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.