The Street

The Street[1]

Series
Work In Progress
Original Broadcast Date
1988
Cast
Joe Frank
Format
Real People, 1 hour
Preceded by:	Building A Church
Followed by:	Lines

"You know like I say I'm just a drifter. I like to travel from different cities."

The Street is a program Joe Frank produced as part of the series Work In Progress. It was originally broadcast in 1988.

Synopsis

• A man talks about riding the rails.
• An evening by the campfire, fighting, anxiety, two of the three most dangerous things.
• Two guys talk about treating people with respect, drinking, making noise in the night. A joke about Bad Johnny's pencil. They whistle and accost passers-by. Seducing young boys.
• Having met Christ in the street and not helping him.
• A man says he is a champion, plans to go to Canada, bitter rambling.
• A woman by the fire: the street as a cultural experience. Her middle class upbringing. Vegetarianism and alcoholism.
• A couple discuss life in 2017, cocktails on mars. Traveling and Europe compared with Fairy tales. Getting stuck in the US.
• The woman is new to the street, is anxious about her children. A precocious young reader is unprepared for the material he reads.
• Seeing one's mother killed by cops in the Watts riot.
• Living like caucasian people made us live, fearlessness, the verge of violence.
• Sounds from a bar, several men and a woman talk: she's from a good family, got stuck here on drugs and hooking.
• Pride and keeping one's condition from family. Relating to poor people, preferring the street.
• A man was in prison for eight years for strong arm robbery, makes a vow to go clean, can't get work.
• The poor share what they have, are oppressed, while the rich commit crimes. He breaks his leg, tries to get medical help without insurance. Bar-room brawls. Carrying knives.
• Sounds from the street: finding a place to sleep, getting harassed by cops. Food banks.

Music

This is an incomplete record of the music in this program. If you can add more information, please do.

• "The Angel At The Western Window" - Bill Nelson (from Chance Encounters In The Garden Of Lights, 1987) | YouTube

• "Rock Hammer" - Thomas Newman (from Shawshank Redemption Soundtrack, 1994) | YouTube (Added later)

Miscellanea

"...one program that I'm proud of, where I went out into downtown Los Angeles with a tape recorder and talked to people who were living on the streets. And what the program ultimately became was just voices of people, homeless people, people in trouble, and I wasn't in it. I just had a music mix, and you just heard these voices out of nowhere without any - not being explained, no interviewer, just the voices of the people on the street." - Joe Frank on WFMU, 1991

Commentary

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