POTW #19 - Joe Frank via Scott Carrier, Jad, and Ira.

On the drive to LA for Throwback a few weeks ago, a friend introduced me to a new podcast, Scott Carrier's Home of the Brave.  I've always really liked Carrier's contributions to This American Life so I added his podcast to my playlist.  The next week, while climbing a tree, I was listening to an episode titled "Two More Stories About Mountains" and the second story shook me from my day and brought me to the quintessential experience of art.


"What is this?  Have I been somehow transported to another world without noticing?", I was asking myself in that tree.  My audio universe was different now and I think it always will be, because I found Joe Frank.  This particular story was about a psychedelic "ascent" of K2 which I assumed would be a true tale.  I'm not even sure when (or if) I ever decided it was fiction.  I loved it.  I've now listened to it two more times with other people.  More Joe Frank, please.

Joe Frank, photo by his partner Michal Story

Joe Frank was a radio pioneer.  He died two days before I heard that story, though that episode was released weeks ago.  I learned he died from the next episode of Home of the Brave when Carrier shared another of his stories.  This week, Radiolab released a tribute episode containing Jad's interviews with Brook Gladstone (here's the full segment from On the Media) and Ira Glass about Frank's influence on all of them.  Listen just to hear Ira Glass say "fuck" more times than he probably has in the last 15 years combined.  Podcasts would not be what they are now without Jad and Ira, I'm happy to learn they share such a trippy, subversive radio ancestor.

I can't wait to listen to the Frank stories I've already found.