Just because there's a recession, it doesn't mean you can't find your dream job. So allow me to direct your boundless ambition toward an ad on Craigslist's Calgary site.
While many people scour Craigslist to see if Starbucks or Bed, Bath and Beyond might be seeking additions to their cheery teams, the poster of this ad is searching for an altogether more adventurous type, proudly announcing "Astronaut Needed (Northern Alberta)." Is that the cough of a million scoffs I hear? Perhaps. But this is truly an interesting opportunity, to say the least. Just look at the first, enticing sentence of the ad: "Astronaut needed for experimental flight to Titan."
Perhaps you might be concerned that this ad was not, in fact, placed by NASA. Please, let me put your mind into horizontal mode. The advertiser assures all applicants that he has been "working on this project for near 40 years." Indeed, the only reason he is seeking an Armstrong for his flight is that he himself seems to have weaker limbs now that the years have passed.
You might also be wondering what kind of craft will shuttle you into orbit. Well, again, I can be your Xanax. The advertiser declares that his secret craft is "the result of my professional experience and imagination while serving the U.S. military in advanced aeronautics as a scientist." You see, this man is a veritable expert in his field. This spaceship enjoys "a revolutionary propulsion system and its fuselage is fabricated with the most advanced material."
Surely, you can have no more concerns. Surely, you are ready to reply to this advertisement, beaming at the idea that you will soon be beamed into the great beyond. Well, in the interests of full disclosure, let me draw your attention to some of the finer details. In the advertiser's own persuasive and humane words: "I am certain you will make it safely to Titan but there will not be enough fuel to get home. This is for someone unique that has always wanted to see the universe first-hand and has perhaps a terminal view on life here at home. Here's your shot at romantic history."
Yes, that's right. You won't be coming back. At all. Ever. So perhaps you might want to check what the nightlife is like on Titan. Because that might be the only way you could really create romantic history.
Should I have failed to deter you from applying for your life's (and death's) dream, do note that the job specs declare that you should be no taller than 5 feet 10 inches and "relatively slim." One imagines that any appearances in a Ralph Lauren advertisement might enhance your chances of being chosen.
Oh, and the advertiser also requires that you should be "mentally sound."
Grady Judd, the sheriff for Polk County in Florida, has followed in the anti-Craigslist footsteps of Cook County, Illinois, counterpart, Tom Dart.
In a sweep imaginatively titled "Operation Hot Date," the sheriff's forces arrested 28 women for allegedly advertising prostitution services on Craigslist.
The Smoking Gun quoted the sheriff as declaring that the site is still a "one-stop shop for all your prostitution needs."
I was not aware that there are other shops that require several stops to achieve similar ends, as it seems that local newspapers and other Web sites seem to offer ads of a rather similar nature to those on Craigslist.
(Credit:
CC Acloudman/Flickr)
However, the sheriff accused the site of "facilitating prostitution" and suggested he is extremely gung-ho to take legal action against Craigslist.
The Smoking Gun, while mentioning that some alleged pimps were also rounded up in "Operation Hot Date," also focused on the suggestions that two of the women who allegedly arrived for assignations with undercover policemen were pregnant and that a third had fur-lined handcuffs.
However, some might find it more interesting that six of these women are smiling in their mugshots.
Could they perhaps have felt that there is a certain sense of futility in such police action?
I know many people have strong feelings about euthanasia. And who am I to suggest that old people have few uses?
However, who is Michael Amatrudo to put his parents up for sale on Craigslist?
According to NBC New York, Amatrudo's wife is used to his sense of humor. You might conclude, though, that she has suffered enough. For her loving husband decided, just for a little fun, to put his parents up for sale on America's most useful human exchange.
Amatrudo's ad was a poem to filial love: "I got lots of use out of these guys over the past 50 years, but it's time to move on," he wrote. "Will consider trade for newer model, hot blonde under age 40 or an Erector Set in good condition. MUST SEE! Please email or call Michael for additional details and pics. $155.00 OBO."
This being America, the most tasteful of Madison, Conn.'s, residents claims he received many replies to his kind offer.
This picture was taken in Madison, Ct. But I do not believe these are the parents in question.
(Credit: CC Faeryboots/Flickr)Well, he was wise enough to list Ed and Arlene Amatrudo as being in "excellent overall condition and still plenty of life left in them."
While he claims he was touched by those who wrote to him suggesting that really good parents are, indeed, a very rare commodity, one has to wonder about Amatrudo's psyche.
You see, according to the Associated Press, Amatrudo is a 51-year-old insurance executive.
And he told NBC New York that his motivation for the ad was that he was bored. So I ventured to LinkedIn to see if I could discover more about this man.
Well, I could only find the one Michael Amatrudo, who appears to have spent 23 years with the same insurance company, Aon Re.
Should this be the gentleman concerned, everything is surely explained. How else can a man who has spent so much of his life with one insurance company make himself laugh other than to try selling his parents on Craigslist? Watching old Monty Python sketches just has no effect any more.
One can only wonder whether his parents cut him out of their will. You know, just for fun.
How could he put them up for sale for $155? They had to be worth at least $200. Typical insurance company undervaluation.
For those of you in parts of the world where there remain only four or five sunny days--London, New York--the wonderful news that I am about to impart may well be a little frustrating.
However, for those of us in the deserving paradise of the American west coast, this is the sort of joy that only indispensability can bring.
For a man in Seattle named Marc Johnson has invented the perfect solution to laptop usage on a gorgeous sunny day.
The Laptop Burka.
You might be shuddering in the thought that this has religious connotations. But, no. Johnson is not a member of the Seattle Taliban. He is just an inventor who has come up with the ingenious notion of donning a rather all-enveloping burka so that you might be able to blog on the boardwalk or comment in Cannes.
(Credit:
Marc Johnson)
As you can see from the images that I have placed here to bring you excitement, the Laptop Burka is the ultimate in deep-seated privacy, as well as keeping the light at bay for as long as you might be able to breathe your own slightly stale air.
You know that antiglare filters don't work. So this hugely practical item, retailing at a piffling $20, could bring an entirely new meaning to your outdoor life.
Johnson seems to have begun his quest for your heart, mind, and most of your torso with this Craigslist posting . He claims something called Trend Setters has described the Laptop Burka as a "hot new item." He also claims a patent has been filed by axioslawgroup.com. However, this URL seems to engender no Web site.
There is an Axios Law Group in Seattle whose URL is axioslaw.com, so perhaps these are the patent filers. There is certainly a Dylan Adams on the staff, the name Johnson quotes on Craigslist.
No matter. The Laptop Burka is clearly a marvelous invention and I can see the beaches being full of beburka'd bloggers banging their thoughts out across the world, while enjoying a cooling sea breeze.
There's something that looks like a wedding ring. A wedding ring, I tell you.
I don't for a moment believe it belongs to Gov. Arnold Schwarzernegger's fair wife. However, it's the governor who is inviting you to "bring the family" and take items such as this ring off his hands. Because California needs to find cash wherever it can.
Please, go to Craigslist or eBay and take the ThinkPad ($200) and the the Dell laptop ($200). Or even these 10 office chairs ($5 each). The LG Flip Phone ($9) and the Blackberrys ($25) have already gone. But there's plenty more.
Who knows what role some of these delightful items played in California's history? Were they used to send furtive e-mails? Might some have been used for exciting late-night trysts?
Roll up, roll up, for this is no ordinary garage sale. This is the Great California Garage Sale.
If you don't trust buying anything on Craigslist or eBay, even if it purports to come from the governor's own bosom, you can go to Sacramento on Friday and Saturday and peruse available items to your pocket's content.
If any of you wondered just how bad California's situation is, please consider that the state is happy to accept "cash, cashier's check, Visa, MasterCard, AMEX or Discover."
Except, that is, for cars. In an interesting homage to car dealers everywhere, the state will not be accepting cash for vehicle purchases. However the state would like to reassure you that it will start the cars and prove they are in running condition.
In case any of you would like to augment your computer collection, may I tell you that the computers will not be sold with an operating system. No, not even Vista.
The governor has promised to autograph some of the items. Although I am not sure where he might autograph a BlackBerry.
However, this is all clearly being done with something of a sense of gallows humor. The Jimmy Kimmel take that I have embedded here is actually featured on the state's own Great Garage Sale site.
It's ugly. It's not proactive. It turns a deaf ear, a blind eye, and a snubby nose to investors. And it looks upon advertising as if it were as appropriate as an anchor tattoo on the Pope's forehead.
In sum, suggests Gary Wolf in the latest issue of Wired, Craigslist is a mess. A horrible mess. An embarrassing mess. A willful mess in which its principals rake in money while its principles seem to revolve around some weirdly benign view of human goodness.
Of course, you can see what he means.
We live in the forging, gorging West. We need things to be large and shiny. We need the surface of everything to be attractive, clean and bright, so that the mirage can somehow compensate for a reality that might not be quite so perfect.
At least, that's what so many of those who manage brands seem to believe.
And yet there's Google, whose sense of design might most politely be described as workmanlike. Although I have heard phrases such as "naive" or even "dull."
Somehow, Google has never really made too much of an effort to sex up the look of its search and it has done really quite well. Microsoft's Bing sees this as one of Google's potential weaknesses and has made at least some attempts to look just a little cooler than its monolithic competitor.
So Craigslist is surely not alone in cradling its utilitarianism, while steering clear of glamour. Wolf makes much of Craig Newmark and CEO Jim Buckmaster being slightly odd types who fancy themselves as libertarian, but rather wealthy, Robin Hoods.
However, shouldn't we really be thinking about ourselves as the odd types?
The fact that Craigslist gets more traffic than either eBay or Amazon suggests that the site's mess is one we humans not only recognize, but even appreciate.
Its utter lack of pretension, its acknowledgment of life as difficult, wayward, and, yes, messy, somehow serves to help people accept it as the place to go for real, everyday, sometimes very cumbersome needs.
Stripped of the glitter associated with conventional advertising and conventional business, Craigslist looks at you openly and benignly and says: "What annoying little burden can we take away for you, today?"
It's commercial psychotherapy of a very different sort than, say, Gucci.com.
The fact that the site and its way of doing business also happen to rhyme rather well with Newmark's and Buckmaster's view of the world might not be cause for criticism, but rather envy.
How many people are fortunate to live and work without having to compromise their principles, even their very personalities?
If Craigslist is such an embarrassing mess, why has no handsome eligible competitor come along and swiped it from the Web, like a nerdy, pimpled boy being removed from the pretty people's party?
Could it be that for all the ugliness, for all the bizarre bazaar-like quality of the site, people feel a certain recognition within its pages? Even a certain trust?
Yes, Craigslist is messy, annoying, contrarian, contradictory, arbitrary and just occasionally totally maddening. Somehow, people like that. Could it be because Craigslist is a little like us?
Gentlemen of Philadelphia, don't let this great girl pass you by.
No, those aren't my words. Well, not the last seven. These are the words of Britney, who is advertising in the new adult services section on Craigslist.
She continues: "Im 5'5, 120 lbs all natural 34 c, I have a great body and i want to show you what I can do with it....tanned and toned, sexy, sweet with a bubbly outgoing personality."
Or take Ashley, an advertiser on the New York Craigslist. She headlines her ad with the enticement: "Very Pretty Grad Student Available Now!!!!!!!!!" And she promises: "Your pleasure is my goal, your wish, my command."
Some advertisers have chosen to make their pictures a little more discreet. Some advertisers have even taken the name change from Erotic Services to Adult Services to heart. This advertiser from the Los Angeles section literally uses the phrase "adult services," as if this is now a seal of approval.
Yet everyone involved knows that this is little more than a dance, a dysfunctional Argentine tango between those who advertise sexual services on Craigslist and those who have sought to pursue the site for no other reason than that it is large and successful.
Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster offered these words to the San Francisco Chronicle on the subject of the new adult services section: "We are no more able to read the minds of people placing ads than are classifieds editors at newspapers and the Yellow Pages."
Yet his language reflects the new subtlety of his advertisers. He told the Chronicle that the new tone of adult ads is less racy than that in weekly newspapers and other, perhaps slightly less high-profile Web sites. He is right.
It is very easy to find ads in many media that tell it far more as it really is. Even those that offer more indeterminate promises, seem to wink as they do.
Please just take this one example from the site nyasianfun.com. As well as showing women in various stages of undress, when you go to the link marked "rates," you will see not only that Suffolk County is more expensive than Brooklyn, but that: "Our escorts are of the highest quality, guaranteed to mostly please our clients."
What conclusions can one possibly reach from the phrase "mostly pleasing"?
Critics, such as Sheriff Tom Dart of Cook County, Illinois, have assailed Craigslist for not revealing how monitoring of sex ads is performed, or even who performs it. Does Craigslist founder Craig Newmark do it himself? Or has he farmed the job out to interns, contractors, or full-time employees?
But isn't the reality that this is all mere posturing, as people have learned how to communicate with each other online in ways that will successfully circumvent the law's arm length?
If you don't feel like being in the adult services section, you can try "causal encounters" or "women seeking men" or "men seeking men." And who would wish to declare that all of the massage advertisers in the "beauty" section are, indeed, merely masseuses and masseurs?
If you wander around the site, you will see new code words emerge, words that quickly become understood by those who regularly go there, seeking whatever it is they seek.
It's just a microcosm of life being played out on the pages of a very successful online trading floor. Well, mostly successful.
Humanity knows no depths.
On Monday, Craigslist and other sites were adorned with many of those lucky to have won tickets to Tuesday's Michael Jackson memorial service celebrating their good fortune--by trying to sell the free tickets.
On Craigslist's LA site the bereaved are brazenly asking buyers to take away the burden of their pain. One, for example, wanted $2,000 for two tickets. His posting, however, has been flagged for removal.
As, it appears, have most, if not all related postings on Craigslist and eBay.
Naturally, many of these posters knew this might happen, so, in a pre-emptive strike worthy of a paparazzo, they have put their phone numbers and e-mail addresses into the headlines so that the grieving and the gullible can contact them directly.
While some of those who were not lucky enough to score tickets are posting requests craving the indulgence of others, might one just wonder whether these are equally squalid scoundrels who, if someone took pity, would merely try to sell the tickets on?
Several Craigslist posters have, however, made reference to a Los Angeles Times blog post that suggests that even if people buy tickets, they won't be able to get in. This poster, for example, prints the blog post in its apparent entirety.
The post quotes Michael Roth, a spokesman for AEG, the company that was organizing Jackson's 50 London concerts and is organizing the service, as saying: "Several apparent ticket holders posted intentions to sell the tickets on eBay, but Roth warned that the security system in place will prevent anyone from doing so."
Roth makes very clear the layers of security that have been put in place: "In addition to the vouchers received via a special code, ticket holders will have to show a valid driver's license, and those whose IDs do not match the registration information will be eliminated as guests.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
But then there's the case of Rob O'Sullivan. O'Sullivan, from Houston, Texas, was featured on NBC's "Today Show" on Monday (video embedded here). He decided to enter the memorial service lottery as "a lark." He won.
However, he is unemployed and cannot afford to go to LA to pick up the tickets. So he put the tickets up for sale on eBay for $15,000. Then he says he dropped the price a little.
Interviewed by Meredith Viera, O'Sullivan explained that his daughter needs heart surgery and he therefore believes it reasonable to try to sell these tickets. He also said he would offer a money-back guarantee if, for some reason, the buyer could not pick up the tickets.
Is his case different? Perhaps you can decide.
It's time for a test. Is there anyone out there who is not familiar with the term "420"?
For those who may have been on a secret government mission to confirm Pluto's existence, legend has it, or at least one of the legends, that referring to pot as "420" started in San Rafael, Calif., where a group of schoolkids met to puff after school ended--which was 4:20 p.m.
Anyway, there seems to be a man in Quincy, Mass., who may not have thought that the police might be familiar with the term.
(Credit:
CCEl Pablo!/Flickr)
You see, according to a report in the Patriot-Ledger, police say 30-year-old Christopher Gray put an ad on Craigslist that read in part: "420 help is here."
He then allegedly followed that up with: "Give me a ring if you need some help."
Unfortunately, he seemed to be in an area where police are so fond of reading Craigslist ads that they have learned the secret code. For a detective allegedly called and asked if he might please avail himself of a little quarter ounce.
You can guess the rest. Well, perhaps not. According to Capt. John Dougan, Gray was allegedly fearful when he met the detective and his partner in a parking lot that these purchasers might be members of law enforcement.
How they allegedly satisfied him of their innocence is not recorded. However, according to the good Captain, Gray allegedly said: "Well, I trust you. You look normal."
A transaction then allegedly ensued that would net Gray $45 and an arrest.
Some readers might be a little surprised that police might go to this kind of trouble. Just a brief perusal of the Craigslist San Francisco site Tuesday night yielded ads such as this, which seems as if it might have something to do with marijuana. And for many, this seems entirely normal.
So perhaps the saddest part of this tale comes from Capt. Dougan: "It goes without saying that we will continue monitoring Craigslist."
Connect. Inspire. Act. These three words were engraved on my invitation to Craigslist Foundation Boot Camp.
It was Saturday, and I was a little tired. So I was barely in the mood to connect with the daylight, never mind offering it inspiration.
However, I arrived just at the moment when inspiration was being served. In a large outdoor tent in Berkeley, Calif., about 1,500 people who had come together to make communities matter listened as a nice lady from the Craigslist Foundation said that everyone was about to network with the person immediately to their right.
She then asked those persons immediately to their right to score them out of 10--although she insisted that if you only got a 2 it didn't mean your pitch was terrible.
The secret of the networking pitch is, apparently, enthusiasm. So in order to demonstrate, a Berkeley student named Olga was invited to the stage to pitch to Facebook marketing director Randi Zuckerberg.
Olga had her one business card at the ready, when the nice lady announced she would be pitching to Randi's husband too. He works in venture capital, she said. So he's a good judge of pitches.
Olga didn't buckle under the binary pressure. Afterward, everyone stood up and began to pitch to the right.
At the back of the tent, it seemed as if there were a lot of short men pitching to tall women. Even volunteers were pitching to one another. At least I think they were pitching, although the hubbub bubbled so loudly that they might have been wondering about where to get a fine glass of cider.
This mixing of doing good with hard-nosed business was a curious sight. There was passion. There was belief. But at some moments, it almost felt sad that caring was now a business and that business principles needed to be enacted in order to get us pathetic, jaded humans to care and share.
Then Zuckerberg made a well-received speech about, well, how wonderful Facebook is.
She spoke of how the Obama administration had demonstrated "open government" through its embrace of the site. She spoke of how Lenny Kravitz uploads pictures of all his audiences onto his Facebook page. She spoke of how Roger Federer on Facebook really is Roger Federer. In order to emphasize this, she said, he uploaded a video of himself.
She also spoke at some length about events in Iran.
For one weak, fleeting, terrible moment, a slightly cynical drip of sweat ran down my back as I pondered whether Twitter had rather co-opted Iran (in the public eye, at least) and now Facebook was trying to get on level terms.
I let it pass--until, that is, an extremely passionate woman called Pamela Mays McDonald took the microphone to ask what the Twitter tag was for the Boot Camp, as she would like to Twitter with attendees and tell them about her new Facebook group, Hope Against Hate, that was fighting against hate-based violence and speech.
With a swift reflex reaction, Zuckerberg intoned that an alternative to Twittering might be to update your Facebook status.
For all Zuckerberg's extremely well-intentioned passion about social technology being able to bring people together in order to do good, I just wondered whether an additional advert for Facebook was really needed right there.
Especially as Mays McDonald was describing a group against hateful speech, something of a slippery area for Facebook.
This all left me with a peculiar sense that perhaps Facebook feels it needs to compete with Twitter for hearts and minds because they will, in some future way, lead to pockets.
The truth, though, as the enthusiasm and passion for so many different causes at this extraordinary day made very clear, is that we still need pockets to help us convert those hearts and minds.
