I'm not really a Motley Crue fan

[October 19th, 2005] I'm not really a Mötley Crüe fan, although I will concede that The Dirt, a book written about them, is scabrously funny. But now I'm surrounded by many many many Mötley Crüe fans. Languishing near Lloyd Center, I had seen an order waiting in the frozen north. Odds were it was Jantzen Beach. Odds were against me: It was the Clark County Amphitheater.

I have to find my people amid all this?! Christ on a bike. Even when I think I've succeeded, I've failed. I pull up to a VIP area, and four people erupt with joy—a cab's here, whoo-hoo! We start to leave, but at another gate someone hails. They are the ones who called. Protocol is fuzzy here: It's bad form to put someone out of your cab, but also bad form to leave behind a customer. And one of those guys is going to Molalla. Damn. My passengers offer to pay me double to get them home to east Vancouver. I call another cab for the Molalla-bound folks and leave.

One of the women in my cab is wearing what looks like a white Christmas-tree garland around her neck, entwined with blue and red LEDs. It keeps faking me out, like there's a cop behind me. We arrive at last. The fare is $35; I'm handed $40. What about that double-fare offer, say I. One of the guys hands me a card and silently, almost dares me to run it for $40. I do, and he laughs and says that's fine. But Molalla. Whimper.