A few weeks ago, I met a new employee at The Village Voice who was openly curious about how somebody as educated as I ended up selling escort ads for a living. Not understanding the nature of the business, I guess she assumed that anybody in my line of work would speak with a "dese," "dems," and "doze" kind of accent. And she found me to be exactly the opposite of what she expected. There's a reason for that. While many of my competitors got into the business as customers who wanted to find a way to recoup the money they'd spent as carnal consumers, that wasn't the case with me at all. So to make a long and boring story short, here's how it happened:
After ten years of laboring as a musical everyman doing everything from road work…to production work…to…arranging, I amassed the incredible sum of ten grand. And via some very bad advice from my mother (who always hated that I was a musician like my father and always wanted me to be a stock broker), I somehow turned myself into a riverboat gambler. It wasn't entirely her fault—but she DID say stuff like "you see…if you'd bought that stock when I told you to you'd be three thousand dollars richer."
Seduced by her shillish come-on to get me interested in something besides music, I took the plunge and within a few months had lost four of the ten grand I'd saved over the years. When one fateful night, I couldn't have sex with my girlfriend as a direct result of a bad day in the market, I took a long look at the path I was taking and decided to stop the stock bull shit cold turkey. And…I decided to punish myself by taking some sort of freelance job in between musical gigs to earn back the 4 grand I'd gambled away. I knew exactly the appropriate job to help me accomplish that mission.
In college, I had a quadmate who after graduation became an aspiring actor—and a cab driver—to pay the rent. And I loved to listen to his cab stories. Busting a hack just sounded like too much fun. It was a job I could do whenever I felt like it—with no particular schedule. Perfect! No gig on any given day? I could go drive and slowly recoup my losses. Plus…I knew my mother would be mortified that I was driving a cab (as opposed to being a doctor, lawyer or stock douchebag). And since she was partly to blame for my losses, what better way to send her a message? As in…worry about your own goddamn life and leave me to worry about mine. It wasn't like I ever took a dime in support from her after I graduated from college, so where did she get off trying to steer my life in the first place?
Moving on…I got the hack license and within four months had earned back the 4 grand. But a funny thing happened on the way to making that 4 grand. I ran into a guy who published a taxi paper and told him some road story or other. Ya know… just talkin' taxi bull shit with another cabby. When I was done, my new employer-to-be offered "if you can write that up in three double-spaced pages," I'll give you 50 bucks. It will go in next month's paper."
That wasn't what I was "driving" at in relating the anecdote but hey…I was the Sports Editor of my high school paper…and I had a typewriter. And suddenly…I had a new outlet for my questionable artistry. I wrote a lot of wacky slice-of-life stuff for Michael like "How To Pick Up Girls in a New York City Cab," "Cruisn' For a Bruisin': The Five Most Dangerous But Traffic Free Routes To Kennedy Airport," and "Just Call Me Honky." Essentially, I used his paper to bitch about all the indignities of driving a cab just like I bitch about all the indignities of dealing with dumbbells in this venue.
Craving fame and fortune, Michael used to send his paper to all the local TV/radio stations AND all the local magazines and newspapers. And one day a staff writer for New York Newsday called the office and asked to speak to the guy who wrote "Cruisin' For a Bruisin'." And THAT girl rode around with me for a few hours (to write a feature for her paper) and afterwards pulled me aside to offer some advice. And it went something like this: "Anytime taxis are in the news, you should submit an opinion editorial to the real papers. You're a real cab driver…and you're a real writer. They need somebody authentic like you."
And sure enough after 36 cabbies got killed…and the story became national news…I took an hour or two to write 600 dark and scary words to convey to the reading public exactly how I felt about driving an unpartitioned cab all night long while three dozen of my colleagues had been murdered in just one calendar year in New York alone.
I faxed it off to The Times, Newdsay, Daily News and Post. And the next day, three of the four papers called to accept the submission. I was flabbergasted! I expected nothing and there I was rejecting The New York Times because I'd already OK'd the deal with The Daily News.
About the same time, I began writing my wannabe cabby book, and was busy submitting the hooker chapter to Playboy and Gallery and on and on. And one day, I got a letter from Screw Magazine, which wanted to publish the chapter. Hence, I'd developed two personas; Mainstream Billy…and Porno Billy. For the "real" papers, I'd express my opinions about taxi policy. And for the men's mags? Dirty cabby stories (mostly made-up). I figured eventually…somebody was gonna offer me full-time employment! But in the meantime, driving a cab wasn't all that bad…especially when my photo was appearing next to all my op eds, and people were beginning to recognize me!
After being published in some 3 dozen publications ranging from The Times to Juggs and Screw, the paper which hired me full time was Action Magazine, a shabby sex tabloid based in Philadelphia. Initially, my duties were to write a lot but also…to take pictures and pick up money from the advertisers who were all (hello) whore houses! Because the firm was more sales oriented than anything else (the owner was an ex-Philadelphia detective), I quickly came to realize that a) they wouldn't allow me to write ANYTHING controversial like I'd been doing for the taxi paper and even the "real" papers and b) that the sales people were the guys making the money at the corporation while the writers were undercompensated.
And so…over time, I morphed into the company's #1 salesman. I had a lot of accounts and a lot of visibility in the business. While Action had problems with its bottom line, it wasn't because we lacked an advertising base. There were months the firm did over $100,000 in ad revenue! Within a couple of years, I knew almost all the advertisers and went off on my own selling most publications and websites who accepted bodwork ads.
So there it is. That's how I got this job. What separates me from a lot of my competitors is the fact that I did NOT arrive at my destination as a customer. It was an intellectual/artistic pursuit that led the way. There have been haters and critics who question my talent and role in the scheme of things. But they're assholes. I pay them no mind. You can tell me all day long that I don't know how to write and I don't give a shit because there have been many people who actually know good writers when they read them who've told me differently.
I think the best compliment I ever got came from Don Forst who used to be the #1 editorial guy at The Voice. The paper was looking for a couple of senior editors, and rather than submit a bull shit resume, I wrote a wise-ass letter of introduction. The next day I got a call to come in for a meeting just so they could check out the guy who'd approached them in such a unique fashion. During that meeting, I confessed to Don that I felt a little over my head, commenting that most of his writers had such an immense vocabulary they sounded like they'd spent half their lives reading the dictionary.
He laughed and responded, "Don't worry about it! You're an excellent communicator. If you couldn't write, we wouldn't have called you." And then after discovering what I was doing for a living—and that I was earning substantially more than his senior editor job paid, he wanted to know if we could swap jobs for a week! Funny thing! There was a homicide cop who made the same overture. But let me give you a hint: One week would be fun. After that, I guarantee you'd want your old job back. Anyway…that's how I got here.
P.S. I forgot to mention that the quadmate who turned me on to driving a cab is named Alan Rosenberg. Twenty years into acting, he finally got a break—a leading role in LA Law. He is now President of The Screen Actor's Guild! And his first cousin is Donald Fagen of Steely Dan fame.