Karma Memories

Karma Memories[1]

Series
The Other Side
Original Broadcast Date
October 22, 2000
Cast
Joe Frank, Debi Mae West, Larry Block, Kristine McKenna, David Rapkin, Jack Kornfield
Format
Karma Style, Serious Monologue, 1 hour
Preceded by:	Small World Karma
Followed by:	Dreamland: A Compilation

While my father was slowly dying, my mother had an affair with another, younger man, Freddy.

Karma Memories is a program Joe Frank produced as part of the series The Other Side. It was originally broadcast on October 22, 2000.

Synopsis

• Joe talks about his mother's life. She had an affair with Freddy as his father lay dying. Sex with a soldier on a train traveling to be with Freddy. After his father's death, they marry and Freddy joins the family business. She loses respect for Freddy. They get money through German reparations. Freddy tries to steal some of it and is discovered. He lives as a subject in her house, in a state of cold war. Mother's piano recitals. Young Joe is angry on Freddy's behalf, fights with his mother. She confides that she resents Freddy, feels her life is empty. Joe is embarrassed as she flirts with other men in public.
• Debi Mae West - She was angry Joe used Larry's story instead of hers. She regrets sending out email with the phrase "starring Debi Mae West". A dream of burying Joe and two other people in a bus underground, getting half a box of chocolates.
• Joe - He visits his parents, is offended by their body odor after a sweaty gold tournament. They fight, he apologizes.
• Larry Block - Quotes from Beckett, VS Naipal, Matthew Arnold. Naipal doesn't know Larry. Is Larry nothing?
• Joe - Freddy drinks liquor from the bottle.
• Kristine McKenna - Getting dealt cards in life. All lives have wreckage. Are we victims or authors of the play of our lives? Bullying as an agreement. The dead continue to live within us. Free will.
• Joe - In a tender moment, Freddy confides in Joe that he blames Joe for causing a car accident.
• Larry and Joe - will he have an obituary? Faking one's death to see the reaction.
• David Rapkin - a eulogy for Larry.
• Joe - being embarrassed to discover he's forgotten to remove his skull cap. The history of Jewish persecution. Imagining himself in the holocaust. Post-war Jewish camouflage. His mother's depression.
• Larry and Joe - Self knowledge and change. A therapist asks Larry to build a fire.
• Joe - Freddy plays horse with kids, is abused. Tears as a strange concept. His father's death. Meditations on earth.
• Jack Kornfield - forgiveness meditation.
• Joe - A happy memory: walking to meet Freddy on the way home as a child. An evening of music on the family lawn.

Music

• "Re-Arrange (The Cinematic Orchestra Remix)" - Krust (from Talkin Inside The Beat, 1999)
• "Doris Dub" - Tosca (from Suzuki, 2000) | YouTube

Commentary

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