Category: Performances (page 2 of 5)

April 10, 2022 / 0 Comments

Aktivist March 2008 Poland – Part 1

Elections in the US are approaching fast. Although both Hillary and Barack have begged us for an interview – we refused. We’re opting for so called “third-party candidates”, people unaffiliated with neither republicans nor liberals. Are you a US citizen? Love party and weed? Vote for Frank Moore!

Thanks to Tomek Von Schachtmayer for the translation from Polish to English.

Section – Counterintelligence

MK: Lets assume I’m an American. Why would I cast my vote just for you?

FM: Because none of the candidates are sincere, they don’t want to introduce any necessary changes, and realistically support societal progress. This is just what my task is going to be. People don’t see me as a performer bound to a wheelchair, but someone who shares their dreams and speaks about things that in fact concern life. They realize that by pulling forces/efforts together we can overcome fear and isolation, abandon corporate shackles and ensure everyone’s medical care, education, decent income, reintroduce rights and liberties and bring the army back home. We have to be aware of these possibilities. Don’t waste your vote on someone who doesn’t understand your dreams, because he or she is surely not going to help you realize them.
Vote for Frank Moore!

MK: So your participation in the presidential election is not solely another performance.

FM: Every election campaign is a performance. Except it’s quite serious. My campaign started with a T-shirt. Two years ago, Michael LaBash, one of five members of our commune gave me a T that said “Frank Moore for President” as a X-mas present. I have sported it a few times, people got interested then began to ask me about my election program. It just goes to show that it’s impossible to tell which direction an art project would evolve. I don’t perform to tell stories, paint pictures, strip in public or even more so to make some dough. It’s simply the best way to create a community! In the 80’s and 90’s by using a variety of techniques I would take the audiences of my long ritual shows onto a virtual island of ‘Lila’. Out there everyone felt like a member of a family in which isolation, fear and competition did not exist. Such experience made people realize that it is possible to create an analogical community in real world. It gave hope that is associated with changes and a rise of expectations. And my presidential campaign reaches much further than those hours long rituals.

MK: Right on. You are considered as a behavioral scandalist, a shocking performer famous for parties that astonish with nudity and last 48 hours. Even America considering herself super-liberal is not ready for a president like you.

FM: We’ll see. Today’s Americans are much more open-minded than their so called leaders. My program and ideas are the clearest points in this electoral performance. People are focused on them exclusively, nothing else matters to them. Anyway, most people who come to see my ritualistic performance are relaxed rather than shocked.

MK: You say that you are a “political virgin”. History of presidential elections shows that independent newbies don’t count in the game as far as winning. Especially persons like you who cut themselves off of this whole “political world”.

FM: Do you mean that I’m not a politician, a person addicted to power? That’s right. I’ve never tried to run for office – maybe with one exception of a small episode in college. Nevertheless, I’ve always been engaged in politics in a wider, social context. Back then I’ve collaborated with independent press. History shows that for “third party candidates” the goal is not to win. Basically the electoral system is rigged to prevent us from winning. Our task is to instill new ideas, cause ferment, instigate change. In this context my presidential campaign is super effective. On the other hand… It’d be cool to defeat those suckers!

MK: You’ve been living with five people for the last 40 years. Hippie commune? It used to be cool ages ago. You will rather not impress your fellow citizens with this.

FM: Cohabitation offers various possibilities. Living in a commune is cheaper. Besides, it’s written into human history. People have been living together for millennia! As a president I will support building small, well connected neighborhoods. We’ll be walking or bicycling to work, school, or to go shopping. This way we’ll get rid of traffic jams, limit greenhouse gas emissions, stress and feelings of alienation. Everyone will be granted a housing.

MK: So back to the roots then. You’ve been excited about socialism during college, today you often use terms like “anticorporate”, “anticapitalist”. Do you think that a lack of campaign funds is your asset?

FM: No sponsors means no compromise. I set imagination in motion, improvise. I keep in mind the scale and the possibilities and do not give empty promises. All that put together gives me absolute freedom!

MK: One of your propositions is legalizing and taxing the sale of drugs.

FM: War against drugs has become a part in a bigger war against people, especially people of color and leftists. One in a hundred Americans is in prison. Marijuana should be available, to adults only. As a further matter, taxing this most demanded crop in the U.S. will bring measurable benefits. This idea really makes sense.

MK: Your propaganda megaphone is your website Luver.com. How much does it cost to maintain a 24 hour working internet radio?

FM: Love Underground Visionary Revolution was founded 9 years ago. It’s an anti-corporate, anti-capitalist revolution! Uncensored, working according to DIY philosophy, a non-commercial institution. In the beginning it cost us $99 per month, now its up to $700. We don’t have much support and we cover most of the cost ourselves. That’s what underground is about!

MK: Readers of “AKTIVIST” magazine are interested in metropolitan life and culture. What will you offer such people as president?

FM: I often perform in illegal punk clubs, Japanese restaurants and at other interesting gatherings. I’m a musician, poet, TV-show personality, I also run my own club. I know how to have a good time – I’ll send unbelievers to www.eroplay.com. Club culture, raves, street festivals, musicians… since the mid 80’s all these things have been gradually losing importance. As a president I will revive nightlife and bring it back to its old splendor. Again, people will have places to meet, talk and party!

MK: In your dictionary there is no term for “impossible”. If you don’t succeed in the presidential election this time around, are you going to run again in four years?

FM: Easy, I’ve got a plan and I carry it out step by step so be alert!

Note:
Frank Moore – performer, poet, musician, painter. He was born with cerebral palsy – he doesn’t speak and uses a wheelchair. He can communicate in a somewhat similar way to the main character in “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” movie. In the early 90’s he was a target of an influential senator Jesse Helms who torpedoed efforts of the National Foundation for the Arts established by Frank Moore which, according to the politician, promoted “obscene” ideas. In one of the recent interviews Frank was asked a question about the difference between him and his rival candidates in the presidential election, he answered: “Which other candidate will be your homeboy?”.

See the original layout in Polish here:
https://www.frankmooreforpresident08.com/pdfs/aktivist-printversion.pdf

Read the complete, unedite d interview here.

February 12, 2022 / 0 Comments

More is Moore

A review written by Silke Tudor, for SF Weekly, of a performance by Frank Moore’s Cherotic All-Star Band at Kimo’s in San Francisco, April 5, 2001.

More is Moore

Frank Moore’s Cherotic All Star Band provides nudity, music, cerebral palsy, and, perhaps, art

By Silke Tudor

published: May 02, 2001

Thursday nights at Kimo’s usually draw a small and sundry crowd that is uniquely receptive to the whims of “Hex Appeal” promoter and booker Matt Shapiro. Featuring an intimate karaoke act led by a man with a chapman stick and a video drummer one week, and a smorgasbord of black metal bands that will attract cops and noise complaints the next, “Hex Appeal” is usually interesting, but an ambiguous rumor about a midget and a “bellowing cripple” copulating during a blues song made attendance at the return engagement of Frank Moore’s Cherotic All Star Band obligatory.

For years, I’ve been vaguely aware of Frank Moore’s ritual performances and “eroplay” workshops. I’ve seen fliers hanging on telephone poles with Moore’s photographed face leering from atop a sketch of his wheelchair; I’ve come across handbills comparing Moore’s work to Warhol, Zappa, and the Living Theater, calling for “underground actresses” undaunted by nudity, eroticism, and adult play. I am aware that, in the ’70s, Frank Moore “staged” performances at both the Mabuhay Gardens and at my early punk rock stomping ground, the Farm. Since 1999, a number of artists I greatly appreciate — didgeridoo player Stephen Kent, poetry duo Attaboy and Burke, and singer/songwriter Andrew Goldfarb of the Slow Poisoners — have appeared on Moore’s 24-hour Internet radio station, Love Underground Vision Radio (LUVeR.com); and his zine, The Cherotic Revolutionary,has been lauded by Factsheet Five, SubGenius holyman Ivan Stang, and MaximumRocknRoll, and still I’d never seen one of Frank Moore’s performances. Something about the psychedelic imagery used on his fliers and the titles of his pieces — Raptures of the Tribal Body, Cave of Passion, Erotic Lava, Playing Dream Passions Naked — reminded me too much of the aborted communes and artist collectives I was exposed to as a child.

According to his memoir, Art of a Shaman, posted on his Web site (www.eroplay. com), Frank Moore was “spastic, unable to walk or talk.” Doctors suggested he be institutionalized until his unpreventable premature death, but his parents rejected the conventions of the time and raised Moore to do the same. From the beginning, Moore says, he was an exhibitionist, and his body, crippled by cerebral palsy, was ideal for his temperament: People stared. At 17, Moore learned to speak by spelling out words with a head pointer (which is how he paints canvases today), and he learned to consider his handicap a blessing. Much in the way that early civilizations thought cripples belonged to the spirit world, Moore knew that standard societal expectations did not apply to him; he was outside, in a misfit place most artists would have to struggle to maintain. In 1970, after a failed attempt at staging his first all-nude play at Cal State, San Bernardino, Moore dropped out of college and hitchhiked to Santa Fe, where a rich woman asked that he paint a portrait of her in the nude. The realization that “art gave people permission to do what was normally considered forbidden” led him to start workshops and nude rituals he called “nonfilms,” which explored the boundaries of human intimacy through nudity. The communal family that sprang up around Moore eventually relocated to Berkeley in 1975, where Moore met his life partner Linda Mac and started workshops that turned Berkeley into a strange playground of Moore’s devising: Participants buried each other alive in coffins and staged rebirths; they drank urine and launched fantasy costume parades; they staged a multimedia carnival called “The Erotic Test”; they staged theater pieces for which actors trained by working at strip clubs; they took part in political protests and benefits; they started a cabaret show, titled The Outrageous Beauty Revue, in which Frank Moore sang in spite of, and because of, his difficulty in forming words; they held public rituals during which people could “play” with each other without actually having sex. This became the essence of eroplay. In the early ’90s, Jesse Helms investigated Moore for being obscene, but that only encouraged Moore. Over the years, he has held countless rituals in the Bay Area, with each running as little as 40 minutes and as long as 48 hours.

“The difference between eroplay and foreplay is one of intent,” writes Moore. “Physically, there is no difference. It is the same pleasurable, physical turned-on feeling. But … eroplay is satisfying in itself, in relaxing intensity. There is no build-up of pent-up energy in one climactic act.”

For the tenderfoot, Frank Moore’s Cherotic All Star Band, an ever-changing musical entity, is a moderate introduction.

“I’ve played with Frank numerous times,” says Andrew Goldfarb, who met Moore through LUVeR radio, “both solo and with my band. Last time we performed was inside a produce warehouse in Richmond. We sang “This Land Is Your Land” together. Frank played piano and, even though he has cerebral palsy, it sounded like he was channeling Thelonious Monk. Frank Moore is a true American, a real example of someone who knows how to turn lemons into lemonade.”

Goldfarb recalls breaking his foot eight hours before a performance with Frank Moore.

“I was going to cancel,” says Goldfarb, “but I thought, “I’m opening for Frank Moore, I can’t cancel.” Frank has invented a new language for [public performance]. Don’t always understand what he’s up to, but he causes me to examine my notions of sexism, sex, monogamy, and the animal/psychological duality of modern living. He’s an amazing inspiration for anyone seeking freedom of expression without any physical or mental boundaries.”

Frank Moore arrives at Kimo’s with his entourage — a young five-piece band, Linda Mac, and a blind backup singer/ flutist named Teresa Cochran — wearing little more than a shirt, orange socks, and mismatched shoes. As Moore points to letters on his spelling board with lurching movements of his head, Mac interprets: “Frank says he likes people.” Moore grins through his feral beard, exposing large, misshapen teeth. His tongue lolls suggestively. Moore recommends that John the Baker take off his pants, and the small crowd applauds encouragingly.

“I’ve already seen you naked anyway,” spells Moore.

“This I gotta see,” says Cochran with a grin, her pendulous breasts swaying under a sheer garment. John the Baker disrobes and the set begins with Linda Mac singing over distorted cello and keyboard loops. Moore begins to howl, rising in his wheelchair, his back bowed with effort as his arms flap irregularly at his side. Mac smiles, swirling in her see-through robe, rubbing up against guitarist Giovanni Moro, which sends Moore into a spasm of excited grunts and wails. He grins and mugs for the cameras as the music builds. Mac lifts her skirt and rubs her ass against Moore’s lap. He rears in his seat, pushing against her with paroxysmal thrusts, matching her off-balance singing with supportive growls. Cochran lights a pipe and begins smoking as Moore’s hand lurches between Mac’s legs. The musicians play on, rolling over the stage with bluesy guitar riffs and spontaneous percussion. Cochran edges her way toward Moore’s wheelchair, feeling for Mac’s ass as Moore’s hand fumbles for Cochran’s breast. They grunt and wail as Mac continues singing and grinding on Moore’s lap. The crowd watches — some dumbfounded, some delighted — as cameras flash and Moore bellows. While Mac seems to keep the song in place, the energy of the scene escalates and ebbs along with Moore’s directing vocal rumble. His stamina is unrelenting, and the music goes on and on. I am repelled but stuck: I can’t turn away, until, finally, Matt Shapiro indicates with a flick of the lights that the set has reached its conclusion.

Satisfied, Moore grins lecherously, and Mac announces that their CD is called Dying Is Sexy.

“That’s the most punk rock thing I’ve seen in years,” says a young man who has moved to the front of the stage with a camera. “Where do you go from there?”

“Just because he’s crippled doesn’t mean it’s art,” counters another. “He might just be a dirty old hippie in a wheelchair.”

“I don’t know who’s more crazy,” says a woman standing outside the nightclub, “the people performing or the people watching.”

Frank Moore says the crazy person performs insane rituals not to express himself, but to keep the sky from falling. And the sky doesn’t fall.

Original article is here: https://archives.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/more-is-moore/Content?oid=2141589

Email between Silke and Frank after the article was published:

From:	"silke tudor" <silke@sirius.com>
To:	"Frank Moore" <fmoore@eroplay.com>
Sent:	Thursday, May 03, 2001 7:23 AM
Subject:	Re: just read your article

thank you for your help, it was not the easiest article I've written.

Frank Moore wrote:
>	it definately is one of the best, deepest articles written about my
>	work. you captured a lot! thank you.
>
>	In Freedom
>	Frank Moore
>	Visit http://www.eroplay.com
>	Listen to LUVeR!
>	http ://www. luver.com
>	LUVeR Alternative News
>	http://www.luver.org

Watch the performance:

August 29, 2021 / 0 Comments

A Dance Ritual

By Frank Moore, January 26, 2003

Lower the lights.

Squat in the center of the room, holding yourself very tightly, rocking, fully dressed, maintaining boundaries, making whatever sounds, all tight, all “self-contained”.

When you are ready…it doesn’t matter how long this takes…let yourself expand into the room, while still squatting and rocking. Relax.

Let yourself expand into me when you are ready…it doesn’t matter how long this takes…and take me into you when you are ready…it doesn’t matter how long this takes…all the while squatting and rocking.

When you are ready, move around the room, making deep sounds within a relaxed freedom. Slowly remove your clothes… when you are ready…it doesn’t matter how long this takes. Let yourself expand outside of the studio, taking everything into you.

When you are ready…it doesn’t matter how long this takes…dance with me, drawing everything in the room into the rapture state of our combined being, making deep sounds within a relaxed freedom.

When you are ready…it doesn’t matter how long this takes…sit on me and rock/rub our combined being into a rapture state, making deep sounds within a relaxed freedom. Remain in this state.

“A Dance Ritual” was performed at this performance, Exploring of Possibilities of Passion, January 31, 2003

From the book Frankly Speaking: A Collection of Essays, Writings & Rants by Frank Moore.

May 17, 2021 / 0 Comments

Wacky Racers

In 2007 Frank was contacted by journalist Ravi Somaiya who wanted to do an interview for The Independent about Frank’s presidential campaign. He also contacted and interviewed Frank’s running mate, Dr. Susan Block. We never saw the article in The Independent, but we found it in The Age (theage.com.au) in Australia. Below is the excerpt from the article about Frank’s campaign.

Wacky Racers

Ravi Somaiya, The Age (Australia, theage.com.au), December 9, 2007

Forget Hillary and Barack. The real characters vying for the Oval Office in next year’s US presidential election are the wackos, the zealots, the eternally optimistic and the latest round of former Hollywood stars.

FRANK MOORE Independent

Most shrewd political advisers would counsel against appearing naked except for your shoes and socks and having a girl grind up and down on you. But performance artist and quadriplegic Frank Moore isn’t following the usual advice.

He’s known as the “Stephen Hawking of performance art” and communicates, like the esteemed Lucasian professor of mathematics, with a pointing board. His vice-presidential candidate is Dr Susan Block, an internet and telephone sex therapist who also hosts an explicit cable and internet TV show.

“Define ‘win’,” he says through his interpreter when I ask about his chances. “I have already won. You are talking to me. It’s not just a publicity exercise, but (an effort) to get the issue talked about in a real way.”

His policies include abolishing welfare and social security in favour of a $1000-a-month payment for every adult; free education and healthcare for all; a flat-rate tax of 10% for earnings up to $1 million, with a 75% rate on earnings above that; and halving the military budget.

“I suppose at first it’s kind of funny,” says Block. “Here’s this quadriplegic artist and a pretty outspoken sex therapist who likes to dress up in lingerie. But I think when people read our platform they’ll find there’s a lot of sense in it. Right now, some politicians are sexually repressed and channeling their sexual energies into big phallic bombs and war and destruction.” Make love not war, indeed.

The Frank Moore for President 2008 campaign at the How Berkeley Can You Be Festival 2007.
From left to right: Mikee LaBash, Linda Mac, Alexi Malenky, Frank Moore, Corey Nicholl, Erika Shaver-Nelson.

Read the original article here:
https://www.theage.com.au/technology/wacky-racers-20071209-ge6hd4.html

April 18, 2021 / 0 Comments

Lower Links, Chicago 1990 – PART 2

Frank got his picture on the cover of NEW CITY in 1990 for the Lower Links show. One of the highlights of that trip was when we were wheeling Frank through the Amtrak station in Chicago and a Red Cap shouted across the very large lobby, “Hey Frank Moore!!” He had seen Frank on the cover of New City!

You can download and read a pdf of the complete article here :
https://eroplay.com/Cave/outlaw-artists.pdf

April 11, 2021 / 0 Comments

Lower Links, Chicago 1990 – Part 1

Frank and the Chero Company performed “The Outrageous Horror Show” at Lower Links in Chicago on October 11, 1990 as part of their “Year of Peril” series.

Here is the pre-show article from the Chicago Reader:

Frank Moore

October 5, 1990

By Albert Williams

“I have a body that is ideal for a performance artist,” says Frank Moore, who was born with cerebral palsy and is 99 percent physically disabled. Moore’s performances are touching in the most literal and provocative sense. A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts performance art fellowship in 1985, Moore shares with Karen Finley (who’s also appearing in town this week) the distinction of being on the “hit list” set up by the fearmongers who seek to set the arts agenda these days. (Performance spaces that receive NEA grants are investigated; if they have presented certain artists, such as Finley and Moore, their grant-worthiness is called into doubt.) But if, to paraphrase the title of Finley’s controversial show, the oppressors keep their victims ready, Moore refuses to play victim. In his group piece Outrageous Horror Show, he and his company, Chero, employ erotic play, nude exhibitionism, audience participation, and unorthodox concepts of narrative, space, time, and beauty as means to challenge the barriers society erects around sexuality, cripples, and art. Moore’s appearance is the first offering in “Year of Peril (The Censorship Issue),” a series of performances that will also feature Annie Sprinkle’s Sex Education Class and filmmakers Monte Cazazza and Michelle Handelman’s True Gore later this month. Club Lower Links, Thursday, October 11 (954 W. Newport, 248-5238), 7 PM. $7.

Poster for the show produced by Lower Links

Here is the script for Frank’s performance:

A review from the Chicago Reader:

The Plucky & Spunky Show

December 20, 1990

By Anthony Adler

THE PLUCKY & SPUNKY SHOW

Remains Theatre

I might have liked The Plucky & Spunky Show a lot better if I hadn’t seen Frank Moore first. Frank Moore has cerebral palsy. He rides around in a wheelchair, his head and hands move spasmodically, and when he tries to talk the words come out as a series of incomprehensible whines and screeches.

So naturally he’s a performance artist.

I saw Moore’s show when he came to Club Lower Links in October. The evening was long, strange, and very trippy–picture a student pageant at the Jimi Hendrix Memorial School for the Disabled, circa 1971. I found myself squirming almost as soon as I walked in. There was Moore, facing us from his wheelchair, howling and gesticulating to music–his torso straining up against his seat belt; his hands wild; his tongue lolling out of his mouth; and Sonny & Cher on the box, singing what else but “Laugh at Me.”

Drinks were being served. The audience applauded after every appalling number. I was thoroughly upset: my sense of dignity was being assailed. Not my sense of my own dignity, but of Moore’s–my sense of the dignity of the handicapped. What amusement, what pleasure was there in seeing this unlucky man demonstrate his incapacity for us?

Then, whoosh, I saw how completely I’d missed the point. Or rather, how completely I’d fallen into it without seeing it. Moore wasn’t playing to anybody’s prejudices. Just the opposite: he was attacking them. Attacking them with his whole writhing, caterwauling being. His simple presence constituted a challenge to conventional notions of what a performer may and may not look like. And by extension, what roles disabled people may and may not assume. He was all wrong, and yet there he was: sitting center stage, rocking out–even turning sex symbol when his wife appeared, half-naked, to croon “I Got You Babe” with him.

I realized then that my solicitude was actually condescension: a healthy man’s attempt to put a handicapped man not only in his place but in his persona. I wasn’t really angry at the audience for demeaning Moore–the fact was that I was angry at Moore for playing against his assigned type.

The Plucky & Spunky Show offers similar insight–but in the form of a punch line rather than a revelation. Where Moore got in my face with his difference and defiance, Plucky & Spunky came at me with a big hug, a patient look, and an easy laugh. A comedy revue about the peculiar difficulties of the handicapped–written by wheelchair veterans Susan Nussbaum and Mike Ervin, and performed by a mixed ensemble of blind, deaf, paraplegic, and even tall actors–Plucky & Spunky pretends to a certain amount of wiseass irony; we’re supposed to take the title with a heavy dose of attitude. And yet the show’s overall tone actually expresses the pure essence of pluck and spunk. Nussbaum and Ervin are out to cajole us into enlightenment. They tend to teach by ingratiation.

Not that there aren’t darker modulations here and there. Nussbaum gives herself some rich, surprisingly sharp passages–as in the skit where a spilled order of shrimp in black bean sauce momentarily knocks the spirit out of a paraplegic woman. Or the one where Nussbaum and David Pasquesi play wheelchair-bound lovers debating their chances of maintaining a long-term relationship in a world of hostile architecture and patronizing strangers.

Then, too, there are some plain funny bits–plain funny loosely defined here as anything with Pasquesi in it. A Second City mainstage regular, Pasquesi brings a stunningly specific comic imagination to everything he does. As just a small for instance, there’s a scene where Pasquesi comes between a man and his irate, deaf wife: the wife signs the word “sorry” on Pasquesi’s chest and Pasquesi goes giggly from the feel of it. The tickle’s a minor detail, but it has an unexpectedly major effect, simultaneously grounding the scene in physical reality while making it fly as comedy.

Mostly, however, Plucky & Spunky goes for the warm and runny. The warm and runny and pat. An ongoing story about former poster girl Spunky and her search for identity ends with the requisite I’m-Just-Me song. Even the shrimp-and-bean-sauce tragedy closes on an up note. The revue format itself tends to defuse any dangerous interplay between show and audience, its familiarity breeding a complacency that’s never challenged. People with all their limbs and all their faculties can see The Plucky & Spunky Show and sympathize with its agenda without ever examining that agenda on a personal level. Wild Frank Moore would never permit that.

The “Year of Peril” brochure by Karen Briede:

1990 was also one of the busiest years for Frank in terms of travel!

January 9, 2021 / 0 Comments

What the Frank Moore for President campaign did …

One of the significant achievements of the Frank Moore for President campaign was to research and catalog the requirements for qualifying as a write-in candidate for President in each of the 50 states. See http://writein2008.blogspot.com/ This proved to be a long and sometimes challenging task, and in the process the campaign not only forced several states’ elections divisions to clarify and refine their procedures, but in some cases, challenged the legality of elections procedures, and in other cases both challenged and changed those procedures both before and after the election. In states such as Vermont, Rhode Island, New Mexico, Nebraska and others, the campaign had the effect of familiarizing elections officers with their own procedures, which they did not know before the campaign contacted them.

In Arkansas, the campaign challenged the Elections Department’s stand that “Write-in candidates are not allowed in presidential, municipal, or primary elections.” With the invaluable help of Richard Winger of Ballot Access News, the campaign talked with Tim Humphries, the legal counsel for the Arkansas Secretary of State’s office, pointing out that there is no basis in Arkansas election code for a prohibition of write-in candidates for President, and that in fact the state of Arkansas had allowed write-in candidates for President in 1972 and 1976. In the end, this served only as a challenge … Humphries would not admit that there were significant inconsistencies, and did not even realize that Arkansas was in a very small minority of states that do not allow write-in candidates for President. An article about this challenge is located here: http://writein2008.blogspot.com/search/label/Arkansas

In Pennsylvania, the campaign got an elections official to admit that Pennsylvania’s system is “archaic and not good”. He said that there should be some kind of pre-certification of write-in candidates like those that operate in other states, so that the county and state elections boards are all on the same page as to who the write-in candidates are, who to count votes for, etc. He said that if PA were to actually follow their own elections code which states that in order for a write-in vote for president to count, the candidate’s 21 presidential electors must be written in (and not the candidate’s name), it could be legally challenged, and the challenger would easily win the case.

In Wyoming, the campaign began correspondence with Kelly Dagostino from the Wyoming Secretary of State’s Elections office to find out what a write-in candidate needed to do in Wyoming. As we talked back and forth, she began to realize that what she thought we were asking about was not really it, and that she actually did not know what the procedure was for a write-in candidate for President in Wyoming, a candidate outside of the major parties, without the money it would take to get enough signatures in the state to get on the ballot … to simply be a write-in candidate and have his/her votes counted. She said, “What does this say about our country, and this democracy” that she didn’t know how this can work in Wyoming, that they were not set up for a candidate outside of the political machines … she should be the person to know, if anyone knew. She said, “But I am going to find out! And I’m going to call you!” In the end, the elections office in Wyoming refined and clarified their procedure through this correspondence, and it is noted here: http://writein2008.blogspot.com/search/label/Wyoming

With regard to Utah, it was Richard Winger who alerted us that the information we were receiving from the Utah Elections Dept. might be incorrect. We had ruled out trying to qualify in Utah because we were told by the Elections Dept., several times over the course of months, that a write-in candidate for President had to come to Utah in person and pay $500 in order to qualify. With persistence, we were able to get to Mark Thomas in the Office of the Lieutenant Governor, who was surprised to learn of the information we had been getting from their Elections Office. He would have to make sure that they knew the correct process. Filing for write-in candidacy for President was a much simpler process, only requiring a form and a follow-up questionnaire by phone.

As the election approached, on October 24th Frank received a rejection letter from the Elections Division of the Office of the Minnesota Secretary of State. His filing for write-in candidacy had been received in early July, but they were only now writing to let him know that they had rejected it. The letter said: “Your document has been rejected because, for the office of President and Vice President, the candidates must be residents of different states.” Again, with the help of Richard Winger, the campaign challenged this rejection, and won! The Minnesota Elections Division consulted their legal counsel, and had to admit that the rejection was in error, and that Frank would be officially qualified as a write-in candidate for President in Minnesota. See: http://www.ballot-access.org/2008/10/25/minnesota-secretary-of-state-rejects-presidential-write-in-filing-for-frank-moore/

And http://www.ballot-access.org/2008/10/27/minnesota-now-accepts-frank-moore-write-in-filing/

Several days after the election, Frank received a call from a woman in Santa Cruz informing the campaign of a vote-counting practice by the Santa Cruz County Clerk which would exclude write-in votes cast for President where the vice-president’s name was not also written in. This was not only a change in the way Santa Cruz county counted write-in votes for President, but went against the “voter’s intent” legal precedent already set in California and in most other states. The campaign consulted Richard Winger, and again challenged this procedure both with the Santa Cruz County Clerk and with the California Secretary of State. Due to this challenge, and the pressure put on the Santa Cruz County Clerk’s office by other interested parties, including supporters of Ron Paul (who was also one of the four certified write-in candidates for President in CA) the Secretary of State’s office confirmed that they would continue to count write-in votes for President where only the name of the presidential candidate was written in! See: http://www.ballot-access.org/2008/11/10/california-will-as-usual-count-write-ins-for-declared-presidential-candidates-even-if-voter-didnt-vote-for-vice-president/

Presidential Campaign Speech & Poem – Enough! Tour – Il Corral
Recorded Saturday, September 15, 2007
at Il Corral, Los Angeles, California
With an introduction by Stephen Emanuel.
For more about the tour visit: http://eroplay.com/Cave/LA2007-september/index.html
Frank Moore For President 2008: http://frankmooreforpresident08.com/

December 19, 2020 / 0 Comments

Notes on “Season of Hidden Hope”

Frank originally wrote the poem “Season of Hidden Hope – a radio musical” for his appearance on Barb Golden’s KPFA radio show, Crack O’ Dawn on December 2, 1993.

Here is the original script with the poem and songs that Frank would sing as part of the reading of the poem:

Walking along cold dark homeless roads clogged with ice fears my only friend is the wind chilling my bones into longing and lost and beyond… into a cynical loneliness. Herding my sheep, looking in windows of unattainable desires, looking at presents useless because I don’t have anyone to give them to, looking into the past soft colored warm homes that are no longer mine. Everyone has left, everyone is gone. Even the sun has left long ago, long before the manger. And the sun will not come back ever again. This is the season of dark depression and fragile suicide. Yes, I know I can always bum up the $29.95 to buy the plastic hope and faith at 7 Eleven and pretend it is my wonderful life playing in the video store’s window. But instead I wrap myself in a jaded pretense of dry ice isolation of not caring, and drinking the stale but warm wine of regrets.

1. Meatloaf’s “2 out of 3”
2. Dodie Steven’s “Merry, Merry Christmas Baby”
3. Elvis’ “Blue Christmas”

The birth of new hope has always been hidden within the long cold winter darkness. Huddle together, clinging to our tribal warmth as our only protection against dying into the scary black unknown, we always have been blind to the evergreen hope of life. It has always been the first time the sun and easy hope have gone away. So we always think they will never come again. The evergreen hope has been hidden away in the womb of the humble and in children’s dreams. The forces of greys have always overheard the possibility of the hidden hope…have always searched for it to pervert it into human isolation…or, failing that, to kill it for all time. But the forces of power always overlook the hidden human hope rocking in the baby’s cradle. As power goes on a desperate killing, chopping hacking gorging, eating the old world up……we huddle together in the silent night upon the hill, rocking together in our tribal body warmth. The shaman, the holy woman, the medicine man have always shifted our attention away from the dark cold outward fear, have always shifted our gaze to the guiding light of new birth…at first in the stars, then in the roaring tribal fire which pulled all human feelings within it, and still later into that corny home hearth crackling with bright colors popping. Into this fire we have always gone, hearing the drumming of our innocent heart beating in a slow excitement, meeting again our love of life. We curl up with our love and wait for warm spring to arrive…as hope grows into knowing.

4. Elvis’ “Silent Night”
5. Johnny Mathis’ “Do You Hear What I Hear?”
6. Bing Crosby’s “Little Drummer Boy”
7. N.K. Cole’s “O Holy Night”
8. John Lennon’s ”Happy Xmas (War is Over)”

Here is the recording of the reading of the poem from the show:

Below is the front and back of the postcard that was mailed out to Frank’s mailing list (snail mail at that time!) promoting the show:

Photos from the postcard “photoshoot”:

Here is the complete Crack O’ Dawn show from December 2, 1993:

Christmas 1993: Frank, Linda, Mikee and Kittee.

December 13, 2020 / 0 Comments

Carlos

In the early days of people being diagnosed with AIDS, one of Frank’s students, Carlos, got the AIDS diagnosis. Frank told him his job now was to bring death into life and to live and die joyfully. Carlos followed Frank in this and was a joy and inspiration to all of us around him.

Frank believed in type casting. After Carlos found out that he had AIDS, Frank cast him as the “dying man” in his performances. At the 5+ hour ritual performances Frank had nude, body painted Carlos wearing his “I have AIDS” sign around his neck inside of a small tent. Each audience member was led into the tent before entering the performance space and Carlos talked to them briefly about death, that it is not something to fear, that it is not painful in itself, it is part of life. When Carlos passed away he was in a very peaceful, joyful state of mind. When we got the word that Carlos had passed we looked at each other and said let’s have ice cream sundaes!! (Eating ice cream was one of the indulgences Carlos allowed himself with Frank’s encouragement, as part of his dying process.)

Carlos, street performance at The Lab, San Francisco, 1988. Photo by Linda Mac.

Below is a transcription of an excerpt of a conversation recorded December 10, 1995 at Father George’s house in San Francisco. Frank Moore, Linda Mac, Mikee LaBash, Corey Nicholl, Father George, and Louise Scott were present. (Father George was a friend of Frank’s during his time in Santa Fe, New Mexico when Frank lived with Louise Scott and her family.)

Linda: What, the house? No, Carlos? Um, one of Frank’s students, Carlos, died of AIDS-related stuff. And he’d been working with Frank for a few years when he found out that he had AIDS. And Frank said, “O.k., your job is to die as lustfully as you’ve lived, and to bring death into life.” ‘Cause it was a whole group of us that were part of like the community that were working with Frank, and doing performances and stuff too. And so, well he did fine for a long time …

Frank: I …

Linda: … You cast him, Frank cast him as the dying man in performances, after he found that out. And so people, it was in the all-night ritual performances, people are lead in by nude body-painted dancers, and it’s like all very ritualistic and quiet, and there’s body music playing. And they would be lead to this little kind-of cave made out of back-drops, and Carlos would be in there, nude and body-painted with a sign that says he’s the Dying Man. And it would be like two people at a time, and they’d be left in the room with him for like a minute or two, and he’d give them a rap about death. And he said, that death is not painful in itself. And it’s not something to be feared, that it’s just a transition. And then they’d be lead out. And most people actually didn’t realize that …

Louise: … that he really was.

George: … that he was really dying.

Linda: … the dying man. And …

George: Did he do it when he was really sick? I mean, did he continue doing it?

Linda: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah, right up to the time he died. And at the point where his body really started to go … he was like really fine up until that point. And then, he moved upstairs with a couple that had been his friends, so they could take more care of him. And they called us, and they said, they called us one afternoon and they said, “We’re worried about Carlos because he won’t get out of bed and he won’t eat.” And we had a tour coming up to Portland that Carlos was planning on going on with us. And so, Frank gets in the car, we drive over to San Francisco. Carlos is lying in bed, doing this Camille thing, you know, that was his like picture of himself dying. (all laughing) And Frank said, “Look, you have to look and see if you’re dying or not. If you’re dying, tell us, and we’ll help you die. If you’re not dying, (Frank screams), you have to eat, you have to start having fun with us. Eating, you have to be in shape to go to Portland.” And he said, “Take the night to think about it, and tell me in the morning.” And he said, he told Carlos that people are afraid to push him because they’re afraid that he’s gonna die if they push him. And he said, “I don’t care if you die, because it’s better to die than to live and be a wimp.” And so, you know … and next morning they call us and they said, “I don’t know what you did, but not only is he eating but he insisted on getting up at the table.” (George laughs)

And it kind of went up and down for a while. We started going to his house for sessions ’cause he was too sick to come to meet with Frank. And Frank had everybody …

Frank: He came to …

Linda: Oh, an all-night thing? Yeah. He had never gone to one of the twenty-four hour, like Frank does these twenty-four hour like workshop type things …

George: Carlos had never gone?

Linda: … and Carlos had never done one of them, and he really wanted to. So we had one scheduled, and he was in the hospital, and he got out like the night before, he was in and out of the hospital a lot. So he shows up with like, it was like a portable hospital room … Well he was late. O.k., so … when he had first started meeting with Frank years before, he was late for everything. And that was one of the first things that Frank said had to go. You know, “you have to be on time anytime you say you’re gonna be some place.” So he was always on time then. And now, here he is, like really sick, depending on other people, and he’s like a couple hours late for this thing. And so, while we’re waiting for him to come … a lot of the people that were in the workshop had never, didn’t know any of us. They were just doing this workshop they had signed up with to do with Frank. So Frank said, “Well I have someone coming who’s gonna be playing the part of a dying man.” And he starts giving this whole rap about how he’s gonna pretend he’s dying of AIDS, and he’s going to da da da da … And so Carlos shows up then two hours later with his entourage of like he’s on oxygen, he has all these medications for his skin and all this stuff. And he’s in tears. He’s so upset ’cause he’s late. And he comes in, “Frank!” You know, and he’s like … and Frank, you know, lets him talk for a minute, and he turns to everybody, he says, “This is him. See?”

And Carlos is looking, and Frank said, “I told them that you’re playing the part of the dying man.” And Carlos just looks at Frank and goes, “O.k., Frank!” You know … (all laugh) And Frank had set it up so that he could set his own pace, ’cause we didn’t know like what he’d be up for. And he said, just join in as much as you want. And by the end of it, he was off oxygen. He like was totally, you know, back into everything and he was involved in everything, through the whole thing. He didn’t like take a break at any point. And he said that it, you know, he felt a lot better at the end of it. And the process of him, he would kind of go in and out of being o.k. …

George: Yeah. That happens pretty regularly.

Linda: Yeah. At one point when we were over there, he told Frank that Frank didn’t know what it was like to have to depend on people for your every need. (all explode screaming/laughing) Which he denied saying. He said, “Frank, you made that up. I never said that.” The thing would be, Frank had, you know, everybody that was part of this little community, somebody was with him all the time, and they’d just hang out with him, or play cards or just whatever, you know. And he would be this, (plays Camille) like “Ohhh … you knowww … I’m in soooo …” Like that. And then we’d get a card game going. Boom. He’s sharp, he’s fine, nothing hurts, he’s winning. (all laugh) You know, and so … that was like during his period when he’s going in and out of things. One time he’s in the hospital and the Portland trip is approaching and Frank had told him he has to be able to walk, you know, to go on this tour. And, we get there and it turns out, he’s not walking. He’s not getting out of bed, he’s not moving.

George: He’s in the hospital at this point.

Linda: Yeah, he’s in the hospital, this is one of those like three or four day things, and then he’d be in and out for different things. And, Frank said, “O.k., I told you you should be walking. I want you to lean on Michael,” and another guy that was with us, Rourke, “and walk as far as the door and back to your bed.” And he says, “Well I’m not gonna lean on anybody then. I’m just gonna walk.” He gets to the door, and the door is open. He waits ’til he gets to the frame so that he’s in view of the nurse’s station, and GRABS onto the frame, trying to get Frank in trouble!

And Frank just yells at him, and says, “I told you to lean on Michael and Rourke. Now you lean on them to get back to bed.” And that all happens, and he goes through this trauma over that, and we play cards, he’s fine, you know. And we’re leaving and the nurse calls us over and she said, “What did you do to get him to walk?” It turns out that they’d been trying to get him to walk. He said he needed a physical therapist. They brought a physical therapist. The physical therapist said, “You should be able to walk.”

“Oh no, I need a doctor.” They bring a doctor: “You should be able to walk.” No, he can’t walk. And then they see him walking, you know. And so Frank said, “Well, not only that. He’s supposed to walk a step more each day.” The nurse said, “Fine, I’ll enforce that.” (all laugh)

So by the time he died …

George: You should have billed him. (all laugh)

Frank: Uh huh!

Linda: You did! Oh yeah, he paid. He paid all the way to the end. By the time he died he was pretty consistently at peace with it, and a pretty jolly soul with it all. It was very neat, and … so it actually felt, you know, it wasn’t as drastic a thing when he died, ’cause he was so kinda right there with us. Yeah.

Frank: We ate …

Linda: Right. The day he died, we decided … you know, his whole thing when he was dying was that, his fantasy had been having ice cream or something, something like that. And Frank said, “Pffft, you know, you’re dying, have as much ice cream as you want.” So he used to have the people he was staying with make him milkshakes, so he could get up in the middle of the night and drink a milkshake if he wanted it. So, the day that he died, we’re sitting there, and we said, “Well, let’s have a sundae.” You know, so that started like a ritual. So on his birthday and on his death day we go out and we have these decadent sundaes, and it never makes us sick, you know …

George: (laughing) Banana splits …

Louise: Right, you just do it.

Linda: … if we did that on any other day, it would be like “Ooohhh.” You know, but we do that …

George: Oh jeez … People do dance around dying, though. We’ve certainly, we have people who come this close, you think they’re gonna be gone in two hours, and then they back away. And then … for another couple months, and approach it again, and back away. Just never know …

Linda: Yeah.

George: … but we’ve never had anyone eating ice cream on the way out. (laughs)

Frank: Carlos was joking …

Linda: … with the nurse, as he died. Right. He was getting a transfusion, and he was joking with the nurse, and he just passed.

George: He was getting, what, how did, did he have cardiac arrest, you know, was that the thing …?

Linda: I guess that was it. Did he have cardiac arrest as he was having the transfusion? (Frank – yes) Yeah. Yeah.

“Journey to Lila”, EZTV, Los Angeles, California, 1988.

“Wrapping/Rocking” at Poetry Bash, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco, 1988.

Poetry Bash, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco, 1988.

“Journey to Lila”, ATA, San Francisco, California, April 8, 1988. Photo by Linda Mac.

This is the text that displayed in the “Dying Man” tent along with a large photo of Carlos wearing his “I have AIDS” sign at performances after Carlos died:

I AM CARLOS. FOR THE LAST YEAR, MY ROLE IN THESE DREAMS HAS BEEN TO GREET THE PEOPLE, AND TO PREPARE THEM FOR THEIR DEATH WHICH THEY (AND YOU) WILL EXPERIENCE IN THIS DREAM. I TOLD THEM THAT DEATH IS NOT SOMETHING TO BE FEARED, SOMETHING THAT IN ITSELF IS NOT PAINFUL. I TOLD THEM, IN MY MARVELOUS VINCENT PRICE VOICE, THAT DEATH IS A PART OF LIFE TO BE LUSTFULLY RELISHED AND ENJOYED.

I WISH YOU COULD HAVE HEARD MY VINCENT PRICE. I TRIED TO GET HERE IN MY BODY, WHICH WAS FINALLY FITTING THE BODY OF THE DYING MAN. I EVEN FANTASIZED ABOUT DYING HERE WHILE I WAS TALKING TO YOU ABOUT DEATH. BUT THAT WAS NOT TO BE. 2:35 P.M., JANUARY 30, 1989, MY HEART STOPPED. BUT I AM HERE WITH YOU BECAUSE LIFE, WHICH DEATH IS A PART OF, GOES ON.

WHEN I FOUND OUT A YEAR AGO I HAD AIDS, THE KNOWING I WAS DYING LIBERATED ME SO THAT I COULD LIVE MORE FULLY, MORE HAPPILY, MORE OPENLY, MORE PEACEFULLY THEN I EVER LIVED BEFORE. FRANK, ALWAYS A BELIEVER IN TYPE-CASTING, CREATED FOR ME THE DYING MAN ROLE TO SPREAD THE LIBERATION TO PEOPLE WHOSE DEATHS ARE NOT IN SIGHT. A LOT OF PEOPLE THOUGHT THE “I HAVE AIDS” SIGN I WORE AROUND MY NECK AND THE DYING MAN WERE FICTIONS OF THE ART. BUT WHEN THEY DISCOVERED THAT I WAS REALLY DYING, THE DREAM BROKE OUT OF ART, AND INTO THE REALITY OF EVERYDAY. I HOPE BY MY BEING WITH YOU IN THIS WAY IT WILL SPREAD THE LIBERATION TO YOU.

The sign that appeared outside of the “Dying Man” tent (painted by LaBash).

Videos with Carlos

EZTV – Wrapping/Rocking & Statues
Los Angeles, California, September 9, 1988.

Playing with Reality
(in two parts)
Berkeley, California, November 19 & 20 1988

The Outrageous Horror Show
Berkeley Square, Berkeley, California, October 29, 1988

November 29, 2020 / 0 Comments

Gestures – Part 2

Here is the list of “adjectives” … see the previous post about Gestures here:
http://eroplay.org/gestures/

arousingly

joyfully

gently

suggestively

deeply

warmly

desiringly

playfully

SWITCH PAIRS

lovingly

child-like

knowingly

healingly

passionfully

magically

calmly

confidently

happily

JOYFULLY

exploringly

softly

vulnerably

soothingly

calmingly

intimately

pleasurefully intensely

Gestures Ritual – An excerpt from Frank Moore’s The Uncomfortable Zones Of Fun, recorded Saturday, February 27, 2010 at Temescal Arts Center, Oakland, California

Category: Performances (page 2 of 5)

Aktivist March 2008 Poland – Part 1

Section – Counterintelligence

More is Moore

More is Moore

Frank Moore’s Cherotic All Star Band provides nudity, music, cerebral palsy, and, perhaps, art

By Silke Tudor

A Dance Ritual

Wacky Racers

Wacky Racers

Lower Links, Chicago 1990 – PART 2

Lower Links, Chicago 1990 – Part 1

Frank Moore

The Plucky & Spunky Show

What the Frank Moore for President campaign did …

Notes on “Season of Hidden Hope”

Carlos

Videos with Carlos

Gestures – Part 2

Categories

Frank Moore Links

Social