AMP: Artists' Meeting Place and Resource Collective

Let Me Be Frank
Episode 13 – The Plot of Fame and Good Taste

In Episode 13 of the LET ME BE FRANK web documentary series, Frank explores the power and effect of art rooted in private rituals/private performances, how this “Shamanistic Art” is needed to expand limited frames around art and creativity, and how art rooted in private channels is better able to resist the need for audience acceptance and societal pressures to tame the art down. Frank also explains his resistance to using the limiting label of “Sexual” to describe his art. This episode features footage from The Outrageous Beauty Revue, one of the major public performances created by Frank Moore that ran for 3 ½ years at the punk venue, the Mabuhay Gardens, in San Francisco in the late 1970s.

The reading is by Lob, artist, musician and founder of the Instagon project.

“The Plot of Fame and Good Taste” opens with a segment of Frank’s 1995 interview with the Pope of Punk, Dirk Dirksen, and closes with Frank’s interview with San Francisco performance artist/musician Michael Peppe.

Music by Sander Roscoe Wolff, Instagon, and Winston Tong.

Let Me Be Frank is a video series based on the life and art of shaman, performance artist, writer, poet, painter, rock singer, director, TV show host, teacher and bon vivant, Frank Moore.

The series is partly a biography, but also a presentation of Frank's philosophy on life and on art. Twenty-plus episodes have been planned based on Frank’s book, Art of a Shaman, which was originally delivered as a lecture at New York University in 1990 as part of the conference “New Pathways in Performance”. Each episode will feature readings by people who played an important part in Frank’s life, either as friends, lovers, students, artistic collaborators or supporters of his art.

Let Me Be Frank presents Frank's exploration of performance and art as being a magical way to effect change in the world ... performance as an art of melting action, of ritualistic shamanistic doings/playings. Using Frank’s career and life as a "baseline", it explores this dynamic playing within the context of reality shaping.

The series is available on Frank’s website at http://frankadelic.com and on Vimeo at https://vimeo.com/channels/letmebefrank .