Hi, I'm Billy Mays

Billy Mays is pitching me, talking fast and loud so I can't get in a word, telling me about his high school football exploits in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania and how he's half Italian (true), half Jewish (not true). "If I can't get it wholesale, I steal it," he says. Da-dum! Touching me on my arm to make con-tact, drawing me in, hypnotizing me, Mays tells me how he became a pitchman at the age of 24 on the Atlantic City boardwalk, selling Ginsu knives from a little stand, all the old pitchmen taking a shine to the kid with the loud voice and teaching him the tricks of the trade. "Get the crowd in closer. Belly them up to you." "Kibbitz—'Where you from?' " "Say 'I got something to show you.' " "Get closer." And then the hardest part of the pitch, how to ask for money: "How much, you say? Thought you'd never ask—$29.95 in a store, only $19.95 here. But here's the deal: The first five people who buy one now get it for only $10." All the people are waving their hands now, begging for a blessing to be able to buy a Ginsu knife or a WashMatik or  whatever. If Mays would only recognize them, they could fork over their 10 spot for a gadget they didn't know they wanted 10 minutes ago—until Billy Mays showed them the light.

"It's an art," he says, "to get people to stay in one area for 10 minutes. They're put there by me. That's the thrill of the pitch. My pitch is my music. They're mesmerized by me. I love it." If Mays would only recognize them, they could fork over their 10 spot for a gadget they didn't know they wanted 10 minutes ago—until Billy Mays showed them the light.

Today, at 50, Mays is the most famous pitchman in the world. His pitches are seen on TV in 57 foreign countries and dubbed in Chinese, Japanese, French, Italian, German, whatever. The media call him ubiq-uitous, with his swept-back black hair and full black beard he touches up "by drinking only dark whiskey"—da-dum! You've seen him on TV, leaping out of the screen at three A.M., just before you doze off, snap- ping you awake with his screeching voice. "Hi, I'm Billy Mays, here for OxiClean!" or KaBOOM!, Mighty Putty, Hercules Hook, Awesome Auger, Zorbeez, whatever. Mays sells them all: gadgets that stick harder than any glue, dig up weeds, hold up a 50-pound gilt-framed mirror (assuming you have a 50-pound gilt-framed mirror)—so many gadgets you never thought you needed, never even thought existed until Mays went into his pitch. A 30-second pitch, never more than two minutes—a short con—screaming at you, "Watch this! I get so excited! I gotta tell you something! Buy it right now!" So you call the toll-free number, give a strange voice your credit-card information and then get a package in the mail, stare at its con tents—a gadget, a product—and wonder, Why did I buy this? But what the hell, it was only $19.95. It's always $19.95. That's Mays's secret.

"It's gotta be under $20," Mays says. He shrugs. "I don't know. That's the magic number." It also has to be an unknown item that can't be purchased in a store, that can be seen and purchased only on TV and that appeals to a mass audience of do-it-yourselfers. Mays gets his satisfaction from sheer quantity. "I want to sell billions of things," he says. And he has, which has made him rich (three Bentleys, million-dollar homes) and famous. There are websites devoted to either loving or hating Billy Mays. He shrugs again and says, "There's a fine line between love and hate." One website is dedicated to fans who want to have his baby, though most of those fans are gay men who like so-called hairy bears. They call him "one of the hottest bears on the market" and beg to be able to "boff that bear." His haters refer to him as "an asinine piece of shit," "a public nuisance" and an asshole. One fan says Billy Mays is his idol because he's "so obnoxious that he's cool" and can sell "dick to a dyke," tap water from your own sink. A $5 bill for four easy payments of $19.95, plus shipping and handling.