[joe-frank-list] 'Fat man down (remix)'

[russellbell at gmail.com]

	This show has 4 parts: the failed musician wasting his life,
same as in 'Dreams of the river', with a number of small changes: he
went to college in Iowa instead of Ohio; no mention of majoring in
music; his mother helps him out instead of his father; his dealer
isn't mentioned; he raises funds for a symphony instead of an opera
(and doesn't call a mute woman); he mentions he's Jewish; his boss at
St John is Wilkes, not Whittaker; he left college, not dropped out; he
bleeds at a prostitute's, not a girlfriend's; the manager of the bar
is Chilean, not Colombian, has no wealthy woman funder in love with
him; there's no journey on a jungle river.
	The second part is a fraught relationship with his mother, who
commits suicide.  She wanted to be a singer, embarrasses him by
singing Schubert's 'Der Lindenbaum' at La Brasserie, but married
unhappily instead.  He imagines the money he will inherit if she dies.
	The third part is hospital scenes from 'The queen of Puerto
Rico' in which the narrator looks in on an old man.  I can't connect
these scenes with the narrator of the rest of the episode.  I don't
know that anyone has noticed this coincidence before.
	The fourth part is a dream he has of being lost with a young
boy in a deserted run-down town, trying to make a call at a phone
booth without a quarter, hearing his mother's voice on the recording -
the same story as the beginning of 'Islands' but less elaborate, in
third person instead of first, and explicitly a dream.
	The scene at 39 minutes, walking in Central Park, seeing the
touch football game, is also new.

	joefrank.com (https://www.joefrank.com/shop/fat-man-down/) now
calls it a remix.  An old commentary at jfwiki says it's not a remix.

	http://jfwiki.org/index.php?title=Fat_Man_Down

	The finances of the guy in 'Dreams of the river' make no
sense: apartment in the Village (no matter how small), eating out, on
'help' from his father and jobs that pay almost nothing.  He's in his
'mid to late 30s', kind of old for that and taking courses in college.
At least in 'Fat man' he inherits from his mother, we can guess.  Not
that we listen to Joe for realism.

russell bell