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He was a kid, or no older than two decades, with blond, close cropped hair, baggy shorts. He was smoking a cigarette and drinking from an airplane sized bottle of tequila as I passed him around 10 am on the pedestrian bridge over the LA River in Studio City.
He said hello and I said hello back. He said he just came to LA that day and had never seen the LA River. He went on to tell me that he comes from Washington State and travels around the country with dozens of others, staying in local motels and then fanning out and selling magazine subscriptions.
These groups of young men will go from state to state, town to town, and knock on doors and ring bells and tell people that “we are raising money for your town’s soccer team”. Wouldn’t YOU like to buy a subscription to Sports Illustrated to support some needy local kids?
He said that what he does is lie, but that he actually fulfills the promise of subscribing the suckers. They get their magazines, but they buy them under false pretenses.
He was pretty proud of himself, and told me that he was the top salesman and that’s why he was here taking a minute to smoke a cigarette and drink alcohol mid-morning in Studio City. He said most people thought he was younger than his age (22) and his All-American looks got him lots of business.
He then threw his bottle into the river and said “so long” and he was off to find more business for his dishonest business.
Here in Van Nuys 
something like that happened a few weeks ago a teenager came to my door and told me he wanted to sell me magazines so his group could visit europe. well he came with no shirt on and was picking at his bellybutton i politly said no and instead of leaving he called me some very rude things and ran off flipping me off!
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Here’s another convicted sex offender working for the same company referenced above, Tower Of Power of Gig Harbor, WA, keep that door shut; http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/news/local/4696334.html
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Let me tell ya’ll something.. not every door-to-door salesman or woman is like that… i sell magazines… but i tell people the honest truth about it… dont take this story as it is for every dude or chick who knocks on your door…
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Hey Iam currently looking for a job and came across this listing i think this is the same company that guy works for heres the link go check it out. http://www.custom-international.com/home.html
Just thought you should know.
Enjoy!
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Anon here, the guy I referenced in Claremont was convicted, & he was a scumbag ’til the end. The sales guys I run into are ALWAYS casing the place when you open the door, & will get in your doorway among other tactics to prevent you from closing it without fear, and I’m a big guy. The other thing that creeps me out is they’ll foster sympathy by being self-deprecating… I’ve had 2 seperate African-American peddlers in the last year who go on how they’re “dumb black guys” which just makes me more nervous, that obviously must work on somebody, but I’m not Deepak Chopra http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_5501471
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Here in Silver Lake, my tale of being a subscription sucker is similar. I had been out of work almost a year, down to my last $40 in the bank when I answered a knock on a door and a kid gave me his woeful story about coming out from post-Katrina New Orleans to try to make some money to go to college. I ended up fished in and cutting a $20 check for a magazine I didn’t even want and of course it never arrived.
On the “fool me twice” tip some months later I found the receipt and pursued the magazine subscription company (based in Wisconsin or some such place) for a refund. You can bet how pleasantly surprised I was to have received a check for the amount and then you can imagine how hard I kicked myself when the check bounced.
Should I be so redeemed to ever find a future lowlife grifter on my doorstep I will answer the knock with a baseball bat and give him a new chapter to add to his sob story.
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I wonder if the fellow you met was a lapsed Mormon. Door-to-door crews selling security systems or pest control services of decidedly dubious merit, especially here in the West, are commonly composed of recently returned Mormon missionaries.* It wouldn’t surprise me at all if the magazine sales crews were tapping the ex-missionary labor supply. These boys, having just spent two years pounding the pavement for God in the ghettos and barrios of North America and Europe or the slums of the Third World, generally feel they’ve got the world by the balls, in the way that testosteronal young men in their early twenties are wont to feel.
I have a number of acquaintances, and even a few friends, who have worked for these outfits. (My congregation was invaded by Pinnacle Security salesdrones this past summer.) Employees are encouraged to make any number of false claims about the product, just as long as they can make a sale.
*(Note that a sizable portion of these never really believed what they were preaching, and consequently go “apostate” the minute they take off the tie and the nametag. That might explain the cigarette and the tequila at 10 AM.)
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Wow, good find anonymous. Fits the description Andrew gave to a T, except for his having darker hair in that photo. Is that the guy, Andrew?
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Don’t open your door to a salesman(“The Gift Of Fear” deals with what happens to people who don’t wish to appear rude), you don’t know who’s like John Goodman in “Barton Fink-& those odds aren’t in your favor. Traveling magazine salesman from Washington State you say?; http://www.claremont-courier.com/pages/Topstory1209.1.html
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You know, something similar happened to me the other day at my house in Glendale. A young woman in her twenties knocked on my door and immediately started shaking me down for advice on how to be successful and what kind of work I did to get to where I was today. I told her the first thing she needs to do is go back to school and stop wasting her time with door to door sales pitches. She relented, saying this is something that she really, really likes to do… because she was such a “people person.”
She was a pretty, but her face had been scarred like someone had repeatedly twisted a broken bottle into her face. I definitely sensed something was “off” with her. She was most certainly a run-away… from something… who was presently waving a magazine subscription catalogue in front of my face. I explained to her that I don’t read many magazines, and the ones that I do weren’t on her list. Once she realized I wasn’t going to dole out any money so she could receive more “promotion points” with her subscription service, she left in a huff.
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Always down on Van Nuys. This guy would have done it anywhere. Anyway, a nice telling of the story. The city –like all major cities, though maybe moreso — has been filled with grifters for decades. There’s something about the story that makes L.A. feel even more charming. Or maybe I’m drunk. Or both.
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Yes, he did. But its not like he has any honor or respect for others anyway. Throwing trash out of the car is a daily occurance here in Van Nuys.
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Did he really chuck the bottle in the river? I would have fumed at the prick if he’d done that in front of me.
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