Weddings

A colleague of mine commented a while back that one of the main reasons our job is so much fun is that we're working with happy people so much of the time. I think he has a point. In the first place, most of our passengers have come to the French Quarter for a good time, so they're already pre-disposed to have a pleasant experience on the pedicab. And let's face it: the pedicab isn't the cheapest way to get from Point A to Point B, so when people get on board the bike, they're generally expecting to have fun. When I'm hauling happy people around all night long, it's easy to be happy along with them. (I guess that pedicabbing is kind of the opposite of working in the complaints department or the emergency room.) All of this is amplified when it comes to weddings, which is why working weddings on the pedicab is such a treat to me.

There are two common kinds of wedding rides that we do. The first involves a distinct New Orleans tradition called the second line, a kind of parade, in which friends and family of the newlyweds strut and prance down the street waving white handkerchiefs and decorated parasols to the accompaniment of a brass band. Usually my role is to transport elderly or handicapped relatives and guests. (See here for the story of my first -- and most memorable by far -- second line experience.)

The use of pedicabs in second lines seems to me a clear case of an innovation that manages to enrich an already priceless tradition. Let's say the groom has a seventy-something-year-old grandmother with bad hips and knees. If her grandson had gotten married a year and a half ago (before the introduction of pedicabs to New Orleans in September 2011), she would have been excluded from the second line experience. Nowadays she rides like royalty right in the middle of the happy, hankie-waving throng.

The second kind of wedding ride involves transporting the new couple from the reception site to their hotel. Typically the newlyweds are giddy with love -- not to mention relief that the whole happy ordeal of the ceremony and reception is finally over. Their joy overflows not just to me but also to the people we pass on the street who shout out their congratulations as we roll by.

(By the way, I'm evidently uniquely qualified for this kind of ride. No less an authority than USA Today recognized riding with the Crescent City Pedicabbie as one of the most romantic things to do in New Orleans!)

Recently I did a wedding ride, which turned out a bit less pleasant. I had waited outside the reception venue for a good half hour till the party wound down enough for the couple to make a graceful exit. There's nothing unusual about this. Most wedding rides require a bit of waiting around on my part. Even 45 minutes or an hour is not uncommon. Naturally, I need to be compensated for my time since every minute that I'm not cruising around looking for fares is money lost. A dollar a minute is the usual rate, and a tip on top of this is customary. In most cases the fare has been negotiated well beforehand so that the newlyweds don't have to bother themselves with such logistical minutiae on their first night of matrimonial bliss.

On this particular occasion, no sooner had the couple waded through the crowd of well-wishers and boarded the bike than the bride began reading aloud the posted, by-the-block fare structure. She quickly did the mental math and blurted out happily, "Oh, this is only going to be $10! That's not bad at all!"

I swallowed hard and kept my mouth shut. This was supposed to be one of the most joyful moments in the lives of these two people. I wasn't about to spoil the first night of their honeymoon by haggling with them over a few bucks. If it ended up costing me $30, I would just have to consider that my wedding gift to a pair of strangers.

When we arrived at the hotel, the groom pulled out his wallet, and the bride ordered him to give me fifteen dollars.

"Oh, I want to give him a tip," he protested. "I'll give him $20."

"But $15 includes a tip! The fare is only ten bucks. Fifteen is plenty," she said

"OK babe," he said looking a little embarrassed as he handed me a ten and a five.

He hung back a minute as if unsure what to do while his new wife walked toward the door of the hotel. Then he pulled out another five and handed it to me. "It's my money!" he said, trying to sound defiant, but keeping the volume low enough that his bride wouldn't hear him. "I can do what I want with it!"

I wish them well. I really do. I'm not a gambling man, and even if I was, I would never want to bet against anyone's marital happiness. But in terms of cold hard cash, I think I would be pretty safe betting that $20 against the long-term prospects of that marriage. I really hope I'm wrong.

On being a professional athlete

Some time back, Russell, a fellow pedicabbie, approached me about getting involved with a foundation he had founded. The purpose of the foundation as my colleague explained it was to get professional athletes engaged in philanthropy and community service.

Reading the "OK,-but-what-does-that-have-to-do-with-me?" look on my face, he said to me: "You know we're professional athletes, right?"

My first reaction was sheer bafflement. We ARE?... I AM?... How do you figure that? But after giving it some thought, I decided that Russell had a point.

Pedaling three- or four-hundred pounds (occasionally much more) of human flesh around all night long is physically demanding, of course. But that fact alone just isn't enough to qualify us as professional athletes. I have worked brief stints as a roofer, a plumber's helper, and an oilfield roustabout. These jobs may have been more physically demanding than pedicabbing; but roofers, plumbers and roustabouts are clearly not professional athletes.

The thing that we pedicabbies have in common with sports stars is that we rely on a mixture of athleticism and entertainment to make our living. Qualities like speed, strength, stamina, and physical skill are vital, of course; but ultimate success requires a bit of showmanship as well. That's true for Lebron James, and it's true for me. (Yes, I'm putting myself in the same category with Lebron James, but only to the extent that you put a chihuahua and a rhinoceros in the same category by acknowledging that they both have four legs.)

So if Russell and I are right that I'm a professional athlete (technically "semi-pro" now that I'm only pedicabbing part-time), this is bizarre turn of events to say the least. If anyone in the class of '84 at Pearl River High School had been named "least likely to grow up to be a professional athlete", I'm pretty sure I would have won that distinction. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I would have utterly crushed the competition! Let's put it this way. When it came time to pick teams, most of the girls went higher in the draft than me. To this day I can't hit a softball with a bat or catch it with a glove.

My junior year in high school I finally worked up the nerve to start playing touch football with the guys at lunch. I soon earned the nickname Swivel because I was so uncoordinated that it seemed to my classmates as though all my body parts were randomly rotating independently of each another.

Who would have dreamed back then that at the age of 46, I, Mark "Swivel" Orfila would find myself a professional tricyclist! You know, I've never been to any class reunions. Never had much desire till now. But  I'm thinking maybe I'll go to the next one. Maybe I'll wear shorts so everyone can admire my monster calves!

Sex on the cycle

Whenever I tell someone that I blog about pedicabbing, the conversation usually goes more or less like this.

Other person: Wow, I'll bet you get lots of great stories!

Me: Oh yeah! If I don't manage to turn it into a book, it won't be for lack of material.

Other person: I can imagine! 

It's usually somewhere around this point in the conversation that the question arises as as to whether any kind of sexual activity has ever transpired on the back seat of my pedicab. Until recently -- Saturday before last to be more precise -- my answer has always been: "No, not as far as I'm aware."

I have to phrase it that way because I'm lacking the evolutionary adaptation that is evidently unique to grade school teachers: eyes in the back of the head. There's really no way to know what all has gone on behind my back over the last few months while I was busy watching the road ahead. (Come to think of it, a grade school teacher who pursued a second career as a pedicabbie would probably be in a position to write a much more exciting blog than this one!)

I might have remained blissfully unaware still if it hadn't happened that my boss (the owner's brother, who often pedicabs along with us) pulled up beside me at a red light at an opportune moment. He had a couple of young female passengers on his bike, and they started hooting and hollering and pointing my way. Wondering what all the fuss was about, I glanced behind me just long enough to realize that the middle-aged couple (mid 50s I would guess) on the backseat of my pedicab were getting it on*.

So what did I do? We were only a couple of blocks from their destination, so I got them there as fast as I could go. What would you have done?

*I'd prefer that this blog not get an adult rating, but if you must know, we're talking here about what is known in technical terms as digital penetration of the vagina.

Mea Culpa

I was brought up to believe that we must all own up to our mistakes, so I'm writing this to shoulder my share of the blame for the Saints' defeat in last night's preseason game against the Jaguars. Their defensive end Jeremy Mincey made things pretty miserable for us out there. I had the man on my pedicab the night before, and I delivered him to his destination uninjured. And for a measly $20! I promise not to let it happen again.

Conan O'Brien: NYC Pedicab Driver

I've got some really cool colleagues. Like this guy, Conan, for instance.

The best pedicabbie pickup line ever! (If only it were mine.)

I find myself doing the three second sales pitch (also known as the pedicabbie pickup line) much less frequently now then when I first started the job. In general, folks who flag me down are willing to pay more than the ones that I have to persuade to get on the trike. These days, I generally save the sales pitch for slow nights when I have to be more aggressive in order to pick up fares.

Last night after we got off work a couple of colleagues and I went out for burgers. (Technically, it wasn't last night; it was 3 AM this morning). One of these fellow pedicabbies, who started riding  around the same time as me told me this story about committing an act of desperation on a dull, dreary day:

It had been raining for hours and the colleague had spent the day hunkered down under a tree feeling miserable and not getting a single ride. Finally the rain stopped, and he spotted a couple approaching at a distance. He hopped in the driver's seat and pedaled toward them furiously, screeching to a halt beside them.

"Get on the pedicab now!" he ordered breathlessly. "I'll explain later." Looking at one another in bewilderment, the couple complied. (I should explain that this colleague is in the Marine Reserves. He's not a big guy, but he's probably pretty imposing when he wants to be.)

I asked my friend whether the couple actually ended up paying for their ride and what kind of explanation he offered them. He said that, yes, they did pay and that he merely explained how desperate he was to get a ride.

I have to say that I'm a bit jealous. I don't think that any of the pickup lines I've come up with could touch that one for creativity and humor. And even if I were imaginative enough to think up something that outrageous, I doubt that I would have whatever it takes to actually pull it off.

The city's smellscape

Riding around in a car there's a curtain of glass and steel separating you from the sounds, sights and smells of the streets. Roll the windows down if you want to, but there’s still no way that you’re going to get the kind of intimate experience of the city that you would get on the back of a pedicab. Lest this sound like some clumsy pedicab propaganda piece, let me hasten to say that the street-level intimacy I’m talking about is not necessarily pleasant. Sometimes it's pure bliss, but not always.

I mentioned sounds, sights and smells, so let's begin by considering a couple of examples from the auditory realm. Having nothing between you and the melodies of the musicians on Royal Street may be nice. On the other hand there’s that car with the shock and awe stereo system blasting out something that resembles the sound of a jackhammer, only less melodic and about a hundred decibels louder. That will make you wish fervently for some windows to roll up.

What about the city's sights? You may well appreciate the improved opportunities for admiring the Spanish colonial architecture from the passenger seat of the pedicab; but sit in that same seat for long, and you'll start to feel like you’re on an urban safari in which Rattus norvegicus (the common rat) is not early as rare and elusive as we all might wish.  (Early on in my pedicab career I saw a rat darting between a drain and a dumpster, and without thinking I blurted out: “Wow, look at that rat!” to which one of my riders responded: “Umm… I don’t think that’s the tour we paid for.”)

Then there’s the olfactory experience, to which the remainder of this post will be devoted.

On the plus side there's the warm, sweet fragrance of frying beignets at Cafe du Monde.

In the minus column, there are those piles of manure left behind by the carriage mules and police horses. (Read here about the controversy this has been creating lately.) In the interest of full disclosure, I've been working lately as a buggy driver in addition to the pedicab gig. The company I work for, Royal Carriages, recently had an hour-and-half meeting to discuss creative solutions to the mule poo problem. (Our mules wear "diapers", but they're not entirely effective. Of course, the horses used by the mounted police don't wear diapers.)

Back to French Quarter fragrances: The block of St. Phillip between Chartres and Decatur is especially nice. At the Chartres end, there's the enticing smell of Creole/Italian cooking coming from Irene's; at the Decatur end, there's the French Market Restaurant with its exquisite, spicy and distinctly New Orleans boiled-seafood aroma. I think they're pumping it out to the street on purpose. No doubt New Orleans has much better restaurants, but as far as I'm concerned, 1001 Decatur might just be the sweetest smelling spot in the city.

When it comes to picking the Quarter's stinkiest spot, I don't think that there would be much controversy in the pedicabbie community. The stench of vomit is common up and down Bourbon, but the corner of Bourbon and Iberville is the foulest by far. Not just the corner actually, but that whole right-angle stretch from Canal and Bourbon to Bourbon and Iberville to Iberville and Royal. I'm not sure what it is that makes that bit so bad. It must have something to do with the cluster of oyster houses there. If you think about it, they have to be discarding gillions of oyster shells, and all those juices are dripping out of the dumpsters and draining right into the streets.  

It was a fellow pedicabbie who suggested that I devote a post to the smells of the city, so I decided that it would be a good idea to solicit input from my colleagues for this piece. I put the word out on the our Facebook page, and I got an enthusiastic response, the highlights of which I now pass on to you my readers. (The quotes are in italics. My comments are in plain text.)

• You can't forget about marijuana. There have been a couple of occasions in which I have become aware that someone was smoking pot on the back of my bike. Strangely enough I didn't smell it those times. I'm guessing that the smoke just drifted along behind us like exhaust from a car. But whenever I ride past someone who's toking on the side of the street the acrid odor is unmistakable.
• The jerk chicken man on Frenchmen St. This is a Jamaican dude with a barbecue grill. I bought his chicken once. It was OK, but definitely one of those things that doesn't taste nearly as good as it smells.
• You can smell those crust punks from 50 feet away sometimes. Three different people mentioned the body odor of crust punks.
• You can't leave out the sweet olive trees and confederate jasmine during springtime. 
• Piss-covered, passed-out frat boy with a hint of sugary Hand Grenade vomit. 
• Coffee roasting at the P&G plant in the Marigny that wafts over to us in the Quarter sometimes.
• Standard coffee and Aunt Sally's in the Marigny. Candy and coffee. Are there any better smells?

One colleague was so inspired by this whole discussion that he proposed a scratch-and-sniff map of New Orleans. Sounds like a great idea! I wonder how you would go about capturing the essence of crust punk body odor for a scratch-and-sniff map.