Mountain Rain

Series
Somewhere Out There
Original Broadcast Date
June 9, 1996
Cast
Joe Frank
Format
Absurd Monologue, Serious Monologue, Absurd Lists, 54 minutes
Preceded by:	Lost Soul
Followed by:	Escape From Paradise
Purchase /  Stream

My father was a very, very popular and wonderful teacher.

Mountain Rain is a program Joe Frank produced as part of the series Somewhere Out There. It was originally broadcast on June 9, 1996.

The entire hour is composed of a monologue spoken by Joe over music loops.

Synopsis

Joe tells of his father, a beloved professor, dying in hospital. Joe sees a horrific crash on the street. His father pulls out his IVs and wires. Joe goes to fetch a nurse, finds her copulating with a patient. He hears his phone ring, goes back to his father's room: it's his wife, Darlene, angry about missed alimony payments. Joe prays for his father, after which he dies.

5:30: At the funeral a few days later, Joe's mother goes to the coffin, wails, falls dead. They put her in the coffin. A thunderstorm washed out the road to the cemetery, so they take an alternate route and get lost. A bridge collapses under the cortege. The cemetery floods, coffins and skeletons float away. Lightning strikes the church, setting it and the people inside on fire. A traffic helicopter crashes into a mausoleum. Two shabbily-dressed girls emerge from the underbrush, throw stones at Joe, call him a Jew bastard. Joe decides the universe is malignant.

11:20: Joe has a powerful dream of an angel. Then he starts seeing her everywhere, becomes obsessed with her.

15:10: Joe sees her in a neighborhood restaurant. They spend the evening together: a walk, a ride in a horse-drawn carriage, a jazz club, a cabaret, shopping at the drug store. She goes home in a cab that leaves before she gives Joe her phone number.

19:00: Joe recalls being at a resort when a child. His parents were dancing, in love, stylish. After it starts to rain, everyone else flees, but his parents continue to dance. 'It was the happiest most memorable and most deeply moving time in my life; it was the only time I felt truly at peace.'

26:30: Joe recounts a dream, seeing a 'Sicilian Loni Anderson' at a restaurant. They leave together in a cab while Joe's girlfriend, Justine, leaves in another. His cabbie has to wait to pick up another passenger, a pony. Joe can't wait because he has to get to Justine's, so he gets out, hails another cab, ends up in a bus. Joe sees the woman in the street, on a ladder, breasts exposed, squirting milk.

28:30: Joe recalls when he was about 19. He meets a 29-year-old woman in a club. He goes home with her. They make love.

32:20: Joe recounts his expedition to climb K2. Joe recruits a team of completely-unprepared people. They carry the wrong equipment. They don't prepare. They get out of shape. They forgo maps. They bring a marching band. They take LSD and get drunk. Many die. They never climb the mountain but like to think they did. They get together annually to remember the expedition.

Legacy Synopsis

• Joe watches his wonderful and respected father painfully wasting away.
• A grisly car accident occurs outside his hospital window. Joe's father is near death.
• Joe prays for his father, who then dies a horrible, agonizing, graceless death while the attending nurse is in another room copulating with a patient.
• Joe's ex calls in the middle of this chaos to demand alimony.
• The funeral: Joe's mother falls apart and dies; now it's a funeral for two.
• The cortege gets lost: a collapsed bridge, more chaos.
• At the cemetery: flooding and unearthed human remains are everywhere.
• A lovely hillside church nearby explodes. A lovely pair of children appears, only to hurl objects at Joe.

• "And it was then that I came to the realization that the world is evil."
• A recurring dream of an angel, then seeing glimpses of her in real life. Actually encountering her at a restaurant. "Who are you?"
• They get acquainted, go out on a superficial date and shop at a drug store (silly list), she leaves without giving him her number.
• Flashback to an evening with his parents at a resort. His parents dancing alone in the rain, the most peaceful moment of Joe's life.

• A dream: at a restaurant with a beautiful woman. They can't seem to communicate. He sees her later from a bus on the street, lactating from atop a ladder.
• Flashback to age 19 in the village meeting a woman. She takes him home and seduces him. Joe objects that he doesn't know her, so she impatiently shows him some pictures and tells him the basic facts of her life. "OK, now you know me." They spend the night. They argue over a poster of the earth.

• Climbing K2. "And so we had a prodigiously psychedelic experience."

Music

• Judith Owen vocalizes and David Arthur Brown plays sax for the opening segments, backed by 'Valencia'

• "Valencia" - Rachid Taha (from Olé, Olé, 1995) | YouTube [Intro]
• "Buried At Sea" - MC 900 Ft Jesus (from One Step Ahead of the Spider, 1994) | YouTube [31:59]

Additional credits

The original broadcast credits state: "[C]reated in collaboration with Arthur Miller and David Rapkin. Recorded, edited, mixed, and music looping by Bob Carlson. With special guests vocalist Judith Owen and sax player David Brown. Thanks also to Jennifer Ferro, Carly Eiseman, and Esmé Gregson."