I had been out of town visiting my mom for nearly a couple
of weeks, so Ubering for the big Coachella Music Festival was not an option for
weekend #1, even though Uber incessantly texted that they need me (and the
hundreds of other drivers they have here in the valley).
Even when I got back to town in time for weekend #2, I was
reluctant to drive, mainly because it is a long trek from Palm Springs to Indio
where the festival is held (and once you take somewhere there from Palm
Springs, I figured you were stuck there with hundreds of other Uber drivers
waiting for passengers who wouldn’t materialize until the festival ended late
at night).
Plus, there were reports of drivers getting stuck in one
hour lines just waiting to get into the
dusty
Uber drop off spot, and the fares Uber
was paying were pretty low. There were many street closures, and reports that police were writing tickets to anyone (Uber or not) for dropping people off along the street.
So, I passed on driving Saturday, but Sunday morning I
decided to give it a try.
I’m glad I
did.
The first few rides Sunday morning were from music fans
recovering from the night before … searching for a cool breakfast place or
coffee house. Cheeky’s and Lulu were
the places I recommended to them and they, not being from these parts, were
happy with the recommendations.
It wasn’t until about 11:30 that I got my first real
festival call. The ping on the app went
off, and I was on my way to meet Royce at a nice home that likely was the root
of much frustration for the neighbors.
It was a Coachella crash pad.
There were no less than a half dozen cars crammed into the driveway, and
more parked on the street. This is a nice
Palm Springs neighborhood with upscale homes, and while the city has tried to crack down
on the home rental business because of overcrowding and big parties, the endeavor
obviously isn’t 100% successful.
So, I pull up on the street behind the cars that are choking
the driveway.
Uber notifies Royce that I am
waiting.
And I wait.
And I wait.
And I wait.
After five minutes
with no activity.
I see two women on the
side of the house, spraying what I assume is sunscreen all over each other …
enough that they could have walked on the sun and not gotten a burn.
But still, no Royce.
So, I call him.
And he tells me he’ll be right out.
Number one, if you’re calling for an Uber, be ready to go
when they arrive. You think your time is
more important than mine, well that doesn’t work for me. And just as I am ready to push the cancel button
on the app, Royce spills out the front door, juggling a hat, red bandana, cell phone, can of
Red Bull, and some papers. He gets to
the car and says, he’s ready, but we have to wait for “the girls.” Another minute or two, and the sunscreen
drenched ladies emerge from the home, clueless that anyone has been waiting for
them.
They are all friendly enough, and are happy that I have the
Coachella channel on the radio, and they entertain themselves for the 40 minute
ride down valley. Now, I am following
the Uber app map which supposedly has been programmed to take you right to the
Uber drop off spot. Well, as is a
frequent problem with Uber, the app took me to streets that were closed, and
others that were so jammed with traffic, you couldn’t get through. Royce, and friends, who I waited a good 10-15
minutes to pick up are now getting antsy because they aren’t at the festival
yet, and a band they want to see they can now only listen to live on Dan’s
car radio. The irony.
Ah, but there is a silver lining in giving these clueless Coachella fans a ride to the festival. Toward the end of the ride, one of the girls in the back
seat pulls out a twenty dollar bill and gives it to Royce to cover the girls’
share of the Uber ride. No mention of a
tip for their most excellent driver. They get out and
leave. I give them a three star rating,
they give me the same or lower since my rating went down after they got out of
the car. And I go on my way. By now, it is lunch time, so I head home to
make a sandwich before the afternoon session.
As I do frequently, I check the car when I get back to see if anyone had
left anything behind and to pick up the trash passengers throw in the back
seat (passengers can be pigs). I found a candy
wrapper, an empty water bottle, an empty Red Bull can that Royce figured he
would dump in the car. And …. I found
the $20 bill that the girl had given Royce for her share of the ride. It may have fallen out of his pocket and onto
the seat. Nice unintended tip. Karma.
The afternoon resulted in three more rides to the festival
grounds, but by then, the demand was way up.
Uber fares were surging, 2-3 times normal. But the
fans didn't care ... many seemed to be on a company expense account.
Case in point … Tim.
About 3:00PM I get a ping to pick up Tim.
He has no address.
It’s one of those where it says to follow the
map to the little icon of the man.
That
is extremely frustrating for the driver, because the app map rarely works the
way it should.
It can be off by as much
as two city blocks.
It is even more
frustrating when the app takes you to a gated community where all you have is
the person’s first name, and in this case, no address.
When I get this gated community where there is no guard on duty, but simply a call box. I am stuck. Tim has not given me the gate code. So, I call Tim. He says he doesn’t know the gate code because
he was visiting a friend who had already left.
He says just follow another car in when the gate is open. So, I loiter out in front, getting the evil
eye from security people roaming around in little golf carts, just about ready
to cancel the ride, when someone pulls up to the gate. I follow them in and wind through this huge
complex to the spot where, if the Uber app was correct, I would have just run
over Tim. But you guessed it … no Tim.
I call him again, and he says he is a block away, but sees
my car and he will head to me (a block away from where the app says he was …
that’s about right). In my rear view
mirror, I see Tim, another guy, and a girl.
As he opens the passenger door, we say hi, and I see that he and his two pals
all have big beer cans they are chugging away on. “You got any problem with us drinking in your
car,” asks Tim. To which I say, “Yep,
sorry, but it is illegal in California.”
Not to mention the fact that the place is crawling with cops just
looking to find something to do. So, they
set their open containers in the parking lot of the complex at the exact same
moment one of the rent-a-cops on the golf cart comes around the corner.
“Hey, what are doing?
You can’t put those there.” So,
another delay as Tim’s pals grab up the cans and have to search for garbage.
Finally, we are underway, and I find that all three are
actually very interesting people.
They
all currently live in Hong Kong and came to the desert just for Coachella.
Tim is originally from Florida, his pal in
the back is Scottish, and his girlfriend is from China.
They are well educated, successful, and
worldly.
They talk politics and current
affairs, and they also know their music, spouting off names of bands that are
as foreign to me as The Animals, Byrds, and Stones were to my parents.
They make me feel old.
But my passengers are good entertainment, and
very nice.
Good thing, because we were
stuck in the car for more than an hour.
The traffic leading into Coachella by this time is
dreadful. Fifteen minutes to go two
blocks. The wind is strong, dust is blowing across the road. That dissuades Tim and friends from
bailing and walking the rest of the way, so they hung in there. As we finally arrive to the giant Uber lot
where an endless stream of vehicles are entering and exiting in an endless
loop, Tim and friends say how much they enjoyed the time they spent with
me. I did too. As he’s leaving, Tim says “Five stars?” I say, “Yes, for sure.” He smiles and says, “I’m giving you five
stars and a comment.” Cool. Later, I looked
at my comments. “XOXOXO” from
Tim. Go figure. Right back at ya, Tim.
My last ride of the day was for Mike from San Diego and his
friend visiting from Phoenix.
Again, two
really nice guys.
Happy.
Engaging.
A real pleasure.
As we get ready
to pull into the Uber staging area, Mike looks at the adjacent staging spot
set aside for taxis.
While the Uber lot
was jammed with cars moving through, one solo taxi car was waiting in the taxi
area.
"Wow," he says, "Guess no one is taking taxis much anymore."
For working Coachella, I made the best money yet (about $150
for the day), but it could have been much better had I worked late. One group I took to the festival said they
had to pay $385 the night before to get back to Palm Springs because the demand was so high. I said to them that’s so extreme. Their response was, “Oh we’re on a company
expense account.” I remember those days.
Finally, some observations about the Coachella crowd. Trends are cyclical. I listened to Coachella radio all day. The music I heard reminded me a lot of the
cutting edge stuff we were listening to in the mid-60s, less raw, more
refined. I just don’t know the names of
a lot of the groups. But the ones that
seemed to have the biggest buzz among my passengers were The Chainsmokers,
Chvrches, Calvin Harris, and James Bay.
Most thought Guns n Roses were dismal.
As for fashions, many of those I gave rides to could have
been cast members in “Rowan and Martins Laugh In” or the “Sonny and Cher Comedy
Hour” from the 60’s and 70’s. Big floppy
hats, tie died shirts, beads, worn out jeans, vests. If only I would have saved my clothes from
high school! I have hope for the next
generation.
Tomorrow, I meet with the local manager of Lyft, Uber's competitor, and I hope to be driving for both by this weekend ... just in time for the Stagecoach Country Music Festival in
Indio. I’ll tune to the C&W radio
channel and get behind the wheel.