The Cake, The Cake

I can’t tell you where it’s going, I can’t tell you whom it’s for. I’ll tell you this: It’s a cake, a three-tiered creation with beautifully crafted designs on each level. It’s for a special birthday, for an incredible person, but you’ll just have to take the call to find out. It wouldn’t be fun if I told you. Just have your cab radio on and be in the vicinity of 3rd Avenue and St. Mark’s Place around 7:30 for a pickup, OK? And don’t ask where it’s going, just take the call.

Thus spoke my friend Steve, who was currently baking healthy desserts each evening at the Ananda East Bakery a few blocks south off St. Mark’s Place in the East Village.

He knew I drove a cab at night and that the company I drove for had a two-way radio system, thus enabling a driver to pick up fares that were phoned in. “Just believe me, it will be a gas, a certain group of people will truly envy you,” Steve said to me that morning on the phone. He went on, “I know that the Ananda East Bakery has an account with your cab company and they’re going to call it in around 7:30, so just be near St. Mark’s Place, OK?”

I then asked Steve, “Why don’t I just come into the bakery and pick up the cake before you need to call it in?”

“Oh no, no, you can’t do that, it’s a secret. The whole thing is a secret and a surprise, so no one outside the bakery is allowed to know.”

On the evening of August 1, 1970, I made sure that my body and my cab were as one and at St. Mark’s Place and 2nd Avenue at 7:15. The call actually came early. “We need a cab to take a birthday cake from the Ananda East Bakery over to Ding Batz Bar in Brooklyn.” I hesitated as I reached for the receiver. Ding Batz was a biker bar all the way out in Bay Ridge. Unless I was willing to work the clubs (and it was still on the early side), I’d have to deadhead it back to the city. Recalling Steve’s excitement inspired me to pull down the hammer on the radio and take the call. The folks at the bakery were amazed that I was just around the corner. As fate would have it, it was my friend Steve who handed me the cake at the counter. The cake was all wrapped up in a box that was well over three feet high.

“Hi man,” I said to my friend, pretending I had never seen him before. “Hey, who’s the lucky person to receive this?”

Steve smiled and replied, “You’ll find out when you get to Ding Batz.” They gave me a twenty, which was generous as the fare was to be somewhere between ten and twelve dollars, and I was not intending to throw the clock with a cake sitting on the front seat. Steve gave me a wink when I picked up the cake.

As I was exiting the bakery a very tall man with a long gray beard escorted me to my cab. He was the head baker and the creator of tonight’s special dessert and wanted to make sure his masterpiece was as safe as possible for the journey across the water to Bay Ridge. He walked step by step with me until I reached the door of the cab. I opened the door, and we both carefully placed the cake between the front seat and the dash; it seemed very secure in that spot. As I was about to take off, the baker, who went by the name of Leon, leaned his tall and thin body though the passenger side window and gave me what could only be described as a short but somewhat spiritual “pep talk.”

“Remember, man, keep away from potholes, try not to turn too quickly, don’t run any red lights, and think positive thoughts about the cake and about everything, you dig what I’m saying to you?” He then nodded his head up and down until I nodded my head back and made eye contact. Making eye contact with Leon was easy as his were as wide as saucers. There was little doubt that Leon was (as they say in Ireland) “with the fairies.”

He took a breath and said, “Now brother, listen to me, man, you’re listening to me, right?”

I widened my eyes as best as I could and replied, “Yes Leon, I’m with you, man, I’m right here sitting in this cab listening to you.”

Leon continued, “When you’re stopped at a red light, take the time to, you know, look at the cake and send some good energy to it, love the cake, brother, love the cake, you dig? That cake is like my child; I worked two days on this beautiful confection and as I did I put as much love into it as possible, so please continue the love, OK? It’s got cardamom icing on it man what other cake ever created had cardamom icing on it? Oh, and another thing, don’t ‘beep, beep’ on your horn as it might send negative vibrations into the cake.

“Yes, Leon,” I replied. “I will love this cake right up to the moment I present it to this mystery birthday boy, I promise.”

Leon was now nodding my way in a very affirmative manner. “One last thing, brother, one last thing, then I let you start on your journey with my cake. What sign are you?”

“Aries with Leo rising,” I quickly replied.

Leon then smiled and said, “Yeah, me too, good thing you’re delivering the cake tonight because around midnight or so your Mars goes into retrograde and I’d never let anyone with an angry planet drive my cake to Brooklyn, you dig what I’m saying, man?” I nodded in the affirmative, and as I turned the key in the ignition, I thought it best not to tell Leon that I had a Gemini moon.

Leon reached into his breast pocket and handed me a joint. “Here’s for the ride, brother, happy trails, and keep that cake from moving around, OK?”

“I’m with you, Leon,” I replied as I gingerly placed the joint in my shirt pocket. I then rolled on through the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel enjoying Leon’s gift as ships and the sea life of the East River floated gently above the cab, the cake, and me.

By the time my tires were rolling through Brooklyn, I was in a happy and elevated state. However, I soon became quite obsessed about the identity of this special birthday boy. As the cab and I rolled up 4th Avenue, I began to reflect—what kind of person would celebrate the day of his birth in a biker bar in Bay Ridge? A big important member of Hell’s Angels, perhaps Sonny Barger, who is the most hellish of the Hell’s Angels? No, no, a biker is not going to order a cake from the Ananda East Bakery, where they use all natural and organic ingredients and exotic spices like cardamom. No, this has to be some guy who is kind of a hippie and likes to hang out with bikers. Perhaps he’s a famous writer, Tom Wolfe or maybe Kurt Vonnegut. No, I bet he’s not a writer, maybe some off-beat hip movie star like Peter Fonda. Yes, he did Easy Rider and that was about motorcycles.

I then thought what a dumb move it was for Leon to give me that joint. I’m all alone in the cab, I’m high, I’m getting the munchies, and there are three feet of sweets gently rocking back in the passenger seat.

Perhaps, just perhaps, I’ll pull over and check this out and maybe, just maybe, put a little of that cardamom cream icing on my finger. How would anyone out at Ding Batz even notice a wee bit of missing icing? But then again they might, and a little bit of sweet is surely not worth a broken nose. However, I could see that the box was easy to open, so why didn’t I just pull over, I thought, and take a quick gander at this prized dessert?

Three blocks later I ever so gently pull into a gas station. I locked the cab and went to the men’s room and washed my hands until they were really clean, as I didn't want to leave any dirt on the box, especially on the inside.

I then returned to my cab, opened the passenger side door, and carefully unfolded the top of the box. I was parked under a bright light, and I could easily see the two top layers. It was absolutely stunning, and on each level were beautifully crafted roses, skulls, and teddy bears, and on the top it read “Happy Birthday Jerry.”

I had an instant satori moment right there in a gas station on 4th Avenue and 76th Street in Brooklyn. Steve was right, this was a major deal, and I was to deliver Jerry Garcia’s birthday cake to the man himself.

At this moment in time there were over 8 million people in the Big Apple, and on this tropical August night I was the chosen. Sensing my immense responsibility, I neatly closed the box and drove to Ding Batz.

There were Angels and Harleys everywhere as the cake and I gently traversed our way through the smoky sea of leather and chrome. I entered Ding Batz and announced that I had to deliver this directly to the birthday boy. I was led through more large men wearing leather until I was placed in front of Jerry’s table. They were all smoking joints and throwing back whiskey, and they all smiled when they saw the cake bearer arrive.

“Take it out and put it on the table, my man.” And I (with a little help from two large tattooed individuals) did just that. It was a one of a kind. Multicolored, multidimensional, and in three crafted levels. Leon was truly an artist.

Jerry and his friends were so loaded that they gave me the credit for creating the cake and they all just kept saying, “Out of sight, oh man, it looks too good to eat. Wow, out of sight, man, you know, oh man...”

I took it in and replied, “Oh well, you know, I’m just doing what I can for the universe, you know, wow, I’m so glad you like it. Wow, OK, out of sight, yes.”

It was quite dark and noisy in the back of the bar, and faces seemed to appear and disappear within all the smoke. I was so high and excited that I really couldn’t tell exactly which woolly-headed, bearded individual was Jerry Garcia, but I soon realized he was the one directly in front of me, the one with only four fingers on his right hand wearing a ratty black T-shirt with a pocket.

I soon caught the vibe that it was time for me to make an exit, but before I did Jerry smiled and said, “Hey, man, if we ever run into each other again, just say ‘The cake, the cake,’ OK, you know what I mean? Remember man, ‘The cake, the cake.’”

I nodded and I kept nodding as they stuffed a twenty and a few joints in my breast pocket and said, “See you later,” and off I went driving back into heart of Gotham, with “The cake, the cake” echoing in every ounce of my being.

Two years later I was in attendance at the first Rainbow Gathering in Granby, Colorado, where it snowed on the Fourth of July. We were eating granola, chanting, smoking, flipping out, flipping in, and flipping every which way we could. We all ate together, pooped together, swam together, and all got sick together. Seeing as how we had the runs and were throwing up a lot (although we all knew deep down inside we were healing) my friends and I decided to make an early exit.

We got up at 5:00 am on the last morning and hiked down the mountain to my little blue Volkswagen. Two miles outside of Granby, Colorado, we ran out of gas. It was 6:00 am, and four very dilapidated hippies were stranded in a blue 1963 Volkswagen on a very deserted stretch of road. We lifted up the hood to let any possible passing cars know we needed help. I had a gas can to point at as well, to let our hoped-for rescuer know just what type of aid we needed.

Fifteen frozen minutes later we saw a big white VW van ambling its way down the road. VW vans did very poorly in high altitudes, and this old clunker was going very, very slow. As it approached, we all started jumping up and down and yelling, “Gas, hey man, we’re out of gas.” And just to make sure the driver knew, we all pointed to the gas can. The van drew closer and we all became silent. Driving the van was a young girl who looked like she’d just stepped out of an R. Crumb comic. She must have been sixteen, with big woven braids, freckles, and a mouth full of braces, and sitting next to her, smoking a number was, yes, Jerry Garcia. I told all my friends to be quiet as I had this one in the bag.

As the van drew closer, Jerry rolled down the window, but the car didn’t slow down. “Don’t worry,” I told my friends. “I know just what to say.” I waited until the van was just about passing us and I yelled in a most audible fashion, “Jerry...the cake...the cake...the cake...the cake.” He smiled and flashed a peace sign and rolled on down the road.

A few cars later we were given enough gas to make it to Granby. We pulled into the parking lot and sure enough, I once again ran into Jerry Garcia. I made eye contact and said, “Jerry, didn’t you see us stranded by the side of the road a few miles back?”

“Yeah,” Jerry replied, “you guys were shouting something about a cake. I thought you might be a little dangerous or just too stoned to stop for.”

“Oh, no,” I replied, “I was the guy who brought your birthday cake to Ding Batz Bar in Brooklyn three years ago. Remember, man, ‘the cake, the cake’?”

After a few seconds of silence he replied, “I don’t think I’ve ever been to any place called Ding Batz. Hey man, I got to split, stay loose.”

As rock icon Jerry Garcia disappeared into a throng of devotees, I envisioned myself back in that gas station in Bay Ridge slowly eating all the skull rosettes and teddy bears off Jerry’s cake and enjoying every minute of it. “Someday,” I thought, “he’ll remember, and if not, I can always remember for him.”

New Year's Eve

New Years Eve

Sometime around 2,000 BC a group of intuitive and fun loving Babylonians decided to create a holiday to celebrate the first New Moon after the Vernal Equinox. This celebration of the coming of spring was also a logical time to bring in a New Year. The long dark days of winter had passed; and life was renewing itself all around them. The Babylonians then spent the next two weeks dancing, feasting and planting new crops. They had chosen the perfect season to celebrate a New Year, one that we still acknowledge as the first day of spring.

Nineteen hundred years latter the Romans, and their incestuous, wicked Emperors began to do nasty and nefarious things with the calendar. They tampered with it so much that in 46 BC Julius Caesar decided something very radical needed to be done in order to bring the calendar back in synch the sun. So Mr. Caesar decreed that the previous year go on for 445 days and he then named the first month of the New Year after Janus, the Roman deity who was able to look forwards and backwards at the same time.

The entire concept of having a New Year start in the middle of winter is in essence a very incongruous and distorted idea. Yet by 1600 or so it stuck, and most of the occupants of the earth soon adopted the concept of starting a New Year when absolutely nothing new was happening.

However if there were one place on earth to celebrate an incongruous and distorted idea created by the decadent old Emperors of Rome, it would certainly be New York City, The Big Apple, and my hometown.

In keeping with perhaps some of the original Babylonian celebrations I rode the roads of Gotham in my own special chariot. Instead of horses and wheels I commanded a moving yellow vehicle which rolled along on four hard circular pieces of rubber and was propelled by an engine, one which consumed a magic liquid composed of ancient pieces of giant monsters which once roamed the earth long before the Babylonians discovered Spring or the Romans conquered Carthage.

I loved to drive on New Years Eve for this was the night all the residents joyfully reached back into their collective ancestral memories and remembered some of their primal reasons for being on the Earth. Especially the ones that included alcohol, pot, various controlled substances, dancing, laughing, being loud, and enjoying food and sex though not in any particular order.

This was the one night of the year that the entire city seemed to let its collective hair and allow party angel of Gotham to sprinkle them all with urban pixie party dust. Which to a man behind the wheel of a Taxi meant that the clientele was constant and the tips were great. I’d get invited to a dozen or so parties but I would never desert my cab. For my goal was to return home with at least $200.00 in cash in my pocket and if that meant staying out until 3 AM well so be it.

This New Years the Gods of weather were not being favorable to the residents of the great steel canyon. New York had a week of some incredibly harsh ice storms and by 2 AM the streets were deserted. By 2:30 I found myself uptown with only $160.00 on the clock and made the decision to beat the retreat and call it a night. I rolled down Second Avenue hoping to get that last magic fare back to Brooklyn. Just above 60^th street a very shivering older couple were waving their collective arms in a frenzied and very bird like fashion to hail me/

The man stumbled up to my window, and as he was approaching the cab I realized he had enough alcohol in his system to pickle each of his organs in a most generous fashion. He smiled a very frozen and potted smile and said “hey listen, you take a nice Greek man and his wife to Queens and I give you thirty bucks, hey you don’t throw the clock just make it for yourself, that’s good eh, that’s good. I’m Nicky and this is Sophia, we’ve just come from great Greek party but we very cold and have to go home now.”

“I smiled at Nicky and replied “that sounds great but I know where your going and it’s miles from Northern Boulevard and your neighborhood is going to be one giant sheet of ice and I’d really like to get back to Brooklyn one piece.”

He tilts his head and says “oh come take Nicky and Sophia to Steinway Street, were three blocks from the B.Q.E, you drop us off and boom you be back in the city or in Brooklyn in no time, hey I still have a half a bottle of Ouzo we could sip it all they way there, thirty dollars we give you thirty dollars that’s good…no”?

He then dips his inebriated head into my cab and looks at my hack license and say’s “hey you nice Jewish boy you know I’m Greek you know we have connection, you know, Jews and Greeks love music and food and dancing, yes I am right yes?”

Visions of Yahweh and Apollo playing shuffleboard were dancing through my mind as I dipped into my history major background to honestly try to remember some great Greco-Judaic connection and indeed I found one. In 1492 when Spain expelled all their Jews, it was the Greeks that offered them sanctuary, many Jews did indeed settle in the Greek city of Thessaloniki. So as loaded, as Nicky was, his inebriated historical pitch did indeed have a whiff of some historical accuracy. Anyhow, they were about to freeze to death and $30.00 for what really is a $7.00 ride sounded just too tempting to me. The other benefit was that $30.00 would make it almost a $200.00 night. I could drop them off, head back in to the city get two more rides and my night would be golden.

“Ok Nicky it’s a deal” I replied with confidence and as much enthusiasm as one could muster at 2:30 am. He once again stuck his head into my cab and tried to kiss me on the cheek. I leaned hard to the right to avoid his Athenian advances but assured him that his friendship was well appreciated. With his head still inside of the cab he said, “ok I go kiss Sofia instead.”

I crossed over the 59^th Bridge and traveled up Northern Boulevard. Nicky and Sophia were laughing and drinking the last of the Ouzo and then commenced to enjoy what only can be described as some colorful and creative form of mating behavior. At this point in the evening I was extremely thankful that they only Greek I knew was Spanakopita, Moussaka and the names of a few islands of the coast of Greece.

Well, I thought this is indeed in keeping with the original Babylonian celebration of the New Year. I was very thankful that they were far too drunk to take their clothes off as my cab wobbled and skidded its way through the icy streets. I made sure the partition was closed and I turned up my radio, but I could still hear an unusual form of Hellenistic cooing from the rear seat of my now rolling chariot of love. A feeling of relief came over me as we arrived at their requested destination. I turn my radio down and said in a somewhat high volume, “It’s time for Nicky and Sophia to go to their little castle in Queens.” My request was met with silence.

I then rapped my fist hard on the partition a few times and eventually there was some grunting and movement in the back seat. Nicky stumbled his way out of the back of the cab and shut the door. He weaved his way to my window and shoved $30.00 in my breast pocket and lifted the empty bottle of Ouzo over his head and started to sing a song in his native tongue. He danced and sang loudly out of tune but I was sure Nicky was greatly enjoying himself as he carried on.

Observing Nicky chanting and dancing in the frozen early morning darkness made me wonder if he was truly part of the same culture that created democracy, modern science, the Olympics, philosophy, fooled the Trojans with a wooden horse and bravely defeated the Persian fleet at Thermopylae in the fifth century BC.

I smiled and nodded, rolled up my window, waved goodbye and ever so carefully started my way back through the icy streets of Queens, Nicky smiled as well and waved goodbye to me with an empty bottle of Ouzo.

It’s now starting to sleet, I could barely see out my window but I knew in just a few more blocks I’d be back on Northern Boulevard and then the bridge and soon I’d be rolling back into midtown.

Three bocks latter as I was stopped for a light I heard a voice one that seemed to be coming from the darkened street in back of my cab. I looked through the rear view and noticed that someone was trying to hail me. I quickly turned on my off duty light as I did not want to venture through any more ice covered back roads in one of New York City’s lesser boroughs.

He didn’t give up hailing me. He’s began to run and as he ran he was shouting and waving his arms up and down like some one drowning in the sea. He then began to scream: “stop, you stop, you stop now.” He was starting to catch up to me. Oh God I thought, he’s not slowing down. He’s probably on speed or cocaine and he doesn’t feel a thing. I ran a few red lights but had to keep my speed down to prevent a skid.

There was a full moon that night and as he ran he cast this giant a forbidding shadow on the many red brick apartment buildings that lined Steinway Street. I couldn’t see his face but my in mind all I kept hoping for was that he was unarmed and basically just some loony running around the streets on New Years Eve.

Just three more blocks (I thought) to Northern Boulevard and it’s a straight shot to the bridge. He was just thirty feet behind me when he took the fall. Although relieved I did feel a small sense of remorse when his head hit the ice. I actually thought of stopping my cab and at least drag him off the street. My compassionate side voted for that but my survival side just kept pushing down on that gas pedal and heading for Northern Boulevard.

Ten minutes and on bridge latter I was cruising down Second Avenue looking for that last fare to make my $200 night. There he was pointing downtown, yes he was going to the west village an easy $5.00 fare, and my $200 night was about to be consummated. He opened the door and freezes. With his eyes wide open he yells “there’s a women’s body in your back seat, there’s a women’s body in your back seat.”

Funny it all made sense as I thought that voice screaming behind me sounded a little like Nicky’s. Yes (I thought) Nicky stumbled out of the cab, and closed the door so the sleet storm wouldn’t hit his highly inebriated and now sleeping wife. He then stood there in his own private comatose as I took off. Though this was a somewhat challenging situation I knew I could deal with it.

“Hey listen man” I said to my fare “just jump in the front seat, I’ll take care of her latter.” With a wind chill factor of 10 below zero and no other cabs in sight he saw no other option but to obey my request and hopped in the front seat. All the way downtown he kept turning around and staring at her saying: “maybe she’s dead, do you think she’s dead? What are you going to do with her?”

“No” I replied, “her name is Sophia and she’s just taking a little nap due to her consumption of too much Ouzo, I promise you won’t hear a peep out of her, this I can say with unbridled confidence.”

Being in a playful mood I then said: “when we get to the village help me lift her out of the cab and we can put her on one of those heating grates. You know the ones you see on the sidewalks where smoke seems to be coming out of nowhere. That’ll keep her warm until the Sun comes up and perhaps a nice NYC policeman can help her out. My passenger was shocked at this suggestion.

“Well what if she freezes to death, how would you feel then?”

“Hey listen man” I replied, it’s not my fault her husband and her drank a bottle of booze and now she’s all forgotten in the back seat, hey what would you do?” I was just kidding but apparently failed to see the humor in my statement. He paid his $5.00 gave me a small tip and disappeared into the icy darkness of Horatio Street.

I just sat there for a minute and thought. It was very quiet in the cab though I could hear Sophia snoring in Greek in the back seat. My major ethical question confronting me was whether I should throw the clock again for the ride back to Queens. Figuring that Nicky might not be in the best of moods after his headfirst bounce on the frozen streets of Queens I decided Sophia’s ride back home would be on me.

As I journeyed back over the 59^th Street Bridge I felt a sense of elation and purpose for I was bringing Sophia back to the loving arms of her Nicolas I soon found myself humming the theme from Black Orpheus as I was once again navigated the icy streets of Steinway Avenue.

I was fortunate, that I had the presence of mind to write their address down on my log sheet before I started my first journey to Queens. However, upon my arrival there was bit of a logistical problem. There were at least four large red brick apartment houses at this corner and I had no idea which one was hers.

Then I heard him; it was the voice of a post bump on the head Nicky. He runs up to the cab weeping and shouting, “oh thank you God you have brought her back,” and quickly heads for the passenger door.

Sensing her lover’s arrival Sophia awakens from her dance with Morpheus as Nicky ambles helps her out of the cab. They start kissing and hugging and it’s now four AM and I’m witnessing this intense reunion in a wind chill of -30 degrees. Nicky puts another twenty in my pocket, I hug them both, jumped back in my cab and started my way back home to Brooklyn.

As I traveled along the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway I reflected. I wondered if there was some old Babylonian New Year’s myth about two lovers renewing their vows and drinking from the sweet nectar while they made love. And suddenly for no reason the trickster Gods separated theses two sweet hearts. Morpheus enchanted the woman to sleep and to dream while her lover was held captive by Dionysus and was forced to dance and sing.

Sensing this injustice the Goddess Aphrodite looked into a golden apple and found her hero. She conjured the heart of a young mortal with long yellow hair and a scruffy beard who traveled the roads of the Metropolis in a golden-checkered vehicle Our hero soon found himself crossing frozen roads and bridges in his yellow chariot to deliver the lost maiden to her lover.

Truly I whispered to myself as I rolled down Flatbush Avenue, tonight I was part of a grand drama, one of both mythical and historical proportions.