The Best of I Drive SF: The Misanthropic Drug Dealer

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This column was originally published in the S.F. Examiner on Mar 17, 2017. In it, I introduce Mr. Judy, the drug dealer I drove daily for over a year. He appeared in the column multiple times. Much to his delight.

He never seemed to worry that I was writing about him in the newspaper. He even wanted me to use his real nickname. All his customers at the bars where he hung out knew him as Judy.

When his name appeared in print, he’d carry the paper around and proudly show everyone.

Once, I was waiting for the light at Church and Market with Judy in the backseat when a lady waiting for Muni recognized me.

“Are you the guy who writes for the paper?”

“Yeah, how’s it going?”

Just then, Judy stuck his head out the window and shouted, “I’m Mr. Judy!”

He reveled in the notoriety.

Anyway, this is how it started. (The photo above was actually taken at Delirium, the bar in the Mission where Judy spent most of his time plying his trade.)

“There’s no hope, I’m telling ya. All that’s left is total destruction.”

Mr. Judy has been ranting since I picked him up at a dive bar in the Mission, where he peddles his wares, and tried to drop him off at another. But as I idle in front, he just sits there, eyeballing the crowd of smokers on the sidewalk.

Randomly, he singles out a girl in ballerina flats and three chuckleheads with matching spectacles and beards fawning over her. “I hate those shoes. They’re awful. Her pants are too tight. And look at that hair … Well, at least she’s the queen of the sausage party tonight.”

“Dude, I think you’re way too judge-y to go in there right now.” I offer to drive him somewhere else, but he just wants to hang out in my cab for a while. Since I’m not feeling very servile myself, I don’t mind driving around aimlessly. At least the meter’s running.

Sensing Mr. Judy’s high level of agitation, I put on some Grateful Dead. In between tirades, he sings along to Jerry, then critiques the bars we pass on our way downtown, describing the owners, the bouncers, the bartenders, the type of clientele and what kind of music they play. His knowledge of watering holes in the Mission is impressive, though it makes sense for a bar-to-bar salesman to know his territory.

One thing I’ve learned from driving Mr. Judy is that selling drugs isn’t as easy as one might think. You have fierce competition for both customers and suppliers, you have to control your personal intake while dealing with people you’d rather see skewered in a cannibalistic ritual, 12 hours a day, just to make a buck. Which is a lot like taxi driving. Except the money’s not as good.

“I don’t know how you do it,” I say during a brief moment of silence.

“It gets really fucking boring,” he admits. “But just when you’ve had enough, someone gives you money and you feel good. So you wait around, until you can’t take it anymore. Then, right before you bail, someone gives you money. And you feel good. So you keep waiting …”

Again, sounds like cab driving.

After snorting something, Mr. Judy returns to his bitter soliloquy.

“Sometimes I hate this city as much as I hate myself. I feel like Colonel Kurtz, you know? Just send in the air raid already! Exterminate the brutes! These kids today … I can’t stand them. If they’re the future, we’re fucked! Doomed! There’s no hope. I’m telling ya … None at all. Might as well give in to total destruction. It’s the only solution.”

After a while, I lose track of his jeremiad, so just drive and grunt on cue.

“Do you have a five-year plan? No? Do you even know what you’re doing next week? I don’t … Life has no meaning. None of our lives matter. Today is all we have. There is no future. We’re living our future right now … Look at all the madness. It’s everywhere … I’m losing it. It. It. I don’t even know what ‘it’ is. But I want to know, don’t you? I want to find a way to harness the madness. I need to become a cash cow … Look around you. Madness disguised as cheap consumerism. All our needs monetized. Ad machines fueled by our complacency … That’s why we need total destruction …”

As if realizing the world outside the bars might be worse, he decides to go back to the first place I picked him up.

“Orwell was wrong,” he continues. “We don’t have to fear Big Brother. Our only fear is that Big Brother isn’t watching us … We surrender our privacy for the allusion of choice. We feed the marketers until they know everything we want, how much we want and when we want it … But they won’t sell us what we really need: total destruction.”

I pull up to the bar, and Mr. Judy looks out the window for a few minutes, making up his mind.

“I’ll call you in a bit,” he says finally, hands me a wad of bills and slowly exits the cab. Before closing the door, he leans back in. “Remember, the future is now.”

I drive away, back to my own grind, waiting for someone to give me money before I embrace total destruction myself.

[Originally appeared in the S.F. Examiner on Mar 17, 2017.]

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The Best of I Drive SF: Guilty of Driving a Taxi

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Even though this is the fourth column I wrote for the Examiner, the sensation of feeling “guilty” was prevalent throughout my taxi “career.” I could have updated this material monthly.

The Examiner actually printed the above image of Robert De Niro from Taxi Driver in the newspaper with this column. Probably the coolest one they ever used.

Driving a cab in San Francisco is like wearing a target around your neck. It’s always open season on taxis. On good days, the contempt most people have towards the taxi industry misses its mark. But on the bad days, it’s a shot straight to the heart.

In the four months I’ve been driving a cab, I’ve been disrespected as a matter of course. Honked at more times than I can count. As if I’m asking people to sacrifice their first-born to let me change lanes in front of them. Nobody cuts me any slack. During rush hour, I have to fight for each one-fifth of a mile to get passengers where they’re going.

I was driving up Kearny last Saturday night and a guy in an Uber SUV spit on my cab. The tourists in my backseat were horrified. “Oh, just part of driving a taxi in San Francisco,” I joked.

A month ago, while picking up a fare on King Street, some joker knocked my side mirror off and drove away. I spent two hours at the police station filing a report. “Won’t be the last time,” the officer doing the paperwork told me nonchalantly.

This week I paid the city of San Francisco $110 for “obstructing traffic” in front of a strip club at 1:30am. The SFMTA mailed the citation to my cab company. Claimed I was a “drive away.” Of course I drove away. I’m a taxi driver. That’s what I do. I drive, I stop, I pick up passengers and then I drive away.

From City Hall to fresh-faced transplants, everyone hates cabs. And yet, I can’t help but wonder, whatever happened to the mythology of cab driving?

My earliest memory is being in a taxi. The family station wagon was in the shop. I remember sitting in the backseat with my mother. The driver was listening to news radio. Something about President Ford.

As a child of the 70s, glued to the TV set, I never missed an episode of Taxi. I couldn’t wait to see what shenanigans Latka and Iggy would get into. I’d laugh as Louie berated all the drivers who hung around the garage solving each other’s problems. In Taxi Driver, there was Travis Bickle, the loner moving through the streets of New York like a reluctant servant to the night and all its proclivities. Even D.C. Cab portrayed a struggling taxi company as the ultimate underdog, with Mr. T. the baddest cab driver who ever lived.

As fascinating as cabs were to me growing up, I didn’t use them much until I moved to New Orleans, where most of the drivers doubled as tour guides, concierges of vice or therapists. I’ve sighed more than once in the back of a New Orleans cab and had the driver say, “Lay it on me, baby.”

I never thought I’d drive a taxi myself. In my illustrious career as an overeducated slacker, I’ve worked as a cook, painter, flea market vendor, book dealer and personal assistant. Taxi driving wasn’t much of a stretch. So when the Wife and I ended up in Oakland last year, with no other prospects, I decided to do the Uber-Lyft thing.

Before I ever hit the road, I pinned a map of San Francisco to the wall. I studied the streets and how they intersected each other. For two weeks, the Wife and I drove around The City figuring out major thoroughfares and how to get from one neighborhood to the next.

After a few months, it was obvious app-based transportation is only a simulacrum of taxi driving. But I’d learned enough to know I could do the real thing.

Switching to a taxi was an intimidating proposition, though, based on all the horrible things I’d heard from my passengers. San Franciscans love to complain about transportation. And the only thing worse than the Muni and Bart are taxis.

I thought it would be different for me. Despite the muddied reputation I’d inherited. I wanted to be a great taxi driver. I still do. But it doesn’t matter who’s behind the wheel. In this city, a color scheme and a top light will always be targets for disdain.

[Originally appeared in the S.F. Examiner on May 22, 2015]

Published in the Dispatches from Behind the Wheel Omnibus. Available here.

Next Stop Confusion

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Originally appeared in the S.F. Examiner on Mar. 5, 2020.

With the RSA conference in town last week, The City finally felt alive again. After weeks of struggling to survive, there were finally enough people with expense accounts willing to take taxis.

On Wednesday night, numerous RSA-related events were happening throughout Union Square and South of Market.

At 10 p.m., I’m on my way to check out a corporate sponsored concert at August Hall when I see an outstretched arm by The Donatello.

I quickly pull over. In the side mirror, I watch a man say goodbye to a woman. A few minutes later, though, she follows him to the cab.

I can tell right away things aren’t what they seem…

“Where to?” I ask.

The man is staying at the Hotel Zephyr. As I start to pull away, he asks the woman where she’s going.

“Let’s get something to eat,” she suggests.

“To be honest, I’m not hungry,” he replies.

“Well, we could go have another drink and just order appetizers.”

I drive slowly, waiting to hear her destination.

“Honestly, I just want to go to sleep,” he tells her. “Where’s your hotel?”

Clearly, he isn’t interested in prolonging things, but she doesn’t seem to be taking the hint and keeps recommending restaurants.

“I just want to go home,” he says firmly. “Please, tell the driver where you need to go.”

“If we’re not having dinner, then I’m going home!” she snaps and gives me an address in the Mission.

In a flash, her convivial tone becomes hostile. She accuses him of misleading her. “You lied to me. You said you were separated from your wife.”

“I never said that,” he tells her. “I don’t know why you think that.”

“You’re not wearing a wedding ring,” she points out. “Let’s ask the driver. Sir, what is your take on this?”

“Hey, I don’t know what’s going on. You guys just got into my cab a few minutes ago.”

“Great. That’s just perfect.”

I turn left on Jones and take Market to 11th. Along the way she berates the man relentlessly. Grateful not to be a target of her vitriol, I drive as quickly as possible.

The man reluctantly defends himself, almost humorously, while her attitude shifts from outright rage to bemused indignation to threats of legal action.

Waiting for the signal to change at South Van Ness and Mission, I curse the brutal light cycle. The woman’s anger escalates while the numbers slowly descend.

Once the signal turns green, I take off and manage to catch the light at Division and through 15th, then white-knuckle it the rest of the way to 24th Street.

In front of her building, I turn on the overhead light.

“Can you walk me to my door?” she asks me.

I open the back door and help her collect belongings. At her front gate she stumbles and grabs my arm.

“Do you have your keys?”

She reaches into her purse and then sighs hopelessly. “I must have lost them somewhere.”

“No!” I grab her purse and start feeling around inside for anything resembling keys. As I rummage through her possessions, she suggests possible hiding places while continuing to insult the man.

“Try the side pocket. Or the front. You know, he’s probably going to stiff you. I know his type.”

“Found them!”

I unlock the gate, hold it open for her and help her up the stairs to the front door. Once she’s inside, I hand her the keys and rush back to the cab.

Driving away, I ask the man, “What was that all about?”

“I don’t know!” he exclaims. “I only met her five minutes before we got in your taxi. I was leaving the restaurant and she grabbed my hand and demanded I help find her purse. She was obviously drunk and I only wanted to help. I didn’t realize I’d be taking her home.”

At this point, the meter is at $18.35 and we have a long way to go before reaching his hotel in the Wharf.

“You’re alright paying for this ride?”

“Of course.”

We agree it was imperative to make sure she got home, given her condition.

“I’ll just get my company to pay for it.”

_____________________

Originally published by S.F. Examiner.

[Image from the San Francisco Postcard Collection – Street Scenes from Behind the Wheel.]

The Typewritten Zine Collection

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Before the kid, back when having personal space wasn’t such a luxury, I did a lot of writing on a manual typewriter. Yeah, I know… if I read something as hipster-fied as that, I’d want to throat punch whoever said it too. But I didn’t acquire an Olympia De Luxe for the aesthetics, or to enhance my authenticity vibe.

No, for me, it was about the challenge. I wanted my prose to be more economical. More precise. Rhythmic. And I wanted to get away from Microsoft Word.

The way I figured it, manually typing out stories would help get to the core of what I was trying to say. Without all the bullshit asides and redundant phrases.

Besides the lack of auto-correct, you have to physically hammer out each word, letter by letter, with just your two index fingers.

If this unforgiving process doesn’t make your writing lean and mean, nothing will.

When you write with a word processor, the only challenge is regurgitating the thoughts in your head onto the computer screen as fast as possible. For anyone who’s good at typing, it’s almost effortless.

With a manual typewriter, you start to question whether you need so many adjectives. All those adverts begin to seem unnecessary. Observations that don’t serve the narrative get cut. And tangents for the sake of tangential storytelling? Forget about it.

Typing on a manual can be like scratching words into concrete with a rusty pair of pliers. So why make it harder on yourself?

Once you get going, though, a rhythm develops and that translates to the page. Like playing a musical instrument, the composition becomes a performance. Mistakes and all.

After finishing a story, I’d usually transcribe it into the computer and edit from there. Then print a copy and retype it on the Olympia. When I started making zines again, I’d cut the sheets of paper size and create my master for the copier on the typewriter. I did a few quarter-sized zines and then realized I could squeeze more words onto half-sized pages.

A few weeks ago, while rummaging through some boxes of old publications, I stumbled onto a stash of zines. These three issues of Piltdownlad were completely written and designed on my Olympia Manual. After hammering out the text onto parchment paper, I cut-and-pasted the blocks of text together with various images, photocopied the masters to make the zine pages and bound them with my longarm stapler.

You can check them out in the videos below.

They’re available individually or as a discounted bundle.

Order all three zines for $12 postpaid here:

The Typewritten Zine Bundle

I'm offering a special deal on this collection of typewritten, personal narrative zines: Get three zines, The Nasty Oh-Dear, The Cult of Teddy Ruxpin and The Murky Realm for $12 postpaid.

$12.00

Or individually here:

The Nasty Oh-Dear

“In 1986, when I was fifteen, I moved from Los Angeles to a small town in Alabama. My father, a sergeant in the Army, was transferring to Fort McClellan outside a place called Anniston. Along for the ride were Joey, my younger brother, and Rick, a friend of the family who was also in the Army. We left LA the day after Christmas. It was the first time Joey and I had ever been out of Southern California. The prospect of a new beginning was like a beacon guiding us across the country. The way the old man talked about it, the South was a land of golden opportunities, where we’d be free to reinvent our lives for the better. Six months later, the old man and Rick were in prison, Joey was in a Christian group home and I was in a mental hospital. For me, things were looking up.”

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The Nasty Oh-Dear – Piltdownlad Zine #4

“The Nasty Oh-Dear” is about moving from East LA to Alabama in the eighties and ending in state custody. Also explores self-publishing and perzines, including a meditation on the first perzine I ever read, the pondering of truth versus fiction and the origins of the name “Piltdownlad.” Typewritten • 4.25″ × 7″ • 40pp. • Free shipping.

$5.00

The Murky Realm

My parents never should have gotten married. But even though my father was gay and my mother was chemically imbalanced, this was the 60s, when single men in their forties did not identify as queer and people with personality disorders were rarely diagnosed, much less treated. And marriage was inexorable. The tragedy, of course, is that, besides ruining their own lives, five children came out of this unhappy coupling. But that’s not the point of this story. That comes later. “The Murky Realm” is about how these two people got together, fell apart, came back together, then fell apart again only to get back together again…

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The Murky Realm – Piltdownlad Zine #7

A biographical sketch of a tragic union with some creative engineering. This is the story of how my parents got together. All my troubles begin here… The text is typewritten on my Olympia Manual. The size of this zine is 5.5 x 7 and the cover is black cardstock with a handwritten title piece glued on. The page count is 44. Shipping is free.

$7.00

The Cult of Teddy Ruxpin

“The Cult of Teddy Ruxpin was the brainchild of Brett and Vic. As the outcasts of Saks High, they found great pleasure in being contrary. Since the Christians were always talking about devil worshippers and cults, they decided to start a cult of their own. The stuffed talking bear was the most absurd icon they could think of to worship. They scrawled ‘Teddy Ruxpin Rules’ all over school, on desks, cafeteria tables, their lockers and the bathroom walls. There were slight variations, such as, ‘Teddy Ruxpin Is God,’ ‘All Hail Teddy Ruxpin,’ or ‘Teddy Ruxpin Is My Savior.’ But the message was always the same. They knew it was stupid, but it alleviated the boredom. And it pissed off the Christians. So that made it worthwhile.”

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The Cult of Teddy Ruxpin – Piltdownlad Zine #8.5

“The Cult of Teddy Ruxpin” is the story of losing religion, discovering punk and making true friends after moving from LA to a small town in Alabama. It is a story of teenage rebellion and resisting conformity. 4.25"x5.5" • 40 pages • typewritten text • illustrated • staple-bound • Free shipping.

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Bizarre Love Triangle

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Originally appeared in the S.F. Examiner on Feb. 20 2020.

“Wow, I can’t believe I’m in a real taxi,” the girl in my backseat slurs, her words as boozey as her breath. “I didn’t think taxis even existed anymore.”

“Oh, there’s still a few of us around,” I respond absently, wondering how anyone could fail to notice the numerous multi-colored vehicles circling The City all day and night. I resist the urge to point them out as we head down Mission towards Bernal Heights from South of Market.

There’s one… There’s another one… And another…

“So why did you guys flag me?” I ask.

Originally, a guy was with her, but after she turned down his offer to keep the party going, he handed me a $20 bill, told me to drive her home and jumped out at the light to take an Uber instead.

“Getting a cab is just so…” her voice trails off. “Aggressive. We had to yell and wave to get your attention.”

“Well, I wasn’t really expecting to see anyone in front of Moscone at 1 a.m.,” I say in my defense.

Prior to speeding down Fourth Street, I had been working the Dark Star Orchestra show at the Warfield. After taking a fare to Russian Hill and a second to the Inner Richmond, I went back for a triple dip, but only a few deadheads remained, zonked out on hippie crack. A couple so high on mushrooms they couldn’t figure out how to get to the Hampton Inn around the corner wanted a ride though. Since the hotel was just a meter drop away, I declined payment, in cash or psychedelics, decided to call it a night and headed towards the bridge.

I ask the girl again why they took a taxi.

“That fellow who got in with me, Conrad, is the sweetest man,” she tells me. “He’s been in love with me for over a year. And I’ve treated him horribly.”

Her voice quivers and she begins to cry.

“I take it you aren’t in love with him,” I surmise.

Not only are her feelings for him strictly platonic, she dated his best friend and confidante for six months.

“I just found out tonight that while Conrad was pining away for me,” she adds tearfully, “Nick would tell him all about our relationship.”

“Did Nick know how Conrad felt about you?”

“Yes!” she bawls. “He knew everything.”

She met them both at the same time, apparently. And even though Conrad was head over heels and divulged his feelings to his friend, Nick still pursued her.

“I was very attracted to Nick, but knew it couldn’t last forever. He was so much older than me. And we wanted different things in life. Oh, I’m such a rotten person!”

“Why? You didn’t do anything wrong,” I point out. “The only person who acted with any questionable morals is Nick. He shouldn’t have gone after the girl his friend was in love with, regardless of whether or not he had a chance.”

“I know!”

Instead, he was relentless. Things eventually got serious. And every step of the way, Conrad was kept in the loop.

“That must have been torture for him,” I observe.

“He didn’t deserve to be treated like that. But he’s the type who wouldn’t stand in the way of someone else’s happiness, even though it made him miserable.”

“Poor guy.”

“I’m absolutely wretched!”

“No, you’re not,” I say firmly. “Don’t say that.”

As I continue listening to her confession and offer reassuring observations, she seems to have moved past the novelty of riding in a taxi and probably assumes, in her inebriated state, that she’s in a Lyft.

By the time I pull up to her place, the tears have dried up and the meter reads $17.80.

She thanks me and says good night.

Fortunately the $20 from Conrad is sitting in my cup holder, so I don’t have to bother her about payment. She either remembers him giving me the money or assumes the ride is taken care of through an app, because she makes no attempt to pay for it.

I wait until she’s inside before pulling away. I head down Cortland to Bayshore and then take the freeway to the bridge.

_________________

Originally published by S.F. Examiner.

[Image from the San Francisco Postcard Collection – Street Scenes from Behind the Wheel.]

Death by Airport

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Originally appeared in the S.F. Examiner on Feb. 6, 2020.

Lately I’ve been trying to avoid the airport. Now that we’re even deeper into the thick of winter, taxi business is absolutely dismal. At SFO, the wait times are longer than ever.

There was a momentary respite from the bleakness two weeks ago when the JP Morgan conference rolled into town, but since then, driving a taxi has been mostly an exercise in futility.

I start my shifts before the sun comes up, canvassing the hotels downtown for any signs of life. Without tourists or suits, though, demand is minimal. You take anything you can get, while fighting the urge to deadhead to the airport.

At least you know there’ll be something decent at the end of the queue. If you’re lucky, that is, and don’t get stuck waiting several hours to reach a terminal.

That’s what happened to me last Tuesday night…

After dropping at the W, I check the TaxiQ app that provides information about what’s going on at the airport, including how many cabs are in the holding lots and how many flights are arriving each hour. Since the numbers look good, I jump on 101 and head south.

Three and one half hours later, I finally pull up to terminal two, frantically hoping for a decent fare. Fifteen minutes later, the starter directs someone with luggage towards my cab.

“Where you heading?” I ask the guy.

“The Marriott in Burlingame.”

Crap. A $14 short.

Fortunately, with short rides, you can go to the front of the line upon returning to the airport. But when I get back, there are seven shorts ahead of me. And only a few more flights coming in.

It takes 30 minutes to reach terminal three. This time, though, I get a ride within seconds, but after stashing the woman’s suitcases in my trunk, I’m dismayed to find out her destination.

“San Mateo, please,” she says. “Poplar Ave.”

Another short.

Disappointed, I can hardly talk during the ride. I drop her off and race back to the holding lots.

There’s only one flight left. And the short line is five cabs deep.

After 20 minutes and no movement, I give up and drive home. Dejected and angry.

This is what’s referred to, in Hacker parlance, as “death by airport.”

Read the rest here.

[Image from the San Francisco Postcard Collection – Street Scenes from Behind the Wheel.]

Welcome to the Jungle

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Originally appeared in the S.F. Examiner on Jan. 23, 2020.

After pulling up to terminal three and stowing the young girl’s suitcase in the trunk of my cab, I get behind the wheel and look over my shoulder to find out her destination, but, to my surprise, she opens the front passenger door instead.

“Hop in back,” I tell her. “You’ll be more comfortable.”

“I’ll just hold onto it,” she says, assuming I was referring to her backpack.

“OK then.” I quickly adjust the seat, since it’s pushed all the way forward.

“So, uh, where to?” I ask, hitting the meter.

She gives me an address on Turk Street. I ask her to repeat it since there are no hotels or apartment buildings on that block.

“In the Tenderloin?”

“I guess,” she says. “I’ve never been there before.”

On the freeway, I make subtle inquiries. She’s from Wilmington, North Carolina, taking a gap year in The City.

“That means you’re what, 18 or 19?”

“I’m actually 20 years old,” she replies, somewhat defensively.

She looks much younger.

Her explanation of the building where she’s going to be living for the next year is a bit convoluted, but it sounds like a hybrid hotel/apartment building with dorm rooms. So, basically a hostel.

Read the rest here.

[Image from the San Francisco Postcard Collection – Street Scenes from Behind the Wheel.]

“As Far as $53 Will Take Me”

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Originally appeared in the S.F. Examiner on Jan. 8, 2020.

“I just need to hit a lick or something, and everything will be OK,” the guy in the back of my taxi tells me, bringing a torrent of dismay to a semi-conclusion. “It’s not like I’m asking for the world, you know? I mean, something’s gotta give. I can’t keep building cardboard forts to stay out of the rain. You know what I mean?”

Even though most of his statements end with questions, I realized soon into the ride that he wasn’t seeking affirmation. He just wants to talk. Been on a roll since I picked him and his black Labrador up outside the Whole Foods on California Street.

At the time, I was on a radio call, looking for someone named Sylvia. While he didn’t fit the description, he was the only one around who wanted a taxi.

I sensed right away that he was on the skids. A reality he also knew was unmistakable, which is why, after making sure I was cool with the dog, he immediately handed me a wad of cash.

“How far south can I go for $53?” he asked. “That’s all the money I have to my name.”

Read the rest here.

[Image from the San Francisco Postcard Collection – Street Scenes from Behind the Wheel.]

Can Taxis Survive a Global Pandemic?

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Originally appeared in the S.F. Examiner on Mar. 19, 2020.

Welp, it’s the end of the taxi industry as we’ve known it and, honestly, I don’t know what to feel anymore. I haven’t driven a cab in two weeks. After the RSA conference, when normal business started to tank, there didn’t seem to be much of a point. Without the airport and tourists, the only way to make money in a cab is via luck. And I’m just not that lucky.

Since then, things have only gotten worse. With no end in sight to the downward spiral.

During my involuntary sabbatical, I’ve been talking to drivers who are still out on the streets. The situation is dire.

Wait times at SFO are anywhere from five to seven hours. Cabs are sitting in front of the Hyatt Regency and Marriott Marquis for two or more hours. Street flags are non-existent. And dispatch orders are few and far between.

And that was before the shelter in place order went into effect on Tuesday.

Now… who knows what to expect? Every day, things are different.

Even though taxis are still considered essential during the lockdown, demand wasn’t very high before everyone was put under house arrest, so how many people will actually need rides over the next few weeks if they’re not supposed to go outside?

For gate and gas drivers, it seems to be the end of the road. It’s just not worth the risk of going out and barely covering your expenses. But how do we make money in meantime?

Read the rest here.

[Image from the San Francisco Postcard Collection – Street Scenes from Behind the Wheel.]

The Luxury of Being Bored

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Originally appeared in the S.F. Examiner on Apr. 2, 2020.

It goes without saying that the past few weeks have been a whirlwind of emotions: fear, isolation and the uncertainty of when/if things will ever be normal again. Based on social media, though, which is the only way to really interact with anyone these days, one of the most pervasive sensations shared by the general public seems to be boredom.

As we enter the third week of sheltering in place, my Facebook and Twitter feeds are inundated with people looking for ways to alleviate the stagnant existence our lives have become while trapped indoors.

Not to diminish anyone else’s experiences, but if you’re bored, consider yourself lucky.

Imagine being stuck in a tiny, cramped one-bedroom apartment with a rambunctious three year old who’s constantly bouncing off the walls.

It starts from the moment she opens her eyes, with a brief respite at naptime, if we’re lucky, until she finally lets me rock her to sleep to Joy Division or Echo & the Bunnymen at some point between 10 p.m. and midnight.

Even before they closed the playgrounds, when we try to take her outside, she immediately gravitates towards other people and touches every available surface and puts things in her mouth. She’s a very active and social three year old. She doesn’t know any better, and has no grasp of the dangers of germs.

Children never – ever – do what you want them to do. I don’t know how people survived with kids during historical disasters like sieges or natural disasters. There’s no way my child would remain chill under adverse circumstances. Like, say, hidden in an attic in the Netherlands. By day two we would’ve been caught and shipped off to the camps.

We keep her indoors as much as possible. A process that has been frustrating and infuriating, for all of us. And definitely not boring.