let’s be real; i’m a grunt laborer. i do the same kind of job my relatives did right after they left ellis island not speaking a word of english with their names chopped in half. desperation. that’s what got me into moving. i’ve found desperation to be one of my best motivators. i abandoned all desire to wait, bartend, sell overpriced clothes, or get my photo taken. in my desperation for something different i started working as a helper for a mover because it’s not a hard business to break into.

as for how the idea of nice moves movers came about; i’ve worked with two different kinds of man-with-a-van movers in this city: a. hard-knocks that hustle their asses off b. artists and musicians trying to pay their bills. both taught me the things i know. i still have a lot to learn though. my life, like most people’s, hasn’t been the easiest. i’ve learned how to hustle. there’s not enough money in working for someone else while i’m an unpublished fiction writer/poet and attending brooklyn college full time. it was time to make a move or get hopeless. i rallied some of my broke friends together and cut out the middle-man of my former boss. voila- nice moves movers.

2. If there’s one thing I have observed at the junk shop it is that people own a lot of strange stuff. Hell, this is New York City. We have our share of weird people. What was your strangest and/or most challenging move and why?

there’s no effortless job doing what we do, but usually it’s personalities that make a move hellish and not physical circumstances. my hardest move, which was four months ago, had both factors making it infernal. a middle aged couple; an explosively angry croatian man and his inebriated american/jewish wife. sixth floor walk up in china-town to a fifth floor walk-up in a hasidic neighborhood on the south side of williamsburg. the husband kept walking around yelling “you do not tell me to fuck!” at no one in particular and the wife continuously smoked pot while offering my worker and i money to come back later that night. we had no interest.

the streets were full of people, parking was impossible, the stair-wells narrow, and they had two sofa-beds. it was not a fun day. we finished it in record time with no damages. this was the icing on the cake: “the atm give issue, check?” bounced.

3. Conversely, what’s the coolest thing that’s ever happened on the job and why?

six months ago i worked for a client who’s bar on the lower east side went under. he showed up a half-hour late to the job he booked us for looking like he’d had the longest week of his life. it was truly tragic. i was able to make him smile a couple times and once he even laughed. after he started to loosen up. the place had an awesome sound system and he started blasting hair metal. he sang and drank while we cleared out his place.

he had a huge bar full of liquor and lots of glassware he’d never use again, and told us to take whatever we wanted. i left with 20 bottles of vodka, whiskey, and gin. booze and i don’t get along but my neighbors got loose all weekend and my parents tripled their liquor cabinet. now every glass in my loft is either a pint, pilsner, or collins glass.

4. Your marketing has raised a lot of eyebrows (personally I found it perversely ingenious). If you had to do it again, what would you do differently? Have you considered taking Nice Moves to the Internets (you should)?

not a damn thing. it’s been a gas even if everyone got a few snickers out of us being an overly-sensitive hipster boy-band escort service that might be old perverted ex cons. it’s gotten us a couple moving jobs. one of the guys that works for me might get a gig at a venue on bedford partly because of it. freewilliamsburg’s committed to running one of my short stories. nerve.com did an interview with me where i made an ass out of myself. (for some reason there’s still a girl in the comments saying she wants to have a child with me.) it’s still way too early to tell but that ridiculous flier might give some of us some decent opportunities.

5. I’ve noticed that your employees all seem to be men. Given today’s workplace (and I am going to bust your chops a little here) would you be open to hiring a woman?

funny you should say that. my mom and sister were infuriated when they read how obnoxious i was in my interview on nerve.com. my sis said she wouldn’t speak to me unless i promised to work her into my next flier. she’s tough as nails, a brilliant beautiful girl, and just a little vain. she’s blackmailed herself onto the next flier promoting nice moves movers in a swim-suit. cissy leone is kinda-sorta my first female employee.

i’m definitely open to trying out a lady as a mover though. if there’s any ladies that think they can handle a move like the one i did for those maniacs in china-town please call us!

phew. thanks heather. i would keep typing but i can’t anymore. i hope there aren’t too many spelling/grammatical errors in here. if you have any more questions i’d love to answer them. have a nice day!

Right back at you, Frankie! Oh yeah, “you do not tell me to fuck!” is going to be my new catch phrase starting today. Hell, make that five minutes ago!

Miss Heather

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