Sketchbook Cabbie

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.

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.

Bipolar Express

I pick up people up in my cab and for a very brief time get a slice of their life.  Nathaniel tells me he writes a blog called Bipolar Express about his life with bipolar disorder. He shares his coping strategies in order to inform and even bring humor to it. It educates and entertains people.


He tells me he wants to break the stigma around it. “I’ve come out of the bipolar closet,” he says and adds that people just don’t get it.  “They don’t appreciate what people afflicted with bipolar disorder have to offer. DaVinci had it….so’s Ben Stiller.”  Life is tough especially with a disease like this.  I appreciate how Nat can make the point that these people are unique and can make a contribution…even excel in amazing ways. As an artist I can sympathize. We think differently and respond creatively in nontraditional ways. There’s too much dull and conventional thinking in the world, anyway.

“We’re in production on a web series that will bring the audience into the mind of what it is like to live with this affliction,” he adds. Nat is creative and proactive and wants to make a contribution. I can dig that.