Created by James “Moe” Armstrong and recorded by John Earling
Moe Armstrong is well into his eighties but has refused to give up his unique public outreach that tackles a plethora of subjects, including mental health, physical well-being, and recounting his own vast life stories and personal philosophies. While Moe has previously performed live in front of thousands of people on stage as a musician, and later became a voice at the forefront of mental health support for veterans (founding Vet to Vet), illness has restricted him to an online platform under a show titled The Magic Moe Medicine Show.
A couple of months ago, I was fortunate enough to meet Moe at a talk he gave to my class, where we struck up a conversation about his show. He invited me over to help record new segments for the show, where I’ve since helped Moe create a TikTok account at his request to reach a larger audience than his initial platform, Facebook.
As well as editing together a full-length show made up of Moe’s puppet and musical performances, I’ve created with Moe a hybrid version of the show that intercuts between the standard show and my conversations with Moe, as well as background context behind each story and performance. I also wanted to produce something that called attention to the relationship of the camera between the subject and the filmmaker, making my presence clear as a part of the show. It was important to me that my “documentation” of Moe not be a “documentary” but rather a collaborative piece of storytelling and conversation between the two of us that explored the nature of ethnographic filmmaking and performance. The Magic Moe Medicine Show also naturally lends itself to insightful commentary on the creator and the art, situating Moe as a performer within his own story as he employs puppets based on different versions of himself.
For those interested, Moe and I have just begun posting videos on his TikTok, but he has a large number of recordings already on his Facebook here, https://www.facebook.com/moe.armstrong.94/about.
