Frank, a twenty-six-year-old man with cerebral palsy, sits in his wheelchair in a head shop in Washington, D.C. trying to communicate with people by pointing out words printed on a board, using a pointer strapped to his head.
This true story explores his relationships with Suzy, Carol and Moe. Suzy, who has escaped from a mental hospital, shares with Frank the secrets and voices that guide her mystical and isolated reality. Carol brings Frank out for rides and movies and into his first physical closeness, but later she withdraws into the Jesus Freak movement and tries to heal him instead of love him. Moe, a bushy haired giant, runs the “Before and After” headshop, and has been Frank’s friend for many years. Frank tries to draw Moe out of his secret loneliness, coaxing him, questioning him, pulling him from the glittering trap the “Before and After” has become. Frank acts as a mirror for the reader, revealing these three friends clearly.
The document was discovered in a big old trunk full of Frank Moore’s early writings. The document is incomplete, but the included film treatment completes the story for the reader.
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Frank Moore, 1970.
Moe, owner of the Before and After, 1992.
Frank Moore was an American performance artist, shaman, teacher, poet, essayist, painter, musician, and internet/television personality who experimented in art, performance, ritual, and shamanistic teaching from the late 1960s until his death in 2013 in Berkeley, California.
Moore is well known as one of the NEA-funded artists targeted by Jesse Helms in the early ’90s for doing art that was labeled “obscene”. He is also well known for long (5-48 hours) ritualistic performances with audience participation, nudity, and eroticism.
Moore coined the word, “eroplay” to describe physical play between adults released from the linear goals of sex and orgasm. He explored this, and similar concepts in performance and ritual as a way for people to break through isolation, and connect on a deep human level beyond the social and cultural expectations and limitations.
Moore was born with cerebral palsy, could not walk or talk, and wrote books, directed plays, made award-winning films, gave poetry readings, played piano, sang in music jams, lead rock bands, and hosted a live variety show on his radical webstation, which he ran for 14 years. Frank's original oil and digital paintings have been shown across the United States and in Canada. Moore communicated using a laser-pointer and a board of letters, numbers, and commonly used words.
From 1991 to 1999 Frank Moore published and edited the acclaimed underground zine, The Cherotic [r]Evolutionary. In addition to his books, Cherotic Magic, Art of a Shaman, Chapped Lap, Skin Passion and numerous other self-published pieces, Moore was widely published in magazines and books.
In the 1970s, Frank Moore created the popular cabaret show, The Outrageous Beauty Revue. In the 1980s he became one of the United States' foremost performance artists. In 1992 he was voted Best Performance Artist by the San Francisco Bay Guardian. In 2001 he began producing shows for Berkeley's public access channel, and these shows continue today. In 2006, Moore became a write-in candidate for President of the United States in the 2008 election, qualifying in 25 states and receiving votes across the country. Since 2011, he has become internationally known for his performance/video archive on Vimeo.com which has been viewed by over 15 million people worldwide.
In 2019 Vimeo removed Frank's account and all of his videos. They are now available to view on Internet Archive at https://archive.org/details/frank-moore-archives.
Frank Moore performed regularly in the San Francisco Bay Area up until his death.
His students and the people influenced by his life/work continue his vision.
