The winners of the Golden Rickie

Ladies and gentlemen, good evening and welcome to the presentation of the 2011 Golden Rickshaw Rider -- or the Rickie as it is more commonly known. I'm the Crescent City Pedicabbie, and I'm delighted to be your host for this evening's event. 


I must acknowledge at the outset the many wonderful passengers I've been privileged to transport on my pedicab over the past couple of months: Passengers who have tipped me generously. Passengers who have said all kinds of complimentary things about my calves. Passengers who have graciously forgiven me when I hit a pothole at full speed and made them spill their hurricanes all over themselves. There are dozens of riders who richly deserve special recognition and would have been a credit to this evening's prize. I regret that my time with each of these beautiful, captivating, and kind people has been so brief -- not to mention that my back was turned to them for almost all of that time. 


And now, ladies and gentlemen, a big round of applause for this year's runner-up: Mr. Justin Chambers. I must confess that as the sole member of the nominating committee and the jury, I was sure after meeting Mr. Chambers that he would take this year's prize. (Those of you who follow the adventures of the Crescent City Pedicabbie online will be familiar with the story of JC's historic ride.) If not for a truly extraordinary occurrence just two days later, Mr. Chambers would undoubtedly have walked away tonight as the richly deserving recipient of the 2011 Rickie. Congratulations, Mr. Chambers, and one more round of applause! 


And now the moment you've all been waiting for: The Golden Rickshaw Rider for the most amazing, wonderful, kind, and generous passengers of 2011. Once you hear the story, I think you'll agree that if there was a Nobel for niceness, this couple would win it hands down. 


And the winner is... Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, I must confess that I don't know their names, nor even where they're from. They had that certain glow that makes me inclined to believe that they were newlyweds, but I can't say for certain. All those details must have come up in our conversation, but the memories were undoubtedly flushed from my mind by that afternoon's powerful surge of adrenaline. Nevertheless, their story must be told, even if they are to remain nameless.

-----------------------------

It was a quarter to 4 in the afternoon, and I was sitting at my daytime sweet spot on the corner of Decatur and Toulouse in the French Quarter when this lovely young couple approached me. The man showed me a slip of paper with the name and address of a rum distillery. Could I get them there in time for a 4 o' clock tour?

I glanced at the paper. Frenchmen Street. Yes, of course, I told them. For us New Orleans pedicabbies the path between the French Quarter and Frenchmen Street is our bread and butter. I've pedaled this route so many times that I could probably give my pedicab its head, and it would take me there without my having to steer.

Looking back, I was vaguely uneasy that as many times as I had traversed Frenchmen Street, I had never noticed any rum distillery; but I put my doubts aside and started pedaling. We caught a couple of red lights along the way, but even so, we made it to Frenchmen in five minutes flat. I asked to see the address again in order to pinpoint the location of the distillery.

2815 Frenchmen St.

2815?

Did Frenchmen really have 28 blocks?

I knew every club and cafe in the 400, 500, and 600 blocks. I knew the exact spot on the sidewalk where "the burrito man", an aging hippie whose rent is always due the next day, sets up every night at 11:30 to peddle his burritos for $5 each. (They're really good, by the way.). I knew every pothole in the road for those three blocks. Theoretically, I should have known that the street kept going past the point where I always turned off. But I had honestly never really thought about there being a 700 block of Frenchmen -- much less a 2800 block.

It was ten minutes till four. My passengers needed to be there at four. We were twenty-two blocks away.

It was at this point that I made a very poor decision. I should have helped them get a taxi. I mean the type of taxi with four wheels and an engine. That would have been the right thing to do in this situation. But I didn't do the right thing. Instead I announced: "I can get you there by four," and I started pedaling again.

The next few blocks were nice. I was pushing too hard to truly appreciate the scenery, but I overheard my riders remarking at the beauty of the leafy streets and old homes and congratulating themselves on having chosen the most pleasant mode of transport. Basking in their pleasure, I found the strength to pick up the pace just a little.

I believe it was at St. Claude Avenue that the change occurred. I don't remember showing anyone my passport, but we must have crossed into another country. Jared Allen recently remarked that New Orleans looked like some bombed-out, third world country. Considering Katrina, the comment was certainly insensitive; considering neighborhoods like this one, it wasn't in the least inaccurate.

People sitting on the steps of ramshackle houses hooted at us as we passed by.  Apparently, we were quite the spectacle. I mentioned the sense of having crossed into a foreign country; all of the words that were shouted at us as we flew down the street were totally incomprehensible to me. Once I even asked my riders, "What did that guy just say?", but they hadn't understood either. There was no mistaking the mood though. It was a strange mix of amusement and hostility, equal in their intensity. My passengers weren't singing the praise of the pedicab as a means of transport any more; but I no longer needed their encouragement to keep up the blistering pace.

I was drenched in sweat by now. I glanced down at my watch and up at the addresses of the houses we were passing.

"Seventeen blocks to go!" There was an audible gasp from the passenger seat. "Don't worry! We're going to make it on time," I promised them.

More sweat. More catcalls. Block after block of graffiti-scarred, Katrina-devastated urban wasteland. "Don't worry. I'll get you there!" I called out from time to time -- as much to reassure myself as my riders.

At precisely 3:59 PM we reached the end of the 2700 block and realized with deep dismay that Frenchmen street came to an abrupt end here at Florida Avenue. There were railroad tracks in front of us and just beyond the tracks we could see our destination:  The Old New Orleans Rum Distillery, 2815 Frenchmen St. There it was, tantalizingly close and totally inaccessible. Apparently, Frenchmen Street resumed on the other side of the tracks.

"No problem," my riders said recovering their cheerfulness after the momentary shock. "We'll just hop off here and cross the tracks on foot. Thank you so much! You actually got us here right on time. You did it!"

I wasn't really comfortable with this arrangement, but I didn't see that we had much choice if they were going to make it in time for the tour. "Are you sure you're OK with that?" I asked, still panting from the wild ride.

"Yes, we're sure. Look, it's just right there! All we have to do is cross the tracks."

As I pulled up to the edge of the road to let them off, we got another nasty shock. Running alongside the railroad tracks was a canal, which we hadn't seen heretofore. It was deep and wide and had steep concrete sides; without a bridge or a boat there was no way across it.

Not knowing what else to do, I pedaled up Florida to the next intersection looking for a way across the canal. No luck. We sat there in the middle of the deserted street for a minute trying to decide on our next move. By now four o' clock had come and gone. Darkness would be closing in soon.

A car approached, slammed to a stop next to us, and the window went down. "What are you doing here?" the driver demanded. She was a middle-aged African-American lady, probably from that neighborhood. "This is no place for you to be sitting in the middle of the street!" she said. "Please, get out of here. Now!" I looked at her face and saw raw fear. Up to that point I had been a bit anxious, but suddenly I was shaken. Seeing how frightened this complete stranger was for us, I realized that we had reason to be really scared.

There wasn't any more question about what to do. We had to get back where we had come from -- but not by the way we had come. Even apart from the safety issue, Frenchmen is a one-way street, so there was literally no going back that way.

We found our way to Elysian Fields Avenue and began the trek toward familiar territory. Elysian Fields is a bigger, busier street, so it felt a little bit safer, but not much. Exhausted from the race to the end of the road and weighed down by fear and failure, it was all I could do to keep the pedals turning. Somehow I also found the spare breath to apologize to my passengers. "I'm so sorry," I said. "I can't believe I wasted your time. And made you miss your tour. And risked your lives. I'm so sorry."

They would have none of it. "No way," they said. "It wasn't a waste of time. It was an adventure. And anyway, if it's anybody's fault, it's ours. We should have known how to get there before we set out."

This was pure nonsense. When a tourist gets in a taxi, the taxi driver is the one with the obligation to know how to get there, not the tourist. But nonsense or not, it sure was nice! I've been called names to foul to print in the dictionary for offenses of a much lesser magnitude. If they had chosen to give me a good cussing out, what could I have done but say, "Guilty as charged, your honor"?

These guys were going out of their way to show me grace when we all knew how badly I had blown it. And they just kept piling on more and more niceness. Sensing my exhaustion, they actually offered to take a turn pedaling for me! (It was a beautiful gesture, but as long as I was conscious I wasn't going to surrender the handlebars.)

At some point along the way I began to wonder whether I had gotten myself turned around somehow during the traumatic return trip. I've always had a poor sense of direction. Why was it taking so much longer to get back than it had taken to get there? Was it possible that with every turn of the pedals, I was actually taking us further away from the French Quarter? I voiced my concern, and the young man behind me spoke reassuringly: "No, I'm sure that this is the right way." Still, I wasn't fully convinced until I finally caught sight of the skyline of the Central Business District ahead of us in the distance.

Knowing that at least we were going the right way was a relief, but it was nothing compared to that sweet feeling that flooded over me when we finally crossed St. Claude Avenue. We still had some distance to cover, but the dangerous part was behind us. Oddly enough it was this moment of relief rather than the terror preceding it that triggered a vivid flashback to one of the scariest situations that my family and I had faced during our years in the Balkans.

It was early autumn 1999, about three months after the end of the Kosovo War. On an outing in western Kosovo we had unwittingly wandered across the Montenegrin border and deep into a dangerous situation, the details of which I will not take the time to recount here. Fleeing back toward home in a battered Land Rover, we slid around a switchback on the dusty road and came upon an Italian military checkpoint -- the  symbol of safety that we had been desperately hoping for.

As we crossed St. Claude Avenue on the rickshaw I instantly recognized the same emotions that I had experienced twelve years earlier crossing that remote checkpoint in Kosovo's Accursed Mountains. But even the relief,  intense as it was, did nothing to relieve my shame at having let my riders down. I offered another round of apologies, and once again this couple responded with their sweet assurances that it really wasn't my fault and that everything was fine now anyway.

When we came to the end of the ride, I had no intention of taking money from them. I really didn't. I tried to tell them that. Oh, I deserved payment alright, but not that kind. They could have reported me to the Taxicab Bureau, and they would have been well within their rights. Causing them to miss their tour, exposing them to mortal danger and all-around ruining their vacation might even have been grounds for a lawsuit. If any money was going to change hands, it should have been from my hand to theirs.

But when it came down to it, they got off the bike, and they thanked me; (They actually thanked me!) and the young man held out his hand to me with some bills in it; and I said, "No way!"; and he, still smiling, pressed the money into my hand; and they walked away holding hands; and I looked down at the money in my hand and realized that they had just given me the biggest tip of my career.

During the course of the ride, I mentioned to them that I had a blog, and they acted interested. So I'm hopeful that they will read this and know how much I appreciated their kindness. I actually hope that I get to see them again some day. Not that I could ever make it up to them, but I would really love another chance to give them a nice, relaxing, romantic -- and uneventful ride. This one for free, of course. But if they would prefer never to get on another pedicab, I wouldn't blame them at all.

Bubble Gum's Restaurant?

Some tourists approached me today to ask if I knew where Bubble Gum's Restaurant was located. I've at least heard of most of the restaurants around here by now even if I don't know exactly where they all are. But this was a new one for me. Turns out they were looking for Bubba Gumps.

Pedicabbie pickup lines

Lately I've been trying out a Christmas variation of my three-second sales pitch: "Come take a ride on my one-horse open sleigh New Orleans style!" As always, the goal is to get fares -- but failing that, at least a smile. A couple of pretty ladies have rewarded this new slogan with a smile plus a snappy comeback.

"Whoohoo!" one shot back as she walked by. "I bet you say that to all the girls!"

"Yeah baby!" another responded enthusiastically. "You're the stallion!"

Come to think of it, the three-second sales pitch is a pickup line in the most literal sense; so I suppose these are the kinds of responses I should expect.

A more profitable use of the pedicab?

Last night as I dropped off a rider at One Eyed Jacks, a young guy who was standing outside with a beer in his hand motioned for me to stop.

"Wanna ride?" I asked.

"No thanks," he said. "I just want to see if you can make it once around this block in 4 minutes or less. If you can do it, I'll give you five bucks."

I suspected some kind of trick. Almost all the streets in the French Quarter are one way, and he gestured in a direction that was the wrong way. I wasn't about to risk a ticket, or worse, a wreck, for five dollars. When I pointed this out, he said, "No problem! I didn't mean that you have to go the wrong way."

I thought it over and decided I didn't have much to lose. This was not an area where someone might easily set up an ambush. In terms of the challenge he had laid out, I was pretty sure I could make the block in less than four minutes. If I failed -- or if I succeeded and the guy refused to pay, which I figured was the stronger possibility -- I wouldn't have lost anything more than a couple of minutes time.

I set out at a good clip -- a bit more than a leisurely pace and considerably less than an all out sprint. As I turned the corner I got a call on the company cell phone. (The Lynch brothers who run our company are out of town for a few days, so a couple of us "veterans" are taking turns as shift managers, which means among other things, carrying the phone around so that we can send out dispatches on the fly. The whole pedicab  business is so new that with barely a month's experience under my belt, I'm among the veterans.) Still pedaling, I fished the radio out of my pocket and answered it: "Bike Taxi, Mark speaking."

"We need someone to come get us at Ursulines and Decatur," the caller said.

"Ok, I'll send someone right away," I promised.

I got on the radio and requested the nearest bike to make the pickup. A colleague responded quickly that he was on his way. I hadn't stopped cycling, but all of this had certainly cost me time. Still I was pretty sure that I would make it back before the deadline.

When I rounded the fourth corner to pull up in front of One Eyed Jacks, the guy was still standing there beer in hand. He looked down at his stop watch. "Wow!" he exclaimed. "You made it in two and a half minutes. I didn't think you could do it." He handed me a five dollar bill, shook my hand and asked if I would mind posing for a photo with him. "I want a picture with the guy who kicked my ass," he said.

I've been thinking about this incident and trying to figure out if there's any way to turn this into a permanent gig. Imagine if I could drive an empty pedicab around and make $5 every two and a half minutes! I've always been poor at math, but assuming I'm pushing the right buttons on the calculator, that comes out to $120 an hour. Lydia, my 15 year old daughter, wants to go to Cornell when she finishes high school in a couple years. At that rate, I might actually be able to send her!

I don't know... No doubt, pedaling an empty rickshaw around the block is a lot less work than hauling drunk riders from Bourbon Street to their hotel. But it's also a lot less entertaining.

When I posted the dude's photo on Facebook and boasted that I had made an easy $5 off him, an old college friend reminded me of another easy money method, which I had witnessed during trips to the Quarter many years ago. Here's how it works:

Entrepreneur (typically 10 or 12 years old) walks up to unsuspecting tourist and says, "Betcha five dollars I can tell you where you got those shoes at."

Gullible tourist replies: "You're on!"

Young entrepreneur: "You got 'em on your feet on Bourbon St."

I don't know if they still do that. I haven't seen it happening since I've been on the job, but I've got to admit, that's an even easier way to make five dollars than pedaling an empty pedicab around the block. And entertaining too! Maybe I should try my hand at it.

New Orleans vs. Minnesota

Jesus said the meek would inherit the earth, but so far all we've gotten is Minnesota and North Dakota.
Garrison Keillor

I've had a couple of riders from Minnesota recently. I was glad for the chance to try out on them some personal observations which have been occupying my mind lately -- observations concerning the differences between their home state and mine. I was gratified when these Minnesota natives assured me that I was on the right track (assuming of course that it wasn't simply a matter of their being too polite to disagree) because truth be told, I've never been there. My image of Minnesota is based largely on the work of the groundbreaking cultural anthropologist Garrison Keillor. If the real Minnesota doesn't bear any resemblance to Lake Wobegone, then all my analysis is way off base.


Let's start with the facts of the case: Minnesota  is home to the headwaters of the Mississippi River; New Orleans, on the other hand, is located near the mouth of the Mississippi. The "mouth" of course is the place where the river discharges its contents into the great septic pool of the sea. Which raises an interesting question: Why is it called the mouth? If we're going to go with body parts, wouldn't it... Ummm, never mind...


OK, where was I? Oh yeah, so Minnesota and New Orleans are located at opposite ends of the Mississippi. They say you can wade across the Mississippi at its source in Minnesota. You could also wade across it at New Orleans -- if you were 202 feet tall. (I've read that it's 200 feet deep; I figure you'd need that extra two feet just to keep your head comfortably above water.)


Anyway, the idea that Minnesota and New Orleans are at opposite ends of the river got me thinking about all the ways that we, the inhabitants of these two places, are mirror images of one another. Their culture is built on a  northern European (Scandinavian) base; ours is built on a southern European (Mediterranean) base. They're Lutheran; we're Catholic. (Not me personally, but you get the idea.) They reward restraint; we practice excess. They're modest; we're flamboyant. Their big annual event is the state fair, the highlight of which is butter sculpture. (I'm not making this up!) Our big annual event is Mardi Gras, the highlight of which is girls exposing their boobs for a set of plastic beads. (I'm not making this up either!)


What about the food? Here's an actual quote from the Wikipedia article on Minnesota cuisine: "Minnesota is also known for hot dish and jello salads." I'm not sure what "hot dish" is exactly, but I doubt that the heat comes from an abundance of Tabasco. And jello salads? Seriously? And they think sucking crawfish heads is weird?  The closest thing you can get to jello salad in the Vieux Carre is jello shots, which they sell at a certain daiquiri shop. Presumably these appeal mostly to the under-21-with-fake-id crowd. Either that or tourists from Minnesota who've come here to really cut loose.


Let's consider music for a moment. Bob Dylan is undoubtedly Minnesota's most famous music man. Here on the south end of the river, if you're going to have pick one singer/musician who best represents New Orleans, I think you'd have to go with Louis Armstrong. Now, picture their faces. Look them both up on Google images if you want to. But really, why bother? You know what I'm talking about without even looking.


Let's start with Louis Armstrong. I estimate that those bulging eyes and that huge smile make the white to black ratio of his face something like 3:1. In every picture he he seems to be showing an expression of either delighted amazement or amazed delight. Look at Louis Armstrong and you see the very embodiment of laissez les bon temps rouler. (By the way, I'm aware that the happy negro stereotype was one that was all too comfortable for a lot of white racists and deeply disturbing to blacks and that Satchmo took plenty of flack from fellow African Americans for being an Uncle Tom. But scholars seem to be recognizing more and more that he made a substantial contribution to the civil rights struggle. And he pulled it off with that big grin on his face the whole time.)  


What about Dylan? For all his rebellion against conservative Midwestern values, he embodies an austere outlook that must have deep roots in his Minnesota milieu. Like Armstrong, he has two variations in his repertoire of facial expressions: sneer and scowl. Unlike Armstrong, his eyes and teeth aren't so prominent. In fact, we know that Bob Dylan has eyes because we sometimes get a glimpse of them through the narrow slits of his eyelids, but as to his teeth, there hasn't been a confirmed sighting in forty years. (Someone pointed out that the Wikipedia entry on Bob Dylan features a recent photo of him smiling slightly and revealing teeth. I would urge caution. We're all aware that Wikipedia isn't exactly known for its reliability.) 

If I'm right that the cultures at the north and south extremities of the river are polar opposites, my next question is: Why? Is it really coincidence? Do you suppose that the river might actually have something to do with it? Here's my theory: The Mississippi drains an area of well over a million square miles. And the drinking water in New Orleans comes from the river. So perhaps we're enriched by all the nutrients of more than a million square miles flowing right to our doorstep. Or, one might argue, poisoned by the pollutants... Depending on which end of the river you come from, I guess. 

Gambling, fishing and pedicabbing

Back in our dating days Mary (now my wife) came back from her psych 101 class eager to share with me a new insight into my character. She had learned that gambling and fishing are similar in that their addictive power comes from something called intermittent reinforcement. Take fishing for instance. You make a lot of casts that don't produce anything. Then, on that 500th cast: BAM! The fish and the fisherman are both hooked -- the fish for obvious reasons and the fisherman because there's just no telling when it might happen again. Apparently, fishermen are especially vulnerable to gambling addiction.

You should know that I LOVE to fish; and when I'm fishing, I have a real hard time stopping. Whenever it comes time to quit, there are two possible scenarios. Either I'm catching fish -- in which case I can't quit because I'm catching them; or I'm not catching fish -- in which case I've got to keep going till I catch something. Make sense?

In light of all this, Mary made me promise never to set foot in a casino -- a promise which I have faithfully kept because I'm pretty sure she's right. I'm pretty sure that if I ever started gambling, I'd never be able to stop. I haul passengers to Harrah's all the time, but I'm terrified at the very thought of setting foot inside that door.

(By the way, this also helps to explain an aspect of my character that puzzles some people. How does someone like me who has terminal ADD muster the patience for fishing? The honest answer is that it has nothing to do with patience. No one would describe the guy who sits at the slot machine for 10 hours straight as patient. Clearly there's a far more powerful force at work here.)

Speaking of patience, if you're wondering what any of this has to do with being a pedicabbie, stay with me. I'm working around to that by way of the following story:

Yesterday when 6 PM rolled around, I'd been on the street for 8 hours. Both of my colleagues who shared my shift had already announced over the radio that they were calling it quits for the day. It was time for me to be headed to the house too, but I hadn't had a ride in the last hour and a half. Worse still, I was a bit short of what I had hoped to make for the day.


Just one more fare, I told myself. Just one more.


My persistence paid off a few minutes after 6:00 when I picked up an older couple from Oregon. They didn't have anywhere particular they wanted to go; they just wanted to ride around a bit, and I was happy to oblige. (I'm always careful to explain to people that I can't give tours because I'm not licensed to do that, but if they want me to just to take them for a spin, why not?) I told them that they were going to be my last fare of the day.

They were still aboard when a dispatch came over the radio for someone to pick up another couple at a certain hotel. I ignored it at first since I already had riders and was intending to head in as soon as I dropped them off. However, it turned out that there were no other pedicabs available, so my boss got on the radio again to ask if I could do it. My passengers, understanding the situation, graciously dismounted, and I headed for the pickup, thrilled to have gotten two more fares at the end of the day.

I took the second couple where they needed to go and turned my bike toward the shop. When I ride in at the end of my shift, I usually keep doing my 3-second sales pitch just in case I come across someone who happens to be going my way. I don't recall that it had ever worked before, but this was my lucky evening.

"Would you like a ride?" I called out to a pretty girl who was walking the same direction I was pedaling.

"I would love a ride! I'm just going a couple of blocks up to Canal..." She hesitated a moment, and her face fell. "You know what? Never mind. I'm really sorry. I've only got three dollars on me."

"That's not a problem," I said. "I'm just about done for the day, and I'm going that way anyway. I would be happy to take you that far for three dollars." Then I hesitated, wondering if I had misunderstood her reluctance. "Of course if you don't want to part with your last three dollars, I totally understand..."

"Oh, it's not that," she assured me. "I just feel bad for you."

"Well there's no need to feel bad for me. One way or the other, I'm going home. And as far as I'm concerned, I might as well go home three dollars richer."

"OK then!" she said as she jumped into the passenger seat. "This is my first time to ride a pedicab. I've been wanting to take one of these things for a long time."

"Well I'm honored to be your first pedicabbie!" I said. And I was.

At the corner of Canal St., she hopped off, handed me the three bucks, and went on her way. I continued on my way too, rejoicing at having picked up three rides in quick succession after an hour and a half drought.

A block and a half up Canal, a colleague flagged me down in front of a hotel. He was there for a pickup, waiting for his passengers to come out when a pair of ladies (not the ones who had called) approached him wanting a ride. Would I be willing to take them?

I was more than willing. I got them where they were going, then turned toward the shop once again, headed home at last, four fares richer, and so happy that it seemed to me that my pedicab had wings.

All that to say that my susceptibility to intermittent reinforcement sometimes works in my favor. But I'm still not planning to get any closer to the casino than is absolutely necessary in order to drop off riders who want to go there.

JC and me

I was waiting at a red light when this guy walked up to me. He had a battered leather jacket, a couple of days stubble on his chin, and a fedora pulled down low so that his eyes were in its shadows. Looking back, I think that my first impression was probably: Here's a guy who's trying a little too hard to be hip. A little bit flaky maybe -- but no more so than a large portion of the people you meet in and around the French Quarter.

"Where's your stand?" he asked me.

"Oh, we don't have any particular place where we wait. We just kind of circulate, you know?"

"OK. Well I've got to run up to my room right now," he said pointing out a nearby hotel. "I'll be back out in 10 minutes. Maybe I'll see you around."

He walked away while I continued to wait for the light to change. As soon as he was gone, I regretted that it hadn't even occurred to me to try to nail down a time and place to meet him. Oh well, I thought, I can park outside the hotel for a few minutes and watch for him to come back out. Sometimes on the day shift, you can go a couple of hours without a single ride. There certainly wasn't any harm in waiting there for 10 or 15 minutes.

I sat watching the crowds on Canal St. for a time and forgot all about watching my watch. After what felt like 10 or 15 minutes had passed, I glanced at the time and decided I'd give him another 10 before moving on. Right about then he came walking out and climbed aboard as though he had been expecting me to be there.

"Where are we headed?" I asked.

"To a record store. Do you know of one? And do you mind if I smoke?"

"Yes, I know where there's a record store, and no, I don't mind at all if you smoke," I said.

"I'm an idiot," he remarked. "I quit once for two years then went back to it."

"Reminds me of that Mark Twain quote," I said. "Why do people say it's hard to quit smoking? I've quit at least 20 times." (Here's the precise quote.)

"So what's your name?" I asked.

"JC."

"JC? As in 'Jesus Christ'?"

"I LOVE HIM!" he said with a sudden intensity that struck me as totally out of character and yet deeply sincere.

"Wow! Me too!" This guy was winning me over. He clearly didn't belong to the evangelical subculture in which I was raised, but I couldn't help but be touched by the fact that he seemed to genuinely love Jesus.

As the conversation progressed I found myself liking him more and more. Still, having initially judged him to be a bit on the flaky side, I was finding scraps of evidence along the way to support that presupposition. You know how it goes, right? Once we've taken the trouble to erect a prejudice, it's easy enough to find building supplies to keep propping it up.

When he said that he was an actor and that he was in town because he had a part in a movie, there was even a shadow of doubt in my mind as to whether he was telling the truth. (Long before I started picking up passengers on my pedicab, I picked up a whole lot of hitchhikers in my car; you learn to be a little bit skeptical.) It was certainly plausible that he was here for a movie role given New Orleans' recent emergence as Hollywood South. (See here for an article about the movies currently being filmed in the Crescent City and here for another story from my blog about taking an actor for a ride on my rickshaw.)

Later he mentioned something about playing in Grey's Anatomy. I've never seen the show, but I knew enough to know that it is very popular. Still it didn't even cross my mind that JC was any kind of celebrity.

We pulled up at the record store, and he asked me to wait for him outside. After a while he came out to tell me that the clerk was preparing his purchases and that it would be few more minutes. He sat down in the back of the bike, and we chatted a bit.

"Record stores are shutting down left and right," he said. "It's a shame."

"Yeah," I agreed. "We all get our music online these days, which is nice and all. But sometimes I miss the feeling of holding a real record in my hands. I was talking to my daughter just this morning. She's 15 years old. I don't remember how it came up, but I asked her if she had ever seen a turntable before, and she said, 'Only on TV.' Can you believe it?"

"I know what you mean," he said. "I've got five kids. What's your daughter's name?"

"Lydia," I answered. "But she likes to go by Lyddie these days. I have a son too. His name is Luke."

"Luke! That's from the Bible, right? How does Lyddie spell her name?"

I spelled it out for him. I wonder now why it didn't occur to me to wonder then why he wanted to know. Anyway, he disappeared into the store again and reappeared a few minutes later with a cardboard box. "This is for your kids," he said. "It's a record player." He had written a little note on the top of the box: "Your dad says great things about you."

I'm sure I said thank you. I sure hope so anyway. The truth is I was so shocked that I don't even remember what I said. (JC, if you happen to read this, let me say it again just to be sure. Thank you! It was an amazing gift, and my kids loved it. But I'm getting ahead of myself here.)

JC had a couple more places he wanted to go. I hate to admit this, but I was starting to get a little bit nervous. Generally we let people pay us whatever they want for any ride under 20 minutes. If it's more than 20 minutes, our fare is a dollar a minute. I've learned from experience that often when people want you to take them around on errands and wait on them while they shop, they're not anticipating how much it's going to cost. We try to be upfront about it, but in this case I couldn't remember whether it had even come up. This guy had just jumped on board without even bothering to ask about the price.

I decided I had better broach the subject. Looking back, this was one time I wish I had let it go. After he had just bought a nice gift for my kids, it was pretty tasteless to say, "Are you planning to pay me?"  Not that I had said it quite like that. I tried to be tactful. "I, um, just want to make sure we're on the same page. Because, umm, you know I've had misunderstandings in the past and stuff. So, you realize that anything over 20 minutes is a dollar a minute, right?"

"Yeah, that's fine," he said. "I'm not keeping track of the time, so you'll have to let me know how much I owe you at the end."

I took him to the pharmacy, which was the next place on his list, and he said, "OK, I think I'll just get out here, and I'm sure I can get around to the other places on my own. Thanks so much for the ride! How much do I owe you?"

At this point I was embarrassed at having made a big deal about the money, so I gave him a figure that was actually a bit low. He paid me what I asked, said goodbye, and we parted ways.

Later that day, I started feeling bad about the whole thing -- like I hadn't expressed proper appreciation. This was a genuinely nice guy who had just bought a wonderful gift for my kids, and maybe I had been a little bit rude to him. I started composing an open letter to him which I was going to post to the blog in hopes that he might stumble on it. I still didn't suspect in the least that he was a celebrity.

That night when I brought the box home for the kids to open it, I wondered how they would receive it. Would they see the point? After all, we don't have any vinyl records to play on it.

I needn't have worried. The kids were thrilled. When they pulled it out of the box, we all marveled at the beauty of the thing. It had a retro design --  kind of a 60s/70s feel to it, nothing like the ones that I remembered from my high school days when the phonograph was just about to be eclipsed. No glowing lights, no high tech controls. The whole thing was enclosed in a hard plastic red and tan case with the speakers built into the bottom. There were two knobs on the front: volume and tone.

I promised the kids that we would buy some vinyl albums.Mary suggested that it would be really cool to get some Christmas music to play on it. With its old-fashioned styling and bright red color, it actually looked kind of "Christmassy" somehow.

Later that evening, it occurred to me to go online and see if I could find JC. I went to a website that listed the cast and crew of Grey's Anatomy and glanced quickly through the list of the show's stars, pretty sure that I wouldn't find him there. And I didn't. No JC. No big surprise.

I checked out the list of "recurring roles" and didn't find him there either. Hmmm. I went back to the stars just to be sure I hadn't missed anything, and there he was! Justin Chambers. JC. Once I knew his full name, I started surfing the web for more information about him and quickly realized that the guy has some pretty impressive credits, even apart from Grey's Anatomy. (Here he is on Wikipedia, but the entry is a bit outdated. There are also several interesting interviews posted on YouTube.)

I've always considered myself above the whole celebrity obsession thing, but now I found myself starstruck. What about the box that the record player had come in? I had thrown it in the garage to be put out with the next day's garbage. It had his autograph on it with the note to my kids! I rushed out to rescue it.

Looking back, I'm glad that I got the chance to appreciate JC as a very cool, nice, generous, person before I found out he was famous. I would love to have the chance to hang out with him again. I would take him anywhere he wanted on my pedicab, and I wouldn't dream of mentioning money. Most of all, I would welcome the chance to show him how much I appreciate his thoughtfulness to my kids.

JC, if you're reading this, here's my prayer for you: May the Original JC, The King, bless your kids like you blessed mine!

Is it time to consider drastic measures?

I'm sitting in my car trying out the blogger app on my phone and enjoying a few more minutes warmth before I ride out on another dreary December day. Hope it's better than yesterday. The day shift is always a lot less profitable and entertaining than the night shift, but yesterday was more miserable than most.

It started out pretty well actually. I got three rides in quick succession, which almost never happens in the morning. I couldn't resist bragging about it over the radio, and my boss said, "Mark, we're going to have to pull you off the street and put you in the classroom so you can teach everyone else how it's done!"

I basked in the praise. Looking back I'm overcome with shame that the multitude of sermons I had heard on "Pride goeth before a fall" availed me naught in my hour of temptation. After those first three rides I only had four more the rest of the day.

The worst part was that I didn't get one single comment on my calves all day. Not one. Definitely a career first. If this keeps up I may have to look into calf augmentation surgery.

Southeast Asia - Southeast Louisiana fusion

In recent discussions about immigration and assimilation, the salad bowl and the melting pot are often set out as opposing metaphors. (Try Googling "melting pot, salad bowl". I got over 250,000 results.) In the case of New Orleans I believe that a third metaphor is more apt: gumbo.


With gumbo, you've got the base, the roux. Gotta have a good roux! Then you can add your vegetables: bell pepper, celery, and onions are standard. And okra of course. (I've heard that gumbo is actually some kind of African word for okra.) You can even put tomatoes if you want, though a lot of locals might take you for a Yankee poser. Don't forget the Tony Chachere's. And the filé powder, which can be added as part of the cooking process or set out on the table as a condiment. Then you add the chicken and sausage, or seafood, or some combination thereof. The possibilities are almost limitless. My mother-in-law, whose Cajun credentials no one should dare question, likes to boil eggs, peel them, then let them stew in the gumbo where they take on the roux's rich brown hue as they soak up the flavor.


In the case of  the city of New Orleans, the roux would be French-Creole culture. Each successive wave of immigrants -- German, English, West African, Croatian, Sicilian, Honduran, and others -- has enriched the stew without compromising its essential character. The Vietnamese community is a particularly interesting example. They came over in the 1970s. They have managed to maintain their identity while integrating so thoroughly into the city's institutions that it would be hard to imagine New Orleans without them. If you go to Cafe du Monde, which will soon celebrate its 150th anniversary, the person serving your beignets and cafe au lait will almost certainly be Vietnamese.


If you really think about it, it isn't all that strange that the Vietnamese have acclimated so well to warm, wet New Orleans. After all, Southeast Asia and Southeast Louisiana both bear the legacy of French colonial history. Many Vietnamese immigrants were Roman Catholic. Many were also fishermen by trade, so New Orleans' seafood industry must have offered a familiar element. Then there's rice as a dietary staple. (I'm open to correction, but I can't think of any other American city where rice is so central to the cuisine.)


I worked my first wedding as a pedicabbie last week. The bride was a New Yorker, of European stock as far as I know. The groom, however, was a New Orleans native of Vietnamese ancestry. The wedding was held at the Saint Louis Cathedral, America's oldest cathedral and the French Quarter's most iconic landmark. After the vows, the newlyweds and guests poured out of the church and formed a second line, twirling colorful parasols as they danced and paraded through the streets of the French Quarter behind a brass band. My fellow pedicabbies and I -- there were five of us I believe -- brought up the rear, bearing the groom's elderly relatives. I felt a touch of amusement, a bit of pride, and plenty of pure pleasure to be a part of this. 


The next day I was working the Saints game, and I stopped to ask a couple of traffic cops for permission to make a left turn at a place where the street was blocked. One of the policemen turned out to be Vietnamese-American, and we struck up a brief conversation.


"I'm so glad to see this here!" he said referring to the pedicab. "It reminds me of home. We have these in Vietnam, you know? We call them rickshaw."


The fact that they have rickshaws in Vietnam was not news to me, but somehow I had failed to make the connection. Had my previous day's passengers ridden rickshaws in their childhood days? Was it possible that I had taken them on their first rickshaw ride in 40 years or more? Was the sweet irony of the situation lost on them?  (Not so long ago many Americans would have viewed the rickshaw as a symbol of Asia's poverty and backwardness; these days pedicabs are commonplace on the streets of almost all of our major cities.) I don't know what my passengers were feeling, but I like to think that they felt more or less the same mixture of pride, amusement and pleasure at seeing us embrace their tradition as I felt at seeing them embrace ours. 


It is only now in retrospect that the beauty of that whole scene is beginning to really register. Elderly Vietnamese-New Orleanians riding in rickshaws at the tail end of a second line parade. Something old something new indeed! How strange! How apt!

---------------------------------------------

Bonus trivia question: Which Rolling Stones song (more recently covered by Old Crow Medicine Show) pays tribute to New Orleans' second line tradition?


Answer: Down Home Girl, which contains the following lyric:
I'm gonna take you back to New Orleans 
Down in Dixieland
I'm gonna watch you do the second line 
With an umbrella in your hand 

A level playing field

New Orleans is legendary for its flatness. The highest point in the city is probably Monkey Hill, which was one of those government projects invented just to put people to work during the Great Depression. According to local lore, Monkey Hill was built so that the children of New Orleans would have the chance to know firsthand what a hill was.

Then there's this bridge on Interstate 10 over the Industrial Canal. We call it "the High Rise". There's a sign at the approach urging motorists to maintain speed, but they never do. When you listen to the rush hour traffic report on the radio, you can just about count on there being a slowdown at the High Rise. The simplest explanation is that the car engines struggle to make the grade, but I remember a friend of my father's who had a much more intriguing if slightly less plausible theory. This fellow was from somewhere else. I don't remember where precisely, but somewhere hilly. Anyway, he figured that New Orleans natives, owing to their utter lack of experience driving on uneven terrain, are simply not comfortable not being able to see on down the road. No matter how many times they've crossed that bridge, deep down inside they don't really believe there's anything on the other side till they reach the crest and see it for themselves. Like I said, it's an interesting theory at the very least.

Fortunately, Monkey Hill and the High Rise are both off limits to rickshaws. Even so, when you rely on nothing but pedal power to move 400 or 500 pounds of human flesh (and that's not even counting my own 200!), you start to realize that the city's not quite as flat as everyone supposes.

I mentioned in an earlier post that almost everyone who gets on board suddenly becomes self-conscious about his or her weight. "Are you sure you can handle it?" they always ask. And I always promise them that it's not an issue. And it never has been. Until yesterday.

I've been on the job for a month, and yesterday morning for the first time I found myself in a very embarrassing situation. Then later that day the same thing happened again. TWICE ON THE SAME DAY! On both occasions, I picked up a husband and wife couple at a hotel. On both occasions, both man and woman were on the hefty side. On both occasions, I found myself trying to take off on a slight incline. And on both occasions, I found myself unable to budge the bike.

The second time was the worst. I really thought that there was some mechanical problem. Perhaps one of the wheels was stuck against a curb. That happens sometimes. I checked and saw that nothing was blocking the wheels. So why wouldn't they turn?

Trying to be gracious, the male passenger said, "We're a pretty heavy load,"

"That's not the problem," I insisted. "I've hauled more weight before. Maybe the chain has come off." I checked the chain, and it was fine. I was still pretty sure that something else had to be wrong. I grunted and pushed against the pedals some more but to no avail.

By now there were cars lined up bumper to bumper in front of me. I squeezed the brake tightly to keep the bike from rolling the six inches back down to the curb while I waited for a break in traffic. How was I ever going to get this thing moving and do it quickly enough to merge into traffic? Seeing my situation, a driver took pity on me and stopped to let me in. Abandoning all effort to pedal I got down and pushed. It was excruciatingly slow. Someone down the line lost patience and started honking. The whole line of automobiles was witnessing my utter humiliation.

After what felt like 20 years without parole, I crested the hump (We're talking about a distance of not more than a couple of feet) and was able to start pedaling. I was torn between relief that the bike really was in good working order and disappointment that there wasn't any good mechanical explanation for my failure after all. The rest of the ride was fine. I worked up a good sweat even though the temperature was in the low 40s, but that's nothing unusual.

Note: According to Wikipedia the elevation of New Orleans ranges from six and a half feet below sea level to twenty feet above.

French Quarter conversations, mostly crude

Male passenger A: My friend here puked in a taxi last night.
Male passenger B: Yeah! The driver made me pay $100.
Male passenger A: How much do you charge if we throw up on your bike?
Note: I thought about this later and concluded that the taxi driver was more than justified.  If it happened to me -- and I'm thinking that sooner or later it's bound to -- I believe that I would definitely be entitled to compensation (though whether I would have the guts to demand it is another question.) On a good night being forced to head back to the shop to wash down the bike could cost me $50 or $60 in lost fares. For an auto taxi there's also the expense of cleaning upholstery of course. 

Drunk girl staggers across the street in front of me, holding up her hand for me to stop. Her eyes swimming into focus, she sees my female passengers and addresses them:
 "All men suck! Even the gay ones."
Note: My passengers seemed to think that this was the funniest thing they had ever heard. When I safely delivered them to their destination, one of them said, "Wow, we found a man who doesn't suck! And he's not even gay."

Obese transvestite to me: What are you doing after you get off work?
Me: Going home to my beautiful wife.
Obese transvestite: Can I come?

Drunk female passenger to me: Can I touch your ass?
Her slightly soberer (and very embarrassed) date: No, you can't touch his ass!

Me to fortune teller on the street: How's it going?
Fortune teller: Terrible. I haven't had a single customer all day! I'm waiting and hoping for just one so I can get enough money for beer and cigarettes and go home.
Me: Sorry to hear you're having such a bad day. But you must have seen it coming, right?
Note: I know, that was a real cheap shot. I just couldn't resist.


Me to female passenger: I'm blogging about my job. So if you say something interesting, you might see yourself quoted online.
Female passenger: I was told once that my vagina has a hood.

Me to male passenger (from Mississippi if I remember right): I'm blogging about my job. So if you say something interesting, you might see yourself quoted online.
Male passenger: I shot a deer last week.

Doing the Dome part II: Saints game

At Superdome events the  3-second sales pitch doesn't matter so much because it's not hard to get passengers on the bike. The key to success in these kinds of situations is speed.

At Superdome events pedicabs have an advantage over cars. Before and after the game, traffic is typically backed up along Poydras (the main Superdome access street) but rickshaws can keep moving by threading in and out of the stalled lines of cars. (If this sounds dangerous, remember the cars aren't moving. The biggest danger is a scratched fender.) Police direct traffic at all the intersections; naturally they give priority to pedestrians, which is why the cars spend so much time stationary. Sometimes the police allow us to cross with the folk on foot so that we can leave a line of cars behind at an intersection and sprint ahead till we reach the next bunch of immobile automobiles, at which point we start weaving in and out again.

In these situations most of my colleagues have an advantage over me. They tend to be a lot younger and bolder (or more reckeless) than me. Even apart from the age issue, I've always had a kind of handicap when it comes to spatial awareness. This means that the other drivers are typically willing to squeeze through spaces between cars that I'm much too timid to attempt. Whenever we get a little bit of open road, I try to make up for lost time by out-sprinting them. I can never resist talking a little smack as I blow by: "Come on! Is that the best you can do? You know you're half my age!" (Which is often literally true.)

There are three pedicab companies in New Orleans, each of which can legally have up to 15 bikes on the road at a time. Saints games are pretty much the only time when all three companies make every effort to get their maximum number of bikes out there -- which means close to 45 rickshaws plying Poydras.

Before working my first game I wondered what would happen once the last stragglers were inside the Dome. Would 45 pedicabs be cruising up and down deserted streets like vultures watching a healthy herd hoping for something to die? Turns out I was right in one way. The streets were definitely deserted -- much more so than I had imagined in fact. The French Quarter looked as though the city's population had perished in some terrible plague. Buildings were standing, lights were on, but no one was moving. (I should note that this was a Monday night game; on a weekend it would have been another story.)

I should have known that my fellow pedicabbies were much too wise to waste their time patrolling cold, empty streets. I saw their bikes parked outside various bars and restaurants where presumably they sat in warmth and comfort watching the game on big screens. Felipe's Taqueria seemed to be the favorite pedicabbie haunt judging by the collection of rickshaws parked outside.

I rode around for a while, pausing from time to time outside bars where the broadcast was blaring through open doors and windows in order to follow the progress of the game. Finally I gave up on picking up passengers and  went to the Clover Grill on Bourbon Street where ordered a hamburger and settled into a booth to thaw my bones and watch the game on TV. I was the only customer in the restaurant. Next time I may join my colleagues at Felipe's or somewhere else, but on this occasion I enjoyed the solitude.

I headed back toward the Dome for the third quarter, which turned out to be a good decision. The Saints won a lopsided victory over the Giants, and it turns out that lopsided victories favor our profession. When the outcome of a game is decided relatively early, people start trickling out of the Superdome, which gives us more time to pick up riders. From now on I'll be cheering for the Saints to win every home game by halftime.

Doing the Dome part I: The Bayou Classic

I worked my first Superdome events this past weekend: the Bayou Classic and a Monday night Saints vs. Giants game.

For the uninitiated, the Bayou Classic is a football game between two HCBUs, Grambling State University and Southern University. The game, which is held in the Dome every year the Saturday after Thanksgiving, is sometimes referred to as The Black Superbowl.

According to some estimates the event draws 200,000 visitors to downtown New Orleans. The seating capacity of the Superdome is only 75,000 or so, if the 200,000 figure is accurate it would mean that well over half of the crowd is in town more for the party more than for the actual game. (This may or may not be true of other big sporting events in New Orleans. I really have no idea.)

I'm going to to tread very carefully here... In the week leading up to the event, I learned that most of those who work in New Orleans's tourism trade look upon Bayou Classic with deep dread. Is there an element of racism in this? Perhaps. But of all the complaints I heard, the most strident by far came from a hotel employee who was himself African American. "I've been doing this 20 years, and I don't think I can take it one more year," he said. "I'm going to call in sick."

Having heard that kind of talk all week, I was prepared for the worst. In the end, it wasn't nearly as bad as I had been led to believe. Looking back I can't remember a single passenger who was drunk, disrespectful or disorderly, which is an exceptionally good weekend's work in my profession!

There was one aspect in which the naysayers were right. It was a pretty poor weekend from a financial standpoint. For many of us in the tourist trade, tips are our bread and butter, and the Bayou Classic crowd aren't extravagant tippers by any stretch. Several of them even complained about paying what is generally considered a bare minimum price for a ride. Ahem... I'm thinking I better change the subject here before I get in over my head. There's something a bit unseemly about a white guy whining about black folk not being willing to pay him a fair wage.

All in all, I sincerely enjoyed transporting the Bayou Classic guests. A real highlight for me was the chance to share the story of my personal Grambling connection with so many of the university's students, alumni and fans. For those of you who don't know, here's the synopsis of that story: My wife and I met for the first time 24 years ago at Grambling. She was a junior at the University of Southwestern Louisiana (now U. La. Lafayette), and I was a senior at the University of Southern Mississippi. (I like to say that USL stands for the University of Super Women and USM for the University of Super Men!) We met at a conference of Chi Alpha, a Christian student organization with which we were both involved.

The Bayou Classic actually featured two separate Superdome events: an epic Battle of the Bands on Friday night and the football game on Saturday night. Most of the partying and carrying on actually happened on the first night. Game night was a bit anti-climactic with a soaking rain that probably sent a lot of would-be partiers straight from the Superdome to their hotel rooms.

At one point during the game, I ducked into a Starbucks adjacent to a hotel lobby to escape the heavy rain. The hotel concierge saw me standing there at the Starbucks counter and rushed to me with me a towel to dry myself off. "Stay in here in the lobby as long as you want," she urged. "Our doorman will keep an eye on your bike." God bless her!

The New Orleans police department unveiled a new security plan for the event -- partly in response to the Bayou Classic's reputation/history and partly in response to an infamous series of shootings this past Halloween. I read news reports that spoke of 700 plus cops on the street. Honestly, I would have guessed a much higher number. I had never seen so many police in one place before.

As the crowds spilled out of the Dome, the police kept blocking more and more streets to deal with the traffic flow and to stay on top of the security situation. I ended up feeling like a rat in ever-changing maze. After the Battle of the Bands on Friday night, I got stuck in traffic on the Superdome side of Canal St. for more than an hour -- and this just at the time when all of the pedicab action had shifted across to the French Quarter side of the street. It was frustrating of course, but I comforted myself with the thought that the lessons I was learning during this, my first Superdome event, would enable me to position myself in the thick of the action next time.

My most precious passengers

The Thanksgiving holiday offered me the chance to finally take the wife and kids out for a spin on the pedicab. It was a huge treat for Lydia and Luke and maybe even more so for me. I think Mary enjoyed it too, but she's not the type to get over-enthusiastic about that sort of thing.

Memo to self:

Next time you're going to be riding and there's rain in the forecast, don't forget to pack some towels to wipe off the passenger seat. People are apparently a lot more tolerant of getting their heads drenched than getting their seats soaked.

Perfecting the 3-second sales pitch

Night and day

Today was better than yesterday but still painfully slow. I mentioned in yesterday's post that it's much easier to make good money at night. There are certainly more tourists out and about in the Quarter after dark; but I'm starting to wonder whether there isn't another factor at work beyond sheer numbers. I've noticed that the people that I approach act differently in the daytime than they do at night.

Day or night, the vast majority of them decline my offer of a ride, of course. But they don't decline it in the same way. After sundown, if I say to someone, "Would you like a ride?", he's likely to look at me with a big smile and say, "No thanks. We're good!"; whereas, in the daytime, he'll probably look away, scowl, and shake his head no. What's up with that?

At least a smile

Challenging days like these give me more opportunity to perfect my 3-second sales pitch. I'm constantly experimenting with endless variations on a basic theme:

"Need a ride?"
"Would you care for a ride?"
"Wanna ride?"
"Would you like a lift?"
"Care for a lift?"
"Who's ready to ride?"

Getting people on the bike is the goal of course, but failing that I hope to at least get them to smile. Sometimes the border between being funny and obnoxious is pretty thin. Here are some the things I might say:

"Take a trip on my magic chariot!"

To the male half of a couple: "What kind of a gentleman are you making a lovely lady like that walk?"

To someone who looks overweight and tired: "Ready to get off your feet for a bit?"

To a parent with a child: "I'll bet the little fellow there would like a ride!" (Kids always want to ride. Sometimes I'll address the kid directly, and the kid will say, "Yes!" In these cases I don't get very many smiles from the parents. They look at me with spitting cobra eyes and say, "No thank you!" in such a way that you know the "thank you" wasn't at all sincere before turning their attention to comforting the bitterly disappointed tot.)

To girls in stilettos: "Aren't you ready to get off those heels?" (All joking aside, alcohol, high heels, and the broken pavement of the French Quarter streets are a dangerous combination. I see girls stumbling and falling  all the time. I played ambulance driver last week to a girl who had twisted her ankle badly. She was celebrating her 24th birthday, poor thing.)

To someone sitting on a bench: "Hey, you could be resting and moving at the same time!"

To people emerging from the convention center when I know that there's a teachers conference going on: "We've got discounts for teachers today!" (We generally let people pay whatever they want for anything under 20 minutes, so the discount is whatever they want it to be.)

One of my biggest challenges is that I can only take two passengers or three at the most. Packs of four or more tourists seem a lot more common than couples. Here's a common scenario:

Me to a group of six tourists: "Anybody ready for a ride?"
One of the six (laughing): "Can you take all of us?"
Me: "I can take the two tiredest!"

This rarely fails to get a smile.

My first night on the job a prostitute called out to me as I rode by: "Hey baby, where you going?" I guess she was working on her 3-second sales pitch too.

Bright spots on a bad day

I've been experimenting lately with working a mixture of nights and days to figure out what works for me. There's a lot more money to be made at night -- and probably better stories for the blog. The downside of the night shift is that it makes it a lot harder to be a good dad and husband. Also, Mary is teaching in New Orleans, so if I can synchronize my schedule with hers we can commute together -- thus carving out a little more couple time and saving some money on fuel. Long term, I'll probably have to choose either days or nights because switching back and forth is just too physically demanding.

Last week I did better than expected on the day shift. I mentioned the H&R Block convention in an earlier post. Just as the accountants were clearing out the National Alliance of Black School Educators came to town, and I did OK with those guys too. I rode up and down in front of the convention center shouting, "We got a teachers' discount today!" Even when I didn't get riders, at least I got lots of big smiles.

Since it's so much harder to make money in the daytime, the rent that our company charges operators to ride during the day is ridiculously low compared to the night rate. As I was paying up at the end of a profitable shift, one of the brothers who co-runs the company said, "We're probably having to raise our day rate soon." And the other brother said, "Yeah, we'll call it the Mark factor."

Like I said, that was last week. Apparently, there aren't any conventions in town this week. Financially, yesterday was the worst day of my brief career. I had very few riders, and though all of them were fair with me, none were particularly generous tippers.

The good news is that I ran into two old friends whom I hadn't seen in many long years. Both of them are now working in downtown New Orleans, one as a concierge at a hotel in the Central Business District and the other as a tour guide on a mule carriage in the French Quarter. (The CBD and the French Quarter are two adjacent parts of the city that that make up most of our territory.)  I'm excited to know that these guys are in the neighborhood and for the chance to renew old friendships.

(When I mentioned that I has having a slow day, the concierge said that Thanksgiving week is always a slow time for tourism in New Orleans.)

Another bright spot yesterday was a pair of passengers who gave me a really good laugh, which I suppose is the next best thing to a really generous tip. They were middle-aged, very overweight women, and as we sailed down Decatur, one of them was singing at the top of her lungs: "Don't cha wish your boyfriend had a bike like mine!" (to the tune of "Don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me.")

"Are we the fattest people you've ever hauled?" they asked me.

"Not by a long shot." I answered. "I had these two girls the other night. I told them I might have to charge them by the pound!" (This was true by the way.)

"Well, we may not be the fattest, but I bet we're the most fun," one of them said.

"Well I'd have to say that you rank pretty high up there," I told them.

Before I found this job, I turned down a job selling life insurance. That job offered the potential to make a lot of money. But I figure that even a bad day driving a bike taxi is a lot more fun than a good day selling insurance. I'm just speaking for myself here. I've got a good friend who absolutely loves selling life insurance, and I'm happy for him.

Trying on someone else's glasses

I had a couple from Atlanta on the back of my bike the other day. They were about 10 or 15 years older than me and African American. We rode past the police station on Royal Street, and the man spoke up:

"That's a police station isn't it? Can you pedal a little faster?"

Chuckling, I said, "My dad grew up here in New Orleans, and he was in trouble with the law all the time when he was young. But he raised me to be a law-abiding citizen."

My passenger paused a minute before replying: "That's nice in theory... But you know, you're white."

His words took the wind out of me for a moment then left me irritated at myself for having been been totally oblivious to the racial subtext of the "pedal faster" comment.

Mentally groping for some common ground, I thought of the twinge of fear I feel when I pass by the Iberville housing project. But the limitations of the analogy were immediately obvious to me. Being afraid of outlaws is bad enough; but being afraid of the law must be many, many times worse. That's something I've been privileged not to have experienced.

Conversation between two drunk Cajuns riders from Lafourche Parish

Drunk Cajun A: Man, look at those calves!

Drunk Cajun B: Those aren't calves, no. Those are full grown cows!

In which I ride to the rescue of a young movie star

I found six-year-old Hunter and his mother shivering on a street corner in the Central Business District at 9:10 a.m. yesterday. The previous day had been as hot and muggy as... well,... as New Orleans; but a cold front had blown through during the night and a blustery wind was whipping down the city streets. When I'm riding, I pretty much generate my own heat, but even I was feeling it a bit. Apparently, Hunter's mom hadn't anticipated this kind of weather, and neither she nor her son had the proper apparel.

Hunter was in town because he had a part in a movie called Dog Fight. In order to be on time for shooting he was going to have to be back at that same corner by 9:30. That gave us just 20 minutes. None of the nearby clothing stores opened till 10.

"Hop aboard!" I told them. "We'll find something." I was carrying my sweatshirt, which I had just washed the night before, in the storage compartment under the passenger seat, so I pulled it out, wrapped Hunter up in it, and set out into the cold headwind pumping the pedals at double speed.

I headed toward the French Quarter figuring that our best chance was to find a sweatshirt in a souvenir shop. Along the way I learned that my six-year-old passenger was no stranger to the silver screen. He had already had parts in a couple of movies -- not to mention TV commercials and whatnot. "Wow, this is really cool," I told him. "I've never hauled a movie star before!"

I pulled up to the first souvenir shop we came to and waited while Hunter and his mom rushed in. They came back after just a couple of minutes, empty-handed. The clock was ticking. Desperate, I asked a female taxi driver nearby if she had any suggestions. "I'd try over on Bourbon," she said. "You're bound to find something over there."

Of course! Bourbon St. is better known for it's strip clubs, but I'd venture to bet that there are at least ten t-shirt shops for every strip club. Among those dozens of t-shirt shops lining the street, surely one of them would be open early. (You, dear reader, may already be recognizing the problem with this plan. Of course I should have seen it as well. All I can say in my own defense is that I was in a big hurry to help out a cold kid.)

We zipped over to Bourbon St., and right away, we found an Asian guy just opening up his shop for the day. (Kudos to all the hardworking Asians who get to work 45 minutes before everybody else. This early bird was definitely going to be rewarded with the worm!)

"We're looking for a child's sweater or sweatshirt, something nice and warm for this little guy. Y'all have anything like that?" I asked.

"Yes, we have, we have!" he said.

Once again Hunter and his mother disappeared into the store. As I sat outside watching the shopkeeper set up his wares for display, I suddenly realized that thing that probably made you, the reader, groan out loud a couple of paragraphs ago -- that is, assuming you have any kind of notion of the kind of merchandise that dominates the market on Bourbon St. If you don't know and can't guess, let me just say that if I were to reproduce here the messages printed on some of those shirts, my blog would immediately be placed in the "adult content" category. There were even shirts with stick figures engaged in various kinds of sex acts. "Oh my!" I thought to myself. "What have I done now?"

My riders came back out after a few minutes both wearing brand new sweatshirts with "New Orleans" emblazoned across the front -- likely the only garments in the entire shop that weren't obscene, sacrilegious, or both.

"I'm really glad you found something," I said. "I... uh... hope Hunter doesn't read too well." Which under normal circumstances would have been a terrible thing to say to the parent of a six-year-old.

"Oh, Hunter reads very well!" his mother assured me.

"I'm really sorry," I said.

"It's OK," she said. "At least we're warm now. And we're going to be on time."

By the way, the film industry is really taking off in New Orleans lately. They tell me that there are 7 movies currently being filmed in the city. Hollywood at the mouth of the Mississippi!

Amish gone wild

You know that thing about not taking pictures of Amish people? I've always heard that they consider photography a violation of the commandment against graven images and that an Amish dude will get really angry if you take his picture. (Which raises the question, what might an Amish man do to you if he gets really angry? Perhaps he might forcibly shave your beard, like this guy. But what if you're clean-shaven like me?)

Anyway, we all know that the French Quarter is a place where people release their inhibitions and do outrageous, scandalous stuff, right? So I suppose I shouldn't be shocked. Anyway, I'm sitting on a corner by the French Market waiting for a couple of clients -- an elderly man and his even more elderly aunt -- to finish their shopping and climb back on my bike when this group of Amish women walks by. One of them -- I'm guessing she was about 40 or 50 years old -- hangs back just a bit to let the group get ahead of her, glances furtively around, quickly pulls a camera from her purse, and takes a picture of me. She snaps the picture at waist level without taking the time to aim and focus and quickly slides the camera back into her bag.

In a recent post I speculated that I might be on my way to becoming a major New Orleans tourist attraction. But I never imagined that it would get to the point that Amish people would be taking pictures of me!

(By the way, if I seem to be making fun of the Amish, you should understand that I consider myself a dedicated Anabaptist, which makes me a close ideological cousin to the Amish. So I look at it as gently poking fun at family members.)

From the superhero files: Pedicabbieman

• superpower: super strong legs
• mild-mannered alter-ego: Mark Orfila
• Achilles heel: poor sense of direction; lack of ability to navigate tight spaces on the street
• nemesis: auto taxi drivers and mule carriages?
• cool superhero-mobile: big yellow trike with back seat
• hq: dank, abandoned parking garage beside an infamous housing project
• back story: delivered newspapers by bicycle as a boy;developed massive calves while fleeing neighborhood dogs and bullies; further developed and refined cycling powers as an adult biking up Mount Vodno in Skopje, Macedonia

5,000 bean counters

OK, here I am coming to you live via the miracle of modern technology atop the seat of my big yellow trike here at the c...

I had the brilliant idea of blogging live from my bike last night, but that's as far as I got. (In case you're wondering, the last part of that sentence was supposed to be "corner of Royal and Toulouse".) The blogspot interface on my Android phone turned out to be virtually impossible to work with, and I finally got frustrated and gave up. I was making good money, -- more on that later -- so I didn't want to waste a lot of time sitting on a street corner trying to type invisible text onto a microscopic keyboard.

There are 5,000 H&R Block people in town for their annual convention, so transporting accountants was the bulk of my business by far last night. This produced a kind of good news/bad news situation.

Bad news first: They were every bit as boring as you would expect accountants to be. Nobody was drunk. (Though it was Monday night and the first day of their convention. so they may start to cut loose later in the week.) Nobody said anything outrageous. Nobody even said anything at all to me about my calves (though I did overhear them remarking to one another a couple of times). I finished the evening without any compelling stories for you, my readers.

The good news is that I made a ton of money! Thanks to the generosity of H&R convention-goers, I exceeded my financial target (set by the company) for the first time last night.

If you were to say to me, "Bean counters are boring," I wouldn't have any reason to disagree. But if you were to say, "Bean counters are stingy," I would be obligated to stand up to you and defend them against a vicious and baseless prejudice!

Regarding fat derrieres and massive calves

The mules and me

I picked up a lady and her little girl the other day. The mother informed me that her daughter had wanted to ride in a mule-drawn carriage, but that she (the mother) had been dead set against it.

"Well I'm glad you chose me, but I'm curious as to why you weren't comfortable getting in a carriage," I asked.

"I guess I just feel sorry for the mules hauling all that weight," she explained.

I stifled a snort of laughter lest the lady think me ungrateful for her business. Actually, I can kind of see her point if I squint just right. I mean the mules didn't really choose the job, right?

Every street name is a shibboleth.

Unlike this particular lady (who was actually quite trim), many female passengers express their self-consciousness about their weight in the form of pity for me. "Oh, I feel so sorry for you. I know I must be really heavy for you to haul," they say.

Last night I picked up three such ladies, girlfriends from out of town having a good time in the city. (We're allowed to carry up to three, but the passenger seat only fits two adults, so in cases like this somebody has to sit on somebody's lap.) They were a real hoot -- the kind of folks who make my job so much fun.

They did seem genuinely concerned that their weight would be too much for me, and I reassured them that it wasn't going to be a problem.

That's not to say that there wasn't any problem. The real problem was going to be finding the place they wanted to go. They asked to be taken to a bed and breakfast in the Marigny, out on the edge of the territory we generally cover. In my first week's work I've grown a lot more confident about navigating New Orleans' narrow streets, but I've still got a lot of learning to do. I told the ladies upfront, "We may not get there by the most the efficient route, but I promise we'll find it."

As it turned out I took a couple of wrong turns and had to stop and ask directions a couple of times. I kept apologizing to my riders, but they were very encouraging. "Oh no, don't worry about it. We're having fun! We just feel sorry for you having to haul our three fat asses around."

I need to interject a little explanation at this point. Going into the job, my mom's greatest fear was that I would be stabbed by a junkie for the cash to buy his next fix. My greatest fear, on the other hand, was butchering a street name in front of a local.

Having grown up across the lake from New Orleans, I don't stumble at all over words like Tchoupitoulas, which totally intimidate tourists. For me the really scary ones are those that appear simple and straightforward. Like Conti for example, which New Orleans natives pronounce "Kon-tie" with a long "i" at the end. Or "Burgundy" with the accent not on "Bur" but on "gun". (Given New Orleans' notorious murder rate, maybe there's some Freudian thing going on with this one.)

The names of the city's streets are a mixture of Spanish, French, native American, and heaven-only-knows what else; but there is no discernible pattern to the pronunciation. I say "discernible", because I suspect that there really is a pattern known only to insiders. I'm convinced that it's all a carefully thought out conspiracy designed to easily identify who's local and who's not. There's probably some kind of code, for instance, that dictates that French names will be pronounced according to the rules of native American pronunciation; native American words will be pronounced according to Croatian rules; and so forth.

I really thought I was figuring it out and that I was going to be spared any major shame. The previous night I had actually laughed at some poor tourist (Not one of my riders. I would NEVER laugh at a rider.) who pronounced "Marigny" (the "g" is supposed to be silent) "margin-y".

So here I found myself -- a man transporting three female passengers, upon whom I hoped to make a reasonably good impression if for no other reason than to get a generous tip -- being forced to stop and ask directions. Everyone knows that this in itself is agonizingly embarrassing for us men. But it was about to get a lot worse.

"Excuse me, sir," I said to a fellow on a street corner who looked suitably local. "Can you tell me how to get to Royal and St. Roch?" And I pronounced "Roch" -- Oh the shame! -- like "roach". Which is pretty hilarious if you think about it. St. Roach, of all things!

"Do you mean St. Roch?" he clarified, pronouncing it like "rock". (Which as it turns out is the proper French pronunciation. I'll have to find a way to accommodate this fact to my conspiracy theory.)

I don't think that the ladies noticed all that much. They were from out of town, and it wasn't as if they had known the proper pronunciation after all. Like I said, they were pretty gracious for the most part,.

Did you get your license in a box of Cracker Jacks? 

One of them couldn't resist a deep dig though. They asked me about the job, and I mentioned that there was a fairly rigorous process for obtaining a permit to be a pedicabbie. There was a pause, and one of them said, "Really?" (Since you, dear reader, weren't present to hear the inflection, an explanation is necessary. One can say "Really?" merely as a friendly way of showing interest and keeping the conversation moving; or one can say "Really" as a way of expressing genuine incredulity. This was definitely the latter.) Ouch!

I finally found the hotel and dropped them off safe and sound. Ten minutes later, I picked up a pair of ladies who also seemed self-conscious about their weight and expressed it in precisely the same way. "Are you sure that you're really up to hauling our fat asses?" they asked. "We don't want to kill you or break the bike!"

Again, I promised them that it wasn't a problem. "You should see the ladies I just hauled," I said. "There were three of them, and they were way fatter than y'all!"

(For the record, I have to admit that I really don't know which group was fatter. I was just trying in my own clumsy way to be nice. Looking back, I can see that I went about this in the altogether the wrong way; telling a woman who's worried about her weight, "I've seen worse," isn't very helpful, is it? I've always been awkward when it comes to this kind of thing.)

"So where are you headed?" I asked.  "Balcony Bed and Breakfast," they answered. "It's on the corner of Royal and St. Roch."

"You're kidding!" I blurted out. "What a coincidence. I just finished taking three ladies there to that very same place."

My passengers burst into laughter. "The ones who were way fatter than us?" one of them asked when she could get her breath.

I must have gone pale. "So you know them then?" I asked weakly.

"We're not old friends or anything, but we met them there at the guest house. Hey, don't worry about it. We wouldn't dream of telling them that you said their asses were way fatter than ours!"

 A freak show on three wheels

I've mentioned a couple of times the attention that my calves have been attracting. Well it just keeps getting crazier. As I noted before, it makes sense that the backs of my lower legs would be the most noticeable part of my anatomy from the passenger seat of the cab. But lately people have been calling out to me from the street as I ride by. Drunk women. Gay men. All kinds of people.

To tell the truth, I was enjoying the admiration at first, but now I'm starting to feel a bit like a freak show on wheels. Maybe my calves are destined to be one of New Orleans' major tourist attractions. I guess that's OK as long as it helps me get more riders and bigger tips.

Dirty Bird riders

I sure am glad that the Saints pulled it out today in overtime against our bitterest rivals, the Atlanta Falcons, (or "the Dirty Birds" as we call them around here). I had a couple of passengers from Atlanta over the course of the last couple of days, and I thoroughly enjoyed talking smack with them.

"I'm going to treat y'all extra good today because I know that Sunday is gonna be a real sad day for y'all!" I told them. Naturally, they gave as good as they got, and it was all in good fun.

I've got some good stories to tell about the last few days adventures when I get a little more time. Stay tuned.

An old friend and a new band

Last night's highlight was the chance to haul and hang out with an old friend. I've noticed that the phrase "old friend"  lends itself to jokes due to the ambiguity as to exactly what is being referred to as old. Is it the friendship or the friend? In this case, I would have to say both. The friend is pushing 50, and the friendship is almost 30.

I'm referring here to Eric Treuil here, alias E.T. Eric works at the University of Louisiana Lafayette with Chi Alpha, a Christian student organization. He was in town for a national convention of the organization's leaders. (I also worked with Chi Alpha many years ago including a stint as intern under Eric in 1988/89.)

He rang me on the cell phone last night to tell me that he was eating beignets at Cafe du Monde, so I pedaled over there as fast as my muscular calves would push me. We chatted on the street in front of the cafe for a few minutes, then he and another Chi Alphan climbed into the passenger seat for a ride back to their hotel. Along the way he kept saying over and over, "This is just so surreal!"

It was a bit surreal I suppose -- but also a ton of fun. May God grant that the friend and our friendship just keep on getting older.

I gotta give a shout-out here to E.T.'s brother in law, Adolfo Garcia, who is one of New Orleans' top chefs. His flagship restaurant, RioMar, has become legendary not only locally but nationally. More recently he has opened an Argentine steakhouse (La Boca) and an Italian restaurant (A Mano), both of which are also attracting rave reviews and hordes of hungry people.

At the end of the shift, I hung out a bit back at the shop with my boss PJ and a colleague. PJ's originally from D.C. but he's been captured by the orbit of the Crescent City and has become a walking Wikipedia (uh, make that "pedaling Wikipedia") of what is hip, fun, and delicious in town. (He says that this is the key to making a good living as a pedicabbie.) In the course of the conversation, he highly recommended a local indie rock band called The Revivalists. I checked them out online and was suitably impressed. Here's a video. (I'm totally enamored with the Avett Brothers and Mumford and Sons these days; apparently I've got a real weakness for banjo bands!)  And here's an article about them from the Times Picayune. They play tonight (November 11) at One Eyed Jack's in the Quarter. If you're around for the show make sure to call me to come take you for a spin!

First day, continued

Fishing for riders 

After my fellow pedicabbies and I had dropped off our first passengers, we were on our own. I spent the rest of the night zig-zagging in and around the French Quarter, trying to catch the eye of every pedestrian I passed and calling out to them: "Hey, need a lift?" Most smiled and said, "No thank you," which was really nice because it didn't feel at all like rejection.

Occasionally someone said yes and this invariably gave me a jolt of joy -- like the feeling you get from an unexpected compliment or a surprise gift. I'm guessing that as I get better at the job, I'll start actually expecting people to want to ride, and that this expectation will make me more effective. I figure it's a bit like fishing. When you really expect to catch something on every cast -- an expectation which every fisherman knows is utterly unreasonable -- you somehow end up with a lot more fish. Maybe there's something about confidence that makes you work that lure a little more convincingly. Or maybe it sharpens your reaction time so you set the hook a split second sooner.  Then again, maybe it's just my imagination...

Complimentary and kind passengers

Ok, this blog isn't about fishing. Where was I? Oh yeah, speaking of unexpected compliments... I got a lot of admiration of my calf muscles. (Presumably this would be the part of me most readily apparent from the rear of the rickshaw). While living in Skopje for the last couple of years, I got around almost exclusively by bicycle. Our house there was situated at the top of a daunting hill, which had to be conquered every time I came home. I guess that well-defined calves on an otherwise flabby, forty-five year-old body are the trophies of that daily struggle.

I had imagined that my passengers might be irritated to find themselves in the care of a pedicabbie who knew next to nothing about the layout of the city. I decided that my best policy was to appeal to my passengers for mercy. I explained at the beginning of every ride that it was my first night. "If you know how to get where you want to go, feel free to navigate us. Otherwise, I can look it up on my smart phone or radio the dispatcher for directions." As it turned out, every one of them was gracious, and there was never so much as a hint of annoyance.

Childhood delight

I think that my favorite passengers of the evening (though not my most profitable by a long shot!) were a mother and her 11-year-old son. "How much does it cost?" she asked a bit anxiously when I approached them.

"As much as you want to pay!" I said. (Municipal law allows us to charge up to a certain amount based on a fairly complex fare structure, but our company encourages us to allow our passengers to decide for themselves the value of our service.)

"My son has really been dying to ride one of these, but I've only got three dollars," the lady said.

"That's fine," I said. "Hop on!"

Let me interject here that I have an 11-year old son at home, so if I speak about "kids these days", I presume to speak with some authority. One of the things I thought I knew is that in the era of the internet and Xbox, kids are a lot harder to entertain and impress than they used to be. But for this one boy at least, sitting on the back of a giant tricycle with a grown man pedaling him around town was almost as good as riding with Aladdin on his carpet or Santa on his sleigh.

 "How old do you have to be to drive one of these?" he asked me.

"I dunno. I guess 18," I replied.

"Well I want to do this when I grow up!"

Of course you do, I thought. Who wouldn't? What a lucky guy I am!

We didn't go very far, probably because the mother didn't want to take advantage of me. But with the joy that was flowing between that 11-year-old boy and me, I think that I would've been willing to take them all the way to Texas!

Who says there's no free ride?

I mentioned that these weren't my most profitable customers, but they weren't my least profitable either. I actually hauled one guy for free. He was a New Yorker, not much more than a kid really -- maybe late teens or early 20s. I got the impression that he might have hitchhiked down here. He told me straight up that he didn't have any money, and I said, "Hey, that's cool! It's my first night. I need the practice."

At the end of the ride, he said, "Thanks man. Hey, I've got some cookies I found. They're really good! Take them. I feel bad that I can't pay you."

"No thanks, man, it's OK. Really."

"Well how about this cigarette lighter? Can I give you my cigarette lighter?"

"Thanks, but I don't need it. It was my pleasure. Really, it's OK."

I know that the job's primary purpose is to provide for my family and that providing free transport to down and out ramblers won't necessarily help me accomplish that. But I'm thinking that one of these days when Jesus is sorting things out, he might say to me, "Mark, remember that time I was in New Orleans, and you gave me a free ride?" (See Matthew 25:32-46.)

And I'll say, "Yeah, I remember that! But I've got one burning question for you... If it's OK. What was up with the cigarette lighter!"

An intoxicated Welsh nationalist

Given the French Quarter's reputation, I began the evening expecting to be the designated driver for a lot of drunks. As it turned out there was only one. She and her husband were returning to their hotel room just before midnight. They were probably in their 50s. He barely said a word the whole time and seemed pretty steady getting in and out of the rickshaw, so I'm assuming he was sober more or less. She, on the other hand, was a bit wobbly on her feet; and her speech was slurred and very LOUD.  I recognized from her accent that she was from the U.K., but there was none of the renowned British reserve here.

"I gather that you're from the U.K.," I said to strike up conversation.

"Yes!" she said. "We're from Wales. We're Welsh. We're not English." I've had enough exposure to the U.K.'s various nationalisms (Welsh, Cornish, Scottish, Irish, etc.) to  guess what was coming.

"Have you ever been to the U.K.?" she asked.

"Yes, but only to London and only very briefly."

"Well, you should go to Wales! Wales is wonderful. England is shit."

A few minutes later, apropos of nothing, she called out again from behind me: "England is shit!" Apparently she wanted to be sure I got it.

Then as we pulled up in front of the hotel she shared her assessment of England one more time just in case I had missed it on the previous two occasions: "England is shit!" she shouted.

A high price for a ride.

One more story, this one pretty sad. I approached a young lady (again late teens/early 20s) to ask if she needed a ride, and she said, "Uh... Actually, yeah... But to the Westbank..."

"Oh sorry. I can't take you there," I said, stating the obvious. (For those of you not from around here, the Westbank is the area across the Mississippi River from New Orleans.)

"Yeah, I know," she agreed. "But, um, here's the deal. See, I work at this strip club, right? And I didn't make any money at all tonight. And I don't know how I'm going to get home. Is there any way you could just give me some money to get a cab?"

The cost of a taxi to the Westbank would probably have taken everything I had earned that evening up till that point. "Sorry. I can't help you there," I said as I began pedaling on down the street. I heard her behind me calling out, "I would do anything! I would..." The last part of the sentence was indistinguishable in the general Bourbon Street hubbub as I pulled away. But I have a pretty good idea what she might have been offering. Later on, I felt really bad. I think that if I had it to do over again, I would give her the money. I hope she found someone else to help her get home -- someone decent enough not to charge her the price she was willing to pay.