What Do Women Want?

We left off with him playing the guitar and you singing.

What Do Women Want?[1]
Series
The Other Side
Original Broadcast Date
5/6/2001
Cast
Debi Mae West, Larry Block, Jack Kornfield, Joe Frank
Format
Karma Style, 58 minutes
Preceded by: Woman And Bull In Paint Factory
Followed by: Four Part Dissonance

What Do Women Want? is a program Joe Frank produced as part of the series The Other Side. It was originally broadcast on May 6, 2001.

Synopsis

Joe tells Debi where their last conversation about Malcolm left off. Debi continues, recounts a party they went to. Malcolm likens their relationship to a tree. 5 minutes later a guy with saplings comes in,[1] gives Malcolm a tree. They name it Noble, after Debi's dad. She's exuberantly happy. Malcolm's still with his wife - they're 'working it out'.

5:30: Larry tells Joe he found Ketel 1 (vodka) at the liquor store. He likes the shape of the bottle, hides it in the freezer.

6:20: Debi tells Joe about Malcolm's 2 Corvairs, 1 a '64 Spider that just got a new engine.[2] They drive it up to Santa Barbara. They meet 2 great-looking guys who think they look great, want them to visit in Las Vegas.

11:30: Larry tells Joe about his appointment with Dr G(allo).

13:00: Debi continues her story in Santa Barbara.

14:10: Larry defends his drinking, pleading that he has to deal with the pain of the failure of his life.

14:30: Debi continues her story in Santa Barbara. On the way home she gives him a blowjob.

16:50: Jack Kornfield tells a story set in King Arthur's time. He meets a witch after drinking from her well. In recompense for the water he promises Lancelot's hand in marriage. The moral of this fable is the correct answer to the question, 'What do women want?'.[3]

30:00: Larry defends his drinking. Joe says that if everyone who was unhappy drank we'd all be alcoholics.

33:00: Kornfield gives Edo Roshi's answer to the question, 'Does god exist'. (That we must bow to nature.)

34:10: Larry tells Joe the end of his appointment with Dr G.: he won't prescribe any drugs, tells him to stop drinking. He recounts his father's death in Lake Como (Italy), 1967. His mother was crying; the hotel asked him to go to her room. Larry tells Joe Dr G. is as unsympathetic to his unhappiness.

39:20: Kornfield says that the Buddhist monastery teaches wakefulness and gratitude for nature.

40:10: Debi tells Joe she may be afraid of intimacy, adduces the joys and reservations of her relationship with Malcolm. She tells Joe she just found out Malcolm has kids; they'll be staying for 3 weeks in July.[4] Malcolm's wife pages him late at night, which troubles Debi. Debi and Joe discuss her relationship with Malcolm. Joe sound skeptical. Debi notices how it sounds worse when Joe describes it. Malcolm arrives.

56:10: Kornfield recommends cultivating the 'Don't know mind': not to live in one's opinion but in the world as it is.

57:20: Debi & Malcolm's answering machine message.

Legacy Synopsis
  • Debi and Malcolm go to a party, discuss love and buy a tree from a tree peddler. Symbolic love tree. Malcolm is still with his wife. Darkness and light. Ecstasy.
  • Larry - a new hiding place for liquor
  • Debi - Malcolm's cars. They meet people on the road who chronicle those who enjoy life, plan a photographic trip to Los Vegas. Joe questions the metaphysical interpretation of the claim that people respond to the couple in public.
  • Larry - He drops a psychiatrist who insists that Larry is an alcoholic. What do people who don't drink do when they are unhappy?
  • Debi - Buying clothes for a rave. A woman in the bar talks about witnessing sex in a bar.
  • Kornfield, speaking to children - King Arthur drinks from the well of a Hag, offers her marriage to one of his knights in repayment. She poses a riddle, "what do women want?" She is half freed from a curse is beautiful for half the day, asks her husband whether she should be beautiful in the day or at night.
  • Larry and Joe - Joe thinks most people are really unhappy. God as liquor. The weakness of people's faith becomes obvious in a crisis, when they face death.
  • Kornfield - Does god exist?
  • Larry - His therapist refuses to give him drugs. Story of his father's death on vacation in Lake Cuomo. Drawing a Jewish star with an eyebrow pencil so the body won't be given Catholic rites. His widowed mother cries in hotel lobbies, is asked to leave. Failure is a necessary part of our system.
  • Kornfield - respecting forest things
  • Debi - she's afraid of intimacy. Malcolm's teenage kids plan to visit. He's moved in with her for good, is bringing his cat. Joe probes her feelings about the situation.
  • Kornfield - Don't know mind.
  • Debi and Malcolm's combined answering machine message.

Music

Additional credits

  • Production by Ray Guarna
  • Music consultant Thomas Golubić
  • Production assistance Esmé Gregson

Miscellanea

   

The above photos are described by Debi in this program, originally available via Photohype.

Footnotes

  1. sounds like Tree People
  2. Debi says Malcolm put all his money into this '64 Corvair but doesn't have money to live by himself or support his children.
  3. I don't think this is in Malory.
  4. This was already mentioned in Emptiness allegedly aired earlier.