[joe-frank-list] 'Bad karma'

[russellbell at gmail.com]

	Joe tells of a dinner party attended by notorious murderers
(Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot...) and a 'children's table' with
smaller-scale murders (John Wayne Gacy, Gary Gilmore, Ted Bundy...)
The head table attenders talk about aesthetic matters: clothes, floral
arrays...  Joe wonders why he's there.
	6:10: 'I have a defective aortic valve...'  'John' (relying on
the credits - possibly a pseudonym), in the hospital, describes his
condition, his life and family.  Joe asks questions, some heartless.
	15:10: Larry, apparently having heard a recording of the call,
calls it 'freelance sadism', identifies Joe as a 'friend of a friend'
(of John).
	17:10: John says it's not much of a story; Joe says it would
be a better story if he were sicker.  John says he wouldn't be talking
to Joe if he were sicker.
	18:00: A woman, interrupting via call-waiting (remember
that?), tells Joe to call.
	18:10: John feels sorry for Joe that he wants him to be sicker.
	22:20: Joe and Larry talk more about John.
	22:40: Ruth Hirschman (then KCRW's GM) calls Joe to tell him
they can't air 'suck my [bleep]', even though it's attributed (in a
dream) to Joe's mother.  She says, 'Graphic sex, Will tells me, is not
permissible.' ('Will' is Will Lewis, longtime KPFK (the Pacifica
station in LA) GM; Ms Hirschman worked there before KCRW.  Mr Lewis
was the GM when the Symbionese Liberation Army left a tape of their
demands in a sofa in a nearby alley, called KPFK, told them of it.
KPFK aired the tape.  The LAPD searched the station, probably
illegally.  They stuck microphones near the cops' mouths when they
spoke, broadcast it.  Mr Lewis spent days in jail.  I listened that
day.  Ms Hirschman hired him as a consultant at KCRW.)
	24:10: Joe and Larry talk more about John.  Joe says John's in
denial.
	25:30: Kristine talks about what's allowable in art, whether
it excuses the wrongs of the artists' personal lives, cites the
example of Picasso.  Then she talks about Joe's calls to John in the
same light: how good a show would Joe have to produce to make it worth
hurting John?  She says she knows 3 stories that Joe won't air because
they would hurt others involved.  She says Joe's not a bad person.
	30:00: Larry talks about his possible skin cancer.
	32:30: Jack Kornfield talks about Buddhist vows.  He says we
must commit ourselves to what we do.
	36:40: Kristine opines that Hitler thought he was doing a
grand thing, that all the great killers thought they were.  She says
good people feel guilt, bad people don't.
	39:40: Joe was walking down a country road in Tunisia or
Morocco - he wasn't sure - it was a dream.  He was in an oasis; he had
come there to speak with god.  He asks some silly questions.  Then he
says he really wants answers about animals killing other animals, as
seen on 'National Geographic' TV.  Joe wants to know how he's supposed
to pray to a god that created this.  God's in a director's chair,
stylishly dressed; he plays some silly tricks; Joe decides he doesn't
like the dream.
	47:20: Joe changes his dream to a club in Prague with a
euro-trash band and other weirdness.
	51:20: Now he's outside, in the dark; bodies hang from the
lamp-posts; a pit is filled with bodies.  A revisionist historian
calls it fake, calls for the extermination of Jews.  A crowd is
enthused.
	54:10: Joe walks into the country.  Joe waves a car down.  His
mother, father, and he as a boy, are in the car, on their way their
country home.  They wave him in, but he refuses.  They're killed at a
checkpoint, then buried.
	56:30: Joe wakes up, drives to Seattle Coffee, buys a coffee
and an 'LA Times', reads about his suicide.

	'You've been listening to Joe Frank, "The other side".  This
program was called "Bad karma" with Larry Block, Kristine McKenna,
Jack Kornfield, and Joe Frank - special thanks to John; portions
created in collaboration with David Rapkin.  This program was recorded
and edited by J. C. Swiatek and mixed by Bob Carlson; music
consultant: Thomas Golubic; production assistance: Esme Gregson'


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


russell bell