Sketchbook Cabbie

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.

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.