Orange to Valencia

Tomorrow night - Sunday, May 1st - I'll be at Reading Frenzy in Portland, putting on a fun show with Jack Saturn. Right now, I'm sitting at Cafe Trieste in North Beach, San Francisco, around the corner from City Lights Bookstore where we spent an hour browsing and I bought a Jack Kerouac CD to listen to, on the road. The others included in that first-person plural are my beloved friend Karen who is visiting from New York and her friends/temporary roommates Dave and Elisabeth. Not with us this afternoon are Aman and Idan and Maryan, the other friends/roommates whom I want to thank, especially Aman for the barbecue feast last night. Karen also showed me Berkeley and the incredible view from the top of the mountain behind the UC campus. Being here has been a really great respite from the road.

Speaking of the road, it's time to cross the Golden Gate Bridge and drive up the wild west coast before the sun drowns in the Pacific.

Albuquerque to Angeles

The news in this post is rather drastic: Genevieve has been suddenly called back to New Zealand, for a number of reasons both personal and career-related, including an audition that she can't miss and which could lead to big things. And so the Transcontinental crew has been reduced from two to one. Genevieve flies to Auckland from Los Angeles tonight.

This means there are just a few changes in the schedule. The show in San Jose that was scheduled for tonight (Thursday, April 28th) has been cancelled, since the third performer on the bill can't make it either. Sorry, Anno Domini and any of you who were planning to be there. All the other shows are still on as of now, but there may be some additions to the bill. Watch this space.

I'll be stopping in San Francisco just to say hi tomorrow, but the next performance date is May 1st (Sunday) in Portland, Oregon. There I'll be performing at Reading Frenzy, a cool bookstore where I did a show last year. Portland writer Jack Saturn will read with me, and I'll show some the videos that we have yet to show. Deets: Reading Frenzy, 921 SW Oak Street, Portland, (503) 274-1449. 7 pm. Free.

Meanwhile, here we are in Orange, on Gen's last day in America. By the way, she is starting a blog of her own, so I'm not going to interpret her experience for you here. You can read her stories at transitorystory.blogspot.com. Last night, though, we had a great show - perhaps our best, which was a nice send-off for Genevieve. We were at the Ugly Mug in Orange, with an enthusiastic and dedicated crowd of possibly 80 people, and sharing the stage with five local "New Voices" - all of whom seemed quite accomplished - and another travelling poet from San Antonio. Wacky prizes were given away, and afterwards a bunch of us drove to the nearest all-night Denny's and had very L.A. conversations about TV and movies over french fries and pie. It was a pleasure to meet you all. Then Steve Ramirez, one of the two idiots of Two Idiots Peddling Poetry, graciously let us occupy his Star Wars/Star Trek-themed living room for the night, watched over by his roommate Richard's impressive Klingon Batleth (somebody correct my spelling, please), which is a two-handed, four-bladed, very dangerous-looking weapon, mounted on the cabinet. Thank-you Steve and Richard, and thanks too to Jaimes who hosted the event last night and laughed at the right times.

Yesterday before the show was mostly spent in getting in to Orange County from Arizona and tearing out our hair at Kinko's, but the day before that we left Albuquerque in the late morning and drove west, stopping in Gallup for excellent Middle Eastern food, and eventually arriving just in time to see the sun dropping below the grey cloud cover and illuminating the Grand Canyon in glorious orange light. It was raining lightly at the same time, and there was even a gorgeous and remarkably sturdy rainbow that arced down from the heavens right to the Colorado River at the bottom of the canyon. Even if we were seeing it in the company of a hundred other tourists snapping photos and lamenting their lack of extra memory, it was a marvelous sight.

Austin to Albuquerque

Our next show is scheduled for Wednesday, April 27th, at 8 pm at The Ugly Mug Cafe in Orange County (the O.C., to those in the know, or who watch cable TV). The cafe is at 261 N. Glassel, Orange; the phone number is 714.997-5610. We're performing as featured guests at a regular event (known as Two Idiots Peddling Poetry), which this week also features a special showcase of young spoken word talent. This will be our only show in the Los Angeles area. There's a $2 cover.

The following night, on Thursday, April 28th at 7 pm, we're performing our full multi-media extravaganza (I can't help putting those words together) at a great gallery space in San Jose, where I did a show with the Perpetual Motion Roadshow last year. It's called Anno Domini (or Gallery AD) and it's located at 150 South Montgomery Street, Unit B, in San Jose. The number there is 408-271-5151. This will be our only show in the San Francisco Bay area, so if you're anywhere around there it would be great if you could make it down to San Jose. Admission is free.

Our multimedia extravaganza, in case you're wondering, includes live performance with occasional sound, image, or singing by Genevieve and/or Corey, as well as short films from New Zealand and Canada, such as Grant Lahood's Cannes-award-winning short The Singing Trophy, and some of the latest from Jim Munroe's DVD-zine Novel Amusements.

We left Austin on Saturday evening and drove through Texas as far as Fort Stockton, interrupted only by a brief but bracing encounter with the Sheriff of Wimble County. At that point we couldn't drive any longer; in case you hadn't heard or read it on a t-shirt, Texas is damn big. We had to continue our exodus from the Lone Star State the following day.

I'm writing this from the Flying Star Cafe in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a lively place that offers coffee, burritos, wireless internet, and a surprising amount of music with French lyrics. We arrived in this friendly and comparatively temperate town last night and were guests on Don McIvor's KUNM spoken word radio show. (Thanks, Don!) If you missed it, I have it on CD. We discussed spoken word tours and interdisciplinary performance and Genevieve did an impressively animated version of her piece "I Wanna Be an American", considering that she had spent the previous couple of hours sleeping in the car.

We were worn out a bit from visiting bright, white, windy and otherworldly White Sands National Monument, a place in the Tularosa Basin where you can wander among pure sand dunes that stretch on for miles in every direction. Visitors are not allowed to remove sand or crystals from the park, but I confess that a fair amount of the fine white stuff ended up on the dash and seats and floor of the VW.

In the meantime, neither of us can believe the amount of corn and corn products we have consumed in the last week. We are continuing our search for highway-rest-stop food options that do not feature corn syrup as one of the top three ingredients.

Atlanta to Austin

On Sunday, April 24th, Transcontinental Flux (Gen and I) will be the guests of south-west spoken-word maven Don McIver on the Spoken Word Hour on WUNM, a cool community radio station broadcasting from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. You can listen in online; just go to this website: http://www.kunm.org/home.php

The show is on at 11:30 pm New Mexico time (that's two hours behind Montreal and New York, one hour ahead of L.A. and Vancouver, etc.)

Right now I'm in Austin, Texas, sampling some of what is ostensibly Seattle's Best Coffee. The influence of coffee afficionado Genevieve and the exigencies of 8-hour driving days have caused me to be newly interested in the beverage. We arrived here last night and performed to a select artsy crowd at The Escapist Bookstore and Gallery, a very cool independent space run by Elana Koff and Julianne Sherrod, which unfortunately is shutting down. At the closing party, surrounded by the art of Ron English and Daniel Johnston, we were perhaps the Escapist's last performers in a long and illustrious list of performers.

In the process of getting here, we have seen a lot of blurry Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas landscapes out the car window. On Thursday night we stopped in New Orleans and ate a great little restaurant in the French Quarter. It turned out our chef had been at the same Sonic Youth show after-party that we crashed in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the night of our first show at Galapagos.

We are mournful about the lack of air conditioning in the VW, and yet periodically joyful to be cruising down the bug-splattering highways of the swampy south with the windows wide open and Bob Dylan and/or Genevieve whaling away on the harmonica. Tonight we drive west until we fall asleep, and tomorrow we continue to Albuquerque.

The Atlantic to Atlanta

First, the important details: We've got a show scheduled on Friday, April 22 in Austin, Texas, at The Escapist Bookstore, where we'll be performing along with local writers at a big in-store party. It's at 2209 South First Street and the phone number is (512) 912 1777.

The tour really began a week ago (April 12th) in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, at a show called Hazards of Globalisation on the stage at Galapagos Art Space. Genevieve and I both performed, along with Jane Gabriels, Jon Paul Fiorentino and Daviid McGimpsey from Montreal and other great international guests. It was eclectic and surprising and the crowd had a grand time and more drinks were sold than books, as is usually the case. The next night (April 13th) I read along with 6 other Canadians at the Bowery Poetry Club.

Genevieve and I left New York on Tuesday morning to start the long trip south to states unknown to either of us. We stopped in DC to lock eyes with Lincoln and jest with Jefferson; then we washed our hands of Washington and went on to Richmond, Virginia, North and South Carolinas, and Atlanta, Georgia, whence I write this. As we continue south it gets more and more summery, and our tour vehicle (my much-adored VW (Virginia Woolf) Golf) has no AC. Tomorrow is bayous and New Orleans and many cold drinks I hope.

Transcontinental Flux Schedule

The North American leg of Worldwide Flux is underway.

Transcontinental Flux:

From the sheep-dotted hills of New Zealand and the snow-covered hills of Canada come two lively and unique writer-performers, Genevieve McClean and Corey Frost, who combine theatricality, narrative, and poetry in short bursts of pure mesmerism. Genevieve is a poet and well-known actor, from Auckland. Corey is the author of My Own Devices and The Worthwhile Flux, from Montreal. Separately they have performed around the globe, and now together they are performing in 20 cities across the U.S. and Canada. The show will feature short videos from Canada and New Zealand in addition to performances by Corey, Genevieve, and friendly locals. Coming soon to your city:

Tuesday, April 12: Galapagos, Brooklyn, NY
Friday, April 22: The Escapist, Austin, Texas.
Sunday, April 24: ABQ Radio, Albuquerque
Wednesday, April 27: Ugly Mug Cafe, Orange, California
Thursday, April 28: Anno Domini, San Jose, California
Sunday, May 1: Reading Frenzy, Portland, Oregon
Tuesday, May 3: Solstice Café, Victoria, BC
Wednesday, May 4: Nanaimo, BC
Thursday, May 5: Helen Pitt Gallery, Vancouver, BC
Friday, May 6: Kelowna, BC
Saturday, May 7: Calgary, AB
Sunday, May 8: The Melting Pot, Edmonton, AB
Monday, May 9: AKA Gallery, Saskatoon, SK
Tuesday, May 10: Dregs Café, Winnipeg, MB
Wednesday, May 11: Minneapolis, MN
Thursday, May 12: Hungry Brain, Chicago, IL
Sunday, May 15: Gladstone Hotel, Toronto, ON
Tuesday, May 17: Sleepless Goat, Kingston, ON
Wednesday, May 18: Mercury Lounge, Ottawa, ON
Thursday, May 19: Pharmacie Esperanza, Montreal, QC

More details will be posted as we drive.
Send us an email: cfrost (at) gc.cuny.edu.