Mike, 3rd and Market St.

I started shoe-shining when I was a youngster, about eleven or twelve years old. I guess it’s been more than twenty years. That’s incredible. How I started out: when Dad didn’t want to give me money for a Friday or Saturday night, it left me no choice but to get my little shoe shine box and go shoe shining around the neighborhood bars. Sometimes I would make more than my old man would, you know. There’d be times when my old man would ask me for money and I’d say in return, “well, Dad, why don’t you get your shoe-shining box.” Oh, he hated that. He hated it. I love my old man, I still give him money when he needs it. But back in the early seventies times were tough. You couldn’t get any money. So it left me with no choice but to shine shoes to have my Friday and Saturday night money. Which was alright.

There’s nothing wrong with shoe-shining. It’s an honest living. I built this stand that you’re sitting on now from a scrap pile at the Embarcadero Center that they’re rebuilding. Like I say, for extra money I sometimes work nights as a janitor. There’s an Irish construction outfit just off Howard Street. They have the tools, so I asked them, “could you help me put this thing together?” They said, “no problem,” and they did. They helped me put the whole thing together. It’s a real solid stand. You need a stand if you want to shoe-shine around here. The umbrella I got from a lady friend. She’s a vendor, a street artist. She sells antique pendants. She works for this hotel. The hotel threw out a whole bunch of these umbrellas, and she’s just giving them away to all the people she knows. It really did help me out. It brings potential to the stand; I hear it from a lot of people. And it gives me a little shade while I work.

Look at my poor sign. My sign’s been kicked around so many times it’s not funny. Everyday it gets trampled once or twice. I’ll have to make another one soon. Oh, well. I tried to rent out the side of my stand for an advertisement. Nobody wants to rent it for some reason. I don’t know why. It’s the perfect location; everybody sees it. I wouldn’t charge a lot of money for it. I went to a lot of businesses about that idea, too. Nobody was interested. They’d rather rent from the big guys. I say, “why do you want to rent from the big guys when you can rent from a small guy like me, and I won’t even charge you that much. I’ll give you both sides of my stand for a hundred bucks a month. That’s fifty bucks every two weeks. You can go by check if you like or by cash. I don’t care…” They don’t like the idea. I even had a sign here, saying “your ad here.” It didn’t work. People would laugh, and I’d say, “you can laugh, but one of these days somebody’s going to rent it and I’ll have the last laugh.” But I just gave up. Everybody knows that the sides are still for rent, so I don’t need the sign anymore.

I’m out here seven days a week. Monday through Thursday, I usually start at around ten o’clock in the morning and work until five o’clock. On Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I work a little later. Maybe six, six-thirty, seven o’clock. It depends when the crowd dies down, you know. It’s three dollars a shine for most shoes. Four if you want me to shine your briefcase. But it usually comes to more because of tips. Money-wise I average, if I’m lucky, maybe about fifty or sixty bucks a day. Not bad at all. It’s all tax-free money. There is talk that they’re trying to regulate the shoe-shiners now because there’s so many of us on Market Street and throughout the city. It’s alright with me. I wouldn’t mind paying one hundred fifty eight dollars for a license. The important thing is to get some of these ‘entrepreneurs’ off the street who say they can shine shoes when they can’t. To shine shoes, you don’t need any experience at all. But to do it right, it’s good to learn from a professional who’s already got a stand. Of course, throughout the years, shoe-shining products have improved to make the shine better. There are a million and one items now for the shine. Liquid black leather dye. Different colored polishes– there used to be just basic black, brown, and cardova. Now you got so many colors.

I cut my time down because my customers have been complaining about how long I take to do a shine. This is the truth. One customer says, “Mike, you’re good, you’re really good, but you take too long.” My reply to him was, “Sir, you’ve never had a shoe-shine done before.” He didn’t understand what I meant by that, so I had to tell him again, “you never had a shoe-shine done before.” I said, “you go to these nickel and dime guys on the street, you’re not getting a shine. What I’m giving you is a shine. Sure, it may take a little longer, but it’s well-worth it. It’s a shine that’ll last for weeks. I’m giving you a shoe-shine. I ain’t giving you a nickel and dime shine like these guys are, just to take your money.” Most of these guys on the street, I get half of their customers, and they tell me, “these guys can’t shine for shit.”

I get mainly businessmen and tourists here. About ninety-nine percent of customers are men. Once in a while a woman will sit down. The women wear skirts. They’re afraid I might look up their skirt, I guess. It’s understandable, but I’m not like that. I treat any customer with respect. I look at their shoes, that’s all, then I’m done. Mostly, I get the type of guy that’s embarrassed to sit on someone else’s stand because of his shoes. They see how the really big businessmen sit on their stands– in their expensive suits, ties, and all of that. They’re kind of embarrassed to sit on a regular stand next to guys like that. So they come to me. I don’t see any need for embarrassment at all. A shoe’s a shoe. I’ll make any old one look like new. You know how many times I’ve had customers tell me, “Mike, get a nicer stand or a card or something so we can endorse you”? It’s the truth. They would sign their name down to endorse me, because I am good. I can make any old shoe look like new again. I can change the color of your shoe, if you want. If you get tired of the particular color of your shoe I can change it to any other color you want. If you have suede shoes and the nap is gone, I also do suede cleaning. If the nap is too far gone, I can turn your suede shoes into a leather pair of shoes, and they’ll look like brand new shoes again. All I got to do is saturate the suede, scoff if out and it’ll look beautiful again. I can save a person a lot of money.

I got a big clientele now. Not too long ago, two– three weeks ago, I had the food critic from the Chronicle here, Eric what’s-his-name. You know who I’m talking about? He’s got thirty-five million readers. He’s one of my customers. In fact, he gave me his card with his number on it. Anytime I need a favor, my God, with all the business cards I have here. I shine the shoes of a lot of movie stars. Mr. Spock was here a long time ago. The Puerto Rican fellow from NYPD Blue, he stops here twice a month. He’s real cool. I have dozens of regulars. I even have a shoe club. You get twelve shines, and the first shine is free, for twenty bucks. It’s a real good savings. People tell me, “here’s my card, anytime you need, just give me a call.” Quite a few of them come in handy. Especially lawyers. Imagine what a powerful letter from a powerful person can say to keep you off your back. It does work. Those favors come in handy when I need it. There are days when I put in eight full hours here and I don’t get no shines at all. I need a favor, so I’ll give them a call. “Hey, I need a few dollars, can you spare it?” “No problem, come on up.” Any customer I know will lend me money, regardless of the amount. They’ll lend it to me. And, usually, I don’t have to pay it all back is the funny thing. We’ll work it out in shoe-shines. This is what they tell me. I don’t ask them for that, they tell me that. “We’ll work it out in shines.”

Because, you know, they know I’m homeless, and they know I’m out here everyday earning my dollar. They say they don’t like the sort of homeless person who pan-handles. They will not give any money to them. Me, I do give money to my fellow homeless person when they need it. Especially an alcoholic. When they come up to me with the shakes real bad, I give them the three dollars so they can get a cheap bottle of whiskey and get the shakes over with. A lot of heroin addicts come and ask me for money when they’re dope sick. I’ll give them a few dollars, ‘cause I’ve been there, done that. I know how it is.

I get to talk to people while I’m working. I have some great conversations. I’ll think of any topic I can and talk about it. I read the papers all the time. I’ll say, “Did you read about this? Did you read about that?” “No. No. So what happened?” So I’ll tell them what I read. I act as a sort of information guy when they haven’t had time to read the papers. I have the time.

Tourists will come by and ask me for information while I shine them. They ask me where to go and I advise them where to go and where not to go in the city. Especially at night-time. I tell them about all the good spots that they should go see, if they haven’t yet. Basically, I look out for them. The number one question is, “where is the immigration office?” I say, “All the way down on the four hundredth block at Sansome.” That’s the number one question.

I don’t usually get into argument with the other shoe shiners. We all have our own territories that we respect. The ones that don’t obey the rules, I’ll tell you, they learn quick. There’s a code that we have between us. We don’t do anything to them. We just let them know: “you can set up there, but I doubt you’ll get any customers.” We’ve put in a lot of years here. It didn’t just start. It took a long time for us to develop our different clienteles. It doesn’t happen overnight.

Some of my colleagues that you see around here don’t keep it real like I do. They all would bullshit you, believe me. I know these guys, they will really bullshit you. Especially the guy who calls himself the King of Shoe-Shines. He has other people shine shoes for him. In fact, I think I’m probably the only homeless person that has never shined shoes for him. And I never will. He’s a con artist. If his clients only really knew about him, I don’t think he’d have any clients.

They call their trick “the easy shine sponge.” You see, once you rub the sponge on, the shoe dulls. It’ll make the show look shiny for about an hour, and then the shoe will get dull, fast. That’s just a trick to get you to come back. A lady who had forty years in the shoe repair business taught me how to use this particular sponge properly. There’s a lot more to it than just rubbing it on. That’s what these other guys, these other colleagues of mine, use. They use the sponge and that’s it.

It’s nice to be your own boss, to have your own little business. It took me a long time to build this. It didn’t take overnight, I’ll tell you. I started with a little shoe-shine box and worked my way up. It took me about a year and eight months until I got my own stand. I had to feel it out first. I could’ve had a stand two years ago, if I’d wanted it. But I had to feel out this area. I had to see how the clients are here: will they tip? Will they come back? Finally, one of my clients says, “Mike, when are you going to get a stand?” I said, “yeah, it’s about time I got one, huh.” Good thing Embarcadero was under construction. I got the free lumber, and here it is. I sanded it, spray painted it. It’s got a lot of war wounds now. I put wheels on the back of it. When I’m done, I just lift it up and roll it away.