when we got home last night from penny's show, we watched 20 to Life: The Life and Times of John Sinclair (2007)...a great documentary! it was fitting because it was john [a frequent guest on my show, a luver dj, an elector/endorser of my presidential campaign, and who donated his whole music library to luver] was the one who forwarded me penny's email about her show. after i forwarded it out, i put it in my trash. but i kept thinking about inviting her to be a guest on my show...it was a long shot...but fuck it!...i went into my trash and emailed her. she wrote back! she knew my work! this week has been a process of penny, her director steve, and i trying to get her here, working against the flu, time, etc. it still may happen late sunday night or monday night. but the process revealed we 3 share the same life and philosophy as art outsiders, using the same tactics and performance tools, facing the same issues and boxes. anytime such outsiders meet one another, THINGS HAPPEN!
last night's show was even better than opening night. the dancers were more relaxed, hence even hotter and sexier. penny's riffs were expanded, deeper, more intense...partly because there was more of a p.c.-uptightness undercurrent in the audience that she could play with. even more satisfying!
and again miss muffy danced with me during the dance free-for-all! but this time the other dancer nina and one of the guy dancers krowe joined our steamy circle as did a hot babe from the audience. really during the show whenever the guy dancers needed someone to play with, they came to me...because i'm always ready to play. that's a secret of getting hot babes of whatever gender!
DA BOYZ:
From the very beginning of the show, it was just so much fun. Watching all the great sexy dancers, guys and girls, dancing throughout the theater, rotating their positions as people filed in ... taking turns, one by one, doing a kind of solo to each new song ... Linda pointed out Miss Muffy to us, who was going to be on a future Shaman's Den ... all of the dancers were amazing, but she was definitely one of our favorites!! Everything was just exciting, turned on, fun ... And all this before Penny even came into the room ...
It was really neat the way that Penny interacted with Frank throughout the performance ... there were some moments that were intensely deep and focused between them that just gave us chills. Linda had handed her Frank's book of poems and Art of a Shaman before the show, and she had already started reading it ... you could feel the real affinity and connection that she and Frank have, and the whole performance really showed that too ... there was a lot that reminded us of Frank, and of the feeling of us, and of our performances ... a feeling of being on the edge with her, taken on a journey with her, having fun with her in the moment, the way she "jammed", improvised ... and the way she kept driving things, ideas, concepts home .... and the way it felt like she brought everyone together in the process ....
It was really fun to dance with the dancers, and everyone else in the audience up onstage, and watching Miss Muffy, Nina and others dance with Frank. He was busy!! The way that the dancers were with the audience was really neat, soft, personal, direct ... totally changing, transforming the standard perception of an erotic dancer ... And it was really neat to see them all in their street clothes at the end ... it humanized everything, and made you feel like all of us were sexy dancers, and anyone could be ... and all the next day we wondered who, in the course of a day, walking around in their street clothes, might be an erotic dancer?? It felt like it melted a lot of things together ...
Alexi said he had tears in his eyes from almost the very beginning, because everything Penny was saying was so deep, direct, personal ... We loved being in the dark theater with her! There is so much we have been talking about in the performance, its hard to remember all of it ... Penny is so funny too!! And we were saying afterward that, like Frank, she weaves a powerful message nonlinearly and is sneaky ... using the fun, the dancing, the nudity, the eroticism, the skits and personal history to carry these ideas into you ... It was really neat the way Penny talked about pc, self-censorship, the way she likened the climate in the U.S. to the way things were in Germany before the Nazis came to power ... the way she really got underneath a lot of different eras and the current state of things ...
It was really neat talking with Steve after the show ... how again you could feel such a deep affinity between him and Penny and Frank ... how much he and Penny valued the consistency, the long term relationships, staying "outsiders" ... very similar experiences. It was a trip to hear about what has happened in New York City, and how they see the Bay Area as having the last cracks of freedom in the corporate take-over, the gentrification of everything ...
And then Frank talking with Krowe, Nina, Muffy ... lining up shows! What an amazing fun night, and a feeling of very deep connections ... We were some of the last to leave.
JEN:
The boyz were waiting for us at the theatre which was also decorated with a mix of the place it used to be and what it has become. We got in and waited for the show to start. Penny saw us and said hi then ran out to get false eyelashes. When she came back she had already been reading Art of a Shaman which we gave her and she was loving it. We were told that there were seats right up front for all of us. When the stage music came up loud we entered and saw all the erotic dancers doing their thing. It was awesome! We were figuring out where our seats were but I couldn't stop looking at all the beautiful bodies writhing around. We got settled in and really soaked the dancers in. All different body types colors sexes juicing the place up. They rotated and everyone of them had center stage for a song. They humped the stage, the poles, each other. They touched themselves and teased, shook and jiggled in joy. It was so much fun! They interacted with the audience dancing into them. It was great. And then Penny came down the aisle and she stopped at Frank. They communicated without words for a while giving each other meaningful looks and gestures. Then she got up on stage and started. She's a fireball, funny and smart, getting her ideas across by letting the audience in. She's direct and honest talking about sexual energy being the only one energy, talking about aids and the loss that created, talking about the gentrification of NY. She hits on so many things that need to change by exploring basic topics of being a bitch, dyke, faghag and whore, but all is entertwined into the bigger picture of life. She connects everything together with her wit and vulnerability. When she goes through the audience in the dark it feels good like we're friends with her just rapping about life together. She's so cute and sexy. She does a strip tease and then a political rant which is very powerful. All the time I'm thinking how sexy, how intense, how affective. And then I realize that we do that too, we bare all and Frank weaves everything into a sexy powerful experience. It is the same, and so I'm struck again with how lucky we are, how amazing this life is. The energy in the place was sexy and most of the audience got up to dance during the 3 song break. Frank had 3 babes getting down with him. People let loose and shook their stuff, inspired by the performance. When the erotic dancers came onstage at the end in their street clothes it really drove the fact home that all the sexy juicy energy was in everyone. All came full circle. It was a really great show.
When it was over we made our way out to the lobby. Penny talked to Frank telling him that she loves the part of his book she read that talks about following. She said that not many people do that anymore, but they do that. Kindred. We went out to the lobby and talked with several dancers and with Steve, Penny's partner. Everyone was warm and open. Frank asked Krowe to be on the Shaman's Den. Miss Muffy also confirmed that she'll be on the show soon. He told Nina that he liked her dancing and she was thrilled. Steve talked about the 'art scene' and how gross it all was now because the people are all careerists so it isn't about the art anymore. It was neat to hear the similar experiences Penny and Frank have had with that world. We were buzzing from the energy of the night, but we were getting tired and hungry. After most people left we made our way to the cars. Had a long wait to get on the bridge and talked about this and that during the traffic jam. Got home and had our pizza talking about how great the performance was and then we all passed out.
Was thinking about the performance last night all day today. How the sexy dancers really blew my mind because they blew away any pictures of what sexy looked like. It was a feeling, a juicy openess and vulnerability. And all that Penny said and did was there too, telling us her stories and weaving them into our lives when on the surface they could seem remote.
In Freedom,
Frank Moore
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