Chips Door to Door Adventures
I love Sacramento, I really do. I've never been to Hawaii, but every thing I know of the place tells me it's heaven on earth but without all the pious halo polishing types. Why then do I keep finding out that folks who could have stayed in Hawaii have opted to live here? Chip, a talented local musician and owner of Body Tribe Fitness, where hung over musicians work off their beer gut, sent us this great tale of his childhood money making experiments. Visit the home page www.rockass.net.
My very first job was a door-to-door experience. It was actually my second round at hitting all the houses on my block, but the first time I went door-to-door, I wasn’t making money. I was selling money. I was 3, maybe 4, and my friend Lynn gave me a small box of change, maybe about 80 cents total, and I went down the neighborhood street, knocking on every door to see if anyone wanted to buy this little box of money. No takers. Thank god, because I don’t think I knew how much to sell it for.
After that my very first attempt at actually making money was selling paper. It was self appointed employment, and sure to be more successful than the previous pseudo-job of giving away money. I grabbed a stack of my mother’s typing paper and then bothered the same folks I bothered with my money scheme. The day was horribly windy, as was common in my neighborhood in Honolulu, and I was often running down the street retrieving a loose paper or two. Eventually Lynn, of the generous box-of-cash fame (who, by the way, wasn’t too pleased when I tried to sell it) came to my aide as the paper retriever, probably curious to see if I had any takers in need of mid-quality typing papyrus.
After a few doors of rejection, and about a dozen sprints down the block to retrieve loose papers, I said to no one and the Universe “if the wind is going to keep blowing my papers, then it can blow ALL of them!” I threw the stack of papers to the mercy of the elements, and the sheets were, within seconds, spread around the entire neighborhood downwind of where I was standing.
This, of course, meant the yard shared by my family and the townhouse next door was blanketed in blank, white sheets of my once hopeful product. The Kagawa’s were our neighbors on the other side of said yard, the Patriarch of whom wanted to talk to me as I stormed past him sobbing dearly. I still to this day wonder what his sagely advice would have been, which may be sugarcoating the situation a little, since he probably wanted to whoop my littering ass. But throughout the years, he was never too severe in his reactions to my neighborhood hijinx and poor choices. But on this ill-fated business day, I simply ran up to my room and cried, avoiding Mr. Kagawa’s gaze and possible wisdom.
This door-to-door thing eventually became something I tried a few more times, with MS read-a-thon subscriptions, magazine subscriptions, and, similar to Keith’s first job, selling stationary and greeting cards (same company, I believe). I even enlisted partners, including my friend Phil Pickens, who hit the neighborhood with me selling books we didn’t want anymore to raise money to go see the new Osmond film “Going Coconuts.”
Funny enough, the biggest suckers for shows and movies shot in Hawaii were the people who lived in Hawaii. My family, friends and I were extras on episodes of Hawaii 5-O and later, Magnum PI, several times, with my uncle landing a small speaking part as a dentist on one episode when he visited us from New York. We islanders loved these shows and all the silly sitcoms and family shows that followed the trend of having that ‘Hawaii Special,’ ala Brady Bunch, hence the importance of “Going Coconuts.” Dude, it was the OSMONDS! Donnie AND Marie! In HAWAII! Thankfully our parents appreciated the effort we made, because they footed the bill after we unsuccessfully tried to unload our little libraries for over an hour. If the movie was worth the effort is still debatable.
Read indy comic hot shot Jeffrey Brown's story HERE
My Cousin's brutal tale of being a beat cop in NYC is HERE
Swimming with dolphins in Gay Hawaii is HERE.
Being Will Ferrell is HERE.
And of course all of my own work tales are HERE!
and my home page is HERE.
My very first job was a door-to-door experience. It was actually my second round at hitting all the houses on my block, but the first time I went door-to-door, I wasn’t making money. I was selling money. I was 3, maybe 4, and my friend Lynn gave me a small box of change, maybe about 80 cents total, and I went down the neighborhood street, knocking on every door to see if anyone wanted to buy this little box of money. No takers. Thank god, because I don’t think I knew how much to sell it for.After that my very first attempt at actually making money was selling paper. It was self appointed employment, and sure to be more successful than the previous pseudo-job of giving away money. I grabbed a stack of my mother’s typing paper and then bothered the same folks I bothered with my money scheme. The day was horribly windy, as was common in my neighborhood in Honolulu, and I was often running down the street retrieving a loose paper or two. Eventually Lynn, of the generous box-of-cash fame (who, by the way, wasn’t too pleased when I tried to sell it) came to my aide as the paper retriever, probably curious to see if I had any takers in need of mid-quality typing papyrus.
After a few doors of rejection, and about a dozen sprints down the block to retrieve loose papers, I said to no one and the Universe “if the wind is going to keep blowing my papers, then it can blow ALL of them!” I threw the stack of papers to the mercy of the elements, and the sheets were, within seconds, spread around the entire neighborhood downwind of where I was standing.
This, of course, meant the yard shared by my family and the townhouse next door was blanketed in blank, white sheets of my once hopeful product. The Kagawa’s were our neighbors on the other side of said yard, the Patriarch of whom wanted to talk to me as I stormed past him sobbing dearly. I still to this day wonder what his sagely advice would have been, which may be sugarcoating the situation a little, since he probably wanted to whoop my littering ass. But throughout the years, he was never too severe in his reactions to my neighborhood hijinx and poor choices. But on this ill-fated business day, I simply ran up to my room and cried, avoiding Mr. Kagawa’s gaze and possible wisdom.
This door-to-door thing eventually became something I tried a few more times, with MS read-a-thon subscriptions, magazine subscriptions, and, similar to Keith’s first job, selling stationary and greeting cards (same company, I believe). I even enlisted partners, including my friend Phil Pickens, who hit the neighborhood with me selling books we didn’t want anymore to raise money to go see the new Osmond film “Going Coconuts.”
Funny enough, the biggest suckers for shows and movies shot in Hawaii were the people who lived in Hawaii. My family, friends and I were extras on episodes of Hawaii 5-O and later, Magnum PI, several times, with my uncle landing a small speaking part as a dentist on one episode when he visited us from New York. We islanders loved these shows and all the silly sitcoms and family shows that followed the trend of having that ‘Hawaii Special,’ ala Brady Bunch, hence the importance of “Going Coconuts.” Dude, it was the OSMONDS! Donnie AND Marie! In HAWAII! Thankfully our parents appreciated the effort we made, because they footed the bill after we unsuccessfully tried to unload our little libraries for over an hour. If the movie was worth the effort is still debatable.
Read indy comic hot shot Jeffrey Brown's story HERE
My Cousin's brutal tale of being a beat cop in NYC is HERE
Swimming with dolphins in Gay Hawaii is HERE.
Being Will Ferrell is HERE.
And of course all of my own work tales are HERE!
and my home page is HERE.
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