Sketchbook Cabbie

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.

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 and
“How much (is it) to Sleepy Hollow?”

“Yes and 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 seems to make his story ring true.

“What do you do for a living, Ben?”, I ask.
”A student,” he says. “got one more semester at College of Marin. Then I don’t know what’s next.”
Ben seems not only hurting but lost.
“Some bros are gonna chill in Thailand for a while. My buddy Dwayne is gonna open a microbrewery. He started it in the kitchen of his frat house.”

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

Outside the Mayflower Pub on 4th Street, the crowd of colored and face-painted in red, blue and white soccer hooligans gather to celebrate the tie the US 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 and the extra Porta-Potty is set up outside. It’s 1:00 in the afternoon and the copious beer they drink gets them peeing a lot.  Maybe one of these drunks needs to be driven home in a cab to sleep it off? I dig that cool white jersey with the coat-of-arms the England team wears that one of them wears. I also notice the San Rafael police are looming.The fans are behaving themselves now. The World Cup runs a month long.

Who knows how long we’ll be in it and how long the fans can keep this up. Sometimes I wonder how long I can keep this up?

Gal waits for the Marin Airporter

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.

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.

  

Walkin’ to Oregon

I get into a conversation at Vista Point, at the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge with an Irishman who’s walking from Santa Cruz to the Oregon border. His name is Major Finbar O’Shaughnessy of Hollywood, Ireland, which is just outside Dublin. Even though he’s sweating up a storm after five days journey with a heavy backpack and camping outdoors, I offer to drive him into Sausalito for free. He’s fallen behind his pack of hiking buddies and I don’t think he’ll break any rules in order to catch up. I ask him about the soldier camouflage 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’s in shape and looks about 40 years-old but he tells me he has seven grown kids back home and a (knowing) wife. He’s lived a full life and he's a lifer with a few weeks of independence 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.