Davy Rothbart makes a living looking for things in the trash. A former basketball ticket scalper, correctional facility creative writing instructor, and NPR radio host, the 31-year-old now helms the empire of Found magazine, a yearly publication that showcases the sorts of things that other people have thrown away.
Almost anything that you can think of (and some stuff that you couldn’t have) has been featured in the magazine and two subsequent books, Found and Found II. In the past, Rothbart has received love letters, student loan applications, dildos found at a public zoo and, just once, a dead frog. But obviously, there’s more to Found’s material than meets the eye, as Rothbart explained.
“I think that the best quality about these objects is that they have a truthfulness. People are so unselfconscious when they’re writing these letters because they don’t expect anyone to see them except the person they’re writing to. Or sometimes it’s a journal entry or a letter they were never going to give to anyone, so it’s just them. So they’re extremely personal and they reveal raw and intimate things,” he said.
“When you get to see people at their most naked, with that truthfulness, it’s so thrilling, you know? To read something with that intensity. You really begin to get a sense of the kinds of lives that are being lived.”
“So often I’ll laugh at these notes, but I’m just laughing at myself. You know how you can give a friend advice about some situation that you couldn’t really give to yourself? It’s almost like you can read these notes and say to yourself, “Dude, she’s just not that into you,” Rothbart said.
Found magazine is currently based in Rothbart’s hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan. The headquarters are actually located in the Rothbart family homestead where Davy’s younger brother Peter, a talented musician, still resides. Davy and Peter are almost always on tour, driving across America on their infamous “found” pilgrimages, dedicated to sharing finds and swapping treasures across the nation. This time around, the brothers are managing to do 38 cities in 42 days. But while on the road, Davy is also looking for answers.
“You almost have to wonder sometimes, did I find this thing or did this note find me? Did the universe somehow try to answer my question? Sometimes you’ll be struggling with something and the universe will be answering your question by delivering this note to you. You’ll find it on the sidewalk and it’s meant for you.”
During this tour, Rothbart is also making a documentary film with the working title My Heart is an Idiot. The film features Rothbart asking “Davy’s people” (basically anyone he meets-from southern waitresses at truck stop restaurants to farmers in Montana, and found audiences everywhere) what they think about the meaning of love.
“Yeah, it’s just me sort of asking people about their experiences with love and what they think about it…’cause I’m kind of going through some stuff and I want to know what other people think about it too… I actually asked Newt Gingrich what I should do about my, um, ex-girlfriend, and he gave me some really beautiful advice.”
The now infamous former Republican speaker of the house, Gingrich said “that when he’s feeling confused about relationships, he likes to go to a place where he can be alone. You know, like a forest, or sit by a lake up north so that he can listen to what his heart is telling him. I think he never gets asked about this kind of stuff, so it was actually like a really beautiful moment for us.”
Just last week Rothbart came across a gem of a find in Richmond, Virginia. Sitting underneath a café table was a notebook that someone had left behind. The journal has since become the Found entourage’s reading material for the trip. The abandoned diary details the journey of a guy in his early twenties, who after enduring a series of failed relationships decides to take a vow of celibacy and dedicate himself to monasticism. While you and I may find discoveries like these to be way out in leftfield, for Davy Rothbart, they’re just part of his job.
Flipping thorough Found II with Rothbart, he’s quick to point out every the detail linked to the items appearing on the page. One of the most striking images in the new book is the collection of suicide letters, retrieved by readers and fans of his magazine.
“If you see a ripped up love letter, you don’t know if the person who got it ripped it up or if the person who wrote it ripped it up and never even gave it to them. So I mean, part of the story is like, how did this thing even get there? And with a suicide letter, I mean did this person actually kill themselves and it was found by somebody? Or did they write it and then rip it up?” Rothbart explains.
Up to 25 packages are delivered to Davy’s parents’ home every day, and each one undoubtedly holds some bizarre secret or story waiting to be told. Both the finders and Rothbart (the keeper) have a close-knit relationship. The best part, Rothbart explains to me, is getting to meet these finders in person where they relay the details (some juicy, some mundane) of how they uncovered their anonymous bounty in the first place.
“Like this guy who found a bloodstained pillowcase with the pentagram on it, on page 216,” Rothbart points out.
“You know, it’s weird, I have this whole relationship with these finders and I don’t even manage to write back to them. Like there’s this one guy from upstate New York and I think he just doesn’t understand the concept, because he’ll like send in anything he finds-like a napkin, or like a popsicle stick or something. But then on occasion he’ll send in a really great note. So I really try to publish his stuff.
“Then there’s this other guy who keeps changing his name. I think he’s like a punk rock dude from Ohio but he’s like a 50-year-old building maintenance man. So he’ll send us stuff and he’ll sign it like, “Ghetto Goth.” And then he’ll send us something again and write back and say, “Hey check out my new finds and by the way, I’m no longer Ghetto Goth, I am White Trash Samurai.” And then sometimes he won’t even send in finds, he’ll just send us a note saying, “Guys, I just wanted to let you know I’m no longer White Trash Samurai but I’m, Akron Kid Playa.”
Rothbart has discovered everything, from threatening love letters on the roof of his car to pristine Bon Jovi CD’s in the middle of a landfill. For the man who can find just about anything, what’s the number one thing that Davy Rothbart is looking for?
“Uh, well honestly, I’d like to find a relationship that’s like, nice. You know just sort of…love. Yeah. I mean it’s goofy but…I don’t know, I’ve really been enjoying all the stuff that I’ve been working on and I feel like I work pretty hard but um, I guess that there’s something, like missing…I don’t know. I’m embarrassed,” he admits.
But what about the more tangible?
“Uh…and in the trash? I don’t know. Probably money or weed.”
If it can be found, chances are he’ll find it.
