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Every Monday, Joe posts answers to questions he receives over at the Frankophiles Forum. Ask your question now, and come back Monday to see if it was answered.

March 26, 2007

Was there a story behind Iceland and how did it lead in to your new series that had a different name? Was that show a step in the dark or was there something you wanted to achieve other than shocking a lot of people?
Slandlord

A. Honestly, Slandlord, I was baffled by your question. Just what material were you referring to? So I went over the script of the three-hour series and found two sections that some might consider "shocking." In the first, I express exasperation and contempt for aspiring artists who write me:

"Do you have any idea how many people send me their short stories, poems and journals to critique and even read on the air? Let me begin by saying that this is the Joe Frank Show. This is not the Hyman Kaplan Hour. This is not The Maria Ortega Spiel Fest. This is not the Steven J. Lewis Memorial Podium. I'm the author of the material here. It is I, Joe Frank, who is the font from which the wisdom springs. It's my show. It's not your show. And the purpose of this show is to serve my ends, so that I can cleanse my soul of the accumulated residue of my rage, of my passion, and I'm not here to read your stories. I am not a mirror. I am a source of light. I am not a reflecting surface. I am heat. My purpose is not to vibrate with your experience, but rather to resonate with my own.

"Not only that, but people send me cassettes of their Joe Frank style monologues with music and sound effects, which, of course, they hope I'll consider for broadcast on my program. . . And then there are aspiring movie directors who want me to narrate their student films and send me treatments of the movies they're making. . . and they say, 'So why don't we just meet and have a cup of coffee and think about it?' As if I have all the time in the world in order to meet them at Ben Frank's and sit listening to the scenario of their latest film...

"The pile appears to grow daily, as though some unstoppable geological process was accreting, and I stand by helpless to stop it. It is uncontrollable, unstoppable... I feel like a man trying to hold back a wall of water with my palm... Yes, there's no answer but to pass this on to a higher being, to transcend the human answer, and to revert to the celestial, the holy, the blessed answer."

And then, accompanied by the sound of flames, you hear me throwing my listener mail into a bonfire:

"Oh, God, please prepare to receive this offering... I send you hopes, dreams, aspirations, voices, music. I am unworthy of them. So I humbly offer them up to you, borne on the wings of your greatest gift to us -- fire. Ah, this is truly a bonfire of the vanities... "

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