MovieChat Forums > American Honey (2016) Discussion > Anyone here ever on a mag crew?

Anyone here ever on a mag crew?

posted 7 years ago by bluekarma06
11 replies | jump to latest

I was for a year back in 1980 when I was 20. Also a door to door all-purpose cleaner crew. We traveled like this, from town to town, state to state, sleazy hotels 3 to a room with the best sales of the day getting a bed to themselves. It is a desolate life. Most made barely enough money to get by. I was consistently in the top 5 and earned and saved but most spent it on booze, drugs and partying. I haven't seen the movie yet but will watch it and see if it really is anything like what I went thru.

[–] wildtalesvolver 7 years ago

I like your sharing. I think the film is quite realistic based on the experience you described! Did u have any special sales strategy like the people in the film?

[–] bluekarma06 7 years ago

The way I got the door to door traveling sales job and what attracted it to me was what makes it easy for these magazine and cleaner crew operations to exist. Young, bored, looking for adventure. I was an usher at a movie theater and it was a boring job, a boring life I was leading. One afternoon during the matinee(I think Apocalypse Now was playing), this young guy(like me about 19-20) came in the theater carrying a rag and a bottle of blue liquid. (On a side note:Besides the magazine crews, the other popular sales outfit was the CLEANER Crews. There was 2 that I knew of. One was a paste, and the other a liquid called Dunn-EZ.) So the kid asks to see the manager and I went and got him. He proceeded to show him what this cleaner could do. I was standing off to the side, partially paying attention. He left and I went back to being bored and waiting for the movie to end so I could clean up. An hour or so later, the guy came back with some gallon size bottles and dropped them off. I asked him about the job and he said he traveled all over selling door to door. I asked if they were hiring and he said call this number. I did just that and after talking to the owner( a fat 40-something jaba-the-hut type of guy) and convincing him I was interested and could do the job, he hired me. Told me to be at this motel in South Miami Beach on Saturday because they were leaving town for the next city. I was excited for the chance to travel and see the country and even make money but mostly to be away from my family and the drama of being an outcast. I was different then. A vegetarian, spiritually-awakened and into Zen and all that. I didn't fit in and getting away from it all and being on the road seemed highly appealing to me. I rarely talked to people except when it was important and selling was my outlet. I spent 8 months on the road, sold in hundreds of small towns in dozens of states from Indiana to Virginia to Michigan and finally NYC in Dec of 1980(was there when John Lennon was murdered). I spent my time off in the evenings at the movies or reading books by the pool. Most everyone else drank beer and partied. I took my job seriously mostly because I wanted to keep it. I saw other kids come and go all the time due to lack of sales. The Boss(as we called him) didn't like carrying dead weight. If you sold well, you stayed. He bought quite a few bus tickets home for those who couldn't hack it and he was always running ads in local papers for new help and every week we had 1-2 new faces. About 30 in the crew, 20/10 ratio guys to girls. Seemed the most successful of the crew were the ones who had a shtick, a gimmick to get you to pay attention to their pitch. One guy could rattle off all the books of the bible in like 10 seconds, another guy did magic tricks, and as for me, I always kept it about the product. I would look for a stain on the floor and without asking if I could clean it, I would do it and leave a big clean spot on the rug! If they had no rug, I would write ink on my shirt and spray it clean. I would then ask them, " I suppose something this effective is probably very toxic but watch this" and I would spray some on my fingers and rub it in my eyes and not even blink. It was mild and didnt burn. That really sold them. As for the long term effects, I know I had night vision problems for several years after that! I got to where I would spray the bottom 2 fingers of my hand then wipe with the dry upper 2 fingers. Slight of hand but it worked and saved my eyes! So I had been a consistent seller, made decent money which I kept about 50 a week and let the owner hold the rest. BIG MISTAKE! I thought I could trust the guy. He was like a father to a lot of the kids on the crew. He was a gentle giant. He told me how good a salesman I was and he wished he had 20 more like me, he could retire in a year! I ate it up. As a young man with parents I didn't like or have much in common with(that changed as I matured), few real friends, pleasing the Boss and having him praise my success was what drove me to succeed. That and the fear of failure and being sent home. But like I mentioned, the mistake I made was trusting this guy. He never did send my earnings to me after I left the crew and went back to Miami and I couldnt track him down because he was always on the road. I lost about 20k.

But after I left, I had gained the confidence to go out and be self-employed. As what? A Carpet cleaner! I used some of that guys product to get accounts. I put a clean spot on the floor of so many stores in the Malls and office buildings, so after a free-estimate, they would usually call me to "finish the job" lol

And I have been self-employed in various occupations 30 of the 40 years I have been an adult. And it mostly started with being on that sales crew.

"Not buying the *beep*

[–] wildtalesvolver 7 years ago

That's a life changing experience for you! If you didn't join the sales crew perhaps you would have been stuck in boring jobs for your life, but now you have become an entrepreneur. Your product seems a lot easier to sell than magazines, since it had more useful function. And magazines subscription sound more like scam. So I guess in real life few people would be like Jake in the film, who convinced people to buy his stuff by pretending to be a struggling student with a big dream. And selling magazines by providing sex is something only happen in porn or in the world of american honey. How did you decide to resign at the end?

[–] bluekarma06 7 years ago

Yea, it was an interesting period in my life for sure. I had recently been discharged from the Navy(Honorably but with a Medical reason) and took to mostly odd jobs and living in my dad and his 4th wife's garage. I became vegetarian and read a lot of books on spirituality. Gave up talking to people and was truly a loner. I guess the the great spirit in the sky sent that salesman along that afternoon to deliver me from boredom. Funny thing, I spent 2 years in Miami cleaning rugs then moved to Gainesville FL. After 3 years there, I took another door-to-door job selling books in Indiana in the summer of '86. I wasn't too thrilled with it and left it after 6 weeks. Came back to Miami and started a detailing business waxing cars(I did over 3000 cars in 2 1/2 years). I got bored with that and Miami and took to selling jewelry and rock posters in a carnival for 6 months, going from town to town working under the Ferris wheel. Made good money, fooled around with a lot of pretty girls then ended up in Asheville NC when my car broke down in '89. I tried to have a normal life but after 2 1/2 years there and sick of the boredom of the Bible Belt, I hitched a trailer to my car and took of on a 22,000 mile adventure across the US and Canada with my dog and about 5k. 6 months later ended up in Los Angeles, and have been here since 1993. I guess I ended up in a place where I could do anything and everything I could dream of. From being a DJ in the hottest club in LA the first 3 years, to making a few adult movies, dating an actress, being on radio, to selling stuff in flea markets, operating vending machines and games to my current means of income, owning a mobile coffee truck the last 10 years, I guess its been a long strange trip. I even spent a week serving coffee to the recent Star Wars Rogue One production crew for a week when they had the recent premier. I owe it all to the willingness to take risk and go for it and it started that day I asked for the telephone number from that door to door salesman back in 1980.

[–] daddie0 7 years ago

I lost about 20k.

This is what chaps my rear end. I once had a crew member try to sell me magazines several years ago. It was obvious that she had gotten herself into a bad situation (she never said it, but I could tell during our conversation...and no I don't think she was "selling" me). I didn't buy, and didn't even trust just giving her some money for fear that she would just hand it over to her "manager" and I would perpetuate the process.

It sounds like you have processed your frustrations on the 20k well (you don't sound bitter, lol) and parlayed the experience into a lifetime of success. I'd like to think the greedy sleaze bags who take advantage of young folks like yourself get what's coming to them, but I have little confidence that they do. Thanks for sharing your story...it adds some good depth to the conversation!

[–] coldmarble 7 years ago

No, but I have been scammed by one. It was an interesting experience to say the least.

[–] heartcartography 7 years ago

Would you feel like giving more details of how the scam worked cold marble? Only if you are comfortable with sharing of course :)

[–] Darkside7 7 years ago

Great story bro!! And this movie shares almost the exact same plot... Its a great film that you will enjoy!

Cheers.

[–] heartcartography 7 years ago

I haven't been on a crew, but I assisted a young girl to get out of one some years ago. We were close to the same age at the time and she almost felt like she was in a 'cult'. Didn't see most of the money she made, and as you said, used what she did make to medicate with a party lifestyle.

The people in charge were older than the ones in the movie and definitely looked for vulnerable kids who did not have support networks.

It's what interested me in seeing the movie and I found it pretty accurate from what I had seen.

[–] herpaderp-49056 7 years ago

I sold framed posters for a year or so. The way it is set up, a branch owner rents space in an office park where they can warehouse the merch and build a crew. They run classified ads that aren't very specific, basically be your own boss and make money type of ads. Pretty much anyone who responds gets called in to an interview, which is not very specific either. They just want to know if you have your own vehicle and are receptive to doing something outside the lines of a 9 to 5. Eventually the new folks learn they are setting up a sole proprietorship that sells posters on consignment.

From there, they have daily meetings that are hype sessions, and the new people ride with a trainer for a week. Each person on the crew has certain territory to work in, it's door-to-door on businesses only. I suspect they don't do residential because there are already a number of groups who do that, like the steak guys and the magazines, it's usually not good to follow those guys to the same doors. The way we did territory was to hit everything until an intersection, then always make right turns. When we see one of the other crews who did go to businesses, we usually skipped ahead of them. There were friendly rivalries- the scene in the movie where they were talking shop with another crew in the parking lot, I've done that before. Always BSing about how much money we were making, too.

I had a truck, so I would stand them up in the bed like they do with windshield repair trucks. Laying glass down is a very bad idea, as is not strapping them firmly. The other issue with using a truck is water damage. I had a tarp, but sometimes they got damaged from excessive humidity, so I had to find ways to deal with that. Having 6 or 7 damaged could wipe out whatever I made for the day, because we had to pay for those.

Every couple months, we would go on road trips for a week to cities that did not have a local branch. This helps to keep from burning out our home territory. We would go in a convoy, with a U-Haul carrying 500-1000 pieces. Depending on how big the crew was, we would get motel rooms with around 4 people per room. The ones who sold the least got the floor and last in the shower. One room is for the branch manager and his assistant, very similar to the movie (minus the lotion); this room is also where some of the merch is offloaded. Early in the week, it could take up half the room, so room service is canceled.

We eat somewhere for breakfast and have the hype session in the parking lot, go out to our assigned area, then meet back at the motel at a specific time. Then we go somewhere for dinner. Those who didn't have a good day could optionally go out at night, always in pairs. I usually did better at night than I did in the daytime; I had a special talent for seeking out the strip clubs and massage parlors, hang out there most of the night and trade stories with the girls. That's very similar to what Star was doing in the movie. She found a niche with people who aren't really paying for the magazines, she is just an interesting person to hang out with, and they are paying for the experience.

I eventually left because it is a very exhausting lifestyle, and whatever I made did not last very long due to partying. There were days when I went out there with nothing but a truckload of merch and knew I had to sell just to have enough gas to make it back, but that's also what attracted me to it. I found myself in a lot of strange situations, and definitely learned a lot from it.

[–] Popcorn Kernel (2368) 7 years ago

At least in 1980 people still read magazines. I cannot imagine how they sell enough magazines these days to make hotel and gas fare.