Calling all freaks! Oh, sorry, that may have been insensitive; the folks looking for the freaks went a slightly more euphemistic route by asking for "unique/interesting people." So if you're unique and/or interesting (or heck, even downright freakish-- we're all family, here), listen up, because this could be your ticket to stardom, and not just as the top-billed sideshow attraction on the local carny circuit. If you're unique and/or interesting in a particularly well-suited fashion, you just might wind up on a nationally-televised TV commercial! Which, okay, sure, is just another freak show, but the exposure is a lot wider and we hear the pay is at least marginally better. Usually.

Here's the what: faithful viewer Frozen Tundra tipped us off to a MacMinute blurb about a casting call that was posted to the L.A. craigslist last week. "Are you addicted to iTunes? Do you take your iPod everywhere?" it asks. If so, and you also happen to be a dancer, performer, or "uniquely talented person," the CinemaFactory thinks you might have what it takes to be featured in "an upcoming non-union commercial shooting in early November in Los Angeles." If you're interested, you have until next Wednesday the 27th to send your résumé and headshot to itunes@cinemafactory.com.

Now, since the posting subject indicates that this is indeed an "iTunes commercial" and not an ad for some third-party adjunct product or something like that, we have a sneaking suspicion that you'll have a better chance of being chosen if your headshot is taken against a solid bright-colored background after spray-painting your entire head jet black. But if you're silhouettically-challenged or are otherwise uncomfortable with submitting a photograph of yourself to a group of people without a stated privacy policy, they say you should "feel free to email a brief written statement describing your iTunes/iPod story." We should note, however, that people caught plagiarizing their pithy iPodal anecdotes from Apple's Switch site will be immediately sold to a roadside tourist trap somewhere in America's Backwaters™. So keep it real. Or if not real, then at least original.

If you're up for the gig, good luck to you-- keep us posted on how it goes. It's sort of a shame that the AtAT compound is all the way over here on the other coast, actually, because we just happen to have a staff member who, at the tender age of two and a half, possesses the unique ability to stand on her head (and only her head) up against a wall while waving both arms slowly up and down and saying "seeeeeaaaaa guuuulllllll!" Granted, it's not actually iPod/iTunes-related, but it's truly a wonder to behold. Ah, well; maybe the next freak talent search will be within a reasonable driving distance. Because, you know, if Apple televises thirty seconds of this and slaps an Apple logo on the screen at the end, we guarantee a doubling of market share within six months. None can resist the siren song of the Mighty Upside-Down Seagull.