Monthly Archives: April 2018

Baby You Can Drive My Car

 

I took my first Uber ride this week.

That embarrassing acknowledgement comes as part confession, part contrition, and part caustic admission that I was wrong and need to own it.

For years, I railed against the ride sharing service, as I’m want to do with so many 21st century things. I’ll still never forgive my colleagues for allowing the term “social media” to take hold. And we did allow it — how else would it spread through popular culture? The American Surgery Association, a real thing, never would  recognize the term “social surgeon.” The Federal Aviation Administration would laugh your ass out the door if you applied for a “social pilot” license.

Yet not so with cars, even though there are 1.3 million traffic deaths a year, according to the National Highway Traffic Administration. That’s 3,287 deadly car crashes a day.

And Uber was suffering additional concerns. There was the fatal accident by a self-driving Uber in Arizona. And Jason Brian Dalton, the Uber driver from Kalamazoo who shot 6 people to death between fares in 2016.

But in truth, what  gave me pause was the “training” regimen required for all Uber drivers: a 13-minute YouTube video.  Everything a licensed cabbie must demonstrably learn about driving laws, legal liability, customer service, etc., could be neatly wrapped up watching that video, according to Silicon Valley. That says a lot about one of two industries, I’m not sure which.

The video is below, in its entirety. If you watch it, you’re technically Uber-approved to run a personal taxi service (though I wonder how many Uber drivers actually watched it).

That never cut it with me. I would rather drive myself, I rationalized, rather than trust a stranger in a deceptively deadly exercise in a vehicle I knew nothing about.

What an idiot.

Confession: I’m a YouTube junkie. Documentaries. Converted podcasts. Stanford lectures (brilliant idea). Animals doing funny shit (I am human, after all).

And it was on the unofficial lecture circuit I learned of the Cognitive Bias Codex, a map as complex as a New York subway. Evolutionary psychologists officially describe it as this: “Cognitive biases can be organized into four categories: biases that arise from too much information, not enough meaning, the need to act quickly, and the limits of memory. The biases can result in a departure from normative behavior and rationality.”

But isn’t that just a long way of saying you mistakenly believe you know what people are thinking — including yourself? The codex doesn’t have enough room on a circle to fit them all. When I gave up trying to learn the first definition and learned to accept the second, I realized my unwarranted bias against Uber.

After all, they are taking a bigger risk than me in the chance meeting. They are doing it for money. I do it in distraction. Speaking of which, I also had to face it: I suck at driving. They are more likely to be protective of their car than  I am, even in my own.

So I bit the bullet, downloaded the app, and scheduled a ride to the poker game that night.

Why was I nervous? What was the etiquette? Do I sit in the front seat or back? Do I tip him/her? Did they know they were popping my Uber cherry? I actually checked myself in the mirror and waited on the front patio like  an anxious prom date.

But my nerves began to ease when I paid more attention to the app itself. It pinged me two minutes before he was to arrive. The driver, an elderly Middle Eastern man in an immaculate Honda Civic hybrid, had been on 5,204 5-star rides in his two-and-a-half years at Uber. As his car approached, I could watch it block by block on the app’s GPS. So distracted was I, he had to gently beep twice when he stopped in front.

Alas, the driver either didn’t know he was taking my Uber virginity, or didn’t care. He was quiet as a monk and as cautious as a soccer mom. The ride cost me $11.33. I don’t know what a taxi would have cost. But I do know that if cab services aren’t implementing their own apps with similar GPS services, their time on this Earth will be shorter than that of newspapermen.

While I’m sure I’ll continue to bray against the do-it-yourself, asshole-economy, I have to admit I’d rather someone else deal with traffic.

Even a robot.

 

 

 

 

We Are Andre

 

The NBA playoffs began this weekend, as did the requisite hype about gravity-resistant superstars and dynastic empires rising and falling, all of which are true.

But the best story of the 2017-18 basketball stories has already been told. And it has nothing to do with the playoffs.

If anything, it has more to do with the anti-playoffs. Of falling short. Of rejection, failure and futile energy. And of Andre Ingram.

Ingram is a case study in frustration. Lanky, six-foot-three and of middling strength and speed, Ingram managed to get a basketball scholarship at American University, a small college in DC.

He had a respectable-if-forgettable career there, averaging 14 points a game at the tiny college. He had hoped to go pro as we hope to get the job we dream of, find the love that completes us, fill the gap that only we can. And, as happens to so many of us, reality pimp-slapped us a bit.

Ingram managed to land a spot on a team in the NBA’s G-League, the sport’s minor league farm club system. There, injured pros go to recover. High school phenoms are groomed by veterans. And players like Ingram eke a living to the tune of about $19,000 a year (the average American income is $27,000 a year, according to the US Census Bureau).

But while the G-League does a heckuva job with metrics like points-per-game, 3-point shooting accuracy and turnover-to-assist ratios, it has no barometer for internal organs — namely, the heart and brain. And Ingram has both.

While he toiled in the minors, Ingram — who earned a degree in physics from American, for Chrissake — supplemented his income by being a math tutor. After all, hoop dreams can’t afford Cheerios for two kids and a wife, all of whom joined the Ingram brood. For 11 years, he played in the echo chamber of gymnasiums that barely muster fan smatterings. The G-League is the GM of pro basketball.

But he did something quietly remarkable on the assembly line. He gave a shit. He earned the coy dollars that came his way. He did what We do on the line: Make sure the bolt is tight.

And while he’d never be featured on ESPN or Sports Illustrated, he became something rarer than a superstar. He became a Remarkable Joe. Ingram took what he learned in college and became a better adult. He’d earn a reputation as a man who busted ass in the journeyman circuit that took him to spots in Utah, Oklahoma and, finally, California. He’d shoot more than 700 3-pointers, the league record. He’d go from 14 points a game in college to 22 a night.

And last week, he got a call from his employer for an exit interview at season’s end — a performance evaluation for the rest of us.

But instead of meeting with human resources this time, Ingram was greeted by Magic Johnson, the general manager of the Los Angeles Lakers and local god to this city. And Luke Walton, Laker coach. And TV cameras. And a miracle: An offer to play the final two games of the season in the NBA.

He’d be offered $14,000 for two games — 75% of his annual salary. He’d be in an arena with actual people. He’d be playing against the Lebrons of the world. He might even catch a glimpse of himself on ESPN, management told him, though they’d need not have worried about making the sale. As he’d done all his life, Ingram recognized Fortuna.

His debut came against the Houston Rockets, the favorites of many to win the title. He’d go up against James Harden, the league’s likely MVP.  As Harden sauntered into Staples Arena sporting his trademark Beats headphones and throngs of reporters and fans, Ingram walked unnoticed  among fans wearing a school backpack and holding the hands of his wife and kids.

On court, he was easy to spot. He was the only 32-year-old rookie — and the only player with a healthy dollup of gray hair. His team, like every other in the NBA, was fated to lose that game.

But not before Ingram punched his time card.

Ingram scored 19 points. He went six-for-eight, a terrific percentage, on his shots. He went four-for-five on his three pointers.

And for one beautifully-strangled minute in time, Ingram was Lebron. Fans stood for him and shouted “MVP!”  Stars tweeted about him. For a day, he held the Lakers best points-per-minute average. The team had to manufacture replicas of his jersey to meet customer demand.

Now, the NBA will pay attention in tryouts. Stars will look up his pre-season stats. ESPN will do a half dozen stories about his games. Fans will ask for photographs. He will be heard from again.

You are Andre. We are Andre. And when we aren’t feeling like him, we can still learn from him, because his life sermon is Waterford clear:

When Life gives you lemons, don’t make lemonade. Pick up the lemons and chuck them back as hard you can. Aim for the nuts. Aim for the face. Slice it with your thumbnail a little before you chuck it, so it gets in Life’s eye.

Fuck fate. It never had an outside jumper anyway.

 

Factslaps are back, dear bitches:

  • A study using MRI scans showed that the brains of people who exercise moderately look 10 years younger than those who don’t.
  • Installed in 1410, the world’s oldest astronomical clock is still in operation is in Prague.
  • The world’s most expensive perfume is Clive Christian No 1 Passant Guardant. It costs $143,000 for 30ml and comes in a flask studded with 2,000 diamonds.
  • A recent  study found that 80% of mass shooters showed no interest in violent video games.
  • Scientists at the University of Alberta spent seven years working out that human urine contains 3,079 different chemical compounds.
  • Studies have suggested that losses are, psychologically, twice as powerful as gains. So winning $100 feels as good to us as losing $50 feels bad.
  • Research has shown that dogs actually like the silly, high-pitched voice their owners use to talk to them.
  • Ben & Jerry learned how to make ice cream by taking a $5 correspondence course offered by Penn State, because one of them couldn’t get into medical school and the other couldn’t sell enough pottery.