“We Made it! Barely…”

Posted by Jack on 07.09.2008 at 10:50 am

We’re live at Rothbury Music Festival! Our hi-jinx will be (roughly) recounted and hopefully you’ll get a (clean) image of what’s going on here.

The trip started with insane rain and wind, why wouldn’t it end in a lightning storm?  As we sat, white-knuckled grabbing sleeping bags (or in Aaron’s case the “borrowed” couch cushions…) as the deafening thunder and blinding lightning came down quite literally right around us, it wasn’t easy to sleep, but it was easy to think “Good Lord I hope that we live through this.  Do I seriously want to be remembered dying on a work trip at a music festival in northern Michigan?” (quick answer: no).

However, we would make it through the ridiculousness.  There were no locusts, frogs or taking of first borns, just some crazy lightning and some people who thought that fireworks during a massive storm would be a good idea.  We cleaned up the booth and got on the road, facing the fact that every single road in Michiana and Illinois is currently under massive construction and that sometimes NPR reaches for content.  The plane was delayed, luckily for Geoff and me, so we made it and at 1 am that night, 14 hours after the beginning of the day’s journey, we were home.  I’ve got some conclusions and updates for you:

-The shower is a great modern invention.
-The crowd that appreciates this kind of festival is quick to embrace our mission (but quicker to embrace the free books we had(!))
-Hunter Lovins is an awesome woman!
-Michael Franti is legit
-Gary Braasch takes a mean photograph
-I should never be allowed to not shave

Have your say » | Tagged Uncategorized, festival, Michigan, rothbury

“We’re Not Used to Author Huggings…”

Posted by admin on 07.04.2008 at 4:36 pm

We’re live at Rothbury Music Festival! Our hi-jinx will be (roughly) recounted and hopefully you’ll get a (clean) image of what’s going on here.

Author signings. First things first Hunter Lovins, author of landmark Energy Unbound and most recently Natural Capitalism (we have signed copies and gave us a Top 10 Reading List!) came by followed by Winona LaDuke, author of Recovering the Sacred. But the storm was building, and it wasn’t for our first two ultra-respected authors…

A large black man, lanky but confident moving slides into the bookstore, not around the back to the signing table but straight to the front and asks for a Sharpie. A line of 75 has formed and more are being snagged by the antics of one Aaron King. He is Michael Franti He has put out DVDs, he has sold myriad CDs, and now he’s drawing hundreds of people for not just a book signing, but individual conversations, photos, and for every single person, a hug. His manager was concerned about how the line was moving and I responded, “Sorry, D’Arcy, admittedly we’re not quite used to author huggings.”

Used to it or not, it would go on for an hour followed by the man himself laying some knowledge on us to the tune of a top 5 book list and signing Ryan’s (real) guitar (I say real because earlier I won a Guitar Hero contest on stage, because I am that big of a nerd. I also just got in a discussion with an author about the merits of double dash vs. semicolon). Not too bad, I’d say.

The night will be punctuated with a movie in the tent, re-sorting the books (gotta make it look like we have more after we’ve pushed so much stock!), and rocking out to Diplo to the wee hours. Then tomorrow, more signings and more sales!

Have your say » | Tagged Uncategorized, bookstore, hunter lovins, michael franti, rothbury

“We Made It… but We Might Not Make it Home”

Posted by Jack on 07.04.2008 at 4:00 pm

We’re live at Rothbury Music Festival! Our hi-jinx will be (roughly) recounted and hopefully you’ll get a (clean) image of what’s going on here.

*We’re awoken at 6 AM to the sounds of the “yeah dude!” type guys next to us. They’ve pulled in at 5 and are trying to navigate a gigantic RV*
“YOU CAN’T MOVE IT WITH THE THINGS ON! THE THINGS, BRO! TH… **** IT NOW, THE THING’S BROKEN!”
*One of us leaves their tent*: Guys, it’s 6 AM, come on with the yelling.
(White hat brigade): WHATEVER DUDE, WE’RE GONNA BE PARTYING ALL WEEK! COLLEGE, WOOOO! [end not actually said, just implied]

So 6am it is. We stagger over to our area and setup our supersweet bookselling area. We’re 8 strong (Me, Geoff, David, Kelly, Jaime, Aaron, Jesse, Ryan) and we’re ready to move some books and engage in the nebulously metric’d activity that is “brand awareness and customer outreach.” We’re not exactly sure how that’s going to work, but dammit we’ve got a lot of shirts, buttons and stickers and a case of Diet Coke and I’m pretty sure the mixture is going to work.

On the other hand, our nutritional sustenance was hand selected by an architect from Chile and the head of Customer Service and they’ve decided that we need (actual numbers, keep in mind this is 8 people for 5 days):
48 Hamburger/Hot Dog Buns
16 Cans of Baked Beans (no can opener)
60 Red Bulls
Two boxes of Cheerios
60 packets of Instant Oatmeal

Seriously.

The first day we come out strong, books are being sold, shirts are being worn, hula hoops are being… hula hooped(?)… and necks are being sunburned while hippies and college lads and lasses of all shapes, sizes and ages mill around the store taking our awesome selection of books (thanks Shannon and Kelly!) while we run around handing out discounts and put in 9 hours of in yo face marketing. The workday ends at 8 PM, Disco Biscuits begin and the rest is left for another blog but I’ll tell you that many more stickers were given out and many a friendly discussion continued.

Have your say » | Tagged Uncategorized, bookstore, festival, idiocy, rothbury