(Frank wrote:)
We have an extra copy of the Billy Bob Thornton movie, "Badder Santa". Would you like to have it?
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HI Frank,
We don't need it but thanks for the offer! I enjoyed that movie more than I thought I would.
I hope you had a good Christmas. I survived mine, not my favorite holiday by any stretch. I still get bitter that being a Jew I have to do anything on Christmas but we can get into that rant later.
First my thoughts on the show, and I am still thinking about it. One of the things I thought about the most and afterward was the notion of uncomfortable. I found it interesting that nudity is one of the main things you use to get people uncomfortable, why do you think that is? While other people's nudity does not make me uncomfortable I know that I would not have been willing to get naked so obviously I have some major level of uncomfortableness with it. I would also love to see a show where people get just as uncomfortable without taking off their clothes. I would have liked to hear more from all the people there, it was very interesting to me why they came and how they were feeling. I loved the reading of the poem, to me that was the perfect example of someone feeling uncomfortable with what was happening around her but participating and getting really into it. Her reading was awesome. What made me most uncomfortable of all was that I would be asked to do something I didn't want to do, and that it wouldn't be ok if I didn't want to do it. I have generally avoided group participation activities for that reason, and in a larger sense have always felt like an outsider in this country for that reason. I don't stand for the national anthem because this is not the land of the free, and it should be my right not to, but that somehow makes me unpatriotic. But I realized at that show that I trust you, and even more that I am ok with myself so I did feel that uncomfortableness go away and I had a lot of fun. The reason I came was to see you perform. I would say that 90% of the people I work with don't get better, and in fact most get worse. It is really emotionally taxing to spend that much time with a group of people who know that they can no longer do the things they love and who are so sad. The opportunity to see someone who I met when he was recovering from some major medical catastrophes and came to care about back up on stage doing something he loves was the most fun for me. I also think that in a lot of ways doing therapy with you was a zone of uncomfortable fun. I struggle with the profession of swallowing for many many reasons. Here was this guy who if I listened to the textbooks, and to other colleagues, and to lawsuit happy America I would have believed shouldn't be eating. But I have always believed in quality of life and not giving into fear, and as I got to know you and be more comfortable with all of you it became really fun to challenge the naysayers and watch you eating. It was also fun to let go of my worries. You were also my first home trach, I have always worked with a team of nurses and respiratory therapists who are helping me monitor things. But I tell you, Linda and Mikee were the best team I could have asked for.
Please add me the e-salon email list! And I am glad I have become family. I hope things are going well, I will discuss movies in the next email.
Love Miriam
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welcome to the e-salon, Miriam!
Hey, Bad Santa is a Jew, or at least his girlfriend is.
the nudity and eroticism are quick Tools [at least in this uptight country] to get under /beyond the casual, social, the normal, and other margins which keep people away from freedom so that we will start exploring, playing together tribally. And it works. People come to the "audience participation experiential performance " with that context clearly displayed. So they came for that, even if they don't know exactly what that means or includes. Not knowing exactly is the spice of life. Trust is the key to unlocking the "zones of comfort" [which really are prisons of fragility]. Really the trust I am speaking of doesn't have a subject. You trust me because you trust yourself because you trust life. That trust is a rugged comfort.
I am getting together with Maggie [who read my poem] Wednesday!
Well, if I didn't have you and Kerbavaz who are willing to go against the prevailing expectations, it would have been much harder for me to beat the curse of their expectations, judgments, projections. This curse is most certainly why I ended up in the ICU in the first place! [they couldn't ask me if I was breathing ok!] Of course I would be dead without my tribal body of Linda, Mikee, Corey, Alexi and Erika. And there are the hundreds of people who kicked my ass not to die and gave us what we needed to survive. Of course all of that came from a lifetime of living outside of the prevailing expectations, building tribal relationships, exploring erotically!
Hey, if they were so wrong about me, wonder how many of your other patients they are wrong about!
NO CAN NOTS
By
FRANK MOORE
Sunday, April 28, 2002
Talking to future healers
& teachers
& maybe future
muckrakers & troublemakers
Well,
Not really future
Because hopefully
You are doing IT
RIGHT NOW!
Hopefully
I’m not talking to the future guards
Of the corporate normalcy
Armed with can nots,
Limiting futures from birth,
Enforcing coloring only within the lines,
Enforcing doing everything
THE RIGHT WAY
THE NORMAL WAY
In Freedom,
Frank Moore
