Craigslist Flakies Lunch Report

[asphalt-abate]

Day 5 of 2012

Lunch today is a very small piece of very delicious corned beef, some carrots and parsnips and 1 cup of brown rice.

I love Craigslist. I’ve made some decent money buying gear at pawn shops and selling on Craigslist. I also have several pieces of equipment in my arsenal that I purchased on the good ole CL. But finding musicians to jam with or a band needing a hand can be quite an experience. Seattle is known for its passive aggressive citizens. There is a term used by newly arrived transplants to describe the interpersonal interactions they experience, “The Seattle Freeze”. Here’s a quote from one newbie, “Norms of social interaction don't apply here. Most people don't like or dislike you, they're totally indifferent. Every interaction will be maddeningly superficial.” Of course this is a generalization but like most generalizations there is some truth in it. Another generalization is, “musicians are flakes.” Combine the two traits and that’s what you deal with when you respond to postings on Craigslist Seattle for musicians. My last experience went like this. A posting for a lead guitar player to join a classic country band, Merle Haggard, Johnny Paycheck etc. The founders are brothers, one plays rhythm guitar the other drums. I respond and meet them at a diner. We talk and get along great. They pay for my cinnamon roll and coffee. I follow them over to their rehearsal space, we play through songs and discuss the music. Every indication is that we are a good match. They even give me a binder with the song tabs and a CD of all the songs they play. We agree on which songs I should prioritize so that we can work them out next time we get together. It’s agreed that they will call me to arrange a rehearsal with the singer and bass player. I leave feeling like I just found a band with great people playing great music. I was pretty excited. Guess what? I never heard from them again. I e-mailed. I left messages on the rhythm guitar player’s cell phone. No response. No explanation. A couple of months later they run the exact same posting on CL. Maddening! What is your Craigslist experience?

This is why I do not have time to practice. I coach two soccer teams here is my Boys U-12 team.

[timage=]
Picture - Impact 99 by teletom60, on Flickr[/timage]

Sorry for all the junk that appears around my picture postings. I've tried many times to post pictures in a different manner and all other attempts have failed. So for now this is all I can do .


Today’s Totally Irrelevant Contest? The Paper Mate Mirado Classic is the modern version of the pencil most of us grew up with and used in school. It is made with solid wood. What type of wood is used: cedar, pine or pecan?

G & L topic. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could have the option when ordering a new G & L of coming to the factory; choosing your body and neck, from the blanks that are available; looking at the different finish options in person and choosing one, and be assigned a rep that would follow your guitar through the finish and final assembly stages, providing you with updates, and ensuring that the your guitar is given priority and delivered to your dealer in a timely manner. I imagine that this is not practical but it would be fun.

Happy Lunching

[louis cyfer]

Day 5 of 2012

Lunch today is a very small piece of very delicious corned beef, some carrots and parsnips and 1 cup of brown rice.

I love Craigslist. I’ve made some decent money buying gear at pawn shops and selling on Craigslist. I also have several pieces of equipment in my arsenal that I purchased on the good ole CL. But finding musicians to jam with or a band needing a hand can be quite an experience. Seattle is known for its passive aggressive citizens. There is a term used by newly arrived transplants to describe the interpersonal interactions they experience, “The Seattle Freeze”. Here’s a quote from one newbie, “Norms of social interaction don't apply here. Most people don't like or dislike you, they're totally indifferent. Every interaction will be maddeningly superficial.” Of course this is a generalization but like most generalizations there is some truth in it. Another generalization is, “musicians are flakes.” Combine the two traits and that’s what you deal with when you respond to postings on Craigslist Seattle for musicians. My last experience went like this. A posting for a lead guitar player to join a classic country band, Merle Haggard, Johnny Paycheck etc. The founders are brothers, one plays rhythm guitar the other drums. I respond and meet them at a diner. We talk and get along great. They pay for my cinnamon roll and coffee. I follow them over to their rehearsal space, we play through songs and discuss the music. Every indication is that we are a good match. They even give me a binder with the song tabs and a CD of all the songs they play. We agree on which songs I should prioritize so that we can work them out next time we get together. It’s agreed that they will call me to arrange a rehearsal with the singer and bass player. I leave feeling like I just found a band with great people playing great music. I was pretty excited. Guess what? I never heard from them again. I e-mailed. I left messages on the rhythm guitar player’s cell phone. No response. No explanation. A couple of months later they run the exact same posting on CL. Maddening! What is your Craigslist experience?

This is why I do not have time to practice. I coach two soccer teams here is my Boys U-12 team.

[timage=]
Picture - Impact 99 by teletom60, on Flickr[/timage]

Sorry for all the junk that appears around my picture postings. I've tried many times to post pictures in a different manner and all other attempts have failed. So for now this is all I can do .


Today’s Totally Irrelevant Contest? The Paper Mate Mirado Classic is the modern version of the pencil most of us grew up with and used in school. It is made with solid wood. What type of wood is used: cedar, pine or pecan?

G & L topic. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could have the option when ordering a new G & L of coming to the factory; choosing your body and neck, from the blanks that are available; looking at the different finish options in person and choosing one, and be assigned a rep that would follow your guitar through the finish and final assembly stages, providing you with updates, and ensuring that the your guitar is given priority and delivered to your dealer in a timely manner. I imagine that this is not practical but it would be fun.

Happy Lunching

this is how you post a pic without all the stuff. go to quote and look at what i did. exceedingly simple. i only had to delete some of the stuff you put in. no need to to put url, timage and img all in.

[sickbutnottired]

I have never tried craigs list for anything other than buying things, but I have had lot's of near starts on creative projects go bust by answering adds in music stores, bar and open mic meets, etc.

Coaching the kids is great, that must be big time commitment. I coached a basketball team of third graders when I was in college. It was really fun, minus one and half parents and an uptight ref; and quite rewarding.

Pencils? Hmmm. Since about 9th grade all mine where plastic! But I seem to remember some nice aromatics, and it being a very softwood. So I am going with cedar.

cedar, final answer.

[Ken Baker]

We have an old thread about that over at BbL.

"Flags I'd like to see"

Poor spelling/grammer.
Because, well, whoever placed the ad doesn't have literacy as a high priority.

Crappy cel phone camera image.
Do you want to sell it or are you hiding behind a lousy photo? I don't expect a 12MP work of art, but a fuzzy 1MP image backlit-by-the-sun through a noseprint SUCKS.

One word description.
Hmm... Must be secret.

Stupid price.
It's 5 years old, beat to crap, and you want MSRP? Firm and no low-ballers? We're not stupid like your price!

Not local.
100 miles away isn't local. At least not in SoCal. Try keeping it in the same county!

Search scammer.
1200 keywords that somehow are directly related to the item being sold. Like using "lawnmower" as a keyword to sell a bass guitar.

And from one of my members:

Yet another actual comment in a CL ad that scares me due to the implied meaning (intended or not...)

This guitar is a hottie. I have had an intimate relationship with her. Sad to let her go, but I need to move on.



I don't know how that's supposed to entice me to buy it...

Ken...

[Kit]

Lunch time is for catching up with Lunch Report and not for eating lunch.

I've had good luck finding people to play with through Craigslist, the last 2 sets of people I played with I found them through Craigslist. One aspect that may make a difference is that I was explicitly looking for people who just want to play for fun first, and not with a mindset to gig for money. The downside is potentially I don't end up with people who is dedicated to playing. I have been lucky, with each of the 2 groups everybody was dedicated enough that we got together over 80% of weeks in the year. With one of bands we even played out a few times just for fun.

As far as being able to pick body blank and neck to put together a guitar I can only see small builders being able to do that effectively; I can't see going through a Fender factory with a few thousand body blanks to pick 'the one' out. And then there is the cost to the buyer just to make a trip to the factory in order to do this, that would likely be more than what the buyer is going to pay for the guitar itself.

I remember some years ago when I would occasionally visit the Carvin forum (I used to have a Carvin DC200) people said that you can give guidelines when you order from Carvin. For example, you can specify grains that are well matched, weight, etc., but obviously it is subjected to how your instructions are interpreted.

My wife and I once ordered a buffet cabinet from a furniture store in town that makes the furniture right in their workshop in the back. The cabinet is built from unstained cherry wood. The design has a couple of doors with clear glass panels, but we did not want glass so we suggested birdeye maple panels. They took us right back to the workshop and let us pick the piece of birdeye maple for the panels in the cabinet. It tooks them weeks to build our cabinet. When it was done the result was so good that they took pictures of the piece to use in their catalog. How all this got done definitely makes us feel an attachment to what would otherwise just be another piece of furniture.

Kit

[blargfromouterspace]

Seattle sounds weird... I have no direct experience with craigslist, but have had similar experience with internet based wanted ads - there are a lot of time wasters out there. I auditioned for several, never heard back from others you just have to keep trying. The two bands I play with now I found on want ads on the web. And I made a good friend through another band that never got going.

I very like the factory visit idea. Very cool.

[repoman]

I've bought and sold a few things on craigslist but nothing major. And I guess I need to find a different class of pawn shop. Every time I went in one around town they were always asking top dollar and don't seem to have much desire to negotiate so I just stopped going.

The factory visit sounds like it would be a fun idea. Maybe when I win the lottery I'll fly out there and do just that!

Pencil Contest? I'm gonna go with cedar.

Jeff

[KenC]

Cedar pencils all the way. I still remember how they smelled if you broke one. It's not the "aromatic cedar" used for furniture and boxes, but it's related.

Today's topic reminded me that I recently flaked out on somebody from CL a couple of months ago. We exchanged a couple of emails and seemed really compatible, even live in the same neighborhood, but before we could set anything up I had an emergency trip for work and came back sick. I was laid up for about two weeks. By the time I was back among the living, the whole CL thing had slipped my mind. I'll send him a note tonight to apologize.

My last steady playing situation came out of a CL ad. I ended up playing many enjoyable gigs and making some very good friends. If I hadn't moved for a new job last I would still be with them.

When I responded to that ad, a guitarist showed up at my first practice with the full band (he was also responding to the same ad). The band was committed to playing a short "World Music" set for a fundraiser at a local university, and the practice was actually a dress rehersal with the rest of the night's lineup. While we were waiting for our turn on the stage, the guitarist asks me if I want to jam on some jazz with him and proceeds to launch into asolo on "Night and Day". He was technically very good, but I could tell it was rote memorization. I just looked at him. He said that as an upright bass player I should know those changes (I did know enough to bluster my way through them, just not the variation he had memorized). Then he asked me if I wanted to start a band with him. A minute later he packed up his guitar and walked away. He never played a note with the band, and never contacted them again. I bring this up as my ultimate CL flake experience.

I don't know when I will ever buy a new G&L. I've been very tempted by some of the G&L porn that's been posted lately, but all purchases will be on hold for a while until I pay off this afternoon's adventure in GAS. I stopped in my local guitar shop to wait out a traffic jam. I was talking to one of the employees about our dream pedals. I mentioned the ultra-rare limited edition Moogerfooger Analog Delay that was sold for a couple of months in the early 2000s. He said "oh, we have one of those in the back, but it may be broken". Long story short, it wasn't broken and I walked out of there with it. Mint condition new old stock. The store is an authorized Moog dealer. Apparently a former employee squirreled it away with the intention of buying it himself, and it sat there forgotten until today. They charged their original asking price, even though these pedals have appreciated in value quite a bit since they went out of production. I wasn't planning on ever spending that kind of money of a pedal, but I realized that I would probably never find one of these again, especially not a brand new one. Anyway, back to the new G&L I won't be able to afford for a while...I would love to see an option of selecting the specific boards for the body and neck. Having seen the grain patterns in a couple of recent G&Ls, I would be seriously bummed if my new guitar didn't measure up to those.

Ken

[Ahryn]

Craigslist is one of those places i browse when my GAS flares up (like now ) I mostly see gear badly photographed and alot of "I don't know what it is but it has six strings" posts but there are sometimes cool little things

like amps from small makers that are out of business and unique pedals, downside is most of the good ones might as well be on the other side of the world (no car + big Island = meh) then you get some mainland posts...

Anywho Haven't tried getting together with any Craigslist musicians but it sounds almost as bad as some online dating stories.

Don't know about passive aggressive citizens but Seattle is definitely one of those cities in the States that I wouldn't mind visiting...

... Speaking of cities in the States I wouldn't mind visiting if G&L did give the option to come down and pick your body blanks and neck and finish in house, it would make Fullerton tourism grow by leaps and bounds

Oh and to be different I'm gonna say Pine for the pencil.

[sam]

My CList experience has only been a couple of purchases but exchange was very easy and honest. Have considered selling a few things but never got around to it.

Bright yellow Ticonderoga pencils come straight to mind. My wife uses mechanical pencils, once an engineer always I guess , but give me the smell of wood shavings and a piece of wood. Cedar?

While not practical but I do like the idea of following the process of a custom build. I do not recall who it was, but on the old board they had a build your own G&L program that you could piece together you custom build and see a simulated version, that could be a way to get headed to your idea.

[KenC]

We found our dog over CL. The breeder advertised as being in the Cincinnati, where we lived at the time. She was actually in West Virginia. In the end the breeder agreed to meet us partway, so it was only a four hour drive to pick up our "local" pet.

Ken

[louis cyfer]

craigslist is an anti g&l website. you can't even search for g&l. you can place such an ad, but searching for it is not an option. lots of flakes here in la. i have contacted several about guitars, they have renewed the ads, but no response to repeated inquiries. WTH?
i coached highschool water polo a few years ago, very rewarding, but a lot of time and very very little money. basically only a full time teacher, who is doing it as part of their class load, or a young kids straight out of highschool still living at home can afford to actually do it. 4 hours a day comittment, much more on game days and tournaments, and 800 dollars stipend for the headcoach for the whole season, starting august and ending in december.

[louis cyfer]

We found our dog over CL. The breeder advertised as being in the Cincinnati, where we lived at the time. She was actually in West Virginia. In the end the breeder agreed to meet us partway, so it was only a four hour drive to pick up our "local" pet.

Ken

please adopt, don't buy. too many dogs are getting killed in shelters because the irresponsible breeding practices. petfinder has over a million dogs up for adoption, any breed any age anywhere pretty much. you can also adopt from long distances and the dogster railroad will transport pets to their adoptive homes through a volunteer network for free.

[asphalt-abate]

I had a good response today. I guess Craigslist is now entrenched in the musician's tool box. My factory visit / pick your blank suggestion went over well. Maybe we are on to something.

Sickbutnottired, Repoman, KenC & Sam you are all correct, Cedar is the wood. I find it interesting that after all these years the smell of these pencils is still so dominate in your mind. Good memory and good deduction guys!

Louis - Thanks for the advice. I'll apply it tomorrow.

Sickbutnottired - Children are expected to act like children it's when the adults act like children that I wonder why I'm volunteering my time to work with their kids. Nevertheless, coaching is very rewarding.

Ken - I love the quote. That's funny.

Kit - The story about the cabinet is exactly what I'm talking about. Do you think G & L is too big for my suggestion? I figure they are just about the perfect size.

Jamie - I pick on Seattle but I love it. It's like a brother. Besides a short drive north is Vancouver, Canada and a short drive south is Portland, Oregon. All three cities are cool in their own way, especially for young guys like you.

Jeff - I rarely walk out of a pawn shop with an item in hand. You have to visit frequently because the mispriced items move fast. Ironically, it's harder to find flipable items in this bad economy. More people are now searching thrift stores and pawn shops for items to flip on-line.

KenC - You win the best flake factor post. I enjoyed the moogerfooger story. Sometime you and I will have to talk African music. I have an appreciation for Zimbabwean music.

Ahryn - Your analogy to online dating is good. I actually follow two coworkers in their on-line dating sagas. One is 60 the other 36. I'd hate to have to do it. It's brutal!

Sam - I've met so many cool people on Craigslist buying and selling. A guy showed up to my house to buy a speaker. He brought his original run Bluesboy with him to try it out. He let me play it. I've met people who play music for a living with some really cool stories to tell. There are a lot of good people out there but then again there are the occasional killers.

KenC - back to you. Don't they say that, "Cincinnati is the capitol of West Virginia."

Louis - I lived in LA back when all the musicians advertised in the _____ (damn, name of paper draws a blank). I've sat in 7=11 parking lots in seedy neighborhoods waiting to meet up with musicians who never showed. LA is a crazy place.

Thanks all.

[KenC]

Louis,

I really appreciate your comment. We have friends who foster abandoned/abused dogs, and have become very fond of some of them. Our next dog (if we get another one) will be adopting a foster.

This dog needed to be taken to a new home quickly in order to survive. We had been watching the local pug rescue society, but no dogs were available for adoption that would have done well with my (at the time) toddler. We checked a CL ad out of curiosity, and found a dire situation. A young couple had been given a breeding pair of pugs by one of their parents, who no longer wanted to breed them. The kids couldn't afford to spay/neuter, so they ended up with a litter on their hands. They had no experience, and no income to cover food and veterinary care. On top of that, the litter had been rejected by the mother. When we got our dog she was four weeks old, covered in fleas, had a serious case of worms and was malnourished. We did pay the sellers a token fee, but the option would have been leaving the dog to almost certain death. I'm certain they weren't going to let another litter happen.

Our cats were both adoptions/rescues. The older one came from the SPCA shelter where she had been born. The mother was a domestic gone stray, and the father had been from a feral colony. We took her home as she was running out of time in the shelter. The feral instincts definitely came through in her genes. After 11 years she is starting to let me touch her, although she did bond with my wife several years ago. We found our other cat in our basement during an Ohio winter. She was about a year old and weighed less than three pounds when we discovered her. We have no idea how long she had been down there or how she got there. Now she's healthy and weighs in around 15 pounds. All's well that ends well in her case.

Ken

[louis cyfer]

Louis,

I really appreciate your comment. We have friends who foster abandoned/abused dogs, and have become very fond of some of them. Our next dog (if we get another one) will be adopting a foster.

This dog needed to be taken to a new home quickly in order to survive. We had been watching the local pug rescue society, but no dogs were available for adoption that would have done well with my (at the time) toddler. We checked a CL ad out of curiosity, and found a dire situation. A young couple had been given a breeding pair of pugs by one of their parents, who no longer wanted to breed them. The kids couldn't afford to spay/neuter, so they ended up with a litter on their hands. They had no experience, and no income to cover food and veterinary care. On top of that, the litter had been rejected by the mother. When we got our dog she was four weeks old, covered in fleas, had a serious case of worms and was malnourished. We did pay the sellers a token fee, but the option would have been leaving the dog to almost certain death. I'm certain they weren't going to let another litter happen.

Our cats were both adoptions/rescues. The older one came from the SPCA shelter where she had been born. The mother was a domestic gone stray, and the father had been from a feral colony. We took her home as she was running out of time in the shelter. The feral instincts definitely came through in her genes. After 11 years she is starting to let me touch her, although she did bond with my wife several years ago. We found our other cat in our basement during an Ohio winter. She was about a year old and weighed less than three pounds when we discovered her. We have no idea how long she had been down there or how she got there. Now she's healthy and weighs in around 15 pounds. All's well that ends well in her case.

Ken

so it was a rescue in essence. 4 weeks is very young to take a pup from the mother, but in this case it was a necessity. in a situation like that i would have offered to get the dogs (at least one) fixed as a payment for the puppy. you did good. it still blows my mind that people end up with litters, when there are low/no cost options available from different animal groups. i fix every dog i rescue (even if i find the home, i do not return the dog unaltered), my cost is around 50 bucks with shots. of course if someone calls the local vet, the same thing will be quoted at 300+. the cats i get fixed for 35.
btw, i had a rescue tuesday night. someone called me that they saw my dog running on the street miles from my house. i wasn't home and i drove there. of course it was not my dog, but a creme female chow that looked very much like her. same personality as well. was able to locate the home after a short search. other people couldn't get close to her, not enough experience with the suspicious breed. it took me 20 minutes but she was eating out of my hand. you only get one chance with a chow, if you move to soon, they get spooked and you lose their trust for good. i had to have her eat out of my hand, touching me while i was sitting several times and let her move away to gain the trust that i would not try to grab her.

[darwinohm]

Tom, I'm a day late to the lunch table but kudos on you coaching. It is people like you investing in the future of our kids that keep thing going.

I personally like CL and buy and sell. I have not looked for gigs or fellow band mates on CL and think that could be a risk but it seems to have worked for some of us.

Pencils are probably Cedar. We have a lot of Cedar swamps in Minnesota and Cedar is harvested but most of it would not be good for lumber and I would guess it is all going into pencils!!

Picking your wood is a great concept and that is what custom builders are about. They build what you want. I have a question about this. If G&L offered wood selection from pictures on their website, how many of us would be willing to pay an upcharge to select our guitar body wood? I think that it is a concept that could be developed. It would require someone at the factory or a dealer to be able to coordinate this selection process. It wouldn't hurt to ask G&L about this if we were willing to pay an upcharge to get a particular piece of wood. I sense a guitar builder from G&L on the radar. I will also say that the dealer I go to has a full set of necks, uninstalled, that you can feel and look at. I just saw them a couple of days ago. I think that things are happening, at least with some dealers, that most of us will appreciate.-- Darwin