What is your color in your soul and why? Davy Rothbart wants to know. Or rather, one of his audience members does.
He’s sitting next to a volunteer on stage at the Bug Theatre, a room about half the size of Lindsay Auditorium, going through slips of paper scribbled with audience members’ questions. He’s decked out in red cargo pants, a black hoodie and a houndstooth-patterned newsboy cap. As he waits for an answer, he takes a sip of the lukewarm Trader Joe’s beer, one of two he’s got left in the tour van he’s sharing with his brother.
“Um, chartreuse,” the volunteer, Andrew, stammers.
Rothbart turns to the crowd. “Chartreuse? What color is that?”
“It’s like a yellow-green; it’s the first color that popped into my head,” says the volunteer.
Rothbart looks over at Andrew, his face dead serious. He pauses.
“What is your actual f—ing soul color, brother?” he asks. The crowd erupts in laughter.
It’s Oct. 24. Snow is swirling outside, and Rothbart and his brother Peter are entertaining a crowd at the Bug Theatre in Denver, on the road for a 79-city, 99-day tour celebrating FOUND magazine’s 10-year anniversary. FOUND magazine is an annually published compilation of letters, photos, cards, lists and other fragments of people’s lives. Davy founded the magazine in 2001 and eventually recruited his brother to help him gather finds. They usually receive 10 to 20 via email; the rest of the finds show up on their parents’ doorstep for review.
Along with the magazine’s anniversary, the brothers are also on tour celebrating the release of Davy’s new book, “My Heart Is an Idiot,” offering the same unexpected glances at life that FOUND magazine does, as well as Peter Rothbart’s album You Are What You Dream, also based on FOUND finds.
“I’ve been sharing people’s most private thoughts in the magazine; it’s only fair,” said Davy of his memoir.
Just like the letters he sometimes finds, Davy’s new book “My Heart Is an Idiot” is irreverent, eccentric and proud of it. The book chronicles Rothbart’s numerous romantic misadventures and other random exploits from his life that are just too zany not to write about (such as when Rothbart finds himself in a boosted Ford Explorer with the following: his carjacker friend, a hundred-year-old African American man, a landlord, Chinese restaurant owners and their daughter, a man who works at the Chinese restaurant and that man’s pregnant girlfriend).
Some of the chapters are cringeworthy, like when he reveals how he used to ding-dong-ditch his deaf mother (with an eager dog tugging at her pantleg every time the doorbell rang) or translating phone calls for his mom and casually mentioning his requests from the other speaker’s perspective.
In another chapter, Rothbart ends up breaking up with a girl who he had traveled across the country for, all because she couldn’t live up to his idea of the ideal woman: a movie character.
Peter recently released You Are What You Dream, a folksy compilation of songs all based on FOUND magazine finds.
The songs on Peter’s album, You Are What You Dream, range from hilarious, like the ridiculously catchy “Booty Don’t Stop,” to the heartbreaking folk ballad “A Child to Call Our Own.” Regardless of the subject matter, these songs hit home.
To realize that these lyricized finds are snapshots of someone’s life enhances the material in a poignant, authentic way that Top 40 hits do not, or even attempt to. Sure, the song “Bus or Beer” revolves around the ever-so-important choice of missing the ride home or grabbing a brew, but that’s what’s great about it: It’s mundane, it’s real, it’s us.
The Rothbart brothers may dabble in different mediums, but one thing is the same: their passion for people. As Rothbart told the crowd at the event, when he connects with people he’s always rewarded. Now he knows what color Andrew’s soul is (in case you’re wondering, it’s royal blue).
