Clement At Christmas

"I was on vacation from school and several of us went skiing."

Clement At Christmas[1]
Series
The Other Side
Original Broadcast Date
December 12, 1999
Cast
Clement von Franckenstein, Laura Esterman, Joe Frank
Format
Real People, Absurd Monologue, 57 minutes
Preceded by: Predator
Followed by: Lover Man

Clement At Christmas is a program Joe Frank produced as part of the series The Other Side. It was originally broadcast on December 12, 1999.

Synopsis

Unnamed person (Clement von Franckenstein) tells the story of his life: parents dying in plane crash when he was a boy, friends of theirs raising him, attending Eton, service as an officer in the Royal Scots Greys (through the services of a guardian's brother), where he acted badly, was disciplined, visited the working girls at the Reeperbahn in Hamburg, 'bum actor' in Los Angeles[1] attending church,[2] where he would read the lesson, orgies at his friend Daud's[3], visiting his friends, family, and nanny in England in the Christmas season, his adventures with women.

26: Laura Esterman leaves an angry answering machine message[4]

33: Joe tells us about the extreme decorations he's put on his house this Christmas, its appreciators and protesters.[5] He carries a cross, goes to the stations of the cross (Starbucks, 3rd street promenade, Santa Monica Hospital...)

37: Neighbor Pamela joins him in his Jacuzzi. Her late husband, an archer, attacked a passenger plane with his bows and arrows from his Cessna, crashed.

40: Joe spends Christmas in a bath, cuts himself enough to turn the water pink, but not enough to kill himself, a 'virtual suicide'.

41: Laura Esterman's angry answering machine message[4]

48: Joe's at a party, drinking hot rum punch, sitting on a sofa; a woman with a cast wants him to write on it.[6]

Legacy Synopsis
  • A man talks about his life:
    • He's attracted to voluptuous women. A sexual encounter as a teenager. Life with his foster uncle after his parents die.
    • He becomes an officer in the Grays. A mission in Kuwait. Going to town in full dress, hiring a prostitute. Danger as an aphrodisiac.
    • Hollywood orgies. The benefits of a libidinous lifestyle. A 74 year old man dates a 21 year old woman. Holiday parties, playing music.
  • Female actor: an ex-lover, leaves a long answering machine message combining angry accusations with a desperate party invitation. (This segment is cut in throughout the following monologue.)
  • Monologue:
    • Joe talks about Christmas, extreme decorations, enacting the stations of the cross at Santa Monica retail stores.
    • Discussing life and god with a neighbor. A man fires arrows at an airliner from a small plane.
    • Virtual suicide and bathing in blood at New Years. Joe is at a holiday party, meets a young woman and writes "Regret not the momentary impulse" on her cast.
    • "Keep god incorporated" nonsense advice monologue.

Music

Shared material

Miscellanea

  • At the "meet and greet" event before the Great American Music Hall shows in 2004, KPFA gave out CDs which were labeled "Clement at Christmas" but actually contained the program Lover Man.

Footnotes

  1. playing Henry VIII at 1520 AD, a restaurant theatre
  2. All Saints in Beverly Hills. He mentioned the rector, Carol Anderson; a person with that name was rector there.
  3. Daud Alani, owner of 1520 AD - in "New Age for Diners: 11th Century : Old Times Are Good Times for Restaurant in Buena Park", staff writer Mary Ann Galante wrote, 'One of the prior owners, Daud Alani, plans to reopen 1520 AD on May 15 in its original Anaheim location on Beach Boulevard. Alani says patrons will be entertained by a court jester, a magician, singing wenches and King Henry VIII himself.' Daud Alani wrote Cooking For Orgies & Other Large Parties and appeared in the movie Femme Fontaine: Killer Babe for the C.I.A.
  4. 4.0 4.1 originally in Thank You, You're Beautiful.
  5. At about 34:50 Joe says, 'There's a group of Hasidic Jews picketing the nativity scene holding up images of Judah Maccabee who led the insurrection against the Romans that inspired the festival of Hanukkah.' Judah Maccabeerebelled against the Greeks, not the Romans.
  6. originally in Road To Hell.
  7. Joe added music to several of his shows when they were rebroadcast or digitized. The updated versions are usually available at Joefrank.com