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The highlight of the broadcast from my perspective was Robert Patrick himself a witty and erudite man who tackled the program with great humor. He gave his contact information freely on the air proving to be a man of his convictions a true pioneer in thefield of gay literature from the days of stonewall into the 21st Century.

Life at the Triangle Network was strained and getting more so with each week that followed. Deadlines where not met, we never got broadcast outside of the Portland/Seattle area, and more and more people were being paraded through the station at night to see Frank Olsen’s work in progress. The station was filled to the rafters with appliances of every sort, including tractors, all to be auctioned off on Television. Just before I arrived in the desert, Frank talked names like Ted Dawson and Lana Wood (Natalie’s sister) to host AUCTION TELEVISION. During this period I made friends with a charming lady who came in to make some extra money answering the phones named Elaine Church. It turns out she had been in films at one time, appearing in two of my favorite British films, JUSTINE and THE KILLING OF SISTER GEORGE.

Elaine was nobody’s fool and she quickly picked up on the bad vibes the station was generating in Palm Spring as more and more people became suspicious of Frank Olsen and all this money being raised for a radio station that never aired in town, as well as a Television Network where prizes were won and many of them never collected by anyone. Elaine invited me to her home for a dinner party of around a dozen of her close friends. Afterwards the whole evening was devoted to warning me to be careful about allowing my name to be used to sell stock or find backers for Frank Olsen’s make-shift Network. Elaine’s friends kept reminding me that it was shows like mine that gave the impression to backers that Triangle was legit.

One incident in particular that really put the Frank Olsen situation in perspective came very soon after Elaine’s dinner party. As luck would have it Daun Devore had an uncanny talent for finding guests for her daily chat show and remained constantly on the lookout for celebrities. Daun had recently been in contact with former President Gerald Ford’s public relations staff in Rancho Mirage. Ford remained, next to Bob Hope and Walter Annenberg, the most sought after guest in town, and now our own Daun Devore had the former President all but locked in for an appearance at Triangle. This would really put the station on the map, not to mention provide some much needed prestige as well.

A few days before the Presidential visit was to take place a black sedan arrived at the station filled with secret service men who then proceeded to take down all the license numbers from the cars in the Triangle packing lot reserved for the staff and crew. Within 48 hours after the visit from the secret service the President’s appearance was abruptly cancelled and never spoken of again. At the time it remained a bit of a mystery, however hindsight is 20/20 and with the disclosures that have followed regarding Frank Olsen and several of his co-horts at Triangle, this turn of events was not at all surprising.

This drama would continue through most of 2000 until Frank’s boyfriend started driving the boss’s Rolls Royce around the complex late at night trying to get women to have sex with him. He cornered Daun De Vore in her office late one night and pulled his cock out for her to see, explaining that “his awesome tool” was really made for women like her; Frank could only rent it from time to time. “I’m gay for pay, baby girl … Frank has promised me a million dollars to stay his lover.”

By now we all knew this was the Titanic in search of an iceberg. One by one people were getting pink slipped or their paychecks would bounce. My hours were up to three a night, and Frank had hired this non-professional to read soft core gay porn on the air. The provocative title of his show… “GAY RADIO READER WITH SAMUEL”. When I dared question Frank about this stellar addition to our radio family he looked at me and said “Well now Dave, don’t get all jealous on me, Samuel has an awesome voice; I just love listening to him talk about hard-ons.”

Looking back after all this time, I am able to say that within the year I endured the broadcasters’ “School of Olsen” I had some wonderful articulate guests on my program, like the great Tab Hunter and British director Val Guest and his wife Yo (both of whom lived in Palm Springs full time), not to mention screenwriter (as well as the editor of our very own Films In Review) Roy Frumkes, who kindly spent an hour with me when I really needed him, the lovely Anne Francis who gave very generously of her time during Xmas, cult filmmaker Kenneth Anger who revealed Hollywood secrets, Ron Chaney, grandson to acting legend Lon Chaney, who spent the entire program discussing a century of Chaneys, actor Richard Harrison (who was running for mayor of Palm Springs at the time), Richard Lamparski, who discussed his next book all about his time in New York with his own radio program, and the late Roy Dean who was already well known as a photographer of male nudes but, having been once many years before a very successful actor in the UK, chose to recite Shakes sphere, even allowing us to play a scene together, He then read an original short ghost story about a lost gay love in Hawaii that was quite moving and a real highlight among my shows there at Triangle, especially now that he is gone..

They all did three-hour programs with me during 2000 and of course Robert Patrick (not the X-FILE guy – can you imagine confusing those two?). When I was left to my own devices it could be a lot of fun. I did however feel sorry for the dozens of people Frank swindled out of money as the Triangle project spun out of control and finally just ended with an early morning phone call asking the talent not to come in as the shows were all cancelled, never to be revived

While I was putting this essay together I discovered yet another article, this one in FRONTIERS online, that literally jumped out at me – “THE GAY ENRON-Q TELEVISION TERMINATES IT’S SIGNAL”. It seems after Frank Olsen defrauded countless investors over TRIANGLE TELEVISION and RADIO (from 1999 until 2000, until it finally closed down and later the whole complex was removed for good), he went on his obese little way right into another scam. This time he reinvented the Triangle media name into Q TELEVISION, attracting even bigger names than when I worked for him. This time he played the gay card for all it was worth, remaining always in the shadows on memos or faxes, just his name being enough to keep them guessing ‘’does this guy have the money and the balls to pull off an all-gay anything?’ The players this time around included Steve Kmetko, Sandra Bernhard, and Reichen Lehmkuhl, who had their own shows on the network. And this time the show actually aired on Cable, but not for long.

The article explains how Frank Olsen, “a former Seattle bar owner with a shady past,” raised 15.5 million dollars from investors for the premier Gay Television network “Q.” Back to his old habits from Palm Springs, hiring muscle boys to act as floor managers while picking up guys at the local Blockbusters to produce shows, Frank soon had the whole network running scared as paychecks bounced and deadlines went unheeded. The whole ship began once more to sink.

Why is it no one ever does a background check on men like Frank? He has a felony-theft conviction on the books in Washington State from 1986, and a whole fallen empire in Palm Springs where people are still owed money. There are folks out there who have lost their homes over this man’s greed and dishonesty. Let’s also take into account what his behavior has done for the gay community…absolutely nothing but create mistrust and bad blood for anyone who falls in his path.

As the dust began to settle over this essay I remembered Frank’s birthday party in 2000 at some desert hotel out by Sunny Dunes. Everybody showed up to drink Frank’s booze, eat his buffet, and pretend for one night that this was everybody’s gay big daddy. All the muscle boys from the station were already in party mode, openly smoking bags of pot by the valet parking entrance; it was just so totally “Frank Olsen” already. I arrived with Maggie Abbott in tow. After exchanging a few puffs with the boys in the sand, we made our way inside. Never one to waste good money for a bad cause, Maggie remained reluctant to order a drink from the so-called open bar until she was absolutely positive, and then she quickly ordered a double vodka.

Making a true movie star entrance from the back of the Hall was Linda Christian, draped in floor length furs, with some boy candy on her arm, making her way into the center of the party, ready for a photo op. Though long departed from the station, and far removed from Frank Olsen, the food and drink was on the Triangle tab and lets face it, her beloved Ty Power was long dead, and now so was her radio program.

Palm Springs remains the one town this side of Hollywood that loves to milk a celebrity corpse to death, not to mention claim them as resident desert flowers cut down too soon… cue Elvis and Liberace.

All of the Triangle “family” showed up for Frank’s birthday, and the testimonials were ripe with praise for a man who had promised nearly everyone in that room a piece of the radio/television pie. After I had my share of cocktails I decided to find a table, sit down, and finally take it all in, so who of all people should waddle over and take the chair closest to me but “Big Daddy Frank” himself. He puts his plate down and gives me the grinning “full Monty” version of Frank Olsen’s media mogul leer. “Well Dave, I bet you never thought you would be sitting here in Palm Springs ready to rule?” “No Frank, I certainly did not….” was my reply. “That’s not just the half of it. As we speak, I’ve got those prop boys over at the station putting the finishing touches on that coffin of yours.” Really Frank? I was just about to say the same thing to you.

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