Traveling Artist Seeks Audience

I am a multi-faceted artist who will be riding my motorcycle from Florida to Canada and back from August through October this year, and I’m looking for people I can connect with and perform for along the way. My motorcycle is a 2002 Yamaha V-Star named Vivian who has taken me 30,000 miles through 31 states and Washington DC in the last two years. I have a few things to offer, and I hope you have some interest in at least one of them.

Strapped to my motorcycle is a bamboo acoustic guitar named Luna. I have written 40 original songs and do a number of renditions. I have a custom deck of playing cards that have all of the songs I can play, giving my audience the opportunity to choose what they’d like to hear. I’m like an acoustic wandering jukebox.

In my saddlebag is a 1959 Olympia typewriter, a sign that reads “pay what you want poetry”, and a bunch of 4x5 inch pieces of paper. People tell me what they want a poem to be about, and after asking any follow up questions, I can usually write a pretty good 18 line poem in about 10 minutes or so if I’m not disturbed. I’ve been paid with Washingtons and I’ve been paid with Benjamins, but the experience of reading my poems to people in the moment is invaluable.

In the other saddlebag will be a few copies of my recently published tenth book, A Group of Critters. It’s a coloring book based on a poem I wrote five years ago about the collective nouns we use to describe animals. I’m trying to get it into as many zoo gift stores as I can, and I also perform it as a song and a poem.

I’ve recently started going to stand up comedy open mic nights and trying to recite A Group of Critters in under 2 minutes. I have a number of comedy bits that I’ve been working on, and have largely been able to hone my skills due to my last 4 years as a trolley tour guide in my hometown of Sarasota, Florida.

Last year’s motorcycle trip took me through 24 states and Washington DC to explore the legacy of Will Rogers. A hundred years ago, as the star of stage, screen, radio, and newspapers, he was the biggest celebrity of his time. Since being cast to play him in a local production of The Will Rogers Follies a few years ago, I’ve produced my own one hour show based on his political humor called Get The Bunk Out and an hour long documentary about last year’s trip to explore Will’s impact on America called The Road To Will.