Lover Man

Series
The Other Side
Original Broadcast Date
December 19, 1999
Cast
Milton Schindler,Laura Esterman, Lester Nafzger, Grace Zabriskie, Arthur Miller, Heidi Nordberg, Harvey Perr,Farley Ziegler, and Joe Frank
Format
Scripted Actors, Narrative Monologue, 59 minutes
Preceded by:	Clement At Christmas
Followed by:	Summer Notes (Remix)
Purchase or  Stream

Is it the smoldering beauty of my purple eyes?

Lover Man is a program Joe Frank produced as part of the series The Other Side. It was originally broadcast on December 19, 1999.

Synopsis

'Is it the smoldering beauty of my purple eyes...' - Joe is the most beautiful, charming, intelligent, desirable person in the world, all men and women want to be with him.

9:40: Desperate women and men call Joe, plead with him to make love to them.

14:00: Milton Schindler tells of his college friend Bob, now a 'very big physician'. Bob was in love with Jane, whom Schindler describes as the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. Bob wanted to make love to Jane; she demurred. All 3 go to dinner together, Schindler to second Bob's plea. Bob and Jane have an extremely active sex life, break up after college.

16:20: A woman tells how tired she is.

18:50: Joe asks where she would like to go. She doesn't answer; he offers an idea.

21:00: Joe tells of traveling down the Amazon in search of the ruins of an ancient Mayan civilization The boat capsizes, drowning everyone but Joe. Natives who had never seen a White man before take him. He shows them his stuff: jet-pack, camcorder and projector, satellite TV... They're so impressed they sell the rights to their land to Joe's associates. Timber companies, miners, oil companies, turn their land to waste. They squander their fortune and end up worse off. Joe books a cruise to Mallorca, which is uneventful.

25:50: Joe tells of a maid who cleans a house in the suburbs, is inhumanly nice; she knows the secrets of the family. When she finds out they're going to replace her, she gets drunk, wreaks havoc, leaves. She packs her bag, sings jazz in nightclubs.

31:30: To the sound of a band an MC welcomes us to the Kit Kat Club in Duluth and singer Bessie Washington.

32:50: Years later Joe sees her singing at a nightclub; she brings tears to people's eyes. Joe makes love to her later.

34:00: Schindler tells a woman a story of his father's death, later meets an old baker at the Brooklyn Bagel Factory in Los Angeles who knew his father; Schindler laments that he had been embarrassed that his father was a baker.

35:50: A guy tells about what his band, Mascara, wore. He couldn't go out without women attacking him. Women kidnap and violate him. In his rescue police kill all the women; he retires from music.

40:50: Schindler says that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

41:10: Joe appeals to a woman he saw at the Laemmle Theatre. in Santa Monica at a viewing of Breaking The Waves He left his umbrella behind; when he went back to retrieve it she had it for him. Joe was barely able to speak, he's so taken with her. He imagines their life together. Joe wants her to call KCRW, leave her name and number.

45:00: Joe remembers looking at a Botero painting next to a woman - but he can't find anything to say to her. Joe wants her to call him at KCRW - or one of the Japanese schoolgirls who were also there.

46:30: Joe's in Petco, falls in love with an outdoorsy woman, imagines their life together, wants her to call.

49:20: Schindler says he didn't sleep with any woman who didn't want to marry him, not even his eventual wife. After 18 years of happy marriage Lou, his boss, sends him a girl as a reward for what he did for the company. After that he hires girls every time he's out of town; the woman to whom he's speaking asks if he ever told his wife; he says he didn't.

52:20: Two people with distorted voices tell each other how sick of each other they are.

57:10: Schindler gets a trip to Hawaii from the company, takes a tour, sees a pineapple canning factory, sees that the factory puts the same pineapples into every brand. A week later he's shopping at Gelson's where he buys the Dole.

Legacy Synopsis

Monologue: everyone is attracted to Joe. Phone calls from men and women begging for Joe's affection. Actors: A man is asked to mediate for a couple who are trying to decide whether or not to have sex before marriage. Joe coaches an actress with a French accent who is delivering a second person monologue about her lover. Monologue: Joe is on a boat in the Amazon which capsizes, drowning everyone. He uses technological gizmos to astound the natives, who sell off their land and mineral rights and wind up bankrupt and miserable. The story of a maid; she knows the secrets of the inhabitants of the house she cleans. When she discovers that the family is planning to fire her, she leaves and becomes a blues singer. Milton Schindler regrets feeling bad that his father was a Baker. A musician talks about being pursued by women fans, in life and in his dreams. He is kidnapped by women, rescued by the cops, becomes an anti-woman activist. Joe addresses a woman who returns his umbrella at a Lars Von Trier film. He imagines a life with her. He addresses a woman seen in a museum, at a pet store (while contemplating the invention of cat litter). A man discusses not having slept with anyone who he didn't intend to marry, had a brief encounter with someone from work and begins a long series of affairs, asks why not cheat? Joe and the French actress break up with distorted, low pitched voices. Milton Schindler talks about seeing identical pineapples packaged in brand name cans and sold at different prices. He buys the Dole.

Music

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

• "Friends and Enemies" - DJ Cam (from Substances , 1996) | YouTube [Intro]
• "Brussels" - Jon Hassell (from The Surgeon Of The Nightsky Restores Dead Things By The Power Of Sound, 1987) | YouTube [20:37]
• "Danny's All-Star Joint" - Rickie Lee Jones (from Rickie Lee Jones, 1979) | YouTube [31:19]

Shared material

• The Loved One
• Waiting For The Bell

Miscellanea

The monologue about people being obsessed with and attracted to Joe originally was written and produced for the show The Loved One (30 min. version) for the series In The Dark, and is also is at the beginning of Waiting For The Bell from The Other Side.

The version of The Loved One (Remix) available at joefrank.com is identical to its version of Lover Man

Commentary

I saw Breaking the waves at Laemmle's 4-plex in Santa Monica; perhaps it was a different showing.Arthur Peabody (talk) 23:39, 6 January 2022 (EST)

Milton Schindler sounds like a braggart to me; I don't automatically credit everything he says.Arthur Peabody (talk) 23:39, 6 January 2022 (EST)

I've been to Gelson's; I don't know that they carry the discount brand of anything. When I lived in Pasadena (early '70s), for a few years I lived a block away from Pasadena's Gelson's. I almost never saw a car in the parking lot. They delivered, possibly the only grocery store in Pasadena that did. Most of their business may have been delivery to the wealthy people.Arthur Peabody (talk) 23:39, 6 January 2022 (EST)