A great friend of mine, Howard Meehan, who was driving a cab for dough-ray-for me, and like Rafael the painter who was once asked what his favorite painting was; he replied ‘the one I’m working on right now. Now I’m no Rafael but I do share his sentiments. And that’s when the idea of doing something in a cab came up. He and I riffed and argued some more. What shook out was the initial idea for episodes and various concepts; finally hatching: seeing San Fran from the point of view of the front and back seat of a taxi-cab. This paradigm opened up a Pandora’s Box of possibilities for us. Over the next couple of months, we continued to stoke the flames.
The moniker ‘Chemistry Cab’ came up. It seemed to stick – so now the baby had a name. Ideas for Episodes started coming fast and furious. After all, Howard did have 16 years of driving for Luxor in SF – with a lot of mind space and notebooks full. In the meantime, Howard was contacted by Matt Stroud from Crash Hat entertainment from La-La land who was shooting a teaser reel for a Reality show called ‘Taxi Boss’. It would be centered around John Lazar CEO of Luxor Cab, his family, and the day-to-day and night shift-to-night shift running of a Taxi-Cab business.
Anywho..they threw Howard in the mix for a couple of days as one of the characters. He was surprised to find how much fun it was! He realized that he’d much rather play a cabbie on TV than continue being one in real life. By now Chemistry Cab had episodes we wanted to shoot. The first one or two to start were called ‘Cab Speed Dating’ and ‘Cab dating’. The former is a 2-minute speed date in the backseat and the latter lasts a normal ride’s length.
This is where I came in to help with production, editing, and creating a website to house all the videos. Pam, my sister, and biz partner from B2e Productions decided to jump on board. Jake, Howard’s son, bought an old orange taxi cab from a friend.