drove two japanese girls from beverly hills to newport beach.

they were quiet and shy and incredibly beautiful.

talked super quietly to each other, giggled, checked their phones.

usually a 90 minute ride would include colorful conversations, mutual discoveries,

and beautiful tales from our unique walks through this so called life

but i never pushed, and they never asked, so in 20 minutes they were snoozing in the back.

i played the sirius venus channel quietly: modern tunes by women singers.

traffic wasn’t bad and when we got there i asked quietly

“is this a motel we are going to?”

they said, even quieter, “yes the blah blah on the beach hotel”

so i went where i was supposed to go, a little street that dead ended at the beach

the sun was setting, but not in a spectacular way.

i took the two huge suitcases out of the trunk and said, “im sorry you couldnt get closer”

they laughed and weirdly there was no sign that said Hotel

and they looked around and began wandering

without their luggage!

but i was already driving back out of the narrow street.

hoping theyd find their hotel. hoping it was just a door or two away.

i was in a rush to get back to the safety of hollywood.

and on the way home i was sure they would give me a less than perfect rating because i didnt show them

exactly to the door.

but this morning i looked and voila

they tipped me $20 on the $160 fare.

arigato sleeping girls!

the second rule is don’t ever pick up Uber Express Pool.

these are the short-sided mantras left by inexperienced but extremely vocal drivers on Facebook Uber groups.

any time someone posts a screenshot of a ride and it says Pool, or heaven forbid Express Pool, the overnight know-it-alls type brilliant things like Pools are for Fools.

then they call each other Ants as a slur for dutifully picking up all rides for low pay.

the truth however is more subtle. like in most things.

hidden among the not-so-small print of the Pool Rules is if you pick up Rider A and it’s surging at 2.0x, then you will get a double fare for all the riders you pick up in that pool.

So when i saw there was an express pool request coming out of CAA in Century City, I figured this fool wants to go to LAX super cheap, and I will be able to get a ride *from* LAX at 2x.

or at least that would be a possibility that I would hope for.

what i got was actually better.

i picked up a very attractive young lady who turned out to be Molly Bloom’s lawyer. Bloom of course is the writer of Molly’s Game, one of my top 4 favorite films of last year.

Mollys Game / Star Wars / Lady Bird / Florida Project

she was headed to meet with Molly at a fashion designer’s daughter’s mansion atop a Beverly Hills hill.

as we drove to the gated community she told me that she helped co-write certain aspects of the script with Aaron Sorkin.

was that totally intimidating? i asked her of working with the lauded writer of the West Wing, Moneyball, Sports Night, and others.

no, he was all ears and a total pro, she said.

the thing about Uber is no one is going to get rich except Uber. the drivers will spend hours and hours and eventually wear their cars down to the nub, so the question is: did you learn anything, did you meet cool people, did you see cool things, and was it worth your money?

when you get to spend 20 minutes with someone super interesting who can answer all of your little questions about one of your favorite films, that’s priceless to me.

Me: OK in the film the poker games were at the Four Seasons on Doheny. Is that where they were?

Her: At first they were at the Viper Room and when they got bigger we took them over to the Peninsula.

Me: Was Michael Cera’s character really Tobey Maguire?

Her: Yes.

Me: Why not just use Tobey Maguire?

Her: [Redacted]

Friday after work I got a 2x surge of these two Japanese girls from Beverly Hills to Newport Beach. I ended up with $129. Everything evens out.