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.