Joe Frank
Official site

• 
  contact

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

June 18, 2007

Going off the ken nordine post, you do show an intense (intimidating? comforting? Those feelings really don't go together, but that's what I feel) amount of vulnerability in your shows. What do you get from putting it out there like that? Especially since you seem (seem... It's a guess, I could be wrong. maybe you feel more like an exhibitionist.) really private.
Mercy

A. With some exceptions, the vast body of my shows from NPR Playhouse and the "Work in Progress," "In the Dark," and "Somewhere Out There" series (1978-1997), although they varied widely in format and subject matter, were not particularly autobiographical or personally revealing. This all changed with The Other Side programs (1999-2001), when I decided to go for something more literally than metaphorically true, a kind of real-life soap opera about the unfolding lives of a number of people I knew (Larry Block, Debi Mae West, Gregory Poe, Kristine McKenna, and, of course, myself, among others)-played against a background of the Buddhist teachings of Jack Kornfield.

It was a way of breaking away from the familiar and trying to push the radio envelope in a new direction. It's unfortunate that some listeners (a small minority, actually) were put off by the honesty, vulnerability and what might have appeared unsettling exhibitionism. I never thought of it that way, but we're all entitled to our points of view.

I have formed many opinions of who you are while listening to you on long drives, camping trips, and drug induced stupors... It seems like it would be a waste of the art that has been created to put a photograph on top of the painting you have become in my life...

So the question that does not have an obvious answer - Who are you when you are not Art?
Eris

A.The truth is that I've put more into my radio work than into anyone or anything else in my life. It has been my one steady companion for over thirty years. So I guess it does reveal a great deal about who I am and how I think and what amuses and concerns me. And, of course, there are programs that are quite autobiographical ("A Death in the Family," and many of "The Other Side" programs, as well).

And how is it seeing your fans? Depressing? Enlightening? Revolting? Inspiring? Other?
Eris

A. Meeting fans has always been a good and sometimes surprising experience (especially how young they are).

I came across something surfing the internet today. I wonder, Joe, how you as a satirist must feel when your more preposterous comic ideas later turn out to be somehow true? The following link describes something very close to a segment of "An Enterprising Man:"
foodveyor

[Link]

A. That's funny.

Also, my original question: How did the involvement of 'Brother' Theodore Gottlieb come about in your NPR-era work? This guy was really something else.
foodveyor

A. Oddly, I first met Brother Theodore through a mutual friend in St. Louis, where he was performing at a club in the Gaslight District. We got to know each other and found that we shared some of the same sensibilities and experiences, not to mention a passion for chess. Theodore was a chess master who beat me repeatedly after I surprised him with a trick victory in our first encounter. Eventually, he appeared brilliantly in a few of my programs, among them "The Decline of Spengler," "The End," and "A Tour of the City."

I am curious as to how similar your style as anchor on NPR's All Things Considered was to the monologue segments of your shows. When I listen to such segments as the K2 climb on "Mountain Rain" I can definitely hear the radio anchor voice, although the subject matter is very different. In fact, I guess that's probably why I like your monologue style so much. Have you changed your delivery much since that time?
Roger

A. I did not sound even remotely similar to my later radio work when I appeared as weekend host of ATC.

Also, I would be interested in any thoughts that you have about that time. Did you enjoy that job?
Roger

A. I was not a journalist and unsuited to the job. Based on the bizarre and edgily honest late-night radio I'd been creating at WBAI, I have no idea why they hired me. I was interested instead in absurd humor and enduring truths as seen through the world of the imagination, which I found far more entertaining and meaningful than the deadening and repetitive narrative of daily events accompanied by the Washington political beltway chatter. Hosting ATC was the worst working experience of my life. I was completely out of sync with the program. Even now, although I often enjoy watching "Hardball" with Chris Matthews and the Sunday morning political talk shows, I also find them shortsighted, narrow and myopic. And ATC's attempts at radio art (for example, their recent series on sound-scapes) or at political humor, are usually so sophomoric and embarrassing that they make you cringe.

See you next time,

Joe