Bury Me Standing Too

I just finished reading this book on an ethnicity whose history, lifestyle, philosophy, and physiognomy I have long felt a particular intrigue and even semblance to. This book details the vast spectrum of idiosyncrasies privy to this people, through the eyes of an outsider who spent years among them. I will not go into all of what I learned, except for a short sampling of morsels.

The term "Gypsy" is old Greek for "Egyptian", and though they may have spent time there (along their centuries long journey), their origin (and that of their idiom) is somewhere in the vicinity of Rajasthan (India). Misunderstandings concerning them are abundant the world over, not to mention their perpetually unmentioned mistreatment in the hands of reluctant host cultures. The names they are known by are as varied as the regions they inhabit, some of which can be easily confused with other meanings. For example, "Roma" has nothing to do with Italy's capital city. "Romani" has nothing to do with the eastern European country that ironically happens to be home to the highest concentrations of them (only because they had at one point been imported as slaves). Rom, Dom, Lom, Sinti, Gitano, Tsigani, Ziguener, Manush, and Kale are a few of the titles they wear.

Call it romanticizing, but I have an internal propensity towards sharing in the traditional Gypsy male's custom of wearing the same single suit, all the time, regardless of occasion or weather, until it falls to pieces and has to be replaced.... or even the bright color mosaic of the female Gypsy. I desire as much a knack for multilingual fluency (3 is not enough) and declamatory accordion skills (add flute and xylophone) as I have for photographic memory of cartographic layouts and the sophisticated contents of city blocks and rural roadsides.

I wish to be passionately free of meaningless materialism and permanent, sedentary anchorage. I want to be an adjunct Bulibasha, though I'm allergic to Biznitsa (money not earned through manual sweat). As a ubiquitous cabdriver, I by default have a reputation for dishonesty, though I've done everything possible to live honorably. I'm wanted and detained for my talents, not crimes, though those talents are often mistaken for crimes. I assign value and priority to all events equally, though serially (per moment). I can't stay still and I can't follow someone else's orders if they oppose my principles. I have all the markings of a zingaro. The only thing I'm terrified of is being shiftless, a trait that frequently creeps up on us members of the Leo sign, though it might be least expected of us.

It fascinates me that the Rom and the Jews have shared a guilt of showing too much initiative (of the wrong kinds). This book points out several similarities and dissimilarities among these two and other groups as well: "labored on their own in the jobs that no one else could or would do and sold their goods and skills door-to-door. But this for the moment is where the parallel between Gypsies and Jews as migrant middlemen ends. Far from the start of a brilliant career, their situation in the Balkans came more to resemble that of American blacks."

I can feel the ear bursting clamor of wandering musicians, the clairvoyant hustle of free and spirited tradesmen, the scraped subsistence of mudlarks, and the solemn silence of segregated servants. The preening of and being preened by the intimacy of a tightly knit community.

Limitation can force one to be resourceful. One of my favorite quotes in the book was: "The Masai of east Africa are said to believe that all cattle belong to them; the Roma of eastern Slovakia, it seems, feel the same way about potatoes." Foppish, raucous, and fecunditious were a few of the new words I learned in this book. Not that I'll remember them for long. If you don't read this book, perhaps at least watch 'Latcho Drom', which may not answer many questions, but may uplift your spirit when watched with an open mind. As a passenger in my cab once said, "I hope that extensive genealogies become less expensive so that we may collectively rid ourselves of our ingrown xenophobias." My wish for such a drop in cost for that service goes a small step further. So I may put to rest the mystery behind my Romanian roots, slightly darker skin tone than Ashkenazis in my family, and my pre-Romanian ancestry.

Winona as L.A. Cabbie

Speaking of films about taxi drivers, here is one I sort of, more or less, recommend. Night on Earth is a movie set in 5 different cities around the world. Each scene is based around one eccentric cabdriver and their even more eccentric passengers. My favorite one is Los Angeles, in which Winona Ryder plays the role of a half jaded, half wide-eyed hack who dreams of becoming a mechanic. There are certain aspects of her character I can certainly relate to. Mostly just the awkward occupational reality of being on both an exciting adventure as well as an endless cycle: 10 to 20 minute slices of the pathetic lives of strangers.

Palestinian Spotlight

This past weekend a movie theater in Bay Ridge hosted a little film festival featuring some brand new material from the troubled land of, well, what should I call it? I prefer one of its more ancient, lesser used names, in order not to aggravate anyone. You know, I'm talking about the precious swath of land between the Dead and Mediterranean Seas. Between the northernmost reaches of the Red Sea and the southernmost reaches of Lebanon. How about we call it Canaan for now?

Well, anyhow, this post is about the one film I had the pleasure of seeing. It's called Laila's Birthday and it's about a character I can very much identify with, as he goes through one long day of absurdities and tribulations as an overqualified taxi driver in Ramallah. I think most taxi drivers anywhere in the world can empathize with his frustrations, regardless of whether they live in an occupied territory or not. I definitely can, as a NYC cabbie. It's the privilege of life without having to bend over backwards for some basic dignity that is occupied, not necessarily the land, in and of itself, per se.

After the film I got to meet Mohammad Bakri in person, a renowned Israeli Arab actor and director who traveled all the way to Brooklyn just to answer questions from the audience after his movies' screenings. What an honest, gentle, and perpetually optimistic man, despite all of the uncomfortable experiences in his own life. It was an honor for me to shake his hand.

Unfortunately, he's currently being blacklisted, banned, and sued for an older documentary he made about the Jenin invasion. It's too bad not many people showed up to Palestinian Spotlight. I think its location on the very edge of Brooklyn, so far from Manhattan, might have played a role. This is its first year. I happened to stumble across it by way of wheat-pasted posters on a wall in Boerum Hill.

Here are a couple other, more profound depictions of the film, Laila's Birthday:

http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/movies/27lail.html

http://www.linktv.org/programs/cinemondo-lailas-birthday

Vernal Communique of Gilespie Avunique

Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alphadesigner/3192055736/
Greetings on this late March in 2010. My sincerest desire is that this note finds you well on your path towards happiness. I'm writing to climb back unto the face of the planet. Doing fine for the most part. Still driving taxicabs in New York. Still trying to save enough money to travel across the ocean. This summer, if the light force of the creator wills it, I'll be exploring Europe for the first time. My itinerary is contingent on the slowly unfolding plans of my sister and those of my partner. It looks as though this trip might be split into three parts. Traveling with sis, alone, and with partner. Perhaps a couple weeks of each, between June and August.

The extent of geographical coverage also depends on my savings between now and then. The big ones on my list include Amsterdam, Paris, London, Barcelona, Casablanca, Rome, Berlin, Athens, Bucharest, Istanbul, and Tel Aviv. I know that's a lot of ground to cover, but my time isn't constrained, and my budget isn't fanciful. My cargo will be light as possible. A change of clothes. A toothbrush. A journal. A map or two. No more.

This past winter I spent large swaths of time hiding from the cold by paying old friends a long overdue visit in Florida and helping my father demolish my aunt's floor in Houston (2nd visit to TX in a month). I made new bonds with cousins and saw high-school buddies from lifetimes ago. The only person I didn't get to see, but really wanted to, is Waffle, a great inspiration of mine (and countless others). I had been promising to come down for weeks, and when I finally mustered up the gumption, he had taken off for Haiti, to help build shelters.

HERE IS THE PICTURE ALBUM OF MY SOUTHERN EXCURSIONS AND SOME NORTHERN ONES TOO.

Since I got back to NYC, I've been working 5 days a week, as a self-employed operator of yellow cruise missiles. Been leasing them out of my old old garage, the first one from nearly 4 years ago (in downtown Brooklyn). I've been through some drama with a burglar in the cab and all sorts of other scenarios, all of them blessings, whether hidden or outright.

Lastly, I leave you with a list of movies I've seen recently, that I really think you ought to watch.....

SIN NOMBRE, FOR MY FATHER, TSOTSI, UP, HURT LOCKER, and AVATAR.

Subway Safety and Taxi Price-Gouging

NOTE: I've revised the previous post, adding specific refusal rules that I copy/pasted off the TLC website, removing unnecessary clutter (like the Arab driver's beautiful accent, which could be mistaken for xenophobia on my part), and clarifying what I meant when mentioning Danny Glover (which could be misconstrued as racism, but really just an empathic emotion I feel toward his plight for dignity). Please take another gander at it if you've already read it. In today's post I'd like to cover a few loosely knit themes. Bear with me.

Did you hear about the lady who jumped into a subway rail pit in Manhattan last week, in order to save her toiletries pouch that she accidently dropped down there? According to the report, people in the station were yelling at her to lay down on the track as an unstoppable 6 train approached, but she panicked and ended up crushed between train car and platform.

The MTA doesn't put effort into training people to survive such a predicament, probably because they don't want folks to get the wrong ideas in their heads. If I understand correctly, the best advice is to lay down flat on your back in the rancid gap between the tracks, and let the train go over and past you. That is how an altruist saved a fallen straphanger in 2007. Perhaps the gap under the edge of the platform is good too. I don't know. We (as New Yorkers) should know these things. One thing's for sure. Don't go chasing after something if it falls into the pit (unless you're saving a human being and you know what you're doing). The MTA will retrieve items in due time. That's what us taxi drivers pay them to do. Ride in our cabs and we'll send a 50 cent contribution, from every fare, to all the worthwhile causes of the underground.

Onto the more current topic of double rate scams. It's all over the news and being amply discussed among cabbie circles right now. All I have to say is that I saw it coming. It's easy for a driver to engage the rate 4 button with a light tap on the meter, at any point during a trip. It's not hard to get away with it because nearly no one takes their receipt, which would reveal the scam outright (Nassau-West(chester) would be printed on it.) Such an easy deception can be as tempting as human nature is predictable, particularly in the psyche of people who are so poorly compensated (and even occasionally punished) for their ceaseless efforts to serve the public proficiently, and to protect their welfare.

I'm not advocating anything here. I would be extremely angry if my cabdriver did that to me, and the golden rule happens to be my religion. I treat my passengers the way I'd want to be treated. I'm just saying, "What'd you expect?" I guess every collar gets a turn as criminal. Blue, white, and now yellow. I feel like they (TLC) might have known what kind of inevitable traps they were setting up when they introduced the new system. Call me Mel Gibson in the movie "Conspiracy Theory."

I, for one, always try to end every fare about a half block early, so that my fares have a few moments to swipe their card or count their cash before we stop, especially if there's no safe place to pull over (often the case), which minimizes danger time. Since I remain focused on driving while searching with my finger to end the fare and print the receipt, and since all of these rate buttons are so small and closely placed, I have made the rare mistake of pressing rate 4 (perhaps twice a month, or so). But since I end the fare within 1-3 seconds of the mistake, it has no effect on the total the passenger owes me.

I'm sure similar scenarios of accidently pressing the wrong button happen to cabdrivers all the time. You go to pause the meter, so it doesn't run while you check your street atlas for an obscure destination, or because you agreed to wait for a passenger without charging them for wait time, and all of a sudden the meter reads rate 4 instead of the usual 1. In a situation like that I either just end the metered fare immediately or explain to the passenger (if we've already established mutual rapport) what has accidently occurred (it's now charging double) and we settle for a mutual solution, like turning it off halfway between here and there. Examples like this (where being as earnest and fair as possible can ironically land you into trouble) abound in taxi life. Why do you think the city found that 35,558 out of the 48,000 drivers (only about 40,000 are active drivers) had illegally pressed the rate 4 button? Here's an excerpt from the NY Times:

The taxi industry vigorously challenged the city’s findings, saying it was unimaginable that such a pervasive problem could be the result of deliberate fraud. “This is clearly a systematic failure on the part of the meters and the technology,” said Bhairavi Desai, the executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, which represents cabbies. “For this to be so widespread — nearly every single driver — makes no sense,” she added.

One solution a neighbor of mine presented is to have the meter buttons color-coded. Right now they're all gray and the same small size, one right next to the other. I must say that when all this hoopla came out about the epidemic of price-gouging, I was expecting there to be an instant increase in passenger hostility, mistrust, and suspicion.... but in the handful of shifts I've worked since the story proliferated in the media, I simply haven't seen that happen. Passengers, for the most part, continue to be polite and understanding, or at least not incriminating. All they have to do is look at the far right side of the meter and see what code number is being displayed.

1 is a normal in-town fare.

2 is a JFK rate (to and from that airport and Manhattan)

3 is a Newark Airport rate (starts at 17.50, plus tolls)

4 should only be on there if you've left the city limits of the five boroughs.

Once 2, 3, or 4 appears on the meter it cannot be reversed back to 1.

Every once in a while a cabdriver will outright forget to even initiate the meter when a passenger first enters. It usually happens when something distracts the driver during the pick-up. It could be the frantic loading of luggage (or other cargo) into the trunk. It could also be that the driver's only way to pick up the passenger was by stopping at a precarious point in traffic. It may be that upon entry, the passenger urgently requested a right turn be made from the leftmost lane (or vice versa). The driver must then attempt to safely shift several lanes of traffic within a matter of seconds and feet.

I'd say the most common one for me is when I drop someone off that involves a frantic scramble of some sort (children/cargo/time crunch/traffic obstruction), and then a new passenger immediately enters the cab with their own frantic scramble. I take off again instantly. I'm lucky if I remember to erase the previous passenger's total off the meter, let alone engage it anew. No, that doesn't mean this passenger will have to pay the previous fare. The meter isn't accruing anymore. It's sitting idle, waiting for the final receipt-printing to be engaged by the driver.

If I forget to turn the meter on, I tell the passenger that it's pay-as-you-wish, like at the Metropolitan Museum. Whatever they felt the ride was worth (obviously if they're clueless tourists I'm going to be forthright on an estimate). However, I never demand payment of any sort in a situation like this, because I take full responsibility for my own amnesia. It's merely a suggested donation, as they say at the museum. I have heard stories of cabdrivers pressing the double rate 4 for enough blocks to make up for the time and distance they covered while the meter was forgetfully unengaged. This is often done on the sly, although the final price of the cab ride comes out to nearly exactly what it would have been if the meter had been initiated normally at the start of the trip. The driver simply didn't want to disturb the passenger with such technicalities. Like I said before, our deeds and sensibilities go largely unnoticed, and are sometimes even reprimanded and criminalized.

There are, however, bad apples among us, as in any industry or group of people. Here's an article about the lousiest and most notorious modern hack alive. His scheme has further ruined our delicate reputation as cabdrivers in a city as harshly judgmental as this.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2010/03/01/2010-03-01_crooked_cabbie_wasim_khalid_cheema_took_public_for_40000_ride_say_officials.html

Lastly, please take a moment to read this short entry by another driver. It sums up and provides perfect examples of how poorly we often get treated by passengers, and for no legitimate reason.

http://nyc-cab.blogspot.com/2010/03/rainy-day.html

And here's an interesting random fact within the rules of the TLC. It applies whether or not the driver has their off-duty light on!

	From Driver Rule 2-50e8 (in PDF): If the driver has been operating the taxicab for more than eight (8) hours of any continuous twenty-four (24) hour period, then he may refuse to take a passenger to these destinations: Westchester or Nassau County or to Newark Airport.

Spark of Actor Within

This past weekend I had a few special guests in my taxicab. An indie film crew shot the first part of a 10 episode series about a girl who just emigrated from Spain to New York. Besides driving while incessantly and aloofly on my phone, I played the 30 second, on-camera role of an ill-mannered hack who took a long route from JFK to her newly adopted home of Bushwick.

It's ironic, considering how hard I try to always be accommodating to my passengers and uplift the depressed reputation of taxis in this city. But unfortunately it is realistic. As I see cabbies do several times a day, my character refuses to help unload the trunk, after failing to answer her inquiries as to whether we were in Brooklyn or not. Pictured below from left to right are the director, the videographer, me, the actor, and the editor.


My initial connection to the film shoot was through Edu, the Andorran editor who resides in Barcelona. I met him and his Brazilian partner 2 years ago when they came to shoot a documentary about the Freegan movement in NYC. Our mutual friend and outspoken artist, Raquel Sacristan, introduced us. They interviewed me in a taxicab about my lifestyle and we stopped for curb scores in SoHo. The film never fully developed for lack of funding.

But Edu has renewed his promise to send me copies of both the older segment and this new one, as soon as he returns to Spain. Everyone on the set, except for me and the hip young American director, flew in from the Iberian Penninsula.

I was paid $100 for 3 hours, a good deal for me, considering it took place during the slower part of the shift. I met them in Williamsburg at 9 am. With the director up front and the cameraman and actress in the back, we got on the BQE to the LIE and looped back over the Kosciuszko Bridge via Maurice Avenue. The first scene was her reaction to Midtown's magestic skyline through the window.

The next scene was cruising down Washington Avenue in Clinton Hill, to give her the lovely (but false) impression she was moving into a beautiful brownstone neighborhood. As we turned down Myrtle Avenue, the landscape progressively deteriorated until we arrived at her destination, by the JMZ train. Then the camera focused on me collecting the overpriced fare without clear explanation or remorse as to why it was so expensive.

Next, I was filmed as I stepped out "angrily" to close the trunk, after she walked off having intentionally left it open. Below is a shot of the film crew editing the final scene, using furniture on a sidewalk display as their office (after receiving permission from the vendor.) The elephant woman with the big yellow underwear makes for a nice backdrop.

Highlights from July and August

1. An upbeat elder double date out of eastern Washington state ask to go to the West Village from SoHo.

2. Roadwork, condo construction, and film production perpetuate the nightmares of traffic nonflow.

3. A single, middle aged New Yorker heads over to sign adoption forms for an Ethiopian infant. The honored cabdriver credits her with kudos for her wisdom.

4. Brisbanite of Polynesian descent proudly fulminates Qantas as the only airline free of fatalities.

5. Guitar and vocalist for the rock band 'Betty' rides aloofly backseat from ABC to NoHo.

6. Swiss suit shares tales of hitchhiking from Venezuela through the Amazon.

7. Swedish duo get a royal tour from the Regency hotel to Atlantic Yards via scenic FDR drive with a view of four monstrous bridges. The boy wants to find "street wear", so the cabdriver recommends Fulton Street mall.

8. Russian lady whose husband is an absent Turkish sea captain has me carry an a/c unit up 5 flights for a generous tip.

9. Peruvian nanny and a little boy communicate so adorably on the way home from a Zionist private school. She shows off the few words in Hebrew she's learned.

10. It seems no one in NYC is ever interested in improving their alternate merging skills.

11. Paid a visit to the mud puddles of the Willets Point district, haggled a bit, and replaced broken automotive glass that some Brooklyn teens must have practiced on.

12. Took my Houstonian cousin on a camping trip to the Catskill mountains.

13. Joined the Parks & Recreation Department here in NYC and I've begun using their gyms/indoor pools about three times a week.

14. Moved into a small apartment in south central Queens with my parents in order to save money to travel the Mediterranean on a shoestring late this winter. They're in their 50s and the thought of them aging never crosses my mind. Occasional moments of concern do emerge, but then passengers pass through my taxicab to demonstrate that health and age don't have to be codependent. Merialis, a 67 year old superwoman who just attained her black belt in karate, serves on the Connecticut board of ecotourism.

And a guy my father's age, who piles his bicycle in my trunk, pedals in daily from Sheepshead Bay to work in Manhattan. Today his wheel caved in on itself. The spokes must've been loose for too long and he hadn't known to tighten them. Unlike in the Bucket List, these folks actually mend their adventures into their daily routines, not some last minute punch list. Mine is going to be Portugal, Morocco, Spain, Croatia, Albania, and Greece come February or so. Then Palestine, Jordan, and Egypt. And a return to the states via Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Holland, France, and Britain.