The Traveling Salesmen Project

The Adventure Begins

Mykul and I are traveling salesmen in the spirit of Willy Loman.  We travel to a different city each week in search of a living.  We give ebay seminars and sell Internet Storefronts ( ecommerce opportunities.)  But what we sell doesn't matter, it might as well be dancing lessons or snake oil cures. 

We are salesmen, poets, philosophers, social observers and drunks.  Follow our adventures as we visit cities around the United States.  Here are our other websites.

Mykuls Webpage

Lead Love Birds: Poems by c.a. leibow

Realtive Drunkenness and Affection

c.a. leibow, The Accordionist

c.a. leibow,s Gray's Anatomy: The Poems and Others

Our flight leaves Monday the 15th at 7 AM

Download i_will_return_with_salts.mp3

Melbourne, Florida

5am Monday Morning Jan 15th

This is too fucking early to wake up. It had been a long time since I had to be awake at 5am, it is more likely that I am finally going to sleep at this time. We are flying out to Orlando and the temperture is 5 degrees in Salt Lake City The pilot tells everyone that its 75 degrees in Orlando at 8am. This is a good gig.

FLYING

I have had a phobia about flying for years and now I have a job where I fly everyweek, and never a direct flight. An ironic job choice.

ARRIVAL

Mykul and I walk out from the baggage claim waiting for our luggage and are assaulted by the heat, 80 degrees and humid. Its wonderful and I spend a few minutes smoking a cigarette and just feeling the weight of the air and smelling the mix of flowers and jet exhaust.

We get into the rental car and drive toward our hotel. As we are driving, Mykul starts counting:

* 1 Wild Boar
* 1 Wild Turkey
* 3 Pelicans
* 1 Paper Mache Lion
* 2 Paper Mache Alligators
* 1 Paper Mache Shark pierced by a liqour store sign.
* Assorted bugs.

We are going to Melbourne for our first workshops and on the way we drive through Cocoa Beach where we will be on Wed. Cocoa Beach is dingy and slighly apocolyptic. I notice a few of the strip mall signs. One hair salon is called, "The Hair Poets". Mykul decides to get a quick trim and ask the girl behind the corner if they can give him aSonnet she tells him that the girl that gives sonnets is out but if he would like a Haiku she could help him out, There was a fishhing shop called, Just Shut Up and Fish, and a Church's sign tells us that Jesus could Pimp Out Our Lives!
We stop at the beach and collect shells and just stare out at the ocean.

We arrive at the hotel in Melbourne. Melbourne is more inland and is nauseatingly suburban. James Kunsler in his book "The Geography of Nowhere" observes how with the modern version of chain stores and malls we can't really tell where we are. This is Melbourne, there is nothing distinctive about it, with its chain resteraunts, grocrey stories and malls. I could be in California, Florida or a number of of other states.

We spend the night preparing for the next day and end the night sharing a bottle of Vodka channel surfing.

Cocoa Beach Florida

Wed Jan 17th

Finally we make it back to Cocoa Beach Florida and have our workshop. This group is an interesting group. There is a retired railroad worker from New York who retired to Florida 20 something years ago. He is living well of his Railroad Pension, one of the few pension systems still giving back for years of sweat and labor. There is a retired Hells Angel, a cigar lover who is starting a cigar store and doesn't really know anyting about cigars. There is woman who wants to sell coffee tables that are sculpted dolphins and horses, and a German father son, who bring their dog, Daisy with them. Daisy wants to start a business focusing on the needs of dogs smaller than rats.

When the day ends Mykul and I decide to walk. One thing about this job, is that the rest of the team doesn't drink, and wont let us use the rental car so we walk each city while they watch cable tv. Walking is a great way to get to know the less obvious parts of a city, the smell, the feel, the way living rooms look through open windows. Again both of us are very aware of the smell. The winter in SLC pushes scent down, holds it in a headlock of snow and ice. Winter smells mechanical.

We are looking for the strip clubs we saw when we first drove through. Strip clubs are not our first choice of entertainment, but in most smaller towns , they are open the latest. We walk about two miles and are not finding them. I look down an alley and see an adult book store. Across from the bookstore is an electrical substation and we stop and are quiet for a moment and just listen to the crackle.

The bookstore seems out of place, the complex is nestled in what appears to be more appropriate for a dentist office . The bookstore is extremely lit, much brighter than any adult bookstore should be. Behind the counter is a very large black women, it looks like she hasn't stood in weeks. Talking to her is a skinny, meth-head looking man, his thin mustache looks more like any eyebrow thats fallen down to his lip. We ask them where are the gentlemen's clubs. He tells us to go to the Lido, and not to go to Cheaters, because the Lido has better looking women. So we continue walking.

We finally make it to The Lido in Cape Canavaral, about 4 miles from the hotel. A typical club. The women were ordinary and there were only really three attractive women and only one was a stripper.
We watch from a distance, observers more than participants. I say to Mykul that I would be affraid of Cheaters if these were much hotter women.

Pixie, an attractive blonde with an attractive face siddles up next to me. Her name is perfect, her voice is high and anoying. She has just got off the stage and is chumming for a few extra bucks.

" So where are you from?"
" Salt Lake City, I am a traveling salesman."
" How about that, I am the welcoming committee for Salt Lake City Boys"
"Well what does that entail"
" I give you a lap dance for 15 dollars."
" What's a lap dance."
" Its where I sit on your lap and rub all over you for the lenght of a song"
" really, can I choose the song, like "Bye, bye Miss American Pie" 12 minute version?"
" I have never heard of that one,"
" I don't thinks so hun, I'm just observing, I am a writer, I observe alot."
" A writer needs a lap dance, you can write, 'her nipple was so close to his mouth.'"
" I'm OK.

Pixie left and another woman came to Mykul and I and asked if we wanted a lap dance. The owner of the club knows his sales process. There was a lot of suggestive selling going on. We finally decide to leave. The drinks were over priced at the club so we stopped at the CVS pharmacy and bought two bottles of wine. We decided to walk the four miles back to the hotel along the beach. A wind had picked up in the north and it had started raining. The beach was completely abandoned. We walked drinking wine talking about life and art and the things we wanted. The ocean was freakishly warm. Mykul stood looking out at the ocean and was text messaging a girl he has been spending time with making her jealous, as I tried not to think of the woman who left me behind.

The light on the water and the shore was incandescent. I wrote the following lines,

The sea rushes the shore sending
love letters
from all those
who died at sea
And moonlight shadows
of sandpipers, read
them with their long beaks.

We walked for miles getting drunk on the ocean and the bottles of wine. The ocean is better than any strip club.

When we finished the last bottle we put in 5 dollars, corked it and threw it into the ocean.

We owed a debt to the sea.

Download 02_now_i_can_smile.mp3

Leaving Orlando

Wednesday Night

After are last seminar we leave to Orlando. Our flight leaves at 6:10 AM, so we want to be close to the airport.

We stop and eat at the Waffle House, which is a southern institution. Six of us sit at the counter. The resteraunt is not very large, maybe 900 sq feet, It resembles more of an old school diner more than anything modern. The menus double as placemats. The tired, 50 something waitress and the short order cook, mid 20's and plain with a hankering for Mykul, are busy trying to figure something out at the register and are as frustrated as a dog with a head cone. It takes 40 minutes to get our food. While we are waiting a fiction of transvestites comes in and sits in two booths in the corner. Their conversation is more interesting than ours. Above the grill the short order cook stares at a reminder, "Hash Browns, Not Hash Tans' I guess some short order cook was a little too concerned about speed and not color.

We have to meet in the lobby at 4:50 AM to catch the shuttle. Mykul and and I and Matt decide to drink and stay awake instead of sleep. At 3:45 I am the only one awake. I drink the last of my Colt 45 and flip through a book of poetry I have brought with me.

"why do we go on
with our minds and
pockets full of dust"

Good question Bukowski.

In the morning, I am the most awake. Matt smells like a skid row boxer pretending to be more a man than he is. The flight is almost empty to Saint Louis. Who in their right mind would be on a plane at 6:AM. Matt is still drunk ( amatuer). We lie across the three seats and sleep. Matt's head is hanging out in the isle. While he sleeps off his drunk his legs keep twitching banging the seats infront of him. The poor girl sitting there finally moves tired of the indirect abuse. Finally one of the stewardesses confronts Matt.

" Are you drunk, you can't fly if your drunk."
Matt smell like an knocked over bottle of cheap vodka.
"No mam, I am just really tired.
"If your drunk, I will make sure you never fly."
Matt pleads with her,
"No I am just REALLY tired."
The stewardess relents.

We land in St Louis and somehow lose Matt. I think of poor Matt drunk and really tired and his cell phone battery out of juice lost in St Louis, but not for very long....it's his problem not mine. ( amatuer).

I board the plane and sitting in the seat behind me is Matt. How in the hell....... We take off and Matt is sleeping stretched out across the three seats of the MD 80 and starts kicking the back of my seat with his twitching legs. After the 9th time I am about to fucking punch him in the back, but staying awake all night and two Dramamine finally kick in. When I wake up we are landing in SLC. The stewardess welcomes us and tells us the good news. Its 18 fucking degrees!

Mykul's Adventure: Leaving Orlando

I stayed in Florida for the weekend to meet up with an old flame from High School.  "Jessica" and I dated when we were young but lost contact for over fifteen years.  She recently found me on myspace.com and when I told her I would be in Florida she suggested we get together.  We had a great time over the weekend but I'm not going to publish the lurid details of our liaison here.

I am, however, going to tell the harrowing tale of an alcoholic salesman in a strange city and how he survived a near kidnapping and molestation.

I said my farewells to Jessica as she departed for home and I was left standing alone, still buzzing from the several drinks I'd had over dinner, with a thirty-five pound piece of luggage and a ticket for a flight out of Orlando a mere fourteen hours hence.  I  bought a tall coffee at  Starbucks, not because I wanted the coffee so much but because I wanted to use the heavy paper cup to disguise the Chianti I was planning on pouring into it.  Jessica and I had eaten lunch at a place called Grape.  We drank wine.  She drank white. I drank red. We ate hot Brie with sun dried tomatoes on garlic pita bread and smoked salmon with cream cheese, capers and horseradish sauce on a toasted baguette.  She bought me a bottle of the wine I had imbibed at lunch to enjoy later.  It was later.  So I drank down the coffee as I rode a bus to a part of the city I hadn't explored and when I disembarked with an empty cup I promptly walked to an unlit area of a parking lot, unzipped my luggage, uncorked the bottle, poured a full cup and started to drink clandestinely.

I walked a few blocks, sipping my wine and dragging my luggage when I noticed a red neon sign advertising "Massage". I strolled liesurely along the sidewalk infront of the stores of the stripmall, past a closed Christian gift shop with statues of Jesus and Mary staring judgingly out the window, past a Dentist Office, past a bookstore.  I stopped in front of the window to the Massage Parlor, set my bag down, leaned on a post with my back to the window and lit a cigarette. With a quarter of the smoke still left an attractive asian woman in her mid thirties stuck her head out the door and said, "You want massage?" her accent as thick as her mascara. I recognized her ethnicity immediately and said in Korean, "I'm just resting. But since you asked, how much?" "Wow!" she said in her native tongue. "You speak really well." "I lived there for five years." "You wanna come in..." she said with a seductive smile. "I'm broke." Her smile cracked like a windshield hit by a rock. "Besides, if I did come in you'd end up wanting to pay me and I'd end up feeling guilty for taking money from such a sweet, innocent girl." She smiled again but then told me to "go well" and ducked back inside. I walked the streets for a couple of hours, sipping my wine. It was a beautiful night, warm and moist. I started walking towards the airport, about eight miles away. I walked until the sidewalk ended and the street lights vanished and my bottle of Chianti was empty and the Starbucks cup was tossed by the wayside. Cars sped buy, their drivers hurrying home or to stores before they closed or to get out of the house and away from the family for a few minutes or to pick up strangers walking down lonely, unlit roads. The silver Corolla slowed and stopped on the shoulder in front of me and the passenger window rolled down. "You want a ride?" the man in the driver's seat asked. "I'm heading to the airport." I replied. He reached over the seat and opened the door. I unlocked the rear door and put my suitcase on the back seat and then took my place in front. After the customary introductions and inquaries "Albert" suggested I go back to his place and take a shower before my flight and maybe even have massage. "Thank you" I said, "but I'm not interested." He seemed to accept that for a moment but then added that I wouldn't have to do anything, just relax. He liked to suck, he said. I turned and looked at him. He was about my age. Not an unattractive man. Very kind looking and "normal". I decided to be honest. "You know Albert, I've given rides to women who were walking hoping to get what you're hoping for. Sometimes I got it and sometimes I didn't. Tonight you're not going to get it." I saw his face fall and almost heard his heart drop into his stomach. "I appreciate the ride but if you're going to try to push it further or if you want to spend your time with someone more promising you can just let me off up at the next light." He looked at me and gave a slight nod. As the car stopped and I got my bag out of the back seat he looked back and said, "You have really nice legs." "That's because I walk a lot." I said and wished him good hunting. I arrived at the airport four hours before my flight was to leave. I checked my bag and pondered weather to find a semi-comfortable spot to sleep or to get an energy drink and stay up until I boarded the plane.* At 10:00am I was in seat 1F with my eyes closed and didn't wake up until the other passengers and luggage were being unloaded in Durham, North Carolina.

*Don't expect to purchase an energy dirnk such as RedBull or Rockstar at the Orlando Airport.  They don't sell any, not even at the bar.

Goldsboro North Carolina

We arrive in North Carolina at 12AM. It is much colder than Florida but warmer than Salt Lake City. Our first seminar is a bust, and we sell too little to make it worth our while. The crowd was non descript and the only thing most of the men could talk about were NC sports. The area we were in was surrounded by universities and sports rivalries. Two old men were talking about coaches and players from the 50's and 60's. like it was yesterday.

The next day we drove about an hour to Goldsboro NC. Goldsboro's main employers are the hog slaughterhouse and the turkey factory. Our conference room is shabby and lit like a soviet era hotel and has the smell of a wet dog. The crowd is larger and our hopes are high.

I am downstairs with Mykul greeting the guests. A thirty something black woman name Merelene sees me and Mykul and starts flirting with us. " The Lord spoke to me and told me to come, you boys sure are handsome" She is unemployed so she wont be buying anything, but she loves Mykul and I and we both conclude that she is here to find a man. We do what we can to avoid her.

By the end of the seminar I am working with three older ladies, a 70 year old woman and two late 50's women. One of the women says that she'll buy if I will stay in Goldsboro with her. At first I think she is just being cute, but the woman is serious and starts up with a plethora of inuendos. She's charming at first and then I start to feel more like her prey. I start looking for a door, and try to pass her off on one of the other salesmen. Finally they buy at the false promise that when we come back to the area I will look her up.

The day finished, I walked down the frontage road to buy a pack of cigarettes. The Southern Market is about a half a mile away. I must have looked out of place walking down a frontage road past an abandoned elementary school in my suit and tie.

Back behind the school were the trees. The forest buts up against everything here, and its wild with vines, underbrush and tall trees. Being a westerner, I always feel rather claustrophobic in the South, where vistas are at a premium.

There were some really great people in NC, like Nate the resteraunt owner at the hotel. He took to Mykul and I and we sat around his bar and had a few beers. He introduced to his wife and kids and they were the warmest down to earth people we had met in a long time.

Overall, NC felt heavy, like a wet blanket draped over your shoulders. There was something palpable in the air, that made us want to leave......

Maybe it was all the gutted pigs hanging on hooks just down the road.

Leaving for Vacaville

This morning I woke at 6AM after going asleep at 2AM. Sleep is something that escapes me. We are leaving for Northern California. Two seminars, one in Vacaville and the other in Redding.

When William McDaniel purchased land from Manuel Vaca, he agreed that a one square mile area would be used to create a township. The land was recorded on Dec. 13, 1851, and the township was called "Vacaville." Vacaville prides its "Creek Walk" not unlike San Antonio's "River Walk"( at least that's what they say and has one of the lowest crime rates in Northern California.) Maybe Mykul and I will steal a car and go for a joy ride to San Franscisco.

Garbage Can, Vacaville, CA.