Karma (Part 1)

Karma (Part 1)[1]

Series
The Other Side
Original Broadcast Date
April 16, 2000
Cast
Larry Block, Jack Kornfield, Joe Frank
Format
Karma Style, 60 minutes
Preceded by:	The Nature Of Things
Followed by:	Karma (Part 2)

Last night, after a series of phone calls in which I was forced to listen to hours and hours of Kate raging against me...

Karma (Part 1) is a program Joe Frank produced as part of the series The Other Side. It was originally broadcast on April 16, 2000.

The Karma series follows the breakup of Joe's relationship with an actress named Kate, cut with Jack Kornfield's Buddhism lectures and phone conversations with Larry Block and Debi Mae West.

Synopsis

• Joe: The day after a breakup, Joe describes a long fight with Kate on the phone in which he hangs up repeatedly. Joe tells Larry about the fight. He wonders if he should blame himself. Dylan Thomas went "into that good night." Kate's contempt for America, her acting career. Joe praises Kate, refuses to give us her phone number. Astrology, the book of ruins, a new age church. The absurdity of believing people control their destinies. Joe listens to his own show, considers and rejects suicide. Graphology and homosexual tendencies.
• Jack Kornfield: the power of mind, imagination leads to buildings.
• Joe: The origin of the breakup - a young woman uses Joe's bathtub, they make love, he refuses a long term relationship and breaks her heart.
• Larry: he describes a brief affair with a coworker, noting the instant it goes sour, giving away "love feathers." Life going downhill.
• Joe: Joe secretly records long distance calls with friend's friend, has them transcribed, meets the woman for a date and is not attracted to her. They meet again as friends, he tells her he recorded her calls. Joe's transcriptionist adds comments to the transcription. The woman freaks out, threatens to prosecute him, then tries to seduce him. A hanging during "Summer Day."
• Larry: A memory of making love. The weirdness of sleeping next to someone.
• Joe: He comes home, asks Kate not to meet him, and is disappointed. They fight on the phone. Kate accuses him of destroying the young lady's life, having phone sex with the long distance woman. She talks to Joe's transcriptionist.
• Larry: Joe as Odysseus before the sirens.
• Joe: Reading both sides of a conversation which references an erotic telephone call.

Music

• "Você Gosta (Freezzy Jam Remix)" - Suba (from Você Gosta, 1999) | YouTube [Intro]

• "Spacebeach" - Arling & Cameron (from Music for Imaginary Films, 1999) | YouTube [19:43]