OUR STORY

It all began with this bev nap. 

The Raconteur had a good run. Still, it was sad when it closed. At the final event, we sold RIP RAC shirts. There were some tears. A year after the shop shut, I was in a bar on the Lower East Side. I doodled a picture of The Rac-On-Tour on a bev nap. A cow skull on a big rig. The words Books, Music, and Circus scribbled up the side. A red light in the front inspired by KITT and the Cylons in BSG. For some reason I saved it.

Actually, let's back up. I first started talking about The Rac-On-Tour during the final days of the bookstore. I had read an article on the Rolling Thunder Revue, Dylan's anti-corporate return to the days of traveling tricksters, that left me inspired. Dylan always had a bit of carny in him. He grew up on livestock shows and preacher revivals and traveling lady wrestlers. Sure, The Rac-On-Tour is a book mobile. But it's also pageant wagon. A medicine show. A carnival.

I shelved the idea for years. One day I was talking to my son about it and he drew this picture. The wheels started to turn again. 

Julian and I were on the top of Arthur's Seat, an extinct volcano outside Edinburgh, when we decided to do it. Or at least attempt it. At breakfast, we Googled Victorian pantechnicons and medieval siege towers.

Kickstarter liked the idea and highlighted it even before the launch, giving us "Project We Love" badge (alongside a Witcher board game w. 40,000 followers).

Dan made a model to give pledges a better idea of what we were proposing.

 

 

The town owned an abandoned garage on Main Street, and they generously agreed to let us use it for the build. We called it ROT HQ.

We cozied it up a bit. Moved in a couch and some chairs. A fridge with a beer tap. But it wasn't a place you wanted to be alone after midnight. Serious Resident Evil Fallout Four vibes.

There's this waste oil tank there. The size and shape of the meat freezer my parents had in the mud room for processed deer. It's sealed. But one night I had a dream, more like a nightmare, that I opened it. Popped up the lid like on that freezer. It was full of oil. A thick, dense black. Like something solid. As impenetrable as a wall. I could see my reflection, like how you can in a computer screen when it's off.

And then something bobbed to the surface. The one-eyed head of Ben Gardener. From Jaws. Yessir, ROT HQ was a creepy place. 

 

After a couple months combing online classified sites like AutoTrader and Craigslist, Julian finally found a suitable truck in Fleetwood, Pa. We drove up to kick its tires.

Our Kickstarter campaign still had a week to go, but we'd already met our funding goal. We bought the truck and had it flatbedded to our garage in Highland Park. The driver was a big dude from Conshohocken. Reflective stripes on his pants and shirt. A cap that said "Flatbedders do it with straps and chains." He wanted to know what we were using it for. We told him. "Wow," he said, "keep me posted." We thought he was just making small talk. But six months later he texted Julian for progress pics.

We did a meet-the-truck at the Farmer's Market. Using the bed as a stage, our friends, Dave and Paul beat each other with bastard swords, and Karnevil performed classic feats of daring and wonder (including the deadly Bed of Nails). 

When we reached our funding goal we celebrated with an outdoor screening of Fury Road. Though the ultimate product is maybe more vardo wagon than War Rig, Mad Max was initially our prime source of inspiration; we originally pitched the project as a wasteland book mobile. We encouraged folks to dress
for the apocalypse. Dan wore a Doof Warrior mask he had made.

The garage was our home for six months. A lot of long days and late nights. Listening to Bone Machine on a cell phone mashed into a Solo cup "speaker." To Waylon, Willie, and the boys. My son liked to hang out there, too. One of the guys. Sometimes he'd help. Sometimes he'd play Hades on his Switch. Sometimes he'd occupy himself by ramming a broken broomstick through the ears of a foam wig head. 

Little by little, it came together.

The ceilings were high, but the door clearance was not, and we had to take it apart to get it out. We knew that going in, of course, and we had built the truck in sections. But that didn't mean we weren't dreading the day. In the tradition of the great Aimish barn rearings, we called in a few more friends (and rented some duck lifts) to help us disassemble/reassemble our book truck. It went better than we anticipated.

Once it was outside, we hustled to put on the roof before the weather changed. We set up half a dozen clamp lights and worked into the night. We got a lot of honks. One dude walked up and asked if we were shooting a movie. 

We drove it to the Farmer's Market lot a couple weeks before Christmas. We had started it up a few times, but hadn't driven it since we built the back, and we didn't know how it would handle the turns, or if it would clear the traffic light on North 2nd.

It wasn't done, but at least it was in the lot. We had intended to close up the eaves with soffits, but when we stood back to look at it, we liked how the roof glowed, like it was sitting on a halo, a crown of light, so we left it open.  

We wired it with electricity and added a porch/stage. Plus a dozen other details. We're still adding. Every week. 

And that's our story, folks. For more build pics, visit the Gallery page. Or come on down and visit it in person.