Slowly, when life permits, I have been working on piecing together the story of that great grody green thing known affectionately -- and sometimes not -- as The Flag. Life has thrown a few curveballs at, around, and through this plan at various times, but while progress may be sluggish, my hope of chronicling this odd little project still stands, and in order to do so, I feel it necessary that I speak with some of the folks involved.
The overall story here is of the journey taken by a little green cloth as it traveled around the world, but the reality is that the flag's story is the story of the people behind it. The people who supported it. The people who made it work. The flag's story is the story of the SC.net forum.
In other words, the flag's story is a story about you.
(Yes, that sounds corny, I know; but it's true, so cut me some slack.)
Much as I would love to, I'm not able to travel to all corners of the globe to conduct interviews; I'll be doing what traveling that I can in the hope of gathering info, but mostly I must rely on the telephone, my Buick, the occasional bus ride, and the luck that some kind folks might just happen to stumble through my neck of the woods. So with the summer months arriving and the possibility that folks will be traveling for business, pleasure, music festivals, etc., I thought this would be a good time to throw open to the forum a call for volunteers.
If over the next bunch of months you happen to be swinging through the lower Northeast/upper mid-Atlantic states of the US within a not-insane driving distance of NYC and would like to share your thoughts and perspectives on the flag that stalked a drummer around the world, please give me a shout, and I'll do the best that I can to work out a time/way to meet.
In-person interviews are preferable whenever possible because I find that being able to sit down and chat face-to-face results in a more comfortable and fruitful conversation. However, I will also be conducting a great number of interviews by phone, so even if we can't find a common geography, I would still love to hear from you.
And if you have some opinions but don't think they warrant a whole conversation, even a sentence or a paragraph of thoughts over email can go a long way toward painting the picture of how the flag project was perceived or received. (Some of the best perspectives that I've gotten recently for a different project were from people who didn't even think they had a perspective.)
If you served as a Flag-Bearer, I can just about guarantee that I'll contact you directly at some point to ask if you're willing to talk about your experiences. But the flag's story encompasses more than just the folks who held it in their hands at concerts: it involves people who encountered it along its journey, as well as many who never had the chance. If you know what the dickens the flag is, then more likely than not, you've got an opinion, good or bad, on it. I haven't set out to pen a hagiography (or flagiography): I think it's as important to represent the flag's downs as its ups. So Flag-Bearer or not, if you're willing to share your thoughts, I'm willing and grateful to hear them.
I know the basics of the flag's story: I know where it went and how. But what I don't know are people's personal experiences: what made you smile; what pissed you off; how you felt to sign it or that you couldn't; how you felt seeing it onstage at MSG; how it may or may not have affected your feelings toward SC.net, toward Stewart, toward the Police or their tour, toward celebrity, toward fandoms, toward each other. I can't say that all material will be used in the final product; hell, I can't even say what that final product will be. But the more information available, the better (I hope) the results, so I would like to gather as much information as possible. I know what the project was like for me; what I'd like to be able to represent is what the project was like for you.
Clearly, my heavy involvement behind the scenes makes me biased; however, I genuinely believe that the flag's story is interesting, unusual, and has the capacity to resonate beyond just those people who were involved with it. I wouldn't be working on this if I didn't believe it. An acquaintance of mine unfamiliar with most of the flag story once wrote (unsolicited):
I'm not that big of a Police fan. I like that one song that starts "My daddy's boots don't fit me / 'Cause I'm bigger than him," but I never got into their whole sound, in part because I'm not a big reggae guy. I like the singles well enough. I actually have the box set, though I don't think I've ever listened to it all.
In any case, point here is that, despite not being into the Police, I am fully into this story. What you have here is the kind of story that will connect with people who are fans of anything, not just this band. At the risk of sounding corny, I think that's special.
At the risk of sounding corny again, I do, too.
If you'd like to contribute some thoughts or opinions -- whether by email, telephone, or over a cup of coffee -- please drop me a line at dirtymartiniii at gmail . com . Opinions of lurkers and irregular posters are welcome; just kindly include your user name as well as your real name so that I can keep track of whom I'm talking to.
And as per usual with my posts, if you managed to read through this entire message, please pat yourself on the back.
Thank you, everyone.
