Hidden treasures discovered while digging through Frank Moore's huge archives.
We have finished scanning the fourth of several Press binders filled with either published articles by Frank or about Frank. They can be found in The Shaman’s Cave section of eroplay.com.
Here is the link to the fourth binder:
PRESS FRANK MOORE FOR PRESIDENT 08
https://eroplay.com/Cave/press-binders/press-frank-moore-for-president-2008.pdf
Here is a selection of some of the pages:
A presidential campaign speech written January 21, 2008.
Let’s first get personal. For about 40 years, I have lived tribally/communally. Now the 6 of us live together in two houses [one of which we built] on a street in Berkeley with 4 cats. Linda and I have been together for over 35 years. Michael has been with us for 20 years…as have Corey and Alexi. Erika joined us 6 years ago. We live as a tribal body. This tells you that I will expand concepts such as a family and family values. My relationships have always been what I am about. So we put our personal relationships and one another first. This opens up possibilities and expands our ability to use opportunities.
I have always been dumb to what is impossible. So I just figure how to do the “impossible”. I have been doing this all my life! I am 61. I was born with cerebral palsy. I communicate using a laser-pointer and a board of letters, numbers and commonly-used words. But I am a host of a popular public access TALK show. Go figure it! So now I am setting my sights, as president, on eliminating poverty, hunger, war, etc. Impossible, eh?
When I was born, doctors told my parents that I had no intelligence, that I had no future, that I would be best put into an institution and forgotten. This was a powerful expectation with all the force of western science and medicine, as well as social influences, behind it. It would have been easy for my parents to be swept up into this expectation. Then that expectation would have created my reality. I would have long ago died without any other possibilities.
Instead, my parents rejected this expectation for the possibility they saw in my eyes, for what for them should have been true. This rejection of the cultural expectation of reality could not be a one‑time choice. They had to passionately live their choice every day, every minute, or the cultural expectation would have sucked them and me into it. It fought them at every new possibility they opened to me. Their passionate commitment to how they thought things should be attracted people to me who kept opening new possibilities for me. Of course, these were in the minority. But I focused on them, making them how people should be, how I wanted to be. So I expected people and myself to be like that. So people were for the most part that way…at least I saw them that way. This opened up to me what is called luck. It also gave me the ability to trust and the ability to use opportunities.
So the struggle for freedom, and against the powers-that-be has been my life. And it has been a continuous struggle, struggling with schools to let me in, etc. I have always been a radical. But that became obvious when I was 18 and invented my head pointer with which I type and communicate…I started writing political columns for the high school paper…as well as putting out an underground paper. I was in the first special class placed on a regular high school campus so that the disabled students could be in regular classes and be a part of campus life. I was involved in the civil rights and anti-war movements. This was 1965…before it was popular to be against the Vietnam War. In the school paper I got into a debate with a GI in Vietnam. I was sat down and told that, because of my political philosophy and activities, I was hurting the chances of the disabled students who would come after me. I replied that the goal was to get the rights for the disabled [and for all people] to be complete and equal…and that included the right to be political. I would not surrender that, or any other, right.
So I started doing political columns for underground newspapers, joined Students for a Democratic Society and The Peace and Freedom Party. I did political pranks…such as rolling in my wheelchair into the Marines Recruiting Office to join, offering to push the BUTTON with my head pointer. But after the Kent State killings, I switched from straight politics to art, performance, and community building as my tools for effecting social change. In the early ’90s I and five other performance artists were targeted by Sen. Jesse Helms in what is commonly seen as the first battle of the cultural wars. This placed me in a great position to fight for our freedoms!
I follow where opportunities lead, without limiting goals or pictures of what things should look like or where they should lead to. We here have many different projects going on at once…in addition to the “day job”. I’m always writing, painting, making movies, playing in my band The Cherotic All-Stars, performing, doing a weekly cable/internet talk/variety show. That has always been the case. In the mid-’70s in Santa Fe I started a workshop which combined intimacy and theater. This turned into a communal performance group which moved to N.Y.C. A few years later, we moved to Berkeley, where I combined the workshop with relationship counseling, creating an extremely successful practice. But this too morphed into a communal performance group of 30 people. Among our productions was The Outrageous Beauty Revue which ran for over three years at the San Francisco punk club The Mabuhay.
The ’90s found me touring the U.S. and Canada doing performances and lecturing. My writings started being published. I was also busy making films. By 1991 we were publishing the popular zine The Cherotic [r]Evolutionary. When the internet became available, we were among the first to have streaming audio and video on our https://www.eroplay.com. A live weekly show, The Shaman’s Den, which I was doing on one of the first internet radio stations quickly dragged us into starting our own internet station, http://www.luver.com, which quickly evolved into a powerful 24/7 uncensored channel for change. We have expanded onto public access cable television, cell phones, etc. And now I am running for president!
OK, let us get to the meat!
We invaded Iraq on lies or blunders…take your pick. Almost everyone…with a few notable and impeachable exceptions…now agree that we should not have invaded Iraq. I would bring our troops home now. If someone tells you that s/he will stay in a failed marriage to avoid admitting mistakes, hoping things will somehow improve…you would rightfully question that person’s judgment.
I will change this country’s self-image from that of THE SUPER POWER/ WORLD LEADER to that of a member of the global community. I will cut our military budget by at least half.
While going into Afghanistan had more of a logic to it than our invasion of Iraq, I would withdraw our troops from there and work through the U.N. Our interests aren’t served by having our troops there.
We need to stop supporting dictators. On the nuclear issue, we need to get rid of double standards. We need to treat all nations with the same expectations, be it Pakistan, Israel, France, the U.S., Iran, etc. In other words, my policies would be even-handed. I will join the rest of the world in pressuring Israel to live up to treaties, and to dismantle its nuclear arms. I will use the “special relationship” between Israel and the U.S. to motivate Israel to do this.
I will work for the global shutting down of all nuclear reactors and dismantling of all nuclear [and biological and chemical] weapons. I will start this in the U.S. All countries should be expected to live under the same rules…not one set for the “super powers” and another for the “developing” nations like Iran. I will push for a global development of clean, safe energy sources as alternatives to nuclear power.
Anything/everything could be a “potential threat”…except the things that are in fact threats now. Seeing things as “potential threats” is a sign of insanity. It blocks the effective dealing with real and present threats. It creates the fog of fear. Iran is not a threat to the U.S. now or in the short-term future. So there is time and opportunity to revert Iran from the nuclear path by giving Iran other options. Frankly nuclear used for energy and nuclear used for weapons are both dangerous.
We have been robbed during the recent years of many of our rights and freedoms. I will have repealing parties in the White House, scrapping all the rules and policies in every department and agency which infringe on our rights, freedoms, privacy, health and welfare. We will have similar parties in both houses of Congress to repeal bad laws such as the so-called Patriot Act. We will return to the common English language in which “torture” means torture. I will declassify documents which were classified to hide questionable actions rather than to protect the real national interests. I will push the Justice Department to investigate the war on The Left by the F.B.I. since the ’60s.
The Department of Homeland Fear…I mean Security…has been a disaster, a con job on a massive scale. I will junk it. Terrorism is a criminal matter. It should be dealt with as such, not as a war. We shouldn’t abandon our principles, freedoms, rights, The Constitution and The Bill of Rights to live in fear. The F.B.I. is supposed to investigate crime…not to keep the people in line. The C.I.A. is supposed to gather information outside this country, and not to manipulate events. Whenever there is an attempt to fudge the limits of power for convenience of “safety”, we the people get screwed.
I would end the so-called war on drugs. The use of drugs should be legalized and taxed. Pot and spirits should be sold over the counter to adults only. Tobacco and other addictive drugs should be sold by prescription only. Free drug rehab programs should be readily available. So the D.E.A. can be greatly reduced.
Prisons should be only for violent or otherwise dangerous criminals. Prisons should be a part of the health and education system and should include drug rehab programs. This should also be true for the new creative in-community programs for non-violent criminals for paying back, rehab, and education sentencing. These programs will be more effective and much less expensive and harmful to the community on every level than the current human warehouse system. Flexibility of sentencing should be returned to judges. I will ban the death penalty.
Basically the law enforcement agencies should be the servants of the people, protecting our rights, freedoms, and welfare instead of the servants of the rich, the corporations, the status quo, and the powers-that-be. I would de-militarize the police departments.
I’ll do away with welfare, medicare and social security. Instead, every American will receive a minimum income of $1,000 a month. This amount will be tied to the cost of living and will not be taxable.
We will have universal prenatal-to-the-grave health care and universal free education with equal access.
The universal health care would include all medicine, medical equipment and supplies, long-term care, personal attendants, etc. There will be no pre-authorization ritual. So your doctor will be free to prescribe whatever you need. There may be a review of treatment afterward if there are any questions. Everybody will have the same care as the President now has. Preventative medicine will be stressed and the so-called alternative medicine will be included. You will notice that health insurance companies are not in this picture!
I’ll do away with all tax deductions for over $12,000 income. Instead, there will be a flat tax of 10% on annual income of less than one million dollars for an individual and less than five million dollars for a corporation. But the flat tax will jump to 75% on annual income exceeding these limits.
Now my policies are pro-business. The universal education system will provide business with a superior, flexible work force. The minimum income and the universal health care will remove the business’s burden of providing health insurance and pensions to workers. In reality, this relief will be much more than any tax cut could give. Moreover the minimum income will make the starting and maintaining of a small business much easier. This is also true for small family farms. The minimum income will encourage independent invention and artistic pursuit, on which true progress depends.
The guaranteed minimum income of $1,000 a month adjusted to the cost of living is meant to be a safety net rather than a replacement for work. I think most want to work…in an expanded concept of work. But to get a true feeling of what it would be like if you had to live on your minimum income, you have to crank in that you wouldn’t pay for health care, education, mass transit, etc. It all adds up. The combined minimum income couple…or a single parent with a child…would be $2,000 a month. This should provide a realistic basic living. This allows the single parent the option of being home doing the important work of raising a child. But free childcare provided by the universal free education system would open a whole host of new possibilities to the single parent.
The minimum income would encourage people to form the cooperative communal family [of all kinds] groupings who pool their incomes together…using their minimum incomes as a base to create more nourishing homes, to start and maintain small businesses. These communal groupings will be much more financially stable, emotionally nourishing, and environmentally friendly than today’s common isolating model of living.
It is all about caring and choice. If a senior wants to stay in her own home, the $1,000 a month will make that possible as will the home attendants provided by the healthcare system. This is also true if she wants to live with her family or in communal housing. This will actually be much cheaper than the scary mess we have now. The warehouse nursing home will be a thing of the past. Seniors will be an important, active element of every part of our society. We need everyone actively involved. We simply cannot afford on any level to warehouse portions of our population. It is a waste of potential!
Some people have expressed concerns that the guaranteed minimum income would drain people’s productivity. They ask why people would work. What they are really asking is why people would work without the whip of fear of hunger and poverty. They never ask this about the rich or the corporations, only about the working class and the poor. In reality most people want to work, want to contribute, want to improve their lives. Hunger, poverty, and fear drain productivity. If we are to survive, we need to end hunger, poverty, and fear.
The guaranteed minimum income will tend to keep wages in general higher and working conditions safer and more worker-friendly. This was also true for welfare and was the true root of the capitalist opposition to welfare.
The guaranteed minimum income will be very different from welfare. Everyone will get it. So there will be no stigma attached to getting it. There will be no red tape, no entrapping rules, no case workers drained of their humanity, and the rest of the demeaning rituals of enforced head-bowing associated with getting public assistance. The guaranteed minimum income will be something you get as a citizen, something you can depend on.
I get S.S.I., Medi-Cal, and money for a home attendant. People say they don’t mind the truly unfortunates who obviously can’t work getting welfare…but all of those lazy bums getting rich on welfare who could get a job…you know the line of thinking. Well, I am what they are picturing as the truly unfortunate. But in reality I can and do do many things. I can’t get a job, not because of my body, but because I would lose my S.S.I., Medi-Cal, and my money for a home attendant. This is an example of how the system is set up to not work and how the people get blamed for it not working. It is hard and scary living on so-called welfare. This is not true for me….at least not as much. I’m a punk, have built a support network of friends, doctors, etc. When I get a threatening letter [they are always threatening] informing me I must go to this certain doctor within two weeks to get a brain cat-scan [for which I would need to get knocked out] to prove I still have cerebral palsy or lose all my benefits, I with Linda can get on the phone and politely but firmly guide the over-worked case manager to turn the pages of my file to find the last yearly visit to check that a miracle hadn’t occurred. But most people in that position are much more vulnerable than I am. They are on their own, without a support network, etc. I don’t know how they survive. I know Nancy, a college student with cerebral palsy in a wheelchair, needing assistance with feeding, drinking, going to the bathroom, etc. She is determined to live independently. But her S.S.I. check is barely livable small. Her attendant hours [at minimum wage] are less than half of what she really needs. So she has to wait for a drink of water. She wears a catheter although it causes infection [hence will probably shorten her life]. To add insult to injury, there is a threat that her needed supplies will be unclassified as medical equipment and will no longer be funded. Because most doctors and hospitals do not accept Medi-Cal patients [because of red tape, low payment, and insane rules], she has to travel hours to the county hospital to wait more hours to be seen. But she keeps on doing what she has to do in order to stay in the game of life rather than being stuck in an institution…which would cost us much more than keeping her out with us. Out here, we can hear her poetry, see her perform. Most people on public assistance do contribute to society. They raise families, do art and music, push for change, etc.
The truth is the system is designed for failure, for easy scapegoats and decoys. As I am writing this, I see the governor of California is again threatening to cut S.S.I., Medi-Cal, home attendants, etc. Well, the web work of the guaranteed minimum income, a livable wage, the universal health care and the life-long education systems will be designed to work. And because everybody will be covered by this web work, this web work will be much harder to screw up!
I will cut the military budget by at least half and use half of the savings to pay down the national debt. I will shrink the federal bureaucracy and again use half of the savings for this pay down.
Basically the problem is not a lack of money, but what we have spent our money on…war, pork, waste, etc. It has been a standard trick to distract us with supposed waste, fraud, etc. in the social programs while milking us out of billions in military waste, corporate welfare, etc.
Again, the minimum income of $1,000 a month for every citizen will give people money to spend, save, invest, or pool with others to create more effective financial communities which will open up a wide range of opportunities for the average person…to start small businesses, to stay on the family farm, to do art, to raise kids, etc. Free health care [which will include long-term care, home attendants, medicine, etc.], free life time education [including child care], free mass transit, etc. will in effect put more real money in the pocket of the average person. But more importantly the fear of the future will fade, releasing what is now hoarded away for old age, for when your health fails you, for your kid’s education…releasing the knot in your belly of knowing that no matter how much you manage to save [if any], it will not be enough.
So write in Frank Moore for President and Susan Block for Vice President on election day! For more information, go to frankmooreforpresident08.com and www.eroplay.com.
From the book, “Frankly Speaking: A Collection of Essays, Writings & Rants” by Frank Moore, published by Inter-Relations in 2014.
Date : 4/17/2008 7:17:59 AM From : "Frank Moore" To : "Frank Moore/E-SALON" Subject : Aktivist translation well, here's another european article about our campaign in a major magazine. this time our own tomek translated it back into english. tomek said it's a very popular mag, with a readership of around 8 million! we are reaching a lot of people with this campaign! it is a good piece…getting a lot out. it is interesting how what i actually said changed through a different language…and through extensive editing i assume for space [the actual interview was much longer]….and when i talked about how the corporations are ripping us off of our culture and nightlife, actual censorship. but the message gets through. i will send out the original interview so you can compare.
Here is the link to the actual interview as it appeared in the magazine.
Here is the full interview …..
Let’s say I’m an American. Try to convince me why should I vote for you?
Sure!
I have been running for president for about a year now. I started running basically because none of the prominent candidates are talking honestly and directly about the state of things, are committed to fundamental change, and have a clear plan to create a humane, sustainable, and just plain enjoyable society. So I took on that role. When everyday people in the “real world” hear about my candidacy, they become extremely excited. They don’t see a performance artist in a wheelchair. They don’t check the odds of my winning. Instead they see someone who they could excitedly vote for… somebody who shares their dreams, talks deeply about what really affects their lives. And then they read my platform. Then they got more excited at how possible it is to bring our dreams for our society into reality… to remove fear and isolation; to get the boot of big corporations off our neck; to provide everyone health care, life-long education, a minimum income, and a livable wage; to restore our rights and freedoms; and to bring our troops home now! We everyday people know the real state of the union! But more importantly, we have the sense of what is possible! We need leaders who share our dreams and who do not sell us short. Or sell us out!
So for most of the year, I have been running way below their radar. A performance artist in a wheelchair “pretending” to run for president is no threat… just a weird piece of conceptual art. But now I’m beginning to be a blip on the radar. Just a blip, mind you. But it is amazing that we have gotten to the blip stage this early… or at all! A blip who talks about the issues seriously and who gives real alternatives is dangerous. So the gatekeepers are beginning to say that I am not a “real” or “serious” candidate. What they are really saying is that I’m not a part of the political system that has been corrupted by big bucks; that I’m not playing by the unwritten rules, etc. And of course this is true. It is one of the reasons why everyday people are excited about my running. That big bucks political system has been divorced from the everyday reality, hijacked by the addicts of obscenely huge profits. I am a real, serious candidate. I’m just working outside of their boxes. Outside of boxes is where the new possibilities are. Inside the limiting boxes is where political power is created. This is why the normal politicians stay in the boxes. This is why fundamental, humane change rarely—if ever—has come from power politics. I hope they keep saying that I’m not a real and serious candidate because each time they say that our blip gets brighter and more intense. I also hope they keep saying I am the candidate of the fringe, of the margins. Consider who they have marginalized… the poor, the working poor. In fact, most of the labor force: the disabled, gays, seniors, the uninsured, women, the middle class, artists, family farmers, racial minorities, immigrants, etc. Hey, I may win by a wide margin!
True, I do have my problems. As one “art expert” once wrote, I, “Seem to have a compulsion not to take no for an answer under any circumstances.” I do have this disability of not knowing what is “impossible.” So, I just figure out how to do it. When I was born, the doctors told my parents I had no IQ. Obviously the doctors were wrong. So I don’t pay any intention to the supposed limitations. I just do what is needed. When I was growing up, I struggled to get educated, struggled against discrimination and prejudices. I really enjoy the righteous struggle. This enjoyment of struggle gives me an advantage when struggle is needed. When Senator Jesse Helms tried to blacklist me, when the Berkeley City Council tried to ban my public access cable show… there have been so many struggles! My enjoying righteous struggle has been a winning element. I also enjoy when struggle is successful. I’m looking forward to the huge struggle of taking away controlling power from the big corporations, of reclaiming the rights and freedoms that have been stolen from the people of this country, of creating a new post-oil social order in which we will eliminate fear of getting sick, of getting old, of the future, of the Other.
In reality, as president, I will be able to do a lot to start the process of change. And I will! I get results! I deliver! But realistically, I will be working with a Congress full of people heavily invested in the old power system. I will need you! Writing me in on Election Day will just be the first step. I will need you to get involved in your local community. I will probably need you to put pressure on Congress—and on the press—to enact our dreams. It may take you coming to Washington DC a few times as you did for civil rights and to stop the Vietnam War. But together we will get this done! If it takes me throwing a giant party on The Mall every three months, then that’s what I’ll do!
It will be an exciting, fun four years! Just imagine a world in which somebody like you or me could really become president. Now keep imagining it and we just may win! Do not throw your vote away on a candidate who does not share your dreams, who is not committed to bring your dreams into reality! Go for it! It is the only practical thing to do because if we don’t go for it, we will never get what we need, what we want, what we are dreaming. Hey, it just makes sense… right? So write Frank Moore in on Election Day!
Analyzing your biography one can imagine Frank Moore’s campaign as another performance, but reading/watching your political statements everything looks very serious. Where the truth lies?
Well, are not all political campaigns performances? That doesn’t mean they are not serious. My performances often start with something seemingly trivial then grow by themselves very quickly into forces unto themselves. This campaign started with a t-shirt of The Three Stooges. Michael [“Mikee”] LaBash, who is one of five people I live with in a tribal relationship and who is our graphic/web designer, had a CURLY FOR PRESIDENT t-shirt. For Christmas two years ago Mikee made me a FRANK MOORE FOR PRESIDENT shirt. When I wore it, people started asking me what my platform was. So I wrote a platform up. Everybody who read it got excited, overflowed with hope, saying it expressed what they felt and wanted. Their reactions placed on me a responsibility to mount a serious campaign, to commit and surrender to it…and to hang on no matter where this ride would go. I never know where a performance or a project will evolve.
I do performances not to tell stories, not to paint pictures for others to look at, not even to reveal something about myself or about the state of things, and certainly not for fame or fortune. It’s simply the best way that I see to create the intimate community which I as a person need and that I think society needs as an alternative to the personal isolation. I have always wanted to bring dreams into reality. For that to be successful, a seriousness and a respect for the process and for the people in the “audience” is required. In my long ritual performances in the 80s and 90s, I took my audiences via performance techniques to an island called Lila, on which everybody was family…where isolation, fear, competition, etc. did not exist. The physical contact with such a society in the dream state of the performance opened up for the people the real possibility of such society existing in this reality. This released hope. And hope brings about change, raises expectations, and brings people together. This campaign just has a much bigger frame than those rituals!
You say you are a “political virgin”. History of presidential elections shows independent novice defeat in election game. Especially a person like you, who doesn’t care about all “political world”.
Do you mean I am not a politician, not addicted to getting and keeping power? That is true. I have never run for political office before…except in college. But I have always been involved in politics in a bigger context…that of social change.
When I was born, doctors told my parents that I had no intelligence, that I had no future, that I would be best put into an institution and be forgotten. So the struggle for freedom, and against the powers-that-be has been my life. And it has been a continuous struggle, struggling with schools to let me in, etc. I have always been a radical. But that became obvious when I was 17 and invented my head pointer with which I type and communicate. The first thing I wrote was how I believed in a one world socialist government. I started writing political columns for the high school paper…as well as putting out an underground paper. I was in the first special class placed on a regular high school campus so that the disabled students could be in regular classes and be a part of campus life. I was involved in the civil rights and anti-war movements. This was 1965…before it was popular to be against the Vietnam War. In the school paper I got into a debate with a GI in Vietnam. I was sat down and told that, because of my political philosophy and activities, I was hurting the chances of the disabled students who would come after me. I replied that the goal was to get the rights for the disabled [and for all people] to be complete and equal…and that included the right to be political. I would not surrender that, or any other, right.
So I started doing political columns for underground newspapers, joined Students for Democratic Society. I helped to found the San Bernardino chapter of the Peace and Freedom Party in the late 60’s. I did political pranks…such as rolling in my wheelchair into the Marines Recruiting Office to join, offering to push the BUTTON with my head pointer. But after the Kent State killings, I switched from straight politics to art, performance, and community building as my tools for effecting social change. The only public office I have held is when I was appointed to the rent board in Santa Fe, New Mexico after a successful rent strike in the early 70’s. I also continued writing political columns in underground newspapers. Moreover living tribally is a powerful political act.
In the early 90s I and five other performance artists were targeted by Sen. Jesse Helms in what is commonly seen as the first battle of the cultural wars. This placed me in a great position to fight for our freedoms!
And I always have projects that confront political suppression in very sneaky ways. For an example, in recent years I shepparded a project to test foods for GMO’s and to certify products as GMO or GMO-free. We had an independent testing lab and over 300 natural food stores in both the U. S. and Canada that would use the results in deciding what they would sell. We developed this project from our local consumer protest. In the end, the project threatened the corporate “natural”/“organic” food industry [the likes of Whole Foods] so much that they staged a hostile take-over to kill it. This is the kind of under-the-surface politics I’m into!
Historically the goal of independent and third-party candidates is not to “win.” Realistically the process is rigged to prevent us from “winning.” The function of such a candidate as I is to introduce ideas, to induce change, to raise the bar. Within this context, my campaign is extremely effective. But on the other hand, I JUST MAY WIN THIS SUCKER!
Realistically it is impossible for any of us independent/third-party candidates to win…and for that matter candidates such as Edwards whom the mainstream media labels hopeless. It is not really about a lack of money.
First of all a large number of states either out-right ban write-in candidates or make it virtually impossible to qualify to be a write-in candidate. These states throw out the entire ballot with a write-in on it. This disenfranchises the voters in those states from the full choices. It freezes in place not only the 2-party system…which is a product of evolution, not of the Constitution…but the two parties that happen to be the major parties at the present moment. This has to change before we will have a chance of winning. One effect of my campaign has been forcing several states to clean up their write-in processes.
The mainstream media wants to simplify the story down to as few candidates as possible as fast as possible…focusing on the candidates the closest to the corporate interest and painting the rest as fringe….and hence not worth coverage or being included in debates.
But the indie media has developed as a meaningful alternative to the mainstream media. And it will get much more powerful in the coming years as a hammer breaking down the monopolistic control of the corporate media.
You started anti-war crusade in the name of freedom before Vietnam war – as a high school student. Can you tell us more about prank in Marines Recruiting Office?
That was in college in 1969 in San Bernardino, California. I had my friend, Steve Emanuel [who still plays guitar in my band!] push my wheelchair into the Marines’ office on campus so that I could enlist. Steve just stood there, forcing the recruiter to deal with me, to read my communication board, etc. I acted very serious, very earnest…so the guy thought I really wanted to join. I became upset when he told me they couldn’t take me because of my body! After all, I could push THE BUTTON with my head pointer! Only when I delivered THE BUTTON punch line did the guy know he had been had!
I am thinking about doing the prank again because Berkeley, California [where we live] has informed the Marines’ recruiters that they aren’t welcome in our city, causing a national firestorm. Things are repeating!
At the beginning of ’90 you were targeted by powerful Sen. Jesse Helms – he attacked NEA as an institution promoting “obscene” art. That resulted in your political passivity. What made you announce election start in 2006?
Above I have talked about why I entered the campaign. Besides the reasons I gave, running for President gives me a powerful tool to plant ideas and dreams worldwide which will bring about change. And this is also what happened when Helms targeted me and the other artists…and when the Berkeley City Council tried unsuccessfully to ban my public access television show. If you do the kind of work I do, you have to be ready to fight censorship. It is a part of the job, a part of the art. I’m always ready to joyfully take on the powers-that-be…to do whatever it takes. So the censors do not have a chance!
For years before Helms made his move, I had been warning the art world that it needed to take a firm and united stand against any kind of censorship…or we would face a wave of governmental censorship. This was in the era of political correctness…so I pissed people off.
So I saw it coming. But I didn’t think I would be on the front lines. I was overjoyed that I made it onto Helms’ top 6 list! I fired off my open letter to Helms and I wrote the combine plot, a detailed analysis of the attack. Both were published widely and are available online: http://www.eroplay.com/Cave/combineplot.html
and http://www.eroplay.com/Cave/helmsopenletter.html. Basically, because I embraced the struggle, it opened up all kinds of opportunities to me to tour, to address core issues on a national stage without compromise. Unfortunately many in the art world didn’t share this lusty attitude. Many artists signed what amounted to a loyalty oath to the establishment to get their governmental grants. This paved the way for the beginning of the government stopping giving grants to individual artists, instead giving grants to art institutions which are easier to control.
You are an author of shocking happenings, known for 48 hours long erotic ritual performances – is super liberal America ready for such a president?
We shall see! I have found that everyday people are generally much more open than the “leaders.” The platform and the ideas contained in it seem to be the “stars” of this “performance.” That is what the people are focused on. The other stuff doesn’t seem to matter. Of course if the powers-that-be deemed me a threat, the mainstream media would start using those other things to dismiss, to distract. But then it will be too late!
By the way, most people who come to our ritualistic performances aren’t shocked, but expanded.
For 40 years you’ve been living communally – with 5 other persons and 4 cats. America isn’t hippie anymore. Most people treat it like some kind of freaky thing…
Yep, for about 40 years, I have lived tribally/communally. Now the 6 of us live together in two houses [one of which we built] on a street in Berkeley with 4 cats. Linda and I have been together for over 35 years. Michael has been with us for 20 years…as have Corey and Alexi. Erika joined us 6 years ago. We live as a tribal body. This tells you that I will expand concepts such as a family and family values. My relationships have always been what I am about. So we put our personal relationships and one another first. This opens up possibilities and expands our ability to use opportunities.
Living tribally costs much less than living singly on every level. You use less gas…in fact less everything…when you live tribally. So it is one model of ecological living. Humans have lived in tribes for millions of years! In tribal families, the people have a web work of caring on which they can depend.
As President, I will encourage a society of small villages connected by mass transit. Within these small villages, people could walk or bike to work, to school, to shopping, to entertainment, etc. Mass transit will combine these small villages within 15 miles radius into dynamic communities. Living in these villages will end gridlock traffic, will cut greenhouse gasses, will cut stress and isolation. Housing for all incomes will be included equally in each village.
Most important issue of your presidency would be bringing home troops from Iraq. How important is drug legalization? Why do you think use of drugs should be legalized and taxed?
Yes, I will bring the troops home from Iraq immediately. Moreover, I will change this country’s self-image from that of THE SUPER POWER/ WORLD LEADER to that of a member of the global community.
The so-called “war against drugs” in this country in reality has been a part of a war against the people…especially people of color and on the left. 1 in every 100 Americans is in prison. This doesn’t include people in mental institutions, nursing homes, and other human warehouses. These human warehouses drain money away from education, health care, rebuilding America, etc. This also drains our communities of both actual and potential leaders of the opposition.
Prisons should be only for violent or otherwise dangerous criminals. Prisons should be a part of the health and educational system and should include drug rehab programs. This should also be true for the new creative in-community programs for non-violent criminals for paying-back, rehab, and education sentencing. These programs will be more effective and much less expensive and harmful to the community on every level than the current human warehouse system. Flexibility of sentencing should to be returned to judges. I will ban the death penalty. I will push the Justice Department to investigate the war on The Left by the F.B.I. since the 60’s.
The use of drugs should be legalized and taxed. Pot and spirits should be sold over the counter to adults only. Tobacco and other addictive drugs should be sold by prescription only. Free drug rehab programs should be readily available. These policies will deflate drug prices which are why the criminal organizations are in the drug trade.
All of this will drastically reduce the crime rate. Moreover taxing America’s number-one cash crop, pot, just makes sense.
Luver.com is your means of propaganda. You’re looking for revolutionary people – i.e. poets and musicians who want to share their art, as well as sponsors. How much does it cost to maintain 24 hour working internet radio? Who supports you? Do artists from Poland can also send you their demos or poetry?
I/we started http://www.luver.com over 9 years ago. It is one of those things that took on a life of its own. I started doing a show on one of the first internet stations. But it quickly became clear that that station was run by would-be yuppies who had unrealistic wet-dreams about selling it for a killing. So we started LUVeR just to do my show. But it quickly grew into a powerful channel for music, politics, art, whatever. At the beginning it cost us $99 a month to run LUVeR. It now costs over $700 a month when everything is added up. Commercials are taboo on LUVeR…and I don’t believe in grants. We do get some donations. But we pay for most of it ourselves. That’s the way of the underground! [Btw, that other station folded years ago!]
LUVeR is a totally new communication media which combines live streaming, on-demand libraries of programming, audio, and video. LUVeR is an anti-corporate, anti-capitalist revolution! LUVeR is and will remain a non-corporate, d.i.y., totally uncensored, noncommercial, nonprofit internet-only communal collective with 24-hour “live” programming (by amazing people) with “no-limits” content. In short, LUVeR is what THEY told us only a few years ago how the internet would be. But THEY now want us to believe that we little people can’t do this. In fact THEY are trying to force us little people off the internet, making the web just another corporate-controlled selling medium!
LUVeR is based on shows created/webcasted by individuals around the world, created from their personal passions. These individuals have total control over their shows, insuring the channel’s freedom and independence. This also insures that the channel is accessible to voices, music, creativity, news, visions, histories, etc. which have been frozen out of the commercial media.
LUVeR is based on shows created/webcasted by individuals around the world, created from their personal passions. These individuals have total control over their shows, insuring the channel’s freedom and independence. This also insures that the channel is accessible to voices, music, creativity, news, visions, histories, etc. which have been frozen out of the commercial media.
When we aren’t playing regular shows, we play The Mix…which is selections from LUVeR’s huge music library [over 110,000 songs at last count]. The Mix has both all of your favorites and d.i.y. music from the best experimental, punk, rap, hiphop, folk, bluegrass, classical, and unclassified musicians from around the world. Bands, artists, poets, etc. from all over the world send LUVeR their cds, tapes, dvds, and mp3s! SEND YOURS TO Frank Moore/Inter-Relations, P.O. Box 11445, Berkeley, CA 94712! And if you want to do your own LUVeR show, e-mail me at fmoore@eroplay.com.
Aktivist magazine – newspaper we make this interview for – is meant for young people interested in big cities culture & party life… What can you offer such people as a president?
Well, I perform in illegal underground punk clubs, artist collectives, Japanese restaurants, and other interesting venues. Among other things, I’m a singer, a musician, a poet, the host of a cable TV hard core music show, and I ran an all-ages nightclub. In other words, I am of the people culture! And you can check out http://www.eroplay.com/Cave/shaman.html#PerformAnchor and judge for yourself if I know how to party.
Since the mid-80s in this country there has been a crack down on clubs, dancing, street musicians, raves, street festivals, and in general anywhere people gather together. This is a part of the war on the people to keep us isolated from one another. Online the big record companies are trying to pull the plug on us web stations and to silence the independent bands. This is an attempt by the big corporations to rip off our culture, our music, etc. and to sell it back to us as product. As President I will return our culture, our nightlife, and our fun to their vital function of giving people places to be together, to talk, dance, and play together.
Your political statements are rich of immigration aspects. Existing US immigration policy is full of restrictions (visas, fingerprints etc.). Are you going to change that? What about visas abolition for Polish?
Yep, I believe we as citizens of the world should have the right of travel/movement. I believe we need immigrates. So I believe in fairly open borders…using our historical relationship with Canada as the model. I would remove racist filters. I would deny entry to those with criminal records. I would seriously beef up the security and inspections at our ports.
All businesses selling their products in the U.S. will have to certify that their products were manufactured in accordance with this country’s labor, wage, environmental, and safety laws … that they meet or exceed these … no matter where they were produced. This would curb people’s desire to come to this country for a better life. It would also remove the corporations’ motivation for draining jobs from this country. Businesses would pay non-citizen workers at least the minimum wage which would be tied to the cost of living. Businesses that employ non-citizens will have to pay $1 a day per worker to off-set the costs to the education and the health systems.
I have been trying to get two of my Canadian students into this country for over 6 months. We have jobs waiting for them. They have spent a lot of money on the process without the end in sight. The kicker is if they could pay $1,000 more, the process would be shortened to a few weeks! This simply is not right. The truth is the rich have the freedom of movement. But the rest of us are denied that basic freedom. That simply is not right!
You says: “I will change this country’s self-image from that of the super power/world leader to that of a member of the global community”. Most Americans are proud of being citizens of the super power/world leader country, don’t you think so?
Frankly it is wearing really thin here. A lot of people here are waking up!
You’ve got specific international support. “Enough of these traditional political shit!!! Regards to Frank Moore and his platform. I wish I had some radical stuff like that in every conservative country…” – how many people want to live in “your America”?
Glad to hear that I have international support! Even most people who think what I am talking about is impossible then say they want to live in the caring society. And that is a big step to bring it into reality!
Once you said lack of money is one of your strengths. Why?
Well, I don’t have to compromise. I just use creativity and improvisation to do what needs to be done. I keep everything within the scale that we can support. All of this gives us absolute freedom!
When you lost your front tooth, you auctioned it off for $250! Who bought it? Are you going to sell any other part of your body?
An artist bought it. The dentist didn’t charge me to pull it. So it was pure profit!
Which part of my body are you interested in?
Your disability made you forget about word “impossible”. If you won’t win this year, are you going to fight for presidency in 2012?
I take everything one step at a time. So stay tuned!
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.
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
A very short version of this interview titled, “We Misfits Are Still Needed”: A Performance Conversation with Frank Moore, was published in Adobe Airstream Magazine in October 2013. Also included are the photos that were published in the article.
Audrey: Dear Frank, I wanted to speak to you in person, but that will have to wait until I am in Berkeley or you are in Santa Fe. Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed. I admire you and would like the opportunity to understand your performance work in greater depth.
Can you describe the type of performances you are creating now? Has your performance changed/evolved over the years?
Are there any projects that you’ve not yet realized that you are burning to create?
Frank: Ah, “Where is your work heading? What do you want to do next?” It is not my work. It is not my choice. For me, it is not a question of a next thing. It is a growing, evolving vision. I am carried along in this vision. A performance does not have a beginning or an end. It is just a tiny bit of the vision. The vision braids around itself, flowing on. I do not know where the vision is taking me. I have not been down this vision before. I just follow wherever the art and the magic lead. I could not have planned anywhere near as rich a life that following has opened up. I never know what will trigger what, what will bloom into years long projects, etc. I just jam, play, and enjoy!
In a way what I do in my monthly performance series today is close to what I did in my first performance workshop in Santa Fe in the early seventies.
I used my communal family of four as a core to start a weekly drop‑in workshop held in my friend’s Santa Fe pre‑school. I never knew who would show up each week. People from my street performances, free‑spirits who heard rumors about this naked happening, a Wait Until Dark cast of straight actors whose director required them to come, all were thrown into this crazy experiment. I never knew what I was going to do because I never knew who I would have to work with, or what I would have to deal with. This madhouse gave me a flexibility and a trust that the vision would guide me to create a temporary communal reality from those who were there. But the casual drop‑in format placed a limit on how deep the intimacy could get. In my communal family, we were creating a way of being which was an underground base for the art. This base was a powerful influence. But it wasn’t yet the clear focus of the work.
In May 1973, the end of this stage was a twenty‑four hour performance. I became aware of the magical quality of extended time lengths when I attended an all‑night peyote ceremony of the Native American church in Taos. [They dug a hole in the ground in the teepee for me to sit in.] Time was as powerful as the magic medicine in creating a group reality trance. To try this time factor, I took my cast to Albuquerque to do what amounted to a 24‑hour performance. For the first six hours, we approached people on the campus of the University of New Mexico, people with whom we would like to play, inviting them to an audition that night in the College Art Department for a happening. Then, after dinner, we did the workshop exercises with the 12 people who showed up. Slowly taboos were broken, a community of performance magically appeared…which was lucky because I could only book the room until midnight. Then I had to truck the performance across the city to the University of Albuquerque. The sense of community was strong enough that everyone came along. At dawn, as we stepped out of the studio, there was the crisp feeling of being born into a new world. In the late seventies I was doing forty-eight hour performances!
But more about Santa Fe later. What I do in today’s series and what I did in that first workshop look very similar because they are! But the performance is always changing. Sometimes the change is when I see that something has stopped working. Like by the nineties I had developed a loosely scripted ritual. But the audience started to know what will happen, started coming for a social [pickup] shallow scene. There was no magic, risk, push!! So I had to stop using any script and do a totally improv ritual!
I became sucked into performance not to tell stories, not to paint pictures for others to look at, not even to reveal something about myself or about the state of things, and certainly not for fame or fortune. It was simply the best way that I saw to create the intimate community which I as a person needed and that I thought society needed as an alternative to the personal isolation….
I have always wanted to bring dreams into reality.
I was lucky. I was never under pressure to be good at anything, to make money, to make it in “the real world”, to be polished – and the other distractions that other modern artists have to, or think they have to, deal with. So I could focus on having fun, on going into taboo areas where magical change can be evoked. I couldn’t do anything THE RIGHT [“NORMAL”] WAY. But I always have been so dumb that I didn’t realize I couldn’t do whatever I was pulled to do. So I just figured out how I could do things MY WAY! So I have done pretty much every kind of art in every kind of role in almost every kind of venue. And I took it for granted because I thought it was easy and I always had fun! So it’s hard to say what my art is!
There are all kinds of art. There is art that calms, art that pacifies, art that sells, art that decorates, art that entertains. But what I am committed to is art as a battle, an underground war against fragmentation. The battle is on all realities. The controllers have always tried to fragment us. Fragment us from each other. Imprison us in islands of sex, color, religion, politics, classes, labels, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. ‑‑ they fragment our inner worlds, they blow our individual realities apart, and play the pieces against one another. They are us, or a part of us. They are the controllers, the politicians, the sexists, the women’s libbers, the pornographers, the censors, the moralists, the church, the media, the businessmen, educators, the victims and the powerful.
They are us. They have divided us from our power, from our beauty, from our lust for life and pleasure. They have divided us from most of reality ‑‑ divided dying from living ‑‑ sex from living, sex from pleasure. We are kept in boxes of fear, of mistrust. We are kept waiting ‑‑ kept waiting to do what we want ‑‑ waiting for enough money, enough schooling, for everything to be right. We are kept waiting and protecting and hiding and suffering.
This is the time to do battle with the boxes.
As artists, our tools are magic, our bodies, taboos, and dreams.
This kind of art can be bubbles of childhood ‑‑ hidden places where you can play and explore ‑‑ it is the kids’ under‑the‑covers world, the playhouse, the treehouse, the cave, behind the barn, playing doctor, cars at drive‑ins before going all the way, Huck Finn’s raft, tepees. People are afraid of this area of lusty exploring that they think they have out‑grown ‑‑ but they are sucked into it.
But this kind of art can have a more heavy‑duty magical side to it that shocks, offends, and breaks new ground. This side is what is locked in, the subconscious, the womb, the underground, hell/heaven, pleasure/torture, the coffin, the grave, birth/death/rebirth, dream/nightmare, the hidden world of taboos.
Artists of this breed need to be warriors who are willing to go into the areas of taboo, willing to push beyond where it is comfortable and safe to explore and build a larger zone of safeness. They need to be idealists, willing to live ideals.
Truth is we here always have several projects going at one time and more are popping up all the time. A lot of them turn out to be multi- year projects requiring major work which radically change our life. For example, in the nineties I was publishing an underground zine THE CHEROTIC [r]EVOLUTIONARY, which had become a well respected venue for all kinds of artists over three years. Then I [who can’t talk] got a regular radio talk show on one of the first internet stations. Well, we quickly started our own online radio station for various reasons [I exposed things about the other station]. LOVE UNDERGROUND VISIONARY REVOLUTION [LUVeR] quickly bloomed into a 24/7 community with shows from people around the world. So I had to stop the zine so I could do LUVeR! I did not plan to do a radio station just like I had not planned to do a zine! I just follow! LUVeR lasted for almost fifteen years until the record industry forced me to shut down LUVeR last year! I still do my SHAMAN’S DEN show [which started streaming as live video very early on].
Audrey: I am curious about your childhood, where you grew up? What you dreamt about….
Frank: My first stroke of good luck was I was born spastic with cerebral palsy, unable to feed myself, walk or talk. Add to this good fortune the fact that my formative years were in the sixties ‑‑ my fate was assured!
During the first year, it became more and more obvious that things weren’t “normal”. The doctors told my parents that I had no intelligence, that I had no future, that I would be best put into an institution and be forgotten. This was a powerful expectation with all the force of western science and medicine as well as social influences, behind it. It would have been easy for my parents to be swept up into this expectation. Then that expectation would have created my reality. I would have long ago died without any other possibilities.
Instead, my parents rejected this expectation for the possibility they saw in my eyes, for what for them should have been true. This rejection of the cultural expectation of reality could not be a one‑time choice. They had to passionately live their choice every day, every minute, or the cultural expectation would have sucked them and me into it. It fought them at every new possibility they opened to me. Their passionate commitment to how they thought things should be attracted people to me who kept opening new possibilities for me.
So I came out wanting to communicate with people any way I could… With my eyes at first! But soon with my noises, physical movements, laughing, etc. I just let people know I wanted to be with them, wanted to play with them, etc. This was a great training to be an actor! This was how I communicated until I learned to spell [I don’t know when that was!].
Actually it was my mom, Connie, who insisted to ignore the doctors. Connie was the black sheep of a Mormon family in Utah who had married a non-Mormon guy who was in the air force. Grace, Dad’s step mother…my grandma…supported my mother in keeping me, in treating me as a normal kid. I think they out-voted Dad! We lived in Dayton until I was 8 on the Air Force base. Granddad Frank and Grace lived in Mansfield…over 2 hours away. To give Mom breaks, they took me to their house for a week at a time.
I named my left hand “Mike” and my right hand “Ike”. They have different personalities from each other, move differently, etc. Mike is a smooth dude, somewhat sneaky, but in control if non-linear. Ike is very emotional, prone to outbursts, jerky…and shy. They have always had issues with each other…always the soap operas. Kids live in realities like this. I thought people who talked/thought in terms of “handicap” just didn’t see Mike and Ike…and the other body characters…didn’t understand their inner/inter logics!
Because Dad was in the Air Force, we moved a lot, both around the country and to Morocco and Germany. Each time we moved, Mom had to battle to get me into school [either regular school or special schools which often said I was too severely handicapped for them to take]. So I grew up knowing doing battle/struggling was how to open new possibilities up! Sometimes the school took me, at least with Mom doing something like coming to feed me or taking me home in the afternoons to continue the lessons. Other times, the school refused to take me at all. So Mom had to teach me at home! All of this taught me that struggling with flexibility is a great life style. True, when I was home taught I felt isolated. But even in those times, I made friends and was in the Scouts and went to church and to the teen club just to be with kids!
We moved to Redlands outside of San Bernardino and I got into a special education program. It was in a wing of a grade school campus. There were two classes, one for grade school kids and one for junior high and high school kids like me. There I had a board with the alphabet divided into four lines. The other person would point to each line and I would nod when he got to the right line, etc., a slow process! [My family just said the alphabet.] The doctors dictated I should learn to type with my hand… The normal way to type! I, my teacher, and my therapists all thought it was the wrong direction. But back then doctors were gods. So three times a week they taped a peg in my hand, put me into a standing box [I am not sure how that’s normal!], and for an hour I tried to get the peg through holes on a thick plastic key guard to an electric typewriter… Me sweaty, rubbing my wrist raw. In the year, I may have typed a few words! But I quickly had a practical idea. Put a pointer on a headband… My therapists and my teacher [women] wanted to try my idea. But the doctors [men] vetoed the idea. So for a year I was losing ground on my school work. They were getting ready to drop me from the school because I couldn’t keep up. Meanwhile the news that next year the class would be moving onto the regular high school campus! Then we had a substitute teacher who tried my idea in art class, putting a brush on a headband. It worked! So my regular teacher ignored the doctors and rigged a pointer from tinker toys and an elastic band. It kept flipping down, hitting my nose. But within five minutes I was typing on an electric typewriter, without any key guard or any other special equipment. Everything then changed! So I started to paint and write at the same time! Btw, the first thing I wrote was a paper on a one world democratic socialist government! And the rest is history!
Talking to people through my board has intimate qualities. It slows people down, bringing them into a softer, smaller, more focused reality. It also reveals things about them through Freudian slips, etc. Through the years I have designed the board around the other person who is reading the board, rather than around me.
In high school, I started hanging out with the few leftist students on the campus. And I started writing a political column in the school paper for my journalism class. This started me on commenting on everything. Most people who read my column didn’t know I was disabled, just a radical before being a radical was in fashion. I got shit for debating a G. I. who was in Vietnam. He responded to a column I wrote in the school paper. We went back and forth in the paper… People accused me of undermining his morale. I was sat down and told I was ruining the opportunity of the crips [my word for the disabled] who would come after me [it was the first mainstream special education class on a regular high school campus] by being a radical. They wanted to use me as their poster crip because of my high grades. I didn’t buy it! I said I thought the goal was to procure the right to be fully human for crips [and for everybody else]… Including being political! So I continued doing what I was doing! I was interested in the big deep picture, not in being a disabled artist.
Funny, that was only a couple of years after I got them to try my idea for my head pointer for typing and talking. Now I was causing trouble with my writings! And writing for underground papers opened a lot up for me for years. After high school, during the summer before I went to junior college [which almost didn’t take me because I drooled!], I had my brother drop me off at the head shop THE MIND VENDOR every Saturday. A lesbian couple ran the shop. They also put out an underground paper THE MIDDLE EYE which I quickly started writing for! When the cops shut down their shop, I started hanging out at their house. This included me in the small underground community in San Bernardino! This opened everything up for me! This community was made up of artists, musicians, poets and radicals of STUDENTS FOR A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY, THE BLACK PANTHERS, and THE PEACE AND FREEDOM PARTY.
My personal roots are in the idealism of the ’60s. That was when I broke out of personal physical isolation. I looked for a way to bring about the ideals for me and for society as a whole. The normal channels obviously would not work for me.
So all I had were my fantasies. I read novels like The Magus and Steppenwolf. I started wanting to create other alternative/altered realities just like the magicians in those novels. I read the Beat writers and the French Surrealists, Lenny Bruce and Mort Sahl and Abbie Hoffman, listened to Dylan, watched the hippie movement grow. I wished I could be a hip artist living in San Francisco instead of being stuck outside San Bernardino reading, listening, watching, waiting. All of this brewed inside of me. From my high school year days, I had been writing nonsense scripts dealing with nudity and nonsexual eroticism, always with roles for me to play! I read how-to books about directing, acting, film making, etc. I read such books as Toward a Poor Theatre and The Theatre and its Double. I read THE REALIST, published by the Yippie satirist Paul Krassner, who now is my good friend! I read about THE LIVING THEATER, Allan Kaprow, Anna Halprin, etc. Little did I know that I would in a few years meet in intimate ways most of my heroes, and that they would feel that what I was doing was the continuing of their work! When I was doing my OUTRAGEOUS BEAUTY REVUE in the late seventies, it turned out that a writer who was interviewing me was the writer who did the piece in PLAYBOY about THE LIVING THEATER which I read in the late sixties! I took this as a sign I was doing something right! I also read STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND and wondered about the possibilities of group relationships.
[I do believe I just answered your question about who are my heroes!]
But I didn’t think I could get people to let me direct them in the rituals in my head. It was not until 1970 that I started trying to live out my inner visions. I tried to get the ok at Cal State, San Bernardino, to produce my all‑nude play on campus. To my surprise, the college said yes. But I couldn’t get actors. [In the early eighties they had me do a performance there!]
I was offended by such things as body doubles for nude scenes in movies and actors in live plays wearing flesh‑colored tights in lusty scenes. My play was a statement against this perverse attitude. I wasn’t really into sex itself in my art. I just wanted to see nude bodies on stage ‑‑ not sneak them in to a love scene ‑‑ and see them do things like paint their bodies with baby food. I learned it can be hard to get people for weird things.
Also in college, I started doing political pranks. For an example, I had my friend Steve Emanuel [who I still do things with] push me into the Marines recruiting office on campus. I spelled out to the confused recruiter that I wanted to join [I was extremely serious!]. Finally the poor guy said I could not do what the Marines do. I replied I could push “the Button”!
Audrey: Tell me a little about your connection to Santa Fe.
Frank: During the time of the Kent State killings, I saw my life was heading back into isolation if I did not make some radical changes. I was about to get my degree. I knew that once that happened, I would be stuck at home without much contact with people. I had tried to move out several times before. But gravity pulled me back home every time! At the time several of my friends were living at what they thought was a hippie commune. So I was hanging out there on Saturdays. But then the actual owner returned to sell the property. So my friends had to move. But the owner saw things in me and I continued to visit her, showing her my poetry and oil paintings [I painted one for her called VANITY]. Louise Scott had been a Beat in the fifties and transitioned to hippie. I told her my tale of woe. And she said I could live with her and her two kids and move to Santa Fe with them after she sold her San Bernardino property. But I had tried to move out before. I figured I needed a lot of miles between me and home when I moved out again. So I dropped out of college and hitched to hippieland in Santa Fe to wait for Louise to come, which we thought would be in a week or two. It was two months! I stayed in a DIGGER style commune crash-pad THE CENTER which was in an abandoned shopping mall in town. At first I just crashed there, eating the two free meals served every day, getting a different person each day to help me [feed me, take me to the bathroom, push me to THE PLAZA, get me down to the floor mat to sleep, etc]. There were always people glad to do whatever I needed! So I found out I could live in raw life without any money, etc! I even visited quite a few of the communes in northern New Mexico, including THE HOG FARM, MORNING STAR and THE THEATER OF ALL POSSIBILITIES. When Louise and her kids finally arrived, we lived together communally with a few others. We never had much money… But what a fun life!
I was known as UNICORN then because of my head pointer. I wrote a column, UNICORN SPEAKS, in the underground paper. Basically I was hanging out with the artists, musicians, poets, hippies and political revolutionaries in cafes, bars, coffeehouses, etc., helping to plan both political and art events.
But in a year, I found this life too comfortable! So I hitchhiked to northern Massachusetts to a commune, the Brotherhood of the Spirit. There I danced with the communal rock band, Spirit in Flesh, having fun, hitching/touring the East Coast. I even danced on stage at Carnegie Hall and got written up [with a photo] in CREEM MAGAZINE! After that start, it was all downhill from there [just kidding]!
My first major performance began in that spiritual commune in which I lived. This commune was itself a liminal altered state in which 350 people went around doing their everyday duties, but talking about who they were in past lives, going into trances, channeling spirits and other things that I, skeptic, thought were weirdnesses better suited to cheap horror movies than to real life. But the people would not listen to me when I tried to tell them this spiritual business was spacing them out of this human life. But then one day, when I was typing, a spirit who later introduced himself as Reed, came through me, typing, “You are not typing this, Frank.” At the beginning, I thought I made Reed up to get the people to listen, and to start creating my ideals in the world. But I may have been taking more credit than I deserved because Reed and two other spirits/characters/persons took on reality for themselves. People waited for the next “lecture” to come through. The spirits talked to people, guiding them (and me) to create a new personal community. Even when I left the spiritual commune, reading the new lectures for the people around me became performances aimed at them. People started seeing Reed and the others in their dreams. The question of whether Reed is “real” is not a useful question in shamanistic performance ‑‑ that is, performance for change. Reed is real whether he is a spirit floating around somewhere, or my alter‑ego, or a conning fiction which I used as an invisible puppet. His reality is the change he created in the outer world.
Reed lasted for three years as an active performance. He as a performance contained the qualities which shape all my work. It was aimed at building a personal community which by its very existence threatens the established order of isolation and fragmentation. Its parts, the lectures, used the people around me to get to universal concerns. Reed was a framed process running parallel to, but braided with, my normal life.
So after a year at the BROTHERHOOD [during which I had gotten married], I moved back to New Mexico with Debbie my wife to build a personal community. In Albuquerque, because of my REED writings, SILVA MIND CONTROL [a new age outfit] wanted to back me to open a commune. So I, without any money, was driven around in a big RV by a couple of real estate agents showing me huge hotels, etc. for sale for a week! Talk about a surreal performance piece! But the deal exploded when I exposed shady practices of SILVA!
So I went back to college at New Mexico University. Debbie and I developed a relationship first with JoAnne and later with Ray. We four eventually moved in together as a tribal relationship and moved to Santa Fe again!
I was still looking for a way to work with people. I got into the Moving Image Lab at Anthropology Film Center on Upper Canyon road. It was a very intensive in-depth film making course which was nine to five every day for four months. I made films of rolling nude down a hill, smearing bodies with baby food, nursing by a sexy woman. But when the film course was over, I did not have money to make films. I could not see putting my energy into getting money to make films, could not see putting up with the compromises and outside control involved in an artistic context requiring big bucks. For me, the act of breaking a taboo is what is magical, what effects change…not someone seeing it in a film.
This not having money, this not wanting to be controlled and limited by money, was what sealed me into a performance life.
So I again started looking for a way to work with people. I wanted to see people nude, and touch them, and to create an intensity between us.
I had been painting oils for years, painting with a brush strapped to my forehead, painting nudes from magazine photos. One day, when I was selling newspapers in The Plaza as an excuse to talk to people, I told what turned out to be a rich woman I painted oils. She asked me to paint a nude of her. So Debbie set me and my paints up in the fancy living room as the woman undressed. On that day I realized how art can give people permission to do what normally is forbidden. It gives a frame that switches realities from the narrow normal reality to the freeing altered reality of controlled folly. If you go up to a stranger on the street and ask him to show his body to you, you will be lucky if he just walks away and does not hit you. But if you sincerely (and sincerity is a key) ask him to model for a painting or be in a video that involves nudity, there is a high chance he will do it because you are offering him a key to a new, different, and temporary reality.
So I sat on the center plaza, “selling newspapers”. But selling papers was only a context. The context for me was an excuse for watching people, talking to people who had the slowness and the insightful curiosity to stop and talk…a way for me to ask them to model for me. These special people were my real targets for my street pieces. They saw past the mask of the cripple. The masses used the mask of the cripple to relieve their guilt, to reinforce their fragile superiority of being “normal”, to make themselves feel better by throwing money (up to $20 a throw) at the less fortunate at whom they would not even look. The third type of person was made up of the poor and the kids who gave money as a pure spiritual act. When the special person stopped to talk, a crowd gathered around to listen. Money fell on my board while I was asking the special person to model.
The newspaper selling quickly fell away. All I had to do was sit there on the sidewalk, being available to talk. It did not matter that I dressed fancy, or had a sign saying, “I don’t want money; I want you.” The money kept falling. But I did discover that there are special spots and special ways of sitting which attract people. Sit at a slightly different angle, or on a spot a few feet away from the special spot and you become invisible.
I have done these street performances across the country. I have gotten tickets to the Joffrey, filled a couple of workshops, got my cameraman for one of my films, all from the street pieces. I almost caused a riot in front of Caesar’s Palace in Atlantic City, N.J. The crowd did not take kindly to the casino guards trying to push me away because I was taking Caesar’s money.
I painted a lot of the special people from the street performances. I noticed the changes in the people when they took off their clothes; how they relaxed, how they started talking on a deeper level about important personal things. After I got a taste of direct interpersonal acting out of erotic dreams, painting became too static. I began a series of private performances called Nonfilms. I asked the special people from the street performances to come to my home, into my study which was my first cave. Within this cave, cut off from the normal reality, we created scenes which no camera would shoot, nobody would see. Although I had played with my friends before in nonsexual eroticism, this was the first time I tried to use “sexual” acts in a nonsexual art form. I was surprised with the power that this released. Because of these scenes, the people started talking about their lives during these sessions and said it helped their other relationships. Not one person minded that there was no film. These nonfilms were the base for my career in relationship counseling.
I first noticed the nonlinear effects of private performance in these secret rituals. People whom I approached on the street came to me weeks after the nonfilm, the person usually reported changes in his life, in his relationships, in how people were towards him…all of which amazed him (and me too) because he hadn’t told anyone that he had done the ritual. Part of the change in how people related to him can be explained linearly by the change in the person emotionally and even physically caused by the performance. But this does not explain how things “just happened” to him, things that were improbable, things that we both linked to the ritual.
In the eighties I started videoing these nonfilms when the VHS home equipment first came out. I didn’t care that there was no place to show these videos. I got shit for using the VHS [among many other things]! I didn’t care! The important thing for me is always the doing the art with people, not who will see it! So we just put all of my videos in the closet. When the internet finally arrived, I was ready! I was one of the first artists who used the internet to show my videos! Those nonfilms in the closet now get watched by thousands a day!
I don’t have a choice about what the art is like, can’t change it to suit the art fashion to keep up with the times. It is a living monster pulling me along in its zigzag evolution. Real art is like that. Art is a calling, not a career.
The nonfilm pieces were active physical mutations of the psychic, literary lectures of Reed. Both the Reed lectures and the nonfilms were created around the particular people in my life to call forth an alternative reality to the normal one. I do not function all that well in the social, political, casual, sexual, economical, competitive world. So I look to performance to create a world of community, intimacy, and human intense interaction. For me, art is a matter of survival.
But I began to see the nonfilms were magical intense nonsexual one night stands which were not building a sense of expanding community, the heart of the vision that controls my art.
I was not satisfied with these nonfilms because they were brief relationships that did not go anywhere. What I wanted to do was create intimacy ‑‑ that is, a situation in which anything is permissible, where people feel that secure. I didn’t want to connect this intimacy with romance or sex because that would set limits. But that “anything is permissible” did mean a wide open erotic freedom.
I somehow stumbled upon a book, Environmental Theater by Richard Schechner, a book about a theater of active involvement and participation, of nudity and intimate physicality, of risk‑taking and change. It was right up my alley. Richard’s insights and experiments were inspiring to me.
But it seemed to me the Performance Group of Richard’s was not well‑versed in, or committed to, a living communal intimacy, so they retreated from the edge when they were expected to live the personal intimacy they were acting out. My years of communal living and spiritual study gave me needed keys to take what Richard had done forward. The book fit so well with my own experiments, philosophy and vision, it became a base of the next stage of the work.
And I have already talked about the workshop and the twenty four hour performance which came out of all of this. After that performance, my tribal body of four plus around five people from the workshop moved to N.Y.C. to continue the work.
Audrey: You are well known as one of the NEA funded artists that was targeted by Jesse Helms in the 1990s, which resulted in the NEA no longer funding performance art. What do you think about the growing embrace of performance art by large museums, collectors, and the public?
Frank: I have written a lot about what I call THE COMBINE PLOT which leads artists on a chase of college degrees, of skills to operate high‑tech art‑making machines, of money or positions that will give them the opportunity to do art, even when the style, the subject matter, and maybe the content of the art is dictated by this chase, by the combine plot.
When the news came out that I was on the hit list I wrote this:
“I see in the press that Sen. Jesse Helms and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher have nominated me, along with Annie Sprinkle, Karen Finley, Johanna Went, Cheri Gaulke, as well as other unnamed artists, to be the next target in their war on art. By doing so, Dana and Jesse have given us artists a platform from which to fight the plot. Because doing battle with the combine plot is one of the main functions of an artist, I am flattered to be nominated as one of the top ten on the new McCarthy hit list. I was feeling left out. All my heroes in the past were banned, jailed, harassed for their work. Artists such as Finley who I respect have been fighting the censors for years. My ego was crushed when I saw Rohrabacher on CNN label Annie Sprinkle a threat to the established moral order. After all, my work is as threatening as hers. But days later, someone sent me the NEW YORK CITY TRIBUNE (Feb. 5) special report that named names, and my name was there. What a relief! I only wish Dana and Jesse had invited me to testify. Jesse, I am available.”
It was not about stopping funding artists. Annie Sprinkle had not even tried to get NEA funding when we were targeted. And I just had gotten an NEA fellowship of five thousand dollars years ago! It was my first and last spin in the Grant Game. I felt fine about applying because back then they based it on your past work, not for some future project. There were no strings on how I used the money. I always had the iron clad policy of not giving the control of the art away to the government, corporations, audiences, cast members, venues, etc. So I only do art that we here can afford to pay for ourselves. But in the end of the year of that fellowship, I began to have an addicted feeling, thinking about applying for more grants, etc. rather than just doing art. So I said FUCK THIS SHIT and went cold turkey! That addiction to getting outside money really shut off a lot of possibilities!
About five years before this targeting, I was pissing other artists off by warning them they were opening gates for such an attack by giving other artists shit for not doing politically correct enough work. So I was expecting such an attack. But I didn’t think I was a big enough fish to be one of the targeted! But I was ready, ready to ride the bull for years, ready to use the platform and power that being targeted gave me to battle with censorship, repression and suppression, and to have fun doing it! Being targeted is just a part of the job of doing the kind of art I do!
The core goal of this attack was to politically deball all art. All of us targeted artists [gays, women and me] were using nudity and eroticism for radical political social change.
When an artist sets herself up as being an artist who goes beyond the normal frame, who tells the hard truths, who explores the unknown…not to be hip, or controversial, or to be interesting…but because that is how our tribal human being evolves, so it has to be done…when that kind of artist then goes after money, personal fame, and/or glamour while still claiming to be doing avant-garde art, it is denying society the real evolutionary function of the real avant-garde. It tells people, audiences and artists alike, that the avant-garde is just a branch of the entertainment complex with the same rules, goals, reality as television, rock music, Hollywood, and sports. This is like telling people a can of Slim Fast is a balanced meal of real food. It is a lie. And the scary dangerous thing is artists are buying/selling this lie. Avant-garde art is art that tells the truth, explores the taboos, pushes the limits. Obviously this kind of art, if it is honest, cannot be focused outwardly. Historically, often “The People” [who are not the same thing as “the mainstream”] have identified with the avant-garde because it was telling the truth about their lives. The focus of the avant-garde should always be on telling the truth, not on popularity polls and bottom lines. The focus of the avant-garde has been, and should be, on doing art that is as “pure” as possible…not on mass media entertainment of reaching as many people as possible by shaping “the product” to that goal.
The mainstream entertainment, by it sheer mass, has always sucked artists out of the fringe, the underground. That is just gravity. In reality, it takes a lot to enter, and to stay in, the underground. The underground is where the real freedom and the real ability to change society are to be found. This is why artists CHOOSE the underground instead of the mainstream. This is also why, when an artist is pulled into the mainstream, this freedom and ability decay. In my own career, I have worked very hard to stay in the underground…this work has been hard precisely because some of the pieces have turned out to be “popular” [whatever that means!]…attracting the mainstream sharks.
The mainstream has always tried to create a fake avant-garde with fake controversies, fake taboos, fake “hipness”, etc. to give the marks a controlled fun-ride through a Disneyland to keep them away from the real edge of life. This is because the powers-that-be cannot control or exploit what is in the real avant-garde. To pull this off, the government, corporations, whatever need us artists. WE ARTISTS DON’T NEED THEM!
Seeing art as THE PRODUCT, with marketing phrases such as “alternative comedy [a.k.a. performance art]”, is very damaging to performance art because it trivializes art. In fact it avoids “art” all together, selling “alternative comedy” as a weird, consumable form of entertainment which will give you a laugh for your buck. This is not what performance art is. Performance art is the performing/doing/experiencing the act of art. It is going on a physical journey into the unlimited realm of art. Sometimes this journey may be funny or entertaining. But these are not the true goals or rewards. The suggestion [promotion] that these are the rewards of art results in denying people, including the artists, the real full freeing experience of art.
All of this is selling the art, the artists, and the audience way short. Moreover it was misunderstanding the new media such as the internet and zines. In these media, artists can relate to their audiences directly without middlemen, without compromises, without limiting concepts such as “mainstream”…all for very little money…so why sell out?
Btw, I am always willing to sell out for fifty grand a week!
So the NEA became a part of this long before Helms targeted us. But when he forced the NEA to add a clause to its artist contract, the NEA became useless to artists like us. The clause was basically a loyalty oath to the established order, promising to do no art that could offend anybody! Some artists like Rachel Rosenthal sent their NEA money back, refusing to sign! But most artists signed, not embarrassed to admit that they did that weak of art! And that was the death nail of the NEA to individual artists.
Audrey: Your work deals with the body, erotic play and sexuality— themes that a person with cerebral palsy is not usually identified with. Are you able to get away with things that more traditionally able-bodied artists are not?
Frank: Mmmmmm… Who is doing the identifying? Who are the artists with cerebral palsy who don’t deal with the body and sex? And why don’t they? Don’t they deal with life in all of its dimensions?
I have always claimed whole LIFE with all of its issues, etc. as my canvas and subject matter. I have claimed all kinds of art and all channels of communication as my tools! Having cerebral palsy is one of my tools. It is a great shortcut and adds additional dimensions to what I do. For an example, when I get on a stage at a punk club to sing, everything is blown open, the old reality with all the limits have been shown up as lies because a dude like me shouldn’t be a rock star! So my body is like a booster rocket even before I open my mouth! But then I need to deliver, get results! I always do!
There are always all kinds of pressures to change the content, the tools, and the focus of the work. People always say they like the work because it is strong, but I should get over my obsession with sex and nudity, and get on to more important issues; I should not get “stuck” in one vision. I can never figure out why they LIKE the art if they think that!
What they do not realize is what they like about the work, the strength, comes from being committed to a single vision, no matter what the current trends and fashions are. I cannot imagine more important issues than sex and freedom symbolized by nudity. But these are not my ultimate focus. Sex and nudity are powerful digging tools to reach the intimate community. By limiting the tools of art, art itself is limited.
When the artist is rooted in private rituals, it becomes clear that she is not an agent for society, or some political movement, or the art galleries and art “experts”, or even for her own individualistic imagination. Instead, she is an agent of gods, of dreams, of visions and myths. This causes reactions in society, especially when the piece is public. Karen Finley in the eighties was criticized for limiting her audience because she offended them by her words, anger, nudity. An artist who is rooted in the private channels is not affected by this attempt to curb the power of the art by strapping it to audience acceptance and agreement. The power of a Karen Finley is the taboo‑breaking energy she releases into society. This societal pressure to tame art down, which usually sounds very reasonable and comes even from liberal sources, is very hard for the artist to resist who is not familiar with the hidden channels of change.
Audrey: Is nudity and eroplay always a part of your performance?
Frank: Well, in my performances, like in my life, the possibility of nudity, sex, and everything else is always there on the table to appear at any time. This turns up the importance of everything that does actually occur into an intensive altered state. I never know what will happen!
And in reality all my life is my performance, using all kinds of channels of communication [both linear and non-linear]. Funny! I probably have reached a lot more people than any other performance artist. And me, not caring how many people the art reaches!
Audrey: Is the glass half full or half empty?
Frank: My cup runneth over! It always has!
Audrey: As a younger performance artist, I am interested in a dialogue between our generations. What are your impressions of the ’80s and ’90s generation of artists as opposed to your own. This, of course, is a very broad topic, but perhaps you can rap on the subject a little.
Frank: In the seventies and the early eighties, the calling of art became the career of art. The passion and idealism became the studying of the trends of what will be “in” next. The passionate vulnerability that creates magic was replaced by a cool and clever intellectualism. We artists got seduced by high tech. We got seduced by the modern media, by the quest for large audiences.
I think performance was being ruined by trying to package it as entertainment, as off‑beat cabaret. Some performance is entertaining. Some performance is cabaret. That is great. But when you try to package performance into a neat cabaret format, as I think is the trend, to make performance acceptable and profitable, it becomes a hip form of nightclub watching or groovy T.V. watching. If you limit performance in time and space for acceptability, it stops being performance.
I like doing cabaret and video. They are great mediums in themselves. Of course, video, cabaret, computers, etc. have always been a big part of what I do.
But when I am doing cabaret or video, I am always aware of the limitations built into their formats. When someone watches a video, he knows that he will remain passively watching from the outside; the video will not literally pop out into his reality, or physically drag him into the T.V.
When someone goes to a cabaret, he knows there are certain limits involved such as that each act must end before another begins; but in performance, anything is possible. A performance can last for a minute or it can last for days. Performance can start in one space but then move to another. Performance can be storytelling, it can be a guy threatening you with a baseball bat, it can be a guy hanging by his skin, or throwing food, or anything. In performance all things are possible. And that is what gives you an extra edge to create dreams.
Performance, like any avant‑garde art, is the way society dreams; it is the way society expands its freedom, explores the forbidden in safety, loosens up. Society needs its dream art, just as an individual needs to dream or will go insane. Our moral majority society, bent on going backwards into the violent blank rigidity of a censored mind, needs taboo‑breaking dreams to get back to freedom. Performance is perfectly suited for this dream role. At the present time, our society is at a fork in its growth. It can go deeper into high tech impersonal isolation, or it can rediscover the magic that happens when physical and emotional humans actively and directly link up with one another. Art can either just follow society, just recording the trends, or it can take a pathbreaker role. I am talking to you artists who are not as lucky as I am to have a physical reminder that they are misfits of society whose job it is to push back the limits of society. This is a reminder that we misfits are still needed.
Performance art, the art of performance, is rooted in the private games of babies where every move and gesture has its own meaning to the baby ‑‑ it is rooted in the creative and the destructive games that a little kid does when he is all alone ‑‑ games that adults still do, but will not admit to doing, even to themselves.
One of the main criticisms I get is that my art is old fashioned, a throwback to the ’60s. I find this funny because the roots of the art are much more old fashioned than that, going back to the cave.
Performance obviously goes much farther back than 1909 when it became a formal art form. The Futurists were reacting to the bankruptcy of formal art, with its gallery power scene, the elitism of art, the money, the politics, and the social scene of art. This is a true but a one‑sided view of why performance appeared at that time.
I think performance came into existence to fill a void in western life. The void was the lack of magic and inspiration. The two areas of creativity, theatre and religion, that traditionally were the source of this magical inspiration had long ago moved from magic to entertainment and politics. This void also gave birth to psychology during that same time period. I often get the criticism that my work is really psychology and therapy, and not art. When it is realized that psychology as a formal science and performance as a formal art were born at the same time, this criticism can be answered. Performance and psychology are both involved in spiritual healing by digging into the hidden mysteries of life.
The dynamic of seeing art is not the fundamental dynamic of art. The doing of art is art’s basic dynamic. The doing of art and having other people see the art work are two separate dynamics, events, rituals. The seeing of art is what the viewer or listener does in her head. The doing of art is the ritual of creation, is what the artist does. In reality, this ritual has more to do with the act of doing than the act of creating. When a child first draws crazy lines on the wall, he is not trying to create something…but to do something for some effective purpose that our linear logic cannot grasp. The crazy person does his insane rituals, not to express himself but to keep the sky from falling or to make pain go away. And it works. The sky does not fall down. Maybe it is because of the rituals of the insane.
The very act of doing changes the whole universe. This is a key principle of magic. By doing a ritual or by speaking a spell, you can effect change. Painting a picture, doing a dance, writing a poem, any act of art can be a magical ritual, the doing of which has nonlinear effects. Seen in this way, most acts of creation are private rituals done in personal caves. What we usually think of as works of art are aftermaths of art.
The problem with our modern frame of art reality is not that we make art to be seen, but that we have forgotten (or have been made to forget by those who control what is to be seen and what is not) that the power of doing art is the main power of art. The private performance is a way to regain the magical power of the doing of art. Defining what a private performance is is an interesting way to enter the magic. I define it as a ritual that is not for an audience. It is something that has to be done, something you may not even want to do. One of the easiest to frame as a private performance is a shaman going to his secret spot to do rites nobody will see to open himself up for channeling visions that he cannot personally use or tell anyone about. We have seen other obvious private performances ‑‑ the child, the madman, the artist alone doing art. We can add things like doodling, singing in the shower, playing invisible drums to the radio when you are safe alone in your room. It is something that has to come out. It is something too silly, too taboo, too sacred, too intense, too raw, too vulnerable to be done in public, to be expressed. This may be where real art begins. This kind of doing by one person is clearly private performance. It has an element of secrecy and undercover. I can remember singing on my bed along with the radio, quickly stopping when anyone opened the door, not wanting to be exposed, not wanting to lessen the magic. And now I sing in rock clubs.
The hidden ritual not only kept me from insanity (some people will say that makes it therapy, not art), but opened nonlinear routes of possibilities not only for me, but for everybody. The private performance gives the artist freedom from limits and shoulds and morals, so that she can go beyond where the society or culture or the consciousness has reached, to connect to the universal power. By doing this she brings a new universal area into this reality.
Audrey: I think you are terrific Frank. I see that you ran for President?
Frank: Well, are not all political campaigns performances? That doesn’t mean they are not serious. My performances often start with something seemingly trivial then grow by themselves very quickly into forces unto themselves. The campaign started with a t-shirt of The Three Stooges. Michael [“Mikee”] LaBash, who is one of six people I live with within a tribal relationship and who is our graphic/web designer, had a CURLY FOR PRESIDENT t-shirt. For Christmas 2006 Mikee made me a FRANK MOORE FOR PRESIDENT shirt. When I wore it, people started asking me what my platform was. So I wrote a platform up. Everybody who read it got excited, overflowed with hope, saying it expressed what they felt and wanted. They didn’t see a performance artist in a wheelchair. They didn’t check the odds of my winning. Instead they saw someone who they could excitedly vote for… somebody who shared their dreams, who talked deeply about what really affects their lives. Their reactions placed on me a responsibility to mount a serious campaign, to commit and surrender to it…and to hang on no matter where this ride would go. I never know where a performance or a project will evolve to.
In one of my speeches from the campaign I said that I started running basically because none of the prominent candidates were talking honestly and directly about the state of things, were committed to fundamental change, and had a clear plan to create a humane, sustainable, and just plain enjoyable society. So I took on that role. My running for President created an excitement for how possible it is to bring our dreams for our society into reality… to remove fear and isolation; to get the boot of big corporations off our neck; to provide everyone health care, life-long education, a minimum income, and a livable wage; to restore our rights and freedoms; and to bring our troops home! We everyday people know the real state of the union! But more importantly, we have the sense of what is possible! We need leaders who share our dreams and who do not sell us short. Or sell us out!
This excitement extended overseas, and we received much more coverage of the campaign in Europe than we did locally, although there were a handful of great interviews and articles about the campaign here in the U.S.. In Europe, there were great articles written about the campaign in France, Germany, Poland and the UK, and an appearance on Swedish TV!
We did many local events and attended many different local festivals during the over two years that I ran for President, and they were some of the most effective pieces I have ever done … Here is what I wrote about the campaign coming to the “How Berkeley Can You Be” Parade in September of 2007:
“The whole day blew me out. Linda and Mikee took turns pushing my chair close to the lines of people along the parade route so I could shake hands, look into people’s eyes, hear their responses, interact one on one…all of which would have been impossible if I sat on a truck. I was moved when people thanked me for running, when whole sections started clapping and chanting, “GO, FRANK, GO!” Erika, Corey, Alexi, and sometimes Linda or Mikee gave out over 1,200 copies of the platform. And people didn’t throw it away as is common, but started reading it, shouting out planks they were moved by. I can see that “pressing the flesh” can be addicting! And a lot of people are devoted viewers of the public access shows of Suzy and mine. “I WATCH YOU EVERY NIGHT!”, “WE TIVO YOU!”, “I LEARN FROM WATCHING YOUR SHOWS!”
Camping out in our beautiful booth, which we put up for most of these events and festivals, was only slightly less intense. We were a visual magnet, decked out with banners, t-shirts, buttons, bumper stickers, peace flags and platforms. And people got the tribal body that the 6 of us are together!
By the “official” count, I received a handful of votes, spread across a number of states, Maryland, Illinois, Kansas, Georgia, Utah, West Virginia, and of course California. But the “official” count for write-in candidates is always just a small part of the picture, because so many of the states that actually accept write-in candidates for President will never actually count or record the votes unless the number of votes becomes large enough to contend with the “major” candidates. For instance, we know directly that I received votes in New York, but there were 0 votes counted for me in NY.
The campaign also had a direct effect on the electoral process for write-in Presidential candidates in a number of states. We not only forced several states’ elections divisions to learn their own system, we also challenged and/or changed procedures and requirements in other states both before and after the election.
For much much more information about the campaign, with great photos and video from the various events, visit: http://www.frankmooreforpresident08.com/index.html.
Audrey: Thanks for sharing your being/art/love with the world~
Here is the version published in Adobe Airstream Magazine:
“We Misfits Are Still Needed”: A Performance Conversation with Frank Moore
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.
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.
Read the original article here:
https://www.theage.com.au/technology/wacky-racers-20071209-ge6hd4.html
I Get Results! Frank Moore for President 2008
Cushion Works, San Francisco, CA
January 20–March 12, 2021
Organized by Jordan Stein with Keith Wilson
I Get Results! presents archival video footage, including public appearances and platform pronouncements, alongside official campaign documentation, press, and merchandise, all set within a patriotic installation modeled after the Moore/Block info-table assembled for events around the Bay. The exhibition opens on Inauguration Day, 2021, and remains on view for six weeks.
Visit the website for the exhibit here:
https://www.cushionworks.info/exhibitions/i-get-results-frank-moore-for-president-2008
I Zoom Results!
Keith Wilson and Jordan Stein in conversation with
Linda Mac and Mikee LaBash
February 16, 2021
In parallel with I Get Results! Frank Moore for President 2008, an exhibition on view at Cushion Works from January 20 to March 6, 2021.
Visit the website for the Zoom talk here:
https://www.cushionworks.info/events/i-zoom-results-keith-wilson-and-jordan-stein-in-conversation-with-linda-mac-and-mikee-labash
More photos by Alexi, Erika & Corey:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/eroplay/albums/72157717828918881
by Frank Moore
Well, are not all political campaigns performances? That doesn’t mean they are not serious. My performances often start with something seemingly trivial then grow by themselves very quickly into forces unto themselves. The campaign started with a t-shirt of The Three Stooges. Michael [“Mikee”] LaBash, who is one of six people I live with in a tribal relationship and who is our graphic/web designer, had a CURLY FOR PRESIDENT t-shirt. For Christmas 2006 Mikee made me a FRANK MOORE FOR PRESIDENT shirt. When I wore it, people started asking me what my platform was. So I wrote a platform up. Everybody who read it got excited, overflowed with hope, saying it expressed what they felt and wanted. They didn’t see a performance artist in a wheelchair. They didn’t check the odds of my winning. Instead they saw someone who they could excitedly vote for… somebody who shared their dreams, who talked deeply about what really affects their lives. Their reactions placed on me a responsibility to mount a serious campaign, to commit and surrender to it…and to hang on no matter where this ride would go. I never know where a performance or a project will evolve.
In one of my speeches from the campaign I said that I started running basically because none of the prominent candidates were talking honestly and directly about the state of things, were committed to fundamental change, and had a clear plan to create a humane, sustainable, and just plain enjoyable society. So I took on that role. My running for President created an excitement for how possible it is to bring our dreams for our society into reality… to remove fear and isolation; to get the boot of big corporations off our neck; to provide everyone health care, life-long education, a minimum income, and a livable wage; to restore our rights and freedoms; and to bring our troops home! We everyday people know the real state of the union! But more importantly, we have the sense of what is possible! We need leaders who share our dreams and who do not sell us short. Or sell us out!
This excitement extended overseas, and we received much more coverage of the campaign in Europe than we did locally, although there were a handful of great interviews and articles about the campaign here in the U.S.. In Europe, there were great articles written about the campaign in France, Germany, Poland and the UK, and an appearance on Swedish TV!
We did many local events and attended many different local festivals during the over two years that I ran for President, and they were some of the most effective pieces I have ever done … Here is what I wrote about the campaign coming to the “How Berkeley Can You Be” Parade in September of 2007:
“The whole day blew me out. Linda and Mikee took turns pushing my chair close to the lines of people along the parade route so I could shake hands, look into people’s eyes, hear their responses, interact one on one…all of which would have been impossible if I sat on a truck. I was moved when people thanked me for running, when whole sections started clapping and chanting “GO, FRANK, GO!” Erika, Corey, Alexi, and sometimes Linda or Mikee gave out over 1,200 copies of the platform. And people didn’t throw it away as is common, but started reading it, shouting out planks they were moved by. I can see that “pressing the flesh” can be addicting! And a lot of people are devoted viewers of the public access shows of Suzy and mine. “I WATCH YOU EVERY NIGHT!” “WE TIVO YOU!” “I LEARN FROM WATCHING YOUR SHOWS!”
Camping out in our beautiful booth, which we put up for most of these events and festivals, was only slightly less intense. We were a visual magnet, decked out with banners, t-shirts, buttons, bumper stickers, peace flags and platforms. And people got the tribal body that the 6 of us are together!
Here is a selection of 10 of my “planks”:
— We will have universal prenatal-to-the-grave health care and universal free education with equal access.
— Every American will receive a minimum income of $1,000 a month. This amount will be tied to the cost of living and will not be taxable.
— Public mass transit will be free, 24/7, and reliable.
— I will encourage a society of small villages connected by mass transit. Within these small villages, people could walk or bike to work, to school, to shopping, to entertainment, etc. Mass transit will combine these small villages within 15 miles radius into dynamic communities. Living in these villages will end gridlock traffic, will cut greenhouse gasses, will cut stress and isolation. Housing for all incomes will be included equally in each village.
— I’ll do away with all tax deductions for over $12,000 income. Instead, there will be a flat tax of 10% on annual income of less than one million dollars for an individual and less than five million dollars for a corporation. But the flat tax will jump to 75% on annual income exceeding these limits.
— I’ll cut the military budget by at least half.
— I will bring the troops home from Iraq immediately. Moreover, I will change this country’s self-image from that of THE SUPER POWER/ WORLD LEADER to that of a member of the global community.
— The use of drugs should be legalized and taxed. Pot and spirits should be sold over the counter to adults only. Tobacco and other addictive drugs should be sold by prescription only. Free drug rehab programs should be readily available.
— Prisons should be only for violent or otherwise dangerous criminals. Prisons should be a part of the health and educational system and should include drug rehab programs. This should also be true for the new creative in-community programs for non-violent criminals for paying-back, rehab, and education sentencing. These programs will be more effective and much less expensive and harmful to the community on every level than the current human warehouse system. Flexibility of sentencing should to be returned to judges. I will ban the death penalty.
— Every corporation should come up for a renewal every 25 years, at which time it must prove that it has been operating in the public interest. If it fails to do this, it loses its right to exist. Corporations that have existed before this policy will have 10 years before they will have to prove they are worthy.
By the “official” count, I received a handful of votes, spread across a number of states, Maryland, Illinois, Kansas, Georgia, Utah, West Virginia, and of course California. But the “official” count for write-in candidates is always just a small part of the picture, because so many of the states that actually accept write-in candidates for President will never actually count or record the votes unless the number of votes becomes large enough to contend with the “major” candidates. For instance, we know directly that I received votes in New York, but there were 0 votes counted for me in NY.
The campaign also had a direct effect on the electoral process for write-in Presidential candidates in a number of states. We not only forced several states’ elections divisions to learn their own system, we also challenged and/or changed procedures and requirements in other states both before and after the election. In states like 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! We did all this with a lot of help from elections expert Richard Winger, who was an early fan of my campaign.
In Arkansas, the campaign challenged the Elections Department’s stand that “Write-in candidates are not allowed in presidential, municipal, or primary elections.”
In Pennsylvania, the campaign got an elections official to admit that Pennsylvania’s system for write-in Presidential candidates is “archaic and not good”.
In Wyoming, the Secretary of State’s Elections office actually did not know what the procedure was for a write-in candidate for President in Wyoming. The representative there asked, “What does this say about our country, and this democracy” that she didn’t know how this can work in Wyoming, and that they were not set up for a candidate outside of the political machines … She said that 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 their system through this correspondence.
In Utah, we got the office of the Lieutenant Governor to correct their own Elections office, which was giving out false information about the process of becoming a write-in candidate for President. It turned out to be much cheaper and simpler than they were telling us!
In Minnesota, we challenged their rejection of my candidacy because my Vice-Presidential running mate, Dr. Susan Block, and I were both from California. This was wrong! And we won, I was accepted!
For much much more information about the campaign, with great photos and video from the various events, visit: http://www.frankmooreforpresident08.com/index.html
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/
Commissioned by and published in NYFA Current, Vol. 16, No. 13, 8/1/2007.
In Their Own Words
Frank Moore, the iconic performance artist who was once persecuted by US Senator Jesse Helms for making “obscene” art is running for president. NYFA Current gave him a platform for an early campaign address.
Frank Moore signs off his emails with the phrase “In Freedom.” Coming from another artist the gesture might be interpreted as ironic commentary on the American government’s abuse of the word since 2001; coming from Moore, it’s completely sincere. Freedom and the power of free speech has become the signpost of his work from the 1960s to today. Best known for his performance art (he faced Jesse Helms’ ire in the early ‘90s as part of the culture wars debates), Moore’s work truly spans disciplines. Born with cerebral palsy and unable to walk or talk, his career’s work has been to burst through the barriers of social isolation that separate people.
Given these qualities, it wasn’t so shocking when Moore declared himself a 2008 presidential candidate. Moore’s campaign slogan is “Finally a Real Candidate for President!” For this essay, NYFA Current offered the Bay Area-based Moore a platform for an early campaign address.
I have been running for president for about a year now. I started running basically because none of the prominent candidates are talking honestly and directly about the state of things, are committed to fundamental change, and have a clear plan to create a humane, sustainable, and just plain enjoyable society. So I took on that role. When everyday people in the “real world” hear about my candidacy, they become extremely excited. They don’t see a performance artist in a wheelchair. They don’t check the odds of my winning. Instead they see someone who they could excitedly vote for…somebody who shares their dreams, talks deeply about what really affects their lives. And then they read my platform. Then they get more excited at how possible it is to bring our dreams for our society into reality…to remove fear and isolation; to get the boot of big corporations off our neck; to provide everyone health care, life-long education, a minimum income, and a livable wage; to restore our rights and freedoms; and to bring our troops home now! We everyday people know the real state of the union! But more importantly, we have the sense of what is possible! We need leaders who share our dreams and who do not sell us short. Or sell us out!
So for most of the year, I have been running way below their radar. A performance artist in a wheelchair “pretending” to run for president is no threat…just a weird piece of conceptual art. But now I’m beginning to be a blip on the radar. Just a blip, mind you. But it is amazing that we have gotten to the blip stage this early…or at all! A blip who talks about the issues seriously and who gives real alternatives is dangerous. So the gatekeepers are beginning to say that I am not a “real” or “serious” candidate. What they are really saying is that I’m not a part of the political system that has been corrupted by big bucks; that I’m not playing by the unwritten rules, etc. And of course this is true. It is one of the reasons why everyday people are excited about my running. That big bucks political system has been divorced from the everyday reality, hijacked by the addicts of obscenely huge profits. I am a real, serious candidate. I’m just working outside of their boxes. Outside of boxes is where the new possibilities are. Inside the limiting boxes is where political power is created. This is why the normal politicians stay in the boxes. This is why fundamental, humane change rarely—if ever—has come from power politics. I hope they keep saying that I’m not a real and serious candidate because each time they say that our blip gets brighter and more intense. I also hope they keep saying I am the candidate of the fringe, of the margins. Consider who they have marginalized…the poor, the working poor. In fact, most of the labor force: the disabled, gays, seniors, the uninsured, women, the middle class, artists, family farmers, racial minorities, immigrants, etc. Hey, I may win by a wide margin!
True, I do have my problems. As one “art expert” once wrote, I, “seem to have a compulsion not to take no for an answer under any circumstances.” I do have this disability of not knowing what is “impossible”. So, I just figure out how to do it. When I was born, the doctors told my parents I had no IQ. Obviously the doctors were wrong. So I don’t pay any attention to the supposed limitations. I just do what is needed. When I was growing up, I struggled to get educated, struggled against discrimination and prejudices. I really enjoy the righteous struggle. This enjoyment of struggle gives me an advantage when struggle is needed. When Senator Jesse Helms tried to blacklist me, when the Berkeley City Council tried to ban my public access cable show… there have been so many struggles! My enjoying righteous struggle has been a winning element. I also enjoy when struggle is successful. I’m looking forward to the huge struggle of taking away controlling power from the big corporations, of reclaiming the rights and freedoms that have been stolen from the people of this country, of creating a new post-oil social order in which we will eliminate fear of getting sick, of getting old, of the future, of the Other.
In reality, as president, I will be able to do a lot to start the process of change. And I will! I get results! I deliver! But realistically, I will be working with a Congress full of people heavily invested in the old power system. I will need you! Writing me in on election day will be just the first step. I will need you to get involved in your local community. I will probably need you to put pressure on Congress—and on the press—to enact our dreams. It may take you coming to Washington D.C. a few times as you did for civil rights and to stop the Vietnam War. But together we will get this done! If it takes me throwing a giant party on The Mall every three months, then that’s what I’ll do!
It will be an exciting, fun four years! Just imagine a world in which somebody like you or me could really become president. Now keep imagining it and we just may win! Do not throw your vote away on a candidate who does not share your dreams, who is not committed to bring your dreams into reality! Go for it! It is the only practical thing to do because if we don’t go for it, we will never get what we need, what we want, what we are dreaming. Hey, it just makes sense…right? So write Frank Moore in on election day!
Frank Moore (born Frank James Moore, June 25, 1946) is an American performance artist, shaman, poet, essayist, painter, musician, and internet/television personality who has experimented in art, performance, ritual, and shamanistic teaching since the late 1960s.
For more information on Frank Moore visit:
www.frankmooreforpresident08.com
www.eroplay.com
