Clement At Christmas

Clement At Christmas[1]

Series
The Other Side
Original Broadcast Date
December 12, 1999
Cast
Clement von Franckenstein, Joe Frank
Format
Real People, Absurd Monologue, 1 hour
Preceded by:	Predator
Followed by:	Lover Man

"I was on vacation from school and several of us went skiing."

Clement At Christmas is the name of a program Joe Frank produced as part of the series The Other Side. It was originally broadcast on December 12, 1999.

Synopsis

Unnamed person (Clement von Franckenstein) tells the story of his life: parents dying in plane crash when he was a boy, friends of theirs raising him, attending Eton, service as an officer in the Royal Scots Greys (through the services of a guardian's brother), where he acted badly, was disciplined, visited the working girls at the Reeperbahn in Hamburg, 'bum actor' in Los Angeles (playing Henry 8 at 1520 AD, a restaurant theatre), attending church (All Saints in Beverly Hills), where he would read the lesson, orgies at his friend Daud's (Daud Alani, owner of 1520 AD), his adventures with women.

26: Laura Esterman leaves an angry answering machine message

33: Joe tells us about the extreme decorations he's put on his house this Christmas, its appreciators and protesters. He carries a cross, goes to the stations of the cross (Starbucks, 3rd street promenade, Santa Monica Hospital...)

37: Neighbor Pamela joins him in his Jacuzzi. Her late husband, an archer, attacked a passenger plane with his bows and arrows from his Cessna, crashed.

40: Joe spends Christmas in a bath, cuts himself enough to turn the water pink, but not enough to kill himself, a 'virtual suicide'.

41: Laura Esterman's angry answering machine message

48: Joe's at a party, drinking hot rum punch, sitting on a sofa; a woman with a cast wants him to write on it.

52: Laura Esterman's angry answering machine message

Expand

Legacy Synposis

• A man talks about his life:
  • He's attracted to voluptuous women. A sexual encounter as a teenager. Life with his foster uncle after his parents die.
  • He becomes an officer in the Grays. A mission in Kuwait. Going to town in full dress, hiring a prostitute. Danger as an aphrodisiac.
  • Hollywood orgies. The benefits of a libidinous lifestyle. A 74 year old man dates a 21 year old woman. Holiday parties, playing music.
• Female actor: an ex-lover, leaves a long answering machine message combining angry accusations with a desperate party invitation. (This segment is cut in throughout the following monologue.)
• Monologue:
  • Joe talks about Christmas, extreme decorations, enacting the stations of the cross at Santa Monica retail stores.
  • Discussing life and god with a neighbor. A man fires arrows at an airliner from a small plane.
  • Virtual suicide and bathing in blood at New Years. Joe is at a holiday party, meets a young woman and writes "Regret not the momentary impulse" on her cast.
  • "Keep god incorporated" nonsense advice monologue.

Miscellanea

• Shares material with other programs, including Road To Hell.
• At the "meet and greet" event before the Great American Music Hall show in 2004, KPFA gave out CDs which were labeled Clement at Christmas but actually contained the program Lover Man.

Commentary

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