Bananas

I must warn you to beware when a guitar-playing Jesus shows up at your “office” and asks if things are great. (And yes, he says it like that.)

He then sets a book down on your desk. It is self-published and entitled “Pay Yourself First!” with various subtitles.

“Hi,” he says with an outstretched hand. He wears a North Face raincoat. His beard is Norelco close. His long, Jesus hair is salon savvy. “My name’s Greg.”

“Tyler,” I reply with a return handshake. His is genuine. I can tell he would not only like to sell me his book, he would like to impart to me his worldly wisdom. I pull aside The Bachelor, my fellow valet, and ask him if he wants to join me in getting suckered by this guy.

“Sure. Let’s do it.”

“It’s a great night, isn’t it?” Greg asks. Everything he says is uptempo and purposeful. I saw him several hours earlier, strumming his guitar and working the tourists. “I’m on vacation. I live in Paris, France.”

It won’t be the last time he divulges his geographical prowess.

“Yes. The night is great,” I grant him. “We have yet to complain.”

“Do you feel you’re where you’d like to be?”

“Of course. I’m always where I want to be.”

I give him a beat. I can tell he’s sizing me for how much he can take me for. During a brief interlude in the incoming cars, I pick up his book and speed-read a few pages, thumbing through it like a bible.

“I’m assuming you’d like me to buy your book?”

“I prefer donations.”

“Really. And how much would this donation be? You prefer American currency, I presume?”

“Well, I speak several languages, so whatever you give me can be spent in its respective country. For instance, if you paid me with Francs I could spend it in Paris, France, which is where I live.”

“I see.”

“I also donate to a community where orphaned children and old people can give each other the love they aren’t receiving. It’s called the Good Shepherd services.”

He moves forward as he says this, using the light above the stairs to brighten his image as he gets closer.

“Orphaned children, hm? That’s mighty fine of you. Is this in Paris, France?”

“I live in Paris, France, but anything you give above the cost of the book will go toward the orphanage.”

Bullshit. (Actually, the program exists, and is probably a very good thing; whether this guy actually donates is another story entirely.)

He sets his guitar down and asks for the restroom.

“Sure. It’s past the hostess, she’ll put you in your place.”

I confer again with The Bachelor, seeking to set a limit.

“The way I see it,” he says, “we’re basically working for free money, and this is a busy night. How’s his book?”

“Standard financial advice combined with faux philosophy and made up words. He’s a guru. And he smells our money.”

“Screw it.”

The guru returns. He of terms like optizarre, “want weeds,” and interslave.

“So, Greg. How much of a donation would you like for your little pearls of wisdom?”

He assumes a sideways stance, looks at me with a three-quarter’s view, and leans in slightly when he says,

“Twenty dollars.”

“Twenty? Really. And how much of that goes toward your elderly orphan love in?”

“Well, anything above that donation goes toward the children. For instance, if you donated $28, I would give eight dollars toward the elderly and the children.”

“Mm-hm. I bet. Well, I’ve conferred with my fellow valet, and it turns out we’re feeling generous, so here’s your twenty.”

“Okay, well, I’ve got two, so …”

“No. One will be plenty. Besides, we’ll be donating the book to the valet booth here, for leisure-time reading to pony up on your financial advice.”

“Oh, you guys are great. What a positive night. Santa Barbara is great. May I sign your book? Whom should I make it out to?”

“The valet crew.”

He borrows a pen, and while he’s signing says,

“Santa Barbara is great. Especially for a place to vacation, or come home to. Did I tell you I lived in Paris, France?”

“Paris, huh?” I ask. “You mean the Paris, France? The one in France?”

Who the fuck is this guy?

“Yes, the Paris, France. Have you ever had the fortune to go there?”

“I have, actually. It’s quite expensive. You must be doing just fine to be hailing from Paris, France and visiting the great Santa Barbara.”

“Yes, I am doing great.”

He wraps up his signing:

Bonjour

The Valet Crew,

I wish you guys all the best. Read, reread and implement and you will be glad you did.

Much Success and many

Blessings,

Greg Lucralover Etherton

PS for more copies (an arrow to lucralover) or payyourselffirst.mobi

He then leaned his elbow upon our desk and asks us to hook him up with a complementary dinner upstairs. Handing out good money I can handle—trying to get food from me is an entirely different beast.

“You’ve got twenty bucks right there. Go buy yourself a burger.”

“Well, there’s two of you, so you’ll each get a meal for your shift—you could give me one and you two could share.”

I almost snapped and went blind with subdued rage. I should have thrown his stupid little book at him and asked for my money back, yet I was seduced by his blithe audacity. Jesus has moves.

“First, we don’t get meals. Second, as a general rule, I  don’t share my food. So, as the Soup Nazi might have said: ‘No food for you.’”

“Couldn’t we talk to a manager and work out a meal for me?”

I laughed blatantly in his face.

“You’re on that—his name’s George. Tell him the valets sent you up for a free meal.”

“Are you breaking soon? Maybe you’d like to have a friend join you for dinner.”

“Dude, you got my twenty bucks. I thank you for the book—we’ll all read it and be the wiser for it. You’re welcome to stick around, play guitar, talk about greatness—but you’re not getting any food or any more donations. That’s the extent of it.”

“How about snacks? Are you allowed snacks?”

This fucking guy is relentless.

“Yes, actually. I’ve got Tempting Trail mix from Trader Joe’s. Complete with peanut butter chips, chocolate chips, raisins, peanuts. It’s the best snack ever crafted.”

“Well great. It sounds like dessert. Let’s have some.”

“Yeah, we already finished it. Like I said—no food for you.”

I cordially shook his hand, marveling at the guy’s tenacity. It was then I realized how coincidentally busy we were. The ebb and flow of traffic is usually all or nothing, but the all came as he spun his guru vibe, then the traffic and crowd disappeared as his lanky, guitar-toting self sauntered off.

Before he left, The Bachelor extracted from Don Gregorio de San Buenaventura (his aka at the back of the book) the information that he works five months a year as a tour guide for students abroad, in Paris, France, no less, then travels for six months. His book also alludes to the seven or eight rental properties that his great Aunt Georga invested in during the 1930s and 40s in Santa Barbara. Most of his family died of cancer or old age. He also owns several properties in, you guessed it, Paris, France.

His advice is an amalgamation of The Secret, Chicken Soup, and every other financial help book ever written. It’s not bad advice. The bottom line is to save 10 percent of everything you make, put 20 percent of the remainder toward paying off your debt, have lots of investments and properties and be happy, healthy, and travel six months out of the year.

Every point he makes can be put in a nutshell, or rather, a banana. He eats bananas backwards, like monkeys. Pop the bottom, break away the black thingy, then stick your finger in the poodge and break the fruit into its trisectional growth pattern. So there you go: travel for six months, own things, and think outside the banana.

Hell, he got my twenty bucks.

One thing you must do is reward yourself by viewing a few of his videos. One is him dancing freely like a nutball, sharing his freaky, pseudo-guru influence upon the world. Another is a “food porn” series, with him eating some chocolate, peanut butter whiskey mousse cake in Portugal. He asks how great this is, getting to watch him eat in Portugal.

Alright, that’s enough of this guy. Jesus loves you. And plays the guitar.

Epilogue

(4/11/10)

Everybody feels free to give me shit for dropping twenty bucks for his stupid little book. The thing is, I do everything for the story, and no, you can’t have my twenty, because I already know your story. As for the missing month, of his several videos on YouTube, he welcomes you to some of them by saying, ‘Hi, this is Greg Etherton. It’s December 32nd.”

When you first hear “December 32nd” you think: Wait. Is it cold where he is, so he meant to say its 32 degrees? Or is he really trying to establish a netherworld of a neverending year that happens to fall on a the beginning of a new year—so we are forever within the previous year, and experiencing the never obtainable madness of the dawn of the next?

He claims several times that every day for him is like a weekend, so he is Peter Pan living in Groundhog Day, forever grateful to be experiencing the end of days.