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 4×5 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.
I package performances of my show The Cowboy Cabaret, using the magic deck of music cards, a screening of The Road To Will, and a performance of Get The Bunk Out in what I call Steve McAlphabet’s Wandering Soul Road Show. The lineup of the Wandering Soul Road Show is sure to change in future tours as other artists are inclined to join the performances, but that’s the show for now. I can present it in both living rooms and auditoriums.
I also offer talks and workshops based on my theory of ABC Squared Economics and how we can direct artificial intelligence to channel our economic flow of currency as we also cultivate healthier natural intelligence emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually. I started working on the idea shortly before I challenged myself to live without money for a year about a decade ago and tackled the subject in both essay and poetry in my last book, Steve McAlphabet Explains ABC Squared Economics. Basically, the notion is that just as we are all comprised of heart, mind, body, and spirit, we participate in the world as the Artists of our lives through the service of our Business, the engagement of our Citizenry, and the development of our Community.
Since Will Rogers was nominated as the 1928 presidential candidate Life magazine’s Anti Bunk Party, I have considered the possibility of a run in 2028. When he was defeated, he said that the Anti Bunk Party was merely a hundred years ahead of time so it could very well be time to get the bunk out of politics. However, just as he said he was accepting the office of candidate and would immediately resign if actually elected, I’m not sure it’s a job I would actually want and would much rather see Marianne Williamson win in 2024.
Having already released 16 musical tracks as Steve McAlphabet and the Wandering Soul Band, I’d rather direct the majority of my energy to playing those songs for people, writing and reciting poetry, and telling jokes in order to get people to feel, think, and take positive actions than trying to manage an antiquated machine like the US government. Vivian was made the year I bought my first motorcycle, which technically makes her an antique, but that’s antique enough for me. I’ve got a few more years of riding around and having adventures before I’m gonna want to get a real job like being president.
However, I recently met my very first professional philosopher. I’m going to take her canoeing, and we’re gonna have coffee so she can tell me how to get a gig like that. Yet while my first novel, Descent (only available in corners of the Internet I haven’t scrubbed), had the religious undertones of my evangelical teens, it wasn’t necessarily philosophical. Nevertheless, I would say that my books have gotten much more philosophical as I’ve come along. The Rucksack Letters had me wandering the edges of society as I drove, hitchhiked, and motorcycled to a number of alternative communities around the country. How To Survive An Estralarian Mind Meld (previously known as The McAllister Code) describes my interaction with two intergalactic beings who school me on the art of being. I think it’s fair to say that Money, Sex, Power & Faith: Questioning the Building Blocks of Civilization has a bit of philosophy in there, and even goes so far as to introduce the topic for Steve McAlphabet Explains ABC Squared Economics about using the microcosm of heart, mind, body, and spirit to affect the macrocosm of Artistry, Business, Citizenry, and Community. And since every poem, in its simple appreciation for the beauty of using words, is itself the actual embodiment of working philosophy, I may just have to ad philosopher to my business card too.
My itinerary so far has me leaving Sarasota, Florida on August 1 for a book event at San Marco Books on Jacksonville, Florida on August 5. I have a tentative performance of Steve McAlphabet’s Wandering Soul Road Show in Savannah, Georgia the following week and one on August 26 at the Historic Masonic Theatre in Clifton Forge, Virginia. I’ve got another tentative performance in Bar Harbor, Maine, the second week of September but I hear it starts getting pretty cold around then and may reconsider. Beyond that, I’m just looking for beautiful roads to ride and people who will appreciate what I have to offer.
So that’s basically what you get with Steve McAlphabet. If you would like to book a performance or just meet up along the way, drop me a line. Otherwise, I hope you buy some of my books and pay to download my songs to help me keep gas in the tank and put some new tires on from time to time. I look forward to seeing you down the road.
