9 Things I Wish I Spent More Time Avoiding

20 Pieces of Advice for my Brand-New 20 Year Old

I didn’t even want her. I loved not having kids.

20 years ago today, all of a sudden, I had this new roommate. 

Today is my 20th anniversary as a father. Which also means it’s her 20th birthday. My daughter.

When she first moved in as one of my roommates, she couldn’t even speak English. She would cry all day. She sucked on my wife’s breasts. She broke things. She shat on the floor.

When she was born, it was really inconvenient for me. I had been playing poker in Atlantic City for 72 straight hours without sleep. Then I went to go bowling when I got back for some charity event.

In the middle of that, I got a message from my wife. “I’m in labor”. Shit.

I had to go home. Labor lasted for 36 hours.

And, as the dad, I have to just sit around pretending like I’m helping. I’m doing nothing and everyone treats you like garbage because they all know you are faking doing things.

Then they just hand you this one-foot-tall human and say, “Take it”.

They say, “I hope you know how to strap that thing into the back of a cab.” Backwards.

Why is it backwards? The Jewish illuminati who decide these things never tell you.

Then she cries and cries and cries. It’s only gotten slightly better since then.

But I learned a lot (and maybe she did also. I have no clue). You learn how to love in a different way. I’m not saying it’s good or bad.

Some people don’t have kids and I don’t blame them. But I have kids and it’s changed my life in ways I could never have imagined. Loving children is a different kind of love.

And taking a pile of teary mush and trying to turn that into a good human being is a thankless task. But maybe the only important one in life.

I can’t believe she’s 20. I wish I could relive those 20 years and give a tiny bit more into each moment. But I did what I could do and I hope she appreciates it.

She’s my beauty queen. And now she’s 20.

And here’s what I want to tell her:

1) Always go to the place least crowded.

Success is found where nobody else is.

2) Being secretly good to people = Superhero. 

Being famous for the sake of being famous = Loser.

3) Good relationships = Good life. Bad relationships = Bad life. 

Similar to this: Audience selection is better than audience development.

You don’t want people around you that you always have to teach. Instead, pick the right people to be around you.

4) If you do what you always did, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten. 

If you want your life to change, do something different, something unexpected, take a wrong turn off a dirt road.

5) Sleep and rest. 

People always say “work hard”. Work a lot. Hustle and grind.

But you’re only going to grow when you rest. Working is when you do things. Resting is when the brain grows and rewires itself.

6) Bad things will happen. Treat them like opportunities. 

You are going to have to repeat that every day.

7) Don’t feel sorry for yourself ever. See above. 

8) Be creative every day. 

Everyone else will stay in their lane. But if you are creative every day you’ll get further and faster than everyone else.

9) Live life as if today MIGHT be your last day. 

It might not!

So don’t kill people you hate. But don’t do something today in hopes of a better outcome tomorrow. Make the most of each day.

10) Don’t eat a lot. 

I mean, enjoy your food. But always remember, even when you feel hungry, that you aren’t starving.

You live in a country where your stomach is ALWAYS full. If you eat more then you’ll be unhappy.

11) READ. 

You are so lucky. Most people don’t read. Those people are losers. If you read one good thing a day then in a few years you’ll know thousands more things than anyone else.

12) Don’t “Can’t”. 

Don’t ever say you “can’t” do something. If there’s something you passionately want, there’s always some way to get it or get close to it.

13) Double park with impunity. 

If you have to get somewhere, don’t be afraid to double park. At the first chance, though, get someone to move your car. Don’t be a dick.

14) Buy convenience. 

If you have to spend your last dollar to have an easier commute always do it. Convenience is worth more than physical items.

15) Don’t read the news. 

Every second you read “news” you can be reading or doing something that can improve your life.

People who write news are phonies.

16) Everything worthwhile requires skill. 

If you want to achieve something, you need more skill than all of the other people trying to achieve it.

Break apart a skill into 20 micro-skills. Figure out how, each day, you can get better at each micro-skill.

Don’t worry about the outcomes. outcomes happen naturally as you build the skills. Just every day focus on improving each micro-skill a tiny, tiny bit.

This is the roadmap to success in anything you want to do.

17) If someone doesn’t like you, then ignore them. 

This seems obvious but it isn’t. Sometimes when someone doesn’t like me, I waste time trying to get them to like me.

This is how you win the loser’s trophy.

18) It doesn’t mean anything to “be yourself”. 

But decide every day what you believe in and don’t compromise on those beliefs.

Every time you compromise, you become part of the machine. Much more happiness is found outside of the machine.

19) Don’t believe something just because everyone else believes it. 

Those are the worst fakes. Except for psychopaths although I bet they are related.

20) Don’t forget to call me. 

Happy 20th birthday, honey. I love you more than I love at least 7 billion other people.

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Why I Turned Down $13,000/hr from McDonald’s

A few weeks ago, McDonald’s offered me $55,000 for a few hours worth of my time. It would’ve been about $13,000 an hour.

When I was a kid the big treat of the week was when my mom would take me to McDonald’s. My favorite meal. Mmm. Fries. A quarter pounder. A six-piece nuggets. A vanilla milkshake.

One time my grandparents took me to McDonald’s and then I got caught shoplifting at a toy store in the mall.

My grandpa had said to me at the McDonald’s, “We’ll get you anything you want.” But that wasn’t enough. I ate a quarter pounder and then robbed the Kay-Bee Toy & Hobby shop of baseball cards. I was 10. The police came.

My grandpa, who loved me, hit me.

—

McDonald’s was freedom. When I would skip school, first stop was always McDonald’s.

Once a month as a kid, my dad would take me out of school.

He’d take me to the dermatologist because my acne was so bad I needed special treatments.

The doctor would drill all of the pus out of the purple cysts that were forming all over my face.

I would hide in McDonald’s, all blotchy and purple, for the rest of the day while I read comic books. 56th and 8th Avenue. The McDonald’s is still there.

A few weeks ago McDonald’s started tweeting about me.

I lose about 100 twitter followers every time they tweet to their 3.5 million followers about me.

And people would hit “reply” to the tweets with all these graphic images about McDonalds. I won’t describe them. I don’t really care.

There are only so many fights you can have in your life. Guns? No guns? Climate change? Identity politics. McDonald’s… good or bad.

I don’t fight those fights. Life is hard enough. I raise a bunch of kids who I love. I help my friends. I have a bunch of employees. People depend on me. Or so I tell myself.

McDonald’s kills chickens. That’s someone else’s fight.

McDonald’s had a role in my life when I was young.

About once a month I’d visit my half-sister in the city and she’d take me to McDonald’s. That’s where we got to know each other.

She’d say, “I’d never eat here. But I’ll take you here.”

Is this an ode? Am I writing an “ode”?

—

McDonald’s offered me $55,000 a few weeks ago so I would let one of their employees shadow me for a day.

I turned down the money. I didn’t want it.

If I took the money I’d have to do what they say. I’m not very good with that, no matter what the price.

They didn’t understand. “But you agreed to do this!”

I said, “Yeah, I agreed to let a McDonald’s employee shadow me for a day. I don’t want the money. Just let him shadow me. Why do I have to sign a contract?”

So I let Billy follow me for a day.

I had meetings with several entrepreneur friends. Showed Billy the comedy club. He got to meet people who are paving their own way in life and creating their own paths.

Just like I hope Billy does. Just like I hope my own kids do.

I hope it was a fun day for him.

McDonald’s may or may not be a great place for kids to start off their careers. But it’s nice that they let him follow me around for a day.

One time with my mom, when I was a kid, I was eating a Big Mac and taking such a disgusting juicy bite that the woman next to us said to her daughter, “Just don’t look, honey, YOU DON’T HAVE TO LOOK” and my mom said to me, “You’re so disgusting” while ‘special sauce’ and tiny bits of meat oozed down my chin.

—

Billy, don’t be a a little tool in the machine. Have your fun, save some money, eat some shitty junk food.

Then start to piece together who you are.

If you aren’t the master of your life, then you are the slave of someone else’s.

Blah!

Are you crazy, turning down $55,000 for just a few hours work showing a kid around?

I don’t know. Maybe. What’s crazy?

McDonald’s, the largest restaurant chain in the world, is f***ing following me.

Full circle.

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Life Advice: 10 Quick Tips

My dad had a stroke and never got better. He was in a sort of “awake” coma for two years.

I would visit. He was staring at the ceiling but I don’t know what he saw. Someone had lost his glasses and I knew he was blind without them.

When I first would visit, in year one, sometimes I’d see him twitch or even do a little grunt.

The doctors said he was brain dead but I didn’t believe it. I knew there was someone there. He wanted to get out. He wanted to move.

But gradually he stopped responding to anything. And eventually I was hoping he would die. Eventually he did.

Thank god because I was sick of visiting him.

—

Until he died I would always think to myself: things cycle.

But that only works until it doesn’t. My dad got worse and worse. Nothing got him better.

I was going to say that “work hard and things get better” is the only life advice you need but it’s just not true.

Sometimes things just get worse. And sometimes, for no reason at all, things get better.

Working hard is a good way to increase the chances of the above. But it’s not the be-all life advice.

I was also going to say, “find the joke in everything”. But not everything has a joke. Not everything is funny.

Although if you can laugh about something, that’s certainly better than not laughing.

Life is pretty hard. And it’s Every. Single. Day.

---

Most days I have a little bit of fear in me.

I get worried for my children. I think to myself, “What is going on in their heads right now?” and I hope it’s OK.

I’d hate to think I gave birth to someone who is now in pain.

I have fear that bad things can happen to me or people I love.

I have fear that things I work hard on will not work out in the end. They say “it’s the journey” and this is good advice also but if the journey is hard I want to make sure there is some comfort at the destination.

I have fear that people will dislike me for no reason. I try hard to please people and I’ve seen too many times where the harder you try to be a good person, sometimes the result is even worse.

Sometimes I think, “What am I doing to improve myself?”

I always advise: improve yourself. If you improve yourself 1% per day then, compounded, it’s 3,700% a year.

People argue and say, “No, it’s 365% a year.” No it’s not. I said “compounded.”

But is it that important to improve ones self? I guess it is. But I don’t know.

It’s hard to improve. And in order to improve, you also have to be OK at being really sucky at something. You have to be OK with being a failure.

Failure is unpleasant.

---

OK, here’s my advice.

After all my failures. After all of my successes. After writing 21 books. After interviewing 500 of the best peak performers in the world.

After starting and selling many businesses. After tasting the bitterness of so much failure and bouncing back from it. After trying to get good at so many skills and succeeding at some and failing at others.

1) Take time out of your day to help the people you love.

Like, if I can help my daughters today, I will.

2) Be honest.

So at least you don’t have to deal with the fallout from being dishonest.

It’s hard enough to live one life, let alone a double life.

3) Try not to care what people think.

Although I know I will always care too much.

4) Try to rest.

It’s good to let the brain wander. Creativity moves around a lot inside the brain. You have to let your brain wander in order to find out where creativity is today.

5) Don’t eat a lot.

I’m not saying “starve” yourself. But let’s face it: you’re not that hungry. Eat as little as you can get away with. Don’t snack. Eat fruits.

The only reason for this is so you don’t get sick or feel sick and your bowel movements aren’t painful.

6) Nothing else is that important.

Let bad things happen and look for opportunities in them.

7) If someone doesn’t want to like you, then leave them alone and find people who do.

8) Never do anything you don’t want to do. 

Always try to move in the direction that makes you happy. If you want to read a book about fishing, read that book. If you don’t want to go to a wedding, then don’t go.

9) Creativity = Flow 

And flow is fun. Whether it’s playing a game, or writing, or spending time with friends, try to get into flow as much as possible before you can’t anymore.

10) Call one friend a day.

So that you aren’t lonely.

---

I wish I could follow all of this advice but I’m getting better at it.

Every day I’m getting a little better at it.

Today I’m doing a podcast. I’ve done almost 500. So this has been something I’ve worked hard at.

And then tonight I’m performing on the same lineup as one of the best comedians in the world.

I guess that’s a good thing although I’m pretty scared and maybe I will mess up.

So here’s what I will do and maybe this is the best advice of all:

I’m going to pretend I’m an alien from another universe, another dimension.

And I just landed in this body.

And my mission is: I don’t know why I’m here, but I’m here for a reason. Find out why and complete my mission because I’m only here for another 12 hours and then I’m never coming back to this dimension again.

And yeah, that’s the best advice ever!

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How To Be A Superhero… Again

11 Tips for Living a Better Life

I’ve been very sad at points. I’ve been lonely. I’ve felt like I was no good at anything.

I felt like I didn’t know what the rules were. For happiness. For living. How can I find out?

And I felt that I was constantly trying to please others, just to survive, and nobody was trying to please me.

These are the things that I’ve done that have directly helped me whenever I am feeling down. And in some cases, they have led to incredible success.

 

1. ASK FOR ADVICE

Let’s say you are negotiating a salary. Or anything.

Ask for advice. Say, “I love what I do and I just want to work here. You’re the expert at making deals and giving out salaries. If you were me, what would you ask for?”

Asking for advice gives status to the other person. Also, people do not want to betray the trust you are giving them. In most cases, they will give you good advice.

This isn’t just for salaries, but for anything. People like to share with and feel bonded with others who are vulnerable with them.

Be vulnerable.

2. MAKE EVERYONE ELSE LOOK GOOD

I had a professor once who said he didn’t care if anyone knew who he was. I didn’t understand.

He said, “If my students become famous, then I’ve done a good job.”

Make your boss look good. Make your spouse look good. Give all credit to your employees.

If you are always the source of “credit” then everyone will come back to the source.

3. LEAVE YOUR COMFORT ZONE EVERY DAY 

I had to perform the other day. One of my favorite comedians was also performing in the same show.

“Do you want to go before him or after?”

“Can I go right after?”

“Are you sure? That’s going to be a hard spot. Nobody else wanted that spot.”

“I want that spot.”

That’s how you get better.

Another time, I wanted to get better at performing in situations that were terrifying.

So I did stand-up comedy on a subway car.

I don’t know if it helped me. But that’s why you have to try new things every day.

4. TRY TO IMPROVE EVERY DAY 

In 2002 I needed to improve my creativity.

I was depressed and dead broke. And I had a family to feed.

I couldn’t sleep at night. I was so anxious. And the fumes from 9/11 still made the area stink. Every morning I’d get as close to Ground Zero as I could and I’d get really depressed.

But then I started writing down 10 ideas each day.

Within a month, I felt excited again. For the first time in years. And a few months after that, I felt my creativity spiking. I could come up with any idea.

It changed my life, that simple practice.

Improving my creativity every day made me creative for writing, business, relationships, performing, income opportunities, parenting, everything.

Pick one thing and improve every day. Nobody can compete.

This one practice changed my life.

 

5. BEING ANGRY AT SOMEONE IS LIKE DRINKING RAT POISON 

It’s like drinking rat poison… but you think you are giving it to them to drink.

I can’t understand!

This friend is treating me like garbage.

As far as I can tell I’ve been very good to this person. I’ve done favors for this person, I’ve gone out of my way to help him.

But for some reason, he is very rude to me.

So at night I wake up and I think about it. Why is he rude to me?

Don’t ever ask, “Why?” There is never an answer.

It’s really hard but I always try to catch myself and say, “I am wasting my time thinking about this person.” Thinking about ‘why’. Thinking about what should I do.

I should do nothing.

Make new friends. Move on with my life in every one of these situations.

 

6. REACH OUT 

Every day I reach out to a friend. The more community you have the healthier you are, the longer you live, the happier you are.

7. WALK AS MUCH AS YOU CAN

I live on the 7th floor. I walk up and down the stairs instead of taking the elevator. That’s not a lot of exercise. But it’s cold outside now. I’ll walk more when it’s warmer.

But never reject a chance to walk more.

 

8. DON’T EAT TOO MUCH

I call this the ‘Airbnb Diet’.

When I was living in Airbnbs for three years, I’d never shop in a grocery store. I’d always order delivery.

You can’t order a bag of doritos from a sushi restaurant.

By ordering just one entree and no bags of doritos I kept my eating within normal levels.

When I go to a grocery store I feel an enormous urge to buy chips, cookies, cakes.

During this period I lost about 30 pounds and kept it off.

 

9. SLEEP 

I need eight hours a day. Not everyone does. But I do. If I don’t get it, I get sick.

 

10. BE CREATIVE EVERY DAY

I write every day. No exceptions. I’ve done this for 28 years. I hope I never stop. I read in order to get inspired and to learn from the greats, and then I write.

 

11. BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN. YOU CAN’T STOP THAT

But you can control your reaction.

I used to blame myself for every bad thing. I used to think, “Damn! Am I going to have to start from scratch again!?”

Now when something bad happens I think, “OK, here’s a chance to apply all the advice I’ve written down.”

And that works.

I hate thinking of this as some BS self-help post.

I also hate self-help stuff that is based on scientific research. Scientific research means nothing unless I can apply it to myself.

A friend of mine is on his deathbed. We were good friends 20 years ago and now not as much but I think about him a lot.

He told me, “I will never mortgage the present moment for the hope of something better in the future.”

And I guess that is the best life tip of all.

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9 Life-Saving Reasons You Shouldn’t Judge People

Easy Ways To Make Yourself Happier

Persistence + Love = Success

Reality / Expectations = Happiness

Fear + Denial = Anger

1% compounded every day = 3700%

Great Idea * Different Great Idea = Unique Idea

Community + Mastery + Freedom = Well-Being

(My wants > Their wants) + Other Choices = Negotiation

Big + Safe + Easy + New = Sales

The 5 people you’re around most / 5 = You

Who you are + Why you are + Why now = Creativity

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How To Spot A Narcissist

I had a girlfriend once who told me that all her exes ended up being narcissists and that’s why she was single.

Her longest relationship in the prior decade was about three months.

I’m not blaming her for anything.

We ended up dating for 10 months and then I felt we were just different people and ended it.

For a while I was angry at myself. I wish I had stood up for myself a little bit more to some of the things she said to me.

Some of it had to do with my relationships with my children, who are very important to me (most important!). Some of it had to do with moments when I felt her actions didn’t fully connect with her words.

And some of it I found myself slipping into bad habits.

Like I would think to myself, “I did THIS and THIS for her, so why won’t she do THAT?” I really wanted to know. I wanted to know the answer but I never got it.

I was keeping score. After we ended, a good friend of mine told me, “Once there’s a scoreboard, you know it’s over.”

I’m grateful he told me that. It hit me in the head how TRUE it was.

But I was insecure and wanted her to like me and didn’t want to cause problems.

And I felt we seemed to others like a good couple. And I was in desperate need for the external validation of that. Which was part of my insecurity.

And finally I thought I had made a commitment and I believed the adage, “Good relationships are hard work.” And I kept thinking to myself, “Man! They were right. I have never worked so hard! This must be a great relationship!”

I said to my therapist after, “Why did I put up with all if it?”

I looked back through my emails to my therapist.

I wrote long emails every time there was something that was said to me that I felt hurt my feelings or I didn’t know how to deal with. The emails started about a month after I started dating this person.

Why did she do this? How do I respond to that?

My therapist said, “View it as data. Now you know what you definitely do not want in a healthy relationship.”

Toward the end of the relationship, I asked my therapist, “Do you think this will work out?” And she paused and said, “Hmm… 50/50. See you next week!”

I liked this girlfriend. I loved her. I wanted it to work.

And it’s not her fault. I tell myself now we were just different people going in different directions and at different stages in our lives.

Different values about the things that were important to us.

Maybe I believe this or maybe this is my excuse for, “Why did I deal with what I dealt with?” I am not a martyr. I don’t like dealing with bad things. It’s more like I’m very stupid.

Ending it was very painful, It was one of those things where 90% of the relationship was great and 10% was very bad. So I was afraid I was doing the wrong thing.

But the bad started going beyond what I could accept being with for the rest of my life.

Again, perhaps I could have made her more aware of that. And maybe I even did, in my own way. Or tried to. But it was too many things and it was overwhelming to me. My work, my creativity, my relationships with others, started to slow down.

I wasn’t good in this. I am certainly not the hero. I didn’t put up boundaries. I didn’t know how to express my needs and I still don’t understand why. I’m not afraid to express my needs but in this case I was.

It was sad. She stayed one more evening (we were living together but she had another place) and there were tears.

Afterward I heard that she was telling people I was a narcissist.

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What To Do When You Lose $9 Million In A Day

I lost $9 million while I was on the set of the pilot of “Billions” season one, long before it became the huge hit it would be.

It was fascinating watching the shoot. I asked the director a ton of questions, the actors, the writers, etc.

I love to learn. And I love to see creativity in process.

I loved watching the actors shake to get ready for a scene. I loved how the director show the same shot 10 times just to get the angle correct, while one car pulled out of a parking lot, inches from another expensive car pulling in (a metaphor for the risks the characters take).

I loved seeing the pleasure on the faces of my friends, the writers, as their vision was coming to life.

In the middle of the shoot, I got a call. Emergency Board meeting! I owned $9 million of the company.

I got excited! Maybe we were sold. Maybe my life was going to change.

It did, but in the opposite way.

Without going into the details: Bad stuff happened with one of the top shareholders of the company. The bank was calling in it’s loan. Everything was over.

That day, the bank kicked everyone out, locked the doors, and sold off every part of this billion-dollar revenue company to other customers of the bank.

Everyone won except us. Except me. I lost big.

I had seven hours left to go before the shoot was over and we were in the middle of nowhere.

Plus, I was terrified. Am I going to go broke? I’m going to go broke! My heart was beating so fast. I felt like I was going to throw up and cry.

But I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t follow my own advice.

I wanted to watch creativity in action. I wanted to watch the shoot. And I didn’t want to let something horrible pull me down.

You can always make money back. You can NEVER make one minute of time back.

You bounce back by eating well, sleeping well, exercising.

This was a big lesson: Don’t be around the wrong people. You bounce back by ONLY being around the right people. Toxic people ALWAYS bring me down.

You bounce back by having 10 ideas a day, exercising the creativity muscle until you glow with creativity every moment of the day.

You bounce back by NO time traveling. Don’t travel to the past where your regrets live. Don’t’ travel to the future where your fears live.

Lessons learned only live in the present. Satisfaction with life only lives right now, not in the future or past.

This is the only way I’ve ever been able to bounce back from a clusterf***.

I was scared. I was even terrified. A mountainside had fallen on me.

I had to almost hypnotize myself. I had to say, “This is the moment I’ve been waiting for.” To prove to myself that my own writing wasn’t just self-help BS like everything else. Blech!

A year later, I told one of the writers what happened. He said, “What? We couldn’t even tell. You were asking questions all day.”

I don’t write because I’m an expert. I write because I need to always remember my own advice.

My writing is the last branch on the tree for me… before I fall.

I don’t want to fall. I don’t want to fail.

I remember that day for the fun I had. And I remember that day because I passed my own test.

I focused on what was in front of me. Damian Lewis playing a billionaire. My friends creating. Directors shooting. Actors acting. I learned so much and I was happy.

I followed my advice. I reinvented myself. I chose myself. Again. Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I do.

The more I practice choosing myself, the easier it will hopefully be each time.

The books I write are love notes to my future self. They are bedtime stories for an older me.

Write the book that is a love note to your future self.

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What Would You Bid For This Moment?

The only thing I know is that he froze to death.

In 2014 his electricity was turned off and he never had it turned on again. Nobody knows why. 

He died from freezing to death in his $10 million home on the Upper East Side in January of 2018.

His parents were the rich founders of furniture and design company, Knoll Associates. His father came to America to escape the Nazis and created a furniture empire.

Peter Knoll, until the day he was found frozen at age 75, probably never had to work a day in his life.

He was a collector. He once bought an Aston-Martin on a whim. He collected Rolexes, Picassos, all sorts of jewelry, furniture, artwork, millions of dollars of collectibles that probably sat in his dark townhouse while he shivered over them.

How do I know? I saw them all yesterday.

—

My friend called me. “Let’s go to an auction.”

All of Peter Knoll’s belongings were for sale.

He had left his $10 million home to a boarding school he had attended in the 1950s. His children, who got basically nothing, were fighting it in court.

They lived in Florida. He froze to death by himself in NYC. They found the body several days later.

That could be you and me someday. Nobody knows. It could be the guy I pass on the street.

“OK!”

We went to the auction. I figured Knoll was an expert collector for decades.

So he knew things about value. He knew about art. He knew the world. And the people who showed up would also know. I would watch them and maybe learn.

You can learn about value by always standing next to the people smarter than you. Every object, every moment in time, has value.

When I argue, I just bid too much for that moment. When I hope for better, I borrow against the future to bid for that moment, because the present has no value.

I want to know where to invest my time. Where to invest my life. I don’t want to die frozen. Every moment I want heat.

Everyone seemed to know each other at the auction. I felt shy and out of place. My friend was going through the catalog and circling things.

I sat next to two people. One of them was saying, “Toys don’t go for a lot. And neither does weaponry.”

“We know someone who wants a whale harpoon,” said the other guy. “So we’re aiming for that and we’re going to split the profits.”

“What about the six shot Dumonthier knife pistol?” “Nah”.

I moved a few rows down. A man and a woman were talking.

“I wouldn’t go over $2,500 for that Picasso lithograph.”

Later, it went for $4,200.

“What would you pay for that first Rolex Oyster?”

“$27,500 tops.” Went for $46,000.

I wanted to play too.

—

My friend got a 12-piece silverware set for $175.

“Do you think that was good?”

I said I didn’t know anything about silverware but the description said it had 15 oz of silver so that would be at least $225 for the silver alone. On eBay, the same brand and year for that set was going for $720.

I went downstairs. There were stalls for people selling antiques. There was an espresso bar where old men and women were looking at catalogs with magnifying classes.

I spoke to a guy who sells typewriters and phones. Not smart phones. Dumb phones. Phones like I had when I was a 10 years old, whispering what girl I had a crush on so my parents wouldn’t hear.

“We don’t go to auctions,” he told me. “Just estate sales. You can pick up these phones for $5.”

“How much if I buy one phone?”

“$125. Katie Holmes’ little girl was just in here and wanted this yellow phone. But Katie didn’t buy it for her.”

These were fragments of memory for sale. The real stories forgotten.

I’m a collection of Big Data. A bag of Likes, Comments, Follows, Interests. Then ads that predict what I want.

But Peter Knoll knew what he wanted.

For 50 years he developed his tastes. The sterling silver snake handles trophy cup presented by Colby Ramsus for a “world cup”. The Peter Max painting. The whale harpoon.

And then he froze to death. Leaving all his money to a place he spent some time 60 years earlier.

What sentimental thoughts whispered to him from that distant memory? Is he trapped in an eternal looping memory of that time? In whatever heaven he slipped into?

My friend bought some antique china and more silverware. I bid on the Picasso and, following my neighbor’s advice, I lost.

I went home. My daughter was coughing. I got her some cough medicine and hugged her.

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