Ten Magnificent Todds

or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Do the Job

My first job after college was as a barista, at a bakery, in the neighborhood where I grew up. I spent four years at a school in Connecticut, got a degree in Film Studies, moved back into my parent’s house, and promptly took a job away from a teenager. If my parents were concerned they wasted $120,000 on my higher education they were courteous enough not to say anything. At least their son could discuss movies no one had ever heard of.

Making coffee for people who had watched me graduate at the top of my high school four years earlier put so much hair on my chest, that the hair very quickly ran out of room, and spread, pelt-like, across my shoulders and back, at which point the entire experience ceased to be about character-building, and instead became an exercise in me turning into a hairy piece of human dog-shit slinging piss-poor cortados to doctors and lawyers watching me flounder in real time.

It was all imagined, of course, the judgment self-inflicted. I grew up in a neighborhood of Volvos and Montesorri schools. In Denver, none-the-less, a place where years spent ski-bumming are viewed as an asset on one’s professional resume. Not all who wander are lost, man.

Gnar the pow.

But I couldn’t zoom out. I lacked the perspective to realize that I was twenty-two and it was perfectly acceptable to meander for awhile. I just felt this pressing need to stop wasting time. To be on my way.

I had a vague desire to get into the world of comedy, but what did that even mean? There was no guide book. I enjoyed writing, people told me I was funny. What do you do if you want to be a funny writer?

I decided to move to Chicago and take classes at Second City. I would become a man on a comedy mission.

But even missionaries need walking-around money. That’s why you see so many priests working at Subway. So I once again parlayed my slam-dunk liberal arts degree, this time into a job at Urban Outfitters. And while I was only working there in order to support my comedy dream, I still felt the same sense of misplaced embarrassment as I had at the bakery. If anything it was worse.

When I would insist to friends that I was also taking classes at Second City at night, I could hear the desperation in my voice. I couldn’t help but feel like a sad cliché. Especially as it quickly became clear that I didn’t even really like sketch-comedy writing, or improv. Or Second City. It was seeming more and more like a false start. A near-miss. Close to what I wanted to be doing with my life, but not quite.

I often felt lost, like a kid in a grown-up’s body.

So I would dig deep in those moments, like a turn-of-the-century white privilege newsie. I would tell myself that these days were a means to an end, even if I didn’t yet know what that end would be. I would close my eyes right there in the front entrance of the Clark Street Urban Outfitters, and I would channel my inner Todd.

*

Todd was the greatest shoe salesman I have ever seen.

He was my co-worker at my first job, selling shoes, the summer after I graduated from high school.

We worked at a place called Track N’Trail, in Denver’s Cherry Creek Mall. Track N’Trail wasn’t the nicest shoe store in the mall. Nor was it the worst. It occupied a curious middle ground between outdoor recreation enthusiasts, and sad men in need of reasonably-priced dress shoes. The mall itself had been the toast of Denver when it opened. But having recently been eclipsed by the newer, glitzier Park Meadows Mall in the ‘burbs, the Cherry Creek Mall had taken on a more utilitarian bent. It was no longer the place one went to wile away the afternoon in the infinite possibility of late-90’s capitalism. It was just the place you went when you needed shit.

The pay was garbage. $6.15 an hour. Our manager Ned gave us the option of working on commission – taking a percentage of one’s sales for the hour, instead of the guaranteed six bucks and change. But that percentage never worked out to be higher than the hourly wage. We all tried working on commission a handful of times, but it was hopeless. Nobody made commission.

Except for Todd. Todd made commission. Every time.

He worked two days a week, Thursdays and Saturdays, mid-day shifts. He was quiet and intense, polite, but solitary. He would walk into the back of the store in a long, black trench-coat, his blond, unruly hair covering his face, then he would transform.

Underneath that trench-coat he wore slacks, a long-sleeved, button-up shirt and a tie. No one else wore a tie. It wasn’t part of the dress code. Ned didn’t even wear a tie. For Todd, it was essential. A statement piece.

My name is Todd. What do I have to do to put you in these $250 hiking boots today?

Todd would pull his hair into a neat pony-tail, then he would make one last crucial adjustment before taking his place on the sales-floor. He would head over to the store’s in-house stereo system, abruptly stop whatever Muzak was playing, and insert a cassette into the tape deck. Then the store would swell with deep, bass-heavy music. 

“What is this?” I asked Todd the first time I heard it.

“It’s House,” he said, neither condescension nor pity in his voice. Just certainty.

Nowadays you would call it Electronic Dance Music, EDM, infectious anthems for cool kids to feel epic. Back then, it was something new entirely. To me anyway. I can’t remember if I liked it or not. I just remembered it swelled and dropped with such intensity it made everything feel like it mattered.

And it lit Todd on fire.

Remember that scene in The Matrix where Keanu Reeves first harnesses the depth of his powers and fights a small army in slow motion? That’s what it was like watching Todd sell shoes. He was everywhere, a sales Blitzkrieg. There were ten of him. Ten magnificent Todds. Just when you caught Todd up-selling a couple at the front of the store, you’d nearly bump into Todd carrying five boxes of shoes from the back. Of course you would never actually bump into Todd. Todd would twirl around you, the tall stack of shoeboxes in his arms entirely undisturbed, all in time to the bass pulsing from the speakers. If you racked up a sale and headed to the counter, Todd was already there, a line of customers in front of him, one that dwindled in an instant as Todd worked the register like a virtuoso; never a wasted move, every tear of the receipt a punctuation in a deft pirouette back onto the sales floor.

It was symphonic. 

Todd’s shifts flew by. It was a magic trick. That summer felt like one long, drawn-out, empty shoe store. Except when Todd was working. Then it was an event. Then it rained customers. Maybe they were attracted to the beat, felt it reverberating through the mall’s marble floors, and were drawn to Track N’ Trail by a force beyond their control. Because the flurry of customers always seemed to last the exact length of that cassette tape. Then a calm would resume. The store would empty; Todd would head to the back of the store and clock out. He would let his long hair fall back in front of his face, re-cloak himself in his trench coat, then leave, thousands of dollars richer.

Todd existed in a realm above the rest of the employees. We were in awe of him. While we bitched and moaned and stole and watched our manager Ned’s marriage unravel, Todd just showed up and got the job done. He didn’t concern himself with petty bullshit, he served his time as quickly and as efficiently as possible so he could get on with it. It was clear that Todd and I were in separate worlds, but some part of me wanted to be just like him. I didn’t want to put gauges in my ears or get a tattoo on my neck, but I wanted to be as collected as he was. As poised and professional, and yet still somehow above it all.  

Which is why I was so excited when he invited me to a party.

“Hey you should come to this,” he said to me at the end of one of his shifts, handing me a small, yellow flyer.

It was for a house party where a few bands would be playing, a couple of DJ’s. No big deal, he said.

“Cool, man, thanks!” I said, elated.

A few nights later I sheepishly walked into the house party, shouldering my way past dudes with beards in band t-shirts, and women – not girls – with dyed hair and nose rings. I made my way into the kitchen, opened the fridge and grabbed a beer. I tried my best not to guzzle it, despite the fight-or-flight alcohol instincts of a teenager. I wanted to look cool.

Then the music started. I recognized it immediately. It was the house music Todd played at Track N’ Trail. The same exact cassette. I headed into the living room and saw Todd standing in front of the fireplace behind two turntables, giant headphones around his neck, nodding to the beat. He looked up and offered a grin of recognition, then continued providing the soundtrack to the party.

A wave of realization washed over me.

Holy shit. Todd isn’t playing the tape of some band he likes in the store. Todd makes this music!

I remember looking around the room at everyone as if I was seeing them for the first time, like a veil had been lifted. I pictured them working in the mall or at restaurants or at record stores, then going out at night and playing in bands or painting in makeshift studios or desperately writing fiction. And they all seemed so happy at the party. So completely themselves. Most of all Todd. It was so romantic in my eyes. Everyone was probably just shit-faced on a Friday night, but I was completely overwhelmed in the way all teenagers are overwhelmed when the universe communicates some fundamental truth.

What you do is not who you are.

When I think back on Todd now, I think about how cool it was of him to give the seventeen-year-old kid he worked with a flyer for a house party. I think about him selling like his life depended on it, to a soundtrack of his own design. I see him at the register, ringing up sale after sale after sale, entranced by the house music—his house music!—blasting through the store’s recessed speakers. He’s not a prisoner inside of a mall in my memory; he’s not a shoe salesman. He’s a DJ, yoked to nothing but a dream; he’s a man alone, stunning in his prowess, completely and effortlessly free.

*

In another life, I’m the manager of a bustling Urban Outfitters on Clark Street in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood. People ask my sons what their dad does.

“He fucking moves vinyl,” they say. “Urban Outfitters sells more records than any store in the country. Doy hickey.”

My sons talk like that in this other life.

I think this life very easily could have been mine. Because here’s the thing about my time at Urban Outfitters: I was great at it. How could I not be? I was forged in the shadow of Todd.

I was all business. I worked hard and sold well, and when my shift was over, I vanished. Off to pursue the dream, murky though it remained.

The store manager noticed my prowess. She invited me to an exclusive party full of Urban Outfitters brass. It was impossibly hip, full of gorgeous people, all doing cocaine. She introduced me to some guy from corporate, in New York.

“This is Adam, the employee I was telling you about,” she said. 

“Very nice to meet you, Adam,” he said. “I hear good things.”

The next day at work the offer was in: assistant manager.

Suddenly a new version of my whole life was laid out in front of me: annual income, health benefits, hot girls, drugs. What early twenty-something wouldn’t jump at that?

Todd. Todd wouldn’t. Todd would stick to the dream.

I’d like to think that I very politely thanked my manager for such an incredible opportunity, then courteously explained that I was only working at Urban Outfitters while I pursued my comedy dream. But I’m sure I botched the delivery. I was so desperate to differentiate myself that I must have come off as condescending and rude.

After that my manager hated my guts. It was tangible, a full-on active hatred riddled with eye-rolls and dramatic sighs. I tried to kill her with kindness, but it was no use. She had made up her mind about me. My time there became untenable. I started to feel like something inside me was going to burst.  

One morning, before the store opened, we ran through the sales items for the day. Then we were quizzed on them.

“Adam,” my manager snapped. “How much are the beaded, pagoda sconces?”

“You’re a beaded pagoda sconce,” I said.

Huge laughs from my co-workers.

“Excuse me?” she said, all claws and teeth. “What did you say?”

“I said today is my last day working here.”

I had submitted a piece to an alt-weekly back home. They had decided to publish it. The editor asked me if I was interested in freelancing. It was as solid a lead as I had going. I decided to pursue it. It’s what Todd would have done. I was moving back to Denver to start something, exactly what I didn’t know, but something that felt more right than anything had in a long while. I was off to find my house music.

“You’re not even going to give me two weeks notice?” my manager seethed. “Oh, that is so like you.”

It really was. It was exactly like me.

I left that day for my lunch break and never came back. 

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August Shows!

Got some really fun shows this month.

For starters, I’m doing a show in Silverplume, Colorado, at this beautiful old bar called Bread Bar. If you’ve never been, Silverplume is a former mining town just off I-70 that is now pretty much abandoned, save a handful of year-round residents. But it’s got these beautiful bones, the way a lot of old mining towns in Colorado do, and none of them bones are more beautiful than Bread Bar’s. I’ve done a handful of shows there over the years, and they are always pure magic. And as if that’s not convincing enough, I’m bringing Andrew Orvedahl with me. YES FROM THE HIT GRAWLIX SAVES THE WORLD PODCAST. Snatch tickets up quick, the venue is tiny.

August 10 - Silverplume, CO - Bread Bar - Tix

Then I’m doing my one-man show at The Bug Theater. No idea when I’ll do this show again in Colorado, so get on it! Might not be a for a long while.

August 17 - Denver - Happy Place - Bug Theater - Tix

Then it’s down to Texas, specifically, Houston, for one show only at the amazing Secret Group. Seriously, I was there a few years back and I loved the experience so much I’m going back just for one night because the venue is that fun, and I want to work on this new hour at killer venues. So tell all your Houston, Texas friends, even if they support the Astros. We’re all just imperfect humans, doing our damn best.

August 23 - Houston, TX - The Secret Group - Tix

Then of course, it’s Grawlix time, winding down the at the Bug, on August 31st with Hannah Jones! We’re doing this new thing where every once in awhile we have a local who is absolutely destroying it close out the Grawlix, versus bringing in a national headliner. Hannah is a force, and we’re pumped to have her take that spot. Plus a little bird told me we’re going to have a pretty special surprise guest drop-in as well. So get those tix!

August 31 - Denver - The Bug Theater - Tix

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The Monthly Clip

God damn, great joke, Adam. Way to go.

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Before you go, follow on the socials!

That’s all for August! I’m really enjoying writing these. Hope you like reading them.