[joe-frank-list] 'Margarita'

[russellbell at gmail.com]

	Larry tells a joke about the fellow who demanded more land at
one of Hitler's Nuremberg rallies.
	5:00: Larry tells Joe about his drinking.  He says Jolly is
making him drink margaritas, which he doesn't like.  She asks him to
leave; Larry says they don't have the money.
	6:10: Jack Kornfield talks about our addictive society, how
addiction keeps us unaware of reality.
	7:10: Joe talks to Larry about what he'd do if he hadn't been
an actor.  Larry says he'd have been a park ranger, which Joe can't
imagine.
	7:40: Jack Kornfield talks about doing the job we have as well
as we can.  He remembers the repetitive job he had at Beacon Gauge,
that the only thing he's done more boring is meditation.
	9:20: Joe asks David Rapkin if he can imagine being a forest
ranger.  Rapkin conjures up living in a tree, like an elf, having sex
with beautiful female hikers.
	13:00: Kornfield quotes Bruce Chatwin
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Chatwin), 'A white explorer in
Africa, anxious to press ahead with his journey, paid his porters for
a series of forced marches.  But they, almost within reach of their
destination, set down their bundles and refused to budge.  No amount
of extra payment would convince them otherwise.  They said they had to
wait for their souls to catch up.'  ('The songlines', page 230)
	14:10: Kornfield says Ajahn Chah told him that meditation is
de-hypnosis, quotes Krishnamurti, 'only when the mind is still,
tranquil, not expecting or grasping or resisting a single thing is it
possible to see what is true and it is the truth that liberates and
not your effort to be free.', then Dag Hammarskjöld
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dag_Hammarskj%C3%B6ld, the second
secretary-general of the UN, not the first, as Kornfield says;
Norway's Trygve Lie was the first.), 'In the point of rest at the
center of our being we encounter a world where all things are at rest
in the same way; then a tree becomes a mystery, a cloud a revelation
and each human a cosmos of whose riches we can only catch glimpses.
The life of simplicity is simple but it opens to us a book in which we
never get beyond the first syllable in the first page.'  ('Markings')
	15:50: Larry tells Joe about his encounter with David Rapkin
in the street.  Rapkin tells Larry he has a project Larry would be
great for, but never calls.
	17:10: Rapkin tells Joe he was making a 36-part audio version
of the Ramayana that he thought Larry would be great for, but then he
got Danny DeVito instead.  He tells Joe he paid Larry a $100,000 kill
fee, which Joe doesn't believe.  Rapkin tells Joe Larry owes him that
much for a valuable guitar Larry borrowed (a 1939 Gibson L0) in 1964
but never returned.
	19:50: Larry tells Joe the story about his meeting with Rapkin
was real, that he was hurt, that it hurts him more that he treats it
as a joke.  Joe tells Larry that Rapkin's role in the show is
fantasist.  Larry opines that Joe should drop him from the cast.
	21:30: Joe talks with 2 people about philosophers who tried to
prove the existence of god.
	23:30: Joe tells Larry that he can't tie the quality of
Rapkin's work to his character.
	24:30: Kornfield quotes Thomas Merton, 'It was as if I
suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their
hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the
core of their reality, the person that each one is in God's eyes.  If
only they could see themselves as they really are, if only we could
see each other that way all the time, there would no more war, no more
hatred, no more cruelty, and no more greed.  I suppose the big problem
would be that we would fall down and worship each other...'
('Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander', New York: Doubleday; 1966, page
155) (I recommend Garry Wills's 'Shallow calls to shallow', from
'Harper's', for a portrait of Merton,
https://harpers.org/archive/2019/04/on-thomas-merton-mary-gordon-review/)
	25:30: Kornfield says the journey is pathless, always leads
back to where we started.  He quotes Merton again, 'We are living in a
world that is absolutely transparent and the divine is shining through
it all the time; this is not just a story or a fable: it is true.'
	27:00: Kristine McKenna tells Joe about a couple, the man lost
all the money on the stock market, tried to kill himself, caused brain
damage that made him incompetent instead.
	29:00: Kristine McKenna tells Joe about couple, happily
married for 52 years, the man lost to Alzheimer's.
	30:30: Kornfield tells us to stop trying, just to let things
be.
	31:40: Larry tells Joe that Zachary says he won't go to summer
school because Blacks and Latinos are harassing him.  Larry and Jolly
tell him he has to go.  He walks out.  Larry's worried about him;
Jolly's angry with Larry, tells him to leave.  Jolly blames Larry for
not disciplining Zachary.  She doesn't believe Zachary's story.
	33:50: Kristine McKenna says we have deeply-embedded
fantasies, that we are attracted to people because we imagine they
will fulfill our fantasy, that this is when the trouble starts.
	35:00: Joe tells Larry that Zachary is with one of his
friends, not on the street.  (At 35:30, Larry says he's 15 and 3/4.)
	35:50: Kristine McKenna tells Joe that, when she's at a party,
she doesn't covet others' situations but covets their non-solitude.
Joe says he'd rather be alone than with someone he doesn't like;
Kristine's not sure.
	37:00: Larry tells Joe that he told Jolly he doesn't have the
money to leave; Larry wants to deal with the immediate problem.
Zachary wants to go to a special retreat in the Berkshires.
	38:40: Kristine McKenna tells Joe that living with someone is
a challenge.
	39:20: Larry tells Joe he doesn't know how'd he'd leave.
	40:20: Kristine McKenna tells Joe that she meets people who
seem like the answer to all her questions, cites Harold.  She flew
somewhere to meet him but he didn't show.  She spent a week and a half
in Mexico with him.  They made a trip to Death Valley where they
recreated Edward Weston's
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Weston) nude pictures of his
wife.  (I can't find these.  Weston spent a year in Death Valley, took
lots of pictures.  Harold may have been putting her on.)
	43:30: Larry's worried about Zachary.
	44:50: Kristine McKenna tells Joe that this fellow was in
intensive care.  She flew there, got into bed with him.  The nurses
kicked her out.
	46:40: Larry asks Joe how he's going to get out, can't imagine
how.
	47:50: Kristine McKenna tells Joe the relationship was a
rollercoaster between euphoria and despair.  She imagines committing
suicide on his front lawn.
	48:50: Larry tells Joe about Zachary's call.  He comes back
with 2 friends, 1 drunk; Larry won't let them stay.  They call collect
at 3 AM.  He finds out that his charge of being harassed by Black and
Latino kids was untrue.
	50:50: Kristine McKenna tells Joe the most-incredible thing
about being with him was that she was completely in the moment.
	51:40: Larry tells Joe Zachary will be 16 in 6 weeks, at which
time he can do what he wants.  He complains that Zachary is
condescending to them.
	53:40: Kristine McKenna tells Joe that she sees paradise in
relationships, even if they haven't worked out in the past.
	54:00: Kornfield says that in the universal path the first
step is wise understanding: what do we want to do with this life we
have been given?
	54:40: Kornfield says we get caught up in the details of daily
life, lose sight of what's important.
	56:10: Kornfield observes the shortness of life, tells us to
'set your heart, treasure the time you have been given.'

	From the broadcast, 'You've been listening to Joe Frank "The
other side".  This program was called "Margarita" with Larry Block,
Kristine McKenna, David Rapkin, Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield, and
Joe Frank - production: Ray Guarna; production assistance: Esme
Gregson; music consultant: Thomas Golubic.'

russell bell