‘Martha Wanted to Wash and Blow-dry the Chickens’Martha disrupts plans to make her seem like less of a perfectionist, Bear Stearns CEO Jimmy Cayne may face arrest (he’d better hide his stash!), and the FBI is slapping anyone who’s ever said the word “mortgage” with criminal charges, in our daily roundup of media, finance, real-estate and law news.
Mrs. Bojangles Needs a Roommate Looking to share a cheap pad with a mature roommate? Look no further than Craigslist, where a woman is offering the second bedroom of her Murray Hill apartment for only $700 a month. There’s a catch, though:
I am an elderly lady, in my 70’s. I am looking for someone lovely to live in the second bedroom(lovely people only). I am not thrilled about living with someone but I could use the extra cash. I have only one rule. You must wear a belt I designed that has bells all over it. I do this so I know when you are in the appartment and where in the appartment you are.
If you have friends over, they must wear the device as well. I only have 2, so no more than 1 friend over.
Hear that? Only one friend.
$700 LOOKING TO SHARE MY APPARTMENT WITH SOMEONE LOVELY (Murray Hill) [Craigslist]
intel
The ‘Depreciating Asset’ Strikes Back!Last week we printed an e-mail that was going around, in which a banker (and we think we know who) responded to a Craigslist post from a “spectacularly beautiful” woman who was offering a lifetime of sexy servitude to a hedge-fund type in exchange for a life of uptown leisure. The author of the response took issue with the woman’s offer, saying that “in economic terms,” she was a “depreciating asset” because her beauty will fade while he was an “earning asset” because his wealth would continue in perpetuity. It was awful and sexist but funny, so we all laughed and then that was that. But now, the “Depreciating Asset,” or someone claiming to be her, has written a response to the responseon Craigslist.
If your grasp of finance were not a minority partner with your ego, you would realize that the “outflows” associated with my depreciating “assets” are quite certain, and therefore subject to a low discount rate when determining their present value. In addition, though your concept of economics evidentially failed to move past the 1950s, advancement in plastic surgery is not subject to the same limitation.
Whoever the lady is, she’s not as facile with the economics as she would like us to believe — the post reads like she’s consulting a textbook. But she does get in some good ones!
the morning line
Five Shots
• Another cop’s bullet, another unarmed man dead, another immigrant family demanding justice. An off-duty Manhattan officer apparently killed a Honduran van driver who sideswiped a parked car and tried to leave the scene. An investigation is under way. [amNY]
• New York State’s Republican party is beginning to line up behind Rudy Giuliani, on the logic that his candidacy will help the GOP hold the State Senate. One senator says “ethnic Democrats,” i.e. immigrants, will vote Rudy. Yeah, he’s got the Diallo vote all sewn up. [NYT]
• Bruce Ratner must be sweatin’ about something: He’s sent out letters to 700 addresses near Atlantic Yards promising residents free ACs and double-paned windows (to minimize construction nuisances). The kicker: Daniel Goldstein got one. [NYP]
• The City Council is touting the “undeniable success” of a campaign designed to inform clinics and drugstores that Plan B, an emergency birth-control pill, can be sold over the counter; some 94 percent of surveyed city stores had it available. [WNBC]
• And in lesser city initiatives, a Brooklyn assemblyman is aghast after having been hipped to the fact there are hookers on the Internet. Specifically, on Craigslist! You mean all those “18 y.o. bored females” aren’t just, you know, bored? [NYDN]
gossipmonger
Helpful HarveyHarvey Weinstein doesn’t help his designer girlfriend Georgina Chapman get coverage — well, except for that meeting with Anna Wintour when she was starting out. Fashion Week interlopers were able to buy tickets to Bryant Park shows on Craigslist. Food Network star Paula Dean had a run-in with a naked man in the hallway of the Regency Hotel. Later, skaters: The Roxy closes for good on March 10. Lynyrd Skynyrd will perform tonight at Snitch, accompanied by a dozen strippers. Lindsay Lohan will attend Robert Altman’s memorial service in L.A. after skipping the one in New York. Megaproducer Scott Rudin won’t return Cindy Adams’s calls.
in other news
The Missing SuperstarA tragedy told in Craigslist ads.
January 29, 11:42 a.m.:
Courtside Knicks/Lakers Tickets Behind Basket - $700
January 29, 3:36 p.m.:
I need Knicks Lakers tickets please!!!! - $1000
January 30, 12:42 p.m.:
KOBE SUSPENDED FOR TONIGHTS GAME
January 30, 2:37 p.m.:
Two Knick vs. Lakers tix for face value
—Ben Mathis-Lilley
Kobe Suspended for Knicks Game [Newsday]