Virtual, Baby

Victoria on the other hand seemed to cling to her parents, living with them in their Anchorage home after high school and into college. That’s where she lived when we met, and that’s where it seemed like she might be happy to live forever. By the time we were married a few years later, Victoria had graduated college and we’d moved into our own apartment.

I was working as an entry-level news photographer at a local television station. It was common to be called at 3am to cover a house fire or a car running into a moose or, just as often, nothing at all. Now that I was a Married Man, I wanted a bona fide career and, frankly, something more lucrative. There’s plenty of money out there, I thought, and I actually wouldn’t mind having a bit of it.

After we were married I quit my job. I’d come up with a plan to reinvent myself as a Successful Independent Businessman. This was a plan that required one notable concession: To save money we would move, as newlyweds, into the unfinished basement of Victoria’s parents home in Anchorage.

The lower level of their house was a large open room used mostly for storage. It included the laundry area as well as an exposed toilet and sink, which lacked a wall or a door or any kind of privacy. The floor was bare plywood so we spent a weekend hastily gluing down squares of parquet before lugging in all of the furniture we owned. I setup a small desk in the corner near a sliding glass door, which would serve as headquarters for my new Independent Business Venture.

Each morning when Victoria went off to work she left me home with her parents. My father-in-law Richard had recently retired from Fed Ex. He was a boisterous Italian from Brooklyn who didn’t talk so much as yell. “Why is he so mad?” I would whisper to Victoria. “That’s just how he talks,” she would say shaking her head.

Richard met Fannie when he was in the Air Force working as a cook at a radar site in the remote northwestern Alaska village of Kotzebue—a place without road access or, at the time, running water. Fannie grew up there, her family relying on subsistence hunting and fishing for survival. She was the quiet thoughtful type, a nurturer with a bold streak, prone to spontaneously blurting out Inupiat words like Adii! (Ouch! What! Stop!).

Richard and Fannie were from about as far apart as two people could be, yet they found each other and love endured, no doubt, so they could one day share a home with their new son-in-law and his exciting New Business Venture.

The business I envisioned was a tourist magazine, the kind handed out for free in hotels and airports, featuring glossy photos of Alaska, catchy articles about how to find grizzly bears, and dozens of pages full of big, bold, revenue-generating advertisements. My uncle, let’s call him Frank, had made a small fortune with similar magazines in other tourist-heavy places and assured me that Alaska was ripe for success. I’d spent months taking photos and writing articles in my spare time to create a prototype magazine while pestering my uncle Frank for business advice.

Frank was my mom’s older brother, and her opposite in nearly every way. He knew about money and investing in the stock market. He used bad language liberally, once assuring me that “fuck you” was the greatest phrase in the English language. As a child I remember my mother and I bounding up the stairs of my grandparents house to wake him on Christmas morning—me being excited to see what Santa had for us—only to be met with a muffled “fuck off” as he rolled over.

Uncle Frank smoked cigarettes, drove too fast, and let his young daughter have sips of his beer. He berated restaurant staff for poor service, and I once watched him shove my sister into a lake fully clothed. Later, I asked him for advice on moving to a town in Oregon. He replied in all caps: I’D CONSIDER HITTING MY DICK WITH A HAMMER AND STAYING HOME.

In other words, he was precisely the role model I was looking for.

Here was a person untethered from the quaint norms of political correctness. Frank didn’t have to clock in to a 9 to 5 job. He didn’t ask permission for time off or grovel for a raise during a performance review. Uncle Frank had the secret to the American dream: He knew how to convince people to buy things. He knew how to make money, and how to make that money turn into even more money.

Perhaps, I thought, I’d been living life the wrong way all of this time.

I spent hours studying all of uncle Frank’s publications, and pelted him with questions about how to sell advertising—something I had exactly zero experience doing. Each morning, while Richard and Fannie awoke upstairs, I sat at my desk in their basement working up the courage to cold call potential advertisers. Once I found a target, my internal monologue went to work: How should I introduce myself? Do I jump right into my pitch or go with small talk? When do I mention price and what if they say it’s too high? Should I invite myself right over to their place? Get the appointment, that’s what the sales books say! What if they ask how I know it’ll be successful? HOW DO I KNOW IT’LL BE SUCCESSFUL? Maybe it’s too early? I should wait until lunch. Maybe I shouldn’t call on a Monday, most people hate Mondays. Noon on Tuesday, that’s the perfect time. I’ll call twice as many prospects tomorrow. Oh, look I’m out of coffee!

By mid-morning I would venture upstairs and find Victoria’s parents finishing breakfast or watching an old black and white movie. 

“How’d you do in your league?” Richard would bellow without a greeting. We’d both become obsessed with Fantasy Football and found it to be a delightful source of weekly disappointment.

“I’m down by two points yesterday,” he begins, “fourth quarter of the Seahawks game. Ok. They’re on the four yard line, and they throw it. Why? They shoulda handed it off to my guy! What’re they doing?! Jackasses!”

“Ridiculous,” I’d say shaking my head. “I’m down by thirty-something.”

“Eh, it’s alright. We still have the game tonight.”

Having convinced myself that no one takes calls after 1pm, I would spend the afternoon venturing into local hotels to talk with the concierge or marketing staff about giving away my publication to their guests. These were easy conversations because I wasn’t asking for money and, I gathered, most hotel staff just didn’t care.

“My name is Brad Hillwig. I’m planning to publish Alaska’s next great tourist magazine,” I might begin, thumbing extensive talking points about my core value proposition and unique customer benefits. “I’d like to give it away for free at your hotel, I know that your guests—“

“It’s free?”

“Yes.”

“Sure, it’s fine. Have a nice day.”

My uncle Frank had equipped me with some important tools for selling ads. “You want to get on the same side of the table as them,” he said. “Don’t compromise on price, or they’ll beat the shit out of you.”

I was beginning to marvel at the many ways in which people say “no.” Some simply didn’t respond at all, despite my very courteous attempts. Others were polite and encouraging, but still passed. Some said “not interested, goodbye,” and just hung up or walked away. Others balked at the price, one restaurant manager telling me that he’d have to serve way too many goddam meals to afford something ridiculous like this. Isn’t that the point of advertising, I thought. “You can offer editorial space,” my uncle replied, “if you can find a way to do it without letting them walk all over you.”