Duplicity
From The Joe Frank Wiki
| Series | |
|---|---|
| Online | |
| Original Broadcast Date | |
| November 6, 2004 | |
| Cast | |
| Joe Frank | |
| Format | |
| Serious Monologue, Absurd Monologue, 57 minutes | |
| Preceded by: | Time's Arrow |
| Followed by: | Bottle For A Headstone |
Reisling meets a woman at a party.
Duplicity is a program Joe Frank produced as part of the series Online. It was originally presented at joefrank.com on November 6, 2004.
Synopsis
Riesling
- Riesling accompanies the woman to her place, and they end up in her bed.
- He finds himself unable to perform sexually. Metaphors about a bad day at Kennedy Space Center, the rocket deflating.
- They eventually give up and she reassures him, his confidence gone.
- He considers possible excuses for his lack of performance.
- They watch TV, but there's nothing on but various types of sexual material.
- He imagines her making love to others, including a friend of his.
- The next morning he remembers his one passionate fling.
- They met on the Internet. She occasionally came to visit him, and they had a couple of passionate hotel trysts.
- Memories of skating together at Rockefeller Center. They ice dance like no one has ever seen: the crowd is transfixed. Suddenly they crash horribly, causing injuries and mayhem.
- While rushing them to the hospital, the ambulance crashes.
- She claims to see Jesus, and levitates heavenward, disappearing forever into the sky.
- The wedding is cancelled. Despondent, he travels around the world in a rowboat, with an absurd collection of items.
Professor Clayman
- Professor John Clayman is surprised to see himself pictured as a missing child on a milk carton. Suddenly he is eight again and wonders what is happening.
- Is he eight, or is he a University Professor living in the home of the Dean, who insists on being allowed to watch as Clayman makes love to his wife?
- A stream-of-consciousness monologuefollows which is difficult to characterize. "Life is merely the punchline of a joke told backwards."
- Clayman awakens on a treadmill in a gym in front of a bank of televisions. He develops a twisted view of the goings on in the gym.
- Later he's at the podium, giving a lecture. He has an out-of-body experience and fixates on a student.
- He knows he is no longer attractive to his young college students: "A lifetime of living in a world of gravity has done something unspeakable to his nose."
- Clayman considers his life and flees on the next train.
McKenzie
- McKenzie is a 70 year old veteran and frequently hangs out at the local VFW hall.
- Price served with him and appears one day to reenact a battle they served in together.
- Price accuses him of being a coward and McKenzie is expelled from the VFW. He's glad to be rid of them.
- He gets home and absolutely everything is gone, down to the mouldings on the doors, not to mention his wife. He's excited at the opportunity to start anew.
- Later, his house is forclosed on and fenced off.
- He wanders down the road, determined to start a new life.
- He tries to hitch a ride and is killed by a semi which loses control trying to pick him up.
The Priest, The Rabbi and the Hyena
- This section begins as though it is a joke, but turns into a story in which the three travel on a train with some Girl Scouts to a place called Duplicity.
- The absurdity of prayer, the foolishness of faith.
The Panhandler
- A panhandler at a traffic light rants and raves at motorists, who try to ignore him.
- Eventually he returns to his luxurious home for a cigar and a snifter of cognac.
- He receives a lovely visitor. They watch the city together: children playing (and making various objectionable sounds), a vicious mugging.
- They discuss her affair with his father, who left her everything in a last-minute alteration of his will before his death. He assures her that he and his family will stop at nothing to contest the altered will.
- The next day he returns to work as a panhandler, yelling at motorists from his street corner.
- A final brief story: touring a wrecked city on a train.
Music
- "Romantic Love" - DJ Cam (from Mad Blunted Jazz, 1996) | YouTube [Intro]
- "Alone in Kyoto" - Air (from Talkie Walkie, 2003) | YouTube [9:04]
- "8 Ball" - Underworld (from The Beach (Motion Picture Soundtrack), 2000) | YouTube [25:40]
- "Epominomous, Where Are You?" - Mike Richmond (from Basic Tendencies, 1996) | Soundhound [29:04]
