Help Dave Live!

Bad news first: I still have no job, and I'm down to $80 in my bank account. Rent ($750) is technically due tomorrow, though I'm told I probably have about ten days leeway.

Potentially good news: I'm currently listed with three unemployment agencies, none of whom have called, but I remain hopeful. I also registered with the Lynne Palmer Agency, which allegedly specializes in finding jobs in publishing and editing, and I hope to hear from them for an initial interview by the week's end. My current best hope for an agent (Alex Glass, Trident) is supposed to be contacting me this week with a thumbs up or down on my book. (Still no word from the five others I e-mailed.) And just yesterday, the Vice President of Putnam (a division of Penguin) offered to help me out and asked for my resume. (Thanks, Mark Winegardner! You're the coolest!) Haven't heard anything from him yet, but of course that was yesterday. And there's a well-connected crossword editor, Leslie Billig, who has forwarded me at least one puzzle job. (Alas, it's a crossword CONSTRUCTION job, which I no longer have the software to do.) I'm sending four readings-and-tapes to This American Life today, and maybe that'll help too. And in a long shot, I also got the fax number for The Daily Show, although the secretary said, "I can't promise they even want anything or will look at what you send. Use it at your risk."

So I'm optimistic that SOMETHING will come together for me in the next month. For now, all I have to do is pay my $750 rent. Which means, for the moment, that my "job," as it were, is to sell my car.

Here's where you all come in. I need ideas. The car I'm selling is a '91 Acura Integra sports coupe with 207,000 miles, but everything works (except the driver's side door handle) and it runs beautifully and---since it's lived its entire life in the desert---has no rust on its underbody. Plus, it's an Acura, so it probably has another 50,000 miles of life in it. Its Blue Book value is technically $1375, and so I posted on Craigslist asking $1100, and the best offer I got was for $600. It's a standing offer, and it's nice to have a fallback, but it sure would be helpful to do better. (I would have sold it long ago, but I had to send away to get a duplicate title, and wasn't THAT a pain!)

I've just taped signs on the car itself: "FOR SALE--- '91 Acura Integra---$1000---Call Dave at . . . " But aside from that, I'm not sure what to do. An ad in the Times would eat further into the small stash I still have, and I'm apparently unable to become a seller on eBay for another two weeks, which is when my official bank card allegedly comes in. (My current card---and my current checks---are temporaries, and they don't pass eBay-registration muster.)

Send me your ideas! I'm still optimistic, but my happy smile is getting a little strained at the edges.

--Dave

P.S. This would be so much easier if I had the brainpower to be a waiter or bartender. But my memory has always been so bad I've always been afraid I'd screw up everyone's order, and anyway it's a little hard to start now, since I'd be competing in New York with every actor who DOES have years of serving experience. Or am I just talking myself out of a good gig? Office work seems like the best short-term solution. So why aren't the damn agencies calling? Sigh . . .
P.P.S. What makes this all the more frustrating is that the moment I sell my book, I can probably expect about a $20,000 advance. (That's the industry average.) And if I sell any of my articles to a major magazine, that's $1,000 easy. It's the short term that's killing me.