Well, we are back. In a lot of ways, it was a hard and expensive trip. First I need to thank Lob and Dr. Oblivious for coming through even through personal tragedy etc. Just before they came to the performance they found out their good friend had just died. Moreover, Dr. O. took off work Friday, drove Thursday after work from S.F. to L.A. [got there at 2 a.m.] then after Sunday’s jam drove at 1 a.m. back to S.F. to be at work Monday morning. THAT’S COMMITMENT! I also want to thank Dr. Suzy and Kim for understanding that we needed to bow out of their late night Saturday show. NOW THAT’S HARD…ADMITTING THAT THERE WAS NO WAY FOR US TO MAKE THAT PARTY!

The performance really “started” the week before…when Jennifer arrived from Toronto to do a 7-day intensive with me. Actually it started the day before she arrived when Mikee threw his back out and couldn’t move from lying on the floor flat! So one of the things we spent that week on was how to do the trip…with Mikee going along if at all possible! Finally we rented an s.u.v. [for $1000!] so that he could lie down in the back. Corey took time off of work to come to help lifting me, driving, setting up, and to doing the videoing. (IN CASE YOU HAVEN’T GOT IT…THE TRIP HAS PUT INTER-RELATION (WHICH FUNDS LUVER AND ALL OUR ART PROJECTS] IN THE RED…SO IF YOU HAVE AN EXTRA GRAND OR 2 THAT YOU WANT TO DONATE, NOW WOULD BE A GREAT TIME!)

Jen will write about her intensive. But it set up the deep well which we used in the performances. We explored the deeper levels of what I call “pantan”. At the performances I had Jen define pantan. She said it is a physical/erotic trance state of highly aroused turned-on energy that is normally contained /limited within orgasm. But within pantan, the arousal is released from the confines of the orgasm, combined with what I call “ontonse” and can be generated for an extended period of time [or out of time] for magical purposes. Pantan is extremely personal, explicit [ultra-direct] and non-linear. Pantan, because of its nature and qualities probably can’t be confined to personal everyday relationships or to personal goals or desires. But as magic, it is a powerful and dangerous method for calling forth change. Working with Kirsten Rose for the last 4 months has allowed me [because of her willingness, qualities, and abilities] to play in pantan within public performances as a response to the dehumanizing forces doing havoc in the world today. I call this phase of the work DEEP CORE. Deep Core makes hard core seem like light rock! Jen’s intensive greatly deepened this phase. Unfortunately the side effect of all of this was to make the performances in L.A. much more magically dangerous. I had to ask Kirsten at the last minute to stay in Berkeley to do a private performance to counteract some of the dangers. It was one of the hardest things I have done. I couldn’t explain fully why to her. It would have been much easier on me to have her physically there at the performances…not to mention that I love playing/dancing with her. Moreover, the private performance was an extremely dangerous healing. Fortunately Kirsten trusted. Her part of the performance was called THE REST OF THE PERFORMANCE. Friday and Saturday we called Kirsten during the performance. SHE SAVED LIVES!

And now we are at what most people think of as THE PERFORMANCE. Ours opened the third year of FLOPHOUSE, a month long festival of “duration” works [works that don’t obey the standard time frame]. We were the week’s performance pick in THE L.A. WEEKLY…they called me “the legendary performance artist“! Does that mean I am old? The festival is in CRAZYSPACE, a intimate room [just a little bigger than BUILD in S.F.] within an art complex in Santa Monica. It was my ideal space. We turned it into a magical cave Thursday with the help of Lauren who puts on FLOPHOUSE. She turned out to be a rare treasure of an art presenter. She laid out big bucks for our hotel room and for what was needed for the piece. But more than that, she is truly excited by art that challenges. And she was willing to put her body and soul in the service of the art. I didn’t let her willingness go to waste!

Here is how I billed it:

THE INTIMATE PASSION is an interactive performance journey outside of the frame of normalcy, into live music dance of erotic tears, tribal emotions, and of expanding possibilities. This journey will be over the course of two nights. Friday night will be AUDITION FOR PASSION, exploring personal bliss and desire. Saturday night’s SKIN OF UNKNOWN PASSION will be an intense melting of separations, divisions, and boundaries, touching into the heart of freedom.

Well, for the first half of Friday I felt like McDonald’s. A lot of people came [25], but most left within 20 minutes. I am told most of them were artists. There was a lot to catch them and hold them. There was of course moi. There was Linda and Jen dressed in almost nothing! [Of course I tried to get men and women to put on the almost nothings ;)!] Lob and Dr. O. played music non-stop. There were Mikee’s backdrops. There was a nude male dancer waltzing around, etc., etc. One theory is they felt it was too direct participation for their frame. That may be true. But also the commitment that is required in going on a journey was foreign to them. The performance quickly settled down into a private ritual focused around Lauren. This ritual climaxed in a pantanic dance of Lauren, Jen, Linda, Mikee [his back got “better” for the dance!], and me. It was extremely beautiful, turned on…and as Lauren put it, very human. It was a dance of CREATIVE FRICTION OF PLEASURE! At the end of the dance, the band was erotically attacked!

Saturday’s performance was more complex, too complex to describe here because of its many sub-pieces. People stayed for the journey, but resisted where it was going. The performance was about overcoming the resistance by every trick I know! There were many highlights … such as I got to read my poem about Barbara Smith to her. But it didn’t reach the depth of Friday. But it did create the tribal experience that dissolved boundaries.

But it’s funny. Sunday’s jam at Liquid Den [a great bar in Orange County] was the deepest, the most explicit in term of pantan of the three nights. Maybe it was because it was disguised as a rock ’n roll jam that allowed Jen and me to get much deeper into pantan [DEEP CORE!]…then spread it into Linda into pure fun revealing everything as the band wailed as the audience picked up toys instruments and joined the band! And then we played pool as the band turned into ISTAGON, playing very cool music, making me feel like Peter Gunn. How did we get away with nude pink sweaty deep rocking pleasure that exploded repression / suppression? Well, it was too human, too silly for grown-up powers to notice!

Frank Moore
June 11, 2003

Lob on bass at the Flophouse performance


Jen Wilson in costume


Our host at Flophouse, Lauren, in one of our "dresses".


Friday night's Pantanic Dance with Jen, Linda, Frank and Lauren


The audience dances with Frank and Linda at the end of Saturday night's performance

Frank annd Dr. O at Liquid Den

Dr. O on synth, Linda on vocals, Jen rides Frank at the Liquid Den

Linda and Jen at Liquid Den

---

---