Date:         Sat, 16 Nov 2002 08:21:17 -0500
Reply-To:     Isaac Taylor <itaylor@ATTBI.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Isaac Taylor <itaylor@ATTBI.COM>
Subject:      Wanted: Free Vanagon to Love & Cherish
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Hi folks. Mr. Pie in the Sky from Cambridge, Massachusetts here.

I'm looking for some seriously cheap -- free, even -- van or vans to
love & nuture.  If you've got a beater westy, weekender, whatever...
taking up space in your yard, and would derive some measure of
satisfaction from seeing it off to a good home, where it'll be an
important part of an interesting project, let's talk!  Even rusty vans
are welcome; I'll restore them to health and happiness! I know, I know,
I'm crazy; but like the man says: let he who is without sin cast the
first stone. If you're on this list, you've surely been bitten by some
similar crazybug at some point.

So who is this whacko, you're wondering?  I'm a 29 y/o broke-ass Harvard
grad, life-long VW nut raised off the grid by hippies in rural
Massachusetts. I'm a former employee of both NPR's Car Talk (fantastic),
the Boston VW dealership (abominable), and a variety of defunct dot-coms
(insolvent, clearly). I'm currently working a freelance journalist, and
am about to start full-time on a multimedia video/web project based
around a series of interviews with recent immigrants to America from
Afghanistan, Chechnya, Bosnia, the Levant, et cetera. A variety of
publishers, periodicals, and online media outlets have expressed
interest in this, and other projects of mine. However, each requires
extended (read: budget) interstate travel, location interviews & video
shoots. So, in the continued absence of large cash advances from
publishing companies, I'm planning on building myself a reliable mobile
home office (I've got a donated pc-based digital video editing system
lined up!) and getting out on the road next spring.

Ok so know you *know* I'm crazy. But I'm also not kidding here, and I'm
a really nice guy -- no really -- and I'm serious and dedicated to this
project. Most importantly, and here's where YOU come in: I ain't to
proud to beg. While there's probably a hundred things I need more than a
basketcase van and a winter's worth of skinned knuckles, I think that my
dream come true is rusting away out in your backyard.

I have literally been falling asleep to dreams of purring Vanagons with
mobile internet access for three months straight now. I won't say I'm
sculpting Westies out of mashed potatoes just yet, but it's close -- my
buddies are getting worried because I'll hop up at 4am and furiously
draft plans for new folding utility rack cum tent frame appliances, and
my girlfriend says I'm talking in my sleep about complete WRX drivetrain
conversions. (Now *that* is a pie in the sky idea.)  Clearly I either
need an intervention, or a donation.

If you're within 1,000 miles of Boston, and want to both make me
profoundly happy, and see an your underutilized van go to a great new
home where it will be a central part of an interesting project, please
drop me am e-mail. I have a bet going with a cynical lawyer friend who
says this is never going to work, that nobody would ever donate any
vehicle of value to someone whom they don't know.  I reckon I'm going to
win this bet... because I know there are Good Cambridge People -- Good
VW People -- all over the country, and some of them are reading this
right now.

Thanks for reading this far.  Now: can you help?

Best,
Isaac Taylor
Cambridge, Massachusetts
itaylor@attbi.com