The Poor Are Always With Us

Series
UnFictional
Original Broadcast Date
05/29/2015
Cast
Joe Frank
Format
Serious Monologue, 26 minutes
Chronology
Preceded by:	Sunken Ship
Followed by:	Downfall
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Once I had a cleaning lady from El Salvador.

The Poor Are Always With Us is a radio program produced by Joe Frank and broadcast on KCRW's UnFictional Series. It originally aired on May 29, 2015.

Synopsis

1:00: Joe tells of his cleaning lady, Dolores, an immigrant from El Salvador. Stuff disappears, but Joe doesn't know whether he's lost them or she's stolen them. She breaks appliances, one almost every visit. But without her, Joe's home descends into chaos. He fires her.

5:00: Joe tells of his aunt, a widow, who married a fellow who had been a traveling salesman before being drafted. The family business takes him in, but he does nothing at work. She gets mad at him, but won't endure a divorce, so lives in a rage with him. He enlists in the army for the Korean War, dies in the invasion of Inchon.`

9:30: Joe describes a YouTube video of a man serving an elegant meal to 2 homeless people, then another in which the same man identifies himself as a police colonel, has meals delivered to a group of homeless people in front of a restaurant, claiming they are undercover officers.

11:30: Joe describes a TV show depicting people living in wretched conditions.

12:20:

'We thank thee, O Lord, God, King of the Universe, who brought us out of Egypt and into Auschwitz. Let your arteries not be hardened against us, and let your heart not attack us.'

12:30: Joe, sounding as though he's talking to someone on the phone, describes the pleasant day he's had.

13:30: Joe recounts a scene at the Bagel Chateau. A shabby Black man tries to steal a purse. The manager throws him out. He abreacts.

15:40: Joe recounts standing in line at a bank. One teller is taking a lot of time to handle the transactions of an Arab. The Arab and a redneck exchange heated words. The manager diverts the Arab to a desk where a bank officer handles his transactions.

16:30: Joe's standing on the side of a highway. A guy with long blond hair, scars on the backs of his hands, wearing a white robe picks him up. Joe recognizes him as someone he went to school with, who died in a construction accident after high school, whose body disappeared 2 days later.

17:20:

'If Jesus had been beheaded, would Christians wear small guillotines around their necks? If Jesus had been hanged, would they wear braided ropes with nooses? If Jesus had been electrocuted, would Christians wear little chairs with straps on them? And if Jesus had been executed by firing squad, would Christians wear little pendants of Jesus sitting on a chair against a wall, smoking a last cigarette?'

18:20: Joe gives an updated account of Job's story.

24:50: 'Infinite eyes' (Keb Mo)

Legacy Synopsis

How can one maintain a sense of meaning and faith in a world of natural catastrophe, cruelty and moral failure? The Poor Are Always with Us fails to answer this question in its own unique way.

Music

• "Shining Through" - Layo & Bushwacka! (from Night Works, 2002) | YouTube [Intro]
• "323 Secondes De Musique Repetitive" - Rinôçérôse (from Installation Sonore, 1999) | YouTube [11:42]

• "Won't You Come Home" - Devendra Bernhardt (from Mala, 2013) | YouTube [18:21]
• "Infinite Eyes" - Keb Mo (from Big Wide Grin, 2001) | YouTube [25:06]

Additional credits

• Mixed by Ray Guarna
• Special thanks to Gideon Brower and Michal Story.

External links

• "The Poor Are Always With Us" streaming audio at KCRW