1380

Day 23-29--too many days!

Back to work on Thursday, got out around 4 and it wasn't as busy yet as everyone was hoping. I'm not even convinced that there will really be that much extra business in Fort Lauderdale, but I'll happily eat my words when I get blown up on Wednesday. There hasn't been a great deal of excitement since I've buckled down and started aggressively working (insert image of steroid fueled wrestler pedicabbing) and being almost darned near a lazy potato otherwise. Focusing on the dollar so I can leave here with more than I came. Even though it hasn't been so busy, I think that's going to happen based on the past three days.

Friday I did a 6pm-3am shift and scraped together three bills after a few days of just scraping bottom. I continue to utter my mantra, "It's not Boston." I was so tired that I decided to sleep in the shop late Friday so I could get a good jump on the day for Saturday. This was a good idea in theory, as all good theoretical ideas tempt their dreamers to act, but execution proved my theory to be bunk. It was a pedicabber's 21st birthday and so when I was getting back, several of them were also getting back from the bar, fully through the wash cycle of pitchers at Grady's. One driver found himself a puffy black eye in bar fight over a game of pool, and they all came back rip-roaring about how funny it was. He had headbutted the other pugilist's nose to pieces from the ground he was knocked down to as retribution for the embarrassment he had just, and was going to suffer through the Probowl and beyond. He wears it like Hugh Hefner wears a bath robe; without shame and expecting someone to suck his dick at any moment because he's the man.

I was swept up into the revelry and we went over to the barracks to find said one-eyed pedicabber to give him a mohawk, but he had apparently dashed off into the night. I decided after giving it a quick shot and resting upstairs that my car was a better venue to stage a sleep-inn. Flash to 9 am, Paul, the road manager, is preparing to go pedicab the Art Fest Las Olas. He was the only one crazy enough to go for it, so I figured there wouldn't be much movement in the shop and I could successfully acquire a few hours of snoozin' back up on the leather couch I had previously staked out. I got down to inactive business for a while until one of our fine pedicabbers who went BACK to Grady's to OPEN UP the bar at 7am with our new 21 year old driver came upstairs. Firstly, he tried to put on music over the speaker system, and failed as he only created that intrusive brown sounding noise that is the middle-man between silence and music. I asked, "Are you seriously putting music on?" He replied, "Gotta put something on." I said, "Just listen to your headphones, man" This may or may not have happened, but he soon found the couch behind me to sleep on. I don't know if he is generally uncomfortable in sleep, if he was wrestling a demon in his drunk dreams, or if he was pantomiming something esoteric and erudite to the lord before slumber, but he was sleeping fucking LOUD. He then proceeded to snore. But snore is such a pleasant word, it can even be cute. Let's invent something to describe this kind of snoring...quick brainstorming session here.

Blore
Groar
Sklark
(roll the first r for a while) Rrrrark
DIE

I've never heard snoring like this. It shook the foundation. It forced air to seep more quickly from the pedicab tires. It adjusted bike seats and made the drier incapable of drying properly. Holy shit. This only momentarily ceased when he fell off the couch. He continued to writhe and saw trees in half with sound on the floor. I'm not sure if he remounted the couch again, but I heard a second, similar thud maybe minutes or hours later, followed several minutes later by the muddy, bubbling statement, "Fuckin' floor."

I woke up at 1 to the company owner ordering his son around and remarking to, I think the general manager, that guys could be making a lot of money and there are a lot of millionaires walking around out there. He was kind of right, a little. There were a lot of millionaires out there, looking at art, pretending they were hippies again listening in the city-supplied luxury lawn chairs to a Beatles cover band, but they weren't really riding. Maybe they blew their budgeted wad on that fine abstract pastel artist who's got a lot of heart. Or perhaps they dropped $35,000 on the water jug conceptual piece that was supposed to be the Virgin Mary, but looks like trash to me. Who knows. It's not Boston.

I got to sleep in "my" bed before the Probowl, which was nice because there were no rusty chainsaws cutting through rusty brass anywhere near. I set two alarms and a calendar reminder on my phone, questioned its ability to wake me up, its reliability to go off, and all technology in summation, and fell nervously into much needed sleep. A blink later, I sprang up and out, had a sufficiently great breakfast, efficiently nabbed some iced coffee, motored off towards I-195 E and suddenly witnessed a stream of pistoning people on an ING sponsored half marathon. blocking my route, rerouting me, making my perfect start imperfect and causing me to be several minutes late to the shop start time of 8 am. I was not furious, but calmly impatient, but I think it says something about the general zeitgeist that I got mad at AIG for my detour.

We got to the stadium via short bus and truck, 25 pedicabbers plus the GM total. Twenty damp football helmet looking bikes were all lined up and locked face to face and we were told to choose one as they all became unleashed. I grabbed one that had a seat that seemed like it would be comfortable and less annoying than the giant fatass seats they have on most of the bikes, claimed it by dropping my kit and other sustainables into the cab. I started riding it around and realized it was skipping when
I tried to push it in top gear. I panicked thinking, "Oh my God, I'm going to have to deal with this shitty bike all day for this huuuge event," but with a quick move, as bikes were speedily evaporating, I nabbed another one that was geared even faster and had the same style seat. Whew. Now it was time to learn the territory. Another windy training session hosted by Paul the road manager (who apparently is straight but did gay porn-rumor perhaps, but of interest to characterize) followed a trip to Walmart where I stocked up on caffeinated beverages and food. He started showing me and the 21 yr old around, and about 10 minutes into the tour, I was seeing people walking around and seeing other pedicab drivers pulling fares, so I basically said to hell with the instructional accompaniment, I'm gettin' rides! He shouts after me, "It's not a race," but I gave him, "I'm goin to work!" 10am was when I got my first ride, and started a tally for the day.

The early fares came from a parking lot at a junior and high school about 2.5 miles away from the stadium. Fans who wanted to go to the "Fan Plaza" were told to park here, a place that was so far away from the stadium that it was plain clown silly. Now on the meeting we had on Wednesday, we agreed that NOBODY should be charging less than 40 bucks to go from this remote parking area to go to the stadium. Some guys who couldn't speak English (there were about 30% of drivers that had deficiencies in the common tongue) were dropping their rates and taking rides for 30, 25, 20...but if you could talk, reason, and charm, you'd hit $40 a ride. And for 2.5 miles, you'd deserve it. Personally, I kept my finger on the market value pulse, and if rides were hard to grab, I'd drop the fare so as to be paid for my time, as opposed to not being paid. Criticism was rained upon me from jaded New York pedicabbers who love to gouge fares. I was told in a low volume moment, "dude, you're retarded," by a person that since I arrived I have been very friendly with, for dropping my prices in a low volume period to people who clearly were not going to take a ride for $40!!! I know it supposedly undercuts others, but when you aren't getting paid for your time, YOU AREN'T GETTING PAID FOR YOUR TIME! And if you don't like my style, fine, but let's stack up the figures. This was a statement game for me, since a lot of the guys down here want to deride Bostonian drivers for their tips only style. Forgive me, I know it sounds boastful that I put it out in the blog that I made whatever, but I also haven't made any money whatsoever since January 2nd, so you can take your withholdings and shove it up your BOA for all I care, I had a payday. A trusted friend said many drivers down here lie to look better than Bostonian toughguys. I would buy it. That being said, everyone here is extremely cool.

I'm not done here with the magnificence of this event. Previously, I'd maxed my pedicab gross out at $1009 on a Red Sox v. Angels double header in August of 2006. It rained at 1:15am when I had $999, and I nearly cried thinking then that it was impossible to obtain the four digit total, but low and behold, luck stands in my path more often than not, a ten dollar ride from Dillon's to the Hilton. Logging my rides for the Probowl, I figured at 2.5 miles for most of them, with 38 total rides, I easily topped 70 miles of pedicabbing from 10 am to 12:30 am. It's insane. It was as if I were to pedicab an entire day of the MS ride, and keep people in my cab for half of it. I began riding hard and just seriously smoking guys in speed. they were saying, "Hey, don't burn yourself out!" I replied, "I'm gonna do this all day!" I made a lot of great extra tips by simply, consistently passing lunchers. $1380. Nuff said. the Fort Laudy guys know I'm for real now, and if they still don't think I can compete, they're only lying to themselves. Randal can eat it, and respectuflly, I can let the Inaugural bank fade. This was a preface to Superbowl mastery, but a minor mastery in itself. Yes, I'm kind of amped up about it. But when you have no money for three months and it finds your hands, you tend to take a different view.

Rides were varied, but certain rides you just don't forget. I had two intimidating black gentlemen who I thought might have been football players, one had a golden grill, and parked near to the stadium, and requested I pick them up before halftime. They called me back as I snagged a ride back to their location, and were patient enough to wait, but little did they know that the uneventful ride I gave them was the ride that put me beyond my career pedicab gross total, going from 990 to 1010. And it kept rolling. People who I gave my number to really called back and exhibited true driver loyalty, not just for me, but for other drivers as well, it was brilliant. And forgive me for the perhaps excessive mention of numbers but I'm still quite a bit floored at what ended up happening. There were just so many rides that I had about 30 min of total breaktime the entire day, I couldn't stop moving!!!

Killing the day, I found out I had made the 2nd most through inquiries, drove to The Abbey, and burned my stress off until about 4:30. I missed 1 pm brunch the next day with Frank, the abbey bartender and the weird kids I met there after workin, but my homemade omelette told me, "ssssshhhh, you didn't miss anything, bitch." My omelette bitchified me, and I loved it for it.

RANDOMS:::::::
Lately my schedule is skewed and I wake up comfortably at 2 pm. Fine. Its good because when I finish work, I can burn out in a bar until 5 am, but the cycle of it is very Miami.

Songs are following me! I don;'t know why, but they keep coming. "Fried Neckbones With Some Homefries," "Wanted Dead Or Alive," "Last Train to Clarksville," others. It's getting kind of creepy.

Monday night I met with my GWL friend Mallory at the Democratic Republic of Beer in Miami proper. The food and beer were great, but the service was asking a stupid dog to sit. It took a while. Regardless, Mo and I put ourselves to the ludicrous, and ordered a $40 bottle of beer after a significant checklist had already been tabulated. She chastisted me for even thinking about it, saying, "That money is already gone! It's already gone!" It was, and it was delicious, and I didn't knock it over this time. Between us, we put $120+tip in our tummies and paid, paid, paid, before I decided that the beer I drank needed more company in my stomach, and Checkers was conveniently next door. I went from drinking $40 beer to eating a $1.50 cheeseburger.

Statistics:
70-80 miles pedicabbed on Probowl Sunday
$1380 grossed
38 rides taken
$36 average tip
2 mi average ride
3 bananas
2-30g protein bars
2 sandwiches averaging 10 in
3 supercaffeinated beverages
2+gallons of water
5 handfuls of cashews
30 minutes of total breaktime
20 minutes I was cost in drivetime by the ING half/full marathons
10 minutes late to Probowl meeting at Fort Lauderdale Shop.

Beers From...

Day 23

132 Presidente @home
133 Presidente
134 Presidente

Day 24

135 Miller High Life Lite @shop
136 Dogfish Head 60 min IPA @home

Day 25 (slept at shop)

137 Dogfish Head 60 min IPA
138 Dogfish Head 60 min IPA
139 Dogfish Head 60 min IPA
140 Dogfish Head 60 min IPA
141 Dogfish Head 60 min IPA

Day 26

142 Father Frank's Benediction Bock @The Abbey
143 Dogfish Head 60 min IPA @HOME

Day 27

144 Yeungling in Landshark Stadium Parking Lot
145 Father Theodore's Imperial Stout @The Abbey
146 Abbey Immaculate IPA
147 Chimay White

Day 28 with Mallory

148 Terrapin Hopsecutioner @The Democratic Republic of Beer
149 Carib Lager
150 Stone IPA
151 Deus (Brut de Flanders) $40 bottle!!!!
152 Tucher Hefeweiszen @The Abbey

Day 29 with Mike and Josh

153 Lost Coast Indica IPA @Zeke's
154 Red Hook Long Hammer IPA
155 Franziskaner Weissbier
156 Brother aaron's Quadrupel @The Abbey
157 Brooklyn Hoppenweiss
158 Abbey Immaculate IPa @The Abbey
159 12 oz PBR can @Purdy Lounge (This place totally sucked and the PBR was $3.50!)
160 Cigar City Jai Alai IPA @The Room (Thanks, The Room, Sofia!)
161 Delerium Tremens
162 Victory Prima Pils

Superbowl on the horizon, travel imminent, Longshot loving life...

Next entry will be a multimedia entry, filling in photos and videos I've taken.