Ostberg Herald Article Needing to be Written

Dear Rosie Writers,

With Opening Day fast approaching for Rosie and the Posers (July 12th) it is becoming increasingly clear that unless something dramatically positive happens in the next week, ticket sales will be weak - which is something that's going to need to be both explained - and capitalized on. So, here's how we're going to do it...

Spinning off the Band's 1772 Tour de Thames escapades which were recorded in
The Diary of William P., *** the story of the 2008 FaceLess Tour will be told, not in diary form, but in custom-written, (by us) faux newspaper articles, write ups, and reviews.

In keeping with this, the task at hand is to author an article (we are the reporter) for the entertainment section of the Ostberg Herald. This article will appear on the Rosie and the Posers website courtesy of Mrs. Lindstrom, whose husband figures largely in the story. (See below)

The goal of the article is threefold. First, to plausibly explain why no one came to the concert, second, make as much of this debacle as possible for the sake of generating some traffic for the website, and third, create the first product sold for which Rosie's Writers can get paid.**

The Particulars

1. The tone of the article needs to be "folksy small town journalism," landing somewhere betwixt Mark Twain and Garrison Keillor. It cannot be long - as it does have to fit in it's entirety in the front of a shirt** - and therefore must be concise, to the point, and absolutely dead pan hilarious. It should include supportive quotes from band members. A mug shot style picture of a pig will be provided.

2. There are four band members at the moment. Rosie on cello, her brother, Mason on violin/fiddle, Alan P. on percussion and Chris, the guitar player.

3. This is the headline:
Disaster Strikes Band's First Concert
- the pig, however, was saved -

4. Synopsis of what happened.

The mid-west is not the only place in the nation that has experienced disastrous flooding this summer. Even Ostberg, NC has had it's share of troubles, to wit, the South Fork, along which Ostberg is built, has burst it's levee and suddenly flooded the town under six feet of water.

The water rose so quickly that the Band, having arrived at the Regency Theater earlier in the day, and let in by the manager for their pre-concert sound check, are forced to flee with their instruments upwards to the attic above the hall in a mad rush. They are trapped by the flood.

About concert time (four o'clock) Mason descends the ladder to check on water levels. He is surprised at that point to see Joe Lindstrom, his two sons, Billy and Jeff, and a 125 Lb. feeder pig, for all appearances, dead as a doornail, come paddling through the side door of the Theater in an (@@@@@@) canoe.

Down from Minnesota with his boys to visit his cousin Walter and do a little bass fishing, Joe, his fishing plans on hold, and having bought three tickets in advance for the concert to fill an empty Friday afternoon, had launched his fishing canoe to show the boys where they "would have seen the Band." It was on their way through Ostberg to the theater that they come across a pig, recently flushed from her hog farm, swimming feebly, exhausted, snout barely above the surface, hypothermic, and near death. Not wanting to see the poor animal drown, they managed to drag her into the now overloaded canoe, whereupon the pig collapsed amidships in a deep sleep. Jeff throws his jacket over her and Joe, seeing no reason not to continue, paddles toward the Regency.

In the theater, Joe tells Mason why they are there. The boys express much disappointment at the cancellation of the concert, failing to see why six feet of water in the House should be a deterrent. By this time, Rosie, having heard voices below, has climbed down the attic ladder and joined the conversation. Mason, upon hearing the boys' protestations, automatically climbs back up to the attic to inform the other band members that "yes, there will be concert," as he knows his sister will never, ever cancel a show as long as there is but one person in the audience.

Wrangling the folding tables which had been stored in the attic down the ladder, the band sets up six of them on the stage to make a dry "island" on which to play. The table tops clear the water by a couple of inches.

Mason hits the emergency theater lights, the band tunes up, and, as they can play acoustically, they swing into action. Joe, the boys and the pig float a short distance in front of the island/stage, immensely enjoying the show. Three quarters of the way through the program, awakened from a dead sleep by a particularly dramatic passage in one of the Band's favorite songs, Opus Dopus, the disoriented and now terrified pig flings off the jacket and with great inexactitude of form and action launches herself from the canoe and toward the island/stage, the only firm looking thing she can see. In the process she upsets the canoe sending Joe and the boys into the water and generates a six inch "tidal wave" that over-sweeps the island. Rosie is quick, but in this case, not quick enough because the wave, small as it is, roaring forth in front of the desperate pig, drenches and subsequently ruins Rosie's (@@@@@) beautiful shoes, about which, she has a "thing," having had to wear combat boots for the previous four years. Rosie, goes ballistic - later reports modify this and say she was, "not amused" - and says unkind things to the pig, who, ignoring her entirely, proceeds to race around the table top island sending the band, expensive instruments held high, flying in various directions. Some make it to the ladder, Some don't. The pig alone survives on the island. The concert is over.

And that's how disaster struck the Band at their very first concert in Ostberg, NC on July 12.

My suggested approach to this would be to encourage each of you who are interested in this project to take a stab at writing the article. We'll then post our efforts on the Rosie's Lit. Blog so we can help each other with - you guessed it - helpful comments. Perhaps some of you will wish to combine efforts at that point. We will subsequently vote on which article to use.

We have about two week from today to shape this up as, well... you know... the offices of the Herald were underwater and it took them until the 19th to get operational!! Have fun!

Dale

**Getting paid for writing the story of a non-existent Band is not an easy thing to do. So, what we'll probably have to do is "piggyback" or package any writing on to or with some other salable item. In this case, I'm proposing a T-shirt with the article and picture of the pig printed on it. The shirts will then be sold through the Band's store and other outlets as we can find them. The authors of the article will then get a share of the proceeds according to the number of T-shirts sold. Might be pocket change. Might be a bit more. Further, the authors will get to decide which local charity the 20% off the top will go towards.

***The Diary of William P., as it is know today, was found in the private papers of the late Bernard Pearson, who, having having died in Sydney Australia in 1969 without a will or heir, had his possessions disposed of at auction to the highest bidder. It is supposed that he was a descendent of the diary's author, a Mr. William P., who, as the diary discloses, had the misfortune to be one of the first convicts transported to Australia in 1787.

A young lady, known only by the name, Rosellen, is known to have bought the diary for 1 LB five on the condition she take the boxed remains of a smashed, 18th century drum with it.

Source Material:
http://www.convictcentral.com/

The 11 ships of the FIRST FLEET left Portsmouth (in 1787) under the command of Capt Arthur Phillip. Different accounts give varying numbers of passengers but the fleet consisted of at least 1,350 souls of whom 780 were convicts and 570 were freemen, women and children and the number included four companies of marines. About 20% of the convicts were women and the oldest convict was 82. About 50% of the convicts had been tried in Middlesex and most of the rest were tried in the county assizes of Devon, Kent and Sussex.