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Shark Week: Interview With Shark Expert George Burgess Part 2

aaron cohen — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 16:17:26 +0000

Continuing right where we left off yesterday with our interview with George Burgess, the director of the International Shark Attack File, which tracks shark attacks all over the world. If a shark bites a person somewhere on this planet, Burgess and his crew track down all of the information and keep it safe in the File.

It seems like the number of unprovoked shark attacks is very low relative to the number of people who spend time in the water.

Boy, that's true.

So how scared should someone really be about spending time in the ocean?

I think that if one is worried about being scared or that sort of thing, they ought to be more scared about the ride to the beach in their vehicle. There's certainly a much greater danger in that than in the other. That said, any time we enter the sea, we need to remember that it's a wilderness experience. We're entering an alien environment, one that we're not pre-adapted for and one that can, occasionally, cause us some harm. Whether it be jelly fish, or barracudas, or stinging corals, or whatever it is, the fact of the matter is that there some things out there that can do us damage and occasionally do. So we need to go out there with respect, we need to go out there with the understanding that we're not a member of that environment, we're not pre-adapted for swimming, we don't have gills. And in fact, we're pretty lousy when it comes to being participants in the water by nature of our activity.

We're at a huge disadvantage in the water and just like we show caution when we go on other wilderness experiences, whether it be hiking in the Rockies and remembering that there are mountain lions and bears or taking a tourist trip to the Serengeti Plain and understanding that there are lions and cheetahs and elephants and other things that can do us damage, we need to do the same thing of course with the sea and know that we have to exercise some caution. That said, the sea is a pretty forgiving space and most people enter the sea don't even think about it at all and don't pay a price. It's a pretty darn safe recreational activity. When you consider we've been averaging 4 deaths per year worldwide in all areas, that's such a ridiculously low figure compared to other risks associated with aquatic recreation or any other recreational activities you probably put that at the bottom of the page if you make a table of dangerous recreational activities. In any case, one shouldn't be really worried about this kind of thing, but one should have respect.

I have one more questions and then I have a bunch of questions submitted by readers. Do you have a specific mindset when you go out on the water as far as getting ready to work. Is there something that you do to prepare yourself to focus on sharks or focus on the water?

Well, we've been doing the shark attack part for decades now and we know the general questions we would like to ask people. We have an attack questionnaire form that we ask victims to fill out and that's on our website. And quite frankly, we've been answering questions like yours for a long time so we pretty much know the gist of the kind of concerns people have. One of our big things is to try to prepare people for the understanding that shark attack is a minor problem and that the real problem with sharks is that we're killing way too many of them and that they're in great decline and in need of conservation management. Most people don't necessarily understand that dichotomy, nor do they appreciate it so we spend a fair amount of time trying to get that distinction through to people. Do we have to give ourselves a pep talk or something? Nah. The only time you gotta give a pep talk to yourself is when you're dealing with a fatality. Obviously, despite the fact that they're very rare and statistically happen very uncommonly, they are real people that died and they have real families and they have real stories and so the loss of the unfortunate statistical person isn't any less hurtful than any other. So one does by necessity in those cases have to sort of put on a different face and have a different attitude than the normal scientific one. Particularly if you get involved with autopsies, it's a moving experience to deal with a dead person, obviously.

So these are questions that are submitted by readers. Besides humans, what would you say is the biggest enemy to sharks?

Besides humans… Other sharks. Some sharks eat other sharks and that would be the major predator of sharks other than a hook and a line?

If someone is swimming and sees a shark, what's the best thing to do?

Well, it's pretty obvious now to get out of the water. And it seems obvious, but a lot of people don't, especially surfers who are very much glued to their activity and more prone to take risks. But certainly get out of the water as fast you can. If you can't get out of the water, find yourself some sort of physical barrier that you can use to get yourself against. A pylon, a reef, a sandbar or something that cuts down the angle of that the shark can get at you. If you're physically under attack, literally being attacked, certainly fight like mad, don't be passive. If I was being grabbed I would try to gouge the eyes or the gill openings, both of which are sensitive areas in a shark, as aggressively as possible.

What is the smallest shark?

Smallest shark is a little lantern shark. Coincidentally a species I described with my colleague Stuart Springer, it's a little lantern shark from off the northern coast of South America and it reaches sexual maturity at well under a foot.

How is it possible for aquariums to keep sharks in tanks with other fish?

Not all sharks are good aquarium fishes and aquarists know that. So there are certain species that they put in and some they avoid. Of those that they do put in the community tank, they feed them well. The idea is to try to keep them well fed by giving them the food you want consumed rather than them having them make their choices of food and having them eat the other aquarium fish. As a consequence, you'll see that in many aquaria the sharks seem to be over fed, they're a little pudgy and so forth. This is the dynamic that aquarists have to work with. To feed them enough to keep them uninterested in his neighbors without turning them into doughballs.

Sharks have a legendary sense of smell. At what distance can sharks really smell blood in the water?

They can smell blood in the water, or other things, 100 meters away. In fact, they can smell a drop in an Olympic sized swimming pool. So their sense of smell is very good and it goes for quite a distance.

Can you talk about some times that you've been scared of a shark?

One time I was scared with shark was for something I did and it was my fault. I was in the Bahamas with a friend and I jumped into the water in what appeared to be a little path, a highway where small lemon sharks were cruising, going back and forth. I jumped in to see what would happen if they encountered me and as expected they weren't happy and they started swimming circles around me. But they were little sharks and there was no concern. What I hadn't counted on was there was another, bigger lemon shark a bit off-shore, and attracted presumably by the irregular swimming activity of the little lemons came dashing in find out what was going on and of course I was there. That's the only time I've been essentially charged by a shark and it got close enough and the path was such that it didn't look like it was going to swerve off. So I went aggressively at the shark, I got in the water and swam at it and basically swung at it. When I got aggressive it swerved off and left and of course I immediately got out of the water.

Have you ever been bit by a shark?

I've been bit many times, but not in the water. Shark teeth are very sharp, so any time you're cleaning a jaw or reaching into a specimen tank you're almost assured of getting bit by a shark's teeth. So I've left a lot of blood on land, but not in the water.

What's the weirdest shark story you've ever experienced?

Well, one of the best stories I would guess was a 3 sharks on one hook experience. While fishing in North Carolina one time, using a long line, which is a method scientists use to catch sharks to do biological studies, we caught a dogfish shark on the hook, which was then eaten by a black tip shark, and then a larger shark, a bull shark, grabbed the black tip shark. So when we pulled the bull shark in lo and behold, we found 2 other sharks that had been on the same hook. We caught 3 sharks on one hook.

Hmm. Lucky.

[Silence]

Have any questions for me?

No, I think we're cool and if there's anything you need, let me know.

Do you have a comment on Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus?

Who cares?

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Shark Week: Interview With Shark Expert George Burgess

aaron cohen — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 03:25:02 +0000

George Burgess is the director of the International Shark Attack File, which tracks shark attacks all over the world. If a shark bites a person somewhere on this planet, Burgess and his crew track down all of the information and keep it safe in the File. I tracked Burgess down a couple weeks ago and he graciously agreed to answer some questions. Part 2 will be posted tomorrow.

Is there something specific that drew you to your study of sharks and your work with sharks?

I guess, like many people I grew up with a fascination for sharks, having grown up on the coast line. I think most people are excited about sharks on some level. The difference was that I was able to take that fascination with sharks and interest in sharks and turn it into a career.

So you grew up in Florida or?

I was an Air Force brat. My dad was in the Air Force. So we moved around quite a bit, but everywhere we lived was coastal. I lived in Virginia, Hawaii, Italy, New Hampshire, and eventually settled on Long Island, New York. In all cases I was fortunate enough to be able to be near the ocean and obviously my appreciation of things marine grew and I had lots of opportunity to get on the water and in the water.

Do you remember your first shark experience?

Let me think if I do. Up in Long Island we see no shortage of spiny dog fish, which are small sharks that we would catch. They get to about 3 feet or so, those are the first ones we caught. The real experience that might have been a watershed experience is I went down to the Florida Keys with my biology teacher in junior high school and we were able to get out on the water on a small boat in the upper keys to go fishing. As we were fishing, a very large hammerhead, turned out larger than the boat, came idling by and went right under the boat. Clearly anyone who might have seen that would have been fully impressed with the size and grace of that animal and I suspect for me it might have been the thing that clicked in my head that that's what I wanted to study.

It's nice that you can remember that. A lot of people don't have something like that to look back on.

Yeah, it is. And I feel very fortunate in that, not only have I had that kind of thing, but I pretty much had direction my entire life and certainly by high school days I knew I was going to be a biologist and I took courses and did stuff in anticipation of how I was going to move into that career. So I felt very fortunate that I had direction and obviously you need, not just direction, but you have to have passion. And I've had no shortage of that over the years. That's what I tell my students, if they want to be a biologist, they've got to have that passion.

Can you explain your process for confirming and documenting a shark attack for the International Shark Attack File?

The thing is that shark attacks, of course, occur on a world wide basis. No two attacks are exactly the same and obviously we can't be everywhere. So we need the cooperation of collaborators around the world who are willing to check out the details of an attack in their region. So we do have scientific collaborators in many areas of the world and especially in the areas where shark attacks are most common: South Africa, Australia, Hawaii, California, and of course, here in Florida, it's us. Those are the areas that have the most activity involving sharks and humans and we've got collaborators there. In recent years there's been an upswing of in the number of instances in Brazil and we have great cooperation with scientists in Brazil as well. That said, most attacks do occur in the United States every year. Two thirds of the attacks every year occur in our words, and that's our yard so we do the alpha investigations on those ourselves. Especially in Florida which has 20-30 incidents each year, in any given year Florida is responsible for 50-60% of the world's instances. So obviously that keeps us busy at home.

Investigations are done on the basis of timing and available resources. Certainly we want to talk to victims, we want to ask certain questions about their experience. We want to any other witnesses that might have seen or heard what happened. We want to talk to medical personnel that have treated the victims so we can document the medical treatment. We look for the physical environment: what were the tides, water temperature, fish in the area, was there feeding activity, what were the activities of the victims, the color of their clothes, a whole broad section of stuff which we try to piece together from as many sources as possible. In Florida. where we have a lot of what we call hit and run attacks, quick grabs and let goes by medium sized sharks, usually of surfers. Often times we don't have to go down to find the victim, we talk to them by phone or by email. We get photographs of the wounds so we don't actually have to make a site visit on all of them. Of course if there's serious wounds or the occasional death, we'll be on site and working hard to get all the available information and serve as an interpreter of that information for the local media and so forth so at least there's some level of knowledge and consistency in what's being said.

In other parts of the world investigators may do the same thing and then forward their reports to us. And we're in constant communication thanks to the wonders of email so when something happens in a given area we're bound to hear about it through the press. We can get on news sites and are and regularly get information from all over the world. And if we don't have somebody who is already there who is looking at that situation, we try to get somebody to do that for us if they can. If not we try to do it long distance, but it's always more effective if you have someone on the ground who is from the area. But sometimes you have no choice but to do long distance investigations so we work with police, emergency care personnel, doctors, beach safety personnel and so forth around the world in trying to get information on each and every instance.

You mentioned email a second ago. How long have you been running the file and how much easier is it to do now than it would have been to do 20 years ago?

Oh, so much easier. The File's origin occurred in the late 1950s, I think it's 1958. Take a look at our website, we got the whole history spelled out there and I don't want to screw up any dates. It originally was at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. It made a short stay down at the Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida, where it was analyzed by a Navy physician. Then it moved to the University of Rhode Island for a period of 1968 to about 1988. Then it moved here and we've had it since then. The period, obviously, since it's been here, has been the period of greatest growth. We've been able to put some resources into development of the file and developed of this very nice network of people who can help us out worldwide and they're collaborators with us. And obviously in recent years, there's been more shark attack incidents on humans, not only here in Florida and the US, but worldwide. Simply because the human population continues to grow and with that comes concurrent increases in the utilization of waters and that increases the chance of interaction with sharks. This has been a period over these last 20 to 30 years where we've had a great increase in the number of incidences and obviously that keeps us very busy.

Part 2 posted tomorrow.

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Interview with Davy Rothbart from Found Magazine (3 of 3)

aaron cohen — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 22:24:02 +0000

Here's Part 3 of my interview with Davy Rothbart from Found Magazine. In Part 1 Davy talks about the cover of his new book, being on the road, and what happens at a normal Found show. In Part 2 we cover how Davy gets into performance mode, passion, Rise Against, and his new book, Requiem for a Paper Bag. Today, we FINALLY get to the Isiah Thomas part of the interview. These are the hard hitting questions you people are looking for. The Boston area Found show is Saturday, May 9 in Union Square, Somerville at Precinct. If you find something and want to send it to Davy, check out Foundmagazine.com.

You were saying just a second ago how the glimpse you get is incomplete and I feel like wondering about the rest of the story would just kill me over and over, but it sounds like you maybe have used your imagination to counter that.

I think it is intriguing, endlessly fascinating to take whatever clues are there and try to piece the clues together. We're all surrounded by strangers everyday, walking down the street, sitting on the bus. When you look at these notes, it gives you these clues into what the lives of the people we share with - it gives you a little glimpse into their life. I like watching people and kind of in the same way you wonder 'what's that guy sitting alone at the bar, what's he thinking about' and it's the same thing when you read these notes. You're sense of wonder is titillated. You wonder, 'what is the story here'.

You lover your job, I can tell. Is there anything you don't like about what you're doing?

I think one thing I struggle with, I have a lot of different interests and I struggle with figuring out which - I don't know if this is the right answer to the question you asked - you know I love writing and I haven't done that much writing the last few years because Found has been so wonderful. I plan on writing a book of personal essays this coming year and I'm excited to give more time to writing. I also like film making. So sometimes I feel like I'm stealing time from one project and putting it into another and I wonder which thing I should be working on.

That's an answer.

Here's another answer for you, too. I like making art. Whatever, writing, or film stuff, or radio, or Found, putting the magazine together, I consider art. There are some aspects of Found Magazine that are more like a small business, you know? I do love talking to all the bookstores that stock Found, stores will call me on my cell phone, the relationships you create with the people that work at these indie record stores or book stores that call me, 'Hey man, I need 5 more issues of #5." You know, I like getting those calls. But then there's some parts of it that are less fun. But I've have some friends that have helped transition some of the less fun stuff off of me in the last year or two, so that's been cool.

I don't want to take up your entire day, but I do have one last question and I hope it doesn't end the interview on a sour note. Isiah Thomas and the Knick's. Does that debacle change the way you feel about him, or do you look past that and only think about the short-short era Zeke?

It's been... It's been tough. I always played point guard, I always loved point guards, Isiah Thomas was my hero growing up. The career he's had since he retired from the court has been one sort of colossal blunder after another. The CBA, he tanked this poor fledgling basketball league. He just bought and tanked it. As a Piston's fan I didn't really mind him decimating the Knick's organization. But I also felt bad that he's the object of so much scorn. There's now talk of him going to the Clippers which would just be, I don't know, bad. I still like him, I still love the guy. There's this moment in 'Hoop Dreams', it's one of my favorite movies, where the young Arthur Agee and William Gates, they're 9th graders and they get to meet Isiah Thomas for the first time. And he's so sweet with them. To me, I'll always remember him as the guy with dazzling charm and kindness and not as the maybe, poor businessman and [under his breath] sexual harasser.

But my other favorite players have done well, like Jalen Rose has done a lot better after his basketball career. And some of my other favorite point guards are doing well.

And CWebb's doing well on TNT.

Yeah! CWebb's a great guy, awesome to see how he's doing. It's weird though. It's strange thinking about when people make these career transitions. Everything they've done... I'm about the age, I'm 33, so I'm about the age a lot of NBA players are when they retire. They've been incredibly successful and they've put everything they had into one thing their whole life, so how weird would it be to suddenly be gone from it and leave it behind. I love stories like The Wrestler, that was a fucking awesome movie. That struggle people have, 'When are you too old to do something?' A lot of touring musicians that question arises, too.

When do you stop and what do you do then?

Exactly. I think that is a really interesting question to explore. I'm writing something about a story that takes place in 1987 and I thought of that White Lion song 'Wait' because I wanted to use it in this screenplay I'm writing. So I decided to look it up and it turns out the singer for White Lion he has resurrected White Lion and some people, they can't ever give it up. He's almost like The Wrestler, he's playing these county fairs in Des Moines, Iowa. And in fact, his bandmate sued him because he didn't want him out there, so now they have to call it 'Mike Tramp's White Lion' or something, he can't even use the name White Lion. And yet there's something beautiful about people still trying to do what it is they love to do. But sometimes you feel like it's the only world they know and they don't know what to do with themselves after that. And maybe that's what Isiah has struggled with.

It sounds like you'll be OK because you have several different projects so you won't get burned out.

I like to think I'll be able to transition, but it is strange sometimes being home, you get used to a different kind of lifestyle on the road. It's changed me. I'm sure it will be a transition regardless, but I think it will be a good transition. I look forward to having time. One day when I hang up the Found road show, when I'm in my 60s or 70s, I look forward to having time to try to make movies, or writing, or playing ball. I still hve my college eligibility, I can still play ball.

[Laughter] That's true, and you could ruin a basketball league or two.

Hopefully. Yes. I do think if I went to some tiny-ass liberal arts college for grad school maybe could I make their varsity team. Like Reed or something. [Laughter]

I've heard you can't go left, but that probably wouldn't matter in Division III.

I'm thinking if you can rain threes like I can't, but hope to one day then I could make the team. 'Put me in coach.'

[Laughter]There's a Scott Bakula movie about that, right?

Yes. There's got to be. [Laughter]

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Interview with Davy Rothbart from Found Magazine (2 of 3)

aaron cohen — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 19:23:54 +0000

Welcome to Part 2 of my interview with Davy Rothbart from Found Magazine. In the first part, Davy talks about the cover of his new book, being on the road, and what happens at a normal Found show. Today, Davy talks about how he gets into performance mode, passion, Rise Against, and his new book, Requiem for a Paper Bag. The Boston area Found show is Saturday, May 9 in Union Square, Somerville at Precinct.

You were talking about how you get a little bit rambunctious and try to read the notes with the energy with which they were written. Some actors and athletes and musicians try to figure out a way to get into a zone when they're performing and I'm wondering do you have a 'Davy Rothbart Found Magazine Mode' or can you just go from sitting shotgun to jumping up on stage and doing your thing?

Well...I gotta give props to the wonderdrug, alcohol. It's not like it's a different person or anything. I mean, on the road all those years with musicians, I'm sure you saw that transformation and how different people pulled it off. I like to think I could be that energetic without it, but I think that, you know, you probably slept like three hours the night before and you probably slept on the side of the road and then you drove seven hours, so you need something almost just to bring you to life. I don't know, I love alcohol and fortunately I've always had a pretty good relationship with it. I can drink it every night for two months on the road and come off the road and not need to hit the bottle. But I love Maker's Mark whiskey, I like a couple beers to sip along side of it. My friend Andrew, he's come on the road with us a couple times. [Laughing] We were doing these shows with Frank Warren from PostSecret, another community art project along the lines of Found. And Frank was like, 'Let me see what all your pre-show rituals are,' before the first show we did together. Andy was like, 'Alright, Davy' and I kind of stood there like, imagine a robot that was turned off, you know, limp limp, and my head was bent down. He took the Maker's Mark bottle and poured it down a hatch in my back. And as he plugged it in, like you would fill a lawnmower with gasoline, I kind of came to life. [Garbled energized robot talking about Found Magazine].

Anyway, to me, besides alcohol, it's also the content of the notes. To me, their pretty breathtaking. And profound and hilarious. I do find if I can just inhabit the emotion of the note. I might have read the same note the day before, but if I just actually think about what the person is saying and what they were probably feeling when they wrote that note and I just read it with that emotion then I find that's bringing it to life in a really energetic way that's real to people because it's true. So I think you don't really need alcohol, ultimately. Even just reading the Found stuff that gets mailed in everyday when you read these notes, you find yourself tearing up or laughing out loud. Getting to connect and touch somebody so closely, another human, and sort of be inside their mind and their heart. I think ultimately when I'm reading them during and an event it's the same kind of thing. I try to be really present with that item, that note, and the person that wrote it.

So basically what I'm getting from this is that as long as you have one note and a full-length mirror into which you can scream naked you'll be all set?

Yeah, exactly, that's pretty much the way I rock it. [Laughter]

I think that people are drawn to and find authenticity and passion endearing and from hearing you on This American Life and reading the Found books, you've got that in spades and I'm wondering if it's ever caused you any trouble.

Passion and authenticity?

Yeah.

I think it can. One thing I have problems with is acting... I have overwhelming crushes on a girl and then you act on it and it's not always the right thing if they're married or whatever. So that's a place where passion, it should be a good thing, but you'd like to have a finer handle on it or how you wield it.

You know if you start Googling 'Davy Rothbart', the third autosuggestion that comes up is 'Davy Rothbart girlfriend' so that might have something to do with it. I wonder if you're something of an Indie Heartthrob.

It's funny you say that. I think of my brother, Peter, as an Indie Heartthrob because he's the one with the guitar. It seems like after every show he's surrounded by girls and he couldn't be any more indifferent to it, he's not even aware even. And I'm like, 'Yo, remember me, I was the funny one, you were laughing, it was cool, what happened?' I like passion, in other people, too. I love performers that are passionate. One of my friends, Tim McIlrath, he was my old roommate in Chicago. He's in this punk band called Rise Against. They've now become this alt-rock, modern rock radio station standby, but I don't hold it against them. But, part of their appeal to people is their live show is so intense and he's such an amazing performer. So passionate, and people resopnd to that, you know?

I'm sure there's people who think that Rise Against sold out, but since you know them and know they've been doing the same show for the last ten year, you probably don't feel that way.

Yeah, I totally don't. You see people fight the good fight. What I appreciate about Tim's approach, he's a really political guy and an activist and they probably could have made some decisions that would have kept them more underground, such as not going to a major label, but he wondered about the effectiveness of preaching to the choir. Versus having access to this much wider audience and being able to be the first to touch these kids. You go to these shows - I'm their oldest fan, well, not always, but usually - some of these kids, they're from somewhat conservative places, and for them for someone to talk about Noam Chomsky or Howard Zinn, these kids' minds are blown. No one else that they're going to come into contact with is going to clue them in to Howard Zinn, for example. So I think it's pretty awesome to see. They're making good music still. When you start changing your music to appeal to a mass audience and it becomes conscious then you're maybe guilty of selling out to some extent, but they haven't done that. Some of my other friends who have had some success I feel like they're just following their own vision and bringing people to it.

Even when bands do sell out, I generally don't hold it against them because I feel like they want to make a sustainable living as a musician it requires a little selling out.

I wanted to ask about the new book because that's obviously the point of the conversation. I saw that DelThaFunkeeHomosapien sent something in?

Basically, as I was reaching out to people I gave them the option... Part of what inspired the book is that anytime I'm explaining Found Magazine to someone sitting next to me on a Greyhound Bus or at a barber shop people always have some great story about something they found and I love hearing those stories. So I thought it'd be cool to reach out to my favorite musicians, writers, artists to see what stories they had about stuff that they had found. For some, for most, they had some story that immediately came to mind and they were awesome stories. For a few people they were stumped for a second. They couldn't think of something immediately that they themselves had found, but then I shared some of the magazines with them and asked them if any of the finds, any of the found notes themselves, sparked a story for them. Some writers wrote great stories about found pieces. Like Sarah Vowell, there's this one found note of a homework assignment I've always loved it's called 'What I know about US History'. This kid had listed 50 things that he knows about US History, everything from George Washington crossing the Delaware to the stoplight was invented to Paul McCartney was knighted, which I think is funny to be on a list of US History. But then Sarah Vowell wrote 'What Else I Know About US History' and she listed a couple dozen things she thought the kid omitted from his list. Important things, but kind of funny things. Anyway, DelThaFunkeeHomosapien. There was one note he was taken with and it's this kid has written a note to God. It said, 'Dear God, my dad is dying, please give me some money, God damn it.' And then he crossed out the 'God' in 'God damn it' like at some point he realized that if you're writing a note to God, you probably shouldn't say 'God damn it', you know? And so Del thought that was a funny note and he tried to imagine who this kid was and what was going on in his life and what his story was. Which I think is what we do with all the found notes I read, it just gives you a glimpse into someone's life and it's up to you to piece the rest of the story together. I think that's one of the joys of reading these found notes, the way it sparks your imagination. So Del just imagined what was going on with this kid's life. And then also, I think the other you thing you do when you read these notes is you kind of reflect on how it relates to your own life and sometimes it speaks to something in your own life. Del talked about how he's dealt with those types of issues in his own life.

Yeah, it actually sounds like one of Del's songs.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's a short piece. A lot of pieces end up either being edited or they're fairly short to begin with. It's probably a page or two, but it is like one of his songs and I think that's why he kind of sparked to that note.

(The Found Tour hits Boston on May 9th at Precinct in Union Square. Requiem for a Paper Bag comes out on May 5. Part 1 of the interview can be found here. Come back tomorrow for the 3rd part of this 3 part interview.)

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Interview with Davy Rothbart from Found Magazine (Part 1 of 3)

aaron cohen — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 18:32:00 +0000

Davy Rothbart and the Magazine crew have a new book called Requiem for a Paper Bag: Celebrities and Civilians Tell Stories of the Best Lost, Tossed, and Found Items from Around the World coming out on May 5. To celebrate that, Davy and his brother Peter have set out on a tour of the nation (The Boston area stop will be Saturday, May 9 in Union Square, Somerville at Precinct).

To celebrate THAT, I had a conversation with Davy, about, among other things, touring, getting into character, getting old, and, well, Isiah Thomas. The interview ran a little long so I split it up into 3 parts. Here's Part 2, and Part 3 is coming tomorrow.

Jumping right into it...

I saw the cover, it's a little bit different than your other ones, huh?

Yeah, yeah, definitely. This guy Michael Wartella. He's an artist in Brooklyn. I'd seen some of his stuff in the Village Voice, some of his street scenes. It seemed awesome if we could get him. I didn't know if he'd be able to pull it off as brilliantly as he ended up doing. But I thought it would be awesome to have a street scene having the authors in the book finding whatever it is they talk about in their story.

Did you have an idea for the cover before you found the artist?

No. I think I just saw his work and I wanted to do something different than some of the other covers. I don't know. It just occurred to me that we could have the authors of the book out on the street finding shit. I'm looking at it now. It's so fucking good. I'm really happy with it. I hope the inside's good, too. I like the pieces, I think it's a solid book. You know, when we're out on tour, we end up sleeping in the van a lot of nights. There's two beds. One is the backseat folding down and the other is the stacks of boxes and magazines. You literally end up sleeping on the books, that's your bed. So it helps if you like the book and like the cover.

Sweet dreams, right?

Exactly.

I was a tour manager for six years, so we ended up sleeping on the floor of the van a lot of times.

Yeah, it's not bad, right?

I mean, a couch is better.

Hold on, my brother's calling in. Let me just tell him I'll call him right back.

Sure.

Did you guys tour mostly in the US? Did you have a good time?

Yeah, I haven't done it in a couple years and now I feel like I'm at a place where I hated it when I was doing it, but I wish I could do it again.

God... I know that feeling all too well, that push and pull. Because it is so grueling and difficult and it can be frustrating and just exhausting. And yet the grass is greener. Being home and comfortable is so appealing. And then there's the call of the road again. I often am like 'Alright this is the last big tour for a long time.' This has been the longest lay off. We haven't done a US tour in a year and a half, two years. But then it's hard not to get that itch again, right?

Definitely. I guess my suggestion to you would be don't ever quit.

Really? That's cool to hear that. I think there's something else which is to not do it quite as often.

The bigger you get, the more comfortably you can do it, right? So maybe in a couple years you guys will be in a tour bus and you'll forget all about this conversation.

Haha. Yeah, maybe, the ceiling for literary tours is... well, that's not true. David Sedaris is an aquaintance of mine and he lives pretty well on the road.

Is this the biggest tour you've done?

Actually, this might be the second biggest or third biggest. In 2004 when the first Found book came out, we realized there were finds from every state so we thought it was only fair to take the show on the road. That tour was 136 cities over 8 months in all 50 states, so that thing was a beast. It was a lot of fun. I just love the unpredictability, you know? Of every night not really knowing what's going to happen, where you'll end up sleeping that night. As you said, sofas are better than the floor of the van. But maybe you'll end up, some dude has a grandmother who has a mansion 20 miles outside, oh, Albuquerque.

We stayed there.

Or maybe you end up sleeping on hammocks in Florida in the jungle. Yeah, I do love it. That was the biggest tour, this is the second biggest tour. Other than the 50 state tour. This is 56 cities, it keeps growing, we keep adding little cities here and there. So I think it's 56 cities in 62 days.

Right, so this is cake compared to the first one.

Well... yeah. I'd say, that one went on and on, but it was pretty magical to go to all 50 states. There was 3 states I hadn't been to before that tour, Hawaii, Alaska, and North Dakota. So it was awesome to visit those places. It was a good trip. This is only the hits.

Big cities, huh?

The thing that I kind of love, even on this tour, we've sprinkled a few cities... I always like going to cities we've never been to before. And some of them are cities I've never visited or even driven through, like Knoxville, TN, I'm excited about that one. What else do we have? Little Rock, Arkansas. Wichita, Kansas. I like visiting some of those places. I love some of the shows that only have 20 people in some small ass town, but on the other hand it's nice to know most nights we'll have pretty good shows this trip because it's only the hits.

What's a normal Found show like. Or is there a normal?

In terms of what happens at a Found show? It's basically about an hour long, sort of rowdy reading and music show. I get up there with a big stack of my favorite notes and letter that people have found and sent into us over the years - or maybe it's an hour and a quarter - so I have these found notes and I read them out loud, but I end up getting a little bit carried away. I read them with the energy and emotion they were written with. I get a little rambunctious. My brother Peter has written songs based on some of the found notes. And his songs are really pretty and some of them are fucking hilarious. He's got this one song, in my mind, it's the highlight of the show. At least it's my favorite moment of the show when he plays this song. Someone one had found this cassette tape in a town called Ypsilanti, Michigan. It's these kids, they had written these homemade booty rap anthems. So Peter wrote a cover of one of these songs. I mean the songs are pretty horrible, but Peter wrote a cover of one of the songs called, "The Booty Don't Stop." And it's fucking brilliant. It's amazing.

I'm looking forward to that one.

It's a beautiful thing.

(The Found Tour hits Boston on May 9th at Precinct in Union Square. Requiem for a Paper Bag comes out on May 5. Come back tomorrow for the 2nd part of this 3 part interview.)

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