Wanted to leave a quick note informing you that I have work (for sale!) hanging in Redmond. Details here.

I'm still working on the writeup about the Light Skinned Black Woman, which I hope to post later this week. As some of you know, there is simply so much to say about the gal. I can't wait to share.

In the meantime, here are some new images in the Photography section of the site. They're from my most recent visits to my homeland of Los Angeles. These are all taken in Compton and East LA. 

I have a massive, gigantic post about everyone's favorite passenger, the Light-Skinned Black Woman, coming up. Yes, you know the one. I'd meant to get it in today, but time escapes me. That will come next.

For now, a small aside-

Sometimes passengers will be short on fare and either they or I will say something like, "You can pay me next time," or "Can I get the rest of this later?" or "Let's put it on the tab." It's a polite way of saying, "don't worry about this fare stuff, just come on in and relax. It's cold outside."

However. Rarely are there are times when I am rendered speechless on the job, but when people show up and pay double their fare on my bus, apparently to cover for some other day when they didn't have fare, I am in awe. Yesterday a woman in a wheelchair wheeled herself over to my waiting 358. She had a dollar folded up in her hand. I recognized her- she's the one whose wheelchair makes a beep-beep sound when it reverses, like a garbage truck- and assumed she wanted to ride my bus and had her fare ready. i was excited to see her, but she explained herself-

"I was on your bus last week, but I didn't have the full fare, and you let me slide, and so today I'm bringing you the extra dollar to make up for it..."

I blurted it out without thinking, with a look of complete shock on my face: "You're awesome!" 

She said something about wanting to do the right thing, but I interrupted her and told her to come on in.

"Oh no, I'm not riding today. I just came over here to give you the dollar."
"Oh my goodness, you are amazing. This is unbelievable." We still have a few minutes left before I pull out, so I step off the bus and chat with her. She lives a few blocks away, and hauled herself all the way out here just to hand me this folded-up dollar bill. I encouraged her to keep the dollar, but she refused. She wanted to offer some sort of gesture of thanks for how much she enjoys riding all the time. We had a lovely conversation, and we both our separate merry ways, equally gladdened by the goodwill of the other.

I took the dollar. It's like when your Uncle Albert makes that lasagna that's just okay. You take the lasagna, because it's not about the lasagna. Both of you know it isn't the best stuff in the world. It's about the gesture. He's trying to tell you that he cares about you, and when you accept the lasagna, what you're really doing is saying Thank you, I acknowledge that thought and am grateful for it. It was absolutely absurd for me to accept that dollar, but that's why I did. 

(The other notes scribbled on the transfer above refer to other small moments from that day- Awesome passenger Westin and I getting carried away on a conversation about UPS, UW, and the positive correlation between taking pictures and feeling happy; me being thrilled to see some people I knew from before (including Jermain, mentioned in numerous rte. 7 posts); a moment on the 346 where a young student I'd never seen before and I smiled at each other as if we'd known each other for years; and a Twilight Zone-like last trip on the 358, where, instead of a hundred passengers, I only had three).

"Do, or do not. There is no try," a security guard said to me with a stern voice. 

"Understood," I replied with equal seriousness. "I'm on it." I didn't recognize the origin of the statement. It was 5am on the 358. I tried not to think about how I wouldn't be done with work for the day for another 13 hours.

I, like many other operators both part and full-time, work a split shift. A part-time split is unpaid and ranges from 5-8 hours. What do drivers do on their split? It all depends. Often you have to sleep. Bus driving is not a job that can be done while nodding off. Or you can go to the dentist. You can play pool at the base. You go have lunch with somebody. You live as much life as you can while that daytime clock ticks. A split is almost always simultaneously too much time and not quite enough. Some drivers go catch a matinee. I knew of one who would run out to UW and sit in on classes. 

As for myself, I try to nap every other day. I live and die by these naps. I go all the way home to partake in them, because I rarely fall asleep in the designated Quiet Rooms, where other drivers are sleeping- I don't know how to fall asleep when someone is snoring. It's a skill I wish I possessed.

On my non-nap days, I feel compelled to do something. On occasion I would take the advice of driver Rich- "Grab a 56 to Alki, and go lay in the sun for a few hours. Just do it." This was back when there was a bus from downtown to Alki. I'd bus out there and read and walk and bask in the sunshine. "Sleep when you're dead, dude," he would say. "It's beautiful out."

Today it's cloudy. There are no shows for me to hang, no film shoots to prep or screenplays to work on. I'm free. After pulling into Central Base, I spend some time catching up with drivers I haven't seen in a while. Then I run out to catch the 41 only to miss it by a hair- by a fraction of a second- as he drives past the stop. He had to have seen me. Many's the bus rider who knows what that feels like. Because of this I decide I must not be meant to ride the 41 home, and instead go into town on the 545. I don't recognize this driver, but he knows me, and we fall into conversation. He's been part-time 22 years, and teaches at several area community colleges. He starts telling me about what it feels like to teach the students. I'm sitting up there in the chat seat, listening to his booming tenor voice and watching the cars and people go by. It's these in-between moments that I often relish as much as the more obviously exciting parts of life. There are so many stories out there.

I stroll over to the Art Museum, excited because it's a "Member Monday," only to discover the place is closed; I'm one of those non-smartphone people. I can't predict stuff like that. What am I to do? Several hours left, but not enough to commence anything too elaborate. It's the feeling of having no plans on Sunday afternoon, where you'd waited all week to have free time, but now that it's here, it's whittling itself away, and there's less activities to do with each passing minute. Monday morning is looming, and the hours are counting down. 

I run down the blocks on Second Avenue, sprinting to make a succession of 'walk' signals; when I'm running I feel whole, like all the parts of my body are coming together and have a unified purpose. I meander through the library. They don't carry Sight & Sound. On Marion I greet at a man who's missing some marbles. "Stop smiling at my white skin, you brown motherfucker," he shrieks in a guttural baritone. "Have a good day now," I yell after him. "I know you can do it!" A nearby Securitas guard and I share a laugh. 

I find myself at the Kinokuniya bookstore, the one attached to the Uwajimaya building. I'm flipping through the new Jared Diamond book. He's talking about conflict resolution in primitive societies. I glance at the David Byrne book, the one with the doughy white cover. He's discussing the tendency to conflate the new with the inauthentic- something I certainly do. I glance at a selection of journals and notebooks. On one of them, loudly printed in oversized green type, is this: "Do or Do Not. There is No Try." Next to it is a picture of Yoda, from Star Wars. So that's where that comes from. I marvel at the fact that, having not seen or heard the reference in over a decade, I notice it twice in one day.

At Uwajimaya I pick up seaweed and parilla leaves. Strolling back to Central Base, where I've stored my backpack, I run into a man with a familiar face. "If you need an umbrella, I can get you one," he says to me. Ah, the kindness of strangers.

Once again, I sprint for the 41. There's just enough time to go home and cook a quick lunch before grabbing a 346 back to North Base. This time I do make the 41, and Craig is onboard. Craig's been a fixture at Atlantic for years now. He tells me about a series of interviews he's conducting on race. He's trying to compile a bunch of firsthand accounts of people's interactions with the racial divide. We talk about the value of oral histories and creating primary rather than secondary or tertiary bodies of historical information. 

Next to Craig on the 41 is young woman of perhaps 30, with her stroller, plastic bags, and toddler in tow. "What are you guys talking about?" The conversation makes room for her and we all chat for a bit. She then leaves us be, trying to be polite. As she steps off at University Street, I want to wish her a nice day- but I hesitate. We only talked for a minute. Would it be weird? Would it make sense? Who cares. I just go ahead and say it, as she's struggling with her stroller: "have a good one!"

"Thanks," she says with a mild exclamation point. She wasn't expecting that, and you can tell she's warmed by it. Her afternoon is now a little different than it was before. I'm reminded of a moment on the 13, where I had asked a man how his day was. "It's been kind of okay, actually," he said. In a tone of surprise he went on, "you know, nobody's asked me that all day. I'm glad you said something."

You've had days or afternoons like this, where nothing really happened, and there wasn't really anything you could do. You had a few extra hours to aimlessly drift in space. You search for something, or I do, some sort of internal calm that lets me be happy doing nothing. Trying to get away from that feeling of wasting time. And then finally you push through, experiencing the gentle pulse of the present, unclouded by obligation. Here was a day where I had accomplished no great feat, but somehow I felt very fulfilled. You aren't wasting time. You're living in the present. You're attuned to details. It felt real to wish that mother well, to see the lines in her forehead disappear for that moment.

I'll end with a quote from Anna Quindlen, extolling the need for the Whitmanesque in our times:

"I don't believe you can write poetry, or compose music, or become an actor without downtime, and plenty of it, a hiatus that passes for boredom but is really the quiet moving of the wheels inside that fuel creativity....There is ample psychological research suggesting that what we might call 'doing nothing' is when human beings actually do their best thinking, and when creativity comes to call. Perhaps we are creating an entire generation of people whose ability to think outside the box...is being systematically stunted by scheduling."

There have been a number of recent and ongoing developments that limit the amount of customer service a Metro driver is able to offer. First it was the introduction of the low-floor coach, insisted upon by the ADA, which puts the customer seating further away from the driver. The front right wheel of the bus is in the way, and although low-floor vehicles in other countries put seats on top of the wheelwell, that is just not done here, perhaps because of safety standards.

For many reasons, the low-floor coach is a great idea, most obviously because disabled customers can use the bus considerably faster and with less hassle. People can get on and off the bus more quickly. There are pros and cons to everything, of course; there are also the negatives of less seats, higher possibility of passenger injuries during an accident (because the passengers are now at ground-level, alongside the cars), and so on. And sometimes, to be honest, it's nice to have the chat seat a little further back, such as when you have a stalker or someone who talks loudly about knitting.

For me, the big con is not getting to talk to people. You just don't have as much interaction when you're driving a low-floor. Why is that? Firstly, there's the aspect that the "chat seat" is now ten feet away from you, rather than an arms-length. There are certain conversations you just can't have when you're yelling (ever tried talking philosophy at a loud bar?). You also can't casually ask someone how there day is when you have to turn all the away around to see them. It's awkward and unnecessary.

There's also the "driver in the throne" aspect. On a low floor, the driver's way up there somewhere, in the high heavens, busy sitting on his throne. He's elevated. He's above you, remote and untouchable. In life, you generally don't talk to people on untouchable thrones. Compare that to a high-floor coach, where the chat seat is right there, the driver is right next you, and the two of you are sitting at the same level. Just a couple of guys sitting next to each other, taking up space. Often on the 3/4 the front of the bus- the driver and the passengers lounging around in the front area- will get into conversation together, and there's something intensely rejuvenating about that for me. It's fairly specific to that route, and it's great. A temporary living room of strangers, people who'd never otherwise talk to each other, laughing in each others' soft glow.

Is the bus driver supposed to be a bartender, having animated conversations while running over telephone poles and small children all over the city? No. I don't mean to suggest that. I hear it's frowned upon. But I will say that if I couldn't talk to the people, I wouldn't have too much interest in keeping the gig. 

A couple years ago Metro tested The Shield- a plate of bulletproof glass separating the driver from the passengers. Some other cities use it. A test bus (#4186) was outfitted with it for a couple of months, and drivers gave feedback. The Shield was met with such overwhelming resistance on the part of drivers that it was abandoned altogether. Thank goodness. "It'd be great if I hated the people," grumbled one operator. "But I don't. This job lets me do the last two of the three things I love most in life: make love to beautiful women, drive, and bullshit with people!"

As for myself, I actually dismantled the shield and removed it from sight whenever I got that test coach. I couldn't stand the thing. Aside from the fact that it's actually not safe (driver is trapped; shield creates glare that interferes with driving visibility; glass doesn't discourage assaults so much as change how people assault drivers- out with punches, in with pouring hot coffee over the top of the glass), think about the message the shield sends to passengers. 

You're getting on the bus. You notice that the driver is encased in a gigantic bulletproof cocoon. What does that tell you about your safety? He may as well be holding up a sign that says, "I'm not going to get shot in here, but you might!" Not necessary. In my opinion, stellar customer service is a much more powerful tool than the shield. If they can get by without shields in South Central LA, where I used to ride the 210 up and down Crenshaw Boulevard, we don't need them here. I was proud and thrilled at the Metro driver populace's response to the idea. I don't want to have to look for another job!

The other element that threatened to eliminate customer service opportunities was OBS- the automated stop announcement system. I spent years worrying about this, but it ended up being a non-issue. You, the driver, can still make your own announcements and be there with the people. Walter does it. Nancy does it. I learn from these guys. Thankfully, I've discovered most passengers prefer this to hearing "Kate" (the robot voice actually has a designated name) go on and on about Orca Card Vending Machines. I know I definitely get tired of hearing her blather on. It is enjoyable, however, to hear her completely mangle the names of certain streets (Okanagan Lane, Pend Oreille Road). She does her best, that poor girl. 

I was at North in the bullpen talking with Report Operator Dennis, who's been around since the dinosaurs and still has a good attitude, and he had something interesting to say about it all: people don't change. Despite all this technology, or different seat configurations or automated systems, all this new stuff, there will always be people who talk to each other. We might complain about people zoning out because of their iPods and smartphones- but aren't those the same folks who in earlier times just stared into space? "There's always gonna be the guy who wants to tell you how it is; the guy who wants to marry you; the guy who's having the worst day of his life..." he went on naming the classic archetypes. 

I actually find this comforting. There's a constancy to the human condition that exists underneath all the shifting surfaces. The thing that stood out to me in my visits to Asian countries is that beneath the vast cultural and attitudinal differences, you still saw everyone happy, angry, spoiled, kind, greedy, selfish, loving, bored, or stressed: they were all simply people, like ourselves. In the realm of universals, cultural differences are not so significant.* It ultimately doesn't matter if there's a wheelwell at the front of the bus, or an automated grocery checkout. If you want to talk to people, you'll always be able to. 

It's not as easy as it used to be, but people are still human, with that ever-reaching need to make contact, to know and be known. I'm thrilled when someone is bold enough to come up and stand by the wheelwell and chat it up. I had the 73 early one morning, low-floor, with OBS, and that didn't stop an enterprising young homeless man coming all the way up from the back to talk. He was coming from Texas, on his way to Alaska (the 73 only goes so far north; I did the best I could). We had a great conversation. Later that morning a young lady introduced herself and we had a gem of an interaction. Such days are not over.

*Read Irshad Manji's book Allah, Liberty, and Love for more on this. She argues that cultures do not necessarily deserve respect; humans, however, do. The most obvious example is when a culture actively encourages the disrespect of certain humans (like women, for instance).