Yes We Trashcan

Being an unemployed writer requires a number of special skills. These may include the ability to work independently, a love of story, a faith in oneself, the ability to do strange and unpleasant jobs for extra money, and a sharp eye for useful trash.

I first learned to skillfuly pick through other people’s trash when I lived in Somerville, Massachusetts, where trash picking is a traditional pastime for many residents. I was sometimes tempted to take a wheelbarrow with me each time I went for a walk, because the curbsides were literally stacked with free stuff. And it was an ordinary occurrence for a friend to shout out, “bookshelf, pull over!” while driving down the street. Or, “hey, grab an end, I need this futon.”

It was a simple System. If you didn’t want something and couldn’t be bothered to craigslist it or haul it to Goodwill or the dump, you could simply put it on the curb. If the item had any usefulness at all you could expect it to be gone by the end of the weekend.

And if you saw something you liked sitting by itself on the curb, it was yours to take. It was a good idea to check first for alternate explanations for the abandonment, especially if you thought you had discovered a particularly fine item. A nearby moving truck, for example, could indicate that the spotless microfiber couch with the manufacturer’s stickers still on it did indeed belong to someone who planned to put it either in the house or on the truck.

It was also a good idea to avoid anything that had big black X’s spray-painted on it. Or anything that had, “don’t take,” or “bugs,” spray-painted on it. As this suggests, if you were abandoning a piece that was faulty, damaged, or disgusting in ways that were not obvious to the naked eye of the would-be picker, you were expected to label it as such. An X usually got the message across.

I assure you that, though I benefited regularly from this System, I gave back to the community, too. After a garage sale, though largely successful, failed to relieve me of all my unwanted crap, I put it on the curb. Gone within hours, scavenged before the threatening rain could destroy the free loot.

I can’t explain exactly why the System was so pervasive. Perhaps the nearby universities contributed to the thrifty vibe. Maybe it was the number of transitioning young professionals who moved in and out of the neighborhood every other month that added to the excess of junk. Maybe it was a vestige of Puritan frugality clinging even to the newly-initiated New Englanders like so many cold Sunday beans. Whatever the reason, it was a kick-ass system.

There is not such a System in Los Angeles. Although there is still trash.

One of the best items I have ever picked up is a white canvas armchair from Ikea. Granted, it’s not a brand new La-Z-Boy. But that’s not important, because it was free, and I had the fortune to find it first. Timing is everything in matters of the heart and the curbside.

This chair was sitting by the dumpster in my apartment complex. It was just sitting there, all by itself, right next to the nasty, greasy, smelly dumpster. There was not a mark on it, even though it was white, and it wasn’t missing any legs. There was no X on it to indicate that it had bugs, though I wasn’t sure that anyone in my apartment complex knew that they were expected to mark it if it did. I decided to risk it. It was too good to pass up.

As I stated above, it’s one of the best items I ever picked. So it ended up not having bugs. I still can’t for the life of me figure out why someone threw it out. But what truly baffles me is that no one around here quite understands what a fantastic thing it is to get a chair like this from the trash. In the ‘ville, people would have praised my taste and skill in scoring such a nice chair. But here, everyone stares like I’m out of my mind when I relate “The Story of The Finding of the Free White Chair in the Trash.”

Evidently, people in LA actually buy their furniture at a store. With real money. Not only is this not fun, it’s not free. I don’t like it.

Most of the curbside finds around here are duds. Warped shelving units, tables with broken legs, and some items of particle-board that are simply to mangled to identify. It’s a sad, sad state.

But I continue to trash pick undaunted and without shame. The item I most recently rescued from the region of the dumpster was a cheap little bookshelf that looks quite nice with my adopted chair. I picked it out of the trash while the previous owner, in the process of moving out of the building, was still hauling stuff to the trash. I smiled, said hello, and made off with the shelf while she stood there watching me in disgust.

So I’m a one-woman revolution bringing the System to the Valley. These are hard times out West, and it’s time to share our junk with open hearts, helping hands, and giving curbsides. I’m sending a message out to frugal Angelenos everywhere! Embrace the New-To-You System and pick your neighbor’s trash with an extra dose of community spirit! Because you really need to know how great it feels to find some cool free shit.

Living Shoe to Mouth

It turns out that I got hired at the Store, which at the time was a huge relief, though I didn’t truly expect to stay there as long as I have. I expected the job to tide me over while I found something more permanent, but it has instead become my safe harbor. I have followed a few uncharted routes in search of more stable employment and each has failed, and the Store has always welcomed me back with a few extra hours when I returned, my ship empty and my sails limp. I am still only a part-time hire, but I am carefully carving a niche for myself and hope to drop anchor someday soon.

I’m sure you’d like to know where all the nautical metaphors are coming from. Well, friends, it’s all due to my very nautical Sperry Topsiders. The best shoe I ever bought.

If my random jobs so far have anything in common, it’s the fact that each has a strict and very different dress code. The Store requires their female sales associates to wear a blazer or cardigan with jeans or a knit top, for example, along with leather shoes. The shoes may be sandals, but they have to be leather sandals with a leather outsole. Leather-soled sandals typically have absolutely no padding whatsoever. And as for shoes, clogs are not allowed. In short, good luck finding anything that fits dress code and isn’t going to stab your feet and lumbar with cruelly fashionable knives. I suppose I should be grateful that my socks are not under daily inspection, but still. It is damn hard to find work shoes.

Or it would be, had I not bought the best shoes ever, months before, without any inkling of how fantastic they truly were.

For some reason, the undergraduate University students where I earned my graduate degree all loved Sperry Topsiders. I don’t know why, but every damn one of those girls wore their boat shoes with the ubiquitous Nike Tempo Track running short. I still don’t understand how twenty thousand undergrads all decided to wear the same running short and the same shoes, but they did. I’m guessing they were all mind-controlled by their sororities. Being the rugged, Thoreau-reading individualist that I am, I own both the running short and the boat shoes, but I never ever wear them together.

The running short makes sense. I like to run. And the fabric does wick away moisture. But the boat shoes didn’t make any sense. I saw people wearing them, and knew by some sort of sartorial instinct that they were called boat shoes. It took a google search or two to determine that the brand name was Sperry Topsider. I didn’t need a pair of boat shoes, but they called to me. And when I came across them on the cheap at a factory outlet, there was nothing left to do but buy them.

I didn’t wear them much until I started working at the Store. But when I was going through the closet last October, culling my work-worthy pieces, I realized that I had in my keeping the secret weapon of work-appropriate footwear. Lightweight, well-padded, leather, the Sperry’s had it all. But best of all, Sperry owns the preppy, east-coast sporty niche that the Store tries to claim for itself. They’re more Store than the Store itself.

I don’t know if I have the undergraduates of the University to thank for the perfect appurtenance, or if my feet know more about my life than I do, or if it was pure silly chance. But Sperry Topsiders were the perfect fit, even though I didn’t know it when I bought them.

But sometimes, wise choices in footwear can be made by design.

You may recall that I was required to wear black shoes when I did valet. However, you may not recall this, since I spoke mostly, when it came to footwear, of my socks. Nevertheless, I also noted that black shoes were required when I sold concessions at Dodger Stadium. I did not wear my sexy black heels, nor my sensible black ballet flats, of course, though these are both shoes that many women have on hand. Nor were they boring old black sneakers like my mom’s Reebok aerobics shoes. No sir. They were Pumas. A sleek, stylish martial arts-inspired design, and solid black. Because I sell concessions like a ninja.

These shoes were a deliberately wise choice. But, luckily for my pocketbook and my story, they were also a frugal choice made as a result of yet another odd job.

A producer at one of my internships during the summer referred me to one of her friends, who needed people to help with what was essentially a garage sale. But not just a regular garage sale, a super-special West Hollywood garage sale. The woman I was helping out was some sort of celebrity stylist or closet organizer, and she basically ran quarterly garage sales to help her clients get rid of their unbelievably expensive, often unworn, almost always ugly clothing and accessories.

Most of what was for sale was stored in bins, on racks, or in trash bags in the garage of a West Hollywood house. We set about emptying all this out into the driveway where it could be shopped. I was responsible for the handbag table and emptied several trash bags of purses out onto the table. Later, I lined up row after row of shoes on the floor of the garage.

The back porch of the house served as a fitting room for this event. So women would show up, grab handfuls of designer threads that were fresh out of a trash bag, try them on in some stranger’s back yard, and then pay thousands of dollars for the stuff they felt they needed. These women thought they were spending wisely. They were getting a great deal. “That’s a fantastic piece,” they would say. This was the day I would learn that if you want to sound like you know what you’re talking about when it comes to fashion, it’s not a dress or a belt or a $500 screen printed tee shirt. It’s a piece. What a find. That’s a great piece.

This was without a doubt one of the strangest days I have spent in Los Angeles.

When I was hired for this gig, my producer friend told me that her friend would give me a huge discount on anything I wanted to buy, and would pay me for my work in credit against any of my purchases. The theory was that I could get something like an exclusive $1500 Prada bag, which was priced at only $500 at the sale, discounted by 50% to only $250, minus the money I would have earned, leaving me with only $150 to pay. That’s a savings of 90%. Which means absolutely nothing if you have no need of an exclusive Prada bag.

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that The Careerist does not like to put in a days work and leave a great deal poorer. I planned to take my earnings in cash.

But I would be lying if I said there weren’t some shoes I wanted. Some, I even dared to try on. There was this one pair of boots, the leather was like creamery butter…but this is a story about a different pair of shoes.

There was a pair of black Pumas in a size seven that no one but I gave a second look. But I knew that they might come in handy. I had a friend when I was in film marketing who wore a pair of those to red carpet events with very long black pants. No one noticed she was wearing sneakers, and her feet weren’t bleeding at the end of the night. I was always jealous of her clever black Pumas.

These shoes were stealthy smart. I could tell. So I bought them for ten bucks. I told the woman I was working for that they would come in handy if I ended up waitressing, forgetting for the moment that I wouldn’t know that since I’m the only American woman alive without waitressing experience. Meanwhile, I went home with another ninety in cash.

These $10 shoes have earned me about $700 since, and there’s still a lot of baseball to play. And besides that, if I hadn’t done the valet parking, I never would have applied at the Store. And my poor Sperry Topsiders would still be in the back of the closet, all lonely-like and sad.

Does the purchase of a pair of sneakers at a garage sale determine a path, however winding, that a pair of feet may walk? Or am I just a writer looking for a story? You tell me. But I know that I’m glad I’ve got the right shoes for walking these miles.

Mitigating Risk

I took a producing class when I was in film school, hoping to gain some insight into the industry while I concurrently worked to improve my craft. One of the most basic of these insights was the concept of “mitigating risk.”

Producing a film is an incredibly risky endeavor. If I were to independently produce a film and wanted you to help me pay for it, I would bring you a business prospectus that offers you a share in the film’s profits in exchange for your cash to spend making it. By law, my business prospectus would require a page that warns you that you will probably never see your money ever again. As far as investments go, making a film is just about the stupidest thing you could ever do with your money.

It’s very difficult to make a film. And expensive. And even if you succeed in completing the project, you still have to spend about $30 million to create enough copies of the film to go around the country and play on thousands of screens and to buy enough advertising to actually get butts into multiplex seats. (These two expenses are called P & A, Prints and Advertising.)

Nevertheless, films get made every year. Somebody somewhere must be willing to risk some money. They are either incredibly foolish, or somebody somewhere else is somehow mitigating the risk.

There are very few ways to make sure people are going to see a movie. One way is to hire a famous movie star. Another way is to release the movie on a day when people are likely to go to the movies and won’t have much besides your movie to choose from. But the most popular method of mitigating risk in the film industry is to take a concept, character, or story that already has the attention of the audience and make a movie around it.

This could be an adaptation of a famous novel or comic. Or it could be a sequel to an already successful movie, or a remake of an already successful movie. Sometimes, it could just be an idea based on history, legend, or familiar myth. If you can write a film that is based on something else, you’re already in better shape than someone who came up with a brand new idea. (Not that there is any such thing, since there’s nothing new under the sun. But you get my drift.)

Take The Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. Sequels mitigate risk. Films based on pre-existing concepts, such as a theme-park ride, also mitigate risk. Theme-park rides already owned by the production and distribution company don’t have to be optioned, which saves money. And lastly, the ride itself was an attractive portrayal of the bacchanalian lifestyle of the eighteenth century pirate, a familiar and iconic concept in itself. Which mitigates risk.

This film grossed over $1 billion worldwide, which surprises no one.

Many people bemoan the lack of original stories in contemporary commercial cinema and claim that Hollywood is out of new ideas. That’s idiotic. There are thousands of new ideas every day, and hundreds of good original scripts get read by producers every year. Some production companies compile lists of the best scripts that circulate the industry every year, and every year new writers win awards and fellowships with their expertly crafted original work. Hollywood is like a giant anthill full of busy little workers who are building beautiful, delicate, nuanced stories that will win them acclaim and a career of inspiring work. (Do I flatter myself that I am one of these industrious little bodies? Absolutely. If you don’t think I should give myself such credit, you can kiss my ass.) But those scripts very rarely get made. They’re too risky. Instead, those scripts will get the writer work on some other film that is an adaptation of last year’s bestseller, or a sequel to a comic book adaptation, or a remake of a half-remembered comedy from the fifties.

Another of my college professors had his own spin on the risk mitigation theory. He would say, “everyone in Hollywood wants to be second, but no one wants to be first.” For instance, one writer I know reported that producers these days will look at a well-crafted script with perfect three-act structure and ask the writer if there’s any way he can make it non-linear. Because people like those non-linear stories nowadays. These are the same douchebags who passed on Memento ten years ago. They’re happy to tag along, but have no desire to do anything ground-breaking…or risky.

In looking over the latest UTA list, I once again felt hopelessness descend each time I read an ad for a job that required one to two years of experience. (Agency preferred, of course.) And it occurred to me that the people doing the hiring are all just afraid. They want to be the second to take a risk on me, but not the first. Without a year of experience at some other company, no one has any way to mitigate their risk in hiring me.

I understood when I decided to try my hand as a screenwriter that I would probably not get my original stories made into movies. I understood that it would be too risky, that it would be reasonable for a producer to fear such a risk. And I thought I understood that it would be hard to find work without lots of contacts, but I figured that I could make contacts as I went along. But now I understand that the fear of loss and the fear of risk have trickled down to the very least of every decision made by any industry executive. It isn’t just about wasting millions of dollars on the wrong film. It’s also about wasting a few weeks on the wrong assistant. I now know that I can’t get a job because everyone in this industry is too afraid to hire me as the front office receptionist. I’m a risk. And even the smallest risk is terrifying.

I’m a little bit discouraged by the fact that I am trying to be a part of a business that is governed by fear, but I am doing my best not to be afraid. Somebody somewhere will eventually decide to take a risk on me. After all, someone in Hollywood eventually has to be first, so that everyone else can clamor to be second. It's just a matter of time. I hope.

I don't fear.

The Five Habits of Highly Effective Hawkers

As excited as I was by my prospects at The Store, I decided that I would continue to sell at the Dodger games as long as I could. This would not be long, since it was already September, and the team would be on the road for part of the remaining season. But in the meantime, I could make some money, assuming that the Mysteriously Absent Concessions Company paid me.

My second game allayed all my fears on this subject. Not because the Mysteriously Absent Concessions Company mysteriously appeared, but because the stadium concessions company randomly asked me to fill out an application for them. They were ready to photocopy my driver’s license and social security card, which I took to mean that they were prepared to pay me, so I was quite relieved.

So, for the next few weeks, I worked as an official employee of the Stadium Concessions Company. Before the end of the postseason, I worked five games and one postseason rally. And I learned a lesson for each one of them, after learning during game one how to handle dry ice and never to sell ice cream in the pavilions.

Game #2 - I scream to sell Ice Cream.

You’ve got to make noise to sell. This is no fun for me and my girlie little voice. I feel like the lost fourth chipmunk, squeaking my way up and down the field level stands. (Ice Cream! Ice Cream! Me, I want a HUUUULA HOOOOOP!) But there’s nothing you can do about it. You’ve got to shout. This is a matter that the Old Guy who claimed to have come to Los Angeles with the Dodgers took very seriously. He constantly reminded me to yell about my product, and if we crossed paths in the stands, he would take up my call and start to holler about Ice Cream. I reciprocated, and would shout about peanuts. This amused us more than it did the folks in the stands, but you can’t care about what the crowd thinks if you’re going to make yourself heard.

One guy who was selling to make some extra money for his kids’ college fund regularly sold water and occasionally used a special call to get attention. “Water! Water! Same water as Manny drinks!” I’m pretty sure that this helped him sell gallon after gallon of water, since Dodger fans are insane for Manny.

Game #3 – Monkey see, Monkey buy

You’ve got to show them the goods. This means holding up the product that you’re selling. If you’re selling peanuts, you’re in good shape. They’re light. They’re not frozen, they don’t need to be kept warm. It’s simple.

This is less simple with ice cream or frozen lemonade. One, a pint of one of these is heavier than peanuts, and you’ve got to hold it above your head for hours. Two, it’s cold, which means it makes your hand cold. And three, no one wants to buy the ice cream that you’ve been holding in your hand. If you try to sell the ice cream that you’ve been holding aloft, the person buying will complain about not getting a frozen one. These people are as dumb as poop. Who wants rock hard ice cream? Dollars to donuts, these same jackasses put their ice cream out on the counter to soften for ten minutes before they try to scoop it out at home. Anyway, you can fool them by periodically changing out your display ice cream for a fresh one, then selling it out of the bag to some schmo in the next section who will never be able to tell the difference.

Also, people will buy when they see other people buying, so the first sale in any section is always the toughest. This might be because people notice that you’re selling, and what you’re selling, when you actually stop and sell. It might also be that selling is a mind game.

To further strengthen the mind game theory, you also want your cash to be visible. I am a relatively cautious person, and am always worried about losing money when I am selling. The first three games I worked, I tried very hard to keep shoving the cash deep down in my apron pocket. But one of the other sellers told me to keep it all in my hand at all times. This helps to keep it organized, plus shows to the potential buyers that I have been selling lots already and that they should buy, too. I really can’t tell if this is true, but it definitely helped to keep the bills organized. The only bills I didn’t keep in my fist were the 100’s and 50’s. Because yes, some people buy a single hotdog with a $100 bill.

Game #4 – Rally Sunday

When the team returned to Los Angeles before the postseason, the stadium held a rally to pump up the fans. Most of the old guys didn’t want to sell at the rally, because they were only going to sell the small bags of peanuts and small bottles of water for $2. This meant that the commission would be very low. But, being desperate, I agreed to help out. I learned the following things.

Peanuts kick ass. That rally was probably the only time I will ever get to sell peanuts, and it was glorious. The peanuts were light as a feather and sold like hotcakes. (Except rather more like peanuts, since I don’t imagine hotcakes in fact sell well these days.)
Also, there were far more people than the stadium had planned for, and I and the other fellows who were helping out were worked so hard we were falling down exhausted afterwards. By the end of the rally, I had not made it one time around all the stands, it was that crowded and that many people were buying peanuts. I sold and sold and sold…

I only made about $50. I learned from selling ice cream in the pavilions that selling just a little of an expensive product does not make more money. However, I learned from selling cheap peanuts that the same is true of selling a lot of a very cheap product. In either case, you will work very hard and make little money. Therefore, sell a reasonable amount of a reasonably priced product, and you will do all right.

Game #5 – Maltreatment

Malts are one of those reasonable products. They are also a little strange. Basically, a malt is an airy type of chocolate ice cream that comes with an old-fashioned wooden spoon. And it is a traditional Dodger Stadium favorite and only available at Dodger Stadium. Seriously, you can’t find it anywhere else. I’ve seen message boards online devoted to the subject, and all malt-seekers agree—Dodger Stadium is it for malts.

As if the above isn’t incentive enough, they also cost $4.75. Most people will pass a $5 bill down the row and tell you to keep the change. I made $20 in tips at this game, one quarter at a time.

Malts kick ass almost as much as peanuts. They’re lighter than some, cheaper than most, the tip is built right in, and you’ve got the market cornered. You can’t lose!

Game #6 – Let Manny be both Manny and your break

It’s impossible to sell when Manny is at bat. Especially during the postseason, and especially when something is at stake. The crowd almost always stands up, cheers, and watches his every move. You can’t sell when this is going on. No one can see you, no one can hear you, and no one wants what you’re selling as much as they want what Manny can deliver.

Instead of struggling through, just find a little spot for yourself. Maybe it’s in the back of the stands, and maybe you have to stand on tiptoe to see the swing. But there might be the back of an empty chair or a railing where you can prop up your heavy bag for a minute. And sometimes you just need to stop hustling and merge quietly into that energy that surges through the ballpark. And sometimes, if you’re lucky, you’ll get to see the swing that creates that crack of the bat.

The last lesson is to let yourself take part in something you love for just one at bat of every game.

When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be Paid

At this point I was forced to take stock of my situation. I was out of money, having already depleted the tips that I had earned as a valet the Emmys. I had no idea when or how the Mysteriously Absent Concessions Company planned to pay me for my first game. The Random College Student was supposed to pay me my wage from the Emmys, in cash, before a week had passed, but it had been more than a week and I hadn’t heard a thing.

It’s one thing to go into an odd job knowing that you might get screwed. It’s another thing entirely to suspect, after doing the odd job, that you have in fact been screwed. As the probability of non-payment increases, my faith in the good will of my fellow people and my ability to throw caution to the wind and hope for the best decreases. That is to say, my faith and positive outlook completely evaporates. I become a raving bitch.

I emailed the Random College Student, since this is how we had communicated in the past, and asked her when I might be able to meet her and collect my earnings. I received no response. I tried again, and got no response. At this point, my emails had a “tone.”

The friend who had hooked me up with this gig was called in for support, and she recommended that I try to call the Random College Student. I hate calling people. I don’t know why. It’s something deep-seated and isn’t likely to change soon. Evidence suggests that I like to write words down, and one can assume that this has something to do with my choices when it comes to message transmission. But in pursuit of my wages, I broke down and called. I left a message. Happily, I soon received a reply in the form of a text message.

I was not a fan of texting until the fall of 2007. Before this, I had eschewed this mode of communication as much as possible. I don’t do business on craigslist.org with people who exhibit excessive punctuation errors and a general lack of style, and I don’t communicate with my loved ones without spelling out the words “you,” “are,” and “laugh out loud.” However, my phone bill for October of 2007 skyrocketed after I had thumbed a virtual library of things like, “YOUK!,” “Pedroia!,” and “Fucking Lugo,” to everyone in my phone book. I bought a text package from my phone service provider, just so I could be prepared for the next season. Nevertheless, I consider texting to be a cheap imitation of the written word. I personally don’t think the act deserves a name with such a rich and noble etymology, to be frank.

But, as I am constantly called upon to consider, not all people are just like me. Some people like phone calls. And some people like texts. You have to be willing to experiment and see who prefers what. And if you really want to get hold of someone, (if they owe you money, for example) you’re going to have to adopt their mode of communication. As substandard as it may be.

So we texted a few times, and determined a meeting place. The Random College Student was going to meet a friend of hers for drinks at a Los Angeles area Mexican restaurant with a vulgar, anatomically-themed name. Naturally, I was further impressed. But agreed to meet her there that afternoon.

I did a little research and found that this restaurant was at a mall that was quite outside of my beaten path. It would take some driving, followed by parking, to get there. I decided that I would see if any stores at this mall had posted any help-wanted adds in the retail section of craigslist.org. If they had, I could apply and make the trip at least that much more justifiable.

I didn’t really want to work in retail. But this is what I told myself:

While I don’t have restaurant experience, I do have retail experience. It’s not as lucrative, but when all the banks are failing and your only other source of income depends largely on something as mercurial as Manny Ramirez, and even then, could only possibly last another month, a job in retail will have to be good enough. Suck it up.

As it happened, one store that was just about my speed needed some new sales associates. So I met the Random College Student, collected my cash, and went to The Store to apply. All the things that needed to happen at all the other places I where I had applied suddenly happened here: they needed help, the afternoon was quiet, the hiring manager was available to talk to me, I had my resume with me and all my references’ phone numbers. I filled out the application on the bench in the mall, turned it in to the hiring manager, and was asked to return later that week for an interview.

It was a strange mall, I thought, and way out in the middle of nowhere, but I had an interview. And some cash in my pocket. So I bought myself some Pinkberry and felt my faith in my fellow men and my ability to hope for the best rise back up to normal levels once again.

You Scream and I Scream and Wish I Didn't Have to Sell Ice Cream

The Right and Left Field Pavilions are the names of the outfield bleachers at Dodger Stadium. I was familiar with them before I started selling concessions. This is because the Pavilions were the only seats that I could afford when I went to see a game. I don’t know why I’m speaking in past tense here. Shit has not changed.

The Pavilion seats generally provide a lot of bang for the buck, however, because the fans in that section really know how to have a good time. In addition to endlessly enjoying the wave, fans in the pavilion like to play the beach ball game. The object of the beach ball game is to keep a beach ball aloft in the stands for as long as possible without allowing it to fall onto the field or get confiscated by security. Most people in the Pavilion believe that the beach ball game is the game they paid $11 to see.

If I seem to be a little snarky here, let me explain. I learned to watch baseball at Fenway Park. And anyone loony enough to bring a beach ball to Fenway will find himself hanging from a gibbet over Lansdowne Street. Maybe this is because the fans at Fenway paid a great deal more than $11 for their outfield seats. In any case, they aren’t in any sense confused about which game they came to see.

However, if all of the ballparks in America were just like Fenway, the game of baseball would suffer; the unique character of each park is part of the beauty of the game. I personally think anyone going to a Dodgers game for the first time should sit in the Pavilion and experience the park from there. I did, and I wouldn’t trade that particular experience for anything. Not even seats at Fenway. (Except Monster seats, maybe. No, not even that. Not that it's worth debating anyway, since trading experience for baseball tickets is about as possible as trading thumbs for a writing career. )

The first time I went to Dodger Stadium and sat in the Pavilion, I was surprised to hear that the people sitting in the Pavilion would be invited out onto the field to watch the fireworks after the game. That’s right…the field. You don’t even have to stay on the warning track. They let you out onto the grass. Just about everyone who walked out onto that grass that night either bent over and touched it with their fingers or took off a shoe to feel it with their toes. I was no exception. I felt it with both my fingers and my toes.

After admiring the springy turf, I scampered over to the baseline between second and third and took a seat, considering that I might bend a blade of grass upon which Nomar himself had trod not five minutes before. Then there were fireworks. I watched the fireworks, sitting on the field, while the stadium speakers played Ray Charles’s, “America the Beautiful.” Just like in “Sandlot.” I’m pretty young, and there are a lot of pitches that I haven’t seen yet. But for my money, it doesn’t get much better than that.

As much as I recommend the Pavilion for spectators, I don’t recommend it for anyone peddling ice cream.

Tickets in the Pavilion, as I have mentioned already, cost only $11. The ice cream that the vendors sell at Dodger Stadium costs $6.50 per pint. The value-seekers among us will already know that most people don’t want to pay 60% of the price of the entire ticket for a single, non-alcoholic, not-so traditional baseball snack that’s only available in one flavor. I could have guessed that too, but I was told that I could sell less but make more, and that made mathematical sense.

But after seven innings of not selling very much, I learned one of the basic axioms of hawking: not selling is a lot more work than selling. Put another way, selling concessions at a ballgame is one of the rare jobs in which earning more money is a result of less effort. Consider the following scenarios:

A. If you don’t sell anything, you have to keep carrying your product around with you, which is heavy, and you have to keep walking up and down stairs from section to section, which is tiring, and you have to keep shouting, which is embarrassing for people with little voice boxes.

B. If you’re selling, you get to stand still, put your bag down, hand out product, and rake in money. You’re taking on cash, which is paper, and unloading ice cream, which is ice cream. One of these is much nicer to carry in a bag around your neck than the other.

Selling is Easy. Not selling is Hard. That’s why “sell less but make more” is bullshit. To that end, it’s probably a bad idea to sell something as expensive as ice cream anywhere, but it’s especially stupid to sell it in the Pavilions.

At the end of the night, I returned my unsold product, insulated bag, carrying strap, uniform, and cash (including the borrowed bank) to the commissary. Instead of having my commission parceled out to me in cash and deposited directly into my sad little empty pocket, I was given a receipt for my earnings. $48.04 was not quite the $100-$150 range that the ad on craigslist had boasted, but I was happy to have earned even that. Plus there was the parking and the free meal to remember. But I asked the Permanently Displeased Troll Woman if I should keep the receipt. All she replied was, “around here?” and shrugged. I decided to file it away in a safe place, especially since I had no idea when or how I would be paid.

I did have enough faith to return for the next game of the homestand, but vowed to avoid ice cream unto eternity.

Bought and Sold

When I entered the cave of the Troll-Woman, I had two decisions to make: how much product to buy, and how much to take with me at one time. These seemed like tricky things to gauge. But in the end it didn’t make a damn bit of difference.

The Troll Woman “sold” me the product on credit, which was lucky for me since I didn’t even have enough money of my own to withdraw a whole twenty-dollar bill to use for bank. She also gave me a receipt for what I “bought.” This receipt was broken up into units, like coupons or vouchers, one for each package of the product that I had bought. I could cash these coupons in at the commissary throughout the night and get more product any time I wanted to. I could just hand my coupon to the Igor who attended to the Troll Woman, and he would fetch the ice cream or malts or cotton candy or whatever from the freezer or appropriate box. And if I ever ran out of vouchers and still wanted to sell, I could “buy” more from the Troll lady any time.

At the end of the night, I needed to be able to return to the Troll Woman the total amount that I owed to her, but this could be done through a combination of currencies: money, unsold product, or the coupons I hadn’t turned over to her Igor. Hopefully, I was able to do this mostly with money, because I got a cut of anything I sold. But if not, there was no penalty. As long as it all added up, I was fine. So it really didn’t matter how much I bought at the beginning.

What’s much more of a quandary is deciding how much to carry at one time. Ice cream comes in packages of six, so you might want to take three of them at a time. But that gets heavy. Especially with the dry ice added in. So be careful. Malts come eight in a pack, and so do frozen lemonades. Three of those might be too many. Other products, even the lighter ones, have similar considerations. For example, if you take too many Dodger Dogs at one time, the ones on the bottom will be smashed flat and people will not want to pay full price for them. However, you also don’t want to waste too much time going back and forth to the commissary to get more. Also, the commissary is just plain unpleasant, even when dealing only with the Igor, and should be avoided as much as possible.

What I learned pretty quick was that you don’t have to be too worried about frozen stuff melting, especially with the dry ice in the thermal bag. What you do have to worry about is burning the tips of your fingers off while you put the dry ice in your bag.

The dry ice is in an unmarked, unlocked cooler that just sits in the hallway on the field level concourse. There aren’t any tongs or gloves or anything. Like most lessons learned at Dodger Stadium, getting the dry ice into my thermal bag to keep the ice cream frozen was one that I had to teach myself. Each brick of dry ice is in its own plastic bag. If you’re lucky, there will be an open bag with a previously smashed up brick in it, and you can just dump the bag onto the ice cream. If not, you must smash up the brick inside the bag first, then open it, then dump a portion of the bag onto your ice cream. Never just start picking up bricks of dry ice and putting it in your thermal bag. This could result in a burning sensation and a patch of dead skin on your thumb. This I learned my first night.

In addition to learning the innings and outs of the stadium itself, I generally learned a new lesson about selling stuff every time I worked at Dodger Stadium.

My first lesson: Never, ever sell ice cream in the Pavilion.

The Troll in the Field Level Commissary

After scarfing down my free concessions, I went to the commissary to get my product.

I didn’t know what the commissary was, or where. But I found a bunch of guys in red shirts standing around outside a closet door and asked them what was up. They were in line, they said, to get their product.

This line was not ordered by seniority, but regular old first-come, first-served. So I took my place in line and waited to enter the secret closet. It was not a fast line, and it took ten or fifteen minutes to find out what was behind the closed door.

Inside this unmarked door is a Cranky Troll-Woman and her Flunky. The Cranky Troll-Woman was consistently and completely unhappy, for reasons I could not identify. She wore a button with a picture of what must have been her grandson, which indicated to me that she had family. So her deep and unquenchable dissatisfaction with life, I figured, could not be due to a fear of dying alone. She was not disfigured or crippled and certainly wasn’t overworked, and honestly had no excuse for acting so much like a troll.

However, on my first day I tried to put myself in her Troll-Woman shoes. She had to deal with a bunch of untrained newbies who were, no doubt, taxing her patience and wasting her time. She probably wasn’t paid enough to take on the responsibility of shepherding all these fools into their new role at Dodger Stadium, and resented her superiors for putting her in this position. I thought I understood her situation completely, and decided to work extra hard to ask all the right questions and learn all the concession-selling techniques with outstanding alacrity. I congratulated myself on my depth of empathy and knew that before the end of the regular season I would kill the Troll-Woman with sunshiny kindness.

Or not.

I learned quickly. I never again came to a game without my own bank. I usually even brought my own quarters for change. I always decided ahead of time how much product I wanted to buy, and how much I would move at one time. At the end of the night, I counted my money with all the bills facing the same way. I broke down empty boxes, even those that weren’t mine. I always dumped out my dry ice before returning my cold bag. I never put my water bottle on her desk. I smiled at her Flunky. I was the most obsequious little twerp that the Dodger Stadium field level commissary had ever seen. All to no avail.

My empathy soon ran out. This is not a surprise. I am not the most patient of people. In fact, I have a tendency to get rather cranky myself. But this is almost always solved with the timely application of a cheeseburger (or beer). Why the Cranky Troll-Woman didn’t just eat a cheeseburger, which was available to us for free at the Carl’s Junior stand, was a mystery that utterly baffles me to this day. The fact that I had very recently been fed for free or expected to be very soon was the only thing that kept my own crankiness at bay and allowed me to persist with my sunniness.

Until one particular playoff game when several circumstances converged: there was a ridiculous line outside the commissary, I had a ticket for a free meal, and a postseason Red Sox game was on the television in the break room. I got my meal and watched the end of my game instead of getting in line for my daily dose of coworker abuse. If you can criticize me for this, you are a fascist.

When I got to the commissary after the end of the Red Sox game (they lost, I was not happy), there was no more line. I went into the Troll cave to buy my product, which forced the poor overworked Cranky Troll-Woman to put down her crossword and vociferate that I was the last seller to check in.

She demanded to know why. I told her that I had chosen to eat before getting my product. I knew better than to mention that I had also watched at least an inning of a game on TV. She bellowed that I should eat after checking in, and marked down on her sheet when I had arrived. I knew for a fact that I was well within the appropriate time frame to get my product and start selling, and rolled my eyes at her inanity. I spoke nothing but monosyllables for the rest of our transaction.

I finally had to admit that the Cranky Troll-Woman had killed my kindness, and not the other way around. Sometimes, friends, a Troll is just a Troll, and you definitely don’t bother putting on her Troll shoes a second time.

Port of Entry

I walked out of the employee shuttle with a group of obvious Newbies who were just like me: wide-eyed, confused, and sans uniform. Which isn’t to say that we weren’t completely unprepared. The Mysteriously Absent Concessions Company that had sent us to the Stadium told us to wear black pants and black shoes. There was no mention of socks. Mine were black, just in case.

The Regular Guys were already lined up in front of the stadium, right in front of the gates. They were all wearing red shirts, and carrying a heavy duty strap, like a disembodied seatbelt, over their shoulders. (Many Dodgers fans like to harass the hawkers for their red shirts, particularly when the Diamondbacks are in town. Well, you know what? Can it, jerks. We wear red because the poor suckers who work at the concession stands wear blue. We need to be differentiated because we’re badasses. Never mind. You wouldn’t understand. You’re not badass enough.)

We Newbies were scolded for not arriving at the stadium two hours before game time, even though the Head Honchos knew that the Mysteriously Absent Concessions Company had failed to tell us that we needed to. Then we each received a red shirt and a seat-belt strap and were told to line up behind the Regular Guys. This was the extent of my training.

The Newbies and the Regular Guys then commenced to talking, and I found out a little bit more about my job, and the company that had hired me. The Mysteriously Absent Concessions Company, which, you may have inferred, was mysteriously absent from the stadium, was apparently famous for being indifferent to its employees. Most commonly, the company hired too many candy sellers for events, and each seller’s sales were therefore limited. Many of the people who had worked for them before had made as little as ten or twenty dollars in commission at some events. Since the job didn’t pay anything besides commission, the company’s bottom line was not affected by hiring too many people, unless it actually increased their total sales.

Dodger Stadium, bless their Manny-loving souls, does things differently. They assign the products and the sections so that no one ever has to compete against another seller with the same product. “How clever!” we Newbies exclaimed. “How thoughtful, how neat!” We were immediately told that the union probably wouldn’t allow them to do otherwise.

Union? Yep. They even pay dues.

I made a mental note of this, and decided that I would only work for the Mysteriously Absent company when they had contracts at Dodger Stadium. I also secretly decided that if the night didn’t go well, I could ditch my uniform and watch a free ball game. The idea of a free ball game warmed my heart. The recollection of free parking sent me nearly into a state of euphoria.

But first, I had to get to the front of the line. Which was moving very slowly. And mysteriously. What was going on in this line, anyway? The Head Honchos were up at the front at a podium, and they were speaking to each hawker two at a time and letting them walk into the stadium.

After a few minutes, though, the constantly revolving conversations answered my questions. At the front of the line, you would choose your product and section from what was still available. The line was ordered by seniority; the guys who had worked the most games got the first pick of product and section.

The guys who have worked the most games at Dodger Stadium have worked almost every game at Dodger Stadium since it was built in 1962. Seriously. One of the Old Guys says he came to Los Angeles with the Dodgers, as though part of Walter O’Malleys infamous move. I kind of believe he did.

The Old Guys always sell peanuts. Coincidentally, peanuts are both the lightest product and the biggest sellers, so the seniority system works out pretty well for the Old Guys. I was also told, while waiting in line, that the worst sellers were Cracker Jacks. This surprised me, since Cracker Jacks have peanuts in them, and are sort of old-timey like peanuts, and I said as much. This set off a great deal of grumbling about the poor state of modern Cracker Jacks; too much popcorn, not enough peanuts, and jerk-off prizes that no one wants, it’s no wonder that they don’t sell.

“Cotton Candy does all right, but the board that they have them on is awkward and you need to be kind of tall to keep from smacking people upside the head.” “

“Water or soda is always a good seller, but I don’t know about any girls selling it. How much do you weigh? You know a good chiropractor?”

“Ice cream is all right, but best for a day game.”

“Do Ice Cream, it’s six dollars, so you can sell less of them and make more.”

“Malts are better than Ice Cream.”

“Malts are cheap.”

“Malts are gross.”

“Malts have the tradition factor. Guy takes his kid to a game, he gets two dodger dogs, a beer for him, a malt for the kid. Do malts.”

“Then there’s Lemonade.”

“Better for a day game.”
“Sure, but still. There’s always Lemonade.”

“What’s malts?” was on the tip of my tongue, but the two guys in front of me had just reached the top of the line and walked up to the Head Honchos before I could ask. And then it was my turn.

The Head Honchos had a diagram of the stadium spread out before them, with products listed in each section. This whole operation felt a lot like a test, but mostly like one that I knew I’d already failed. All I wanted to do was walk through that open door and into the stadium. But first I had to get past this Head Honcho who was guarding the entrance like a red-shirted St. Peter.

“What do I do?” I said.

“How do you want your stairs?”

“Stairs?”

“Not too steep, yeah?”

“Yeah, medium stairs.”

“Ice cream, maybe, that be good?”

“I don’t know, isn’t it expensive?”

“Yeah, so you sell less and make more. Do ice cream.”

“Okay.”

“Ice Cream. You’re in the pavilion, right and left. You go down to the field level to get your product, okay?”

“Uh…”

“You got your bank, right?”

There was a lot of groaning when the Head Honchos realized that the Mysteriously Absent Concessions Company had not told us to bring our own bank, which is really more like a cash register than a bank, because you’re meant to make change from it. Since I had no cash on me, and not enough money to withdraw from my own bank account (I know, isn’t that sad. Woeful, even.), they would have to front me the money for my bank.

Finally, I was dismissed, and sent to the door of the stadium. I was so excited to finally go in that I almost didn’t hear one of the Head Honchos hollering after me. He was chasing me down with a little ticket that looked like a raffle ticket. He handed it to me.

“Your meal.”

I looked at it. It was a voucher for two Dodger Dogs and large drink, $15 worth of Dodgers concessions.

“Do NOT ask for peanuts. They’ll kill us.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t ask. Okay kid?”

I wasn’t going to ask. I could go without peanuts, for whatever strange reason they were off limits.

I didn’t pay to park, I didn’t pay to get in, and I was handed a free meal. And there was a chance, if all went well, that I’d get a paycheck, too. Never, ever, has any door felt more like a set of Pearly Gates than the entrance to Dodger Stadium that day.

Free Parking Is The Luckiest Space On The Board

It’s always a little scary starting an odd job. Not only are they typically a little odd, but you’re also never entirely sure that you will be paid.

I have taken a few babysitting or catering jobs in the past without knowing exactly what or how I will get paid, causing me to wonder each time if I am a fool. But one must decide in these situations that the only way to be sure you won’t get paid is not to show up at all. This is what I told myself as I prepared for my first Dodgers game.

The Terse Woman who responded to my email sent me the appropriate tax forms and told me to bring them to the Stadium. She also told me to park in lot 13. So I went to the Dodger Stadium website and tried to figure out which lot was 13.

I was particularly anxious about parking. This is normal. I live in LA.

When I worked in film marketing in Boston, I helped to maintain all the paid movie clocks in the country for Loews Theatres. When Loews Universal City Walk temporarily decided to reimburse for parking, my boss wanted to be absolutely sure that the Los Angeles Times movie clock advertised the offer. I was pretty indifferent about the news itself, and she felt it was necessary to tell me that, “parking is a big deal in LA.”

No shit.

As a little girl, I once asked my mother why people in movies that were set in New York always took cabs. She explained that no one owned a car in New York because there was nowhere to park one. (I believe I may have asked her where, if that was the case, they parked all their cabs. I was in impertinent child.) If that were true, no one would own a car in Los Angeles, either. Which is, of course, not the case. You absolutely must own a car here, and there’s never any parking.

It’s also necessary to own a car in Texas, and you must drive your car from one store to another within the same shopping center because there’s too damn much parking and you’ll get dehydrated trying to walk across the lot. Los Angeles, when it comes to driving, gets the short end of every damn stick.

After several digressions, I return to the topic at hand. Lot 13.

Lot 13 was not on the parking map, and the Terse Woman was not responding to my questions. So I decided to wing it, and just drove to Dodger Stadium and went right up to the Sunset Gates. I was told to U turn just inside the gate, go back out, and turn left on Stadium Way. There’s a parking lot on the left, and it’s the employee overflow lot—otherwise known as lot 13.

No one stopped me or insisted on seeing ID. I just parked, and followed the other people weaving their way to the employee shuttle. I climbed aboard, again without any credentials, and rode in comfort all the way up to the Reserve Level entrance.

I could not believe my luck. Free parking! Free Ballgame! I didn’t think it could get any better, whether I got paid or not.

Called up to the Majors

The days ahead were filled with craigslist.

I have been reading a great deal lately about the dangerous of craigslist.org, and have even seen some tips on how to use the website safely. Let me say for the record that I am a fan of craigslist. I have found each of my apartments and roommates since college on craigslist. And I have had a string of uncommonly fantastic roommates. I have bought no less than three beds on craigslist, none of which had bugs. I have bought a room divider, a futon, and two bicycles. Craigslist even helped me find a local band to transport a new-to-me bed to my house with their van. They were nice guys. They gave me their demo cd and only smacked one of the door frames.

I have sold two of the three beds, and I’m still sleeping on the third. I have sold a microwave, television, and scores of desks and bookshelves. And the room divider, and the futon. The only issue I had with any of these experiences was getting the futon up two flights of stairs; it was difficult because I couldn’t figure out how to get it apart. When I sold it, the gentlemen who bought it had no problem prying apart and toting it back down without so much as a grunt. While I feel that I got the raw end of this deal, there’s no arguing that I haven't had a lot of luck on craigslist.

I’m sure you’re all dying to know my secrets to safely using craigslist. Well here they are: I don’t offer up any sexual favors on craigslist and meet the men who say they want to pay, and I refuse to meet anyone who responds to my emails with less than adequate skill in both composition and punctuation. So far, I have not regretted it.

And I even, once up on a time, found a job on craigslist that was nothing short of a dream come true.

One day in September of 2008, I found a post on craigslist that advertised an opportunity to hawk concessions at Dodger Stadium.

There were two reasons that I flipped completely out. One, the ad said that the job could pay as much as $150 in one night. Two, it was peripherally related to baseball. I love baseball. It’s a simple statement, but my reasons are complex, and probably a little odd.

A lot of people like to say that baseball is a game of inches: out by an inch, out by a mile. I don’t know that this statement is any less true for football, though, in which the entire objective is to move the ball a number of inches down the field. I like to say that baseball is a game of moments; the game breaks down into segments which are measured by achievement, and not by time. Games are divided by innings, which are divided by outs, also called plays or at-bats, which can often divide further into strikes.

All of these moments happen in threes. The home team gets three times three chances to beat the visiting team in the bottom of each inning. The batter gets three swings before he has wasted his chance to run the bases; the pitcher can send the batter three bad throws before he owes the batter something he can hit. The defending team must stop three men before they can return to offense, and each man scoring a run has already touched three bags, three gauntlets on the field.

To a storyteller’s mind, this means that each at-bat, each half-inning, and each game, has a beginning, middle, and end.

This is why extra innings make me very upset; they destroy the Aristotelian structure of the game. But at least there isn’t a clock ticking somewhere, and the game continues to play, moment by moment, achievement by achievement.

Even more storylike, each moment, however small in itself, can have a huge impact on the rest of the game.

Consider a game in June of 2007 in which Kurt Schilling was an out away from pitching his only no-hitter and allowed the first hit. Perhaps baseball is a game of inches, because pitching an inch away from a no-hitter results in just another game. But look back in the scorecard and see that Schilling also had a perfect game until Julio Lugo committed an error in the fifth, allowing a man on base. An error removed the possibility of a perfect game, but the possibility of throwing a no-hitter was still there. But when Lugo made the error, he made it possible for another player came up to bat. If there had been no error, Schilling would have pitched to only 27 men. Instead, he pitched to 28, and allowed the only hit to the 28th.

There are no unnecessary moments in baseball, and nothing is too small to be insignificant. This is why statistics play such an important role in baseball. People even more obsessive than I am record each of these tiny moments, and nothing is ever forgotten or lost. This is so that every moment of every game can be measured against those that came before, and we can all understand its significance in the greater story.

All I really mean to say is, I love baseball. And when I got a chance to work at Dodger Stadium, I jumped all over it. I replied to the email, and received a quick reply. I was told to grab my gear and head over to Dodger Stadium. They’d have a uniform for me when I got there.

Let me give you a tip

As the night began to grow chill, and the Subway wrappers were all thrown away, the Boss of the Outfit started prepping us for the pick-ups.

Over eight-hundred cars had been parked before the show. The garage itself had been mapped out on a grid, so that each row of cars was assigned an alphabetical letter, and each space in that row was numbered from left to right. Each car was in a space, with the letter and number of the space written on the ground in chalk. And each set of car keys was labeled with a letter and number to match the space.

The full-time drivers for this company had been busy at work labeling the car keys while the rest of us were eating sandwiches and staring at the wall, and now all the keys were hanging on one of several boards, all of which were set up on a horseshoe-shaped set of folding tables. The same full-time employees were now inside that ring of tables and boards, all of those keys hanging before them with their neat little tags.

As the guests came out of the auditorium, they handed their ticket to the hot-shots behind the table. The hot-shot matched the ticket to a set of keys, and handed those keys to the first driver standing in a long line. The driver then reads the location of the car, and starts running.

I remembered wondering what the Boss of the Outfit was talking about when he said we’d be running. Now it all made sense.

As you may have already realized, these cars were not the shiny black limos and sedans that brought the famous people to the red carpet. The cars we had parked were driven by regular people, people who were neither famous nor beautiful. But this was entirely irrelevant, as even people who drive their own cars to the Emmys have cash in their pockets. And getting that cash into our own pockets was the single objective of the next several hours.

The key to tips is turnover, I discovered. I probably would have already known this if, like the rest of the world, I had ever waitressed. The point is to run as quickly as possible to the car, drive the car as quickly as possible to the owner, collect the fat tip waiting for you, and run back to the line to fetch the next car.

Obviously, the more cars one gets, the more money one earns, but there is another reason for all this running. It’s important to get as many cars as possible because it helps to make up for the jackasses who don’t tip their valet driver at the Emmys.

I’ll admit it. I have failed to tip the valet driver at Mexican restaurants when I was unable to find street parking and felt that tipping the valet a dollar was too much to pay when the price of parking alone cost twice as much as the happy hour margaritas. I feel a little bad about this. But lets be honest. Happy hour at El Torito just isn’t at all like going to the Emmys. That’s because one is happy hour, and the other is THE EMMYS.

It’s difficult to decide whether or not the type of car has anything to do with the type of tip one will receive. I personally, don’t think it does, not most of the time. It also doesn’t matter whether or not the owner is male or female, not in my experience. However you slice it, though, there are plenty of people who don’t tip.

Towards the end of the evening, after most of the cars were gone and it was therefore much easier to find the cars, I was sprinting towards row P, space 17, and couldn’t find my car until I almost tripped on it. It was European, of course, and had a standard transmission. Not a car for someone who gets confused by a Prius’s power switch. I hollered for help, and traded keys with another driver who had no problem contorting himself into a pretzel and driving the itty bitty vehicle with a toothpick-sized shift.

I looked at the keys in my hand, noted the location of my new car, and sprinted towards it. Like I said, my experience had not convinced me that ugly cars meant bad tips, but this car immediately made me check my faith. It was a late-nineties Chevy Malibu that hadn’t been washed since the summer of 2007, and the interior was entirely covered in dirt. But the worst, the absolute worst, was the smell. This car had recently transported a wet dog. For many, many, poorly-ventilated hours.

I drove the car around to the curb, and as soon as I spotted my owner I felt bad about judging him for his car. It clearly belonged to his parents, who had only loaned it to him for the night. Of course he didn’t tip me, but who could blame him? His mind was on other things, since he must have been terrified of missing his curfew. I mean, cripes! He could be grounded for being a minute late with the car! My only question was why someone who isn’t old enough to shave should be invited to the Emmys.

Dear Academy of Television Arts and Sciences: Can you please explain to your seat-fillers that valet drivers should be tipped, even if said seat-filler has to sacrifice a portion of his or her Clearasil budget in order to do so? Thanks.

That was the last car of the night. Gritting my teeth, I shut the door of the Malibu and trudged back to the garage. I counted my money; I had earned $70 in tips.

While I turned in my tie and vest, I finally found the Random College Student who had recruited me. She asked me how she could get my wages to me, which would be paid to me in cash, but through her. After running through the list of our acquaintance and discovering that we shared no one, she asked me where I lived. She said she went to CalState, Fullerton. I blankly stared at her, only relatively certain that Fullerton was not a place in the Valley.

We decided we would be in touch about the money. I hoped that I could trust her, but figured that I at least had $70 more than before, and went home happy.

Working My Shift

There are two types of people who do valet at such a large event as the Emmy’s for this particular company. They are: sorority girls, or regular valet drivers who work for the company all the time. I am neither, so the day was lonely, and especially irritating.

I suppose that the Random College Student In Charge of Such Things is herself in a sorority, and this is the reason that so many of the people contracted to work at this event are so very far from clever. I suppose I should be charitable here and suppose that all young women between the ages of nineteen and twenty-one are bound to be shrill, insipid little gum-chewers who don’t know that the top button of a white shirt must be buttoned when one wears a tie, polyester or otherwise. But I personally suspect that the young women who are not in a sorority are far less annoying. God knows they couldn’t be more annoying, not if they tried.

But all I’m really trying to do here is get across just exactly how poorly I think of myself. If nothing is funnier than watching a grown man hide his white socks, nothing is more depressing than realizing that the Alpha Delta Pi currently smacking her gum to your left is capable of driving a stick shift, but you are not.

It isn’t like I haven’t tried.

In fact, my father taught me to drive a stick shift before he taught me to drive an automatic. He claimed that it would be an easy matter to switch from the former to the latter, but not the other way around. Of course he was right. So I practiced driving his Toyota 4Runner around the community college parking lot until I was ready to drive the car home. On my first journey on the open road, we stopped at the video store to return some videos. A guy in the parking lot mentioned to my dad that he’d always wanted a 4Runner, and offered to buy the truck if my father could ever stand parting with it. Evidently, my dad wanted to sell the truck, though he had never mentioned it before, and the guy in the video store parking lot bought our family’s only standard transmission automobile the week after I learned to drive it.

It was all automatics after that, and I’ve never looked back until I did valet at the Emmy’s.

The Boss of the Outfit assured all of us that it was okay if we didn’t know how to drive a particular kind of transmission. In fact, he made us promise to get out of any car that made us in any way nervous or uncomfortable. Passing the car off to a more experienced driver is far better than crashing it.

I was relieved to hear this, until I realized that things have become even more complicated since I learned to drive. You used to just put the key in and turn to start the engine, and maybe, if necessary, depress the clutch. But now there are these strange, noiseless vehicles that look like regular cars but are reserved for those people who are indeed rich enough to be actually concerned about the environment, are not rich enough to be concerned about the environment but wish to appear to be so, or are truly rich and only want to look concerned. I am none of the above, and therefore didn’t know how to drive a hybrid.

The actual driving of a hybrid was not in any way different than driving any car that is entirely out of my price range. Intimidating, yes, but the steering wheel and the brake and the accelerator were all in the right place. It’s the starting and stopping of the electric power that is the tricky part, because the car gives precious little indication of its power status. On or off, the damn things are quiet and futuristic.

And then there are the cars that start with the push of a button. And then there are cars that start with fobs. They confused me terribly. And there are even some cars, like a Jaguar I drove, that have a transmission that looks like the volume knob on a stereo. You just turn in a couple notches to the right to put it in drive, and turn it back to put it in park.

I discovered that many of the people who had signed up for the job were not as desperate for employment as myself, but only wanted to drive really expensive cars all afternoon. The Sorority Sisters were indeed some of those most keen on getting the “hot cars.” The sight of a European car with its top down could cause a shrieking chorus of “DIBS!!!” so urgent that several off the girls accidentally spat out their Extra from excitement and glee.

I rarely joined into this feeding frenzy during the arrivals, since there were far more drivers waiting to hop into a car than there were cars with guests waiting to hop out. And besides, most of the hot cars had clutches, so I had to take the Camrys and Accords whenever they were available. A notable exception was the Jaguar with the dial-a-gear transmission. But the seat was so low in that car I could barely drive it, and had to peer over the steering wheel like a prairie dog on the lookout for coyotes, which made it just a little less fun.

After all the arrivals were parked, there was nothing to do but sit and wait for the ceremony to be over. Subway sandwiches were delivered, and I couldn’t believe my good fortune. Nothing beats a job with a free meal.

Industry awards ceremonies are incredibly long, as anyone who has watched one on television can attest. But sitting on a cold folding chair in a parking garage, staring at the wall in your black socks and abhorrent polyester vest, in fact makes the hours pass more quickly than actually watching the show.

It wasn’t long before we were preparing for the end of the ceremony, which is just the beginning of the show for valet drivers.

Knock my socks off

If my contacts haven't often helped me in my writing career, they have all done a great deal to help me make money. While I lament that these two things seem to be forever sundered I am grateful for the opportunities that I have had. Case in point: industry awards valet.

Last September A friend of mine found out from someone at her internship that some random college student was looking for people to do valet at the Emmys. My friend sent this person’s email address to me and I was able to get on the list of drivers. All I needed to provide was my driver’s license number, and then I just needed to show up on time and in uniform. I even owned up to the fact that I was not comfortable driving a stick shift, but the random college student in charge of these things told me that my limited skills would not keep me from performing the job.

I have no idea if they checked my driving record. They didn’t seem to mind that I could only drive half the cars that needed to be parked. But Jiminy Crickets they were concerned about socks.

The uniform for drivers hired by this particular valet company, and I would guess many others, is a white button-down shirt with long sleeves (no three-quarter sleeves), black slacks (no black jeans), entirely black shoes, and black socks. Evidently, you can only ask people to pay attention to three components of their outfit. Requiring more than that will inevitably lead to incidents of dress code violation, and in this case, the first thing to go is the socks.

I arrived at the Nokia Center exactly at 1pm, as requested. There, dozens of other drivers and I were given black polyester vests and matching ties. When everyone had on his or her ill-fitting valet accoutrements, the Boss of the Outfit (not the random college student, who still had not presented herself) gathered us all around him and started lecturing us on socks.

He explained that white socks would show up while we were running, which would look terrible and embarrass the company. I tried to imagine a scenario in which I would run in this garage, and could only surmise that running would be required after I crashed someone’s Porsche so terribly that I would need to flee on foot. I panicked at this thought, but supposed that the guests would not be allowed to bring their weapons into the event. Therefore, the angry owner of the Porche would have to retrieve his gun from the flaming vehicle before shooting me, allowing me to get away unscathed. Unless the Boss of the Outfit, who did not have to pass through any security screens, had a gun on him right now and felt that death by shooting was an appropriate punishment for such transgressions. Which I thought might be possible, because he was now lining everyone up and demanding to see their socks.

Luckily, I had noted all the details of the dress code and could proudly pull up my slacks and display black socks. But not all of the valet drivers could boast such a claim. And there is nothing funnier than watching a grown man trying to hide his white gym socks from the watchful eye of the Boss of the Outfit. A couple guys tried to hide in the line, but they were called out, their ankles inspected. A couple others tried to lazily pull up their pants legs just a little, and so quickly, that the luminosity of their white socks might be overlooked. But no such luck. The Boss of the Outfit cannot be duped. More than one poor driver was sent home for not being properly dressed.

Take note, friends. If the job requires black socks, you’d better get yourself a pair.

I want some cheese with my whine

Just a little side note:

I mentioned that I had worked in the past at a bakery counter or two. It’s true, I did. And I was certainly open to providing counter service again. So when I saw a “help wanted” sign in the window of a cheese and wine shop within walking distance to my house, I perceived another opportunity. Because I like wine, but I will lay down my life for cheese.

So I went home, spiffed up my appearance, and printed out my resume on my most expensive hire-me-so-I-can-stop-wasting-money-on-paper paper. I went in and dropped it off with the girl at the counter, who promised to show it to the owner.

Not long after, I got a phone call from the owner. I was thrilled. Oh happy day! I could work at a cheese and wine shop! Walk to work! Claim some pathetic kind of personal value for working in an upscale establishment with high price points!

But the owner did not seem as impressed by my printed-on-cotton resume as I had hoped. She wanted to know why I hadn’t stayed in any one position for very long. I pointed out that I had been at the same company for three years before going to graduate school, which of course disrupted the natural flow of my employment history.

With disdain she asked me why I wanted to work at her shop if. She wanted to know why, if I had put so much time into a graduate degree, I didn’t look for a job in that field. I couldn’t really explain that one does not simply walk onto the Warner Brothers lot, ask for a job application, and inscribe “writer” in the space left for position desired. (You would be surprised how many people have asked me why I don’t just do this). I told her that I still write, but must work somewhere in the meantime. She seemed skeptical, and I couldn't figure out why.

I couldn’t believe this woman. She thinks she can find, in a place called Studio City, part time counter help from anyone who does not have headshots or scripts for sale or both. Seriously?

She told me she would get back to me, and of course she didn’t. Because my resume doesn’t reflect the kind of loyalty necessary to a position in a cheese and wine shop.

My response to this insult has become, these last six months, my constant refrain. And it goes like this: Oh come on, I HAVE TWO DEGREES!

Well, there's always waitressing

I decided early on that I would not seek the agency route, but that left me with no idea of what to do next. As my internships wrapped up and my funds started to dwindle, and as I realized that my contacts at the former weren’t able to remedy the latter, I set about to discover an alternate plan.

I needed a job, that was clear, but I needed not to work, so I could write. I wracked my brain for ideas. What job required few hours but provided many dollars? The obvious answer, of course, is dancing naked for money. But I wasn’t quite sure I had that particular skill set, and decided to try other, less naked options.

The next obvious choice is waitressing. Everyone has waited tables at some point in their career. Everyone except for me. I have hosted at a couple restaurants, and I have worked counter service at a couple bakeries. But I have never actually waited tables. I am not qualified to do a job that everyone else in the world learned to do in high school or college. I try not to let this bother me.

I pondered getting a job at a restaurant that really doesn’t care about experience. Like Shakey’s. Then I could work my way up to the nice restaurants with the real tablecloths and the fat tips. Except that working my way up in the table-waiting world sounded incredibly depressing. As does Shakey's.

I know what you’re thinking. It has crossed my mind, too. It’s probably easier to get hired to dance naked for fat tips than it is to get hired to serve expensive food. I hear you, friend, but I’m still thinking I like my employment a little less bare-chested.

It occurred to me that I could apply for hosting positions in nicer establishments, then work up to waiting tables. I had some experience, which I thought would help.

Nope. There are a few things that help when it comes to finding a hostessing job. Knowing the guy who is doing the hiring is a bit of a leg up. After all, we’re still talking about Hollywood and the surrounding area, and it’s all about networking.

A friend of mine knew that a friend of hers had recently opened a restaurant, and I knew she’d give me a good recommendation if I got an interview. So I decided to check it out. I called the restaurant to inquire about a position. The manager on the phone asked me if I spoke only Seoul or Pyongan as well. After a few moments of perplexed silence, he gathered that I spoke not at all, and asked if I was still on the phone. I managed a “huh?” and he replied that speaking fluent Korean was required of all his staff.

Not to worry. If you don’t know the hiring manager, or even if you have a connection but don’t speak several dialects of a foreign language, you can still land an $8/hour hostess position at a Hollywood restaurant or lounge if you are devastatingly beautiful. Again, merely pretty will not cut the mustard. Your beauty must be so blinding that a haughty smile alone could convince the clientele that they are absurdly fortunate to even gain entrance to the establishment, much less find themselves so blessed as to have their hard-earned plastic accepted in exchange for weak drinks and microwaved hors d’oeuvres.

This is, yet again, something I learned first hand. For example. I applied to one high-end establishment that was still under construction and waited while the manager spoke to someone on the phone. While I waited, a younger, thinner, blonder girl walked right past me and handed her resume and head shot to the manager. Then she sauntered over to someone else working behind the bar and they started chatting about all their mutual friends. I continued to wait calmly, but what was going on in my head was not calm. “HEAD SHOT? You can’t be serious!” and, “I’m screwed anyway, that girl knows him! Crap.” When I handed over my resume, I got, “no head shot?” in return.

Head shots, from what I understand, are absurdly expensive. Even the crappy ones cost an arm, and as I’ve already told you, a number of my limbs are still in hock for my internships. I was asking for a crap job that wasn’t even the crap job that I really wanted, and I was expected to purchase head shots and have the devastatingly beautiful face to put inside the expensive photograph. That, or speak Korean.

I couldn't waitress.
I couldn't hostess.
And I didn't really have the skill set for dancing naked.

What to do? What to do? Luckily for me, awards season was gearing up.

Requirements: One Year of Agency Experience Or Well, there’s always the mailroom

In entertainment lore, there is only one way to the top, and that is by starting at the bottom. This is, of course, absurd. Everyone knows that the best way to make it to the top is to be born there already.

You can also sleep your way to the top, but you need to be devastatingly beautiful for this to work. If you are merely pretty, you will get bedded here and there, but be careful. The trick to sleeping your way up is to make the executive or producer feel as though you are bestowing your graces upon him, like a pixie offering a magical token to an unexpected hero. If the man you want something from doesn’t feel incredibly lucky to boink you, he won’t feel like he has to do anything to keep you. As a result, you slept your way to nowhere. Therefore, don’t sleep with anyone unless you are devastatingly beautiful.

But for those of us poor plebs who are neither high-born nor beautiful, the only option left is to start at the bottom. Luckily for us bottom-feeders, the entertainment industry has been structured in just such a way that starting at the bottom is a clear path to incredible success. And the bottom, friends, is the mailroom.

Almost all of the jobs on the UTA list require agency experience. Agency experience can only be obtained one way—by getting a job in the mailroom of an agency. The theory goes that after you prove yourself in the mailroom, you can move up to the desk of an actual agent as his or her assistant. If you can stand this heat, you may go into training as an agent yourself. If you survive that long, you may someday be an agent.

You will meet all the major players at an agency and see every aspect of how the business works. So even if you don’t want to be an agent, there really isn’t anywhere that you can’t go with agency experience. You could become an executive at a production company, maybe even a studio exec, or an indie producer with a huge rolodex. You will, in short, be rich. Therefore, agency experience is a good thing to have.

You might be asking yourself why everyone doesn’t just go out and get some agency experience. You probably would love to know why I don’t just follow my own advice. Let me explain. As the above implies, the mailroom is a proving ground. You will, in fact, be thrust directly into the fire to be tested. If you can still fetch an agent’s vanilla soy nonfat latte with third degree burns over eighty percent of your body, congratulations. You’ve made it to the second round of interviews for a junior-level mailroom position.

Not all agencies are exactly the same, but they typically fall into two categories. Those that are huge, and those that are not. The huge ones are Creative Artists Agency (CAA), William Morris Agency, International Creative Management (ICM), United Talent Agency (UTA), and Endeavor, which is only recently huge. Then there are the boutiques. The boutiques, as you may have guessed, do not always have mailrooms. They often want to hire people who have experience at the huge agencies. But occasionally, when all the right stars are in alignment, they will show an interest in applicants who do not have agency experience. Don’t assume, however, that those are lucky stars.

The second (and last) interview I received from a job on the UTA list was at a boutique agency. They needed an assistant for one of their talent agents and asked me for an interview. This interview was much better than the last, and I liked all the people I spoke with. Nevertheless, things weren’t going to work out. They explained that the hours were 9am to 7pm, Monday through Friday, for $500 per week. Be warned, friends. Any time someone offers a daily or weekly rate, you will be working overtime, but you will not be paid overtime. The maximum hourly rate I would ever be paid for this job was $10 per hour. If I worked overtime, and I would have, the hourly rate would have dipped even lower.

Entry-level agency jobs pay shit and abuse. But, the theory is, you get invaluable experience and contacts. If you are one of the lucky high-borns, you are actually at the top of the business because your family already has contacts; you don’t have to do any networking. And as anyone in the business will tell you, it’s all about networking. It’s all about who you know.

I disagree completely. You can call me naïve if you like. You’ll be correct in saying so. After all, I have been in Los Angeles for less than a year. But I’m also not wrong. Take note that never at any point in the above description of the agency system did I say that agency experience would make me a better writer. That’s because it won’t. The only thing that will make me a better writer is more writing, and that’s the one thing that an agency job will deny me.

If you’re one of those lovely people who feel like you know exactly where I should hang out and who I should be speaking to, let me explain something. It is not hard to meet people. Networking (and it’s all about networking) is not hard. Because here’s the catch to the whole thing: these people who have walked through fire and hell to be an agent, those lovely agents with whom I should be networking, have to keep proving themselves by finding sellable properties. And I want my stories to be those coveted properties. Networking is easy, but writing a tight, compelling, commercial, character-driven screenplay to hand over to the agents in my network is fucking hard. If you don’t believe me, send me your script. I’m out of toilet paper, don’t have money to buy more, and need to wipe my ass with something.

I am willing to trade my thumbs to be a successful writer. (Successful, for the sake of clarity, means having an audience, not money.) Really, I mean it. I can press the space bar with my middle finger. Look, I am doing it right now. Unfortunately, the gods, muses, or writing genies in control of these matters do not trade in thumbs. Good writing is bought with time, and effort. Getting the ass into the chair to write is the only way to become a writer. In the end, if I get my success, I will have handed over my life to get it.

Now you can see why I don’t work in a mailroom. Because being an agent or a producer requires your whole life, too. And I only have one to spend.

The UTA List

When I moved to Los Angeles, I spent three months working for free at two internships. In fact, I paid to have these jobs, because they were given to me in exchange for school credit, which costs money. A lot of money. Especially since the last semester of my graduate degree, the semester in which I did my internships, was the only time the University gave me neither in-state status nor a fellowship to cover tuition costs. One internship cost me one arm, the other, one leg. Roughly.

But I wasn’t bothered. It was absurdly easy to get my internships, one of them in the office of an Oscar-winning writer/director, and I had no worries about finding a job when the semester came to an end. I would pay off my student debt with the ease and grace of a dancer, I thought. This may prove to be true, if I do someday give in and start dancing for money. I’m not there yet, but don’t assume that it won’t ever happen.

In September, my internships were over and still I had no worries. Several things then occurred. One, some banks failed. They weren’t banks where I had checking accounts, so I incorrectly assumed I wasn’t affected and carried on with my business, which included applying to everything on the UTA list. The UTA List was the second thing to occur…that is to say, a lot of nothing.

The UTA list is a word document that advertises otherwise secret entertainment job postings. It’s sort of like a special industry craigslist, but with a hint of exclusivity. Though it is sent out via email by the United Talent Agency, anyone can put a posting on it if they know the right people. The list is supposed to be extremely hard to get. But it’s not. If you ask me for it, I’ll get it from one of several contacts and send it along, no questions asked. One of the reasons I will do this is that it’s absolutely worthless.

Don’t get me wrong, the UTA list has helped me out in the past. In fact, I got one of my luxury internships, for which I am still in debt, through the UTA list. This happened to be in the office of the Oscar-winning writer, who is a very nice guy. He even emailed me on my birthday, six months after I left his office. And it isn’t as though I didn’t enjoy working there. I read a good number of excellent books, most of them still unpublished and in PDF or galley form, and told the writer/director whether or not I thought he should make them into a movie. I was more than happy to pay a leg, roughly, for the chance to read fiction all day, and I am appreciative to the University for accepting my payment and allowing me to receive credits in exchange.

One day, I was reading a novel in this office when a television director came in for a meeting. He was curious as to how I could get such a coveted position, and I explained that I found it on the UTA list. He was surprised, and said that he had never received a job just by sending in a resume. I was rather proud of myself for having accomplished this feat.

Let me just say that it is not hard to get a job by submitting your resume if you are in fact purchasing your own employment. Trying to get someone to give you money on the basis of only your resume is a whole other enchilada. Even if you have access to the UTA list.

Alas, this is something one must learn first-hand. Believing that I had access to an exclusive list with which I had been lucky in the past, I sent off a slew of resumes to any and all job postings on the UTA list. The very next day I received a request for an interview. I went, and spent fifteen minutes talking to a woman in a dark and cluttered office about whether or not the executives at my two internships were paid for their work. I was confused. And still am. I have no idea what this woman was trying to find out, not even now. But she did tell me that they were offering $25k per year to the assistant who they would eventually hire. I suppose I should have been pleased that they weren’t asking me to pay for the privilege of working for them. But I was not exactly wowed by the sum.

I sent off dozens more resumes the next week. And the week after that. I scanned each post on the UTA list every time it made its way to my inbox. I even downgraded from assistant positions to receptionist positions, but I heard nothing back. Not for another two months did I have another interview.

Don’t think, though, that I didn’t have any work. Oh heavens, no. There are ways to survive LA. Even when the UTA List fails you. And even when the banks fail, too.