penny arcade does an impressive series on the N.Y.C. public access channel about influential art /cultural figures of the underground. For some reason she and her partner Steve saw fit to turn my conversation with her into four episodes of the series. And below is the intro that she did about me!… Hey, I don’t have a modest bone in my body!
FRANK MOORE, LINDA MAC, PENNY ARCADE
and THE LOWER EAST SIDE BIOGRAPHY PROJECT
I’m Penny Arcade. What you’re about to see is the Lower East Side Biography Project. We created this program in order to preserve the secret history of New York, in order to stem the tide of cultural amnesia, and in order to introduce you to some amazing New Yorkers.
Most artists are filled with a sense of insecurity at times, and many of the most famous artists in history suffer from self doubt, depression, and a lack of self confidence in their own abilities. Enter Frank Moore. At birth his parents were told he had no intelligence, no future, and would be best off in an institution, forgotten. His parents looked in Frank’s eyes and rejected this cultural expectation. Performance artist, shaman, essayist, thinker and trickster, Frank Moore emerged from a lifetime of rejection and isolation to create intimate communities in his works. “My first stroke of luck”, says Frank “was that I was born spastic, unable to walk or talk. Add to this good fortune that my formative years were in the 60’s, and my fate as an artist was assured.”
I recently met Frank Moore in San Francisco when he generously attended my San Francisco premier of “Bitch, Dyke, Fag Hag, Whore”. Throughout my performance on sex and censorship, the only voice in the room that dared reveal their deepest response during the moments of pain, isolation, humiliation and rejection was Frank’s. Keening unabashedly for all our pain, it was like having a psychic dolphin in the audience. Later I learned what an extraordinarily articulate, lucid and original mind lay behind the man strapped into his wheelchair. And the greatness of spirit, vision and productivity that the flailing limbs, drooling lips and spastic lack of physical control could neither limit nor contain.
What you’re about to see are excerpts from the two hour interview I did with Frank for his public access show in Berkeley, California, hosted by his lovely vibrant wife and collaborator, Linda.
In Freedom,
Frank Moore