Night (Part 1)
| Series | |
|---|---|
| Work In Progress | |
| Original Broadcast Date | |
| 1989 | |
| Cast | |
| Joe Frank | |
| Format | |
|
Serious Monologue, Absurd Monologue, Narrative Monologue 60 minutes | |
| Preceded by: | Great Lives (Remix) |
| Followed by: | Night (Part 2) |
A Jacuzzi is a small pool of water, around seven to eight feet in diameter, with jets of water and air to produce a massaging effect while people sit inside on benches.
Night (Part 1) is a program Joe Frank produced as part of the series Work In Progress. It was originally broadcast in 1989.
Synopsis
Kevin cleans and maintains pools with Dave, the boss, who listens to weather radio and surf reports while Kevin works.
3:40: Joe says that cataclysm isn't remote, describes the danger of earthquakes, fires, floods, storms from the sea.
5:00: Joe tells of the aftermath of the flooding of Marble Creek.[1]
5:50: Joe tells of burglaries in the neighborhood, that they seem to be done by neighbors, possibly because people are living beyond their means.
7:40: Kevin drives a Toyota Landcruiser with a rollbar. He's a fast driver, has driven drunk and stoned, rolled a previous truck.
10: Kevin works at the Marble Inn on the weekends. He plays darts in the back for money after hours. He snorts cocaine when it shows up. One night a man is shot in the parking lot. Kevin encounters the man who shot him, drives him off. The guy drops his gun while running away. Kevin picks it up, notes that a gun not registered or connected to him could be useful some day.[2]
13:10: Saturday morning Kevin grinds meat for burgers, prepares the other ingredients.
14: One night after work he sees sheriff's deputies chase a speeder in a Jaguar. The Jaguar crashes into a bench. The deputies shoot him a dozen times.
15:50: One night the Inn catches on fire from the fat in the burger meat, burns to the ground.
16:20: Kevin's father, a pilot with Pacific Airlines[3], gets him a job as a line technician at the airport [4]. Kevin likes the job, the action that happens, including the C-5 and SR-71.[5]
20:20: Kevin crashes the airport's station wagon, keeps his job anyway.
22:20: Kevin explores a DC-3 with luxurious appointments, including a waterbed; it had a collection of porn videos.
23:20: A nearby strip club, the Fabian, has a pictures night, popular with horny old men. Kevin attends, but doesn't take pictures. The club also has peep shows.
25:10: Joe describes a brothel, the Circus of Love, on La Cienega. Kevin gets a sauna and a massage, passes on the sex. He sees the same woman week after week; eventually, they talk. Her name is Donna.
26:30: Donna was born in Springfield, Ohio. She was a sickly child. Her father owned a bookstore. Her sister was 9 years older. Her father is cruel. Racing down a hill on the back of a bicycle, her sister tells her to stick her foot in the wheel; she does, breaks it; her father does nothing for her. The man who lent her father the money to open the bookstore takes Donna to a physician.[6]
She gets pregnant, marries Jim. Jim beats her late in the pregnancy, damaging the baby, which dies after a few weeks. She divorces Jim, works at a mobile home manufacturer. She takes a job emceeing a drag show. She learns how to be a woman from them. Her boss at the manufacturer attacks her on a business trip; she files a complaint, but they do nothing, so she quits and takes a job at a TV factory.
Donna's father passes out while driving; the accident kills her mother.
36:20: A famous stripper, Pearl, comes to the club, takes a shine to Donna, hires her as her assistant. Their first gig is at the Silver Slipper in Washington.[7] They become lovers. The next club is lacking one of its dancers, so Donna fills in. The crowd boos her for her small breasts; she sasses them back, which impresses the owner. A group of old men form a fan club for her.
40: Pearl gives Donna a silicone treatment to enlarge her breasts for her birthday. A few years later they go bad; it turns out to have been industrial silicone; she gets a mastectomy. She leaves Pearl, creates a fresh act. Porn films drive down the prices strippers can get; the clubs are dirty and roach-filled.
43;10: A guy gets shot next to her at the bar of a club she's working. The bartender drags the body behind the bar, tells the cops he knows nothing, then throws the body in the alley after they leave.
46: Turner joins the Army as a buck private, rises to become a pilot, is a captain when he goes to Vietnam. He flies Birddogs[8] to spot the enemy, particularly to help artillery aim at them.
49:20: After discharge, Turner visits an Army buddy in Red Bank, New Jersey, who deals drugs. Turner sells a pound of marijuana for him; they get busted. Turner gets 2 months in county jail. He has to fight with a would-be rapist, Hinckins (sp?).
52:40: Turner gets out in March, drives to Sonora, California, where his widowed mother lives. He moves to the Stanislaus river, lives in a tent, shops in town every 2 weeks. He walks around the forest, swims, gets to know the animals. After 6 months he rents a cabin and enrolls in Columbia junior college[9], takes jobs as a bartender and dealing cards. He sees all the players as losers. One, Hardy, sings 'Jesus blood never failed me yet'[10]
The story of Kevin. He works as a pool cleaner. A couple don't know or care how anything works, and the surfer wonders how they would survive a catastrophe. Earthquakes, storms, floods, and mudslides occur in the city. Kevin gets into car accidents. Kevin works at a bar and restaurant full of antiques, takes drugs, someone gets shot. He dreams of being a criminal, a pilot, the president. The bar burns down and he gets a job working in an airport, crashes the airport truck, explores the plane of a cult leader named Matthew. Description of strip clubs. The story of Donna, a masseur. She grew up in a poor rural house with an abusive father. She becomes pregnant, marries someone, gets an office job. Her mother dies in a car wreck. She runs away with a stripper and becomes a stripper.
Music
Template:Little Dream In Turqouise (Erik Wøllo) [3:47]
- "Ho Renomo" - Cluster & Eno (from Cluster & Eno, 1977) | YouTube [19:12]
- "Sehnsucht Ich Will Dich Lassen (To Be Free Of Yearning)" - Hans-Joachim Roedelius (from Geschenk Des Augenblicks (Gift Of The Moment), 1984) | YouTube [37:36]
"Jesus's Blood Never Failed Me Yet" - (Gavin Bryars) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmkC_leNM7M [56:09]
Additional credits
The original broadcast credits state: "[W]ritten and narrated by Joe Frank."
Miscellanea
- This program is available at joefrank.com as 'Night'.
Footnotes
- ↑ It sounds like Malibu to me, but I don't know of a Marble Creek there.
- ↑ Apparently the man who dropped it was Anton Chekhov.
- ↑ fictional - the airline of this name is Vietnamese, started in 1991
- ↑ apparently Hollywood Burbank airport; its name has changed over the years.
- ↑ I think this is a mistake: the SR-71 flies out of Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton; I don't think the runway at Burbank is long enough for it, and the security certainly isn't high enough. Lockheed built it and they're based in Burbank, and used to operate the airport, but that's all coincidental. A C-5 could land and take off on Burbank's longest runway, but I don't know why it would. The cities of Burbank, Glendale, and Pasadena own the airport. It's mostly commercial traffic. The private traffic Joe describes sounds like Van Nuys airport, but it's even less likely to have military planes. It would have that little Beechcraft Joe says NASA has there. I think Joe conflated the 2 for dramatic purposes.
- ↑ Joe mentions the Maryland Hotel in Chicago on Rush Street, which is real.
- ↑ I don't remember it, can't find a reference to it.
- ↑ Cessna O-1, a small single-engine prop plane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessna_O-1_Bird_Dog
- ↑ now Columbia community college
- ↑ Gavin Bryars, whose music Joe used in a few shows, captured this from an actual homeless person. It's an interesting story. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus%27_Blood_Never_Failed_Me_Yet
