Here’s his Holiday Letter<\/p>\n
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I got 10,000 Tricky Triangles. My plan was to get a vinyl sign made and sell them in malls or flea markets. They came 250 to a box. There were 40 boxes. So many, that with all my other stuff I had to sleep in the front seat of the van.<\/p>\n Tricky Triangle Great Stocking Stuffer<\/p>\n You already know how this ends up. It seemed totally reasonable. Totally doable. For $8,500, I got 10,000 of the product I could I ran the math over and over again. \u201cWhat if I only sell 25 an hour?\u201d Well, then I only make like half my investment back this year, and can try again next year. See, that\u2019s the appeal. To break into a market to see what is what. I needed to make a living and I was very interested in stuff that was winter or Christmas-based, so I could be free in the summer for circus or other stuff\u2026 Right?<\/p>\n You already know how this ends up. The feeling of failure and self loathing when I put 15 of the boxes on the curb next to the garbage cans so I could sleep laying down. The dejection. The emasculating horror of 100% rejection. The bitter cold of winter. The bald tires on the van in the ice and snow. Actual hunger but too proud and stubborn to admit to anyone (at the time) that I hadn\u2019t sold a single one.<\/p>\n I thought for sure I was a natural for the flea market. For selling stuff. For 10 years I tried to sell things. On and off. I even had a junk store on 28th street in SF for a year: Shuck and Jive. Anyone ever go to that? Selling at the flea markets and doing sales requires you have certain ruthless traits. I possess not a drop of ruthless.<\/p>\n It was a cataclysmic mistake. I let more and more boxes go over the years. I have one Tricky Triangle left. I\u2019m gonna put it in I can\u2019t remember 1990. I was a high-functioning drug addict. I have phone message pads that my moving company office took, and I have the job logs. So I can actually look through and see where I was on a day to day. I can\u2019t remember any of it. Addiction is weird like that. It seems so impossible that I would gamble the last of my money with no way out on a stocking stuffer. I was truly out of my fucking mind.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/1-600x225.png\")
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\nDecember 22, 2020:
\nHAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM CHICKEN
\nSo I invested some money in a novelty game called The Tricky
\nTriangle. It was a thing you bought bulk for distribution. I was done with the moving company, living in NYC in my $200 van, and I got a windfall of money selling my phone number to a rival
\nmoving company. I sold a bunch of musical equipment and other stuff in preparation for my move to the West Coast. It was all the money I had, and I borrowed some: $8,500.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/2-600x451.jpg\")
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\neasily sell for $3 to $6. At an average of $5 each, I would only need to sell 1,700 to make my investment back. If I could sell 50 to 100 per hour and there were 45 hours of holiday shopping for three weeks, I would sell out.<\/p>\n
\nI thought that if it got tough, I could go door to door. People did that back then. Go door to door in December selling stocking stuffers. People do that, right? I worked the numbers. Thinking of places that would be good to \u201cset up\u201d at. What kind of place would generate what kind of sales. I went over it again and again. I said to myself: \u201cThey are gonna stuff those stockings with something, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
\nEdsel’s stocking someday when he\u2019s old enough to understand what it\u2019s like to make an actual, tangible, shit just went sideways mistake.<\/p>\n
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