by Scott Recker
Sometimes it's the little things that make our day. And sometimes that's a small glimpse into the life of someone we'll probably never meet through something extremely personal they left behind. Which is exactly what Found Magazine has been giving us for the last decade through love letters, hate notes, guilty rants, homework assignments — allowing us to laugh with the ridiculous and relate to the bad, proving we're all connected through emotion and we're all a little messed up. It was all started by Davy Rothbart up in Ann Arbor, and now, for the first time, the Found tour comes to Toledo for a full presentation this Wednesday at the Ottawa Tavern. $5 suggested. 9pm. The City Paper caught up with Rothbart to talk about what keeps him passionate about Found Magazine, a sloshed vagabond trying to piss on him and his vulnerable moments that were captured by a documentary filmmaker.
Found Magazine has been around for a better part of a decade. What keeps you passionate about it and continuing to tour?
Just the fact that we continue to get amazing stuff sent to us. Sharing it in the magazine is one way to share it, another way is being on the road and doing shows — getting a chance to read some of my all-time favorites. My brother keeps writing new songs based on some of these Found notes, and some of his songs are funny and some are just heartbreaking. The Magazine is really this gigantic community art project — it requires the participation of thousands of people so, for me, I notice after we go and do a show in a city, we get a ton more finds from that town.
What's the one moment of touring you'll never forget?
We did our first ever Europe tour in the fall of '08. We had never been there before, so the shows were hit or miss. We had some great shows with some very awesome turnouts, we had some small turnouts — even those seemed pretty engaged. We did one show we laugh about all the time, it was in Coventry, England — it's what we consider the worst show ever. There were 30 people there, it wasn't empty or anything — it was a small bar, where we did it. But they were so flat, they were mean-mugging us — it was so weird. Then, the one moment that went over the top...all of a sudden I see my little brother — he's kind of watching my part of the show, looking miserable — and then he breaks into the strangest grin and he nods his head, like I should look behind me. And literally, a drunken hobo behind me had dropped his trousers and peeing on the glass. He was basically peeing on me, but I was protected by the window.
You're also a documentary filmmaker. What was it like last year when the camera was turned on you in the film, My Heart Is An Idiot? Especially during such a personal time.
At the time when he was filming it, I wasn't thinking about it to much because David had become a pretty good friend of mine — traveling with us for months at a time. He always carried the camera with him, so it wasn't always clear when he was filming. Even if he had the camera out, it seemed like you were just talking to him. In terms of the filming part of it, it wasn't that weird having a camera pointed at me, but definitely when he started to piece the story and I realized how much footage he captured and how revealing the movie would be, there were definitely times I felt uncomfortable. But, ultimately I thought it was very honest, very true, and there are things in the movie I'm not proud of or put me in the best light, but they are things other people can relate to. I encouraged him to make the movie he wanted to make and not worry to much about it. I like the story that he pieced together. I gotta say, I've been publishing people's most private moments in Found Magazine for the last nine years, so it's only fair to open my self up in the same way.
