Everything I ever learned about capitalism, I learned selling comedy tickets to strangers on the streets of New York City.
The first lesson is to never, under any circumstance, sell the product because the product is crap. Sell yourself. Humans trust other humans. People make promises, not things. And the secret to selling yourself is simple: Make eye contact, grin, and lie. That last bit is critical.
What I was selling wasn’t even really a ticket. I mean, it wasn’t a scam, either. Not exactly. Here’s how it worked: Comedy clubs, at the time, were never fully booked. So they permitted promotions companies to print discount “tickets” — laminated cards with a phone number printed on them. The customer would call the number on the card, and the comedy club would pack them in whenever they could.
Oh, you bought a “ticket” off the street? You can come to the 5:30 p.m. show. There’s a three expensive, watered-down drink minimum, and here, sit at this table that’s also in front of a column.
The business also sold discounts to hair salons because, like comedy clubs, a hair salon can never have too many bookings. I wasn’t asked to sell haircuts, though. No one buys discount haircuts from people who are insecure and unkempt, and I was both.
I’m not saying all stand-up comedians are unattractive. That is a lazy stereotype. Many stand-up comedians are average-looking. And some are attractive. My employers, however, loved a lazy stereotype. They wanted me to play a part because I looked the part, and I didn’t even have to buy all new secondhand clothes to do it.
I was not a stand-up comic. I have never been a stand-up comic. My bottomless hunger for attention manifests completely differently from a stand-up comedian’s, and I hope you share this essay with your friends.
Ifound the comedy ticket job in one of the free alternative newspapers that used to sit in dirty boxes on street corners. The ad was in the back of the paper, along with the real estate listings, horoscopes, and phone numbers for private massages. You can find all that on the internet now, but in 1996, it was printed on cheap paper with ink that would stain your fingertips.
The ad wanted recent college graduates interested in creative opportunities, and I was both a recent college graduate and interested in creative opportunities — or, really, any opportunities. I couldn’t get a waitstaff job because I had the grace of an avocado. I was hired briefly to operate a freight elevator, but “up” and “down” proved challenging concepts.
I had no pedigree. No connections. I just assumed the world would walk up to me, wallets open. I didn’t know, at the time, that I benefited from white male privilege.
Here’s why I think the concept of white male privilege angers so many white men: You can be born into the ruling racial class of society and catch breaks others don’t but still end up a loser. And I was a loser.
Before leaving for New York, I’d told my father I wanted to be a playwright. He let out a mournful sigh, looked me in the eyes, and said, “Well, if that doesn’t work out, you can always sell. Salesmen always work.” My dad lionized salespeople. They were the swashbucklers of the free market, superheroes who could confidently grasp your hand and shake coins out of your sleeves. He worked for the government and never made a lot of money.
My father gave me one more piece of advice before I struck out. He warned me to use my credit card only for emergencies, like a catastrophic illness or a plane ticket back to Texas after failing.
Mytrainers were two men, a little older than me, named Steve. The Steves seemed impossibly cool, at least, to me.
They had a very effective sales motivation technique. It was called lunch.
I watched the Steves slurp spicy noodles through the restaurant window as I sucked on a cigarette. They had opened the menu and ordered a small feast of fried dumplings, shrimp fried rice, and chicken lo mein before I had finished looking at the prices. I didn’t have enough money to join the crew, so I excused myself and bought a pretzel, which tasted like a salted frisbee. It was cold, too, so I stomped my feet for warmth as they finished their meal.
Buy these practically free comedy tickets and have the greatest night of your life. I would never lie to you.
One Steve had a lion’s mane of reddish-brown hair and wore a cashmere coat with a long multicolored striped scarf. The other Steve had a shaved head and round glasses. He wore a blue peacoat and black leather pants. Leather pants! It was hard for me to believe such put-together dudes my age existed. They reminded me of MTV VJs. I think I was in love with them both, if briefly.
One of the Steves confided in me that he made $70,000 the previous year, which seemed utterly astronomical. It is a respectable amount of money; most Americans don’t make that much. But at the time, if you had asked me how much money it took to be “wealthy,” I would have been hard-pressed not to say “seventy thousand dollars.”
The promotions company had a loft near Union Square. In that loft was a large, colorful room with bleachers where the Steves would whip the day’s street urchins into a frenzy before being dispatched into the city to harass, charm, and fast-talk money out of the hands of the innocent.
The kids in the room were like me: young, unemployed, determined to become rich and famous — or to afford a studio apartment in Astoria, Queens, whichever came first. They instructed us to ask every passerby a question. They recommended, “Do you like to laugh?” because who doesn’t?
Everyone knows the three most famous sales pitches of all time are, in no particular order: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” “All men are created equal,” and “Two-for-one tacos every Tuesday.”
But, when it comes to selling comedy tickets, “Do you like to laugh?” is probably the best question to ask a potential sucker. The point was to get them to stop, to short-circuit whatever mission they were on, and to guide them toward a brand new mission: Buy a comedy ticket. Look into their eyes deeply. Smile. Ask them more questions: Do you go out at night? Do you like to save money? Are you a fan of comedy?
The goal of this lighthearted interrogation was to build rapport as fast as possible. Get a conversation going, so you have time to produce a ticket.
The next step is: Hand them the ticket. This was essential. Once it was in their hand, it was real.
The Steves repeated this instruction as if it were a magic phrase. “Hand them the ticket.” It was important to get the person to touch the product. Once you did, you could get right to selling what matters. You. Your word. A covenant between one immortal soul and another.
Then came the close: “This saves you money.” “This club may have inspired the club on Seinfeld; who can say?” “This discount is so steep you can resell them to friends at a slight markup and make money.” Only I can help you, at this moment, frozen in time. Buy these practically free comedy tickets and have the greatest night of your life. I would never lie to you.
The next step was simple: Take their money. No cash? We accept credit cards. My credit card number is practically my middle name today, but back then, it was a state secret. Trying to get battle-hardened New Yorkers to surrender that number for a laminated card that promised, maybe, a seat in the back of an open mic was not easy. Unless you were the Steves. Everybody loved them.
“Every no gets you closer to a yes,” we’d chant. If someone threw in a “hallelujah,” I probably would have put my hands in the air.
The Steves gave a good pep talk. They wanted us hungry for rejection. We were going to get turned down 80% of the time. But they stressed not to get discouraged because every “no” got you closer to a “yes.” Focus on the 20% of the time you’ll succeed. “Every no gets you closer to a yes,” we’d chant. If someone threw in a “hallelujah,” I probably would have put my hands in the air. My grandfather was a Baptist preacher, and he sold tickets, too.
I followed the Steves with the other ducklings into the freezing morning, where very modest amounts of money awaited. The haircut and comedy groups decided to split up: The pretty ones went to nearby Union Square, and the chuckle squad rode the subway to the Upper West Side.
Almost immediately, one of the recruits made a sale. The person I’d sat next to on the bleachers sweet-talked a nice old woman into opening her purse. And all the Steves had to do was chat with each other, and the world would walk up to them, cash in hand.
I worked up my courage.
“Do you like to laugh?”
“No.”
“Do you like to laugh?”
“Fuck off.”
“Do you like to laugh?”
“Why yes, I do.”
That last one ended with the person pointing at me and laughing as they walked away. They laughed all the way to the end of the block.
One person did stop to talk to me, but it was out of sympathy.
“Aren’t you cold?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Well, good luck.”
After he walked away, Steve slithered over to me, smiling. He asked why I hadn’t tried to hand him a ticket. I shrugged. “You have to do it,” said Steve. He patted me on the back and told me to go back to hunting for rejections. “The product is crap, so sell yourself,” he added.
“The product is crap, so sell yourself” is probably the most important thing I learned as an adult. That, and “fake it till you make it.” Of course, it’s not really “fake it till you make it.” It’s just “fake it.” That’s an important lesson, too.
A few years later, I would go out drinking with an ad salesperson who worked at a magazine where I was an editor. Early in my career, I learned to make friends with ad salespeople because 1) they drank and 2) they had the money to buy drinks. This dude was a champion boozer with a literal aquarium full of Glenfiddich for a liver. At one point, slurring, he confessed that the magazine I worked for was awful. He never read it. His clients never read it. But he sold the shit out of it because, as he put it, “I’m awesome, and so are you.”
Ireturned from lunch determined to sell, sell, sell. My stomach wanted spicy noodles. I winked at New Yorkers while shouting, “You like comedy, big guy?” “You wanna hear a funny joke?” “Hi, I hear you like to laugh?”
“Who did you hear that from,” one responded.
“I’m a mind reader, actually.”
She laughed. I want to introduce you to the first woman I ever talked to in New York City. She had a ponytail. She wore a big coat as if she had stolen it from a sleeping 19th-century Arctic explorer. She studied dance on the Upper West Side. She was younger than I was, but not by much.
I asked her what she liked to do at night, and it was a typical response: hang out with friends. Go to bars. Maybe see a show.
A comedy show?
She laughed again. “Sure.”
I told her I could save her money. I told her I could make her money.
She trusted me. At least in that instance. I told her I had just moved to the city from Texas, and she mentioned the Midwest was her home. She made a joke about how a New York winter felt like a Milwaukee summer. It turns out I like to laugh, too.
It was a meet-cute, with fangs. But you can’t close the deal and open your heart. Not at the same time. I stood to make dozens of dollars. We continued our banter for a while, and then I lied to her.
I told her my mother was flying in from Texas to watch me perform stand-up for the first time, but I could only get stage time if I sold some tickets first. She was sympathetic and supportive but had no credit card. Just a debit card. Not a problem, I told her, we can walk to an ATM, and I’ll wait outside while you get your money.
I walked her to the bank doors, and before she walked in, she sheepishly turned to me and said, “Maybe I’ll see you tonight?”
“Maybe.”
She didn’t get her comedy tickets. I was gone by the time she had cash in hand. Later that afternoon, I ate spicy noodles I bought with my emergency credit card.