' mother's
got a summer house up there.
70
00:04:23,520 --> 00:04:25,800
Hey, could I borrow your toenail clippers, man?
71
00:04:28,400 --> 00:04:28,800
Sure.
72
00:04:29,640 --> 00:04:30,400
Come on over.
73
00:04:31,340 --> 00:04:32,900
And do you want to smoke a Thai stick, hey?
74
00:04:33,420 --> 00:04:34,980
Should I bring some marijuana, man, hey?
75
00:04:36,760 --> 00:04:37,160
Sure.
76
00:04:37,840 --> 00:04:38,460
Why not?
77
00:04:39,280 --> 00:04:40,260
I mean, it's a party.
78
00:04:40,660 --> 00:04:45,700
After all,
I hadn't smoked any marijuana since I've been...
79
00:04:45,880 --> 00:04:47,660
Every time I am in a country
80
00:04:47,660 --> 00:04:51,620
where the marijuana is supposed to be so good,
81
00:04:51,980 --> 00:04:57,040
you know, India, Mexico, Northern California,
82
00:04:57,700 --> 00:04:59,580
now Thailand,
83
00:04:59,760 --> 00:05:01,960
I always feel that I should try it, you know?
84
00:05:02,160 --> 00:05:04,180
Maybe this time it would be different.
85
00:05:04,840 --> 00:05:08,140
Maybe this time I would
experience a sense of well-being
86
00:05:08,140 --> 00:05:09,560
like everyone says they do,
87
00:05:09,680 --> 00:05:11,360
you know, a sense of rest and relaxation,
88
00:05:11,880 --> 00:05:13,040
be able to sleep even.
89
00:05:13,240 --> 00:05:17,320
You see,
it tends to unlock my kundalini in the worst way.
90
00:05:17,760 --> 00:05:20,960
It gets stuck there in my
lower chakra there like a snake,
91
00:05:21,000 --> 00:05:22,900
like a fist, like a snake shaking its tail,
92
00:05:23,080 --> 00:05:24,820
like a studebaker stuck in sand.
93
00:05:25,120 --> 00:05:28,220
I thought, maybe I'll give it a try this time.
94
00:05:28,620 --> 00:05:30,200
I thought, no, no, no, no, no, no, wait a minute.
95
00:05:30,480 --> 00:05:32,700
I better speak with Renee first before I do it.
96
00:05:32,960 --> 00:05:35,820
Renee, my girlfriend,
was over there visiting me for 14 days,
97
00:05:36,200 --> 00:05:38,900
and I had made a promise, a commitment, you see,
98
00:05:39,280 --> 00:05:41,020
is to return, as soon as the film was over,
99
00:05:41,020 --> 00:05:44,580
to return to her because we had rented a cabin
100
00:05:44,580 --> 00:05:46,540
for the summer in upstate New York,
101
00:05:46,960 --> 00:05:49,020
in Krumville, New York, you know,
102
00:05:49,320 --> 00:05:52,180
K-R-U-M-V-I-L-L-E.
103
00:05:52,880 --> 00:05:54,860
And let me tell you, Krumville, New York,
104
00:05:54,980 --> 00:05:57,180
was looking less and less interesting to me
105
00:05:57,180 --> 00:05:59,340
the longer I was in Thailand, you see.
106
00:05:59,980 --> 00:06:05,600
The other thing was that I
hadn't had a perfect moment yet.
107
00:06:07,100 --> 00:06:10,720
And it's very important for
me to have perfect moments
108
00:06:10,720 --> 00:06:13,060
in exotic countries like that,
you know, I always like to have them
109
00:06:13,060 --> 00:06:16,120
because it gives you a good sense of closure,
you know,
110
00:06:16,220 --> 00:06:18,100
kind of lets you know when it's time to go home.
111
00:06:18,720 --> 00:06:21,400
And you never know when you're
going to have a perfect moment.
112
00:06:21,580 --> 00:06:24,620
I mean, the best had a long,
and you never know when you're going to have one.
113
00:06:24,920 --> 00:06:26,840
Look, I had a vision of myself by now
114
00:06:26,840 --> 00:06:30,100
as a kind of wandering, bachelor, mendicant poet,
115
00:06:30,480 --> 00:06:32,380
wandering all the way down
the beaches of Malaysia,
116
00:06:32,520 --> 00:06:34,380
eating magic mushrooms all the way as I went
117
00:06:34,380 --> 00:06:37,600
until I reached Bali,
evaporating in a state of ecstasy in the sunset.
118
00:06:40,180 --> 00:06:42,180
But I wasn't telling Renée that.
119
00:06:43,500 --> 00:06:45,700
But she could see that my will,
or what was left of it,
120
00:06:45,720 --> 00:06:48,340
was beginning to vacillate,
and we fell into a fight
121
00:06:48,340 --> 00:06:49,940
on the way to the party at the Gulf of Siam,
122
00:06:50,200 --> 00:06:52,720
and we were fighting all the way,
and we got there to the Gulf of Siam,
123
00:06:53,000 --> 00:06:55,760
and it was exquisite, you know,
unlike the Hamptons,
124
00:06:55,840 --> 00:06:57,320
where you have a boat and a bigger boat,
125
00:06:57,400 --> 00:07:00,000
and then a ship and a bigger ship,
and desire, and a carrot,
126
00:07:00,120 --> 00:07:02,940
and a carrot, and a carrot, and desire,
and desire, and desire, and desire.
127
00:07:03,020 --> 00:07:05,580
There was nothing to buy
out there in the Gulf of Siam.
128
00:07:05,580 --> 00:07:08,680
I mean, it was like one big piece of calendar art.
129
00:07:08,800 --> 00:07:13,460
I just said, look, look, look, Renée,
look at this beautiful sunset.
130
00:07:13,880 --> 00:07:15,460
Please stop with the arguing.
131
00:07:15,800 --> 00:07:17,760
I might be able to have a perfect moment right now
132
00:07:17,760 --> 00:07:19,020
when we could go home together.
133
00:07:19,560 --> 00:07:21,380
But she was very confrontational.
134
00:07:21,640 --> 00:07:23,980
She always wanted to talk about
what was going on in the moment,
135
00:07:24,060 --> 00:07:27,560
in the relationship, not about perfect moments,
what was going on,
136
00:07:27,560 --> 00:07:30,360
and we fell into a fight, and she began crying,
137
00:07:30,540 --> 00:07:32,740
and we were fighting,
and we went back to our separate corners.
138
00:07:32,740 --> 00:07:35,660
Renée went to Julian Sands, who was consoling her.
139
00:07:35,760 --> 00:07:36,960
She was crying on his shoulder.
140
00:07:37,060 --> 00:07:39,340
I went to Ivan in my corner, devil in my ear,
141
00:07:39,620 --> 00:07:41,800
Ivan Strasberg, who said, Spalding, man,
142
00:07:42,480 --> 00:07:44,480
don't let her get the upper hand in this argument.
143
00:07:44,880 --> 00:07:46,580
I mean, after all, what's she going to do, man?
144
00:07:46,740 --> 00:07:49,020
How many straight single men your age are
145
00:07:49,020 --> 00:07:50,700
that are left in New York City anyway?
146
00:07:52,480 --> 00:07:56,690
I said, Ivan, no.
147
00:07:57,290 --> 00:08:00,370
And boom, pow,
we went back at it again from our corners
148
00:08:00,370 --> 00:08:01,890
and began to clash, and Renée said,
149
00:08:01,890 --> 00:08:03,850
all right, I'll give you an ultimatum.
150
00:08:04,530 --> 00:08:06,950
Either you give me a date when you're coming home,
151
00:08:07,750 --> 00:08:08,830
or you marry me.
152
00:08:14,570 --> 00:08:17,350
I said, all right, July 8th.
153
00:08:18,330 --> 00:08:20,550
I'll be home by July 8th,
and now it was time to make up.
154
00:08:21,110 --> 00:08:23,530
Now it was time to have the pleasure,
because in our culture,
155
00:08:23,710 --> 00:08:25,710
first you suffer, then you have the Sanug.
156
00:08:25,770 --> 00:08:26,790
That's the order of it.
157
00:08:27,230 --> 00:08:30,110
So now it was time to have the pleasure,
and we went down by the Gulf of Siam,
158
00:08:30,210 --> 00:08:32,510
and now it was dark,
and the party sounds were in the distance,
159
00:08:32,510 --> 00:08:36,490
and the waves were lightly lapping,
and there we sat, Ivan, Renée, and I,
160
00:08:36,870 --> 00:08:39,830
and Ivan lit that tie stick and passed it down.
161
00:08:39,950 --> 00:08:41,250
I had no idea how strong it was.
162
00:08:41,330 --> 00:08:42,710
I took a few mild tokes.
163
00:08:46,720 --> 00:08:52,200
And closing my eyes,
this overwhelming wave of anxiety came over me.
164
00:08:53,440 --> 00:08:57,080
And with my eyes closed,
I could see this pile of black and brown shit
165
00:08:57,080 --> 00:08:59,580
steaming on the edge of a stainless steel counter,
166
00:08:59,680 --> 00:09:03,560
and I knew that shit represented
all the negative energy in my mind,
167
00:09:03,740 --> 00:09:06,880
and I could see a string going
from my third eye to that shit,
168
00:09:07,180 --> 00:09:10,440
and I knew all I had to do was simply
pull my head and have done with it,
169
00:09:10,480 --> 00:09:12,600
pull all that negative shit
off the edge of the counter,
170
00:09:12,780 --> 00:09:16,340
and as I was pulling,
I saw beside it a bubbling pile of pastel energy
171
00:09:16,340 --> 00:09:20,320
that was floating and connected from
tendrils that went from pastel to shit brown,
172
00:09:20,500 --> 00:09:24,540
and I realized the pastel energy
represented all the positive energy in my mind,
173
00:09:24,800 --> 00:09:27,880
and that if I pulled a negative off the counter,
I would pull the positive with it,
174
00:09:27,880 --> 00:09:30,860
and I'd be left with nothing
but a stainless steel counter.
175
00:09:31,100 --> 00:09:33,080
And all of a sudden,
the counter turned into a tunnel
176
00:09:33,080 --> 00:09:36,040
that I was going down at the
speed of the Santa Cruz roller coaster
177
00:09:36,040 --> 00:09:37,940
right toward the center of the Earth.
178
00:09:39,100 --> 00:09:39,540
Aaaaah!
179
00:09:40,360 --> 00:09:42,180
I knew I was getting healthier this time.
180
00:09:42,380 --> 00:09:44,440
The tunnel wasn't black. It was gold leaf,
181
00:09:44,580 --> 00:09:46,580
and the gold leaves were parting like an iris.
182
00:09:46,940 --> 00:09:51,480
Ei-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi!
183
00:09:52,240 --> 00:09:54,100
Until I couldn't stand the speed of it any longer,
184
00:09:54,100 --> 00:09:56,700
and I pulled back and grabbed
the beach and let out with a great,
185
00:09:57,500 --> 00:10:00,700
oh, oh, oh, huh,
186
00:10:01,480 --> 00:10:02,960
leaving that for Ivan to interpret.
187
00:10:03,460 --> 00:10:05,160
I had no idea where I was.
188
00:10:05,220 --> 00:10:06,420
Maybe in Southeast Asia.
189
00:10:06,680 --> 00:10:09,100
I didn't know ratty palm
trees in the different distance.
190
00:10:09,200 --> 00:10:12,260
I mean, it felt like I was in a
demented Wallace Stevens poem
191
00:10:12,260 --> 00:10:13,420
with food poisoning.
192
00:10:14,100 --> 00:10:16,140
Renee, I had no idea where Renee was.
193
00:10:16,200 --> 00:10:18,200
Maybe going back to Krumville, maybe for a walk.
194
00:10:18,320 --> 00:10:21,120
I saw in the distance what
looked like Thai Girl Scouts
195
00:10:21,120 --> 00:10:22,580
dancing around a bonfire.
196
00:10:22,860 --> 00:10:25,020
Gals holding hands, not an hallucination.
197
00:10:25,280 --> 00:10:27,560
I had the clear sense that if I got in that circle
198
00:10:27,560 --> 00:10:29,580
and held hands with them, I would be healed.
199
00:10:29,820 --> 00:10:30,640
I would be whole.
200
00:10:30,840 --> 00:10:32,500
I would be back in time again.
201
00:10:32,720 --> 00:10:35,380
And I got up and I began to
stagger like a Bowery bum,
202
00:10:35,500 --> 00:10:37,840
like a drunken teenager, like a fraternity brother
203
00:10:37,840 --> 00:10:39,560
I've never been before in my life.
204
00:10:39,720 --> 00:10:43,020
And all of a sudden I realized
I was gonna be very sick.
205
00:10:43,200 --> 00:10:45,620
And I pulled off into a far corner of the beach
206
00:10:45,620 --> 00:10:47,960
and up it came like a wretched Thai dog.
207
00:10:48,240 --> 00:10:50,440
Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh.
208
00:10:50,440 --> 00:10:52,920
And as the vomit came up,
I covered it over with sand.
209
00:10:53,100 --> 00:10:55,380
And the sand turned into a black gauze death mask
210
00:10:55,380 --> 00:10:56,860
that flew up and covered my face.
211
00:10:57,120 --> 00:10:58,920
So be vomit, cover sand, mask.
212
00:10:59,100 --> 00:11:00,580
Vomit, cover sand, mask.
213
00:11:00,760 --> 00:11:02,260
Vomit, cover sand, mask.
214
00:11:02,440 --> 00:11:03,920
Until I looked down and saw that I'd built
215
00:11:03,920 --> 00:11:05,980
my entire corpse out of sand.
216
00:11:06,180 --> 00:11:08,420
And my face was staring back at me.
217
00:11:08,600 --> 00:11:10,800
And my teeth were cutting
through the rotting lips.
218
00:11:10,940 --> 00:11:13,960
And my ribs were coming through
the decomposing flesh of my side.
219
00:11:14,140 --> 00:11:15,840
And Renee was standing over me going,
220
00:11:16,040 --> 00:11:17,240
what's wrong, hon?
221
00:11:18,800 --> 00:11:21,400
I said, I'm dying.
222
00:11:21,860 --> 00:11:22,840
That's what's wrong.
223
00:11:23,500 --> 00:11:24,700
She said, oh, gee.
224
00:11:25,240 --> 00:11:27,440
All this time I thought you
were having a good time
225
00:11:27,440 --> 00:11:28,920
building sand castles.
226
00:11:31,460 --> 00:11:32,980
She was at a distance.
227
00:11:34,680 --> 00:11:37,840
They carried me out in that
drunken classic Jesus sailor
228
00:11:37,840 --> 00:11:38,260
pose.
229
00:11:38,620 --> 00:11:41,820
One arm over one man,
one over the other, feet dragging.
230
00:11:42,340 --> 00:11:43,560
And I was mortified.
231
00:11:44,040 --> 00:11:47,280
Because the following day I was supposed to do
232
00:11:47,400 --> 00:11:50,260
my big scene in the movie.
233
00:11:55,660 --> 00:11:58,840
What pisses me off is that
this country has a lot of faults
234
00:11:58,840 --> 00:11:59,820
and a lot of strengths.
235
00:12:00,040 --> 00:12:02,860
And we have done nothing but play to the faults.
236
00:12:06,090 --> 00:12:08,650
I'm telling you, Sid,
I will be damn glad to get out of here.
237
00:12:09,290 --> 00:12:11,670
This thing is dragged on too long for it
238
00:12:11,670 --> 00:12:13,390
to end in all sweetness and light.
239
00:12:14,190 --> 00:12:16,090
And after what the Khmer Rouge have been through,
240
00:12:16,130 --> 00:12:18,070
I don't think they're going
to be exactly affectionate
241
00:12:18,070 --> 00:12:18,890
toward Westerners.
242
00:12:21,180 --> 00:12:26,300
In February of 1983,
I met this incredible British documentary
243
00:12:26,300 --> 00:12:31,140
filmmaker, Roland Joffe, very intense man,
244
00:12:32,200 --> 00:12:36,440
a combination of Zorro, Jesus, and Rasputin.
245
00:12:37,820 --> 00:12:41,860
Body of Zorro, heart of Jesus, eyes of Rasputin.
246
00:12:42,680 --> 00:12:44,820
And he'd been sent over by David Putnam,
who was producing
247
00:12:44,820 --> 00:12:46,180
a film called The Killing Fields.
248
00:12:46,180 --> 00:12:48,700
And he'd sent over two cast for actors.
249
00:12:48,900 --> 00:12:51,220
And he was seeing people, and he was burning.
250
00:12:51,420 --> 00:12:52,440
He was doing all the talking.
251
00:12:52,540 --> 00:12:53,980
I was listening for 45 minutes.
252
00:12:54,060 --> 00:12:54,480
He talked.
253
00:12:54,540 --> 00:12:55,620
He burned with his story.
254
00:12:55,900 --> 00:12:56,400
I listened.
255
00:12:56,800 --> 00:12:59,380
45 minutes,
he told me about the story of the film.
256
00:12:59,540 --> 00:13:01,800
It was about a New York Times reporter,
Sidney Shanberg,
257
00:13:01,860 --> 00:13:04,500
who was covering the American
secret bombing of Cambodia
258
00:13:04,500 --> 00:13:07,040
for the New York Times,
and his sidekick, Dith Pran,
259
00:13:07,080 --> 00:13:09,460
a Cambodian photographer,
and how they were curious
260
00:13:09,460 --> 00:13:11,460
to see what would happen
when the Khmer Rouge marched
261
00:13:11,460 --> 00:13:14,220
into Phnom Penh,
and how after the American embassy
262
00:13:14,220 --> 00:13:16,760
was evacuated and Dith
Pran sent his wife and children
263
00:13:16,760 --> 00:13:19,380
out with the American evacuation, Sidney Shanberg
264
00:13:19,380 --> 00:13:21,820
and Dith Pran fled to the
French embassy to hide out.
265
00:13:22,140 --> 00:13:24,520
And the Khmer Rouge came
in and sent all Cambodians
266
00:13:24,520 --> 00:13:26,220
out of the French embassy, or everyone dies.
267
00:13:27,020 --> 00:13:29,380
And they sent Dith Pran out to his certain death.
268
00:13:29,560 --> 00:13:31,600
The only one that didn't
give up hope was searching
269
00:13:31,600 --> 00:13:33,680
with Sidney Shanberg, and he searched for years
270
00:13:33,680 --> 00:13:37,260
until he located Dith Pran in a Thai refugee camp.
271
00:13:37,680 --> 00:13:41,960
And now Dith Pran is working
for the New York Times.
272
00:13:43,600 --> 00:13:46,200
I said, wow.
273
00:13:48,480 --> 00:13:50,440
That's an incredible story, you know.
274
00:13:51,060 --> 00:13:53,480
It's so hopeful,
it sounds like someone made it up.
275
00:13:54,400 --> 00:13:56,440
I'm going to tell you right now,
I would do anything
276
00:13:56,440 --> 00:13:57,220
to be in your film.
277
00:13:57,360 --> 00:13:59,800
I don't even know what roles you're looking for,
278
00:13:59,880 --> 00:14:01,420
but I want to be really straight with you.
279
00:14:01,660 --> 00:14:02,620
I'm not very political.
280
00:14:02,780 --> 00:14:04,380
I don't know anything about secret bombing,
281
00:14:04,700 --> 00:14:06,940
and in fact, I've never voted before in my life.
282
00:14:07,080 --> 00:14:08,260
And Roland says, perfect.
283
00:14:08,720 --> 00:14:10,820
We're looking for the American ambassador's aide.
284
00:14:12,760 --> 00:14:14,340
But I can't promise you anything.
285
00:14:14,460 --> 00:14:16,200
I have to go out to the coast to cast out there.
286
00:14:16,380 --> 00:14:18,160
We have to see how the
whole puzzle shapes together.
287
00:14:18,420 --> 00:14:20,140
I'll be back in the city in three months' time.
288
00:14:20,240 --> 00:14:21,000
We'll chat again then.
289
00:14:22,160 --> 00:14:23,560
And I went out and I thought, you know,
290
00:14:24,080 --> 00:14:26,940
I want to be involved in this project
291
00:14:26,940 --> 00:14:30,560
more than any other project
I've almost been involved in.
292
00:14:32,080 --> 00:14:34,420
But what can I do?
293
00:14:34,900 --> 00:14:36,680
I'm going to tell you, part of why I gave up
294
00:14:36,680 --> 00:14:39,540
professional acting was I got so tired of waiting
295
00:14:39,720 --> 00:14:43,420
for the big indifferent machine
to make up its so-called mind.
296
00:14:44,160 --> 00:14:46,420
I wanted to have some
influence over my own destiny,
297
00:14:46,540 --> 00:14:47,420
my own life, you know.
298
00:14:47,700 --> 00:14:48,900
But I wanted to be in this film.
299
00:14:48,960 --> 00:14:50,560
I thought, what can I do to influence?
300
00:14:50,660 --> 00:14:52,240
I mean,
the first thing that occurred to me was prayer.
301
00:14:52,800 --> 00:14:55,380
And I thought, mm, Spalding, it's been so long.
302
00:14:55,640 --> 00:14:55,780
You know?
303
00:14:57,260 --> 00:15:00,900
So the next thing that came to
me was that old rational voice
304
00:15:00,900 --> 00:15:03,020
that we all know so well, you know?
305
00:15:03,160 --> 00:15:05,980
Well, if I get it, I get it.
306
00:15:06,780 --> 00:15:08,700
If I don't, I'll do something else.
307
00:15:08,700 --> 00:15:11,980
You know, after all, I can still see and walk.
308
00:15:14,180 --> 00:15:15,840
And as my mother always said,
309
00:15:15,940 --> 00:15:18,120
think of the starving Koreans, right?
310
00:15:18,760 --> 00:15:21,280
So I was trying to think of the starving Koreans,
311
00:15:21,640 --> 00:15:25,160
but my pre-conscious irrational
voice was not behaving so well.
312
00:15:25,460 --> 00:15:28,380
It set up this kind of
ritualized magical thinking.
313
00:15:29,000 --> 00:15:30,520
I mean, it started innocently enough.
314
00:15:30,700 --> 00:15:33,760
I literally could not go out of my apartment
315
00:15:33,860 --> 00:15:38,540
until I turned my little KLH
radio off on a positive word.
316
00:15:38,900 --> 00:15:38,980
You know?
317
00:15:41,600 --> 00:15:42,940
I was there all morning some days.
318
00:15:44,220 --> 00:15:45,980
The stock market is rising.
319
00:15:46,200 --> 00:15:46,980
I could go out.
320
00:15:47,540 --> 00:15:49,580
Consider moving Marines to safer positions.
321
00:15:49,760 --> 00:15:50,600
I could go out.
322
00:15:50,880 --> 00:15:53,540
Or you may go to a doctor who belongs to the AMA,
323
00:15:53,620 --> 00:15:55,620
but it doesn't necessarily
mean you're going to the best.
324
00:15:55,800 --> 00:15:56,460
I could go out.
325
00:15:56,920 --> 00:16:01,360
And as I went out,
I found that I was turning the doorknob 3 times.
326
00:16:01,420 --> 00:16:03,880
3s became a crucial,
very important, magical number.
327
00:16:04,000 --> 00:16:09,100
I was going 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3,
1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2,
328
00:16:09,460 --> 00:16:11,560
and knocking on wood when I could find wood.
329
00:16:11,700 --> 00:16:16,440
Bop, bop, find wood,
6 sets of 9, and 6 and 3 and 9,
330
00:16:16,560 --> 00:16:19,880
snapping on my way to the supermarket to buy soup.
331
00:16:20,060 --> 00:16:23,640
You know, 6 sets of 9,
9 times every third can was fine.
332
00:16:23,840 --> 00:16:27,360
The first 2 cans of soup had botulism,
you see, or cyanide.
333
00:16:28,280 --> 00:16:29,560
And I thought, you know, Spalding,
334
00:16:29,560 --> 00:16:31,020
you're going to end up in the insane asylum
335
00:16:31,020 --> 00:16:32,460
before you get the role in the film.
336
00:16:32,780 --> 00:16:35,040
And it was around about the
time that the little king took over.
337
00:16:35,180 --> 00:16:36,800
I don't know if you know him,
the super ego figure,
338
00:16:36,880 --> 00:16:38,200
not exactly my best friend.
339
00:16:38,420 --> 00:16:40,400
And the little king said, Spalding, if you will,
340
00:16:40,520 --> 00:16:41,820
something I also knew nothing about,
341
00:16:42,020 --> 00:16:44,000
if you can will this magical thinking to stop,
342
00:16:44,240 --> 00:16:46,480
this act of will will be the supremo,
supremo thing
343
00:16:46,480 --> 00:16:47,560
that will get you the role in the film.
344
00:16:53,380 --> 00:16:55,680
So around about the time I was developing A Will,
345
00:16:56,440 --> 00:16:59,740
I was asked to do my monologues out in Hollywood,
346
00:16:59,940 --> 00:17:01,420
and I was doing it in a small theater out there.
347
00:17:01,460 --> 00:17:02,380
I got good reviews.
348
00:17:02,600 --> 00:17:04,800
And Warner Brothers Television saw the reviews
349
00:17:04,800 --> 00:17:06,580
and asked me to come in and read for a sitcom.
350
00:17:07,300 --> 00:17:09,540
I said, well, please, you know,
come and see the monologue.
351
00:17:09,640 --> 00:17:11,640
You'll get a better sense of what it is I do.
352
00:17:11,980 --> 00:17:13,160
And they said, well, we'd love to,
353
00:17:13,220 --> 00:17:14,480
but we go to bed early out here.
354
00:17:14,720 --> 00:17:16,840
So can you please come in in the morning?
355
00:17:20,520 --> 00:17:22,140
So I came in and read for the sitcom,
356
00:17:22,440 --> 00:17:24,100
and the Lord works in strange ways.
357
00:17:24,600 --> 00:17:26,400
And as soon as I was going outside that office,
358
00:17:26,600 --> 00:17:30,000
then there, there was Roland Joffe,
359
00:17:30,300 --> 00:17:32,360
who was costing for the Killing Fields
360
00:17:32,360 --> 00:17:34,240
because Warner Brothers was putting money into it,
361
00:17:34,280 --> 00:17:35,360
and he was using their offices.
362
00:17:35,880 --> 00:17:37,260
And he said, let's chat again.
363
00:17:38,100 --> 00:17:39,640
So I went home and put on my tie and jacket,
364
00:17:39,740 --> 00:17:42,440
and I came in, and once again, once again,
365
00:17:42,960 --> 00:17:44,020
Roland burned.
366
00:17:44,440 --> 00:17:46,420
He did all the talking for 45 minutes.
367
00:17:46,720 --> 00:17:47,220
I listened.
368
00:17:47,740 --> 00:17:49,860
This time he was talking about Cambodia,
369
00:17:50,320 --> 00:17:52,720
what a fantastic land it was,
370
00:17:52,940 --> 00:17:55,580
why it was Shangri-La before it was colonized.
371
00:17:55,960 --> 00:17:57,000
He said it was incredible.
372
00:17:57,220 --> 00:17:59,460
He said Thailand was like a Nordic country
373
00:17:59,460 --> 00:18:00,280
compared to Cambodia.
374
00:18:00,280 --> 00:18:01,360
They're right next to each other.
375
00:18:01,700 --> 00:18:04,920
And he said that 90% of the land
376
00:18:04,920 --> 00:18:06,080
was owned by the people.
377
00:18:06,240 --> 00:18:07,540
It was earth, it was dirt,
378
00:18:07,640 --> 00:18:09,360
but it was theirs, and it was good.
379
00:18:09,540 --> 00:18:11,360
And they knew how to have a good time.
380
00:18:11,620 --> 00:18:13,500
They knew how to have a good time getting born,
381
00:18:13,940 --> 00:18:14,920
a good time growing up,
382
00:18:15,000 --> 00:18:16,140
a good time going through puberty,
383
00:18:16,540 --> 00:18:17,500
a good time falling in love,
384
00:18:17,560 --> 00:18:18,380
a good time staying in love,
385
00:18:18,460 --> 00:18:19,340
a good time getting married,
386
00:18:19,440 --> 00:18:20,380
a good time staying married,
387
00:18:20,600 --> 00:18:21,580
a good time having children,
388
00:18:21,720 --> 00:18:22,800
a good time raising children,
389
00:18:23,020 --> 00:18:24,180
a good time growing old,
390
00:18:24,260 --> 00:18:25,300
a good time dying.
391
00:18:25,840 --> 00:18:28,360
They even knew how to have a good time
392
00:18:28,360 --> 00:18:29,860
on New Year's Eve.
393
00:18:31,120 --> 00:18:32,840
I couldn't believe it.
394
00:18:33,260 --> 00:18:35,120
The only thing was that Rowland said
395
00:18:35,120 --> 00:18:36,780
because it was such a beautiful country
396
00:18:36,780 --> 00:18:38,660
that they had lost touch with evil.
397
00:18:39,100 --> 00:18:41,360
Something like the Indian tantric colonies
398
00:18:41,360 --> 00:18:43,680
on the east coast of India, B.C.,
399
00:18:43,680 --> 00:18:46,100
they got so open and tantric and loving
400
00:18:46,100 --> 00:18:49,000
that they were totally defenseless,
401
00:18:49,080 --> 00:18:50,660
and the Huns came down and ate them up
402
00:18:50,660 --> 00:18:52,160
like chocolate-covered cherries.
403
00:18:52,500 --> 00:18:54,360
Now, Rowland said that the Samoans,
404
00:18:54,560 --> 00:18:55,940
which also have a beautiful culture,
405
00:18:56,240 --> 00:18:58,040
did not risk this because they had
406
00:18:58,720 --> 00:18:59,440
ritualized tattooing,
407
00:18:59,620 --> 00:19:01,000
in which they initiated their children
408
00:19:01,000 --> 00:19:02,020
to pain in a ritual.
409
00:19:02,080 --> 00:19:03,920
I didn't know what he was talking about.
410
00:19:04,120 --> 00:19:05,580
My eyes are rolling in my head.
411
00:19:05,820 --> 00:19:07,820
I mean, I was trying to get a fix on Cambodia
412
00:19:07,820 --> 00:19:08,880
all the time I was talking.
413
00:19:08,980 --> 00:19:10,180
I thought I knew where it was,
414
00:19:10,300 --> 00:19:12,600
and I didn't even have a map of it in my mind.
415
00:19:20,960 --> 00:19:21,800
There it is.
416
00:19:23,900 --> 00:19:25,520
About the size of the state of Missouri.
417
00:19:26,640 --> 00:19:28,340
Rowland told me that in 1965,
418
00:19:28,820 --> 00:19:30,140
it had about 7 million people
419
00:19:30,140 --> 00:19:31,240
in the entire country,
420
00:19:31,960 --> 00:19:34,300
600,000 in the capital, Phnom Penh,
421
00:19:34,840 --> 00:19:36,660
lovely freshwater lake right in the middle
422
00:19:36,660 --> 00:19:38,400
of all sorts of recreational activity,
423
00:19:38,560 --> 00:19:41,860
fishing,
more seaports along the Gulf of Siam here.
424
00:19:42,760 --> 00:19:44,840
Then Rowland told me that in 1966,
425
00:19:45,640 --> 00:19:48,160
that happy, sexy, sax-playing prince,
426
00:19:48,300 --> 00:19:51,180
King Sihanouk,
maybe because of his Buddhist tolerance,
427
00:19:51,700 --> 00:19:54,020
allowed the Viet Cong to put some few sanctuaries
428
00:19:54,020 --> 00:19:55,000
along the border here.
429
00:19:55,880 --> 00:19:58,220
Now,
the American Air Force was very upset about this.
430
00:19:58,600 --> 00:20:00,140
They had a theory that the sanctuaries
431
00:20:00,140 --> 00:20:02,040
were being controlled by a central headquarters
432
00:20:02,040 --> 00:20:03,240
up here in the jungle.
433
00:20:04,000 --> 00:20:06,840
A central headquarters
about the size of the Pentagon.
434
00:20:07,840 --> 00:20:10,060
Maybe even a replica of the Pentagon.
435
00:20:11,220 --> 00:20:12,860
And if they thought we could just send
436
00:20:12,860 --> 00:20:15,000
some B-52s over from Bangkok here,
437
00:20:15,160 --> 00:20:16,700
don't bother to tell the American public.
438
00:20:16,780 --> 00:20:18,060
Just a few raids would take care
439
00:20:18,060 --> 00:20:18,940
of the central headquarters,
440
00:20:19,220 --> 00:20:21,700
and they had a secret meeting at breakfast time
441
00:20:21,700 --> 00:20:22,260
at the Pentagon,
442
00:20:22,880 --> 00:20:25,240
and they called it Operation Breakfast.
443
00:20:25,860 --> 00:20:26,940
And at the secret meeting,
444
00:20:27,080 --> 00:20:28,860
they came up with the menu.
445
00:20:29,140 --> 00:20:31,120
And here is a map of the menu.
446
00:20:35,890 --> 00:20:37,610
Now, it's a bit of an odd diet.
447
00:20:37,950 --> 00:20:38,810
Remember these bombers,
448
00:20:38,950 --> 00:20:40,750
the American bombers are coming over from Bangkok
449
00:20:40,750 --> 00:20:43,410
six miles up like airborne holiday inns,
450
00:20:43,470 --> 00:20:45,350
and they're dropping their bombs by computer,
451
00:20:45,650 --> 00:20:47,390
and they come over, and the first stop
452
00:20:47,390 --> 00:20:48,710
is this sanctuary for supper.
453
00:20:48,930 --> 00:20:50,750
Then around the Parrot's Peak for breakfast,
454
00:20:50,910 --> 00:20:51,430
this sanctuary.
455
00:20:51,770 --> 00:20:52,530
Then up for dinner.
456
00:20:52,850 --> 00:20:54,590
Then dessert, a snack,
457
00:20:54,830 --> 00:20:56,450
and then shooting straight
up to where they thought
458
00:20:56,450 --> 00:20:58,750
the central headquarters was for lunch.
459
00:20:58,810 --> 00:21:00,870
Now, Roland told me this had a reverse effect
460
00:21:00,870 --> 00:21:01,710
on the Viet Cong.
461
00:21:01,990 --> 00:21:03,550
Instead of driving them back into Vietnam,
462
00:21:04,010 --> 00:21:06,030
it drove them further into the Cambodian jungles
463
00:21:06,030 --> 00:21:08,810
where they hitched up with
this weird bunch of rednecks
464
00:21:08,810 --> 00:21:11,450
headed by Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge,
465
00:21:11,610 --> 00:21:14,350
and the Viet Cong began to teach the Khmer Rouge
466
00:21:14,350 --> 00:21:14,930
how to fight.
467
00:21:15,170 --> 00:21:17,590
Now, no one knows how they got so weird up there.
468
00:21:17,630 --> 00:21:19,630
They were eating barks, bugs, lizards, and leaves
469
00:21:19,630 --> 00:21:20,790
up there for about five years,
470
00:21:20,870 --> 00:21:22,130
basically going wacko.
471
00:21:22,570 --> 00:21:23,750
Now, there are some theories.
472
00:21:24,130 --> 00:21:27,070
One is, Pol Pot was educated in Paris.
473
00:21:29,010 --> 00:21:31,030
In his strict Maoist doctrine,
474
00:21:31,430 --> 00:21:34,850
someone threw into the soup
a perverse bit of Rousseau,
475
00:21:35,090 --> 00:21:36,830
which put him over the edge
476
00:21:36,830 --> 00:21:38,690
and made him worse than Hitler even.
477
00:21:39,070 --> 00:21:42,770
A back-to-the-land, pure
agrarian racist ideology
478
00:21:42,770 --> 00:21:45,070
with no Jewish other to get, you see.
479
00:21:45,190 --> 00:21:47,130
The only other they had was the urban other,
480
00:21:47,210 --> 00:21:48,750
the city dweller here in Phnom Penh.
481
00:21:49,050 --> 00:21:49,830
So you have to imagine,
482
00:21:49,930 --> 00:21:52,070
it's something like 200,000 rednecks
483
00:21:52,070 --> 00:21:54,210
rallying 90 miles upstate in New Paltz,
484
00:21:54,270 --> 00:21:55,350
about to move in in New York,
485
00:21:55,450 --> 00:21:57,110
eating barks, bugs, lizards, and leaves.
486
00:21:57,670 --> 00:22:01,330
Also, I think Pol Pot was in
competition with Father Mao.
487
00:22:01,630 --> 00:22:03,550
He wanted to have a pure cultural revolution,
488
00:22:03,890 --> 00:22:06,930
alleviating all intellectuals except for one,
Pol Pot,
489
00:22:07,210 --> 00:22:09,070
and not have any socialism in between,
490
00:22:09,210 --> 00:22:10,490
a pure communist revolution.
491
00:22:10,870 --> 00:22:12,290
Now, while all of this was going on
492
00:22:12,290 --> 00:22:13,270
and they were rallying up there,
493
00:22:13,530 --> 00:22:15,770
Sianuk, that happy, sexy, sax-playing prince,
494
00:22:15,830 --> 00:22:17,050
was out of town for the day,
495
00:22:17,350 --> 00:22:19,690
and there was possibly a CIA coup.
496
00:22:19,790 --> 00:22:20,390
It was a coup.
497
00:22:20,470 --> 00:22:22,110
No one's sure exactly who inspired it,
498
00:22:22,130 --> 00:22:22,870
but I can imagine.
499
00:22:23,310 --> 00:22:25,770
And suddenly, Lon Nol is in office.
500
00:22:25,770 --> 00:22:26,930
All of a sudden, in a day.
501
00:22:27,170 --> 00:22:29,530
Now,
no one in America knew anything about Lon Nol.
502
00:22:29,790 --> 00:22:31,530
The press didn't know anything about Lon Nol,
503
00:22:31,610 --> 00:22:35,230
except Lon Nol spell backwards, spell Lon Nol.
504
00:22:36,630 --> 00:22:38,510
Now, while this was going on,
505
00:22:38,570 --> 00:22:40,110
and again, leave it to a Brit to tell you
506
00:22:40,110 --> 00:22:42,090
about your own history, I didn't remember this,
507
00:22:42,370 --> 00:22:45,070
our President Nixon was
developing his madman theory
508
00:22:45,070 --> 00:22:46,770
on the banks of Key Biscayne,
509
00:22:46,850 --> 00:22:47,990
with Bob Haldeman saying,
510
00:22:48,270 --> 00:22:50,770
Listen, Bob, just let the rumor get out
511
00:22:50,770 --> 00:22:51,990
that I've gone mad.
512
00:22:52,330 --> 00:22:53,950
And the Viet Cong will stop their bombing
513
00:22:53,950 --> 00:22:54,910
because they'll be so sure
514
00:22:54,910 --> 00:22:56,330
I'm going to press the green button.
515
00:22:56,730 --> 00:22:58,590
And while he's developing his madman theory,
516
00:22:58,830 --> 00:23:00,390
he was taking military advice
517
00:23:00,390 --> 00:23:02,810
from B.B. Roboso and John Mitchell,
518
00:23:03,190 --> 00:23:06,470
and watching reruns of Patton starring George C.
Scott
519
00:23:06,470 --> 00:23:08,950
on his bedroom wall over and over again.
520
00:23:09,430 --> 00:23:10,750
Now, while this was going on,
521
00:23:10,830 --> 00:23:12,630
and again, leave it to a Brit to remind me
522
00:23:12,630 --> 00:23:14,730
of my own history, Kent State occurred.
523
00:23:15,170 --> 00:23:17,630
Certainly I remember Kent State to my dying day,
524
00:23:17,790 --> 00:23:19,950
but I'd always lumped it in with the Vietnam War.
525
00:23:20,170 --> 00:23:22,390
I forgot that it had to do with the Americans,
526
00:23:22,690 --> 00:23:24,610
specifically American invasion of Cambodia,
527
00:23:24,710 --> 00:23:26,190
and it was a lovely May day.
528
00:23:26,350 --> 00:23:27,630
Granted, the kids were burning down
529
00:23:27,630 --> 00:23:29,410
the ROTC training building,
530
00:23:30,530 --> 00:23:32,230
and it was a lovely May day,
531
00:23:32,590 --> 00:23:36,130
and Governor James Rhoades
just happened to call out
532
00:23:36,130 --> 00:23:37,310
the Ohio National Guard,
533
00:23:37,350 --> 00:23:39,230
who happened to have live ammunition in their gun,
534
00:23:39,290 --> 00:23:40,950
and they opened fire on the students.
535
00:23:41,070 --> 00:23:42,250
Fifteen were shot.
536
00:23:42,630 --> 00:23:44,770
Four innocent bystanders killed.
537
00:23:45,170 --> 00:23:47,270
This caused enormous dissension in America.
538
00:23:47,430 --> 00:23:50,030
100,000 protesters marched on the White House.
539
00:23:50,550 --> 00:23:52,570
Hague had troops in the
basement of the White House
540
00:23:52,570 --> 00:23:54,110
thinking there was going to be a siege.
541
00:23:54,110 --> 00:23:56,610
Nixon didn't get any sleep that night.
542
00:23:56,790 --> 00:23:59,350
He was up, he made over 50 phone calls.
543
00:23:59,690 --> 00:24:01,790
Eight to Kissinger, seven to Haldeman,
544
00:24:02,190 --> 00:24:05,290
one to Norman Vincent Peale,
and one to Billy Graham.
545
00:24:05,950 --> 00:24:08,230
And after one hour's sleep, he got up and put on
546
00:24:08,230 --> 00:24:11,370
Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No.
1 on the record player,
547
00:24:11,630 --> 00:24:14,110
and with his Cuban valet, Manolo Sanchez,
548
00:24:14,810 --> 00:24:16,790
he went down to the Lincoln Monument
549
00:24:16,790 --> 00:24:21,870
to talk to the protesters about surfing, football,
550
00:24:22,310 --> 00:24:24,530
how travel broadens the mind.
551
00:24:25,390 --> 00:24:26,590
In fact, one student said,
552
00:24:26,890 --> 00:24:28,730
I hope it was because our president was tired,
553
00:24:28,830 --> 00:24:30,410
but when he asked me what school I was from
554
00:24:30,410 --> 00:24:31,590
and I told him, he said,
555
00:24:31,830 --> 00:24:33,650
how's your team doing this year?
556
00:24:34,650 --> 00:24:37,230
Now, the Cooper Church Amendment went through.
557
00:24:38,170 --> 00:24:41,270
This was supposed to stop
any close ground support troops
558
00:24:41,270 --> 00:24:43,830
in a country where there was an undeclared war,
559
00:24:44,730 --> 00:24:45,610
i.e., Cambodia.
560
00:24:47,350 --> 00:24:49,890
But I found out only two years ago
561
00:24:49,890 --> 00:24:51,630
that we are not living in a democracy
562
00:24:52,170 --> 00:24:54,150
and that the president is commander-in-chief
563
00:24:54,150 --> 00:24:56,270
of the armed forces and could bypass the Senate
564
00:24:56,270 --> 00:24:58,710
and Congress to give orders for war,
565
00:24:58,810 --> 00:25:00,470
and he did, he said, continue the bombing.
566
00:25:00,950 --> 00:25:02,870
The only thing he did do was say
567
00:25:02,870 --> 00:25:05,870
no more American close ground support troops
568
00:25:05,870 --> 00:25:07,950
more than 21 miles into Cambodia.
569
00:25:08,510 --> 00:25:10,170
Now, how they were controlling this, I don't know,
570
00:25:10,290 --> 00:25:13,190
whether the troops had
odometers on their legs or what,
571
00:25:13,350 --> 00:25:15,810
but more than 21 miles, you turn into a pumpkin
572
00:25:15,810 --> 00:25:17,010
or you had to head back.
573
00:25:17,310 --> 00:25:20,130
Now, someone had to go over to Phnom Penh
574
00:25:20,130 --> 00:25:23,290
and tell Lon Nol of this new ruling.
575
00:25:23,710 --> 00:25:25,270
Haig went over, broke it to him.
576
00:25:25,590 --> 00:25:27,970
Lan Nol saw the downfall of Cambodia,
577
00:25:28,210 --> 00:25:29,430
the writing was on the wall.
578
00:25:29,770 --> 00:25:33,030
He turned to the window and
wept openly in front of Haig.
579
00:25:33,970 --> 00:25:36,210
Haig went back and reported this public weeping,
580
00:25:36,690 --> 00:25:38,930
and they sent over a team of psychiatrists
581
00:25:38,930 --> 00:25:42,130
to examine Lan Nol and came back with a report
582
00:25:42,130 --> 00:25:45,290
that he was a vague, unstructured individual,
583
00:25:46,150 --> 00:25:48,570
that he used astrological, folkloric,
584
00:25:48,570 --> 00:25:51,170
and occult references in
his addresses to the nation.
585
00:25:51,490 --> 00:25:53,770
If you can imagine such a thing, I can actually.
586
00:25:54,090 --> 00:25:55,810
Something like, my fellow Americans,
587
00:25:56,290 --> 00:25:58,170
I'm not going out for the next two weeks
588
00:25:58,170 --> 00:26:00,790
because my moon is in Gemini type thing.
589
00:26:01,210 --> 00:26:03,490
Now, the Cooper Church Amendment went through
590
00:26:03,490 --> 00:26:06,130
and this bombing went on for 5 years.
591
00:26:06,750 --> 00:26:09,590
The Supreme Court never passed any judgment on it,
592
00:26:09,970 --> 00:26:12,210
and the military speaks with pride today
593
00:26:12,210 --> 00:26:14,550
that 5 years of the bombing of Cambodia
594
00:26:14,550 --> 00:26:17,690
killed 16,000 of the so-called enemy.
595
00:26:18,150 --> 00:26:21,510
That's 25% killed, and there's
a military ruling
596
00:26:21,510 --> 00:26:24,690
that says you cannot kill
more than 10% of the enemy
597
00:26:24,690 --> 00:26:27,970
without causing irreversible
psychological damage.
598
00:26:28,750 --> 00:26:32,670
So 5 years of bombing,
a diet of barks, bugs, lizards,
599
00:26:32,730 --> 00:26:34,490
and leaves up in the Cambodian jungles,
600
00:26:35,170 --> 00:26:37,430
an education in Paris and Varennes
601
00:26:37,430 --> 00:26:40,010
of strict Maoist doctrine
with a touch of Rousseau,
602
00:26:40,830 --> 00:26:42,970
and other things that we will probably
603
00:26:42,970 --> 00:26:44,650
never know about in our lifetime,
604
00:26:45,710 --> 00:26:48,290
including perhaps an invisible cloud of evil
605
00:26:48,290 --> 00:26:50,530
that circles the Earth and lands at random
606
00:26:50,530 --> 00:26:57,450
in places like Iran, Beirut,
Germany, Cambodia, America.
607
00:26:58,810 --> 00:27:01,070
Set the Khmer Rouge up to carry out
608
00:27:01,070 --> 00:27:04,850
the worst auto-homeo genocide in modern history.
609
00:27:24,580 --> 00:27:27,740
Whenever I travel, if I can do it,
610
00:27:29,720 --> 00:27:31,020
I'll travel by train,
611
00:27:31,700 --> 00:27:34,020
because I like to hang out in the lounge car.
612
00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:37,080
People tell me fantastic stories there.
613
00:27:37,140 --> 00:27:39,060
I think it's because we figure
we'll never see each other again.
614
00:27:39,720 --> 00:27:42,100
I mean, for me, the Amtrak lounge car
615
00:27:42,100 --> 00:27:44,860
is like one big rolling confessional.
616
00:27:46,540 --> 00:27:49,540
Last year,
I was on my way up from New York City to Chicago,
617
00:27:50,020 --> 00:27:51,540
and this guy comes up to me and says,
618
00:27:51,700 --> 00:27:54,160
Hi, I'm Jack Daniels, mind if I sit down?
619
00:27:54,320 --> 00:27:55,820
I said, no, I'm Spalding Gray, have a seat.
620
00:27:55,820 --> 00:27:58,060
What's up, Jack?
Oh, nothing much, I'm in the Navy.
621
00:27:58,440 --> 00:28:00,720
Oh, really? Where are you stationed?
Guantanamo Bay.
622
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:03,720
Oh, where's that? Cuba.
Oh, I should have known that, shouldn't I?
623
00:28:03,780 --> 00:28:05,400
What's Cuba like? I've never been down there.
624
00:28:05,460 --> 00:28:06,520
We don't get into Cuba, man.
625
00:28:06,540 --> 00:28:08,900
We get free flights down to the
Virgin Islands any time we want.
626
00:28:09,160 --> 00:28:10,720
What do you do down there? I get laid.
627
00:28:10,840 --> 00:28:11,820
Oh, really, you go to horse, too?
628
00:28:11,920 --> 00:28:14,020
Are you kidding? I never paid for sex in my life.
629
00:28:14,420 --> 00:28:17,380
I get picked up by couples.
I'm into that, you know, threesomes,
630
00:28:17,600 --> 00:28:19,800
triangles, pyramids, there's power in that.
631
00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:21,500
I could see what he was talking about.
632
00:28:21,620 --> 00:28:23,800
He was cute enough,
I could see how someone would pick him up.
633
00:28:23,800 --> 00:28:26,280
He was in his civvies, though,
he wasn't in his Navy outfit,
634
00:28:26,340 --> 00:28:27,500
but he had a nice little bod.
635
00:28:27,640 --> 00:28:29,560
The only kind of weird and
demented thing about him,
636
00:28:29,580 --> 00:28:31,280
it was that his ears hadn't grown.
637
00:28:31,800 --> 00:28:34,300
They were like these little pasta shells.
638
00:28:34,660 --> 00:28:36,860
I mean, it was as though his body had grown,
639
00:28:36,920 --> 00:28:38,240
his ears hadn't caught up yet.
640
00:28:38,560 --> 00:28:41,400
So I say to him, so where are you off to, Jack?
641
00:28:41,820 --> 00:28:43,520
Pittsburgh. Really? What's up there?
642
00:28:43,580 --> 00:28:45,660
My wife. Oh, how long's it been? A year.
643
00:28:45,920 --> 00:28:48,540
Oh, I'll bet she's been doing some swinging,
too, herself.
644
00:28:49,120 --> 00:28:50,780
She's been waiting for you all this time?
645
00:28:50,780 --> 00:28:51,880
Oh, no, I know her.
646
00:28:52,320 --> 00:28:55,120
She's got fucking cobwebs
growing between her legs.
647
00:28:55,560 --> 00:28:57,800
But I wouldn't mind watching
her get fucked by a guy
648
00:28:57,800 --> 00:28:59,960
once I get up there, as long as I can watch.
649
00:29:00,040 --> 00:29:01,200
I wouldn't mind that at all.
650
00:29:02,660 --> 00:29:05,340
Really? You mean, you're going...
651
00:29:05,340 --> 00:29:06,440
Now, let's go over this again.
652
00:29:06,660 --> 00:29:10,100
You're coming all the way from Cuba to Pittsburgh?
653
00:29:10,460 --> 00:29:12,680
No, man,
I'm not stationed in Guantanamo Bay anymore.
654
00:29:12,740 --> 00:29:15,060
I'm stationed in Philly. Philadelphia? Really?
655
00:29:15,080 --> 00:29:17,500
What's going on there? Can't tell. No way, man.
656
00:29:17,560 --> 00:29:18,280
Top secret.
657
00:29:18,280 --> 00:29:19,500
Oh, come on, Jack.
658
00:29:20,240 --> 00:29:23,000
Top secret in Philadelphia? You can tell me.
659
00:29:23,360 --> 00:29:24,240
Nope, no way.
660
00:29:24,500 --> 00:29:26,680
And he proceeds to have five more rum cokes,
661
00:29:26,820 --> 00:29:28,980
and he tells me that in Philadelphia
662
00:29:28,980 --> 00:29:32,040
he is chained in a waterproof chamber,
663
00:29:32,320 --> 00:29:34,720
down there with his right arm chained to the wall,
664
00:29:34,840 --> 00:29:36,020
sitting next to a green button
665
00:29:36,020 --> 00:29:38,460
that goes to a waterproof silo in this ship
666
00:29:38,460 --> 00:29:42,320
with a nuclear missile in it
and a nuclear warhead on it.
667
00:29:42,360 --> 00:29:45,260
And he's down there, high on blue flake cocaine,
668
00:29:45,260 --> 00:29:48,000
a new breed up from Peru
that the Navy doesn't test for.
669
00:29:48,700 --> 00:29:52,540
And he's down there,
high on lots of coffee and blue flake cocaine,
670
00:29:52,660 --> 00:29:54,520
just waiting with those
earphones on his little ears,
671
00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:56,680
waiting for a message to
fire his rocket at the Russians.
672
00:30:00,140 --> 00:30:02,160
And I just turned to him and said,
673
00:30:03,720 --> 00:30:05,640
Why waterproof?
674
00:30:06,740 --> 00:30:09,080
I mean,
I just thought with the details and work out,
675
00:30:09,160 --> 00:30:10,880
I could have started with, Why a green button?
676
00:30:11,520 --> 00:30:12,140
And he goes,
677
00:30:13,060 --> 00:30:14,660
Waterproof, man, waterproof.
678
00:30:15,220 --> 00:30:17,520
You ask, Why waterproof?
I'll tell you why waterproof.
679
00:30:18,220 --> 00:30:22,220
When my ship sinks in an ocean,
any ocean, anywhere,
680
00:30:22,580 --> 00:30:25,180
I'm still chained down there
in that waterproof chamber.
681
00:30:25,280 --> 00:30:27,680
I press that green button,
it activates that rocket,
682
00:30:27,840 --> 00:30:30,800
it goes up out of its waterproof silo,
up, up, up, up, up.
683
00:30:30,920 --> 00:30:32,380
I get a fucking erection, man,
684
00:30:32,400 --> 00:30:34,380
every time I think of firing
a rocket at those Russians.
685
00:30:34,720 --> 00:30:36,380
We're gonna win! We're gonna win!
686
00:30:36,520 --> 00:30:38,640
We're gonna win this fucking war!
687
00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:40,960
But I like the Navy, man.
I got to travel everywhere.
688
00:30:41,220 --> 00:30:43,640
I've been to India, I've been to Africa,
I've been to Sweden.
689
00:30:43,940 --> 00:30:46,140
I fucking didn't like Africa,
though, man, I don't know why.
690
00:30:46,400 --> 00:30:48,320
Black women just don't turn me on.
691
00:30:48,520 --> 00:30:50,440
It's not that I'm prejudiced or nothing like that,
man.
692
00:30:50,660 --> 00:30:53,060
Now, here's a guy,
if the women in the country don't turn him on,
693
00:30:53,240 --> 00:30:55,440
he misses the entire landscape, you see?
694
00:30:55,600 --> 00:30:57,780
He just turns into a big fuzzball, a black hole,
695
00:30:57,800 --> 00:30:59,600
that he steps through that comes
out the other side of the world.
696
00:30:59,800 --> 00:31:01,980
In Sweden, I fucking love Sweden, man.
697
00:31:02,100 --> 00:31:03,700
You get to see real Ruskies there.
698
00:31:03,900 --> 00:31:05,780
They're moshed in at gunpoint,
they're allowed two beers,
699
00:31:05,840 --> 00:31:07,140
we drink all the fucking beers we want.
700
00:31:07,280 --> 00:31:08,720
We're drunk on our asses, man.
701
00:31:08,720 --> 00:31:09,600
We're over there yelling,
702
00:31:09,800 --> 00:31:13,260
Hey, Ruskies,
what's it like in Moscow this time of year?
703
00:31:13,420 --> 00:31:15,660
We hire Swedish whores to go
over and put their heads in their laps.
704
00:31:15,700 --> 00:31:16,980
You should see those fucking sweat, man.
705
00:31:17,180 --> 00:31:20,120
They're stupid!
You know, they got liquid fuel in their rockets.
706
00:31:20,180 --> 00:31:22,480
That rocket's a rusty,
they're gonna sputter, they're gonna pop,
707
00:31:22,580 --> 00:31:24,160
they're gonna land in our cornfields.
708
00:31:24,260 --> 00:31:26,900
I said, Jack, Jack,
wait a minute, wait, wait, wait.
709
00:31:27,280 --> 00:31:28,360
Haven't you been reading the literature?
710
00:31:28,840 --> 00:31:31,360
I mean, really, it's bad enough if
the rockets land in the cornfields
711
00:31:31,360 --> 00:31:32,240
with the radiation and everything.
712
00:31:32,400 --> 00:31:33,740
No, you don't understand anything, man.
713
00:31:33,920 --> 00:31:35,760
The Russians are stupid people,
they are backwards.
714
00:31:35,760 --> 00:31:37,480
Do you know that on their ships,
715
00:31:37,560 --> 00:31:39,500
they don't even have electrical intercoms?
716
00:31:39,640 --> 00:31:42,500
They still speak through tubes.
717
00:31:44,100 --> 00:31:46,920
Suddenly I had this enormous
fondness for the Russian Navy,
718
00:31:47,460 --> 00:31:48,760
for the whole of Mother Russia,
719
00:31:49,200 --> 00:31:53,140
the thought of these men like innocent children
720
00:31:53,140 --> 00:31:56,300
speaking through empty toilet paper rolls,
721
00:31:56,720 --> 00:31:58,420
empty paper towel rolls,
722
00:31:58,800 --> 00:32:01,500
where you could still hear doubt, confusion,
723
00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:04,700
brotherly love, ambivalence,
724
00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:08,480
all those human tones coming through the tube.
725
00:32:10,020 --> 00:32:11,320
Jack was very patriotic.
726
00:32:11,480 --> 00:32:12,500
Hey, I forgot it exists.
727
00:32:12,800 --> 00:32:14,960
I thought it was on the cover
of Time and Newsweek only.
728
00:32:15,080 --> 00:32:17,420
It's still there if you take the
train up from New York to Chicago.
729
00:32:17,980 --> 00:32:20,200
Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant.
730
00:32:20,500 --> 00:32:23,140
Jack stands up and salutes and sits back down.
731
00:32:24,820 --> 00:32:27,180
Now I can tell you, I felt to some extent
732
00:32:27,180 --> 00:32:29,200
like I was looking my death in the face.
733
00:32:29,840 --> 00:32:33,060
I'm not making up any of these
stories I'm telling you tonight.
734
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:35,440
Except for one.
735
00:32:36,620 --> 00:32:40,780
Except for the fact that the
banana sticks to the wall when it hits.
736
00:32:41,460 --> 00:32:43,140
That's the only one. Everything else is true.
737
00:32:44,700 --> 00:32:49,320
Now I figure if Jack is making
up this story to frighten me,
738
00:32:49,860 --> 00:32:52,000
if he wasn't down there in
that waterproof chamber then,
739
00:32:52,020 --> 00:32:52,860
he's probably down there now.
740
00:32:52,980 --> 00:32:55,600
If he's white, he's in the Navy,
and he wants it enough, he can get it.
741
00:32:55,860 --> 00:32:57,320
So I am trying to talk him out of it.
742
00:32:57,360 --> 00:32:58,500
I'm making a small stand.
743
00:32:58,580 --> 00:33:01,040
I'm saying, listen, listen, Jack,
you don't want to do it, right?
744
00:33:01,120 --> 00:33:03,380
Look what happened to the guy
that dropped the bomb in Hiroshima.
745
00:33:03,480 --> 00:33:05,520
He went crazy.
You don't want that to happen to you, do you?
746
00:33:05,680 --> 00:33:07,200
He goes, that asshole?
747
00:33:09,520 --> 00:33:11,280
He was not properly brainwashed.
748
00:33:12,160 --> 00:33:14,700
I, he says with great pride,
have been properly brainwashed.
749
00:33:15,080 --> 00:33:16,960
And also it's a nuclear destruct club, man.
750
00:33:17,020 --> 00:33:17,960
It's a brotherhood of fear.
751
00:33:18,160 --> 00:33:20,520
It's a whole bunch of people
pressing those buttons, not just one.
752
00:33:20,580 --> 00:33:23,360
I said, I know, Jack,
but if a whole bunch of you press those buttons,
753
00:33:23,500 --> 00:33:24,500
you're going to blow up the world.
754
00:33:24,580 --> 00:33:25,120
You don't want that.
755
00:33:25,200 --> 00:33:26,740
I mean, think of all you have to live for.
756
00:33:28,080 --> 00:33:29,500
Here I was hard pressed.
757
00:33:30,800 --> 00:33:31,940
The blue flag cocaine.
758
00:33:32,680 --> 00:33:33,980
Getting picked up by the couples.
759
00:33:34,560 --> 00:33:36,740
Blowing away the cobwebs between your wife's legs.
760
00:33:37,280 --> 00:33:38,160
The Swedish whores.
761
00:33:38,480 --> 00:33:39,300
Any of that.
762
00:33:39,460 --> 00:33:40,760
He said, I'm not going to die.
763
00:33:41,040 --> 00:33:41,780
I said, how do you know?
764
00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:42,880
We got pubs.
765
00:33:43,060 --> 00:33:44,020
Everything was abbreviated.
766
00:33:44,140 --> 00:33:44,640
What are pubs?
767
00:33:44,800 --> 00:33:49,220
Pubs are Navy publications that tell
them where to go to avoid the radiation
768
00:33:49,220 --> 00:33:51,400
after all of us have been vaporized.
769
00:33:51,580 --> 00:33:55,380
And at that moment,
I pictured him actually down under in Tasmania
770
00:33:55,640 --> 00:34:00,900
starting a new, small-eared,
red-faced, pea-brained humanoid race
771
00:34:00,900 --> 00:34:02,720
after all of us have gone.
772
00:34:02,820 --> 00:34:06,680
And I thought, you know, the mother needs a rest.
773
00:34:07,400 --> 00:34:11,500
Mother Earth deserves a long,
long rest with no people on her.
774
00:34:12,020 --> 00:34:15,380
Maybe if we're lucky,
after all of us have been vaporized,
775
00:34:16,480 --> 00:34:19,400
Jack will end up in Africa.
776
00:34:25,680 --> 00:34:28,240
He could see I wasn't exactly on his side.
777
00:34:28,560 --> 00:34:30,820
It was subtle, but he could see it.
778
00:34:32,120 --> 00:34:34,520
And he turned to me,
and he was starting to get a little pissed,
779
00:34:34,600 --> 00:34:37,180
and he said, listen, Mr. Spalding.
780
00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:40,020
I think by now he's calling me Gary Spalding.
781
00:34:42,680 --> 00:34:45,780
You would not be doing your,
what is it you do again for a living?
782
00:34:46,000 --> 00:34:47,000
Your talking cure.
783
00:34:48,260 --> 00:34:50,420
If it was not for me and the United States Navy
784
00:34:50,420 --> 00:34:53,100
protecting you from the
Russians taking over the world.
785
00:34:55,560 --> 00:34:56,360
I thought, wait a minute.
786
00:34:56,380 --> 00:34:57,780
Wait a minute. Maybe he's right.
787
00:34:58,540 --> 00:35:00,180
Maybe the Russians are
trying to take over the world.
788
00:35:01,060 --> 00:35:02,660
Maybe I'm the one that's brainwashed.
789
00:35:03,360 --> 00:35:05,580
Maybe I've been hanging
out with liberals too long.
790
00:35:06,400 --> 00:35:07,120
Maybe I'm deluded.
791
00:35:07,240 --> 00:35:11,000
Maybe all this time I thought
I was a conscientious pacifist.
792
00:35:11,160 --> 00:35:14,460
I was really just a passive-aggressive,
unconscious coward.
793
00:35:15,840 --> 00:35:17,740
I mean, and like any good liberal,
794
00:35:18,040 --> 00:35:22,600
I should question everything, right?
795
00:35:22,660 --> 00:35:23,640
So I should question this.
796
00:35:23,760 --> 00:35:25,680
For instance, when did I last make a stand?
797
00:35:25,720 --> 00:35:27,000
Just stand up, for instance,
798
00:35:27,060 --> 00:35:28,660
let alone for the United States of America.
799
00:35:28,900 --> 00:35:30,600
Every time I try to think of
the United States of America,
800
00:35:30,660 --> 00:35:31,500
I get the cold sweats.
801
00:35:31,580 --> 00:35:33,060
I can't even look at a weather map anymore.
802
00:35:33,140 --> 00:35:33,920
It's too big.
803
00:35:34,200 --> 00:35:35,700
That's part of why I moved to Manhattan.
804
00:35:36,160 --> 00:35:39,100
I wanted to move to an
island off the coast of America,
805
00:35:39,520 --> 00:35:41,460
somewhere between Europe and America
806
00:35:41,460 --> 00:35:44,820
with only 17 million people and clear boundaries,
807
00:35:44,900 --> 00:35:46,820
outlines, something you can get a grasp of.
808
00:35:50,930 --> 00:35:52,090
My girlfriend, Renee,
809
00:35:53,250 --> 00:35:56,050
her upstairs neighbor is
a member of the art mafia.
810
00:35:57,330 --> 00:35:58,630
She first got involved with it
811
00:35:58,630 --> 00:35:59,690
when she was working for the man
812
00:35:59,690 --> 00:36:01,810
that defaced the Guernica and became famous for it
813
00:36:01,810 --> 00:36:03,530
and now has galleries all over Soho.
814
00:36:04,650 --> 00:36:06,290
Now she has her own gallery.
815
00:36:07,350 --> 00:36:12,210
She plays her quadraphonic
torture box full blast above us.
816
00:36:12,330 --> 00:36:14,430
Every night, it's Bob Dylan's Sarah.
817
00:36:15,530 --> 00:36:17,670
Something must have happened to her way back then,
818
00:36:17,730 --> 00:36:19,250
and she really, I know it could be worse,
819
00:36:19,650 --> 00:36:21,630
but every night, it's unbelievable.
820
00:36:21,630 --> 00:36:22,710
It's like you're in the room with it.
821
00:36:22,790 --> 00:36:24,390
I mean, if it was just 1.30 in the morning, fine.
822
00:36:24,430 --> 00:36:25,330
It would be like feeding time.
823
00:36:25,370 --> 00:36:27,350
You could get through it, but it's diabolical.
824
00:36:27,410 --> 00:36:28,650
It's 1.36 in the morning.
825
00:36:28,770 --> 00:36:29,590
It's 2.10 in the morning.
826
00:36:29,690 --> 00:36:30,770
It's 3.15 in the morning.
827
00:36:30,850 --> 00:36:32,310
It's 4.11 in the morning.
828
00:36:32,370 --> 00:36:32,850
What do you do?
829
00:36:32,910 --> 00:36:33,550
You call the police.
830
00:36:33,630 --> 00:36:34,490
They come, she turns it down.
831
00:36:34,550 --> 00:36:35,330
They leave, she turns it up.
832
00:36:35,390 --> 00:36:36,170
They come, she turns it down.
833
00:36:36,230 --> 00:36:37,150
They leave, she turns it up.
834
00:36:37,410 --> 00:36:38,490
I mean, she's up there.
835
00:36:38,750 --> 00:36:40,690
She gets these guys in from the Midwest
836
00:36:40,690 --> 00:36:42,550
that want to become rich and famous in a year,
837
00:36:42,630 --> 00:36:44,310
make five-figure number here in Soho.
838
00:36:44,450 --> 00:36:46,670
They come in,
they're sleeping in sleeping bags on her floor.
839
00:36:46,670 --> 00:36:48,950
Whenever we complain, she sends them down,
840
00:36:49,050 --> 00:36:53,110
and they go, hey, look,
man, New York is party city.
841
00:36:53,530 --> 00:36:55,030
That's why we moved here, you see.
842
00:36:55,190 --> 00:36:56,950
You can have parties on weeknights.
843
00:36:57,430 --> 00:37:00,670
Now, if you don't dig it,
you should move to the country,
844
00:37:01,210 --> 00:37:02,110
old man.
845
00:37:02,990 --> 00:37:03,930
I go back.
846
00:37:04,030 --> 00:37:05,850
I'm trying to practice my Buddhist tolerance,
847
00:37:06,270 --> 00:37:08,010
which in New York City could be translated
848
00:37:08,010 --> 00:37:10,390
to one big escapist rationalization, right?
849
00:37:10,690 --> 00:37:14,530
I mean, I'm turning all my
cheeks to the wall at this point.
850
00:37:14,970 --> 00:37:17,470
Renee is not practicing Buddhist tolerance.
851
00:37:17,830 --> 00:37:19,250
She's walking up and down.
852
00:37:19,350 --> 00:37:21,930
She's got steam screaming out of her navel.
853
00:37:22,250 --> 00:37:24,470
And there are people that
say we should start a collection
854
00:37:24,470 --> 00:37:26,990
to hire a vigilante to off this woman,
to kill her.
855
00:37:27,110 --> 00:37:28,830
And I find I'm not saying no.
856
00:37:29,370 --> 00:37:30,830
That's how New York has changed me.
857
00:37:30,890 --> 00:37:32,630
I'm willing to put money into the pot.
858
00:37:33,290 --> 00:37:34,590
I mean, listen, listen, listen.
859
00:37:34,670 --> 00:37:38,430
When I was back in Boston in 1964 with my people,
right,
860
00:37:38,630 --> 00:37:41,550
white bread, homogeneous brick wall Boston,
861
00:37:41,670 --> 00:37:44,470
back in 1964 when they had the,
what would you call it then?
862
00:37:44,530 --> 00:37:45,490
It was a hi-fi.
863
00:37:46,390 --> 00:37:48,910
If a hi-fi was on too loud above me,
864
00:37:49,070 --> 00:37:50,730
I would simply make a phone call.
865
00:37:50,950 --> 00:37:52,990
I would just call up, pick up the phone and go,
866
00:37:53,270 --> 00:37:55,450
Hi, hi, Puffy, hi.
867
00:37:58,110 --> 00:37:59,630
Hi, it's Buddy Gray down here.
868
00:37:59,790 --> 00:38:00,430
Hi, guys.
869
00:38:01,230 --> 00:38:02,590
Yeah, just a few notches.
870
00:38:02,650 --> 00:38:03,590
I wouldn't ask you to do it,
871
00:38:03,630 --> 00:38:05,450
but I got an early dance class in the morning.
872
00:38:06,010 --> 00:38:06,370
Right.
873
00:38:06,650 --> 00:38:07,730
Yep, thanks a lot, Puff.
874
00:38:07,870 --> 00:38:08,070
Mm-hmm.
875
00:38:08,210 --> 00:38:09,670
Merry Christmas to you too, guys.
876
00:38:09,770 --> 00:38:10,130
Bye.
877
00:38:11,270 --> 00:38:12,090
Write down.
878
00:38:13,230 --> 00:38:14,550
We had the common language.
879
00:38:15,590 --> 00:38:18,690
You know, Renee,
Renee's father was in the Jewish mafia.
880
00:38:19,030 --> 00:38:19,790
She knows the language.
881
00:38:20,270 --> 00:38:21,950
She grew up in the streets of New York.
882
00:38:22,050 --> 00:38:23,070
She calls up and goes,
883
00:38:23,490 --> 00:38:26,250
Bet you wanna die, right, bitch, cunt?
884
00:38:26,470 --> 00:38:28,930
I'll beat your fucking
face in with a baseball bat.
885
00:38:29,210 --> 00:38:32,430
Bitch, cunt, die, die, die.
886
00:38:35,670 --> 00:38:36,410
Goes louder.
887
00:38:38,390 --> 00:38:40,090
Renee's convinced the woman's a masochist
888
00:38:40,090 --> 00:38:41,290
and is getting off on the language.
889
00:38:41,410 --> 00:38:43,630
So the other day, I am walking out of her loft.
890
00:38:43,750 --> 00:38:46,810
I have an empty Molson Gold bottle in my hand.
891
00:38:47,110 --> 00:38:48,990
I don't know,
I guess I was going to get my nickel back.
892
00:38:49,470 --> 00:38:53,210
And I am seized with these party sounds upstairs.
893
00:38:54,270 --> 00:38:56,390
I'm taking, I'm not out of control.
894
00:38:56,490 --> 00:38:57,630
It's a classic Greek rage.
895
00:38:57,850 --> 00:38:59,370
My head and gut are completely balanced.
896
00:38:59,590 --> 00:39:01,070
My gut is wrenching with butterflies.
897
00:39:01,390 --> 00:39:02,630
My head has that old adage,
898
00:39:02,710 --> 00:39:04,690
that old ticker tape going across the fur,
you know,
899
00:39:04,950 --> 00:39:07,450
that old adage, all weakness tends to corrupt,
900
00:39:07,990 --> 00:39:09,570
impotence corrupts absolutely.
901
00:39:10,150 --> 00:39:14,070
And I just took that bottle and, zoom, hurled it.
902
00:39:14,170 --> 00:39:16,370
It went up two flights of stairs,
it exploded, boom,
903
00:39:16,770 --> 00:39:18,550
glass everywhere like a glass hand grenade.
904
00:39:18,750 --> 00:39:21,130
They charged out with their bats and guns.
905
00:39:21,550 --> 00:39:22,190
I ran.
906
00:39:23,770 --> 00:39:25,250
Because it was an act of passion,
907
00:39:25,330 --> 00:39:27,090
I forgot to tell Renee I was going to do it.
908
00:39:27,310 --> 00:39:30,110
And she was way behind me
picking up plastic garbage bags.
909
00:39:30,470 --> 00:39:32,870
So by the time she got to the door,
they caught her.
910
00:39:33,830 --> 00:39:35,810
But they didn't do anything
because she was innocent.
911
00:39:35,950 --> 00:39:38,170
She had no idea what they were talking about.
912
00:39:38,450 --> 00:39:40,910
And they recognized this innocence,
913
00:39:40,910 --> 00:39:42,030
so they didn't kill her.
914
00:39:43,250 --> 00:39:44,310
So there's hope.
915
00:39:46,750 --> 00:39:52,250
But I say, how does a country like America,
916
00:39:52,950 --> 00:39:54,330
or rather, how does America,
917
00:39:54,450 --> 00:39:56,030
because certainly there's no country like it,
918
00:39:56,310 --> 00:39:59,590
begin to find the language to negotiate or talk
919
00:39:59,590 --> 00:40:01,450
with a country like Russia or Libya?
920
00:40:01,690 --> 00:40:05,830
If I can't even begin to get it with my people
921
00:40:05,830 --> 00:40:09,190
on the corner of Broadway and John Street.
922
00:40:14,410 --> 00:40:15,750
So I got the role.
923
00:40:18,990 --> 00:40:20,290
And I went to Bangkok.
924
00:40:21,250 --> 00:40:24,470
And I arrived, a 200-year-old city in a swamp,
925
00:40:24,570 --> 00:40:27,310
and sinking 110 degrees,
I get a letter under the door
926
00:40:27,310 --> 00:40:29,910
that says, welcome, Spalding Gray Esquire,
927
00:40:30,810 --> 00:40:32,090
the British spoil you rotten.
928
00:40:32,170 --> 00:40:33,990
They refer to all the actors as artists.
929
00:40:34,030 --> 00:40:37,170
The AD goes,
would the artist please get on the helicopters?
930
00:40:37,310 --> 00:40:39,010
Would the artist please jump off the cliff?
931
00:40:39,110 --> 00:40:39,910
Would the artist please?
932
00:40:40,190 --> 00:40:42,850
I mean, they will get you to do anything that way.
933
00:40:44,290 --> 00:40:46,750
Now, the first big scene of the film,
934
00:40:47,410 --> 00:40:48,730
or rather my first big scene,
935
00:40:48,850 --> 00:40:50,570
which felt like the first big scene,
936
00:40:50,990 --> 00:40:53,630
was here in Bangkok, outside of Bangkok.
937
00:40:53,750 --> 00:40:56,790
Remember, we are reenacting
the events of April of 75
938
00:40:56,790 --> 00:41:00,010
that happened in Phnom Penh,
but we are doing it in Bangkok.
939
00:41:00,370 --> 00:41:02,950
And the first big scene for me is the reenacting
940
00:41:02,950 --> 00:41:05,630
of the evacuation of the
American Embassy in April of 75.
941
00:41:06,310 --> 00:41:09,110
And I am there with the man that's
playing the American ambassador,
942
00:41:09,250 --> 00:41:10,310
Ira Wheeler, interesting man.
943
00:41:10,450 --> 00:41:12,390
He was vice president of Celanese Chemical,
944
00:41:12,930 --> 00:41:15,510
and someone saw him singing
in the Glee Club here in New York
945
00:41:15,510 --> 00:41:17,570
after he retired,
and they put him in the Killing Fields
946
00:41:17,570 --> 00:41:18,990
thinking he'd look like the American ambassador,
947
00:41:18,990 --> 00:41:21,590
so he's beginning his film career at 64 years old.
948
00:41:21,930 --> 00:41:24,170
He's playing the American ambassador,
John Gunther Dean,
949
00:41:24,250 --> 00:41:26,430
who was the last American
ambassador in Phnom Penh,
950
00:41:26,790 --> 00:41:29,970
was flown out,
now is American ambassador of Thailand in Bangkok.
951
00:41:30,670 --> 00:41:32,010
John Gunther Dean.
952
00:41:32,390 --> 00:41:35,130
I've met politicians before,
but I've never met statesmen.
953
00:41:35,210 --> 00:41:37,350
This man was a noble, noble man,
954
00:41:37,610 --> 00:41:40,370
a combination of a ship's captain,
we'll say the QE2,
955
00:41:40,610 --> 00:41:43,870
and a boarding school principal,
let's say Phillips Andover Academy, right?
956
00:41:44,050 --> 00:41:49,610
He said, We saw Cambodia as
a ship floundering in heavy seas.
957
00:41:50,190 --> 00:41:53,590
We wanted nothing more than
to bring that ship safely into port.
958
00:41:53,790 --> 00:41:56,010
When we saw we weren't
going to be able to do that,
959
00:41:56,230 --> 00:41:57,810
we wanted to go off her with dignity.
960
00:41:58,110 --> 00:42:00,850
I cut down the American
flag you see here behind me
961
00:42:00,850 --> 00:42:03,010
and wrapped it in plastic over my arm,
962
00:42:03,190 --> 00:42:05,810
and sure enough, there was Ira
Wheeler playing the American ambassador
963
00:42:05,810 --> 00:42:08,570
running with the American flag
wrapped in plastic over his arm,
964
00:42:08,790 --> 00:42:10,870
me, the American ambassador's aide,
running beside him,
965
00:42:10,930 --> 00:42:12,130
headed for the Cadillac limousine.
966
00:42:12,310 --> 00:42:15,470
The first thing that happens when you
get there is that the air conditioner breaks.
967
00:42:15,650 --> 00:42:18,070
Then the electric windows break,
the radiator boils over,
968
00:42:18,110 --> 00:42:20,910
and the entire exhaust system is
dragging on the ground by the end of the day.
969
00:42:21,070 --> 00:42:22,970
I am laughing, I find this very funny.
970
00:42:23,110 --> 00:42:24,610
Ira is not laughing, he is sweating.
971
00:42:24,810 --> 00:42:28,590
This man sweats like-a, like-a, like-an Ira,
I would have to say.
972
00:42:28,790 --> 00:42:30,150
They are changing his shirt.
973
00:42:30,330 --> 00:42:32,010
He is back there in a slough of despond,
974
00:42:32,070 --> 00:42:34,970
because for the first time in his life
he's studying Stanislavski in acting,
975
00:42:35,310 --> 00:42:38,330
and he's brought the textbook An
Actor Prepares and Building a Character,
976
00:42:38,610 --> 00:42:40,170
and he's trying to do an emotional memory
977
00:42:40,170 --> 00:42:43,570
because the director, Roland Joffe, has
told him to look like he's on the verge of tears,
978
00:42:43,750 --> 00:42:46,170
and he's trying to be on
the verge of tears all day,
979
00:42:46,290 --> 00:42:47,810
just in case they turn the camera on.
980
00:42:48,010 --> 00:42:50,490
He is in a slough of despond in the backseat
981
00:42:50,490 --> 00:42:52,410
thinking about something awful from his past.
982
00:42:52,410 --> 00:42:55,010
Up until then we've been friends,
now he's not talking to me.
983
00:42:55,170 --> 00:42:57,190
I'm bored, so I'm talking to the driver.
984
00:42:57,310 --> 00:43:00,070
He's an extra,
an American expatriate from San Francisco
985
00:43:00,070 --> 00:43:04,610
who says America has gone to the dogs,
gone to the wow-wows, he called it.
986
00:43:04,790 --> 00:43:07,670
He's gone to Thailand, the pure land,
to become an elephant expert.
987
00:43:07,950 --> 00:43:11,170
He is working for the Thai Agricultural
Committee counting elephants.
988
00:43:11,350 --> 00:43:12,330
That's what he does for a living.
989
00:43:12,610 --> 00:43:14,430
He sleeps at night with
the elephants on the ground.
990
00:43:14,510 --> 00:43:15,610
The elephants sleep standing up.
991
00:43:15,690 --> 00:43:17,430
In the day he gets up with
his little elephant counter
992
00:43:17,430 --> 00:43:18,790
and goes out counting the elephants.
993
00:43:19,210 --> 00:43:21,510
The only problem is, he said,
he has a bum leg now,
994
00:43:21,510 --> 00:43:24,190
a game leg, and he can't outrun
an elephant if it charges.
995
00:43:24,290 --> 00:43:26,130
And it will charge in his
sleep if you wake it.
996
00:43:26,330 --> 00:43:29,490
And he said he may be killed within
the next month or so by an elephant.
997
00:43:29,630 --> 00:43:31,870
In the middle of all this,
Ira Wheeler looks up and says,
998
00:43:32,190 --> 00:43:33,810
Will you stop it, please?
999
00:43:34,050 --> 00:43:36,810
Will you stop whatever it is
you're talking about up there?
1000
00:43:36,970 --> 00:43:39,070
I am trying to have an emotional memory.
1001
00:43:39,490 --> 00:43:43,550
I said, Ira, here is a man that's
actually about to be killed by an elephant.
1002
00:43:43,950 --> 00:43:46,390
Try working with that one.
1003
00:43:46,890 --> 00:43:48,930
And here we are, driving through black smoke,
1004
00:43:49,010 --> 00:43:52,330
pouring off of burning rubber tires
that they're making look like a real war,
1005
00:43:52,550 --> 00:43:55,730
headed for the non-existent Sikorsky
helicopter we're supposed to get on.
1006
00:43:55,790 --> 00:43:58,330
It's not there, I assume,
because the American Air Force
1007
00:43:58,330 --> 00:44:01,030
has not given the Thai Air
Force Sikorsky helicopters yet.
1008
00:44:01,090 --> 00:44:04,210
Just these little choppers
driving through Marine Guards,
1009
00:44:04,330 --> 00:44:05,610
Americans dressed as Marines.
1010
00:44:05,710 --> 00:44:06,770
Who are these guys?
1011
00:44:07,030 --> 00:44:08,910
I suppose some of them
didn't get enough of the war,
1012
00:44:08,990 --> 00:44:10,850
so they're over there joining Bo Gritz,
1013
00:44:10,890 --> 00:44:14,410
who's starting his own foreign legion,
to go in to look for MIAs and LAOs.
1014
00:44:14,790 --> 00:44:17,350
Others are Americans that are
there dealing drugs,
1015
00:44:17,350 --> 00:44:19,450
which is extremely lucrative
but very dangerous,
1016
00:44:19,650 --> 00:44:24,550
and others are Americans
that are there for sex and drugs.
1017
00:44:24,990 --> 00:44:26,910
Capital S, small d.
1018
00:44:27,490 --> 00:44:32,310
Because on one lower chakra level,
Bangkok is one big whorehouse.
1019
00:44:33,490 --> 00:44:36,830
Now,
it's not all our fault for the R&R and the war,
1020
00:44:36,950 --> 00:44:40,730
the Australian tourists or the Japanese
sex tours that come through in busloads.
1021
00:44:41,050 --> 00:44:45,550
Certainly the tradition of concubines
existed for thousands of years in Thailand,
1022
00:44:45,890 --> 00:44:48,710
but we kind of blew it out of
hand with the Vietnam War.
1023
00:44:49,090 --> 00:44:51,530
We had Quonset huts filled with Thai prostitutes
1024
00:44:51,530 --> 00:44:55,830
that were drinking a kind of Chinese
herbal medicine for birth control,
1025
00:44:56,070 --> 00:44:58,850
so there were a lot of Amerasian
children born out of this experience.
1026
00:44:59,410 --> 00:45:01,930
Now, after the war,
they knocked down those Quonset huts
1027
00:45:01,930 --> 00:45:05,030
and moved all the prostitutes
back to the red light district, Patpong.
1028
00:45:05,270 --> 00:45:07,270
If you've been in Bangkok,
I'm sure you've seen it.
1029
00:45:07,330 --> 00:45:08,450
There's not that much to see.
1030
00:45:08,710 --> 00:45:11,590
You can see the gold Buddha
in the day and Patpong at night.
1031
00:45:12,090 --> 00:45:13,590
If you saw The Deer Hunter recently,
1032
00:45:13,690 --> 00:45:18,370
those shots in Saigon were shot in
the Mississippi Queen Bar in Patpong.
1033
00:45:18,590 --> 00:45:20,410
You go into the Mississippi Queen Bar,
1034
00:45:20,630 --> 00:45:22,490
it's like they're still shooting the Deer Hunter.
1035
00:45:22,750 --> 00:45:26,970
There is no sense of seduction
as in across a crowded room.
1036
00:45:27,410 --> 00:45:32,030
They fly to you and stick, and their body
is big enough and they are small enough
1037
00:45:32,030 --> 00:45:33,150
you feel like a Christmas tree.
1038
00:45:33,230 --> 00:45:36,770
You can hold six of them, two in your elbow,
two in your lap, two in your shoulders,
1039
00:45:36,910 --> 00:45:40,870
and they are laughing and giggling,
and they are so apparently happy,
1040
00:45:40,870 --> 00:45:43,510
and they are grabbing at your
tinkler and grabbing at your wallet,
1041
00:45:43,630 --> 00:45:47,050
and they are so cute, and if you can
make up your mind which one you like,
1042
00:45:47,090 --> 00:45:53,550
you can go back to your hotel and spend
the entire night for $26 a 500 Thai baht.
1043
00:45:53,930 --> 00:45:57,090
Now, if you don't want to do that,
because you don't want to be kept awake
1044
00:45:57,090 --> 00:46:02,130
by a laughing, giggling Thai prostitute,
and you want to be in control,
1045
00:46:02,730 --> 00:46:05,290
you can instead go to a massage parlor.
1046
00:46:05,790 --> 00:46:08,490
And the massage parlors are
very much like department stores.
1047
00:46:08,610 --> 00:46:13,070
Every floor has about 35 women
fully dressed with numbers on,
1048
00:46:13,190 --> 00:46:17,130
sitting on tiers under fluorescent lights,
all looking at one point.
1049
00:46:17,390 --> 00:46:19,730
It's not the Buddha, it's the TV set.
1050
00:46:20,610 --> 00:46:25,390
Now, the men walk back and forth
by this one-way mirror like little sultans
1051
00:46:25,390 --> 00:46:29,070
until they see, if not the perfect woman,
at least the perfect body,
1052
00:46:29,330 --> 00:46:32,730
and then they say,
Would you call number eight for me, please?
1053
00:46:32,990 --> 00:46:35,450
And the man goes, Number eight?
1054
00:46:36,290 --> 00:46:39,930
And number eight stands up, and you can
tell immediately by the expression on her face
1055
00:46:39,930 --> 00:46:41,870
it's not going to be as great as you fantasized,
1056
00:46:41,970 --> 00:46:44,870
because among other things,
you've interrupted her TV show.
1057
00:46:45,890 --> 00:46:48,910
And for a little bit of money,
you go down to a small room.
1058
00:46:49,170 --> 00:46:51,330
She stays fully dressed, you get completely naked,
1059
00:46:51,450 --> 00:46:53,930
and she gives you a mild tweak,
tweak, tweak, massage,
1060
00:46:54,250 --> 00:46:56,250
just surface, nothing right keen about it.
1061
00:46:56,570 --> 00:46:59,950
A little bit more money, she gets naked,
and now you're both naked,
1062
00:46:59,990 --> 00:47:03,910
and the mama-san is poking her head all the
time in to see that it's progressing financially.
1063
00:47:04,070 --> 00:47:06,410
She closes the door and goes out,
and now you're both naked,
1064
00:47:06,450 --> 00:47:09,070
and she gives you another mild tweak,
tweak, tweak, massage,
1065
00:47:09,070 --> 00:47:14,410
nothing deep about it, only occasionally you
feel her warm flesh brush up against your flesh.
1066
00:47:14,870 --> 00:47:17,250
And a little bit more money,
and you get a handjob.
1067
00:47:17,690 --> 00:47:20,470
And a little bit more money,
and you get to fuck her.
1068
00:47:21,030 --> 00:47:27,390
And a little bit more money, and you get the
supremo, supremo, the body, body massage.
1069
00:47:28,450 --> 00:47:33,030
She takes you and puts you in a bathtub and
soaps you up into your slipperiest bar of soap,
1070
00:47:33,030 --> 00:47:34,410
and she doesn't rinse you.
1071
00:47:34,970 --> 00:47:37,670
Then she puts you on a water
bed and she gets in that same tub
1072
00:47:37,670 --> 00:47:40,690
and soaps herself up until
she's as slippery as a bar of soap,
1073
00:47:40,890 --> 00:47:41,950
and she doesn't rinse.
1074
00:47:42,370 --> 00:47:45,750
And she gets on one side of the room
and takes this running gallop and goes,
1075
00:47:45,970 --> 00:47:48,270
boop, boom, and lands on top of you,
1076
00:47:48,310 --> 00:47:49,850
and it's body, body, squiggle, squiggle,
1077
00:47:50,150 --> 00:47:53,230
bubbles coming out between you,
you sound like two huge sewer plungers,
1078
00:47:53,410 --> 00:47:56,690
there's nothing erotic about it,
it's downright hilarious,
1079
00:47:57,070 --> 00:47:59,530
and when she finishes with
you, for the finale,
1080
00:47:59,530 --> 00:48:02,430
and I only heard about this,
I never saw it or had it.
1081
00:48:02,530 --> 00:48:05,350
It's called Boobly Oobly,
it's the final facial massage.
1082
00:48:05,710 --> 00:48:06,650
The GIs loved it.
1083
00:48:06,690 --> 00:48:08,410
If she had large breasts, she'd part them,
1084
00:48:08,490 --> 00:48:10,270
they'd stick their faces in and she'd cry out,
1085
00:48:10,550 --> 00:48:12,410
Boobly Oobly and let go.
1086
00:48:14,250 --> 00:48:17,610
Now, after you've been fuck,
sucked, had your tubes cleaned,
1087
00:48:17,710 --> 00:48:19,850
nose cleaned,
toes cleaned and you're ready for more,
1088
00:48:19,950 --> 00:48:22,150
for rest and relaxation, you can at last go
1089
00:48:22,150 --> 00:48:26,190
to Unwinded,
a live show in which women do everything
1090
00:48:26,190 --> 00:48:28,690
with their vaginas except having babies.
1091
00:48:28,810 --> 00:48:31,810
It starts with ping pong
balls and she's fully loaded
1092
00:48:31,810 --> 00:48:36,150
so they fire an automatic
into a soda fountain glass.
1093
00:48:36,350 --> 00:48:38,650
So it's pooh, pooh, pooh,
pooh, pooh, pow, pow, pow.
1094
00:48:39,370 --> 00:48:42,310
Then out comes the Coke bottle
and it's a king size Coke bottle,
1095
00:48:42,430 --> 00:48:44,070
a glass one I haven't seen in years.
1096
00:48:44,370 --> 00:48:46,450
And she shakes that bottle and she shakes it
1097
00:48:46,450 --> 00:48:47,870
and she shakes it and she shakes it.
1098
00:48:48,030 --> 00:48:50,630
She shakes it for so long you
begin to think that's the whole
1099
00:48:50,630 --> 00:48:52,310
act, just that shaking of that bottle.
1100
00:48:52,670 --> 00:48:54,510
And just to prove that that cap is on tight
1101
00:48:54,510 --> 00:48:56,110
and at last she opens it.
1102
00:48:56,170 --> 00:48:57,610
And I don't know how she does it.
1103
00:48:57,610 --> 00:49:01,850
I don't know if there is a
bottle opener in there or teeth,
1104
00:49:02,150 --> 00:49:05,730
but it sprays all over the audience brown,
warm Coca-Cola.
1105
00:49:06,030 --> 00:49:08,430
And what's left of it she
pours back into her vagina,
1106
00:49:08,730 --> 00:49:10,670
squirts over the bottle and refills it
1107
00:49:10,670 --> 00:49:12,870
like a Coca-Cola bottling machine.
1108
00:49:13,750 --> 00:49:16,650
Then out comes the banana.
1109
00:49:17,490 --> 00:49:20,410
And she takes a few lame
shots like the Russian rockets,
1110
00:49:20,470 --> 00:49:23,110
they're going to sputter and
pop and land in our cornfields.
1111
00:49:23,270 --> 00:49:26,270
And for the finale,
she aims her vagina down the main aisle
1112
00:49:26,270 --> 00:49:29,190
like a great cannon,
loads it with a very ripe banana
1113
00:49:29,190 --> 00:49:32,270
and fires it, almost hits me in the eye,
1114
00:49:32,390 --> 00:49:34,230
almost hits an Australian housewife in the head,
1115
00:49:34,470 --> 00:49:37,070
hits the back wall and sticks.
1116
00:49:39,030 --> 00:49:43,830
And slowly it inches its way down until it lands
1117
00:49:43,830 --> 00:49:48,390
and is devoured instantly
by an army of giant roaches.
1118
00:49:58,820 --> 00:50:03,760
April 12th,
1975 was the actual evacuation of Phnom Penh.
1119
00:50:04,900 --> 00:50:07,220
Lan Nol had long since fled to Hawaii.
1120
00:50:08,240 --> 00:50:11,720
Two million people in the
city now instead of 600,000.
1121
00:50:12,440 --> 00:50:14,580
Khmer Rouge rockets coming
in at random and landing
1122
00:50:14,580 --> 00:50:17,060
in hospitals, kids in the streets,
schools, whatever.
1123
00:50:17,640 --> 00:50:19,720
American Ambassador John Gunther Dean says,
1124
00:50:20,100 --> 00:50:22,440
we have two and a half hours,
all Cambodian officials
1125
00:50:22,440 --> 00:50:24,980
and Americans,
two and a half hours to evacuate the country.
1126
00:50:25,620 --> 00:50:28,180
Cambodians say, two and a half hours,
1127
00:50:28,700 --> 00:50:31,960
two and a half hours, we're ruined.
1128
00:50:32,620 --> 00:50:34,680
How are we going to convince the Russians in two
1129
00:50:34,680 --> 00:50:36,460
and a half hours that we're socialists?
1130
00:50:37,220 --> 00:50:40,680
So this leaves behind the Cambodian officials,
Long Bure,
1131
00:50:41,100 --> 00:50:43,980
Lan Nan and Prince Sirik Matak.
1132
00:50:44,180 --> 00:50:47,380
Lan Nol had two brothers,
Lan Nan and Lan Nil.
1133
00:50:50,020 --> 00:50:53,120
Long Bure, Lan Nan and
Prince Sirik Matak decide
1134
00:50:53,120 --> 00:50:53,900
to stay behind.
1135
00:50:53,900 --> 00:50:57,080
Prince Sirik Matak sends a letter
1136
00:50:57,080 --> 00:51:00,220
to the American Ambassador telling him
1137
00:51:00,220 --> 00:51:04,300
that they've decided not to
go out with the evacuation.
1138
00:51:04,560 --> 00:51:08,080
He reads, dear Excellency and friend,
1139
00:51:08,960 --> 00:51:12,500
I thank you very sincerely
for your letter and for your offer
1140
00:51:12,500 --> 00:51:14,180
to transport me toward freedom.
1141
00:51:15,180 --> 00:51:18,440
I cannot alas leave in such a cowardly fashion.
1142
00:51:19,600 --> 00:51:22,240
As for you and in particular
for your great country,
1143
00:51:22,240 --> 00:51:25,380
I never believed for a moment
that you would have the sentiment
1144
00:51:25,380 --> 00:51:28,180
of abandoning a people which has chosen liberty.
1145
00:51:29,260 --> 00:51:31,020
You have refused us your protection
1146
00:51:31,020 --> 00:51:32,580
and we can do nothing about it.
1147
00:51:33,340 --> 00:51:36,100
You leave and it is my wish that you
1148
00:51:36,100 --> 00:51:38,840
and your country will find
happiness under the sky.
1149
00:51:40,160 --> 00:51:43,980
But mark it well that if I
shall die here on the spot
1150
00:51:43,980 --> 00:51:47,960
and in the country that I love, it is too bad
1151
00:51:47,960 --> 00:51:50,960
because we are all born and must one day die.
1152
00:51:50,960 --> 00:51:54,940
I have only committed this mistake of believing
1153
00:51:54,940 --> 00:51:56,440
in you, the Americans.
1154
00:51:58,060 --> 00:52:03,160
Please accept, Excellency,
my dear friend, my faithful
1155
00:52:03,160 --> 00:52:06,700
and friendly sentiments, Sirik Matak.
1156
00:52:09,260 --> 00:52:12,140
In five days later,
all three of their livers were carried
1157
00:52:12,140 --> 00:52:13,500
through the streets on sticks.
1158
00:52:14,820 --> 00:52:17,180
The Americans took off in their helicopters.
1159
00:52:17,340 --> 00:52:17,900
We took off.
1160
00:52:17,980 --> 00:52:19,520
We thought it was going to be like Da Nang
1161
00:52:19,560 --> 00:52:22,140
with the Vietnamese riding and holding
1162
00:52:22,140 --> 00:52:25,200
on to the helicopter wheels,
but the Cambodians didn't.
1163
00:52:25,300 --> 00:52:31,720
They just waved and went,
okay, bye-bye, okay, bye-bye,
1164
00:52:32,240 --> 00:52:35,620
okay, bye-bye, okay, bye-bye.
1165
00:52:36,400 --> 00:52:39,540
And as the last helicopter took off,
a Khmer Rouge rocket came
1166
00:52:39,540 --> 00:52:42,120
in and killed one of the innocent bystanders.
1167
00:52:42,940 --> 00:52:49,780
Five days later, April 17th,
1975, Cambodia year zero.
1168
00:52:51,100 --> 00:52:53,380
The Khmer Rouge marched in in
their black pajamas.
1169
00:52:54,100 --> 00:52:56,540
Lon Nol's army threw down their
guns and raced
1170
00:52:56,540 --> 00:52:57,580
to embrace them thinking
1171
00:52:57,580 --> 00:52:59,620
that the country would be reunited again.
1172
00:53:00,060 --> 00:53:02,020
But the Khmer Rouge did not smile back.
1173
00:53:02,460 --> 00:53:04,540
They took strategic positions in the town.
1174
00:53:05,100 --> 00:53:06,980
Some of the kids who grew up in the jungle
1175
00:53:06,980 --> 00:53:09,580
and never saw cars before
jumped in and started ramming them
1176
00:53:09,580 --> 00:53:11,400
into first gear and getting stuck in first gear,
1177
00:53:11,400 --> 00:53:13,240
driving into walls and trees.
1178
00:53:13,700 --> 00:53:15,760
And then the Khmer Rouge systematically began
1179
00:53:15,760 --> 00:53:17,520
to empty the city of Phnom Penh.
1180
00:53:17,800 --> 00:53:20,120
Out, they said, everyone, out, out, out,
1181
00:53:20,340 --> 00:53:21,580
into the fields, they say.
1182
00:53:21,900 --> 00:53:23,500
The Americans are going to bomb, they say.
1183
00:53:23,580 --> 00:53:24,900
There's no more food left.
1184
00:53:24,960 --> 00:53:27,120
When the people ask who will provide for them,
they say,
1185
00:53:27,220 --> 00:53:29,000
Angkor, Angkor will provide.
1186
00:53:29,280 --> 00:53:31,220
Angkor, like some perverse Wizard of Oz,
1187
00:53:31,500 --> 00:53:34,860
Kafkaesque thundercloud meant
to rain down mana on the people
1188
00:53:34,860 --> 00:53:37,000
in the fields and take nothing with you.
1189
00:53:37,180 --> 00:53:39,060
You had to go into the fields with no possessions.
1190
00:53:39,100 --> 00:53:41,820
And then if you couldn't walk or in the hospital,
1191
00:53:42,060 --> 00:53:43,260
they'd chuck you out the window.
1192
00:53:43,580 --> 00:53:46,520
Seven-story,
10-story kind of weird survival of the fittest.
1193
00:53:46,880 --> 00:53:48,060
And then the killing began.
1194
00:53:48,540 --> 00:53:51,000
Eyewitnesses said anyone
that was educated was killed.
1195
00:53:51,080 --> 00:53:52,560
Any civil servant was killed.
1196
00:53:52,780 --> 00:53:54,880
Anyone carrying their own cooking pot was killed.
1197
00:53:55,100 --> 00:53:56,900
People wearing glasses would be killed.
1198
00:53:57,160 --> 00:53:59,240
The motto was better to kill an innocent person
1199
00:53:59,240 --> 00:54:00,620
than to leave an enemy alive.
1200
00:54:01,260 --> 00:54:02,280
Dead, dead.
1201
00:54:02,780 --> 00:54:03,940
Kids were doing the killing.
1202
00:54:04,480 --> 00:54:05,960
10, 11, 12 years old.
1203
00:54:06,260 --> 00:54:08,680
They were too weak from
their diet from barks and bugs
1204
00:54:08,680 --> 00:54:10,400
and lizards and no more ammunition left.
1205
00:54:10,680 --> 00:54:13,300
So they were trying to knock
in skulls with these axe handles
1206
00:54:13,300 --> 00:54:15,680
and hoe handles,
but they were too weak to knock them in.
1207
00:54:15,940 --> 00:54:18,000
So eyewitnesses said the kids were taking bets
1208
00:54:18,000 --> 00:54:20,340
on how many whacks it
would take to knock in a skull.
1209
00:54:20,580 --> 00:54:23,000
And they were laughing,
a lot of laughter going on,
1210
00:54:23,020 --> 00:54:24,240
a lot of laughter.
1211
00:54:24,620 --> 00:54:26,560
And eyewitnesses said if
you pleaded for your life,
1212
00:54:26,640 --> 00:54:27,460
they would laugh harder.
1213
00:54:27,740 --> 00:54:29,180
If it was a woman pleading for her life,
1214
00:54:29,260 --> 00:54:30,620
the kids would laugh even harder.
1215
00:54:30,920 --> 00:54:33,340
And then they would take the
half-dead bodies and drag them
1216
00:54:33,340 --> 00:54:35,880
into American bomb craters, which acted as a kind
1217
00:54:35,880 --> 00:54:37,060
of perfect shallow grave.
1218
00:54:37,220 --> 00:54:40,180
And it was a kind of visitation of hell on earth.
1219
00:54:40,360 --> 00:54:43,500
Who needs metaphors for hell or poetry about hell?
1220
00:54:43,720 --> 00:54:45,720
This actually happened here on this earth.
1221
00:54:46,160 --> 00:54:50,160
Pregnant mothers disemboweled,
eyes gouged out, kids,
1222
00:54:50,320 --> 00:54:52,900
children torn apart like fresh
bread in front of their mothers.
1223
00:54:53,420 --> 00:54:57,220
And this went on for years
until 2 million people were either
1224
00:54:57,220 --> 00:55:01,360
systematically killed or starved
to death by the same people.
1225
00:55:01,860 --> 00:55:03,740
And no one can really figure out how something
1226
00:55:03,740 --> 00:55:04,740
like that could have happened.
1227
00:55:04,740 --> 00:55:07,560
Certainly,
it could research that other holocaust in Germany
1228
00:55:07,560 --> 00:55:10,340
because people speak a lot of German and read
1229
00:55:10,340 --> 00:55:12,440
and write German and Hitler's either dead
1230
00:55:12,440 --> 00:55:13,540
or living in Argentina.
1231
00:55:14,220 --> 00:55:17,540
But Cambodia is far,
far away and no one speaks enough Khmer
1232
00:55:17,540 --> 00:55:20,720
and Pol Pot is still alive and waiting up here
1233
00:55:20,720 --> 00:55:24,800
on the Thai-Cambodian border
with 35,000 troops supported
1234
00:55:24,800 --> 00:55:28,440
by the Red Cross, by the United Nations,
and by the United States
1235
00:55:28,440 --> 00:55:31,860
of America because so many
people would rather see him back
1236
00:55:31,860 --> 00:55:34,400
in Cambodia with his nationalist coalition rather
1237
00:55:34,400 --> 00:55:36,160
than the Vietnamese who were in there.
1238
00:55:36,180 --> 00:55:38,920
And they came in in 1979, some people,
1239
00:55:39,000 --> 00:55:41,620
the British particularly
saying that it was a liberation,
1240
00:55:41,960 --> 00:55:43,800
others saying it was a xenophobic piece
1241
00:55:43,800 --> 00:55:46,840
of cake just biting off
Cambodia to protect themselves
1242
00:55:46,840 --> 00:55:48,800
from China, and I get very confused.
1243
00:55:49,460 --> 00:55:51,900
And Roland Joffe came to me and said, Spalding,
1244
00:55:52,020 --> 00:55:53,640
I hope this film has taught you
1245
00:55:53,640 --> 00:55:56,080
that morality is not a movable feast.
1246
00:55:58,180 --> 00:56:02,520
And I get dizzy because I keep
seeing it moving all the time.
1247
00:56:13,520 --> 00:56:18,840
Now, the last big scene in the film,
or rather my last big scene
1248
00:56:18,840 --> 00:56:21,820
which felt like the last big scene was here.
1249
00:56:22,280 --> 00:56:27,620
Remember,
we're in Waihin near Bangkok on the Gulf of Siam.
1250
00:56:28,080 --> 00:56:30,260
We are staying in the pleasure prison in Waihin.
1251
00:56:30,420 --> 00:56:32,640
We're not shooting there,
but it's in that same town.
1252
00:56:33,560 --> 00:56:36,920
Right in town in Waihin is this
old hotel that looks very much
1253
00:56:36,920 --> 00:56:39,280
like the Hotel Phnom Penh, a Victorian hotel.
1254
00:56:39,540 --> 00:56:41,520
I'm told it looked exactly
like it except it didn't have a
1255
00:56:41,520 --> 00:56:42,660
swimming pool and a tennis court.
1256
00:56:42,820 --> 00:56:45,240
So the film built a swimming
pool and a tennis court
1257
00:56:45,240 --> 00:56:46,420
to make the hotel authentic.
1258
00:56:47,040 --> 00:56:49,060
Now, I'm playing the American Ambassador's aide,
1259
00:56:49,140 --> 00:56:50,880
and for my last scene all I have to do is simple,
1260
00:56:51,000 --> 00:56:51,920
is walk down the steps.
1261
00:56:52,120 --> 00:56:53,900
I'm leaking information to Sam Waterston
1262
00:56:53,900 --> 00:56:57,600
who's playing Sidney Shanberg,
and I just have to say,
1263
00:56:57,900 --> 00:57:01,180
a computer malfunction put
out the wrong set of coordinates.
1264
00:57:01,740 --> 00:57:04,520
Seems a single B-52 opened up over Nick Long.
1265
00:57:04,840 --> 00:57:06,880
There's a homing beacon
right in the middle of town.
1266
00:57:07,340 --> 00:57:08,340
Check it out, Sid.
1267
00:57:09,800 --> 00:57:13,520
Easy enough for some actors, but for this,
1268
00:57:13,580 --> 00:57:15,140
I cannot do stuff like this.
1269
00:57:15,200 --> 00:57:17,880
This technical language is
like doing algebra or geometry.
1270
00:57:18,100 --> 00:57:23,300
I have to make an internal film,
internal, to memorize this.
1271
00:57:23,460 --> 00:57:24,700
Right? My own particular images.
1272
00:57:24,880 --> 00:57:25,940
So I'm starting to go through it.
1273
00:57:26,320 --> 00:57:27,260
A computer malfunction.
1274
00:57:27,580 --> 00:57:30,040
I see a Macintosh with spaghetti coming out of it.
1275
00:57:30,460 --> 00:57:31,500
That works for me.
1276
00:57:31,840 --> 00:57:33,560
Put out a wrong set of coordinates.
1277
00:57:33,860 --> 00:57:36,660
I see an oscillator from
7th grade science project.
1278
00:57:36,740 --> 00:57:38,320
I don't know whose it was, but I remember a grid
1279
00:57:38,320 --> 00:57:39,080
work oscillator.
1280
00:57:39,580 --> 00:57:40,920
Seems a single B-52.
1281
00:57:41,400 --> 00:57:43,960
Well, God, I remember many B-52s
from many a drunken dinner
1282
00:57:43,960 --> 00:57:46,320
in front of the TV watching
that war on television.
1283
00:57:46,720 --> 00:57:48,480
Open up over Nick Long.
1284
00:57:48,640 --> 00:57:49,960
Long, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick Long.
1285
00:57:50,080 --> 00:57:50,500
Nick Long.
1286
00:57:50,600 --> 00:57:51,680
I was having trouble with that one.
1287
00:57:51,760 --> 00:57:53,740
It was a night shoot,
and I was all grisk and bobbled.
1288
00:57:54,000 --> 00:57:56,920
Nick Long was a strategic ferry town in Cambodia
1289
00:57:56,920 --> 00:57:58,240
that had a homing beacon in it.
1290
00:57:58,440 --> 00:58:00,140
Homing beacons aren't supposed to be dangerous.
1291
00:58:00,460 --> 00:58:02,480
They're just beacons that the
planes take their coordinates
1292
00:58:02,480 --> 00:58:04,960
off of, then the navigator,
six miles up on that airborne
1293
00:58:04,960 --> 00:58:07,800
holiday inn, throws a switch,
and the bombs are dropped
1294
00:58:07,800 --> 00:58:09,580
over the jungle by computer.
1295
00:58:09,720 --> 00:58:11,060
No one really drops the bombs.
1296
00:58:11,360 --> 00:58:12,980
But this particular day, the navigator
1297
00:58:12,980 --> 00:58:15,680
threw the wrong switch and
dropped his entire load of bombs
1298
00:58:15,680 --> 00:58:18,760
up the main street of Nick Long,
killing over 250 people.
1299
00:58:19,220 --> 00:58:22,520
The navigator was fined $700 for his mistake.
1300
00:58:22,880 --> 00:58:25,780
And Sidney Shanberg told me
that he heard about the mistake
1301
00:58:25,780 --> 00:58:27,500
and went in to cover it for the New York Times,
1302
00:58:27,600 --> 00:58:30,540
but the American embassy
put a press lock on Nick Long
1303
00:58:30,540 --> 00:58:32,500
and didn't allow him in, so he snuck in.
1304
00:58:32,600 --> 00:58:34,780
He bribed his way in with Dithbran.
1305
00:58:35,040 --> 00:58:35,740
He got in there.
1306
00:58:35,740 --> 00:58:37,840
He said he saw blood and hair all over the bushes
1307
00:58:37,840 --> 00:58:39,720
and realized a lot of people had been killed.
1308
00:58:39,940 --> 00:58:41,980
Was about to get his story
out to the New York Times
1309
00:58:41,980 --> 00:58:44,320
when he was put under arrest by the Cambodians
1310
00:58:44,320 --> 00:58:45,880
and held at gunpoint.
1311
00:58:46,000 --> 00:58:48,000
Now, while he was under arrest, house arrest,
1312
00:58:48,300 --> 00:58:50,240
in flies the American embassy in a helicopter
1313
00:58:50,240 --> 00:58:52,280
to give out $100 bills to people who
1314
00:58:52,280 --> 00:58:55,260
lost members of their
family and $50 bills to people
1315
00:58:55,260 --> 00:58:57,000
who had lost legs and arms in the bombing,
1316
00:58:57,100 --> 00:58:58,340
and the Cambodians were grateful.
1317
00:58:58,960 --> 00:59:00,460
Now, Sidney told me that he thought
1318
00:59:00,460 --> 00:59:02,700
he could probably safely
walk out in front of the American
1319
00:59:02,700 --> 00:59:03,840
embassy and not be shot.
1320
00:59:03,920 --> 00:59:04,600
He wasn't sure.
1321
00:59:04,680 --> 00:59:07,100
He started to walk and he said the Cambodians
1322
00:59:07,100 --> 00:59:09,400
started screaming and clicking
the safeties on their guns,
1323
00:59:09,560 --> 00:59:12,800
and he said never before
had he felt more alive in his life.
1324
00:59:13,360 --> 00:59:15,980
Absolutely all the adrenaline going right
1325
00:59:15,980 --> 00:59:18,260
on the edge of death, absolutely, totally, utterly
1326
00:59:18,260 --> 00:59:18,840
alive.
1327
00:59:19,020 --> 00:59:20,380
Let's go, boys and girls.
1328
00:59:20,720 --> 00:59:21,720
Take 64.
1329
00:59:22,220 --> 00:59:24,380
It's a night shoot and we're up to take 64.
1330
00:59:24,640 --> 00:59:26,760
Roland is really covering his ass on this one.
1331
00:59:27,100 --> 00:59:27,420
All right?
1332
00:59:27,640 --> 00:59:30,740
A computer malfunction put
out the wrong set of coordinates.
1333
00:59:31,560 --> 00:59:34,620
By the way, I played one of those American embassy
1334
00:59:34,620 --> 00:59:36,740
officials that come in in the helicopters.
1335
00:59:37,040 --> 00:59:39,060
There was no way I was going
to get on a helicopter, right?
1336
00:59:39,160 --> 00:59:41,360
But they promised me that
it would just go up 10 feet
1337
00:59:41,360 --> 00:59:41,720
and land.
1338
00:59:41,800 --> 00:59:43,120
They just wanted a shot of it landing.
1339
00:59:43,500 --> 00:59:46,920
So the AD said,
would the artist please get on the choppers?
1340
00:59:47,080 --> 00:59:48,640
Artists on the helicopters, please.
1341
00:59:48,920 --> 00:59:49,020
Boom.
1342
00:59:49,600 --> 00:59:50,840
Right on like Pavlov's dog.
1343
00:59:50,940 --> 00:59:51,700
You know, call me an artist.
1344
00:59:51,820 --> 00:59:52,580
I am on.
1345
00:59:53,300 --> 00:59:54,240
And ready to go up.
1346
00:59:54,580 --> 00:59:56,200
Up it goes, straight up.
1347
00:59:57,140 --> 00:59:59,920
The helicopter goes up 1,000 feet, straight up.
1348
00:59:59,920 --> 01:00:01,260
I'm looking down out the door.
1349
01:00:01,480 --> 01:00:03,540
There is no safety belt. The door is wide open.
1350
01:00:03,660 --> 01:00:05,400
I felt like I was in a movie.
1351
01:00:06,140 --> 01:00:08,140
Then I thought I was in Apocalypse Now.
1352
01:00:08,240 --> 01:00:09,560
I had nothing else to relate it to.
1353
01:00:09,660 --> 01:00:12,220
And then I realized I was in a movie.
1354
01:00:12,640 --> 01:00:13,660
They were shooting one.
1355
01:00:13,720 --> 01:00:16,420
I had no fear because the camera eroticizes
1356
01:00:16,420 --> 01:00:17,560
the space it aims at.
1357
01:00:17,640 --> 01:00:19,260
You know, it's like Colgate, Gardall.
1358
01:00:19,560 --> 01:00:21,360
Somehow you know you're larger than life.
1359
01:00:21,440 --> 01:00:22,200
You'll be protected.
1360
01:00:22,500 --> 01:00:24,300
Even if the helicopter crashes, I
1361
01:00:24,300 --> 01:00:26,500
knew there'd be rushes my
friends could show at New
1362
01:00:26,500 --> 01:00:28,200
Year's Eve in the performing garage.
1363
01:00:28,760 --> 01:00:30,640
Something would come of this.
1364
01:00:31,040 --> 01:00:34,300
And about the sixth time up,
I looked down and see, my God,
1365
01:00:34,540 --> 01:00:37,260
look how much of the jungle this movie controls.
1366
01:00:37,420 --> 01:00:39,040
All the way up the Chao Phraya River,
1367
01:00:39,300 --> 01:00:42,100
you could see Thai peasants
paid to put burning rubber
1368
01:00:42,100 --> 01:00:44,680
tires on a fire to make it look like a real war.
1369
01:00:44,880 --> 01:00:47,620
And I thought, of course, war therapy.
1370
01:00:48,220 --> 01:00:52,140
Every country must and
should make a major motion war
1371
01:00:52,140 --> 01:00:53,320
film every year.
1372
01:00:53,580 --> 01:00:56,540
Put people to work,
get the economy up, get your rocks off.
1373
01:00:56,540 --> 01:00:58,800
Do an invasion, a movie of invading Libya.
1374
01:00:58,960 --> 01:01:00,080
Skip the invasion.
1375
01:01:00,460 --> 01:01:03,100
You land,
you don't have to method act when those blades
1376
01:01:03,100 --> 01:01:04,200
are going over your head.
1377
01:01:04,480 --> 01:01:07,040
Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba,
ba, ba, you're shouting.
1378
01:01:07,300 --> 01:01:09,540
You don't have to method act
when you look down and see Thai
1379
01:01:09,540 --> 01:01:12,540
peasants lying there for
12 hours with chicken giblets
1380
01:01:12,540 --> 01:01:13,980
and fake blood all over them.
1381
01:01:14,160 --> 01:01:17,820
They're getting paid $5 for a 12 hour day,
smiling back at you.
1382
01:01:17,960 --> 01:01:22,140
And if they're real amputees,
they get $7.50 for the day.
1383
01:01:22,320 --> 01:01:23,220
You don't have to act.
1384
01:01:23,420 --> 01:01:24,860
It's very much like the real event.
1385
01:01:25,560 --> 01:01:26,980
Let's go, boys and girls.
1386
01:01:27,260 --> 01:01:28,040
Take 65.
1387
01:01:30,640 --> 01:01:33,600
A computer malfunction put
out the wrong set of coordinates.
1388
01:01:34,460 --> 01:01:36,920
Seems a single B-52 opened up over Niklong.
1389
01:01:37,620 --> 01:01:41,300
There's a, I didn't get the image.
1390
01:01:41,760 --> 01:01:43,480
I didn't get the image for homing beacon.
1391
01:01:43,820 --> 01:01:45,400
And I just blanked and I went, there's a,
1392
01:01:45,960 --> 01:01:48,380
there's a housing device
right in the middle of town.
1393
01:01:48,680 --> 01:01:48,920
Cut.
1394
01:01:49,720 --> 01:01:50,960
I know, listen, please.
1395
01:01:51,200 --> 01:01:53,200
I knew I should have never drank that booze
1396
01:01:53,200 --> 01:01:54,520
and had the marijuana the night before.
1397
01:01:54,520 --> 01:01:56,120
How unprofessional.
1398
01:01:56,660 --> 01:01:59,600
My concentration was, but Roland Joffe told me
1399
01:01:59,600 --> 01:02:01,480
my character would be drinking a lot,
you understand?
1400
01:02:01,600 --> 01:02:02,720
So I thought I was in character.
1401
01:02:03,520 --> 01:02:05,660
You would be amazed what people did in this film
1402
01:02:05,660 --> 01:02:06,480
to get in character.
1403
01:02:06,940 --> 01:02:08,160
Let's go, boys and girls.
1404
01:02:09,280 --> 01:02:10,040
Take 66.
1405
01:02:10,740 --> 01:02:12,200
At last, I got the image for it.
1406
01:02:12,400 --> 01:02:15,200
For the homing beacon,
I saw a pigeon, a homing pigeon,
1407
01:02:15,560 --> 01:02:18,560
flying toward a beacon in a children's storybook,
1408
01:02:18,680 --> 01:02:19,740
a little lighthouse.
1409
01:02:20,240 --> 01:02:21,140
All right, I've got it.
1410
01:02:21,260 --> 01:02:21,760
Let's go.
1411
01:02:21,880 --> 01:02:22,580
Take 66.
1412
01:02:24,580 --> 01:02:27,420
A computer malfunction put
out the wrong set of coordinates.
1413
01:02:28,080 --> 01:02:30,800
Seems a single B-52 opened up over Neek Long.
1414
01:02:31,360 --> 01:02:31,840
There's a.
1415
01:02:34,160 --> 01:02:35,760
I knew it didn't matter what I was thinking,
1416
01:02:35,880 --> 01:02:37,640
because the audience had
just projected on the screen what
1417
01:02:37,640 --> 01:02:38,120
they were thinking.
1418
01:02:38,240 --> 01:02:39,080
It's all about projection.
1419
01:02:39,200 --> 01:02:41,060
As long as I had an idea, there's a homing beacon
1420
01:02:41,060 --> 01:02:42,540
right in the middle of town.
1421
01:02:43,940 --> 01:02:45,000
Check it out, Sid.
1422
01:02:50,200 --> 01:02:53,380
All right, you've heard of pilot error,
computer malfunction.
1423
01:02:54,200 --> 01:02:55,560
They screwed up on the coordinates.
1424
01:02:56,220 --> 01:02:59,320
A single B-52 dropped its
entire load on Neek Long.
1425
01:03:01,810 --> 01:03:03,710
There's a homing beacon in the middle of the town.
1426
01:03:05,450 --> 01:03:06,530
Check it out, Sid.
1427
01:03:10,480 --> 01:03:13,420
The entire crew burst into applause.
1428
01:03:14,040 --> 01:03:17,080
66 takes later, and five hours into the night,
1429
01:03:17,140 --> 01:03:19,500
we have finished with my first scene,
1430
01:03:19,560 --> 01:03:21,320
and my last scene of the movie, their first scene
1431
01:03:21,320 --> 01:03:21,700
of the evening.
1432
01:03:21,800 --> 01:03:22,880
They're going till dawn.
1433
01:03:23,180 --> 01:03:25,500
I am told that all of what I did that night,
1434
01:03:25,500 --> 01:03:27,040
if it was processed and the crew was paid,
1435
01:03:27,120 --> 01:03:28,420
it would cost $30,000.
1436
01:03:29,060 --> 01:03:30,780
When I get back to New York City,
1437
01:03:30,860 --> 01:03:35,140
I am called in to re-dub the entire scene because
1438
01:03:35,140 --> 01:03:37,220
of the sound of crickets.
1439
01:03:42,020 --> 01:03:44,320
But the film is over for me.
1440
01:03:44,420 --> 01:03:45,160
I am finished.
1441
01:03:45,300 --> 01:03:49,200
And Renee flies back to America
to give her man some space,
1442
01:03:49,380 --> 01:03:52,040
to give her man some room
to have his perfect moment.
1443
01:03:52,220 --> 01:03:54,360
And I hear that the film is relocating
1444
01:03:54,360 --> 01:03:57,660
to this magical island, Phuket,
here in the Indian Ocean,
1445
01:03:57,760 --> 01:03:59,160
off the southern coast of Thailand.
1446
01:03:59,400 --> 01:04:00,880
And I hear everyone's going down there,
1447
01:04:00,900 --> 01:04:02,200
and they serve you magic mushrooms
1448
01:04:02,200 --> 01:04:04,300
for breakfast and an omelet,
whether you order them or not.
1449
01:04:04,320 --> 01:04:06,300
I thought, if I don't have an organic,
perfect moment,
1450
01:04:06,340 --> 01:04:07,360
I will induce one.
1451
01:04:07,560 --> 01:04:10,600
So it's off to Phuket,
and I ask if I can come along.
1452
01:04:10,700 --> 01:04:11,720
They tell me, no, I can't.
1453
01:04:11,760 --> 01:04:12,880
I don't have a private driver anymore
1454
01:04:12,880 --> 01:04:13,940
because I'm not with the film.
1455
01:04:14,200 --> 01:04:15,420
But if I'd like to come along, it's
1456
01:04:15,420 --> 01:04:17,020
all right to ride on the artist's bus.
1457
01:04:17,240 --> 01:04:17,560
Fine.
1458
01:04:17,860 --> 01:04:19,500
I hear I have to get up at 5 in the morning.
1459
01:04:19,620 --> 01:04:21,480
It's a 15-hour trip on a dirt road.
1460
01:04:21,660 --> 01:04:22,180
I get up.
1461
01:04:22,240 --> 01:04:23,940
I get on this old converted Greyhound.
1462
01:04:23,940 --> 01:04:25,820
There's no artist I've ever seen on that before.
1463
01:04:25,960 --> 01:04:27,180
I don't recognize any artists.
1464
01:04:27,280 --> 01:04:28,080
It's mainly crew.
1465
01:04:28,580 --> 01:04:30,620
In the front row, Umberto Pasolini
1466
01:04:30,620 --> 01:04:33,080
of the Pasolini banking and film family.
1467
01:04:33,420 --> 01:04:35,540
He's dropped out of banking at 28 years old
1468
01:04:35,540 --> 01:04:37,340
to carry orange aid for the Killing Fields
1469
01:04:37,340 --> 01:04:38,700
to work his way up as a producer.
1470
01:04:39,040 --> 01:04:40,980
He is sitting in the very front row of the bus,
1471
01:04:41,140 --> 01:04:43,420
pretending his head is a 35-millimeter camera.
1472
01:04:43,620 --> 01:04:46,240
And he's practicing pans
of that meaningless jungle
1473
01:04:46,240 --> 01:04:48,100
for the entire 15 hours.
1474
01:04:48,820 --> 01:04:49,500
He's happy.
1475
01:04:50,100 --> 01:04:52,180
Next to him are the Cambodian refugees
1476
01:04:52,180 --> 01:04:55,560
from Long Beach, social workers,
because Pol Pot killed
1477
01:04:55,560 --> 01:04:56,660
all the Cambodian actors.
1478
01:04:56,800 --> 01:04:58,680
And they had to hire social
workers from Long Beach
1479
01:04:58,680 --> 01:04:59,900
to play small roles.
1480
01:05:00,240 --> 01:05:02,180
Next to me on my left is a British cook
1481
01:05:02,180 --> 01:05:04,540
who's saying, Spalding, what's going on here?
1482
01:05:04,620 --> 01:05:05,620
Where's your private driver?
1483
01:05:05,920 --> 01:05:07,940
I would complain to British Equity if I were you.
1484
01:05:08,160 --> 01:05:10,140
I said, well,
I'm not really with the film anymore.
1485
01:05:10,300 --> 01:05:11,420
Oh, on for a freebie, are you?
1486
01:05:11,420 --> 01:05:12,540
Well, that's good if you can get it.
1487
01:05:12,940 --> 01:05:15,640
Oh, 15 hours later,
which is a whole other monologue
1488
01:05:15,640 --> 01:05:17,980
unto itself, we arrive at Phuket.
1489
01:05:18,080 --> 01:05:21,260
And we're staying in the
raddiest old hotel so far,
1490
01:05:21,260 --> 01:05:23,260
the Phuket Merlin.
1491
01:05:23,660 --> 01:05:26,780
And we have two days off in a row,
because we work so hard.
1492
01:05:26,960 --> 01:05:30,120
And we hear that Shangri-La exists,
the most beautiful beach
1493
01:05:30,120 --> 01:05:30,640
in the world.
1494
01:05:31,080 --> 01:05:33,360
And a bunch of us rent a tuk-tuk and go down there
1495
01:05:33,360 --> 01:05:35,420
through those winding down 20-minute drive
1496
01:05:35,420 --> 01:05:37,340
through rice paddies and water buffalo.
1497
01:05:37,600 --> 01:05:40,560
And we come out on this exquisite beach.
1498
01:05:40,660 --> 01:05:42,060
I was unprepared for it.
1499
01:05:42,160 --> 01:05:44,560
I mean, there was no flotsam.
1500
01:05:44,760 --> 01:05:46,040
There was no jetsam.
1501
01:05:46,180 --> 01:05:47,300
There were no tourists.
1502
01:05:47,440 --> 01:05:50,980
There were no beer cans,
no trash bags, just beach.
1503
01:05:50,980 --> 01:05:55,400
And huge Indian Ocean pounding
on under black monsoon skies,
1504
01:05:55,620 --> 01:05:57,620
white seabirds blowing sideways,
1505
01:05:57,940 --> 01:06:01,540
ratty palm trees ripping in the wind,
rainbows arching.
1506
01:06:01,700 --> 01:06:04,020
It was a number nine on a scale of one to 10
1507
01:06:04,020 --> 01:06:04,900
for perfect moments.
1508
01:06:05,140 --> 01:06:06,280
It was fantastic.
1509
01:06:06,520 --> 01:06:08,960
Down the far end of the beach,
water buffalo posing
1510
01:06:08,960 --> 01:06:10,380
like they were stuffed in the mist.
1511
01:06:10,680 --> 01:06:13,200
And Ivan, Ivan Strasberg, devil in my ear,
1512
01:06:13,300 --> 01:06:14,620
the two of us, like the two kids,
1513
01:06:14,740 --> 01:06:16,100
charged right into that water.
1514
01:06:16,320 --> 01:06:17,780
The others go down to have brunch.
1515
01:06:17,940 --> 01:06:19,000
It is fantastic.
1516
01:06:19,140 --> 01:06:20,460
Body temperature, I am going,
1517
01:06:20,460 --> 01:06:21,760
oh shit, my money.
1518
01:06:21,980 --> 01:06:24,940
Oh fuck, Ivan, I've got $600 worth of Thai baht
1519
01:06:24,940 --> 01:06:25,860
and my ocean briefs.
1520
01:06:25,900 --> 01:06:27,020
I forgot to put it in the hotel.
1521
01:06:27,220 --> 01:06:27,920
What do I do with it?
1522
01:06:27,960 --> 01:06:29,720
I was saving up my per diem just in case
1523
01:06:29,720 --> 01:06:30,700
I didn't have a perfect moment,
1524
01:06:30,780 --> 01:06:32,300
I would buy one to get out of there.
1525
01:06:32,440 --> 01:06:33,480
What do I do with it, Ivan?
1526
01:06:33,540 --> 01:06:35,540
He says, oh Spalding,
just put it up on the beach there
1527
01:06:35,540 --> 01:06:37,380
with my cameras, man,
on the high part of the beach.
1528
01:06:37,620 --> 01:06:38,960
And we start into the water again,
1529
01:06:39,020 --> 01:06:40,520
and he turns to me and he says,
1530
01:06:40,720 --> 01:06:42,880
in Africa, I put my cameras up there on the beach
1531
01:06:42,880 --> 01:06:44,360
and the natives would run right out of the jungle
1532
01:06:44,360 --> 01:06:45,000
and steal them.
1533
01:06:45,040 --> 01:06:45,660
What are you gonna do?
1534
01:06:45,780 --> 01:06:47,260
Chase the natives back into the jungle?
1535
01:06:47,820 --> 01:06:50,060
So I was a little bit back
and forth with my money,
1536
01:06:50,200 --> 01:06:52,820
you know, a little nervous, not sure about Ivan.
1537
01:06:52,820 --> 01:06:54,320
And we started a little further and he goes,
1538
01:06:54,400 --> 01:06:56,460
Spalding, man, stay, stay.
1539
01:06:56,700 --> 01:06:59,020
On the next day off,
I'm gonna take you scuba diving.
1540
01:06:59,420 --> 01:07:01,000
You'll have rapture of the deep, man.
1541
01:07:01,280 --> 01:07:03,480
You'll see fish the color
you've never seen before.
1542
01:07:03,720 --> 01:07:04,360
It is fantastic.
1543
01:07:04,560 --> 01:07:06,960
And I've never been scuba diving.
1544
01:07:07,180 --> 01:07:08,700
In all my life, I've wanted to do,
1545
01:07:08,800 --> 01:07:10,540
I thought, this is it, this is a mission.
1546
01:07:10,900 --> 01:07:12,920
It's not just a film that I was here for.
1547
01:07:13,020 --> 01:07:14,560
It's all coming together now.
1548
01:07:15,220 --> 01:07:18,180
Look, I'm basically a very fearful person.
1549
01:07:18,360 --> 01:07:19,300
I call it phobic.
1550
01:07:19,420 --> 01:07:21,420
I'm a phobic person and sharks and bears
1551
01:07:21,420 --> 01:07:22,920
are at the top of the list.
1552
01:07:23,240 --> 01:07:24,720
I mean, I swim like this.
1553
01:07:25,020 --> 01:07:26,360
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
1554
01:07:26,420 --> 01:07:27,680
so they can't get a grip, you know?
1555
01:07:27,820 --> 01:07:28,900
I swim really fast.
1556
01:07:28,960 --> 01:07:31,180
I check out swimming pools before I go in them.
1557
01:07:31,460 --> 01:07:34,060
So what I need is a man that I trust
1558
01:07:34,060 --> 01:07:36,000
that can guide me through these phobias
1559
01:07:36,000 --> 01:07:37,800
so I can get in touch with rapture of the deep.
1560
01:07:37,860 --> 01:07:39,840
I need a guru, a scuba guru.
1561
01:07:40,220 --> 01:07:42,060
Ivan is going to be my scuba guru.
1562
01:07:42,060 --> 01:07:43,520
And then Ivan turns to me and says,
1563
01:07:43,680 --> 01:07:45,120
but Spalding Man, beware,
1564
01:07:45,360 --> 01:07:48,220
because there are these stoned fish, eh?
1565
01:07:48,720 --> 01:07:51,840
And if you step on one,
you're dead in seven seconds.
1566
01:07:52,240 --> 01:07:53,440
No remedy, man, eh?
1567
01:07:53,640 --> 01:07:54,700
So wear your sneakers.
1568
01:07:55,480 --> 01:07:58,700
Ah,
he is a bit of a sadist playing into my masochism.
1569
01:07:58,840 --> 01:08:00,120
I'm not saying I'm not inviting it,
1570
01:08:00,160 --> 01:08:02,700
but by now he's out in the
high surf calling into me,
1571
01:08:02,780 --> 01:08:06,000
Spalding Man,
I see you like the little waves, man.
1572
01:08:06,180 --> 01:08:07,680
Come out in the highways, man.
1573
01:08:07,740 --> 01:08:09,100
And I am so terrified.
1574
01:08:09,100 --> 01:08:11,080
The water, my heart is in my throat,
1575
01:08:11,180 --> 01:08:12,820
this rolling, roaring surf.
1576
01:08:13,060 --> 01:08:14,980
Also,
I don't feel as though I deserve to be there.
1577
01:08:15,220 --> 01:08:17,340
This is, I'm like, instead of pinching myself
1578
01:08:17,340 --> 01:08:18,180
to prove that I'm there,
1579
01:08:18,300 --> 01:08:20,820
I'm running down the beach to look back,
to see myself.
1580
01:08:21,000 --> 01:08:22,540
And I run down the beach and look back
1581
01:08:22,540 --> 01:08:24,000
and miss myself every time.
1582
01:08:24,120 --> 01:08:26,820
And down the beach and back,
and down the beach and back,
1583
01:08:26,960 --> 01:08:28,260
and down the beach and back.
1584
01:08:28,400 --> 01:08:31,260
And the third time back, Ivan is gone.
1585
01:08:32,040 --> 01:08:36,680
And I go, oh no, oh shit,
oh fuck, oh, he's drowned.
1586
01:08:36,680 --> 01:08:38,960
I can't believe this is happening to me.
1587
01:08:39,540 --> 01:08:40,840
I don't believe it.
1588
01:08:41,000 --> 01:08:42,920
People do drown, I've read about it.
1589
01:08:43,080 --> 01:08:44,680
We get a notice under our door saying,
1590
01:08:44,760 --> 01:08:46,160
be careful when you swim at Phuket
1591
01:08:46,160 --> 01:08:47,560
because of the riptides.
1592
01:08:48,080 --> 01:08:50,280
Oh no,
and the first thing that went through my head,
1593
01:08:50,320 --> 01:08:51,380
and I'm telling you, it went so fast,
1594
01:08:51,440 --> 01:08:53,140
I can't even speak as fast as the images went.
1595
01:08:53,220 --> 01:08:55,020
The first rationalization that
went through my head was,
1596
01:08:55,700 --> 01:08:59,500
of course, making a film about this much death,
1597
01:09:00,020 --> 01:09:02,400
some real person actually has to go.
1598
01:09:03,300 --> 01:09:04,700
The next thing that went through my head was,
1599
01:09:04,880 --> 01:09:08,480
it's not my fault, not mine,
nope, he was suicidal.
1600
01:09:08,840 --> 01:09:11,080
The next thing that went
through my head was quickly,
1601
01:09:11,540 --> 01:09:13,560
find the most responsible man you can.
1602
01:09:13,640 --> 01:09:15,500
There was no way I was
going out in that high surf.
1603
01:09:15,740 --> 01:09:18,100
And the man that occurred to me was John Swain,
1604
01:09:18,260 --> 01:09:20,560
the Paris correspondent of the London Times,
1605
01:09:20,760 --> 01:09:21,780
who had been in Phnom Penh
1606
01:09:21,780 --> 01:09:23,280
when the Khmer Rouge marched in.
1607
01:09:23,480 --> 01:09:25,940
And perhaps the most
narcissistic of the reporters,
1608
01:09:26,220 --> 01:09:27,900
he'd come to watch himself be played
1609
01:09:27,900 --> 01:09:29,620
by Julian Sands in the movie.
1610
01:09:29,860 --> 01:09:31,400
So he happened to be there at brunch,
1611
01:09:31,400 --> 01:09:36,740
and I just went, John, John Swain, come quickly,
1612
01:09:37,660 --> 01:09:40,100
I can't see Ivan.
1613
01:09:43,100 --> 01:09:45,800
And everyone slowly put down their chopsticks
1614
01:09:45,800 --> 01:09:47,640
at that brunch and charged.
1615
01:09:48,040 --> 01:09:49,660
Some came through the swamp,
1616
01:09:49,820 --> 01:09:51,560
some came over the bridge over the swamp.
1617
01:09:51,820 --> 01:09:52,960
Judy Arthur, the publicist,
1618
01:09:53,000 --> 01:09:54,280
was the first to reach the beach.
1619
01:09:54,460 --> 01:09:56,140
I found out later that she was a lifeguard
1620
01:09:56,140 --> 01:09:57,260
in a past incarnation,
1621
01:09:57,620 --> 01:09:59,880
and had the good sense to
run on the high part of the beach.
1622
01:10:00,020 --> 01:10:01,940
I was down by the dip of the lip of the water,
1623
01:10:01,940 --> 01:10:02,860
and couldn't see out.
1624
01:10:03,100 --> 01:10:05,340
I was down there with my
knees shaking about to vomit,
1625
01:10:05,500 --> 01:10:06,580
and people were around me going,
1626
01:10:06,700 --> 01:10:08,760
don't worry, Spalding, don't worry,
he won't have drowned.
1627
01:10:08,860 --> 01:10:10,340
He'll be all right, he can't have drowned.
1628
01:10:10,600 --> 01:10:12,300
He's from South Africa.
1629
01:10:12,940 --> 01:10:14,460
And meanwhile, I'm trying to interpret this.
1630
01:10:14,700 --> 01:10:17,380
Meanwhile,
Judy Arthur spots him bobbing out there.
1631
01:10:17,600 --> 01:10:18,580
He's rode a rip.
1632
01:10:18,880 --> 01:10:21,160
This guy knows how to ride a riptide for fun
1633
01:10:21,160 --> 01:10:22,200
and circle back in.
1634
01:10:22,360 --> 01:10:24,020
And he comes in, she calls him in,
1635
01:10:24,040 --> 01:10:27,880
and I go, Ivan, no,
I'm never going swimming with you again.
1636
01:10:29,520 --> 01:10:31,720
How could you ever do anything like this?
1637
01:10:31,720 --> 01:10:33,040
And he says, I'm sorry, man, I'm sorry.
1638
01:10:33,140 --> 01:10:34,140
You mustn't worry, Spalding.
1639
01:10:34,240 --> 01:10:36,140
I had no idea that you were looking for me,
1640
01:10:36,200 --> 01:10:38,000
but don't worry, I would never have drowned, man.
1641
01:10:38,140 --> 01:10:39,740
I'm from South Africa.
1642
01:10:43,200 --> 01:10:45,040
So everyone goes back to the brunch,
1643
01:10:45,260 --> 01:10:47,340
and they leave Ivan and I
standing there by the ocean.
1644
01:10:47,700 --> 01:10:48,940
And he looks up at me and he says,
1645
01:10:49,640 --> 01:10:52,920
by the way, Spalding,
when you called, how many came?
1646
01:10:55,780 --> 01:10:57,360
Did Judy Freeman come, man?
1647
01:10:58,540 --> 01:10:58,900
Yes.
1648
01:10:59,900 --> 01:11:00,920
Judy Freeman came.
1649
01:11:01,860 --> 01:11:03,000
Judy Arthur came.
1650
01:11:04,240 --> 01:11:05,440
All the Judys came.
1651
01:11:08,380 --> 01:11:10,120
Let's go get something to eat.
1652
01:11:13,430 --> 01:11:15,890
The next day off,
there was no doubting where we were going.
1653
01:11:16,110 --> 01:11:18,390
Down to Keron Beach, it was fantastic.
1654
01:11:18,730 --> 01:11:20,010
Ivan passed me a tie stick.
1655
01:11:20,110 --> 01:11:21,210
I took a few tokes.
1656
01:11:21,270 --> 01:11:23,410
I didn't care if my kundalini
got loose on the beach
1657
01:11:23,410 --> 01:11:24,930
and went wild, even ran away.
1658
01:11:25,010 --> 01:11:25,990
I never wanted to see it again.
1659
01:11:26,190 --> 01:11:27,890
A little mild paranoia came over me.
1660
01:11:28,090 --> 01:11:29,450
Where to hide my money this time?
1661
01:11:29,610 --> 01:11:31,370
I began to dig holes in the sand.
1662
01:11:31,370 --> 01:11:33,470
Then I thought, no,
under the rubber mat in the truck.
1663
01:11:33,550 --> 01:11:34,570
And I thought, you know, Spalding,
1664
01:11:34,850 --> 01:11:36,990
thinking this much about hiding your money
1665
01:11:36,990 --> 01:11:38,810
is putting out waves the ties can read.
1666
01:11:39,070 --> 01:11:39,790
Let them have it.
1667
01:11:39,870 --> 01:11:41,970
Leave it on the beach where anyone can take it.
1668
01:11:42,190 --> 01:11:44,430
By now, Ivan is out in the highways going,
1669
01:11:44,870 --> 01:11:47,950
Spalding, man,
you don't know what it is to be a man yet,
1670
01:11:48,110 --> 01:11:50,470
man, until you get out in the big waves, man.
1671
01:11:50,650 --> 01:11:54,050
And I thought,
I'm gonna be a man today if it kills me.
1672
01:11:54,150 --> 01:11:56,110
And I'm starting out a little
further and a little further,
1673
01:11:56,190 --> 01:11:58,710
and I'm seeing hallucinations
of gray sharks all around me.
1674
01:11:58,810 --> 01:12:00,510
And every time I think of a shark biting me,
1675
01:12:00,510 --> 01:12:02,490
I feel all the anxiety come together in my stomach
1676
01:12:02,490 --> 01:12:03,470
and go out the top of my head
1677
01:12:03,470 --> 01:12:06,050
in a great gray arrow that lands on my money.
1678
01:12:06,430 --> 01:12:08,230
And every time I think of being bitten by a shark,
1679
01:12:08,290 --> 01:12:09,490
I think of my money being stolen.
1680
01:12:09,630 --> 01:12:10,950
And suddenly I have no fear.
1681
01:12:11,130 --> 01:12:13,430
And I'm getting further
and further out in that ocean
1682
01:12:13,430 --> 01:12:15,090
and further and further out
1683
01:12:15,090 --> 01:12:16,590
until I'm further out in that ocean
1684
01:12:16,590 --> 01:12:18,630
than I've ever been in any ocean in my life.
1685
01:12:18,890 --> 01:12:21,870
I am beyond Ivan even.
1686
01:12:22,310 --> 01:12:24,490
I can tell I'm further out
because of the view of the shore.
1687
01:12:24,590 --> 01:12:26,090
I've never had a view like that before.
1688
01:12:26,410 --> 01:12:27,730
And suddenly there is no fear
1689
01:12:27,730 --> 01:12:29,530
because there is no body to bite.
1690
01:12:29,530 --> 01:12:31,030
There are no more outlines.
1691
01:12:31,230 --> 01:12:32,070
There's no means.
1692
01:12:32,210 --> 01:12:35,290
There's this great body temperature Indian Ocean,
1693
01:12:35,670 --> 01:12:37,670
this great warm Indian Ocean
1694
01:12:37,670 --> 01:12:42,170
with this smiling bopkin head perceiver on top.
1695
01:12:42,470 --> 01:12:45,250
And up the ocean goes and up the perceiver goes
1696
01:12:45,250 --> 01:12:48,030
and down the ocean goes
and down the perceiver goes.
1697
01:12:48,330 --> 01:12:50,390
And wall of water comes up around the perceiver
1698
01:12:50,390 --> 01:12:51,910
and the perceiver looks both ways.
1699
01:12:52,150 --> 01:12:53,690
It could be in the middle of the Indian Ocean,
1700
01:12:53,790 --> 01:12:54,990
no land in sight.
1701
01:12:55,250 --> 01:12:57,470
And wall of water goes
down and lifts the perceiver
1702
01:12:57,470 --> 01:12:59,750
and the perceiver looks down a great bank of water
1703
01:12:59,750 --> 01:13:02,250
far below John Swain and Judy Arthur
1704
01:13:02,250 --> 01:13:05,070
body surfing like an Hawaiian travel poster.
1705
01:13:05,430 --> 01:13:06,950
And wall of water lifts the perceiver
1706
01:13:06,950 --> 01:13:09,050
and suddenly a human voice wakes it
1707
01:13:09,050 --> 01:13:10,290
and brings it back in time.
1708
01:13:10,430 --> 01:13:11,330
It's Ivan calling,
1709
01:13:11,610 --> 01:13:14,290
Spalding Man, come back, come back.
1710
01:13:14,470 --> 01:13:17,090
I haven't tested those waters yet.
1711
01:13:17,430 --> 01:13:20,650
And boom, ah, I'm back in time.
1712
01:13:20,850 --> 01:13:22,010
I'm back in fear.
1713
01:13:22,230 --> 01:13:24,970
And I'm swimming into Ivan
water pouring through my nose
1714
01:13:24,970 --> 01:13:26,450
saying it was fantastic, Ivan.
1715
01:13:26,450 --> 01:13:27,730
I mean, it was a perfect moment.
1716
01:13:27,810 --> 01:13:28,750
It was fantastic.
1717
01:13:29,190 --> 01:13:30,370
And he says, Spalding, I have to go out
1718
01:13:30,370 --> 01:13:31,190
and test those waters.
1719
01:13:31,450 --> 01:13:32,890
Now he swims out to where I was
1720
01:13:32,890 --> 01:13:35,110
and he comes back with
water pouring through his nose
1721
01:13:35,110 --> 01:13:36,450
going, Spalding, Spalding.
1722
01:13:37,770 --> 01:13:39,710
I almost drowned, man.
1723
01:13:39,850 --> 01:13:41,530
I came this close to drowning.
1724
01:13:41,670 --> 01:13:44,110
Now I know the experience of drowning, man.
1725
01:13:44,150 --> 01:13:45,750
And I thought, oh shit.
1726
01:13:46,950 --> 01:13:49,550
Now I'm gonna have to go out and almost drown.
1727
01:13:50,530 --> 01:13:52,390
I'll be damned if I'll be caught
1728
01:13:52,390 --> 01:13:54,450
in this male competitive trap.
1729
01:13:54,930 --> 01:13:58,750
I know what Ivan's idea of a perfect moment is.
1730
01:13:59,690 --> 01:14:00,690
It's death.
1731
01:14:04,040 --> 01:14:07,060
So having had my perfect moment, I swam in.
1732
01:14:07,480 --> 01:14:09,480
Now elated from having had it, depressed,
1733
01:14:09,580 --> 01:14:10,740
knowing that I had to go home,
1734
01:14:10,940 --> 01:14:12,460
I went in search for my audience
1735
01:14:12,460 --> 01:14:13,860
to tell the perfect moment to,
1736
01:14:13,960 --> 01:14:15,840
which is almost as important as having it.
1737
01:14:16,220 --> 01:14:18,960
Athel Fugard, my new father confessor,
1738
01:14:19,200 --> 01:14:21,740
the most fantastic audience back at the hotel.
1739
01:14:22,100 --> 01:14:23,780
Athel, who had just given up drinking
1740
01:14:23,780 --> 01:14:26,220
and I think to some extent was living vicariously
1741
01:14:26,220 --> 01:14:28,800
through me, at the end of every day would say,
1742
01:14:29,180 --> 01:14:32,020
Spalding, come, come to the bar.
1743
01:14:32,700 --> 01:14:34,760
I'll buy you a beer, I'll have an orange.
1744
01:14:35,500 --> 01:14:36,800
Tell me about your day.
1745
01:14:39,020 --> 01:14:41,560
And at first I wanted to tell
him about my new theory
1746
01:14:41,560 --> 01:14:43,200
of displacement of anxiety.
1747
01:14:43,940 --> 01:14:46,920
And I said, Athel, Athel, Athel, Athel,
1748
01:14:47,580 --> 01:14:49,940
if ever you lack the courage to do something
1749
01:14:49,940 --> 01:14:53,260
and you need that courage,
just take a big pile of money
1750
01:14:53,260 --> 01:14:55,680
and leave it somewhere where it can be stolen
1751
01:14:55,680 --> 01:14:57,320
and go do that thing.
1752
01:14:59,740 --> 01:15:02,700
Then I told him about my perfect
moment in the Indian Ocean
1753
01:15:02,700 --> 01:15:04,900
and he listened, raising an eyebrow
1754
01:15:04,900 --> 01:15:07,820
and putting his pipe down,
he turned to me and said,
1755
01:15:08,500 --> 01:15:15,340
Spalding,
the sea's a lovely lady when you play in her,
1756
01:15:16,040 --> 01:15:19,820
but if you play with her, she is a bitch.
1757
01:15:20,560 --> 01:15:24,660
Play in the sea, yes, but never play with her.
1758
01:15:25,240 --> 01:15:26,780
You're lucky to be here.
1759
01:15:27,460 --> 01:15:29,400
You're lucky to be alive.
1760
01:15:33,380 --> 01:15:37,820
I believed him and I went to
bed and slept like a kid again
1761
01:15:37,820 --> 01:15:40,960
in Jerusalem, Rhode Island,
the entire bed rocking,
1762
01:15:41,720 --> 01:15:43,100
sand in the bottom of the bed,
1763
01:15:43,400 --> 01:15:46,840
wrapped in the arms of the sea, fantastic sleep.
1764
01:15:47,920 --> 01:15:49,620
And the following day I got up
1765
01:15:49,620 --> 01:15:52,380
and a little kid was raging inside of me
1766
01:15:52,380 --> 01:15:54,420
and the adult was there too,
saying I should go home.
1767
01:15:54,440 --> 01:15:55,700
And the little kid is going more and more
1768
01:15:55,700 --> 01:15:57,080
and kept more where that came from,
1769
01:15:57,280 --> 01:15:59,000
stay, stay, stay, and the adult is going,
1770
01:15:59,080 --> 01:16:00,860
I've had my perfect moment, it's time to go.
1771
01:16:01,140 --> 01:16:02,800
And I thought, how will I get out of here?
1772
01:16:02,920 --> 01:16:03,960
How will I be decisive?
1773
01:16:04,100 --> 01:16:06,840
And I thought, you know, maybe I'll try acting
1774
01:16:06,840 --> 01:16:07,940
like a decisive man.
1775
01:16:08,260 --> 01:16:10,460
If I can't be one, I'll act like one.
1776
01:16:10,980 --> 01:16:14,880
And I went out of the hotel and
said goodbye to all my mates.
1777
01:16:14,880 --> 01:16:17,760
As though I were going.
1778
01:16:20,440 --> 01:16:21,160
Goodbye, mate.
1779
01:16:23,080 --> 01:16:24,620
We'll work together again one day.
1780
01:16:27,900 --> 01:16:31,360
Hey, you better believe I believe in this film.
1781
01:16:34,380 --> 01:16:34,980
Fuckin' A.
1782
01:16:36,120 --> 01:16:37,880
Hey, big guy, look out for those whores
1783
01:16:37,880 --> 01:16:39,400
and don't you drink too much, we'll meet again.
1784
01:16:40,760 --> 01:16:41,620
All right.
1785
01:16:42,340 --> 01:16:45,220
I got to Athelfugad and
he looked right through me.
1786
01:16:45,540 --> 01:16:50,240
So, Spalding, you're leaving paradise after all.
1787
01:16:50,580 --> 01:16:52,280
I said, Athel, you know, I woke up this morning,
1788
01:16:52,340 --> 01:16:53,180
I was thinking about a magic mushroom.
1789
01:16:54,100 --> 01:16:57,420
Spalding, go back to Renee.
1790
01:16:58,240 --> 01:16:59,520
She's a lovely lady.
1791
01:17:00,600 --> 01:17:04,100
Take what you've learned here
in Thailand back to Krumville.
1792
01:17:06,480 --> 01:17:10,220
There is no difference
between Thailand and Krumville.
1793
01:17:12,020 --> 01:17:13,440
I wanted to believe him.
1794
01:17:14,480 --> 01:17:16,580
I also wondered who he'd been studying with.
1795
01:17:19,410 --> 01:17:20,190
So I did it.
1796
01:17:21,230 --> 01:17:23,910
I got in the car for the
final ride to the airport.
1797
01:17:25,090 --> 01:17:27,590
And as I was riding,
I felt like I was going to the gallows.
1798
01:17:27,670 --> 01:17:28,530
I couldn't believe it.
1799
01:17:29,030 --> 01:17:29,870
Why was I doing this?
1800
01:17:29,950 --> 01:17:32,530
Why did I feel, mainly,
why did I feel so inflated?
1801
01:17:32,670 --> 01:17:35,130
I'd been there eight weeks
and I'd worked eight days.
1802
01:17:35,230 --> 01:17:36,190
Was waiting that difficult?
1803
01:17:36,270 --> 01:17:38,130
I felt all puffed up, but on the way I thought,
1804
01:17:38,190 --> 01:17:40,010
my God, I will never see a little piece of heaven
1805
01:17:40,010 --> 01:17:40,730
like this again.
1806
01:17:40,990 --> 01:17:41,930
This is the end.
1807
01:17:42,170 --> 01:17:44,850
And as I was riding, I said a silent benediction,
1808
01:17:45,310 --> 01:17:48,310
a silent farewell to all that
I had had and would miss.
1809
01:17:48,530 --> 01:17:51,450
Farewell to the fantastic breakfast,
1810
01:17:51,690 --> 01:17:52,630
free every morning.
1811
01:17:52,770 --> 01:17:54,350
You walk down and there they are waiting on you
1812
01:17:54,350 --> 01:17:56,230
with the papaya, mango, and pineapple
1813
01:17:56,230 --> 01:17:58,110
like I'd never tasted before.
1814
01:17:59,250 --> 01:18:03,310
Farewell to the Thai maids
with the king-sized cotton sheets
1815
01:18:03,310 --> 01:18:04,510
and the big king-sized bed.
1816
01:18:04,630 --> 01:18:07,830
Farewell to the lunches, fresh meat flown in
1817
01:18:07,830 --> 01:18:09,030
from America daily.
1818
01:18:09,670 --> 01:18:12,770
Roast potatoes, green beans, and roast lamb
1819
01:18:12,770 --> 01:18:15,330
at 110 degrees under a circus tent,
1820
01:18:15,430 --> 01:18:16,570
according to British equity.
1821
01:18:17,710 --> 01:18:20,030
Farewell to the drivers with the tinted glasses
1822
01:18:20,030 --> 01:18:21,850
and the Mercedes with the tinted windows.
1823
01:18:22,550 --> 01:18:26,170
Farewell to the cakes and teas and ices every day,
1824
01:18:26,290 --> 01:18:27,810
exactly at four o'clock.
1825
01:18:28,290 --> 01:18:30,810
Farewell to those beautiful, smiling people.
1826
01:18:32,210 --> 01:18:35,270
Farewell to that single, fresh rose in a vase
1827
01:18:35,270 --> 01:18:37,450
on my bureau in the hotel every day.
1828
01:18:38,150 --> 01:18:41,330
And just as I was climbing
into that first-class seat
1829
01:18:41,330 --> 01:18:43,130
and wrapping myself in a blanket,
1830
01:18:43,430 --> 01:18:45,810
just as I was adjusting the
pillow from behind my head
1831
01:18:45,810 --> 01:18:47,990
and having a sip of that champagne,
1832
01:18:48,830 --> 01:18:51,370
just as I was adjusting and bringing down
1833
01:18:51,370 --> 01:18:54,190
my Thai purple sleep mask,
1834
01:18:54,830 --> 01:18:55,770
I had an inkling.
1835
01:18:56,550 --> 01:18:57,830
I had a flash.
1836
01:18:59,010 --> 01:19:02,670
I suddenly thought I knew what it was
1837
01:19:02,670 --> 01:19:06,310
that had killed Marilyn Monroe.
150216