Newsletter #495
The Crack of Dawn
Speaking of Uber drivers, the fellow who just drove me here to the hotel in San Rafeal was a big, hairy, tattooed, Latino-American fellow of perhaps 40, who entirely filled the driver’s area. He would be standard typecasting as a gang member, except that he didn’t act like one at all. He was listening to loud Death Metal, or whatever it’s called, where the lead male singer grows in a pained voice, with a crashing lead guitar (that never ever manages to find a cool riff).
Anyway, I let him know right away that the music was cool and totally fine with me. Naturally, he immediately turned it down. Well, OK, that was fine, too. Quiet was far preferable to that noisy bullshit. However, the real reason he turned it down was to share his conspiracy theory with me. He stated in complete assurance, “It’s the FBI and CIA. They’re corrupt and after us. They’re after all of us.” Attempting the run with the conversation, I said, “The only thing that President Harry Truman regretted about his presidency was creating the CIA.” The driver flatly stated, “Truman didn’t run the CIA, Hoover did.” OK, now we were stepping onto touchy, dangerous territory. Still, I couldn’t help but say, “Truman was president when the CIA was created. Hoover ran the FBI.” I would happily have told him about Allen Dulles, the actual head of the CIA (whose brother, John Foster Dulles, was the Secretary of State under Eisenhower) but I was pretty sure he wouldn’t care. The guy wasn’t stupid; his words were well chosen, but all he wanted to do was inform me that the CIA and the FBI were corrupt and against us. This rant ended with, “That’s why the CIA guards the president.” Taken aback, and me being me, I replied, “That’s the Secret Service.” The driver informed me that, “The Secret Service is part of the CIA.” I stopped correcting him. I had reached a saturation point of futility where it seemed far too difficult to explain that the Secret Service was not part of the CIA, but was in fact part of the Treasury Department. I didn’t think he’d believe me. Since he punctuated his rant with, “Know what I mean?” When I stopped responding to this meaningless question – because I had no idea what he meant — he thankfully turned the Death Metal back on. Loud. Fine. Better than lame conspiracy theories.
Yet another Uber driver was normal-sized, obviously foreign, but of a totally indeterminate ethnicity. He was exceptionally nice and friendly, spoke English perfectly, and upon questioning turned out to be from Nepal. He almost seemed afraid to admit it, as though it was possibly too weird. Well, I happen to have written a script with Bruce Campbell about 40 years ago called The Winds of Fate that had a lead character from Nepal. That character was the inspiration for the story. He was a Gurkha. There are two main tribes of people in Nepal: Gurkhas and the Sherpas. The Sherpas are the folks renowned for their climbing skills. The Sherpa climber, Tenzing Norgay, led New Zealander, Sir Edmund Hillary, to the top of Mt. Everest in 1953.
The Gurkhas, on the other hand, are considered the greatest fighters in the world. There are presently contingents of Gurkha soldiers serving in the Nepalese, Indian and British armies. Basically, when the British were conquering and subjugating the Indian sub-continent in 1814, they took on the Gurkhas, and after two years of the fiercest fighting they’d ever encountered, and the Gurkhas simply would not give up, the British accepted that they could not beat them. So, in a particularly smart move, the British incorporated the Gurkhas into their own army. Subsequently, for about 200 years, up until quite recently, Gurkhas guarded the gates of every British embassy around the world. My character was a guard at the gate of the British embassy in Lome, Togo, in Western Africa. Gurkhas are famous for the use of their curved Kookri knives.
This is pure virtue signaling, what the fuck do I care? When the Uber driver told me he was from Nepal, and I asked if he was Sherpa or Gurkha, and he said Gurkha, well, I laid all this information on him, and he was absolutely giddy with delight. He could not have been happier. It’s a lot like the scene early on in Lawrence of Arabia, when Lawrence is being guided through the desert by a Bedouin, or Bedu, named Tafas. They are behind a sand dune and Tafas points and says, “Bedu. They are Harith. I am not Harith.” Lawrence nods and says, “No, Hazimi of the Beni Salim.” Tafas giggles delightedly; he appreciates the recognition. Well, that’s exactly what this Uber driver did. I think being Nepalese to most other folks in the world means absolutely nothing, except possibly Mt. Everest. And maybe K-2. When I said, “Kookri knife,” he just laughed like I’d told a great joke.
That’s the latest installment of Josh Meets the Uber Drivers.
My good buddy lives here. He was the basis for the lead character in "morning, noon & night "
Glad you're enjoying the " laid-back California town of sunny San Rafael." Any particular reason for this destination? Hoping you run into Shel Silverstein's heroine - 🎶 "you prob’ly know her well;
she’s been stoned twenty-one of her twenty-four years, and the story’s widely told.
How she still can smoke them faster than anyone can roll"🎵