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.