More
Is Moore
Frank
Moore's Cherotic All Star Band provides nudity, music, cerebral palsy, and,
perhaps, art
By
Silke Tudor
published:
May 02, 2001
Thursday nights at Kimo's
usually draw a small and sundry crowd that is uniquely receptive to the whims
of "Hex Appeal" promoter and booker Matt Shapiro.
Featuring an intimate karaoke act led by a man with a chapman stick and a video
drummer one week, and a smorgasbord of black metal bands that will attract cops
and noise complaints the next, "Hex Appeal" is usually interesting,
but an ambiguous rumor about a midget and a "bellowing cripple"
copulating during a blues song made attendance at the return engagement of Frank
Moore's Cherotic All Star Band obligatory.
- Paul Trapani
Frank Moore's Cherotic All Star Band.
For years, I've been vaguely aware
of Frank Moore's ritual performances and "eroplay" workshops.
I've seen fliers hanging on telephone poles with Moore's photographed face
leering from atop a sketch of his wheelchair; I've come across handbills
comparing Moore's work to Warhol, Zappa, and the Living Theater, calling for
"underground actresses" undaunted by nudity, eroticism, and adult
play. I am aware that, in the '70s, Frank Moore "staged" performances
at both the Mabuhay Gardens and at my early punk rock stomping
ground, the Farm. Since 1999, a number of artists I greatly appreciate
-- didgeridoo player Stephen Kent, poetry duo Attaboy and Burke,
and singer/songwriter Andrew Goldfarb of the Slow Poisoners --
have appeared on Moore's 24-hour Internet radio station, Love Underground
Vision Radio (LUVeR.com); and his zine, The
Cherotic Revolutionary, has been lauded by Factsheet
Five, SubGenius holy man Ivan
Stang, and MaximumRocknRoll, and still I'd never seen one
of Frank Moore's performances. Something about the psychedelic imagery used on
his fliers and the titles of his pieces -- Raptures of the Tribal Body,
Cave of Passion, Erotic Lava, Playing Dream
Passions Naked -- reminded me too much of the aborted communes and
artist collectives I was exposed to as a child.
According to his memoir, Art
of a Shaman, posted on his Web site (www.eroplay. com), Frank Moore was
born "spastic, unable to walk or talk." Doctors suggested he be
institutionalized until his unpreventable premature death, but his parents
rejected the conventions of the time and raised Moore to do the same. From the
beginning, Moore says, he was an exhibitionist, and his body, crippled by
cerebral palsy, was ideal for his temperament: People stared. At 17, Moore
learned to speak by spelling out words with a head pointer (which is how he
paints canvases today), and he learned to consider his handicap a blessing.
Much in the way that early civilizations thought cripples belonged to the
spirit world, Moore knew that standard societal expectations did not apply to
him; he was outside, in a misfit place most artists would have to struggle to
maintain. In 1970, after a failed attempt at staging his first all-nude play at
Cal State, San Bernardino, Moore dropped out of college and hitchhiked to Santa
Fe, where a rich woman asked that he paint a portrait of her in the nude. The
realization that "art gave people permission to do what was normally
considered forbidden" led him to start workshops and nude rituals he
called "nonfilms," which explored the boundaries of human intimacy
through nudity. The communal family that sprang up around Moore eventually
relocated to Berkeley in 1975, where Moore met his life partner Linda Mac and
started workshops that turned Berkeley into a strange playground of Moore's
devising: Participants buried each other alive in coffins and staged rebirths;
they drank urine and launched fantasy costume parades; they staged a multimedia
carnival called "The Erotic Test"; they staged theater pieces for
which actors trained by working at strip clubs; they took part in political protests
and benefits; they started a cabaret show, ti-tled The Outrageous Beauty
Revue, in which Frank Moore sang in spite of, and because of, his
difficulty in forming words; they held public rituals during which people could
"play" with each other without actually having sex. This became the
essence of eroplay. In the early '90s, Jesse Helms investigated Moore
for being obscene, but that only encouraged Moore. Over the years, he has held
countless rituals in the Bay Area, with each running as little as 40 minutes
and as long as 48 hours.
"The difference between eroplay
and foreplay is one of intent," writes Moore. "Physically, there is
no difference. It is the same pleasurable, physical turned-on feeling. But ...
eroplay is satisfying in itself, in relaxing intensity. There is no build-up of
pent-up energy in one climactic act."
For the tenderfoot, Frank Moore's
Cherotic All Star Band, an ever-changing musical entity, is a moderate
introduction.
"I've played with Frank
numerous times," says Andrew Goldfarb, who met Moore through LUVeR radio,
"both solo and with my band. Last time we performed was inside a produce
warehouse in Richmond. We sang "This Land Is Your Land' together. Frank
played piano and, even though he has cerebral palsy, it sounded like he was
channeling Thelonious Monk. Frank Moore is a true American, a real example of
someone who knows how to turn lemons into lemonade."
Goldfarb recalls breaking his foot
eight hours before a performance with Frank Moore.
"I was going to cancel,"
says Goldfarb, "but I thought, "I'm opening for Frank Moore, I can't
cancel.' Frank has invented a new language for [public performance]. Don't
always understand what he's up to, but he causes me to examine my notions of
sexism, sex, monogamy, and the animal/psychological duality of modern living.
He's an amazing inspiration for anyone seeking freedom of expression without
any physical or mental boundaries."
Frank Moore arrives at Kimo's with
his entourage -- a young five-piece band, Linda Mac, and a blind backup singer/
flutist named Teresa Cochran -- wearing little more than a shirt,
orange socks, and mismatched shoes. As Moore points to letters on his spelling
board with lurching movements of his head, Mac interprets: "Frank says he
likes people." Moore grins through his feral beard, exposing large,
misshapen teeth. His tongue lolls suggestively. Moore recommends that John
the Baker take off his pants, and the small crowd applauds encouragingly.
"I've already seen you naked
anyway," spells Moore.
"This I gotta see," says
Cochran with a grin, her pendulous breasts swaying under a sheer garment. John
the Baker disrobes and the set begins with Linda Mac singing over distorted
cello and keyboard loops. Moore begins to howl, rising in his wheelchair, his
back bowed with effort as his arms flap irregularly at his side. Mac smiles,
swirling in her see-through robe, rubbing up against guitarist Giovanni Moro,
which sends Moore into a spasm of excited grunts and wails. He grins and mugs
for the cameras as the music builds. Mac lifts her skirt and rubs her ass
against Moore's lap. He rears in his seat, pushing against her with paroxysmal
thrusts, matching her off-balance singing with supportive growls. Cochran
lights a pipe and begins smoking as Moore's hand lurches between Mac's legs. The
musicians play on, rolling over the stage with bluesy guitar riffs and
spontaneous percussion. Cochran edges her way toward Moore's wheelchair,
feeling for Mac's ass as Moore's hand fumbles for Cochran's breast. They grunt
and wail as Mac continues singing and grinding on Moore's lap. The crowd
watches -- some dumbfounded, some delighted -- as cameras flash and Moore
bellows. While Mac seems to keep the song in place, the energy of the scene
escalates and ebbs along with Moore's directing vocal rumble. His stamina is
unrelenting, and the music goes on and on. I am repelled but stuck: I can't
turn away, until, finally, Matt Shapiro indicates with a flick of the lights
that the set has reached its conclusion.
Satisfied, Moore grins lecherously,
and Mac announces that their CD is called Dying Is Sexy.
"That's the most punk rock
thing I've seen in years," says a young man who has moved to the front of
the stage with a camera. "Where do you go from there?"
"Just because he's crippled
doesn't mean it's art," counters another. "He might just be a dirty
old hippie in a wheelchair."
"I don't know who's more
crazy," says a woman standing outside the nightclub, "the people
performing or the people watching."
Frank Moore says the crazy person
performs insane rituals not to express himself, but to keep the sky from
falling. And the sky doesn't fall.
http://www.sfweekly.com/content/printVersion/311691/
http://www.sfweekly.com/2001-05-02/news/more-is-moore/