THE UBER-VERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Quite often on Thursday nights I've found myself driving college kids around for hours within a very small 5 or 6 blocks of USC. This happens due to its proximity to downtown. I'll pick up riders at the Standard or the Library Bar, take them back to their dorm near the USC campus or a mysterious place with a circular drive called The Lorenzo, a luxury apartment complex full of well-off students. Often times, since you as a driver have little control over who you pick up, so often I find myself 'stuck' around USC at 1 or 2 in the A.M. I say "little control," because when a ride is requested, you can call and ask the person how long the ride is going to be, refuse it and drive off to a different area, if you wish. As a somewhat glorified scab cabbie, I have no interest in that, opting to save gas by simply pulling over and waiting for another rider to request. I like the USC area, and seeing what the kids o' today are up to. Well, it's what the kids of the eighties were up to when I was in college: getting drunk and hooking up. It's fascinating to me, though, because I never drank in college, and rarely hooked up. I didn't have the confidence, and I was dating people that were wrong for me at the time, (girls, no offense) struggling to deal with my homosexuality in a conservative state. I went to school at UT Austin, an island of liberality floating in the treacherous, meat n' potatoes waters of the rest of Texas. You knew who the gays were in college, but very few people talked about it. I regret this time of life a bit, because I knew some people who were out in the open with their sexuality, but because of either my upbringing or self-imposed cowardice, I seldom ever discussed it with even my closest friends. I'd like to shrug it off as being a function of the place and times, but there's more to it than that. There were several courageous souls who were out and proud, God bless 'em! (Or curse 'em, depending on your view of God.) Anyway, hooking up was not much of an option for me. I had horrible hair and a low self-image of my body at that time, too. It sounds awful, but my general fear of my own gayness, and schlumpy body came in handy during a time when AIDS information was either scarce or misinformed, and hysteria about AIDS ran rampant. It was a time when we were told that heterosexual AIDS transmission was going to explode like a buncha Black Cats, so many chose not to have sex at all. Except for the Fraternity/Sorority culture. Those brave young men and women of the Greek System! I grew up with a mistrust of Fraternities and Sororities. Maybe it was due to movies like "Breaking Away" or "Revenge of the Nerds." It was a big deal back then whether you were aligned with a Fraternity (the stereotype being you came from money, didn't care about women or grades, were just at school to party and network your way to a Wall Street job after graduation) or an "Independent," which meant you were poor, your parents had no "legacy" (besides the debt they spiraled into by sending you to even a cheap state school), you knew other misfits who most likely couldn't help you later in your career without the strength of that old boy network, and you were uncomfortable about sex. Today, it's a little different. College kids are laid back and more inclusive, even if they're in a Fraternity or Sorority. It's less about money and connections, and more about being social. There's been only one time I ever had a college kid in the car who seemed snotty and looked down upon me as plebe in the service industry. I dunno, maybe it's because I'm Uber X. Maybe the more entitled jerks ride with Uber Black, which are a fleet of SUVs and fancier cars. Still, the kids on 28th street (the Greek Row) by USC are pretty damned cool. They ask about you, they're polite, they're appreciative. Maybe it's the culture of Southern California. If Facebook had started at USC instead of Harvard, the movie version of it wouldn't have everyone talking in strident tones and a measured pace, each of them sounding like Aaron Sorkin. Instead, they'd be eating a burrito with fries in it while they somehow accidentally hit upon the code. Then they'd go out to Joshua Tree to do shrooms. And maybe they'd get back to the code at some point, or forget about it completely and go live in Vegas. One thing's for sure about today's college kids, though. For a supposedly tech-savvy generation, they have no idea how to use the Uber app. Without exception, they put their pin down on the app incorrectly. They invariably call or text me to tell me they're in a different location than where they dropped the pin. It's thrilling because when it's a phone call, you get the sense that they've only made 5 other phone calls in their entire life. A special, non-texting occasion. A inept tech pattern emerges, and you begin to understand why kids typically go upstate to learn about computers. Most of the kids I talk to have vague majors, such as "International Business" or "English." They have the same fear of graduating and wondering what the fuck to do next, though, as previous generations. That's inspiring, and healthy. Not surprisingly, the girls talk about boys, and the boys talk about girls. No one in the car is discussing Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. They're stuck at the bottom of the pyramid. But so am I, driving them around trying to make a buck while Drake plays on the radio. Maybe it's because I'm not around them in the afternoon, but still. When I was in college, we'd talk about utter theoretical bullshit until the wee hours of the morning, solving nothing while it ultimately ended up in a deconstruction of Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start The Fire" lyrics. So it's not like we were geniuses or anything. But there was more to the conversation than pussy and dick. Or was there? More people seem smart than ARE smart, and that's my life in a nutshell. I don't really KNOW anything, but I can drop a Maslow reference every once in a while. Makes me feel superior, but it doesn't make me any better than a freshman Fraternity pledge. Most rides with sorority girls end up with them talking about their "big sis" or some guy that's playing them. Most rides with fraternity brothers end up with them talking about their other drunk friend who was so drunk and the girl they're going to hook up with at the next party. One ride that sticks out in my head was a fraternity guy who had just met this girl at a party. They were both sophomores. He gallantly used his Uber account to take this super drunk girl safely back to her dorm. She got out, he escorted her to the door. I watched in a furtive way as she tired to make out with him, inviting him into her room. He refused. She was very pretty, and not just in the way a gay guy thinks girls are pretty. He told her goodnight and got back in my car. He starts talking a mile a minute, very affably. "I didn't want to do it like that, man. She's nice. A lot of people hook up and then get to know someone, but I'm not feeling that style. I'm not even sure why, it's not like I learned that from my parents or anything. I just feel I know the right way to act and the wrong way to act. And taking advantage of a girl is not right. Doesn't make me a pussy." "No, of course not." Then, in the way drunk people shift gears at a moment's notice, he says: "Question. I'm gonna take a shot in the dark and say you're gay. Are you gay?" It catches me off guard. I'm instantly transported back to my college days. If someone I knew wasn't gay had asked me that, I immediately would have lied and said "no." And sure, it's none of his business, but on the other hand, who cares, and why is it a big deal? It's taken me years to realize this, to become comfortable with this. I'll talk about it on stage, I'll write about it, I'll tell someone in the street. But in my car, with a Fraternity bruh sitting in the seat next to me (and not the back)? "Yes, I'm gay." "Right on. That's what I thought. Cool, man." Uh, I wonder where he's going with this. Is this the fabled getting laid I've heard so much about in Uber lore?? Maybe he has daddy issues. I ask: "Why did you ask that?" He: "I dunno, just figured it out, wanted to see if I was right." "What made you think that?" "Like, you were more interested in what that girl was wearing (she had on some weird "Supergirl" kind of costume as part of some sorority thing) as opposed to how hot she was, you're older, but you still like someone who works out. I didn't know for sure, just wondered. I don't give a shit, dude. it's awesome. There's this guy who came out in our fraternity, Ty Henderson (he didn't ask if I knew him, but this was kind of the subtext, similar to that hacky way all black people 'know each other'), and he's the first openly gay guy in our fraternity in its history. I think that is bomb. It took a lot of courage for him to come out to a bunch of animals like us. Hendy is awesome, dude." Suddenly, I have the urge to ask for Hendy's number. He continues: "And, like, selfishly, it was good he came out on our end, too. Everyone was wondering like 'is he, or what?' And when he told us, it was like so much better for all of us, like, we don't care, bro. You be yourself. But yeah, I already knew. I guess I have good, what do you call it, gay radar." "Gaydar." "Yeah, 'cause I grew up in New Jersey. you get to where you can tell, 'cause like The Situation and all those guys seem gay, but aren't, but so do a lot of the gay guys who are. It doesn't matter, but I find it interesting." We get to the destination. He holds up a fist. "Bump it, dude." I comply, awkwardly. As I drive off, my knee jerk reaction is to think he's gay. But no. He's simply a bro who knows right from wrong, and is part of a new generation. There's a long way to go in gay rights, in many places, and even in 'forward thinking' towns, like Los Angeles. Every little victory counts in making the world more harmonious, no matter how minor it seems. There's a lot we can learn from Hendy and his non-rapey frat bro. Perhaps the "Independents" and "Nerds" are somewhat getting their "revenge." I log off for the night and drive home. There are some nights when I know if I can keep driving, I'll make more money, but many nights I just want to wind up in a good mood.