Brothers Davy and Peter Rothbart, are driving in their car. They are bringing the FOUND “There Goes the Neighborhood Tour” to Olympia’s Capitol Theatre on Wednesday, Oct. 24, but in the meantime they have plenty of road to cover. They carry a guitar and a bunch of slips of paper, notes found that convey a sense of tangibly cerebral Americana in articulate ways not generally seen as articulate.



Among those handwritten slips of paper, there might be the note found on a playground, “you are ded met.” Or the note found, appropriately enough, in Sunland California, written by a woman named Alma: “HONEY I JUST WANT TO WISH YOU A HAPPY MONDAY, AND TELL YOU THAT YOU GOT THE MOST BEAUTIFUL SOUL. I LOVE YOU.”



Possibly there’ll be the recent find, on Model United Nations University of Chicago stationery, “dude, I went out there to a caucus room to play and you guys were actually caucusing what the hell, what’s up with that? –Mexico.”



Same paper, different handwriting, “I was waiting now just come –Canada.”



Then again, since the brothers are promoting FOUND #5, the Crime Issue, these gems might just be available on the Web site, www.foundmagazine.com, or in one of the books assembled by the found team, or in one of the four magazines previously released.



So what is FOUND?



“(It’s) a showcase for all the strange, hilarious and heartbreaking things people’ve picked up,” according to the Web site.



It all started when Davy Rothbart found a note on a snowy day, on his dashboard. It was intended for someone else, and it contained a lot of F-Bombs. Its closing, hopeful post-script after the declarative statement “I F***ing hate you” was a simple request, “Page me later.”



And so, in 2001, voyeuristic empire known as FOUND, with books, a Web site, and two classifications of magazines — FOUND and DIRTY FOUND — was born.



But even still, Davy says, “I wouldn’t consider it my day job … if we break even I consider myself lucky.”



More, Davy’s day job is his writing. He’s published a collection of short stories, “The Lone Surfer of Montana, KS”



Additionally, he’s been a contributor to National Public Radio’s “This American Life,” after an honest job application (previous job experience: ticket scalper, teaching creative writing in prison) won him an audience with Ira Glass. Though Davy didn’t get the job, he did get a gig as a contributing storyteller for “This American Life.”



And now the show goes on the road as a “rowdy reading and music event,” according to Davy in a cell phone conversation as he and his brother — who plays songs in the show that were inspired by the notes — drive from Nebraska to South Dakota.

 

“I get up there with a stack of my favorite letters … and I try to read with the emotion (each letter) was written in,” he explains,



[Capitol Theater, Wednesday, Oct. 24, 7:30 p.m., $5-$8, 206 E. Fifth Ave., Olympia, www.buyolympia.com]