[joe-frank-list] 'Karma, part 1'

[russellbell at gmail.com]

	:30: Joe explodes in anger at Kate after hours of phone calls
raging against him, tells her he wants nothing to do with her anymore,
hangs up.  (Kate claimed that Joe had been 'sexually incested' by his
mother.)  She talks, doesn't listen.
	2:40: Joe calls Larry, explains the problem with Kate, mostly
blaming her.
	6:00: Joe disconnects the answering machine, doesn't answer
the phone, hears it ring until she gives up.
	6:30: Joe and Larry again.
	7:00: Joe wonders what went wrong - was he really so awful?
	7:30: Joe tells us about Kate: she was born in Wales, came to
LA to be a movie star.  He tells us what he likes about her: her
spirit, humor, intelligence - and what he doesn't: astrology,
graphology, divination with runes, her pathetic new-age church (on
Sunset in West Hollywood).  Joe forwent listening to his radio show
(it airs at 11 AM Sunday) to attend church with her.  The sermon
always claims that you can achieve your goals with the right attitude,
which Joe thinks insane.
	17:30: Jack Kornfield quotes the first sentence of the
'Dhammapada': 'Mind is the forerunner of all things', talks about the
importance of mind.
	19:30: Joe tells of meeting a pretty young woman 'literally
half my age' 'a number of years ago'.  She has only a shower in her
apartment, misses taking baths.  Joe invites her over to use his
'large luxurious' bathtub.  They talk the first time, then she sews
the buttons back onto his pajamas.  The next time Joe joins her in the
tub (!) and they make love.  She wants to have a more serious
relationship, Joe doesn't, citing the difference in ages.  Joe says,
'I pointed out that when I was 70, she'd barely be 40'.  Thus she must
have been 30, Joe 60, when they met, which was 1998-9, not 'a number
of years ago' before 2000.  He tries to get her to compare their
relationship to her having one with 15-year-old (half her age) boy.
She falls in love with him, he breaks it off.  She visits and calls,
desperate for him.
	25:40: Larry tells of a love affair he had '22 years ago' when
he was '32, 33 years old' (He was born 1942 October 30) with Barbara,
a tall blonde woman from Washington (state) who worked as a waitress
where he worked as a bartender.  It lasted for '3, 4 weeks', ended
Larry did not know why.  Larry was distraught, told her that he had
given her his 'love feather' (allegedly an image borrowed from Native
Americans - I find no evidence of this), didn't know if he had
another.  She married soon afterwards, later divorced, teaches acting
at Rutgers and has 2 grown daughters.  That was the last time he
really fell in love.* **
	'After her, I did one of those "Albert Camus" things when the
first woman who came along and said "Let's be boyfriend-girlfriend" I
said, "Okay".  And that's kind of the way it was with my wife.  I
didn't care, I had no will.  I felt by the time I was 35 that I had
failed in my life.  Of course now it's 22 years later'.  Larry was 35
in 1977-8; 22 years later is 1999-2000.
	31:40: Joe tells about Liza (in NYC), a woman who is a friend
of Joe's friend Fred, who thinks they would like each other.  They
talk extensively on the phone.  Joe records the conversations and has
his assistant transcribe them.  She flies to LA.  She's pushy; Joe
dislikes her.  They take up their phone conversations after she
returns to NYC.  She comes out to LA again.  Joe thinks she'll be
flattered about the transcripts; she's angry instead.  She threatens a
lawsuit; Joe pays $1,200 to settle.  She keeps on calling, said she's
addicted to their conversations.  (You can read Esmé Gregson's account
of this episode at
https://argonautnews.com/in-memoriam-the-real-joe-frank/ which is also
nice reminiscence of Joe)
	41:10: Larry says he thinks he'll never experience real love
again.
	43:10: Joe goes to Florida to visit his 89-year-old mother
(She was born 1910 December, so this is 1999-2000).  Joe pays Kate's
friend Mary $25/day to sit his cat.  Kate stays with her.  Joe calls
Kate when he gets back; she starts a long monologue about a dream she
had about Joe, which devolves into a fight.  She blames Joe for
ruining the bathtub girl's life and Liza's.
	50:40: Larry calls Joe an 'Odysseus-like character' because he
experiences life in its fullest, tells the story of the Sirens,
compares Kate to a Siren.
	55:30: Kate reads the transcript of phone sex with Liza, runs
to the bathroom and throws up.

*	In 'Four-part dissonance' (2001) Larry tells of the summer he
did 'Comedy of errors' in Central Park (1975) (about 24 minutes in).
He claims he had sexual affairs with 3 actresses.  Joe asks if they're
recognizable names.  Larry says, 'One readily, the second
not-so-readily, and the third is a professor of theatre at Rutgers -
and she'd be the one I'd probably go to if the three of them came back
to me again... Within 1 week I had sexual romance with these 3
beautiful women.'  He identified then as 'probably the highest point
of my life'.  He didn't sound distraught about the outcome of his
affair with Barbara.

**	22 years seems like a short time for Barbara, an actor, to
have married, become a professor at Rutgers, have 2 grown daughters.

	Perhaps Barbara found out about the other 2 women.  Did any 1
of these 3 women come back to him?  NO!  Ingrates.

	Anyone know about 'love feathers'?

	I suspect the story in 'Karma part 1' exaggerated.  I can
imagine how his wife reacted to his characterization of their marriage
when the show came out.  They stayed married until his death in 2012,
12 years later; she was making more money than he, they lived in a
small apartment - she didn't *have* to put up with him.

http://jfwiki.org/index.php?title=Karma_(Part_1)

russell bell