The Box Salesman

Chapter 1

Make Your Own Kind of Music (Cass Elliot, 1969)

As young kids, some people are fortunate enough to know exactly what they want to be when they grow up. I was one of them. I wanted to be a songwriter. My father gave me a guitar when I was in fourth grade, and I’ve been writing songs ever since. My parents were somewhat supportive of my interest in music, but they were not very complimentary of my musical talents. My mother could at times be acerbic, and of my songwriting goals, she was especially critical.

Evan, I think maybe you should focus your time on other hobbies besides music, my mother advised me once when I was in high school. I had just played her a couple of my original songs, which I will admit now weren’t very good. But I didn’t think that then.

Thanks a lot, Mom. You just don’t get it. These songs are all inside me, and I’m going to make it big someday. You’ll see! I fired angrily back.

For some reason, back then, just about everything that exited my mouth in the direction of my mother was malicious and mean. But I was almost always responding to something awful that she had said to me first. I even kept a diary of negative comments that my mother had said to me such as:

Too bad you aren’t going to be tall like your father.

Did you know you say ‘um’ or ‘uh’ far too much when you talk?

Maybe you would have more friends if you didn’t act so silly all the time.

You have what most people would call a plain face.

And the best of them all:

Some people just have to work harder to get good grades, Evan, and you are one of them.

If that isn’t telling your son that he is stupid, I don’t know what is. Yes, I resented my mother, but I vowed that I would make it as a songwriter despite her lack of support. And the reason I believed that was because of Bruce Springsteen. In his very early concerts, he used to tell a long story about how he and his father didn’t get along. His father wasn’t happy, and he often took out his frustrations on young Bruce. In fact, his dad was always telling him to turn the volume down on his damn guitar. But Bruce kept playing and practicing, and we all know how that turned out. Well, if Bruce Springsteen could make it with his father’s lack of support, surely I could, too, despite my mother’s skepticism.

Caveat: You don’t necessarily have to be musically talented to be a songwriter. You just have to write songs.

So, I forged ahead with my musical goals, and I did ultimately become a writer of songs. In fact, I wrote lots and lots of songs. I had been inspired from a very early age. As a child of six or seven, The Monkees were my favorite group, followed by the Beatles and then Bruce Springsteen. Throw in a little early Bob Dylan and Elton John, and that pretty much rounded out my entire musical spectrum. Yes, my penchants were quite narrow, but I knew the first time I heard I’m a Believer on the radio that music was going to be a huge part of my life.

As a young boy, I would play those records over and over until someone in the house (usually my father) would yell at me to turn the music down. In fact, he even came barging into my room once and took the Beatles’ Hello Goodbye single off my record player and broke it in half. I had played it something like sixty times in a row, so what he did was understandable.

Then there were the zany Beatles movies like Help! and A Hard Day’s Night, which only further inspired my desire to be a musician. I also never missed the clownishly dumb Monkees television show every week, but I really only wanted to hear the songs they would play during each episode. The show was so infantile that even an immature kid like me had trouble suffering through the mindless plots. But the songs! Man, those songs were good. There was Daydream Believer and Valleri and my all-time favorite, Sometime in the Morning, which was written by the songwriting team of Gerry Goffin and Carole King. The more I heard of these songs, the more I knew that I had to at least try to be a songwriter.

My earliest songs weren’t about anything meaningful, and I didn’t even particularly care if they rhymed. I just threw chords and words down on paper and played and sang them. This was in the days when the first portable cassette tape recorders were becoming common, so I bought one and went to work. As a result, I have recordings of almost every song I have ever written. The sound quality of those old cassettes is admittedly atrocious, but the songs are discernable—words, music and all. And I’ll admit now that most of them were just…terrible.

As I aged into my teen years, I began writing songs that made a little more sense, but they were all still pretty rough. I also had a horrible fear of performing them, so I relied mostly on playing cassette tapes to others to convey my musical acumen. The poor-quality recordings might have been part of the reason no one seemed to like my songs. When I did try to play them live, I would be so nervous that I could hardly remember the chords, much less the words. On one occasion, when playing a song for some neighborhood friends, I actually came close to passing out. I shook my head and stared blankly ahead while I waited for the dizziness to pass.

What just happened to you, Evan? my friend asked.

I…um…I’m not sure, I replied.

I think he just pissed his pants. That’s what just happened! another friend bellowed.

Screw you guys! I said while quickly putting my guitar back in the case.

Early on, I learned mostly from teen magazines that the best songwriters start by imagining a tune in their head. Then they get an instrument (usually a guitar or a piano) and start putting the pieces of the song together: verses, chorus, refrain, bridge, etc. After jotting down whatever words came into their mind, they would then develop a concept of what the song might be about. And then they would construct the song so that words and music blended together. They would then weave in harmonies and add any other instruments that might suit the song well. The words would eventually morph into something that had meaning, and the rhyming scheme would be massaged until it became rich and prolific poetry.

Well, that wasn’t at all how I wrote my songs. I had a patience problem. If I couldn’t finish a song entirely within fifteen minutes, I would pitch it and move on to another one. It was typical of me to knock out seven or eight songs in a single writing session. And usually there was one that I was willing to work on a little more to make into a real song. The recordings were always just me playing guitar and singing. I couldn’t add harmonies back then as the cassette technology only allowed you to record one track. I once tried having two tape players going at once (one playing a first track and one recording the second), but the resulting sound was unbearably bad. If you heard them, you would also know that I didn’t understand key and pitch back in those days, and it sounded like it on my tapes.

My God. It sounds like you have a terrible cold and can’t breathe through your nose, my mother kindly added. Ouch!

I progressed through my remaining teenage years writing and recording songs until I estimated that I had at least a hundred of them. Even though I knew the majority of them were nothing like the Beatles’ Yesterday or Let It Be, I thought maybe one of them just might be sellable. Even the Monkees had some horrible songs on their albums such as Your Auntie Grizelda, which is on their second album (More of the Monkees). It was a song that was so bad I had to skip over it when playing side 1 of the LP. The good news, though, was that someone out there thought it was good enough to be included on an album. And that album sold in the millions, so I figured I had to be able to sell at least one song in my lifetime.

So, I kept writing and hoping I would get lucky enough someday to sell an original composition. It wasn’t long into my sophomore year of college when I thought I had actually lucked into a way to break into the music business. In the late spring of 1981, I heard that there was a radio station running a songwriting contest, and they were taking submissions from anyone (meaning not professionals). In fact, they emphasized in the contest application that it didn’t matter if the song was professionally recorded or not. It just had to have good words and a good enough melody to impress the radio executives judging the contest. I went through my entire catalog of songs and selected one that I thought had the best chance at winning.

Adrienne’s Dream

She sits in a chair rocking on like the wind.

On the porch of a home she once owned.

But the bank came today and must take it away;

I’m sorry, ma’am, but that’s how it goes.

Adrienne thinks of a place that she was

In a dream she had once long ago,

Far away from the pain of this world she has known

And the pain of being so low.

There were houses and horses and wide-open fields.

No hints of foreclosure or government deals,

Where a hard day’s work earns an equal day’s pay

And everyone says Hello, good day.

On a farm in a land very far from here

Sat a woman in pain from her day.

With her knees ached and trembling, her hands chapped and red

From a day drawing in all the grain.

In a moment of silence, she thinks of a place

And a world very different than hers.

Not anything like this monotonous life

And the feeling of being so cursed.

There were tall, giant buildings in towns that don’t end.

No rules or restrictions or walls to keep in.

Where anyone can if they make their own way

And everyone says Hello, good day.

It was an obvious interpretation of the grass is always greener philosophy between an American and Russian woman. I thought it was a good song, and apparently, the radio guys did too. A few weeks after the submission, I got a letter from them asking me to bring my guitar and a few more songs to their studio in Cincinnati right away. They promised that they would let me know the results of the contest when I got there.

Holy crap! They actually liked it! Get ready, world… Evan Billings is about to make it big!

In preparation, I went a little nutty trying to pick the right songs to bring with me. They said a few, so I took that to mean three. For the first song, I picked one with a deterministic philosophical theme called The Way of the Wind so I could impress them with my intelligence and deep thinking. And yes, I had to look up deterministic just to be sure that’s what this song was about.

The other two songs I brought along were love songs called If You Were Mine and Time and Time Again. For those, I borrowed a little Fostex four-track recording machine from a friend and had him help me with the recording and mixing. For the first time in my life, I was able to add a harmony and a second guitar on top of the basic track. It was a thrill to listen to the now much fuller-sounding songs as I traveled to the meeting in Cincinnati. As I drove along the dusty country roads in southern Ohio, I couldn’t help but imagine the thrill of potentially being discovered. Isn’t that the way it usually goes? You go along in life wondering if you will ever get the big break, and then it happens, and your life changes forever.

Well, as it turns out, my life did change that day, but it wasn’t the way I had hoped. After arriving at the station, I was met by an older poorly dressed gentleman who led me into a dusty, smoky, and cluttered office. There was a glass ashtray on the desk, and it was full of cigarette butts. I could hardly breathe from the smoke in the room as the old man took a seat behind the unsightly steel desk.

Come on in, mister…uh…

Billings. Evan Billings, I stated while trying not to breathe in the filthy air.

Yeah, well, we really liked that song…the, uh, what was it? ‘Adrienne’s Dilemma’? he asked.

‘Adrienne’s Dream,’ I corrected.

Uh…yeah. Right. Good lyrics. Catchy tune. You brought some other songs with you like we asked?

Yes, sir! I exclaimed while reaching into my coat pocket to retrieve a cassette.

Oh, good, the man said while taking the tape from me. Let me get to the crux of the matter, son. We want to record your songs professionally. In a professional studio.

You do? Wow! I said excitedly.

We think you have talent, Mr. Billingsly, he stated.

Billings. Evan Billings, I repeated, but this time with more emphasis.

Yeah, well, we want to get you into the studio right away, the man said while lighting up a cigarette.

But you haven’t even heard the other songs, I countered.

We’ll get to them songs, he said. He took three long puffs of his cigarette before continuing. You see, we want you to perform them songs here in the studio with a live band, and we will video you.

(Period note: This was happening during the first few years of MTV, and music videos were definitely taking off.)

Even this crusty old man knew that music videos were the future. The problem was, playing them live was out of the question. From my prior attempts, I knew better than to pursue a career as a performer. I had come to see myself as solely a songwriter. Much like Neil Diamond when he wrote I’m a Believer for the Monkees or Carole King in her early years (before Tapestry came out). But unlike the later Neil and the Carole, I wanted nothing to do with getting onstage, and I certainly didn’t want to be filmed. Passing out in front of my friends is one thing, but sweating through my clothes on national television was completely out of the question.

You didn’t even know what I looked like before I got here, I said. And what about the songwriting contest? I thought we were going to discuss that. Did I win anything?

The old man snuffed out his cigarette with his right hand while grabbing a new one with his left. He lit it and took a huge puff in and then snickered while exhaling the smoke directly into my face.

Of course you won the contest, Ethan.

Evan.

Right, Evan. Why else do you think we brought you in here?

I wasn’t sure, I coughed out. So what did I win?

That’s what I’ve been telling you. You won the chance to record professionally with us, son. Right here in this studio. What do you think of that? he asked merrily as he leaned back in his badly worn office chair. I noticed the chair had a grease stain on the upper part that was due undoubtedly to his filthy hair.

I don’t know. Um…I guess… But I thought this was just a songwriting contest and that…someone else was going to…um…perform the song. Not me.

The old man leaned over the desk and blew another puff of smoke into my increasingly ashen face.

You got talent, son. It’ll turn out great. You’ll see. And we think, with the right recording and video, you will be able to sell them songs of yours.

Again, it seemed very strange that he conveyed this optimism having only heard one of my songs.

I don’t know, I said dejectedly. This wasn’t at all what I was expecting or hoping to hear.

We will do everything for you, son. We’ll schedule the studio time. We’ll get the musicians and the cameras. And we’ll make a bang-up recording of that ‘Annabel’ tune. You’ll see.

Okay, despite him already forgetting the name of the song, that sounded encouraging. But then he uttered the words that ruined everything.

And it’ll only cost you nine hundred bucks.

Shit! It was a scam. At that point, I wanted to reach over the desk and punch him in the face. I couldn’t help thinking what an idiot I had been to believe that this might be my big break. The man kept trying to convince me why this was a good investment, but he might as well have been speaking gibberish. I didn’t listen to a word of it. When he finally took a break from his sales pitch to light another cigarette, I took the opportunity to stand up.

Thanks, anyway, I said sheepishly.

Say what? What do you mean? he asked while standing himself.

I gotta go.

Hold on a second, son! Is the price too high? he asked. What if we make it six hundred bucks? I’ll have to take something out of what we pay the band, but we are betting on you, Allen. You see that, don’t you?

My name is Evan, I said tersely as I turned to leave.

Six hundred dollars at that point in my life was not going to happen. Not only did I not have any money; I wasn’t that stupid. I knew they would just take my money, and nothing would ever come of it. I grabbed my cassette back off his desk, picked up my guitar, and left the station…smelling like the bottom of a firepit. I drove home without even playing the radio. I was devastated. One measly radio scam was all it took to knock my fragile ego and career aspirations down to nothing.

My life did change that day as it was then that I realized I wasn’t going to make a living as a songwriter. I was just a person who wrote songs. That was the day I knew it. The big problem, however, was that I didn’t really want to do anything else.

Chapter 2

Carry On, Wayward Son (Kansas, 1976)

Is there anyone out there who grew up wanting to be a salesman or saleswoman? I hope the answer to that question is yes, but I doubt there are many that had that as their lifelong dream. When I was a child, the idea of being a salesman carried the connotation of wearing a checkered hat and carrying a briefcase full of hairbrush samples from door to door. I don’t think many of us as kids were aware that there were also professional salesmen in nice suits who represented legitimate computer, chemical, or even large steel companies. And many of these sales specialists were compensated quite well. I had never even remotely considered sales as a potential career path, but that was all about to change.

In the spring of 1981, I was a senior at Sebring University. Sebring U. is an undergraduate liberal arts college of about five thousand students. The campus is tucked in the southwest corner of Ohio amid the seemingly endless cornfields bordering Kentucky and Indiana. The closest big city is Cincinnati, but it is a good hour away and you have to navigate some relatively small country roads to get there. Sebring has a beautiful campus with a large array of virtually identical red-brick, colonial-style buildings. All the structures followed the same basic three-story architecture similar to the buildings in Williamsburg, Virginia. You almost expect the students to wear colonial attire as it was also one of the most conservative schools in the country.

During my four years at Sebring, the college often referred to itself as the Yale of the Midwest, which is a huge insult to the alumni and students from Yale University. Sebring was, in truth, a university for average students with little to no idea why they were even going to college. In fact, I knew some legitimately stupid people at Sebring, but the majority were like me—just about average.

Without being located in a big city or in a city at all, there was not much to do on campus. Thus, Sebring evolved into a school that centered on its Greek culture. And by that, I mean idiotic fraternities and snobby sororities. And by culture, I mean filthy houses full of idiots that drink themselves into oblivion every weekend. My own fraternity, Beta Delta Tau, was one of the worst of all the frat houses at Sebring. My parents once visited me, and upon entering the house, my father’s face immediately contorted from the smell of spoiled beer and…mostly likely black mold. No one cleaned the place unless we had pledges, and even then, they did an abysmal job. I used to say that you departed our showers dirtier than you entered since you had to cross through puddles of muddy, bacteria-filled water on the way out.

The one thing Sebring did well, however, was to help students get job offers before leaving campus their senior year. This was one of the better selling points of sending your son or daughter to Sebring. Chances are, if your child worked nominally hard and was not a complete derelict, they had a good chance of getting an employment offer from a decent company before graduating. Most of the companies that came to Sebring were looking for new hires to join their entry ranks and training programs. An entry-level training program would be perfect for me since my four years at college had done nothing to prepare me for the working world.

Fortunately, the placement staff was able to set me up with a series of fairly generalized interviews over the upcoming weeks. I was nervous, to be sure, but I thought I would do okay. It wasn’t as personal as performing or playing an original song. I liked talking to people, and based on exactly zero practice, I figured I would be good at interviewing. I had never really had any experience at it other than for some summer jobs, and those all basically consisted of the following exchange:

Interviewer: Can you speak English?

Me: Yes.

Interviewer: When can you start?

I also had some nominal experience in filling out job applications. In fact, I had a friend in high school who wanted me to work with her at a new clothing store opening at a mall on the eastern side of our town. We both went down and applied together. and there was an interesting question at the very end of the application. It read: Do you smoke, or have you ever smoked marijuana? ______

I pondered this question carefully before deciding that it must have been a psychological test to see if I was honest enough to admit it. After all, everyone I knew in high school had at least tried smoking pot, and I was among them. For sure they knew that, I reasoned.

Yes, I jotted down confidently on the paper thinking I had just outsmarted the