SF City Cab

Saint Patricks Day

2006-03-19T04:20:00.000-08:00

San FranPatricks day has not been on a Friday in 7 years. On the holiday when it was on a weekday it became a sordid lunchbreak that turned into a raucous suits and suds melee. Or something like that. But tonight is a friday. And its not raining and an 8k pharmicist convention is coming into town. First fare is lady hanging out another cab in opposite direction on Cezar Chavez and s.v.n. He was trying to take her to Evans st. to his cab compound for it was the end of his shift and he had to have his cab back and he tried to pass her off to one of his company brothers and she was having nothing of it because she was born here and her moms from NY and what the fuck i need a cab in the right direction and she yells at me with arms flailing out of only a half lowered window. I pull into el cheapo gas station and soon i am swept up into a sexy drunk unhappy loftwifes intentions of having a good st. paddies day (she's an eigth irish.) we need to pick up her friend and would i like a guiness? aw c'mon have a beer. you can have a beer. its the start of my shift, i protest. YEAH, first one, CHEERS. She likes me and offers me pot and cocaine. I defer. I get her short story, twice. Her friend is interested too and soon enough i am dropping them off at Shanghai Kellys and shes begging me to go in for a drink. I cannot and with 20 bucks in hand i search for my next asses. Three EU'ers going to the Hilton. The hotel doorman has a line back into the foyer and i have a ride to Fishermans Wharf, where i greet some tired country folk from farm in Monterey. The kids were especially impressed with the ride on Jones st from columbus to o'farrell. ON and ON it went, a mix of tourists and green hatted sloshkies, going from one side of Russian Hill to the other and over to the front side of Tendernob. I got gladhanded and invited to partake and participate with 4 different female fares. I survived 3 possible puker rides. I got every imaginable thing yelled at me. I got taunted and provoked, cursed at and gestured towards, glared at and leered on, swerved at and swerved from to avoid, confounded and profounded, and sured and not sured. I made less than new years and halloween, but not more than valentines. I'm glad i didn't get run into and thats worth the 10% less i made because people were so drunk they made for inefficient passengers. Scene: two guys snoring as their buddy took forever to get a bottle form a bodega 4 minutes before 2.

March 4

2006-03-05T10:22:00.000-08:00

Its been a while since i've posted. I moved from Lower HAIGHT to Mclaren park and its been tough moving and finally getting DSL. No excuses though, laziness pervades the soles of my feet.

Last night was busy. 7000 dermatoligists in town for a convention. They tip for shit, especially the foreigners. Exact change from 5 straight fares, that hadn't happened in my 9 years driving. After getting 2 slices from Arnells on Valencia, a very cute girl from Montreal gets in and we talk it up all the way to the Triton. She is asking me lots of personal questions and laughs at my lame jokes. As she gets out she tells me to watch out for the Dermos and i say for her, as well , to watch out for them and i notice a large zit on her chin and i hope she didn't misunderstand me.
Over a thousand fratters and such were racing in an urban dogsled drink fest, groups of 6 or 7 costumed fools pulling shopping carts laden with alcohol all through the city. I had 4 fares of these people and they were all wasted and wanting to drive their cars out of parking garages.
Didn't get to stop by the Mesh party at Rickshaw but in my few drive-bys it looked like a good crowd. Hot chicks read Mesh. Anyway, another big storm is blowing in and i'm skipping work today to get up to South Lake for some powwow and cardiovascular wowwop. so next week i'm back and i'll tell all the juicy details of the stinky, dirty cab.

1/26/06

2006-01-28T11:14:00.000-08:00

As soon as someone gets in the cab, they want to know if its busy or if i'm having a good night. Every Friday night is busy and every Friday night after this one will be busy. Last night i felt like i was going through the motions, punching the time card. The Warriors lost to the lakers. I picked up a Marine whose wife and baby girl left him two weeks after he finished a 16 month tour of duty in Iraq. I moved around some French people and some British people. I saw a wicked accident at Hayes and Gough where a crappy car crashed into a nice restaurant. I transported some cute girls and some ugly ones. I had a donut and coffee at the beginning of my shift and a slice of pizza at the end of my shift. I never went to the airport. Not much happened, i didn't talk to half my fares and a quarter of those were couples getting heavy before i could get them home.
At the end of my shift, i fell asleep waiting in the gas line.

Sunday night puke job

2006-01-17T16:12:00.000-08:00

Driving a spare is not fun, they don’t drive well, they smell, and the stereos never seem to work right. It’s my own fault for driving by a drunk who throws bottles at cars. It’s Sunday and a holiday eve, as its Martin Luther King Day the next day. People are out on the town and it should stay busy into the late night hours. I pick up people in Union square, at the movies, from restaurants and plays. I get this older couple from the Sonoma who enjoyed Mozart at the Symphony. I’m listening to jazz on the radio and they tell me they saw Charles Mingus at the Jazz Collective in North Beach many years ago. A woman named Ursula gives up on the bus in the Castro and on the way over the hill to Noe Valley she tells me about her medical problems and her need to be proactive about what she puts in her body. I tell her about Café Gratitude and she thanks me by doubling the fare. I pick up two cocktail waitresses from Bimbo’s where James Brown had just performed. He was awesome and danced amazingly for his age. I drop them off in the TL and pick up a bartender with bulging discs. Its turning into a busy night and in my greed to reach my quota for a Saturday night on a Sunday night I try to get one more last fare by queuing up at the Endup. I’m first up when the exit doors flies open with a bouncer escorting a stumbling Latino tranny. A Joe jock white guy is helping her. My first instinct was to lock the doors and flee the scene, but I waited in this line and who knows. They get in and she can’t communicate where her residence is, so the guy instructs me to take them to his car parked in the alley behind 850 Bryant. It’s approximately 200 feet from the cab queue. Two minutes have passed and she/he is already passed out. He tries to extricate her from the back seat, to no avail. I get out and try to help. He pulls and I push. I exude patience when he realizes he doesn’t have his keys as they are in coat check inside the Endup. She/he slumps back into the seat and he runs away. Two cops pass me and look at me quizzically as I stand outside my taxi with a look of utter frustration on my face. He finally returns and she/he has her shirt off revealing too perfect tits. This is getting bad as I never even turned the meter on and I can see the cab queue moving fast without me. Again we try to remove her/him from the back seat but her shoes have fallen off and she’s still naked from the waist up and he’s trying to put her jacket on when she starts puking. It sounds like a faucet open wide and wide stream of vomit cascades down the road. “Please, not in my cab”, I implore. Unfortunately it has gotten on the cab and on the door and I am pissed. I tell him he has to give me money because now I can’t pick anyone up because I have to clean it up myself. All he has is $13 and that doesn’t even cover my time spent with these fools. I tell him I need more money and he says he has no more and they drive off in his new Audi and I throw the money at his car and yell “ASSHOLE”. Then I pick up the money and put it in my pocket and go back to the garage to clean out my spare cab

Too much Broadway

2006-01-17T15:35:00.000-08:00

Its Saturday night and I’m driving a spare. I come and go, to and fro, up and down, wrong way, now turn around. Not much is happening and it’s turning out to be a fairly quiet night until I pick up my last fare. Its 2:30 in the morning and I take a radio call for a bar at Stockton and Green. Two white guys come out and one is holding a bag of ice to his nose. They get in and tell me they need to go to Pleasant Hill. Ok I say and lets go because it’s getting late and my cabs due in soon. Turns out they are brothers and the one with the ice might have a broken nose. Their story is that they were part of a bachelor party of 13 guys. Their cousin is getting married and his hillbilly friends came in for the wedding. They had two limousines and were hitting up all the strip clubs when all hell broke loss over the purchase of a certain round of drinks. Too many drinks, too much testosterone, and too few real female companions were the perfect recipe for violent mayhem. The unhurt brother started it all and threw the first punch into the face of their cousin’s friend. They fell onto the ground in a jumble of headlocks and knee shots. The broken nosed brother got his ailment by jumping in to defend his kin. They said it was 11 against 2 and they got a few good shots in themselves. The whole cab ride they told the same story over and over and the joint they smoked didn’t help them much in their reiteration of said events. On the way over the bridge they decided not to go home but to pick up their car at their cousins house in Moraga. Through the dark roads behind St. Mary’s college we creep. They tell me to stop at the corner as they are expecting an ambush from the rest of the party. The brother with the broken nose pays me and the other brother get out and puts a rock from the roadside into his pocket. I drive out of there and before I reach Highway #24, two stretch hummers pass me in the opposite direction.

Friday the 13th

2006-01-17T14:55:00.000-08:00

Friday the thirteenth and a full moon, everyone wants to know if I can sense the craziness that’s purported to be out there; naaahhhh. I take a dishwasher to work. I take a lawyer home from work. A beautiful Indian woman here for Macworld asks me where she can get a massage and not one with a happy ending. She tells me how bad her back is and how her boss made her come here and all she wants is a massage. I suggested Kabuki or Osento, but in hindsight I realized she might have wanted me to do it. She wanted to shake my hand goodbye and she gazed at me lovingly as I pulled out of the Best Western parking lot where I left her. Then the rain came and my windshield is a streaked mess, as if it was cleaned with a scouring pad. My last fare of the night was the most eventful. I pick up two white guys in North Beach and they want to go to the Western Addition. Instead of taking Broadway tunnel, I head south and the west on Pine Street. It’s almost 2 a.m. and people are everywhere trying to hail cabs. It’s raining hard and again its not that easy to drive. There are only three cars on Pine and they’re all cabs. I’m following one and ahead of one. As we are all cruising through the intersection of Mason St. a group of side burned hipsters with trucker caps are jaywalking in the middle of the street. The first cab doesn’t let up and as I pass I see one of them whirl around as if to throw something. I have had many things thrown at me because I am occupied and they are frustrated. I have had my cab punched, kicked, and spit on. I expect something and floor it accordingly. My driver’s side window explodes, glass is everywhere and by the time I stop I am 2 blocks down a one-way street. I pull over next to St. Mary hospital and try to get the attention of a cop but the car is unoccupied. Its poring rain and I have two frazzled customers in the back seat. I remove the glass on my seat and from my ear and proceed to the destination. I have no window and since I only have 30 minutes left in my shift; I call it quits. For the next 2 days I have to drive a spare.

lazy log

2006-01-02T12:39:00.000-08:00

OK sorry but i have no time to blog my entire new years eve. much to tell but the snow calls. Epic rains in Cali so i am off to Tahoe now!! back in few days.

New Years Eve Eve

2005-12-31T15:53:00.000-08:00

One of my passengers claimed that the eve of New Years Eve is better then New Years Eve. I don’t know but it sure was lucrative. It was very busy straight from the start. My first fare was a day driver named Mac the Hack; he picked up a check from his lawyer and gave me my first big tip of the night. Next up was a shopper from Trader Joes and she had lots of information on how to concoct the perfect new years day spritzer. Then I took a beautiful young woman to work at Ozumo and when she jumped out of cab another woman jumped in with a large bed cover that needed an equally large washing machine to get it clean. She directed me to where there was no Laundromat, so I took her to Brainwash and she had me wait for many minutes and then on to Whole Foods, where I again waited and then back to 88 Howard where I had to carry all the groceries to an elevator. It was worth twenty-seven bucks. Then the rain came and the wind and more rain and more wind. My rear window defroster was broken. My wipers went only three quarters speed. The air conditioner didn’t worth so it was stifling with the windows all rolled up. At this point it became a soggy blur of soaked pedestrians, crazy cloudbursts, lightning strikes, and fishtailing turns. Wherever I dropped off there was another desperate customer ready to jump in. It went on like this all night. My last fare was a very drunk lawyer who mumbled and stumbled into my back seat. We picked up his birthday girl wife in front of Division St. lounge and then fetched their drunk driving friend in parking lot on Main St. (she was going to drive to Pacifica with a mini spare tire on her car) and I took the whole group to Berkeley. The bridge was flooded on the upper deck and the rain was coming down so hard I was driving on instinct. I made it back to the garage and when I counted my booty I had to admit it was as good as New Years Eve.

Huge Holiday Weekend

2005-12-19T10:31:00.000-08:00

I went home to the East Coast for week to be with the folks and endure negative 0 degree weather.
I came back in time for a busy busy weekend in SF.
Thursday was a blur of holiday parties and full moon wackiness. Passed up two airports because i can't accept credit cards. After missing the second one i picked up three young Indian guys trying to make LA flight out of Oakland and made it with few minutes to spare. An older woman complained that my driving was like being trapped in some hyper video game. Took some drunk office worker to SSF and she didn't have enough money so she gave me her Peets coffee card.
At St. Regis got another drunk party casualty going all the way to Vallejo. It ended up being a lucrative night.
Friday was fucked because i had to wait 4 hours just to get a cab and its cold as Poughkeepsie. Again, a ton of shoppers and holiday party people. A guy from London gave me a British cig that came from a pack costing him ten dollars. Another guy told me he's worked with Regis Philbin and what a bastard.
Saturday was wild. There were people dressed as Santa drinking heavily and soiling their suits all over. I saw at least 200 of them at church and market letting out a long, loud collective "hooooooooooo....." Later i had bike messenger girl who told me they would do battle with a bunch of clowns at post and market in a Fight Club themed drunken clash. It rained all night , making it hard to see with my streaked windshield. People were overtipping me left and right.
I made lots of money and my left arm was always wet.
Sunday sucked as usual. i worked it and made my quota in 6 hours and now i'm packing for Tahoe. later.

freezy friday

2005-12-03T16:35:00.000-08:00

I started my night shift at half past two in the bright autumn sunlight. It’s nice to be driving in the sun but there tends to be less business during the day. It is as it is. My first fare is out of Cal train station; some guy going to pick up his motorcycle at the other Cal train station on 22 and Penn. I head back to same place and get a ride with some white dudes to Glen Park where I get a wigged out old’ lady going to Evans St. She didn’t have enough money to cover the fare but I told her not to worry about it and give me what she had, which was sufficient. I drive straight down 3rd St. and its smooth asphalt with timed lights make me very happy. I see this old coot with baggage flagging me at the bus terminal. I pull over and he throws the bag in the back. He tells me he drove cab in Orange County. He directs me to Post and Taylor where we wait 4 minutes for a friend of his who turns out to be a drug dealer. I let him smoke a cigarette as we drive to our final destination of the shelter at Bryant and 5th and he sneaks some crack or smack or whatever it is he lights up. I don’t want any of his second hand smoke and perturbed I roll down the windows and tell him its time to get out. He wants me to drive around the block but I refuse. I head back to the Cal train station to use the bathroom and discover to my horror that the new leather driving gloves I bought the day before in the Mission had stained my hands an unwashable blue. In order to unstain my hands I have to vigorously rub my hands on my jeans. Oh well, another $19.99 wasted on something that seemed to work so well. From the station I get a cab full of Stanford girls going to an x-mas party. Then I get the finest looking ladies of the night, they work at Google and they’re going to what looks to be the x-mas party of the season at pier 48. Its weird getting out so early because by the time it’s ten at night, I have little time left and not enough cash in my pocket. I take a radio call for Myth restaurant and pass up 2 flags to get there. I pull up and a group of folks drop their friend into the back seat. He is drunk and he tells me to take him to Lafayette. Forty minutes layer I’ve got a hundred more dollars and a quiet drive back to the city in a car with no heat and I could use it because its close to thirty degrees out here. I pull to the side of the road and take a piss and stare at the stars.

busiest travel day?

2005-11-28T19:29:00.000-08:00

All I see on the news is reports of this day being the busiest travel day of the year. I am optimistic on a Sunday and am able to meander on my bicycle ride to work. As soon as I get the cab, I drive straight to SFO with hopes of an immediate ride to Sacramento. I savor a beautiful sunset over the San Bruno Mountains with football on the radio. Unfortunately, the lots are full and I am directed to exit the facility. I deadhead back to the city and almost get run off Third Street by a Filipino family in a Corolla. There’s lots of holiday traffic but no fares to be found. I head into the belly of the beast and queue in front of St. Francis. After 10 minutes I get a ride with luggage….. to…. Grant plaza (4 blocks away). After I drop him off I head up California Street and get an airport ride out of the Radisson for a quick forty- two bucks. I go down below because it seems to be moving and 70 min. later get a couple returning to the Castro after a vacation in Mexico. From there I get an old gay guy who grooves on the Iraqi music being played on KUSF. I take him to the Fairmont where I get a non-tipping middle-aged couple from Tennessee going to Fisherman’s Wharf. Soon, it’s a whirl of tourists and shoppers going here and there, but nothing too big. Then I get a Gary Danko going to outer- Richmond for $25. On my return down Geary I get a bartender from Supper Club going to strip club for industry night. He tells me they have busted a few people having sex on the beds/tables. He tells me the idea for dinner in bed started in Amsterdam and then Rome and now SF and soon London. Its quiet out and take an illegal left off Hyde St. to snag another Danko much to the consternation of a fellow driver. The fare is three very attractive women who I drop off at a condo on Eddy St. I back into a driveway slowly while watching these lovely ladies enter their residence and at the last second I sense something close and narrowly miss running into a black dude chilling in his Corvette. I miss him by an inch and he seems to understand my inattention. It’s dead out and there’s not much going on and it’s cold (45 in SF). After driving empty for 40 min. I give up and have a splendid meal at Grubstake at 1 am. Satiated and two hours left on the clock, I deadhead it to SFO and there are no cabs there and a line of a hundred tired travelers waiting for a ride. I get two guys going to W hotel who don’t seem to mind listening to Grateful Dead show on radio. I drop them off in 10 minutes and with a quick forty bucks in my pocket, I blaze back to the airport and the line is still there with no other cabs in sight at two in the morning. This dweeby dude hops in and wants to go to Genentech headquarters one exit away. Frazzled by being dealt this shitty hand, I head south instead of north and have to turn around and start the meter over and get a measly twelve bucks for the fare. By the time I get back to the airport there’s a fifty cabs lined up and not a single traveler left. Bummed and resolved to ending my night, I head back to the garage to gas up and quit. Turns out, a lot of other cabbies had worst nights. East Bay Bob had the sorriest story; a snaggle toothed street sleeper hailed him down at 16th and Mission and a woman in a wheelchair wants to go to Silver but not before they get some money from some white trash folks behind a car wash. Turns out there was shit, actual fecal matter, on the wheelchair and on the lady and now on the cab and cabbie. He kicked her out at the car wash and had to wash himself and the cab, losing an hour and freaking himself out.

2005-11-07T12:00:00.000-08:00

The Niners lost again. Sunday afternoon. It’s raining. My first fare is a Mexican guy late for work at Indian restaurant in Lower Haight. He tells me he was drinking and forgot he had to work until his boss called and asked where he is. He asks me to rush and I get him from 16th and Valencia to Haight in 3 minutes, making every light with a key right on red at Church St. Another late worker is a maitre d’ going to North Beach. Two British girls are wet and cold after renting bikes and riding over Golden Gate Bridge to Marin on this their first and only day in SF. It was too foggy to see the bridge but they did what they needed to do. “What is a PED XING?” I tell them the sign means pedestrian crossing. They go to Yosemite tomorrow and then onto Grand Canyon, where they’re amazed to hear that I’ve never been. Prince Charles is attending Beach Blanket Babylon and ther
e are more satellite trucks then when they had gay marriages at city hall. I pick up too old fussy ladies from the Green Festival and they want to know the exact fare to BART, “uh, maybe five bucks”. They tell me how great the sustainable shopping is at the event and how they want to open a mall with stalls for veggie vendors and progressive craftspeople. They told me how there used to be a market at 12th and Market called the Crystal Palace. I get an older Russian couple looking for a shoe store for her but to no avail. There are a slew of Microsoft people in city for big product launch and I am shuttling them form W hotel to parties and from party to Shalimar. I am attracted to a couple of Microsoft girls gone wild. They are intelligent and cute, saying”maaaarketing”. This odd tattooed Microsoft guy said to me as he exited the cab, “See you tomorrow”. I’m going to start saying that to everyone instead of “take care” or “have a good night”. I go to Bob’s donuts when it starts to get slow and listen to Selvin on the radio at 107.7fm
and hear some rare Neil Young and some great stuff he made with Graham Nash.

blood and oil

2005-11-06T14:54:00.000-08:00

After attending the Green Festival and hearing all about bio diesel and conservation, I head out in my 11MPG Ford Crown Victoria to make a few bucks. My first fare took me a while to find because traffic was bad near the approach to the Bay Bridge. A woman with a large bouquet of flowers wants to go to the inner Richmond district. In order to avoid a complete standstill on Howard, I take a left on 5th and then a fast turn down Shipley alley where I hit the curb on the turn and pop my tire…fzzzzzz… the women gets out and walks away and I am left with a dirty flat tire and an incomplete jack stand. I have to wait 15 minutes for another cabbie to drop off a tire iron. I go to work, and in the process pinch a chunk out of my hand. I have got blood mixing with grease and I am having trouble getting the lug nuts off. Twenty minutes later I am finished and after being on the clock for over an hour, I have yet to make a penny. Resolved to make this night work I get a fare at the new St. Regis. This old couple is well dressed and not going far: the Palace hotel. Traffic is hell all night, the 1st onramp is closed and every driver who refuses to deviate from the coarse sits blindly in unmoving gridlock for a ramp that is completely shut down. These same people like to block the intersection so cross traffic can’t proceed. I bust about and all I’m coming up with is 4 block fares. Finally I get two gays guys going from the Mark Hopkins to the airport. An easy $40 and I head downstairs for the cab queue. Soon enough I am headed to San Mateo for a quick drop in the quiet suburbs. I make it back in less then a half hour, giving me a short and putting me in front of the queue. The next fare is a guy back from London going to 21st and Florida and I turn that into a short. Another short to Burlingame, another to S. Airport blvd.; and finally I get 2 woman back from vacation in Mexico going to the Western Addition. Now I am back in the city after a 3-hour hiatus. Everyone is going to the new hot spot, the Supper Club. This drunken guy going to the Marina tells me how he opened the door in another cab and a bus took the door off and then he ran away when the cabbie started yelling at him. Another drunk guy had me take him to his apartment near the pet cemetery in the Presidio. On way back in I got lost and almost busted by park police for a rolling stop near Crissy field. I end my night with a ride from Ruby Skye to Holiday inn with two young woman who are gorgeous.

Sunday ineptness

2005-10-31T03:24:00.001-08:00

Two realtor ladies from Charlotte get into my cab and ask me if I ever get car sick. Three Realtor ladies from New Jersey tell me they are glad I am an American cabdriver. Two realtor men from Phoenix want to go to Chinatown and can I recommend a restaurant. This realtor couple told me they partied so hard Friday night that they were worshipping the porcelain goddess on Saturday and when I asked him if he wanted a receipt, he said "no, because my wife might find them". A Buddy of Chet Helms was telling me how he invented everything in rock today: dancing, posters, food at venues, the soundboard, light shows. I got one ride to the airport and came back empty. I only spent $30 on gas. I didn't realize the clock was not turned back until midnight. I ate a great meal at Grubbstake at 1:20am. I had coffee and macaroon from Farleys at 5:10pm. Two seperate customers pointed out the bright planet of Mars.

Halloween Weekend San Francisco

2005-10-30T12:39:00.000-08:00

Halloween weekend is huge in San Francisco and I’m not even bummed about having to drive a spare. My first fare is a woman going to work at 2 Sansome. From there I get a guy heading to Japan town and as I’m cruising up Sutter a Lamborghini is next to me and we are neck and neck when I notice this hot blonde giving the sports car a sexy stare and I realize this: that hot chicks go for nice cars. In Hayes Valley I picked up a rich guy and his trophy wife. They were from New Orleans and here for big Realtors convention. She in simply adored the shops and will be back tomorrow to buy a 7k chandelier. There are 25,000 realtors from all over the U.S. in SF and there are parties and dinners and such. So I pick up a pack at the Hilton going to Marriott where another is going to the Westin where another is going to the W and on and on, a quick cycle of 3 block-$5 fares. My first costume fare was a woman as a pirate and she works with realtors and says they never leave home and most got into the business because they don’t work well with people. Another realtor told me there are 644 different booths at the Moscone convention center. A woman dressed as a sexy Indian girl sat on and broke her arrow. It was getting very busy when Aqua girl yelled at me to turn off my roof light and my passenger yelled out the window for her to take off her goggles. Dirty Sanchez and the Asian guy who shuffles around Union Square with sign reading of impending doom and advertisements. Two 6’5” drag queens named Lickety Clit and Misty Slit. An Arabian character hailed me down by using a long sword and two sexy stewardesses who fell out of the sky hop in. An oompa loompah. Superman. Another Dirty Sanchez so drunk his friends had to carry him. Hugh Hefner took me out to the Ramp where a couple hoped in and proceeded to get very hot and heavy all the way to Russian hill. One guy was dressed as a package of bologna. Fishnet legged French maids everywhere. 70% of girls dressed for Halloween could be strippers. It was crazy, by midnight it felt like New Years Eve. It was packed everywhere. Juxtapositions of costumes caused me to see something new all night, like when god with rollerblades fell on his ass in front of Mr. Bings and a drunken girl scout helped him up. North Beach was a Zoo and among the celebrants you could spot bewildered realtors wondering how they got here and where their hotel was. All in all a lucrative night and not a single puker.

Spare Air

2005-10-23T13:00:00.000-07:00

My Saturday night cab is in the shop with busted brakes. I have to find a spare cab to drive for the night and I pick the only one available. It smells real bad but if I don’t push it too much it’s all right. So I drive a cab with 310,000 miles and have to listen to every fare complain about the smell. I drive with the window open and listen to the World Series.
It’s a quiet night; most of my fares are woman running in the Nike women marathon tomorrow. They all ask me about the weather and I say it will be cool and foggy at 8am.
I don’t know if I was correct because I slept until noon. Friday was very busy and now Saturday is dead. I do get a ride to the Cow Palace for the Exotic Erotic ball; two women in negligee who complain to each other the whole way about who is going to carry whose keys in whose shoes. From there I get another woman going to Geary/23 who talks about Rome and all the great programming on HBO. Caesar is upset about seeing Pompeii’s’ head on a platter. The rest of the night I scrambled for fares and made it work by the end.

pays to be kind

2005-10-22T16:15:00.000-07:00

I started my shift with a ride from WB20 on Cesar Chavez to Nob Hill. It’s a nice ride going straight up Potrero hill and then avoiding traffic by going up 7th, which turns into Leavenworth. And being on nob hill puts me right into the mix. Soon enough I get another flag, which takes me to pacific heights where I get another flag back down to Sansome.
In front of Park Hyatt I get a businessman going back to Salt Lake city where there is no fog. I take him to SFO where I wait 20 minutes for another ride back to Richmond district and the passenger spends the whole trip on his cell phone.
It’s a busy Friday night and where I drop off there is usually someone running down the street with arms waving and ready to zoom off somewhere else. I’m taking people to dinner, the movies, concerts, bars, parties, home, BART, and even church. An attractive woman flags me down on California st. and she’s going to Benders on SVN. I’m listening to KPOO and I don’t say much to her and when we get there she gives me $20 for an $8 fare and
says to me, “ that’s for playing cool music and not hitting on me”. Wow, I get another ride to SFO with a Korean guy going back to Seoul. He tells me how much he likes SF and how good the weather is. He likes the SF Giants and explains the Korean league to me. He says that Byung Kim, Choi, and Seo were all on the same high school baseball team. My fare back to SF is with some guy from Houston who grew up in St. Louis and he talks the whole ride about Cardinals and their history of titles.
I’m back in the city and it’s a blur. I take a radio call for the Wash Bag and it’s a no-go and the bartender comes out and tries to give me five bucks for my trouble and I refuse. I get lucky in last hour with 3 long fares and a night ending ride to Daly City.

first rain friday night

2005-10-15T14:12:00.000-07:00

I thought it was Friday the 13th and I expected strange things. Nothing crazy happened but it was Friday the 14th, so it’s understandable.
It was a beautiful day as I started my shift driving empty up and over Potrero hill with the fog to my west and Dungen blasting on the radio thanks to KUSF. My first fare is a ride from Alemany/Potrero to Golden Gate Heights. From there I get a ride to Pacific Heights and all the while listen to new Death Cab for Cutie; a quick $25 and some good music in good weather. Since its 3pm, I head down to financial district to deal with traffic and people outflow. Queuing at 555 California, two guys on recumbent bikes ride bye with mini billboards attached to their frames. From here I get an old lady going out to Sunset district. She says I drive very fast as I am driving very fast down Masonic St. I drop her off at 22/Irving and immediately get another old lady with groceries going even deeper into the Sunset. She asks me to carry her groceries into her house and I oblige, anything for a dollar tip. My dispatcher sends me from there to the other side of the park at 25th/Lake and this old lady is going to St. Mary’s hospital to get her annual flu shot. We talk about the flu and she predicts 5 million people will be killed by avian flu. She also says the new DeYoung museum sucks and her mother and herself hated the new design. She said she expected Darth Vader to step out of the shadows. At the Hilton I picked up Chinese man who just got into the country and the first place he wanted to go was Pier 39. He told me 3 times that America is a very beautiful place. I suppose it is, until it started raining and that it did last night. Our first real rain of season and it became slippery. I was fishtailing all over the place and pedestrians were darting across my water streaked and occasionally fogged up windshield. When I ended my shift, the gas guy told me it gets so slippery because of all the oil on the streets accumulating 6 months during our dry season.
And now it all gets washed out into our bay and ocean.

Another article on that tragic cab accident last week appears in today’s chronicle. http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/10/15/BAGOEF8UQ61.DTL

Cabdriver killed by drunk

2005-10-13T01:58:00.000-07:00

A San Francisco cabdriver was killed by a very drunk driver on Sunday night. The intersection is very dangerous because when you come up Webster onto Broadway it is so steep it seems like you come out of nowhere when you come up on the hill. This is sad and unfortunate but could've been avoided if people didn't drink and drive. As a cabbie i see alot of drunks on the road and its a complete disregard for others well being and does not contribute to society. In San Francisco i have seen maybe half a dozen DUI checks in the past 8 years and thats not enough.

Glad to be healthy

2005-10-08T14:37:00.000-07:00

My first fare was a harried waitress off to work on a big Friday night. She wasn’t too enthused but I think I convinced her it would be a profitable night. I drove down Market and got a family who needed to retrieve their towed car from Hall of Justice, I told them it happened to me twice and its all part of driving in the city. As I dropped them in front of a very busy 850 Bryant, an ill looking dude with a cane and a precarious sway wants a ride to Transbay terminal. He tells me he was waiting 4 hours on a line and there are no wheelchairs available for patrons like him who could really use some help. He says he’s in extreme pain all the time and moans a bunch even though I don’t need any convincing. He asks me if I think 160$ would be enough to get to Rock Springs, Wyo. I say it might be cheaper to take Amtrak but he insists on Greyhound. When we get there he asks me to help him to the greyhound counter because he doesn’t want to fall on the stairs and he’s already fainted once today. So I leave the cab unattended and proceed to help this poor soul up into the building. He can barely stand and he’s shaking and I am holding him up with my right arm. We take the escalator and he almost fell at the top. I finally get him to the queue and he’s exhausted and he tells me never to get AIDS “it hurts so much” and I really feel bad for this guy but I got to get back to my cab before I get a ticket and he’s closer to being in the kind arms of his sister back home in Wyoming so I leave him to his destiny.
At this point I am downtown at 4 in the afternoon and fares are everywhere. Financial district to Russian hill. Russian Hill to Fishermen’s Wharf. Pier 39 to the Hilton. The Hilton to Scoma’s. Scoma’s to Marriott. Marriott to Fairmont. Fairmont to Pier 39. On and on and on, same old shit.
At 8pm I get an old black lady at Popeye’s on Divisidero. She has to be close to 90 and she has a cane and a bunch of bags and needs help into front seat. She asked me, “They don’t let handicaps in the front seat no more?” She is going to Palou and 3rd to stay at her daughters’ house, who is out of town. She tells me she hopes the 49ers win the World Series. She is very nice and I have to unlock the front door of the house and carry all her bags in while holding her Popeye’s jumbo soda.
From then on it was a blur of drunk people going from restaurant to home to club to bar. North Beach to the Marina to the Mission to the Castro to the Wharf.
At 11pm I picked up this young black dude with dreads and a skateboard and he instructs me to take him to Jones and Hyde. Those don’t connect I tell him. Don’t tell him he tells me. “I got a girl who will suck me and fuck me all night so just go down the hill, I got the money, I got two thousand dollars”. So I drive to the bottom of Hyde and as he tries to get address on his cell phone proceeds to tell me left right up down now right left left right up and we’re going in circles and I tell him we got to figure out where we are going but he gives me a fifty dollar bill and tells me not to worry about it cause I’ll get paid and tipped well since I let him smoke. He finally gat through to what turns out to be a call-girl and we get the address and after 20 minutes of driving in circles he gives me the fare plus 2.30$ in tip. Conclusion: people who say they are going to tip you well: don’t.

When September Ends

2005-10-01T02:54:00.000-07:00

It’s a hot Friday and luckily I get a cab with working air conditioner. My first fare is a pasty old lady getting off work at SF General Hospital. She says it’s real hot in the hospital because of the brick. I drop her off on Russian hill and from there get some young dude going to BMW to pick up a loner car because his 2005 car is broke again. First it was the steering column and then the sunroof and now the door that his mother broke. I drop him off and cruise up busy Van Ness and get a drunken couple, he with Hawaiian shirt and she with fur coat and mink hat, and drop them at Buccaneer.
Then I get an Australian guy going to Greyhound where I get a Ukrainian kid going to SFO. He’s spent the last 4 months working at Circus Circus in Reno as a cashier and he’s got a couple golf clubs to bring home even though there are no golf courses in Ukraine but there is 50cent beer. Since I’m at the airport I head down below and the queue is real short so soon enough I get a young woman just back from a big euro-vacation going to deep Berkeley. Traffic is a nightmare so instead of taking 80 back I go down San Pablo into Oakland and take the West Grand approach and I figure that saved me at least 10 minutes. Once back in the city I get a hottie going to Ozumo where I get another ride back down near the airport. So I deadhead it into the queue again and get some so-cal bro who’s flown up for the Raiders game and then it’s a blur of old people going to hotels as there’s a big convention of doctors and countless young people going to and fro form this bar to that bar and back. I noticed a lot of well-dressed people passed out on the sidewalk and the most shocking was some guy outside the Acid Mothers Temple show at Bottom of the Hill. He was laying on the corner of Texas and 17th with his head half off the sidewalk over the sewer and an immense amount of puke sprayed out. He’s lying there as if in a deep slumber and stylish Japanese kids are smoking pot 10 meters away.
All in all it was a successful night but it hurt to pay $3.03 for gas at the end but what choice do I have.

autumn weekend

2005-09-27T02:17:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was a doozy with multiple events snarling traffic and allowing every preference to be pacified. There was a blues festival, an anti-war rally, the love parade, the Folsom street fair, the opera, the now and zen concert, the 49’ers game, a pyrotechnics convention, approximately 75 weddings, the Green Day concert, and major construction to the Bay Bridge. It was so busy I had no time to eat, let alone piss. I had a lot of interesting fares:
A couple from Alabama who lived in Presidio from 1966-1970 and hadn’t been back since were amazed at how much the city had changed.
One woman who got lockjaw from eating shrimp explained all her dietary peculiarities to me.
A private investigator that was searching for some guys’ fiancée who ran off with his best friend and half his marijuana crop asked me to point out a Honda prelude if we passed one.
A teacher told me that SF has the nations highest % of public teachers sending their own kids to private schools.
A German guy told me I was a great driver and how on the autobahn he has driven 280km/hr.
A young mom and her baby boy get in the cab and after a few blocks she asks me to go back to retrieve something she forgot. She leaves the boy in the back seat and he starts crying so I showed him pictures of hot air balloons in the Travel section of Sunday paper and it works.
A muscle bound gay guy I picked up post-fair at a packed 1015 Folsom told me 95% of the guys at the club use steroids and that’s why the club was so hot; cause steroids heat you up and eventually burn up your insides.
A stripper with a floral name complained about the losers who confide to her with their own relationship problems and asked me twice for pot and offered me a swig of vodka.
A gay guy was telling his friends how he has to testify in front of investigators in Texas for a friend who is straight but is trying to get out of the marines by claiming to be gay. Apparently anal sex is a dishonorable discharge and oral sex is an honorable discharge.
A very drunk couple from Denver wanted me to double back to Hobsons Choice on Haight street so he can retrieve a very drunk girl who he wants to have a threesome with. So they are all in the back and he’s flubbing the small talk and the other girl is only interested in girl on girl and so those two start making out and when we finally arrive in Pacific Heights they don’t have money so we go to corner store where the guy takes 6 minutes to get some money and the other girl gets out of cab and the one in the cab starts touching me and telling me how she hates lesbians and then they’re all in the cab again and we go back to the heights address and the original couple bolt on the other girl and she’s left with me asking “ why did they leave me, can you tell me what just happened?”
I tell her I can’t but I can take her somewhere else and I finally do after too much deliberation.

Sunday Sunday

2005-09-19T03:39:00.000-07:00

When i picked up my cab the day drivers were claiming the airport was a fly-through. I never do this, but today was Sunday so i deadheaded it to SFO, waited 20 minutes and was on my way to the Savoy hotel with British newleyweds. When they saw the first gas station in town they were surprised at how cheap gas was; "it's a pound a liter back home". Thats like $7, and we're complaining? They're in town for the typical Euro-vacation: SF-Yosemite-Vegas-LA.
Got flagged by 3 young people in upper haight with a used TV. They are evacuees from New Orleans and they are now enrolled at USF. With vouchers from Goodwill they got coats and a TV. One of them went on and on about how much he hates TV and that he bought one of those universal remotes that will turn off any TV and back at school in nawolans he'd turn off evry TV on campus.
Two ladies with shopping bags took the shortest fare in a while: the Palace hotel to the Argent hotel. It took 12 seconds and cost $6. If i could do that all night i'd be a rich man.
A beautiful young Algerian mother with 2 young babies sang "Frere' a Jacques" until the youngest stopped crying and i almost started crying with kind memories of my mom and dad doing the same.
Picked up this couple at the Cannery going to the Richmond. The whole trip he told me how he got bit my a mosquito last summer, got real sick, paralised in his face, went bankrupt, and lived to tell a cabbie about being careful with West Nile.
A big fat black drag queen said i had a nice face and the new Octavia street boulevard is bad design.
Four very drunk San Jose-ers went from XYZ to Pink and three of them smoked with windows down and one kept asking me to turn up the heat.
Gave a ride to a sexy and smart Chilean wine dealer and she said she was heading to spring time south of the equator.
People don't realize how much they smell, either from garlic, or alcohol, or sex club, or kitchen grease.
A horrible accident shut down 101south after midnight. a guy tried to run across the freeway near Silver st. exit and one cab spun trying to avoid him and totalled itself against the retaining wall and the next cab killed him. A slew of cars perpetuated the carnage and it was shut down for 2 hours.

First Friday night

2005-09-10T15:12:00.000-07:00

The Octavia Street Boulevard is open for business. From the light at Page st. heading south its timed lights and a swell of a hill to a smooth onramp.. 101 all the way and the 2 lanes make all the miserable fools coming off the corkscrew approach of South Van Ness look like muni riders..
So its friday and i'm ready to work, its always busy friday unless its thanksgiving or easter or some such family holiday where more people leave the city then come in..
Its four in the afternoon and its raining lightly in the bayview, which seems unusual for what is now supposed to be our summer in San Francisco..
First ride is an old lady on Mission going 6 blocks, then a dude picking up his fixed car at BMW, then a drive empty all the way to Ferry building where i get a street artist who got his car towed on the Embarcadero, so i take him to the hall of justice and console him on his lost $200.. cruise up to Market and 7th and pickup mom grandma and two 3year old twins, they are freaked out and tell me the whole gorey story of witnessing another 3year old lose his leg on the back door of a muni bus in front of Glide church, apparently the door shut on his leg and they couldn't extricate him and had to cut his leg off, the little boy said there was blood all over and they didn't seem that traumatized when they started bopping each on the head yelling "you the punk"
Then got this hottest girl in a month for a ride to Tsunami from Soma and i talked to her about the lighting of City Hall. Its red and green for the opera opening and i remenisced all the colors in past history and she suggested purple.
At Union/Columbus this guy waves me down and i stop and notice that he seems to have wet his pants but its hard to tell these days with stained and bleached jeans all the rage. So before i can leave this guy in my exhaust he gets in and asks me if i can go to San Anselmo. He seems very drunk and i smell something strange but i lower the window and talk about baseball while heading over the bridge. I learn through his cell phone conversation what i can, because of his thick Irish , that
he turned the corner and woke up later and he's not sure what happened but he's got a nasty abrasion on his arm and either he blacked or got beat up and ended up wetting his pants, either way he was cordial and generous by giving me a Franklin for a Grant on the meter.
Back in the city i ended up in the loop of North Beach-Marina. Drunk frat guys and soused sorority chicks.
In Noe Valley i picked up a New Orleans Evacuee and her 3 pretty gay boys and took them to the Cafe and 20 minutes later in the Castro i rode two newlywed gay guys to the Endup and they too were New Orleans Evacuees. They grew up in NO and had never left and moved here to SF 2 days ago. They were not happy to hear that bars close in Cali at 1:45.
Its the end of my shift and i get greedy for one last fare so i pick up two young women with back packs at 3rd/mission and they want to find a cheap hotel. we go to all the Union Square youth hostels and YMCA and there no room for these stranded travellers from Glen Falls, NY. Their car broke down and died in Red Bluffs and they had to stay with nice mechanics there for 2 days. In order to get to Eureka where a friend lived and was going to help them make enough money in 2 weeks to afford a plane ticket home they had to take a bus to Sacramento and another to SF where tomorrow they take another to Eureka. We finally found them 2 bunks for $44 at hostel in alley off Folsom st. and i tried to tell them not to give me a tip because they said they were broke but they insisted and i ended up with a 4$ tip on top of another good fare which put me over my friday night quota but i was late and when i checked in i got reprimanded for being tardy and i gave him the good samaritan speel about helping two girls from upstate NY lost and bedless in the big city and he asked me if they were at least good looking and i answered no, not really.
Another shift finished and it only gets better as i drive home in my personal car. I take the Duboce exit but as i'm appraoching the split for 101/80 the caltrans truck is pulling all the cones opening the previously closed skyway.. Is it open?
I take my chance on the deserted highway and at 2:35 in the morning on the 10th of September i become the first car to exit on the Market/Octavia freeway ramp. green lights all the way to Fell street and in no time i am home in lower Haight trolling for a parking space, which ends up taking 25 minutes and one stop from a cop thinking my search for parking suspicious behaviour. She lets me go on after i tell her"looking for parking"