Have I drawn you before?

I picked up Raven on 4th Street in San Rafael at 7:00 Sunday morning. She stumbled disheveled into my cab. Her vintage clothes a smelly jumbled mess of black veils. We began a conversation.

She tells me she tended bar all night and was tired waiting for the pick up from her boyfriend. When I ask her why her kinky blond hair is all wet she says it was from a lawn sprinkler. I’d guess she’d fallen asleep on someone’s lawn. So I turn up the heat in the cab. What identifies her are her tats, especially the blue-black spiral running down from her mouth.

“Have we met before”, I ask. I’m convinced I met Raven back in 2004, when I’d started my column of portraits of people called ‘Bay Folk’ for the San Francisco Chronicle. “Did you work at Vesuvio bar in North Beach? You had black hair back then,” I ask again.

“Yes, for a moment. Mostly I worked in a traveling circus,” she answers.

“You showed me how you served up Fernet Blanc and ginger ale for the other bartenders, getting off their shifts.”

“Nope that wasn’t me, but there’s this chick that’s copying my look,”

she says. Who’s memory is failing?

Just then her boyfriend calls and yells at her for not being where I picked her up. “I fuckin’ waited two hours for you!” she yells back into the cell.

By now, I’m a bit confused and cautious. Life and time has laid heavy on this woman. She’s worn out and she’s wet. I have a fondness for the people I draw and I never forget them. But this chick is bad news. We’re at her destination, in front of her apartment building above a bar in Larkspur.

“Get some sleep,” I suggest.

She shakes my hand. Her’s is cold. I notice the scrolls drawn into the flesh of her wrist, her beaded wristband and torn sleeve. I’d love to draw her again. But while I try not to judge people, I have the sense I should keep a distance…something toxic there, perhaps.

Gathering her clothes and bag, she stubbles back out into the street and wishes me ‘love and peace’.

The Architect

As the architect gets in my cab, he tells me he needs to go back home to Philly. I tell him I’ll take him as far at the San Francisco Airport. Cab driver joke. As we’re driving over the Golden Gate Bridge, he opens up about the meeting he just had with a Japanese developer who wants to build a city in the middle of the Saudi Arabian desert. He’s doubtful that it will fly but he’s talking to anyone about any commission, given the state of the economy. He says his buildings are mostly academic with ‘green’ components. “I was LEED-certified way before it was popular,” he says. I have to think there can’t be a lot of green in the desert.

The traffic on 19th Avenue southbound is ‘stop and go’, so we have time to talk about architecture, which I love to do. After some discussion of the buildings we like in San Francisco and Toronto, I ask the architect if he knows how Frank Gehry does it…how he designs with those intuitive, freeform shapes of his, like with Bilbao. “Gehry is an very creative architect with a lot of heart who’s timing was perfect. He managed to be there when the new money was available for new design,” he says. “His structures work on a human scale, too. I keep telling my students that if they just use a pencil on paper, they’re likely to put more humanity into their buildings. It’s a more direct connection to your heart,” he says. I get it since I use a pencil in my other career. “Spoiled by CAD,“ I suggest and he agrees.

By this time, we’re arrived at SFO and he needs to get to his flight. “Good luck with your building in the desert,” I shout. “Thanks, I’m gonna need it,” he answers.

How was your Day?

I decided to drive despite the fact that I was still getting over a cold. The drug combination of Comtrex (for head and sinus), Dayquil and Tussin (for the cough and sore throat) and Mucinex (an expectorant for the phlegm) had me slightly wired. The haze in my head seemed to be manifesting in my pick-ups. Is it the Buddhists who say you perceive what you feel?

My first fare that morning was the aged couple I took to the Marin Airporter at Larkspur Landing after a stay with their daughter. He’s moaning from some pain and she’s attempting to console him. “How’s your back, dear” and “You can sleep on the plane, honey.” How am I doing?, I wonder. I needed to check in on myself. $10.

The second run of the day was a regular client. She was going to work as a nurse’s aid despite having her wisdom teeth removed the day before. “I took 2 Vicodin. I’m fine.” She was a real trooper. $16.

Fare #3 was a dude I took from the Marin County Jail back to his Range Rover next to the club he got kicked out of in Sausalito the night before. “I wasn’t even driving when they arrested me,” he says. “They came over when I was looking for the hide-a-key under the radiator. They must of thought I was breaking into the car. They hauled my ass in when I resisted.” I have to wonder if the red wine stains and bloody elbows on his torn shirt is migrating to the back seat cushions. $51.

The fourth run was from the Travelodge Motel to the liquor store around the corner. The sad little man I drove was slumped and moving slowly. He had to be self-medicating his pain with the booze. He and his co-dependent girlfriend each must have had 4 bottles each in the bags they carried out, clanging. $10.

The fifth fare of the day was the wild-eyed bag woman I picked up at the Color My World Store. She couldn’t have purchased paint there since I drove her back to the motel where she lived. As we drove past the bus terminal, she tells me, “Crazy people hangaround my motel room.” She goes on talking for the rest of the ride but I tuned it out. I was done and it took all my brainpower to focus on the road. As she fumbles with her change for the fee, she tells me, “I do massage therapy…. $25 for an hour.” She’s as nutty and in pain as the rest of them today. “That’s nice,” I say back. “Have a nice day.” $6.25

After I dropped her, I called it quits. I didn’t quite make my ‘nut’…given the nuts I was hauling around. I needed to clear my head. How was your day?

Radiation is Released

What is it about the all the rants and radiation that’s getting released these days? The reactor core of the Fukushima Nuclear Plant in Japan couldn’t be kept cool due to Tsunami-related damage and may cause a meltdown and the release of deadly radiation. The plant’s technology and backup systems may prove to be inadequate. Charlie Sheen’s firing from his television show, Two and a Half Men and subsequent rants displaying his hypomania, were the result of drug and alcohol abuse. Viewers can’t stop digesting this freak show. New and old media are tailor made to deliver these events, but I can choose to watch out of concern or prurient interest till my own tolerance level is threatened.

From my cab on Sunday, I noticed a small table being set up by two young guys on a Sausalito street corner. They wanted to talk to people about Lyndon LaRouch, the wacho Presidential candidate and topnotch ranter. Attached to the table was a poster they doctored of Barak Obama with crossed eyes and a Hitler mustache. I got out and asked them, “What the fuck do you guys think you’re doing?” I vented. “I’m not fucking with anyone,” he answered. He wasn’t, I suppose, but I realized their toxic message got ‘under my skin’. This was their (hateful) way to have people think about the 25th amendment for Presidential impeachment . The Supreme Court recently affirmed anti-gay protesters the right to protest at a soldier’s funeral. Free speech no matter how virulent or how freakish, as in this case, is protected speech. I didn’t stop the LaRouche dude, but I regret allowing his message to get to me.

I have a choice whether or not to take in the spewing that’s being displayed in the current culture. So for now, I’m turning off the tube and choosing not to react. While I’m heartbroken over the death and destruction from the earthquake and tsunami, this last performance by Charlie Sheen is of no consequence. These choices seem right and necessary for me now as the news and other messages in the media (and in the street) get more omnipresent. No meltdown for me.

Bad Day for Cabbie

I watch the cab driver ahead of me in line at the taxi stand as he furtively crams this guy’s bicycle and some other grimy items including a rusty toolbox, a backpack and a three-foot length of 4-inch PVC pipe, containing fishing poles and reels. It amazes me that he can fit it all in his taxi trunk. Thankfully, the bike is collapsible. The trunk is closed and in they go into the cab. It seems like they’re ready to go, but out pops the cabbie. He looks disconcerted and lights up a cigarette. The shit box he calls a taxi isn’t starting. He ponders the situation. Now he’s going down the line asking me and others behind me for cables and a jump. The taxi line can be a competitive, unsympathetic place. He’s getting no help from us so he’s on the phone with his dispatcher calling for assistance. After 5 minutes another of the company’s cabs arrives and all that crap gets moved and crammed into it’s trunk and off they go. Yet another company cab arrives to pick up the driver, leaving the cabbie’s derelict vehicle forward of the line having been pushed there. I roll up my window, turn up NPR, take a sip my Earl Gray tea and break open the New York Times. I’m not having his day.

Dude, Help Me Get My Car Back?

It’s a Saturday afternoon and I’m driving a few miles from the Budget Motel to the Marin Vehicle Pound in Corte Madera. Faux Jay and Silent Bob (I call them) are in the back of my cab about to smoke a joint. They need to get their car back. These two stoners had it impounded the day before by the U.S. Park Police after being arrested smoking pot.

“We were on Muir Beach. It was just a little hash, ok,” he tells me.

“Didn’t you know you were on federal land, guys?” I inquire.

Silent Bob answers, ”I’ll bet if we jumped in the ocean, they couldn’t arrest us.”

This is the tone of the conversation on the drive over.

“Guys, you gotta roll down the window, okay?” I say.

I find them a bit amusing until they ask me, “Can you drive the car off the lot for us. They need to see a license. We can give you $20.”

“Where’s your license?,” I ask.

“In the glove compartment, dude.”

“Hmmmmm,” I wonder.

“We need to get back to Colorado,” he adds.

I figure I should consider helping them get out of Marin.

At the impound, Ron, the tow truck operator has no tolerance for their attitude. Silent Bob hands over some form…a request to retrieve the vehicle.

“Where’s the title and registration”, Ron asks. “I need the title and registration for the vehicle.”

“Dude, I just bought the car two days ago,” says Silent Bob.

“Then where’s the title transfer,” Ron asks.

“In the glove compartment, maybe.”

Off we trot past the gate that Ron unlocks. I’m trailing further behind.

The car door gets unlocked and Faux Jay goes into the glove compartment.

“Dude, the cops musta took ‘em.”

“Okay,” Ron suggests. “You need to go to the DMV and get a copy of the title and get it signed, then come back. I can’t give you the car till then.”

“Dude, no way!”

Back in the cab, my stoners are bummed, as I drive them back to the Budget Motel.

“It’s $85 bucks a day for the impound, “ Silent Bob says.

“You guys, I’ll take $20 for this little excursion,” I’m done. “By the way, it’s a holiday on Monday so you’ve got a few days to wait.”

“Dude,” murmurs Faux Jay, “Hey, there’s a P.J. Changs Restaurant over there. I gotta eat.”

Thank$ Larry

The biggest event of the year for San Francisco is not Halloween or even the Gay Pride Parade. It’s JavaOne, the Oracle Developers Conference. The city rolls out the red carpet for 60,000 nerds. They take over several blocks around Yerba Buena and the Moscone Center. All downtown hotel rooms are booked. They spend a lot of money and the city needs it.

So when I drove a young woman who works for Oracle South Africa and her client from their lunch in Sausalito to their hotels in the city, I got to hear just how much cash was involved. She’d taken the gentleman over on the ferry for a meal at the chic Poggio restaurant. “Tonight, I take 17 people to The Slanted Door (in the Ferry Building)”, she tells me. I figure that’ll be a sizable but effective chunk of change from Oracle’s promotion budget. “Tomorrow night, I host another group at Kitsho.”

She’s pulling out all the stops. “Can you take us down the curvy street,” she asks. I tell her, “There’s probably a line all the way up Lombard Street being Sunday and all”. “It’ll be okay”, she answers. “Will it?”, I have to wonder. I do my tricky left onto Filbert then another left onto Hyde, which puts us right at the top of Lombard, with no waiting. The she does her photo op thing, standing out the window, as we slowly descend the hill.

After that I cruise down to Market, I drop her client at the Marriott Hotel on 4th St. then I take her to the Omni Hotel on California. “Are we liking Larry (Ellison, her CEO) these days,” I ask. Her response (almost defensively), “You’ve got to respect him for what he’s done, despite what people say. You know his yearly salary is $1. But he does have a $28 million credit limit…more than Bill Gates.” “Really”, I say.

I let my client out at the Omni and she spends $82. on me. Thanks Larry.

Moments of Glowing

She’s the most beautiful girl that ever got in my cab. I figure she’s 32 years of age. With long blond hair and the slightest New York accent. The black business suit she wears hangs slipshod and sexy. She holds a papercup of white wine at a tipsy angle. “They kept pouring it for me on the ferry,” she says. This makes her even more sweetly amusing to me. She needs a lift to her houseboat up the Bridgeway in Sausalito.

As I drive, she tells me about her workday, about moving from Park Slope, Brooklyn and how lucky she and her boyfriend are to live here. It’s a one-way conversation, brief and memorable. I pull up to the dock where she lives and ask her for a sip of her wine. As I turn to return the cup, I notice how the sun now peaks through my taxi windshield and bathes her in a warm, gold light. A spotlight she seems to bask in. Her smile reveals a glorious set of teeth. Just then a car behind the cab honks and snaps me out of the momentary euphoria I feel. “I gotta move,” I say. It stops and saddens her, too, I think. This was our moment of communion. It glowed. My radiant girl pays her fare. “Toot, toot,” she goes. ‘Bye, darlin’,” I answer and I’m off to find more experiences like this and maybe take more sips of wine from a papercup.

Beat Up

Ben sticks his bruised and battered head in the window of my cab and says he wants to know if I take cards.
“Yup,” I say.
“How much (is it) to Sleepy Hollow?” he asks.
“About $15,” I answer.
“OK,” Ben responds as he carefully and painfully eases into the back seat.
“How’d you get so banged up?” I ask.
“I crashed my bike on Pine (Street) in the city. It was my own damn fault,” he says. “But last night, I was just hanging in Hayes Valley, no wait, maybe it was Union Square, and this guy socked me, knocked me out cold. I was just asking him a question. Next thing I knew this Canadian sailor was feeding me coffee.”
Through the mirror, Ben’s fresh cuts and scabs seem to make his story ring true.
“What do you do for a living, Ben?” I ask.
”I’m a student,” he says. “I got one more semester at College of Marin. Then I don’t know what’s next.”
Ben seems not only hurting but lost.
“Maybe join some bros, gonna chill in Thailand for a while,” he says. “My buddy Dwayne is gonna open a microbrewery. He started it in the kitchen of his frat house.”
After 20 minutes we reach his destination, unscathed. I take $20.40 from his Visa card.
“Take it easy, Ben,” I say, as I hand him the receipt.
“Yeah, bye,” he answers.

Keep it Up, Hooligans

I wait outside the Mayflower Pub on 4th Street, the crowd of face-painted soccer hooligans gather to celebrate the tie the U.S. team managed to pull off in the first game in their World Cup series against England. Not bad for us underdogs. “USA, USA, USA,” they all chant. The game was televised on the big screen inside. An extra Porta-Potty is set up outside for them. It’s 1:00pm and the copious beer they drink gets them peeing a lot. Maybe one of these drunks needs a ride home, to sleep it off? I dig that cool white jersey with the coat-of-arms that one of the England fan wears. I also notice that San Rafael police cars are circling the block. The fans are behaving themselves now, but the World Cup runs a month long. Who knows how long we’ll be in it? How long can these fans keep this up?

Tiburon Wine Festival

Quick sketch of happy wine drinkers at the Tiburon waterfront. Chauffeuring them back to San Francisco proved lucrative.

Keepin’ it Secure

“You gotta report every incident,” says Kyle, while on his 5:00am to 2:00pm shift as the security guard at the San Rafael Transportation Hub. “I can’t do much with the dealers here but ask them which bus they intend to be on soon.”

To me, this place, at times, can be a nexus for drug dealers, prostitutes, trannies, and people who just show blatant disregard for the place. Like the homeless guy who took a crap on the waiting room floor, last night. Kyle has a more enligthened attitude. He tells me he’s working on his Master’s Degree in Criminal Justice at Sonoma State and that he’s also on the waiting list for the CHP Academy. “I figure I’m learning stuff I can use later. When it’s slow and there are no buses here, I’ll just sit in my booth and read through every report and have a good laugh.” I imagine that’s not a bad a way to cope.

Speaking their Language

I’ve made it a point to learn a few phrases in Spanish. Sometimes it seems like half of Marin County is Spanish-speaking. “Derecha aqui, senor?” is the one I use most often. Also,”El viaje costará 10 dólares, por favor” is a biggie. Not as much call for French (“Bienvenue sur mon cab”) and Italian (“come stai, gli italiani”), which I know a little. The young couple from Paris I drove last weekend to the L’Église Notre-Dame-des-Victoires on Bush at Grant spoke fairly fast, but I understood enough to know they were on vacation and they wanted to go eat dim sum in Chinatown, right after. Taxis are as ubiquitous in the world as Starbucks. Which is why the reality show travelers on The Amazing Race depend so much on us. Every Sunday morning, I drive Millie, who was born in the Fiji islands to the San Rafael Mission Church. I always greet her with, “Bula Vinaka” (“Hello” and “Thanks”)? I’m an immigrant myself (from Canada) and I’d appreciate a little native tongue from my taxi driver. Well, you know what I mean.

Nurturing the World

I’m driving the dude from downtown Sausalito, a little further up the Bridgeway to Le Garage. Matt’s going to have a nice Sunday brunch on the waterfront. Just as I make the turn onto Liberty Ship Way, we both set eyes on the young woman pushing her one-year-old in a stroller. She has copious and well-formed bosoms. “Wow”, I exclaim. I wouldn’t normally do that but for the fact that they are extraordinary and I sense Matt in the back is a comrade and appreciates the female form as I do. “The nice weather brings out the breasts”, he says. “Yup”, I agree. “That Mom is nurturing the world.” He adds,” It’s a beautiful thing.” I drop Matt at the restaurant. He gives me $20 for a $6 fare. That’s a moment worth savoring, I think.

George’s Whales

The Marin City bus that whizzes by me is known as the whale bus for the large-scale humpbacks painted on the sides. My friend George Sumner painted them. He and I have an art space in the same building in Terra Linda. His is more of a gallery where he showcases his paintings of whales, dolphins and other sea life. He’s passionate about the subject. Marin’s Golden Gate Transit commissioned George back in 1993 to create his bus mural as a way to send a message about preserving underwater species and their environment. George is the original master on this theme. He’s mentored others like Wyland, who’s gone on to much success. George earned a measure of fame back in 1990 when he gave a painting of twin dolphins circling the Earth in space to Mikhail Gorbachev at the opening of his Peace Institute in the Presidio. It also carried an ecological message. In a way, the world has caught up with George. There are now others like George finding creative ways to save the planet. The message is an important and beautiful one.

Going Once, Going Twice…

I picked up Marilyn at her vintage Arts and Crafts home (with restored tower) in a beautiful section of San Anselmo. She’s an antique dealer who needs to go to the San Rafael Auction Gallery at 5th and Hetherton. Oddly enough, I’d been at the same auction house earlier in the day, eyeing a beautiful Hokusai print and a pair of Eames chairs. She’s an expert at this and shares with me about the process of online bidding, absentee bidding and in-house bidding. Marilyn loves Stickley furniture and pewter. But she has a proxy-bid on an American Impressionist painting once owned by Louis Comfort Tiffany.

A few hours later, I returned to pick up Marilyn. She missed getting her painting but scored some jewelry. She’s ecstatic. This is her passion. As I drive her home, she tells me how important it is to be pragmatic about this business and that it’s important to know your limits. “People get caught up in the adrenalin that pumps in these events,” she says. Marilyn offers to mentor me at the next auction.

Moments Both Active and Idle

Sometimes I dislike the person I become when cab driving becomes stalled. Today is a slow day with a glut of drivers and too much idle time for all. This makes me feel competitive and petty. It ages me. I see the other drivers and they seem gray and hunched over. I don’t want to turn into that. On the other hand, what keeps me feeling younger is the exchanges I have with people who sit in the back seat. I like the openness I develop when I meet new people and personalities. When this gig works, I get to listen to new stories and that enriches me. It should never be just about facilitating people and their racing to get to where they need to go. On slow and doubting days like this, I must learn to let myself pause. So the best practice for me is to park and draw. I did this drawing while waiting near the Corte Madera Marsh.

Sunday Faith

Unjun has come up from the city by bus and wants me to take her to a meditation workshop at the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in west Marin. For Unjun, it was her first venture into bucolic Marin. It’s a beautiful Sunday morning as we glide up Sir Francis Drake Boulevard through San Anselmo and up onto the hills, past a parade of Little Leaguers in open trucks decorated with balloons. She tells me about her meditation practice and how much she’s looking forward to her experience today.

I give Mara a ride every Sunday morning from the Canal district to the old San Rafael Archangel Church at the San Rafael Mission downtown. Mara likes the community and the sermons. Sometimes her teenage son joins her. The church and mission was built in 1817, the 20th one built in the California chain of missions. It took a lot of faith to build a church in the wilderness.

Most of us seek support and renewal through some kind of faith-based practice. I’ve never been much to run to a church for salvation but I find a walk in the woods or hearing the life lessons from the right spiritual guide helpful.

Marin is ready to provide a service or satsang with it’s plethora of religious and spiritual centers. One just needs to make the time and for many it’s Sunday morning.

I’m back at the San Rafael Bus Terminal and it’s almost 10:00am. A Latina jumps in my cab. It’s a short run to the First Presbyterian Church on E Street and Fifth Avenue. I drop her there just as the clarion chimes the start of the service. I close my eyes and listen a few moments till the bells stop ringing and I head off. This is my time to let the faith in.

Walkin’ to Oregon

Parked at Vista Point at the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge, I strike up a conversation with an Irishman, who’s walking from Santa Cruz, California to the Oregon border. His name is Major Finbar O’Shaughnessy of Hollywood, Ireland. He’s sweaty from carrying a heavy backpack, after a five day journey. He’s fallen behind his pack of hiking buddies. I offer to drive him into Sausalito for free. I don’t think he’ll break any rules in order to catch up. I ask him about the camo clothes he’s wearing, so he tells me he’s on a furlough from a 4-year tour of duty in Afghanistan with the Royal Irish Mounted Rangers. He’s going back into service after this adventure. The guy is in great shape and looks a lot younger than the age he says he is. He tells me he has a wife and seven grown kids back home. He’s lived a full life, with a few weeks of independence left to call his own. After the drop off, he insists on sending me a bottle of Irish whisky when he returns home, for the favor I provide. Cheerio, mate!

New Jersey Family: Back to Reality

I’m parked at the taxi stand in Sausalito. I watch tourists rush off the ferry from San Francisco. A cute family approaches. The Dad, Mom and the two kids are from New Jersey and want to go to the Marine Mammal Center. They’re so excited, especially the kids. They tell me that for the past year, they’ve contributed to the Adopt-a-Seal Program and more directly to the rehabilitation of Astro, the steller sea lion. Astro was brought to the Center as a pup with injuries from a shark. The vet staff brought him back to life, tagged him with a GPS device and returned him to the Pacific. After a few years Astro was brought back with Toxic Algae Poisoning, a tragically common issue that seals are inflicted with. I take them on the short trip through the old tunnel to the Center just up from Rodeo Beach. I provide some of my tourism info. They are keen to know. I drop them off at the Marine Mammal Center’s new building.

Dad books me for the return trip in an hour and a half. I drive them back around the Marin Headlands and use their camera to snap the photo for their next Christmas card. It’s a good shot with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge below and San Francisco beyond that. The mother and the young son are talking. “Would you like to live here,” she says to him. ‘No’, he says. ‘I want to go back to reality.’ The young ones always need to go home.

Vistas at the Sausalito Taxi Stand

Migrating albatrosses skirt and stir up the surface of the bay.
Colored sails of Islander 34’s lean into the wind.
Vistas framed through my cab window, through trees on the Bridgeway.
Tourists ride bikes with maps trailing tall orange flags.
But it’s the fast-moving peloton that suddenly owns the road.
Others wander like peregrines, take pictures like paparazzi.
Mission-style porticos, elephant fountains and stores selling merch.
A distant violinist plays Stardust for loose change.
Foreign accents collide with seagull cackles.
A Marin grand dame exits the restaurant and heads my way.
The cool, gray fog is funneling through the Golden Gate.

Released to My Cab: 2 Cons Free

San Quentin Prison releases parolees every morning Saturday and Sunday at 8:00 at the San Rafael Bus Depot. As I sit at the taxi stand, the unmarked prison van with darkened windows pulls up and lets out about a dozen freedom-loving cons. In an instant they all scramble out in their gray sweat suits to the buses or to one of the waiting cabs. Two older dudes approach mine. One wants to negotiate a flat fee to downtown San Francisco. The typical fare on the meter runs about $70, plus bridge toll. But I tell with $50 total, since I need the gig. I insist they pay me upfront as they get in. No sooner am I pulling away from the curb that one of them demands we stop at Subway for a sandwich. I deal with it. After that detour we’re off south down Highway 101 to the city.

Each man has been in San Quentin for about 80 days. “It was crowded,” they say. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation gives a released inmate $1.10 for each day they’re in prison. They’re required to buy those gray sweats. With the money they gave me for the trip, they can’t have much left for liquor, which is what they’re talking about now. I push on, over the Golden Gate Bridge and into downtown. I drop them at the Goodwill Store at Mission and Van Ness. They want to buy some new (used) clothes, so as to blend in. I bid them well. 

Recidivism rates for men in the U.S. are currently at 90%. Odds are, I’ll have them back in my cab after their next release. I provide transport and no judgment. That’s enough.

Where do you want to go kid?

I realized the other day that, while I only drive a cab Saturday and Sunday, I’m doing what every suburban parent is doing out there on weekends, they’re driving their kids everywhere. The only difference is that when I’m shuffling people around, I get paid for it.

My son just turned 16 years of age and is now entitled to a learner’s permit for his official drivers license, which I know he will use extensively. It will set me free of my sixteen years of weekend driving obligations to his swim meets, soccer games, birthday parties which have more then occupied the Saturdays and Sundays of his entire life. We parents meet these obligations gladly, in order to keep our children busy, active, social and safe.

There’s no meter running for these services. Ultimately, it will get passed forward and they will drive their own kids. That’s the payback. Enjoy the drive Liam.

No Patience for the Garage Sale Gent

‘Geez,” I uttered under my breath, after the gent says, “drop me here, drop me here, I’ll walk.”

Disconcerted was the feeling I felt, after the numerous other commands, directions and opinions he barked at me as we drove up into the hills behind Dominican University in San Rafael.

“Sure you don’t want a ride the rest of the way,” I said.

“Nope,” he says stroking the ornate handle of his cane, jiggling his turquoise necklace and oozing some odd cologne. “For this garage sale, I don’t want them to see me arriving in a taxi….get better prices that way.’

“Whatever,” I muttered.

“Here you go,” he says as he hands me $9. (no tip) for the drive and my attempts at patience.

“Great, fine, thanks. Hope you fine some treasure.” I say, as he exits with my foot poised on the gas pedal. I try to be nice.

Half way down the block I say, “Geez” out loud this time. I notice the garage sale gentleman has left the odor of his cheap perfume in my cab. “Geez,” I announce, one more time, to no one but me.

The Music Dude

In the back of my cab, while Seeger chomps down on his (Extreme) pizza slice, I ask him if his parents named him after Pete Seeger, the folk singer. ‘Ya, they were hippies, then they were Yippies.” He’s a 20-something dude with no clear profession from what I can tell. He’s a casual guy with electronica music seeping through his headset. “Bet this taxi goes hella fast,” he asks. I could confirm that for him but I won’t. I’m just shuttling him around downtown San Rafael while he does a few pick-ups. “Can I plug in my iPod into your system?” I’ll listen to his music. I crank up a piece called Sea Dreamer by sitar player Anoushka Shankar featuring Sting on vocals. It has a beautiful lyric with Karsh Kale’s tabla percussion and a very cool electronic groove. For the rest of the trip I felt emotionally transported. I pass on Seeger’s choice in music to you here.

The Matchmaker and the Con

I’m always amazed at the diversity of people’s points of view. This morning I took three parolees, after their release from San Quentin prison, from the San Rafael Bus Depot where they get dropped, to the Richmond BART Station on the other side of the bay. The talkative con next to me in the front seat said he needed three things. “Coffee, Micky-Dees and pussy.” Just as informs me, I realize the homies in the black Escalade in the next lane notice my passengers. “Yup, we free now”, the con says, “Dude’s bitch must be workin’.” He figures the driver must be a pimp. I’ll bet my con’s mother never taught him to respect women.

In the afternoon, I picked up one of our regular customers from Safeway. The elegant Pari is a matchmaker. They call her the Queen of Hearts for the 240 marriages or long-term relationships she’s facillated. ‘It’s good karma”, she says. And I have to agree. She helps to hook people up. It’s good, respectful work. It honors people and their humanity.

I get all kinds in my cab. I try not to judge. People’s upbringing, hardships and education shape them into who they are and how they think. I just get them where they need to go.

Henry has Soul and No Teeth

Henry and his buddy Dave struggle out of the halfway house in the Canal district of San Rafael. Henry has soul and no teeth. He also carries a cane and uses our cabs regularly. They need a lift to the 7-Eleven for burritos and to Al’s Liquors for refreshments. They smell for lack of bathing. Both are ‘down-and-outers’ but for now have a roof over their head and money for cab fare. During the ride, while Dave remains silent, Henry talks non-stop and cracks off-color jokes. Being toothless makes him almost unintelligible. He tells me he just got out of a 90-day rehab. I wonder to myself what that might mean. I figure it’s for alcoholism for obvious reasons. “I lived in a room I can only describe as a fucking cell”, he points out. I imagine his present abode can’t be much better. Funny and sad this one. They live life like they have the plague…segregated and bottom feeding. I get a $5 tip from Henry. I bid him well till next time.

Taksi with the Russians

Someone should tell these Russian Casanovas they wear too much cologne or AXE deodorant. I’m quick to realize this as I pick the two guys up after they frantically wave me down on the Bridgeway in Sausalito. Boris and Ivan are here from Moscow for two days before they fly off to LA to board their cruise down the west coast to the Panama Canal and beyond. “When it gets cold there we leave,” says Ivan. For now they just want to go back to Union Square in the city. “We couldn’t go on the seaplane for our aerial tour because the fog is keeping it grounded. Maybe when it clear,” he says. The weather has a way to keep us moving or stopping us….one of the great variables in life. “We travel to the beach in Columbia, too”. I figure the Russians will be plenty warm there. As they leave my cab and pay, I offer some Russian, “Raspogoditsa.” (translation: The weather will be fine soon).

Delivering Flowers for V-Day

By 9:30am on Valentine’s Day 2010, I’ve driven a half dozen men to various stores around town to pick up flowers for their lover. Wayne snuck out early before his girlfriend woke up to buy a freesia plant at Safeway. Arnie bought orange tulips for his wife from Whole Foods and nicely supplemented it with oranges, citrus bath oil and dark chocolate with bits of orange peel in it. David got a nice arrangement of asiatic lilies and red roses from the stand next to the Wells Fargo Bank on 4th. As I drive David back home, he takes a cell phone call from his four-year-old daughter who wants her pancakes and a call from his mother back east wanting investment advice.

I’ll do this romantic facilitating till I realize my honey needs my flowers.

Bipolar Express

I pick up people up in my cab and for a very brief time I get a ‘slice of their life’. Nat tells me he writes a blog called Bipolar Express about his life with bipolar disorder. He shares his coping strategies in order to inform, to educate and to entertain.

He tells me he wants to break the stigma around it. “I’ve come out of the bipolar closet,” he says. “People think it’s contagious. They don’t appreciate what people afflicted with bipolar disorder have to offer. Did you know DaVinci had it?”

I can sympathize a bit. We artists think differently and respond creatively in nontraditional ways. For Nate, life is tough enough, especially with his brain disorder. But he’s creative and proactive and wants to make a contribution. I dig that.

Moving On

For years Verma has lived on a boat at the Loch Lomond Marina. As I hold the cab door open for her and the many plastic bags she carries, I notice how tattered she looks and how life seems to have treated her rough. But as I turn the meter on and pull away, our conversation belies the visual impression I have. She tells me she’s off via several buses and trains on her first trip ever outside of California. She’s meeting her carnie boyfriend in Austin, Texas where they will be considering marriage. “I’m excited”, she says. “I may finally get to sell my boat”. It sounds like she has a future plan, but as conversations trend deeper, she’s sharing some family history. “I’m still getting over the death of my mother and sister. I got a lot of grief counseling”. To me it sounds like she’s moving on. It’s a good thing to actively step away from the sad and familiar. Let the past wish the future well. I drop her and her bags at the San Rafael Bus Depot and wish her on her way. I switch the car into idle and watch as traffic moves past me.

Driving Gary Vaynerchuk

I picked up wine expert and motivational speaker Gary Vaynerchuk last week in my cab. He was doing an in-store promo for his book, Crush It! at Cost Plus in Corte Madera. We didn’t talk much on that ride into the city. He was too busy on his cell checking in with family, selling cases of wine and being anxious about getting to see his beloved New York Jets play on a big screen in a bar in the Tenderloin. Watch this video from the Web 2.0 conference he spoke at. You can’t help but have it shift your thinking about selling and branding or about just creating a happy life. He reminded me of the EST seminar leader I had in the 80’s. He was a veterinarian and talked about dogs like Gary talks about wine…in metaphor. He commands his audience. He says,”clap that up because it’s the real shit”

Managing Relationships

Relationships have always intrigued me. My fares today provided some insight into how relationships can work well. I had the opportunity to drive a husband and wife to the San Francisco Airport, at different times. In the time it took me to drive each one of them from Sausalito to SFO, I learned how this skilled couple manages to navigate their extraordinary lives with tremendous love for each other and to career success.

He runs a British online media hub and she’s a healer and psychologist. He was on his way to London for meetings about how to best monetize his content offerings. She was on her way to Patagonia, Arizona to do a 7-day fast. I talked with him about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and with her about Carl Jung. He shared that he was successfully treating his Parkinson’s disease with naturopathic remedies. She told me about a tough argument she had on Stinson Beach with her daughter. Today they travel in two different directions in the world. I’m impressed with how they both manage to accommodate each other’s passions and unique contributions.