Thoughts From My Imaginary Financial Advisor

The market has been up and down like parishioners at a Catholic mass lately. After today's stock slaughter, I think it may be time to start looking to unconventional methods of money management. Here are a few maverick ideas you won't find in Smart Money. (Why a picture of the Geico Gecko? I imagine if he were my financial advisor, he would endorse these ideas.)

Offshore accounts. I found a bank in New Zealand offering 8% interest. But do your homework. Make sure your foreign safe haven is not run by a Nigerian prince.

Start a religion. It worked for Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. As for a name, I'd definitely leave science out of it. Consider something short, snappy and inspiring, like Jebucks. It combines the notion of Jesus, money and coffee. I'm seeing a place of worship on every corner.

China continues to be a rapidly expanding market. I predict the next growth sector there will be the development of cheap alternatives to melamine.

Open a pawn shop. This is an area ripe for expansion as people begin selling off their espresso makers and big screen TVs to make their house payments.

Invest in survival gear. At the rate we're going, it can't be long before this market is exploding.

Two words: alcoholic Beverages. I expect alcohol sales to rise dramatically over the next few months. Put your money in Seagrams. And look both ways when crossing the street.

If you really just want to hide your cash somewhere safe, forget the mattress. Put your money in a cave in Tora Bora, then move it to Pakistan.

If That Don't Beat Everything I Ever Damn Witnessed

Pronounced “fat don beat everthan ah eva dam widniss,” this is a favorite phrase of my father-in-law who has lived most of his life in the mountains of western North Carolina. It is applied to things outrageous, outlandish, utterly stupid, or completely unexpected. High gas prices, the woman who paints her entire body silver and waits on the corner downtown for some loose change dropped at her feet to activate her hidden robot circuitry, the guy who tries surfing on the hood of his friend’s ’73 Cutlas, George Bush reading a book.

The sight of a couple of self-proclaimed rednecks campaigning for Obama would certainly elicit the phrase, falling under the last category of its usage. Liberalism is about as popular as tofu in the south, so this is truly an encouraging sign of the times. Fat don beat everthan.

Ugly Politics

Now that I've learned how to use iMovie, I'm becoming a little OCD about it. For this clip, I learned how to separate audio from video and lay it over another clip. Soon I'll be making Ishtar II.

(If you're looking at this in your feed, you'll need to click through to the site to see the video. It's worth it just to see the brief shots from the 1932 cult flick Freaks.)

Welcome To Extended Stay, Pull My Finger

When choosing a hotel, how much does finding a place where you can rip one repeatedly to the tune of a John Phillips Souza march figure in?

Apparently, the marketing folks behind a campaign for Extended Stay Hotels must think an exceptional stay means clean sheets, on-demand movies, and the fetid stench of your own humanity. Their latest commercial shows a variety of hotel guests raising a haunch and letting fly with a satisfied smile that sends my creep-o-meter pinging. The ferocity of their gut bombs slams doors, sends curtains billowing, and snuffs candles.

The tagline says: NO PLACE MAKES YOU FEEL MORE COMFORTABLE. If by comfortable they mean freeing yourself of all responsibility for your bodily functions, they may have something there. Welcome to Extended Stay, here’s a package of Depends just in case you get a little too relaxed.

I think I might have gone with the tagline: REEKS LIKE A HOBO'S SLEEPING BAG AFTER A PBR AND A CAN OF BAKED BEANS.

I give them credit for thinking outside the box and for taking risks, but there is just something so unappealing about watching a parade of people actually put effort behind squeezing out a turd precursor.

I don’t want to be anywhere near the breakfast buffet at this place.

You Do Not Want To Be The Guy Responsible For This

Nobody throws a funeral like the Hells Angels. Except maybe the Norse Vikings with the ritual drinking, sex and human sacrifice. By those standards, Monday’s affair marking the untimely passing of Mark “Papa” Guardado, the 46-year-old president of the San Francisco chapter of Hells Angels killed in bar fight, was subdued.

Yesterday, two thousand Hells Angels roared into the parking lot of Duggan Sera Mortuary in Daly City in a seemingly never-ending river of Harley heat and thunder. They came to pay their respects to a man who “was a friend to many people from all walks of life, and had a kind and generous heart.” Nevermind the fact that the kind and generous “Papa” Guardado was facing felony assault charges. Don't speak ill of the dead, especially the dead who have a couple thousand living friends whose favorite pastime is playing catch with a loaded .38.

The overflow crowd swarmed the parking lot with Harleys, leather and tattoos. Next door at Starbucks, you had to push your way through a crowd of ham-fisted bikers taking a latte break to get your drink.

Hells Angels seem to me a conflicted group. On the surface they are thugs, gansters, drug dealers, enforcers, yet they worry about setting an example for the kids, they feed the homeless, entertain children in the hospital. While they tout the outlaw lifestyle, they call themselves gentlemen. Their logo is a registered trademark and they have a navigable and informative website. The MC in their name stands for Motorcycle Club, but the fine print says Motorcycle Corporation. They sued Disney over trademark infringement in the movie “Wild Hogs.” For a bunch of outlaw, roguish, wayward teddy bears, they are a serious, organized, sometimes altruistic and often litigious bunch.

They can continue to insist they are a social club and not a gang, but I don’t care how many Toys For Tots drives they organize, I am not going to any Hells Angels potluck.

Naughty Monkey Way Up In The Polls

The massive sales spike for the maker of Sarah Palin’s RNC footwear may have designers at London Fashion Week rethinking their offerings. Reminiscent of Dorothy’s ruby slippers with a smidge of skank, Sarah Palin’s red peep-toe pumps come from a San Diego based company called Naughty Monkey. They are currently enjoying a 50% bump in sales thanks to the power of celebrity endorsement. A single appearance of Sarah Palin sporting “Double Dare” did more for the Naughty Monkey brand than numerous wearings by their other famous customer Paris Hilton.

I did some serious investigative journalism on Google and found myself navigating the visually assaultive Naughty Monkey website where they offer a bevy of shoes with names like Nookie, Paris Stroll, Quickie and Bonk Her. It begs the question, what else is hiding in Sarah Palin’s closet?

Sarah Palin: Vice Decider?

No one does smug, snark and nastiness better than the Republicans. But, inspired by the RNC, I thought I'd give it a try. So without further ado, my first iMovie.

Get Registered!

If you're not already registered, click above and it will take you to the Vote For Change website where you can get registered in less time than it takes to launch a nuclear warhead. Do it now!

Ways To Mark The Anniversary of 9/11

1. Reflect on the tragedy and pray, or whatever your particular ritual might be, for the victims and their families, and for the 4155 American soldiers who’ve been lost since.

2. Remember that two days after the twin towers fell, Bush said, "The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him."

3. Remember that just a little more than one year after the twin towers fell, Bush said of Bin Laden, “I just don't spend that much time on him to be honest with you….I truly am not that concerned about him.”

4. Think about the fact that many 9/11 first responders suffering from deadly diseases as a result of their work at ground zero cannot afford health care and that Bush cut special health care funding for this group by 77 percent in his proposed 2009 budget.

5. Donate to one of the scholarship funds designed to aid families of 9/11 victims.

6. Plant a tree, nurture life.

7. Pick up Morgan Spurlock’s documentary Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden?


8. Read this article with some important facts about the war.

9. Eat French fries.

10. Remember how united we all felt in those days after the tragedy—how human, how frail, how compassionate—and cut somebody some slack today.

More Good Stuff From Santa Barbara

Being from L.A. and now living in the SF bay area, we drive between the two frequently. And we always make sure to pull off in Santa Barbara for a bite at La Super-Rica on Milpas at Alphonse. It's not much to look at, but the constant line out the door confirms its awesome goodness.



Stop in for homemade tamales, fresh guacamole, and the best tacos anywhere. My son's favorite is No. 16, Super-Rica Especial, Roasted pasilla chile with cheese, marinated pork and fresh, homemade tortillas.


Don't expect to rush in and out of here. Plan to wait about twenty minutes in line and another twenty to get your food. Order the guacamole. You can have that right away and eat it while you wait.


Tortillas are in constant production at La Super-Rica.


No. 16, Super-Rica Especial with chicken. One of the reasons the Beastie Boys, and probably plenty of others, stop here on their way to play the Santa Barbara Bowl.


Walk it off with a stroll on the pier and the boardwalk.


Moments after this picture was taken, this guy started screaming at another person with a camera. I guess he's protecting a proprietary sandcastle building secret.


Cruising north on highway 101.


On my way into the bathroom at a Shell station in Buellton, a stranger in a red pick up asked if I liked jalapeños. What? Dude, get a better line. When I came out, he handed me a bag full of the most gorgeous peppers and a tip on how to cook them—stuff with cheese and chicken, wrap with bacon and put them on the grill. He didn't steer me wrong. Great stuff.


A nice way to end the summer.

Pimp My Celestial Oneness

This is one superbad shag parlor. The artist/inhabitant known as One Feather has been working on transforming his 1976 Dodge Sportsman home from nondescript utility vehicle to cosmic wonderbus of love and harmony for the last 13 years. And he's done a hell of a job.


He spends his days in the parking lot in front of the beach boardwalk in Santa Barbara spreading a message of unity, love and peace to all who stop and gawk. Looking is free, but if you want to take a photo, a monetary offering is encouraged. This is how he makes his living. I had no cash on me, but he was kind enough to let me take photos anyway. I told him I’d find an ATM and come back later with a few bucks to keep his hempmobile humming.


If you get a chance, stop by and see it in person and meet the man behind the mobile masterpiece. It’s a 3D tapestry of tiny objects, toys, textures, words and color. Definitely worth a few bucks to take it all in. I am sure karma is coming to get me because we got busy and I never made it back with the cash. Sorry, dude. I will stop by next time I’m in SB. Promise. Cause seriously, this is cool.

Radiohead At Santa Barbara Bowl

While I really wanted to watch Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention live on Thursday night, I couldn't miss an opportunity to see Radiohead perform the last show of the U.S. leg of their current tour. And the fact that it was at the stunning Santa Barbara Bowl, which happens to be the band’s favorite venue, sealed the deal.

Despite a four-hour drive to get there, a dearth of parking, and a security nightmare of endless lines in search of the proper seating wristbands, we got to our seats just as the spare syncopated rhythm of the opening to In Rainbows’ “Reckoner” was met by Thom Yorke’s plaintively eerie vocals drifting over it like a ghost train arriving at a newly materialized station. And just like that, we climbed aboard ready for the journey that only Radiohead can deliver.

They picked up speed with Kid A’s “Optimistic,” then started rolling relentlessly through the wild and varied terrain that makes up the band’s unique sound. They covered a lot of ground, squeezing twenty-five songs into just over two hours. From the slow vortex of “There, There,” the techno-laced dreamscape of “The Gloaming,” the sweet melancholy of “No Surprises,” to the wrenchingly beautiful rendition of “Lucky,” things were perfectly paced.

The stage was as spectacular as the sound. A massive light display created from vertically hanging LED tubes looked a bit like an over-sized Hyatt ballroom chandelier, except for the fact that they lit up in brilliant hues and patterns to match the tone and tempo of the music electrifying the whole scene. We later learned this was designed as a way to reduce the carbon footprint of the tour (fewer trucks and tour buses might have done more in this regard, but hey, they’ve got a lot of stuff to move around). Five screens mounted in a horizontal band behind the lights gave detailed views of the band members as they played.




Johnny Greenwood spent as much time on the floor tweaking knobs on his DL4 pedal and vintage RE201 Space Echo to push the boundaries of their sound as he did playing guitar.

Thom Yorke talked little, seeming more concerned with squeezing in as much music as possible before running up against the venue’s 10:00 p.m. curfew.


After two encores, they ended things in a final ecstatic surge launching into “Ideoteque” and ramping up the light show into its most colorful and chaotic of the night, while Thom Yorke let loose with his exuberantly awkward dance moves.


At the after-show party, we got a rare treat when we ran into Bob Boilen, former long-time director of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” and current host and creator of NPR’s “All Songs Considered.” We had a great time talking with him and discovering his secret history as a member of D.C.’s psychedelic dance band Tiny Desk Unit. Here is an NPR podcast of Thom Yorke guest hosting Bob’s show back in February. Look for a webcast of Thursday's complete Santa Barbara concert on the All Songs Considered website Monday, September 8 at noon.

Thanks to my husband Greg Westall for all the great photos.