Signs at J & I Taxi Garage

Jenine took these pictures at the garage. She found the signs especially interesting. This car was blocking part of the garage's driveway. So the garage put this sign on their windshield. "A question: When do I get to use my driveway?" By the way: the garage never actually uses that driveway). This is from Grandma Rose's menu, taken yesterday. I think they mean email list.

Pictures From Earlier This Month

MOTHERS' DAY PARTY AT OUR APARTMENT IN WILLIAMSBURG.

CLOCKWISE FROM THE BOTTOM RIGHT: Rosita (cabbie's mom), Paul (cabbie's roommate), Gil (the cabbie), Jenine (friend), Emilie (cabbie's surrogate sister), Alan (Emilie's BF), Slava (cabbie's brother-in-non-law), Lizette (cabbie's sister), Jennifer (sister's friend and taxi blog fan), Yoram (cabbie's father), Gui (cabbie's surrogate brother)

AN ABANDONED STOOP ON FOURTH AVE IN BOERUM HILL

I WALK PAST IT ON MY WAY TO THE G TRAIN AFTER EVERY SHIFT

DAMAGE DONE BY RECENT FLOODING IN PROVIDENCE, RI.

THAT'S WHERE JENINE LIVES SO WE TAKE TURNS VISITING EACH OTHER.

VIEW OF THE BROOKLYN CLOCKTOWER FROM BERGEN STREET.

THE WALL AND THE TREE GIVE IT AN ALMOST JERUSALEM FEEL.

BALLOONS TIED TO A GARBAGE TRUCK IN CHELSEA

HENCE: THE UNSEEN SANITATION WORKERS ARE POTENTIAL FRIENDS OF MINE

JENINE: UNA MUJER MUY FINA.

ES JUDIA FILIPINA Y TIENE MUCHO ADRENALINA!

Carro Bomba En La Plaza Del Tiempo

Image Source: Lone Star Custom Builders

"No more New York," said Crysta Salinas. The 28-year-old Houston woman was stuck waiting in a deli until 2 a.m. because part of a Marriott hotel was evacuated because of the bomb.

It's too bad some Texans won't be visiting our great city again. Unfortunately, as is the general description of the social fabric of Texas, these folks are over-reliant on comfort, convenience, and complacency. Many Texans live one hundred years as if it were one day, where as many New Yorkers live one day as if it were one hundred years. I lived in Houston for 5 years, from age 10 to 15. I know a little bit about Texan culture.

Don't get me wrong, the Lone Star state will always have a tender place in my heart. Its dirt roads are where I learned to drive, at the beginning of a long road to NYC cabbie-hood. It's where my most beloved cousins, aunts, and uncles reside. It's where I migrated as a snowbird for a handful of weeks this past winter. It's where I'll be this upcoming December and January, along with the beautiful Rhode Islander I'm sweet on. She's set to have an entire section of the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, to display her creations.

But no place, at least out of everywhere I've been, compares with my great city. Once a Gothamite, always a Gothamite. To get back on the subject of car bombs, I'm grateful that whoever loaded up and left that Pathfinder there didn't exactly have all the right ingredients for chaos. I admire the vigilant street vendors who realized the SUV was out of place, for having a sense of ownership and responsibility toward the public space around them. These are the true New Yorkers.

A proud salute to the cabdrivers who sat patiently through nightmarish jams caused by abrupt and massive street closures on Saturday night. We have many blessings to count. Let's be thankful the image below wasn't actualized. Let's be mindful of how good we have it, and how emotionally tiring it must be to live in cities like Baghdad, Kabul, Lebanese and Colombian cities in the 1980s, etc.

In this day and age, car bombs are primarily a Middle-Eastern experience. A curious and unknown fact though, is that they were first introduced to the region by the Stern Gang, a Zionist group trying to kick Britain out of Palestine in the 1940s. Did you also know that in 1920 an Italian member of the Galleanists left a horse-drawn wagon carrying explosives and shrapnel in the Financial District of Manhattan, killing 38 and wounding 400?

Photo Source: http://www.sabbah.biz

FROM FIGURE MODELING TO CABBIE NEWS AND FASHION

Back when I lived in Florida, I used to model for high school and college drawing classes. I'd stay still in difficult poses for long periods of time, so that the art students could get a good sketch of the subject. I'd bring in all sorts of props to entice them to draw; like pick axes, shovels, hammers, hats, balls, books, and sometimes a knotted assortment of used rubber bicycle tubes to stretch out in. I'd use all these props to create poses that were more exciting for the students to draw than what they were used to (figure models with no imagination).

These pictures were taken by Sunny Shokrae, a professional photographer who came on board the cab to gather visual material on behalf of Danielle Friedman, a journalism student at Columbia, who had been interviewing cabdrivers for a story on how we feel about GPS + TAXI TV SCREENS. Obviously, we are not OK with the same obnoxious blurbs being repeated each time a new passenger gets in. She contacted me through this blog and interviewed me in the cab for an hour while jotting notes down. I hadn't felt like I was being watched by as many eyes as this since my days as a figure model in those art courses. Not much came out of it, except this article, and these leftover photographs.

SCRUMPTIOUS SNIPPETS FROM 1/25/10

It was the one year anniversary of my beloved Jenine and I. I spent the later part of the day caged inside 4H55, earning what would become a near personal record-breaking net profit of $272 for 13 hours of navigation on a Monday night in this nefarious metroplex.... all while wishing I was with her, whether in her state or mine. Ocean or Empire. Many say long distance relationships only last if they are the real deal. This one has proven true, through and through. Here are the high and low-lights from that lonesome taxi shift of 37 fares (that became less melancholic when Fela Kuti filled the radio with his perfect soundtrack to taxi driving at night. If you're not familiar with his music, what a pity).

16:00: a scruffy duo of Dutch men in show biz enter the cab near the Fashion Institute of Technology en route to West 4^th. Each is on his own cellular call, but both dialogues center around some film shoot in Cape Town. All in English. No trace of Afrikaans. I get nine for a $7.40 fare. That's a 22% tip.

Down the block enters a woman who reminds me of my step grandmother (a psychologist in L.A.). En route to Chelsea I guess (out loud) she's an NYU professor, based on where I picked her up and her demeanor. I'm correct! She teaches law, and although a bit jaded, holds a pleasant chat with her inquisitive cabdriver. I get eight for a $6.30 fare. That's a 27% tip.

17:00: Scoop up a fare from Soho to La Guardia. Lady in a suit who came here on a business day-trip from Chicago is home bound. Her fingers are crossed because apparently it's snowing heavily there. I get thirty for a $22.90 fare. That's a 31% tip! My wait at the airport is brief and I'm soon city-bound again with yet another pleasant lady in a suit, who also flew in from Chicago (for a corporate meeting tomorrow). She had been stuck at O'hare International for several hours (due to weather) and she is ready to call it a night at the Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown, but we end up in an unexpected traffic jam on the QMT tunnel approach.

I felt bad because I told her this was the quickest way there during the evening rush, since most of the congestion is often outbound along this route at that hour. 1010 WINS finally clarifies the situation. There are emergency roving pothole repairs in progress near the toll booths. She tells me not to stress out about it. I get forty for a $35.37 fare (far more expensive than it should be). Precisely why she gave me a 13% tip. Far more expensive than it should have been. I wonder about the fate of the other lady's flight (and Chi-town cab ride home?). Delays abound about the land.

18:00: A retired Finnish double date on vacation (and staying at the Roosevelt) step in as soon as she steps out. They're heading to a hockey game at Mad Square tonight. They're fond of the Rangers because talented Finnish players have historically lined their ranks. We got into other histories too. Like that of Finland itself. Ruled by Sweden, then Russia, and finally independent. I mentioned a movie on my favorite films list about a 3-way language barrier that didn't stop two enemy soldiers and an indigenous Laplander from becoming friends. It's called Kukushka and they had indeed seen it (and agreed it's superb). I really like it when someone from the actual country a film is set in approves of that film. Gives me the right to keep advertising it. Got thirteen for an $11.60 fare. That's a 12% tip.

20:00: A couple hours later I was back in the Penn Station vicinity. I was hailed by two women who had taken the day off from work to take Amtrak up to Albany, to join a large demonstration against contamination of water caused by the extraction of natural gas, which the governor recently gave the green light for in several sensitive sections of upstate NY. Both ladies wore professional attire. One was Taiwanese. The other was Filipina. I dropped them each off in their respective neighborhoods of Chelsea and Greenwich Village. Got twelve for a $10.40 fare. That's a 16% tip.

21:00: Barely noteworthy, but definitely the blockheaded simpleton of the night. He was a schmuck in a suit, slightly younger than I am, with a sense of entitlement more inflated than a hot air balloon. I only had my own window down when he got in, and it wasn't like the interior of the cab was cold. The first thing he said was "roll up the windows." Not a please or a thank you in sight, and with condescension in his tone and persona. "Is that good?," I asked, upon leaving only a crack open for my own sanity. "I guess," he replied, with the audacity of a 5 year old. The rest of the ride was silent. Got ten for a $9.10 fare from Hell's K to No Ho. That's a 10% tip. Like I said, not much of a story, but it infuriated me. I have anger in my genes and too much pride on my zodiac sign.

But it didn't take me long to cool off because of the grace and humor with which my next passengers treated me. They were an older couple who commute down from the Mohegan Sun resort once a week to teach Casino Business at NYU. They were heading up to Grand Central so I instantly guessed that they had parked their car in New Haven and jumped on the MTA North. Damn I'm good at guessing geographical technicalities. That's the second time in one shift I transported NYU professors and played a guessing game with them. Got eleven for an $8.20 fare. That's a 34% tip!

02:30: a young, native New York couple get a ride from a bar on Bedford to their Ridgewood apartment. She's Guyanese, and by the way he treats her, he's a prick (who claims to love farting because of the fuzzy feeling he gets down below.) "That's because your prostate is right next to your ass," I remark, in a smart aleck tone. All the while I'm pondering how she should just get a strap-on and help him achieve more of that anal pleasure he was talking about, instead of putting up with his perpetual verbal abuse. He did tip me better than anyone else that night, and I am frankly appreciative of that. His intoxication allowed him to be more sensitive toward how effortful and efficient I was at my job. Got twenty six for a $13.90 fare. That's an 87% tip!

LIFE PARTNER

There she is standing outside my cab, as if a random Union Square passerby. But she is no stranger to me. That graceful lady wearing colorful quilt-like fabric, holding a pink down, and sporting the colossal, ever-evolving glass bead necklace she made, is my significant and beloved other, Jenine Bressner. Soon it will be a year since we met.

I don't know if I ever told you, but it was this blog that facilitated our union. First I saw the charming face and words of what appeared to be a down-to-Earth, multi-ethnic Jew on a friend's wall on Facebook. My entire life I had been waiting patiently to find a soulmate of a special blend of unexpected genes. I sent her a blunt message, inquiring on her ethnic soup. I am well aware this comes off as rude, creepy, and xenophobic.... but I do it with everyone, knowing true to my heart that it comes from a place of admiration and innocent fascination with the overlapping of cultures, customs, and creeds. Her response was curt and more or less impersonal.

I knew then I had one last chance to break the ice and that I had better make it good. I couldn't pester her with too many words. I decided to simply send her a link to my blog. After all, its contents are a raw expression of who I strive to be: a voice of euphoric empathy for the world's wonders found in its people and their demographic spectrum. I had absolutely no expectations, and to my surprise, she did indeed pick up on this vibe. By the way, she is of Eastern European and Filipina backgrounds. And I have Hispanic, Romanian, and Polish roots. You can call us "Ashkephardic". But that is not what this post is about.

It's my opportunity to thank Jenine for helping me fine tune my desire to pursue the crafts of writing and photojournalism, and to proliferate public awareness of its existence. It is also my chance to share with you a few of the methods she utilizes to create new things and inspire humanity towards a more self-actualized sense of empowerment. Above is a picture of what were the blank backsides of her business cards, which she fed into a laser cutter to engrave my name, email, and blog address unto. Originally I had hand written the info unto a thick stash of her cards, one by one, and passed them out in my cab as a form of double sided advertising for us both.

Jenine was recently chosen to participate in the worldwide Fab Academy. She's been learning to operate various machinery to produce almost anything one's imagination can take on. She has come up with some marvelous results. Formulating ideas and following through with delicate, time-consuming precision on computers.

You can see pictures and read the details on her blog, along with everything else she's made over the years with an endless inventory of tools and materials. The list is as replete with ingenuity as a cluster of colleges. Berkeley or Beantown, minus pretense and ulterior motives. It's as diverse as the Queens neighborhood of Elmhurst and its nationalities, only more integrated. It is as well-informed as the walking Wikipedia that Jenine herself is, only more accurate than a lot of what's been put on the web. It's as meticulously and anomalously crafted as Mohandas himself must have been by the environment that shaped his gumption.

Jenine lives in Providence and adds daily to its already distinct flavor of artistry, via flame worked glass, intricate embroideries for practical uses, unconventional sculpting, stitching, soldering, milling, forging, serging, vinyl cuttings, air brushing, homemade lip balm, hand bound books, immaculate pen drawings, wall prints, textile earrings, ruffle beards, dolls, pom poms, fabric anemones, recycled shoes, museum quality jewelry, heat set metallic textures, continuously refined D.I.Y. clothing and culinary contraptions, efficient scavenging of discarded items that become effective studio components, and all this is just the beginning.

Now let me tell you how she's used her skills to encourage my endeavors. Above you can see the vinyl cut stickers she produced, which I placed on my lap top, but could eventually scatter about the city on bumpers and stop signs. My blog address in yellow impact stencil font, since I regard taxi driving to be a (nonviolent) military discipline of sorts. My name in an blue arabesque font, since I've an affinity to the Middle East.

Jenine sets aside time to proofread, edit, and revise most every new article I type. Her suggestions are priceless. When visiting me in New York, she offers to sit in the front seat of the taxicab so I don't miss a shift. She mingles with my fares, resulting in larger tips. The rides seem to take half the time to accomplish, which brings smiles from both the backseat and from behind the wheel.

Sometimes we'll park the cab for a gastronomical pit stop and she always has a list of eateries she's been researching, where independent shop owners strive to make it a genuine experience. We also explore museums and other cultural attractions together. She never fails to leave my mind saturated with her acute attention to particularities among all the art and D.I.Y. experiments around us. This in turn enables my fluidity of envisioning my own potential, both artistically and practically, and of course the marriage of each. That precise fusion is to me what"JB Fireworks" is all about. As she herself puts it, "There are no boundaries in my life".

Above is a picture at Kenny's place, inside Essex Market. He is to her an example of what she values most: independent thought and skilled craft (which you can see in both his book and thedocumentary about him). He is however a bonafide jerk, which is only valuable if applied in moderation and interspersed with kindness. He's a cook. He should know that recipe. Even the most NEW YORK of New Yorkers know that.

I make myself available every time she needs help transporting her art to an exhibition and I'm humbled that she trusts me enough to hold down her booth while she walks around as a living showcase and self-marketer. Much like my overhead (shift lease and gas total), she has to pay the promoter a flat rate for a table and then work her way toward breaking into the black. I can very much relate to this. However, the economy has rocked the sale of craft work much worse than it has the taxi driving industry in NYC, which manages to stay afloat due to it being seen as more of a necessary service. In most other cities, though, the state of hackneying is in just as bad a rut. The picture above is of Jenine setting up her booth at the most recent Bizarre Bazaar in Boston.

As she wrote in her blog most recently, she plans to slowly veer away from the under-appreciated labor of amassing stock and traveling to display it around the country. I too seek to move on from my own dead-end form of self employment, not toward the other extreme (wage and schedule slavery), but rather in the direction of realizing all my bigger potentials in the world. Together we will support and uplift one another into ever-higher levels of both financial and spiritual contentment.

A GOOD LINK THOUGH NOT TAXI

My friend pointed out a fascinating website to me. It's not necessarily hack-related, but it's a look into the human soul of NYC. I'm enamored by these people's deep connection to their (our) city. Haven't found any cabdrivers on it thus far. Would not that be grand? She said I ought to be featured on it. That would be neat.
http://www.revelinnewyork.com/

TAXICAB VIDEO PROLIFERATION

Waiting in line at the Kennedy airport taxi hold is fascinating, but until now I have been unable to show people what I mean. This clip would have been more interesting had the lot been more full of cabs, cabdrivers, and had I captured more of the conversations occurring in multiple languages inside the cafeteria. Perhaps I was trying too hard to be covert. At least I didn't have to wait more than an hour to catch a fare back to the city that day.


Sunrise over the East River. When my partner Jenine comes along for a taxi ride in the front seat, she acts as the social lubricant that provokes my passengers to tip the living daylights out of me. On top of that, it's exciting to hear her recall the parts of the city that she is familiar with from past experiences. Her discernment and familiarity covers such an unfathomable range of categories. The privilege of spending time with her simply humbles me.


There were lofty ideas for this video, but they were postponed prematurely when I became overly self-conscious. I wanted to get the message across that not only am I one to safeguard the passenger's bill of rights, but that I adamantly believe there ought to be a cabdriver's bill of rights as well.

THIS CABBIE WEARS FLEECE

These pictures were taken by Sunny Shokrae, a professional photographer who came on board the cab to gather material on behalf of Danielle Friedman, a journalism student at Columbia who has been interviewing cabdrivers (including me) for a story about how we feel about TAXI TV. Obviously, we are not OK with the same obnoxious blurbs being repeated each time a new passenger gets in. In case you didn't already know, the person in the 2nd picture is Jenine Bressner (mi enamorada). She was riding along with me that day.

Idle Hands and Sestural Glips

(spoonerisms are often used in the titles these postings are given)

Things are getting a bit craggy at the garage. It seems all 700 drivers want to work 7 shifts a week. Those who were driving all along are now putting in more hours to offset newly unemployed relatives sitting at home. And then there are those who've had their valid hack license stored away in a drawer, just in case, while relying on a steady day job that ended up falling through. So now they're adding to the long waiting lists at the garage. And the dispatchers are taking advantage of the situation by catering to those drivers who make a habit of tipping them better than anyone else. Leasing a taxicab has become something of an auction, and furthermore, a casino where you put down a hefty sum, in hopes of earning it back on the streets of a landscape that has gone from luscious economic greenery and endless nocturnal revelry, to block after urban block of sand dune. More cabs on duty, later and later into the night, circling the same deserted sidewalks like an obsessive needle locked into a groove on a broken record. These days I'm taking whatever the garage can give me. Day shift. Night shift. Double shift. No shift. Carpe diem.

Last week I got lucky one evening when, after teleporting someone from Midtown to Sunnyside, I happened to be approaching that fork in the road where Queens Blvd splits into Thomson at precisely the right moment. An elder was being escorted on foot from La Guardia College. His helper waved animatedly at me while the #7 made hellish noise, not to mention short circuit sparks seemingly dripping down like lava above our heads. Together we eased a flustered gramps into the backseat and I was reminded of how touching it is to clench a senior's cold, anhydrous hands. Made me nostalgic for the part time companionship I was hired to provide to two wheelchair bound nursing home residents during college. Off to Morningside Heights we went and it turns out he's a retired art history professor who was giving a lecture. And from the same corner where he got out, a college student entered the cab, needing to be at a Pilates class in Union Square, in 8 minutes. God bless the Henry Hudson Parkway. For months she had been oblivious to the statue of Mohandas Gandhi that was directly across from her building, and I was euphoric to have the honor of revealing it. It's my favorite statue.

Jenine was down from Providence over Valentine's weekend and did a few hours of front seat co piloting, during which we took her friend Liz Harris, who's now a famous musician, to the airport, after having come in from Portland for a live performance at the New Museum. That shift Jenine had to witness several instances of me swelling up in dramatic conniptions over unfair activities being carried out by the NYPD against fellow yellows all around us. They're really stepping it up on behalf of city revenue. Just ask this 31 year veteran cabbie who also happens to be one of the best taxi bloggers on Earth. His story is one of hundreds and his account infuriates me. Especially if the cop was a rookie in his early 20s. It's like a teenage Israeli soldier humiliating a Palestinian who is old enough to be their aging parent. The other guy who really pushed my button was a passenger who kept mumbling under his breath about how much he hates cabdrivers (and everyone else who is obsequious to him), for no apparent reason. I sure as hell didn't give him one. Jenine had to tranquilize me with a peaceful pep talk.

This Presidents Day had the smoothest traffic flow of any day I've ever worked (minus Xmas), while yielding the most continuous stream of fares of any holiday I've ever hacked on. The sidewalks were akin to bee hives and ant hills cause the weather had warmed up, yet not a single ounce of vehicular congestion could be found. The reverse gear wasn't responding on this particular cab, so I had to pre plan all of my movements to take that into consideration. No stealthily slothful U turns on 14th, 23rd, 42nd, or 57th. I don't understand slick young men who say they'll pay for my ticket if I get pulled over for breaking a turning law on their behalf. Why would they then leave less than a 10% tip when successfully arriving at their destination on time, thanks to the risky short cut. Something's missing from that equation. In the physical notebook I keep on board the cab is an uninterrupted list of every final red glow display on the taximeter, coupled with another row for the actual total given (including tip). So in theory I could add a 3rd row to show the percentages of gratuity, and even devise statistical charts of generosity levels.

OTHER PASSENGER HIGHLIGHTS OF MID FEBRUARY 2009:
1. Minneapolis parents and their post graduate New York daughter jump in at Gramercy Park and hesitantly inquire about making three stops. Why in the world would I have an issue with stopping at the thrift store to unload three large bags of clothing donations, dropping her off at work (NY Times), and then continuing on to David Letterman's show with the free ticket wielding parents? Sounds like a fabulous fare to me. Some of these cabbies have really devalued the riding public's expectations. She was so surprised at my enthusiasm and her parents were like (in a thick Midwestern swing), "see honey, they're not so bad." $14.60 was the bill and one crisp, solid Andrew Jackson their reward.

2. The sweetest old lady ever leans down and collects a few chunks of rubbish left on the floor by previous passengers and says, "I'll throw this away for you honey." Meanwhile, her door person stands there and holds it open.
In a 180 degree upper torso twist I blurt out,"I really appreciate it".
"I know you do", she smiles warmly with sustained eye contact.
No one ever does that for a cabdriver. Especially not on the Upper East side.

3. If it hadn't been for a graciously informative guy from Seattle that I picked up at the international toy fair earlier in the afternoon, I would have made nearly 100 dollars less that shift. On our way to his hotel he let me in on the inside scoop: where would many of the 1000 toy manufacturers, distributors, importers and sales agents from over 2 dozen countries be partying tonight? The hottest new spot in NYC: Strata! From 11:30p to 1:30a I kept bouncing off that place like a pinball stuck between a jackpot and a trampoline. I tend to avoid nightclubs because they're always already crawling with yellow cabs, but this one has yet to be discovered.

15 CLAMORINGLY ABSTRACT POTSHOTS

#1. A cocktail waitress from Winnipeg: home to Astoria from the bowling alley on West 42nd.
#2. An elder trio from Minsk: to church service in Boerum Hill from their doorstep in the E.V..
#3. The skinny version of Morgan Freeman goes 4 dollars worth and says, "God be with you".
#4. Windshield gets dangerously dusty on the newly salted expressway and urine flies unto your face when you pour the piss bottle out the window to substitute the empty washer fluid tank. You can call it 'minimal maintenance' on the fleet garage's part.
#5. Maori father and son who just immigrated here (NYC) from New Zealand now find themselves not driving fast, but flying low from Chinatown to Sutton Place and breaking the sound barrier in a cadmium yellow light.
#6. I often get the straphangers who never take cabs, but are running late to work. These MTA aficionados and the bartenders who do a marvelous job of empathizing are the best tippers of all. They know our professions put us up against the worst mental states NYC has to offer.
#7. Hannah Temple boards the front seat of the taxicab for a couple hours of co piloting and part of the plan is to roll past the evening's scheduled humanitarian Gaza demonstration in Manhattan, but out of the hundreds that show up, everyone gets either arrested, sent to the hospital in an ambulance, or promptly escorted back to subway pits and parked cars on parallel avenues, courtesy of NYPD on bullhorns in paddywagons and on foot. Hooray for freedom of speech!
#8. Swank man pops out of Webster Hall and jumps into your cab. He's visiting from his customized mansion in Western Mass. that he brags about the entire ride. He's here for GlobalFEST '09 and wants a ride back to the Hilton in midtown. That's all fine and dandy, and we even get into a friendly chat about our mutual love of international rhythms. He suggests I attend next year's event because it's well worth the $40 admission. Now mind you the cheapest room at this hotel is $219, plus his gas, tolls, and steep parking rates. He hands me a $100 bill and asks for 10 back on an $8.10 fare. "But sir this is not a twenty" and I hold up the bill. He says, "oh, well in that case gimme 90 back". Not a single utterance of appreciation for this whopping act of honesty. He steps out and doesn't look back. My heart sinks low. I understand these things must be done without expecting anything in return, but this just adds to the feeling of bleak helplessness that comes with providing a service to the best of your abilities and being very poorly compensated for it time and again.
#9. First long distance fare beater in my 28 month cabbie career occurs the following night. It's just past 4 am on a Wednesday morning and I'm idling on the corner of Prince and Thompson in SoHo. People are emptying out of Milady's bar and one guy in his mid 30s comes inside. He sits there silent until I ask, "where to?"
"Queens, take the LIE" is all he says, in a voice almost as shady as this. Twenty minutes later we're in front of his single family unit on Mexico Street in St. Albans. The meter reads $38.20 and he says,"I gotta go inside to get some money. Wait right here." Before I can protest he slips out the cab and into his house. Twenty minutes later he still hasn't come out and I've never called the cops in my life, mostly out of indifference. But this time I feel an urgent thirst for justice. It takes them another twenty minutes to arrive. They wail the siren for a moment and put all their strobe lights on before knocking on the front door. Lights remain on inside but no one answers. They come back shrugging their shoulders. Nothing they can do. They say I should have demanded advance payment but that happens to be highly illegal under TLC rules. I bite my tongue, clench my teeth, and cut my losses by heading to nearby JFK airport.
#10. Zubin rides the front seat of the taxicab to triple check if this is indeed a job he would want to do part time. Looks like the verdict is positive. People hesitate to get in when we respond to their street hail because they think we're undercover cops. He's a substitute teacher in NYC schools and perhaps I should be doing that too. Did it in Florida for a brief period of time. He's an Iranian Jew and when I reverse haphazard yet clear through an intersection to catch a missed street hail he remarks it's a very Persian thing to do, as in very genius.
#11. We pick up the lady who was La Reina de Turkiya at last year's International Coffee Beauty Pageant in Colombia. It was the first time Turkey was ever represented. She's currently couchsurfing among friends in NYC and considering a permanent relocation from Istanbul.
#12. A few days later that plane lands in the Hudson River and when I suggest to a passenger that it should be put in a park and turned into a playground like I've seen them do to old planes in other countries, she gets emotional about how good an idea that is and tips me like 45%.
#13. On MLK, Jr. Day I get this murmury and miserable young Bangali dude in the cab who claims that this holiday is only for the blacks. I don't bother arguing, but what about all the other struggles people like MLKJ stand for. They represent the triumphant human spirit.
#14. Financial absurdities I keep hearing on the radio making me lose momentum in the otherwise perpetual taxicab hustle hunt for rapid rider turnover rates because I see how easily billions of dollars flow above me, while the trickling down takes hundreds upon hundreds of hours to accumulate into an income on the streets. Three new local stadiums are being built next door to older ones that, if you ask any developing or underdeveloped nation, are in near mint condition. The 2nd Avenue subway tunnel might be a need postponed for too long already, but here we are again in the midst of economic depression. That is precisely what stopped this line from being built in the 1930s. And how about that John Thain character? Spending lavishly as CEO and then disappearing so as to leave less of a trail. Who the hell needs an 83.1 million dollar salary? Only someone with a damn heck of a lot of charitable ideas in mind. Not some numskull in an deceitfully ironed suit.
#15. Jenine Bressner of Rhode Island rides shotgun in the taxicab late one Sunday night and our suspicion of being potential soulmates and twin siblings from other nibblings is confirmed. We both have a tremendously vigorous admiration for life and the world as a whole. We absolutely love learning, teaching writing, editing, and being fit on various fronts (muscles, intellect, and spirit). We each have a plethora of future goals that involve the proliferation of our independent artistic endeavors, an ongoing altruistic service to humanity, and ecological homewardboundness. We both have an extensive travel destination list and a commitment not to be merely tourists in our peregrinations. Our lifestyles and ethical stances mirror one another. The both of us are multiethnic Jews who deplore violence and negativity whatsoever. We can more or less communicate in three languages. And juiciest of all, we have an immense physical attraction to each other. The only issue to look out for is that we're both Leos and therefore must be mindful not to burn each other up in contending passions. It's like putting two confident lions or blazing suns next to each other for prolonged periods of time. It can either turn into one unstoppable ball of flame or two charred and wilted carcasses of infatuation. I have reason to trust in the fireball. And no it ain't making holiday stops at the shopping mall this fall.