Insomnia (2001)

Insomnia[1]

Series
The Other Side (Series)
Original Broadcast Date
1/14/2001
Cast
Joe Frank, Larry Block, Zak Block
Format
, 1 hour
Preceded by:	Cave Dreamer
Followed by:	Always

"This morning, as is my habit, I wake up at dawn and immediately my mind begins to spin out one angry, despairing, ugly thought after another."

Synopsis

• Monologues mixed with telephone conversations, listed here out of order.
• Monologue: Joe awakes at night angry and dreaming of revenge. He wants to get even with his former engineer (Theo Mondle?) who borrowed cash and never paid it back. He thinks of attacking his mother's cat, fighting with people at the studio because they lost the masters for 25 past shows. He resents Ira Glass's success. He imagines suicide on a shooting range, or in the studio. He think of Kate's friends, of his own aging, contemplates elderly wild animals. Joe tried to call Kate on New Year's Eve. He thinks of friends who have frozen their dead dog in the hopes that they will be able to clone him. Joe compulsively eats at a party, passes gas in public. He removes a plastic cover from a toilet at the airport and floods the bathroom. Joe meets a woman at a car wash, fights over the tip, contemplates swapping homes with his housekeeper, losing faith because of the brutality of nature programs.
• Telephone dialog with Larry Block: Robert Redford's interior decorating. Checking the obituaries for people who die at the same age as him. Former colleagues who've become famous. An interview for a film with an old friend. Comparing Jack Kornfield and David Sedaris, Joe and Robert Redford. Larry talks about walruses indifferent to a polar bear attack on their neighbors in a nature program. Larry reads a Shabbat poem.

Interesting Facts

• There are two programs with this title: this 60 minute program which aired as part of The Other Side and a 30 minute program which appeared as part of In The Dark in 1995.
• Includes loops of the Lomax Parchman Farm recordings.

Music

• "Loose Ends" - Sinead Lohan (from No Mermaid, 1998) | YouTube

Commentary

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Spblat

Very nice karma style, safe for newbies.