Just A Closer Walk With Thee

Series
In The Dark
Original Broadcast Date
1994
Cast
Joe Frank
Format
Real People, Absurd Monologue, 24 minutes
Preceded by:	Taylor
Followed by:	The Cruise
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In the course of a lifetime we lose keys, pens, wallets, pocket knives.

Just A Closer Walk With Thee is a program Joe Frank produced as part of the series In The Dark. It was originally broadcast in 1994.

Synopsis

Joe lists things we lose in the course of a lifetime, then physical and mental faculties.

0:50: Joe says these losses make old people as helpless as children. He wonders that if we would treat old people as we do children, they might grow up.

2:10: Joe says he's getting old, describes the decline of his health.

3:10: Joe's in a hospital. He talks to a woman, possibly old, possibly homeless, possibly somewhat demented. A nurse tries to get her to take medicine. They're close to the ocean.

12:30: Joe talks about orgasms being analogized to death; the French, for instance, call orgasm le petite mort - the little death.

13:30: Joe claims French girls drank fresh cow blood at the slaughterhouse to stay young.

14:10: Joe talks about flirting with death, courting death.

14:20: Joe talks about surgery and death.

15:10: Joe talks about a girlfriend who got more serious than he wanted. He broke up; she took it hard. 'She didn't go to work for weeks; she just stayed in her apartment in bed.'

17:10: A year later, Joe started playing cards with friends who lived in her building. Joe would listen at her kitchen door, look through the kitchen curtains. She had a new boyfriend. Joe heard them making love.

21:30: Joe sees her 15 years later; she's aged badly.

22:30: Joe lists the tactics old people try to renew their lives. He says it's hopeless.

Legacy Synopsis

A list of the things we lose in life. Treating old people as infants. All our efforts to better ourselves lead to decay. Joe is getting old. Joe visits with an elderly woman in the hospital. She's very articulate, but shows signs of dementia. "Do you like the winter." Being near the ocean. "Jesus was an enormous guy." Loving Joe, being amazed at his stability. Sharing warmth. Fuss over taking pills. Monologue: The little death, plague victims copulate in cemeteries, drinking blood for fertility, death compared to orgasm. Joe ends a relationship; the woman is distraught. He listens at her door to the sounds of her new relationship, watches them through a window, meets her briefly fifteen years later. Old people trying to improve themselves compared to rearranging deck chairs on the titanic. Sound of a ship wreck while a band plays "Just a Closer Walk with Thee."

Music

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

• "Prospero" - Locust (from Weathered Well, 1994) | YouTube [3:14]
• "Just A Closer Walk With Thee" - The Canadian Brass (from Canadian Brass, 1977) | YouTube [22:11]

Additional credits

The original broadcast credits state: "[C]reated in collaboration with Arthur Miller and David Rapkin. Recorded by Scott Fritz and Jerry Summers, and mixed by Jerry Summers. The editor was Farley Ziegler. Special thanks to Jennifer Ferro."