On one program. Joe Frank played a recording of actual emergency-room incidents. “Were going to insert a catheter in your penis,” stated a doctor to a moaning gunshot victim. Another time he called up three of his ex-girlfriends and toyed with them emotionally. On another program he asked, “How do you reconcile the Holocaust . . . with a God you would worship?”
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Sometimes Frank’s whole show is a provocative monologue. “A dog will never be able to read Plato,” says Frank’s urgent voice. “A cat will never be able to solve algebraic problems. Their intelligence binds them. Traps them. Why should we think we’re any different? There are truths of which we shall always be unaware.” But often his shows are dramas improvised by professional actors, delivering disturbing fiction that sounds so authentic you think you’re eavesdropping.
“I use improvisation to make the program sound credible. I want listeners to ask, ‘Is this real or staged? What’s going on here? Are they insane?’”
Frank says radio executives often warn him not to go too far. “They’re worried I won’t use enough restraint,” says Frank, who attended the University of Iowa’s Writer’s Workshop and taught English at Manhattan’s posh Dalton School. He’s gotten thousands of supportive letters in the nine months he’s been broadcast nationally, but only a few with any invective.
