ETERNAL RUMSPRINGA OF THE MUNICIPAL ARRONDISSEMENTS

Dos (2) mapas de dos (2) turnos de dia (day shifts) from this past autumn. 24 hours of slapdash circumstance, split into 2 neutrally bouyant pools of slippery time. All the while building vocabulary, butchering jokes, and discombobulating molecules. It's the life of a happy-go-lucky (but not johnny-come-lately) trilingual taxicab aviator. Without a single traffic light it would feel more like a mid-air flight. The Hebrew letters were stenciled in (courtesy of my art journaling aunt's nifty utensil) on a recent visit to L.A.. Now I just have to find stencils for all the other written tongues I love, but know not yet how to read: Mandarin, Arabic, Hindi, Tibetan, etc.. Early mornings, between fares, the dial is often set to 89.9 FM (non-commercial and student-run), for the soothing ragas and galvanizing reggaes. Robust, complacent, and bionic all at once.

Bedpan Alley on York Avenue: the most boreal fare departure on the green shift (see map color). Bedpan as in how bedridden patients go potty. Alley as in a cluster of medical institutions. Boreal as in closest to the arctic. The corner that Ansche Chesed is on took that title on the red shift, while Lehmen Center for the Performing Arts in Bedford Park (Bronx) made the cut for septentrion terminus, and all the way from Sunnyside (Queens) of all places. The green shift's answer to that was the intersection that is home to Kieselstein-Cord and L'Ocitanne on the Upper East.

Yana, a friend from Moscow, was my guest of honor during the first eight fares of the green shift. She has always dreamed of driving a taxicab, but felt less so after this first-hand experience. I've never been a passenger of hers, but I know her personality would turn her into a great cabbie.

Many homeless panhandlers have told me that the only motorists who hand them change are cabdrivers. I believe it. We might not be without a roof over our heads, but we're on a frontline in the basic human struggle to survive. We must forge our way ahead, or be left behind just the same, because unlike the lawyers, surgeons, psychiatrists, engineers, managers, etc.... society has yet to assign a sustainable value to our endless efforts, those of us who try (our best.)

I imagine that, like me, most cabbies in NY have their preferred territorial turf to hunt for fares. Of course, you have your perpetual hotel and taxi stand loungers. And many of us wander aimlessly up and down the avenues without giving much thought to strategy or any sense of hyperlocal inclination. Union Square is the nucleus of my cruising grounds. Anything below 29th Street is Kosher in my kitchen. Anything above it and I feel like a fish out of water. Unless a passenger requests to be driven up there, I don't bother with Midtown, or Uptown for that matter. I'd rather go to Brooklyn.

I'm a downtown cabbie. I like my Villages, my Chelsea, and my Chinatown. Long live Alphabet City, the LES, and the FiDi. You can catch me in TriBeCa, NoMad, NoHo, NoCa, and the Civic Center. Less stress, less traffic congestion, less pretentiousness, less police harassment, and less of the dull, mainstream tourists. More locals and visitors alike who can actually think outside the box and/or appreciate history, art, music, diversity, honorable character, and quality cabdrivers. I know it's not as cut and dry as I'm making it sound. You have assholes, dimwits, snobs, and lame cops everywhere. But I know which communities I can serve with a stronger sense of eagerness and belonging.

Lastly, let's step out of our little bubble for a minute and take a look two things that I'm not very happy about :

#1. Israel ruining what's left of its diplomatic ties with Turkey and the world by being a naval bully.

#2. Guatemala being devastated by two 'natural' disasters in two days.

Twins Maps But Not Identical

TWO DAY-SHIFTS.....

MAY 2 MAY 3

SUNDAY MONDAY:

NET EARNINGS $233, $125

HOURS ON-DUTY 12, 8

MILES TRAVELED far more, 100

# OF FARES 31, 26

CASH/CREDIT RATIO 18/13, 15/11

OUTER BORO PICKS/DROPS 3/4, 0/1

CROSSINGS USED QMT/QBB(2)/MB(2)/BKB, WBB/ MB

EASTERNMOST La Guardia, JFK

SOUTHERNMOST Bay Ridge, Kennedy

NORTHERNMOST 137th, E71st

OCCUPIED ROUTE Red, Pink

VACANT ROUTE Dark, Light (BLUE)

BUSIEST SECTOR West Village, All along Lower West side

FOREIGNERS: Qatar/Albania/Lebanon/Amsterdam/London/Mexico/OC (CA), Italy/Holland/L.A./Colombia/Spain/Israel/NJ

PHANTOM HACK: Max Hurwitz of Portland, Maine. New Englanders only wish they could drive NY taxicabs.

Around Brooklyn

1. FISHING FOR L TRAIN PEOPLE: Hovering on Bogart with crossed fingers.
2. UNSPOKEN UNITY: cab yields to cheese bus at crossroads of Bill, Wick, and Stuy.
3. KHASSIDIC CORRIDOR: Quasi-public transport from far southwestern WB to Boro Park.
4. HONORABLE GUEST: global hitchhiking connoisseur Guillaume C.
5. WILLY BEE BRIDGE: corner of South 6th and Kent at dusk.
6. KEAP AND HOPE: remarkably wholesome graffiti mural in Williamsburg.

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.

IMPACTS AND TAXI CATS

This past Sunday I drove the night shift. Around midnight I discovered these two cabs (above) on the corner of Broadway and E 9th. They seem to have been chasing after a potential fare on the curb and ended up on the sidewalk with the building's scaffolding all over them. Sunday nights can get downright ghost town. Especially after Halloween took all the limelight on Friday and Saturday nights. If you hail a taxi during hours in which there is a surplus of vacant cabs and a lack of passengers to transport, always be ready to run for your life if they decide to play chicken over you. Unfortunate, but true.

And ironically, that same night I was taking my friend Wald home, down Queens Blvd., through Sunnyside, and I got dangerously cut off by a minivan cab making a left from the middle lane, directly in front of me. I was on the left lane going straight and he was more interested in his ear piece than his mirrors. Lucky for me my reflexes are nearly immaculate and so I swerved gently and braked swiftly. I proceeded to complete the left turn he had forced me into and then got out to go give him a lecture.

He was completely oblivious to the wreck he had almost caused and even went on to use some obscure, unintelligible explanation about why I was at fault and not him. My friend Wald is my witness. I was driving the speed limit and minding my own lane when this guy made an abrupt 90 degree angle with his vehicle out of the blue. That happened around 1 AM.



The above pictures are of crashed cabs parked at my garage on McGuinness Blvd. and I have no clue what their stories are. And the cat up there is the taxi garage lot cat that meows day and night. I really hope it doesn't perish in the freezing cold this winter.

NON-SEQUITORS OF A HECKLING HACK

Passengers ask if I'd prefer a hybrid or Vic. The answer is always honest, raw, and unexpected. I'd rather drive a Corolla, or any of the compact models that they use in developing nations, with a roof rack to handle airport cargo. I like a simple, economic and highly maneuverable vehicle that isn't brand spanking new and ostentatious in appearance. They get by just fine with Rios and Rondos in the 3rd world. SPEAKING OF FOREIGN TAXIS AND THEIR AWESOMENESS: YOU MUST READ THIS BRIEF ARTICLE ABOUT THE CABS OF BOGOTA.

In this culture we have one day each year in which we're encouraged to take our children to work with us. There's even a TAKE-YOUR-DOG-TO-WORK day. But what about dad? Mom never comes, no matter how many times I invite her. Dad's come to work with me before, but we've neglected that sincethe last time he was unemployed (about two years ago), which was during the time he moved to NYC from Florida. But his Brooklyn contractor laid him off this month.

He's been an electrician for almost 3 decades, in 4 states, and 2 countries. He's the best one there is. But he was too much of a newbie in New York to stay afloat amidst this breaking wave of an economy. It looks as though he might end up back in TX, where we lived during most of the 90s.

The lady on the roof cone advertisement says, "college is expensive". And her eyes seem to have lost their soul. I think it's trying to show that just because she has to work as an exotic dancer to make ends meet does not mean that she is a bimbo. And the soulless eyes seem to represent how degrading it can be for women to have to be dependent on rich sleazeballs with penises for a living.

An executive made his bellman close my back door, walk around to the street side, and open that door.... all because of this small rip in the seat cushion. It might look daunting from your perspective because I zoomed in, but it's really not much of anything if you were to see it in real life. But that executive thought it might ruin his suit by cutting into it if it got caught. Comeon now. Gimme a break.

Here is a link to that article on how cabdrivers feel about TAXI TV, in which I'm repeatedly quoted. Oh, and one more thing. I just discovered a new taxi blog and this one is a keeper. It's out of Boston, very well written, and enticing to read.

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.

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.

EXTOLLING BRUSQUENESS

The driver's lounge at your garage turns into the scene of belligerent feuds between our browbeating Russian dispatcher and a handful of west African drivers, over adjustments made in the daily lease rate and early bird special, as well as whether he's fibbing about the commission having threatened him with summonses for allowing us to surpass the 720 minute continuous vehicle operation limit.

Upholding your idea of what is a good cabdriver, you tune into the traffic report nearly 15 times an hour, in case someone gets in the taxi who wants to get somewhere affected by roving construction, an accident, or just plain volume. In between, the radio blares out snippets about the potential for solar powered desalinization plants to cover the world's deserts and the theory about terrorism being a symptom of alienation (and degradation of the environment being its cousin). You take this extracurricular taxi idea home by using Google to compile upcoming NYC events, planned street closures, and the schedule for Javits shows as well as cruise itineraries at piers 88, 90, and 92. This is recommended for all cabdrivers to do if they want more lucrative shifts and/or care about improving the yellows' reputation for conscientiousness, or lack thereof.

Got your fix of Autopanethnic news via Caracol (Colombia) and Mabat (Israel). After the recent riots in Akko, an Arab apologized for driving through the Jewish quarters with a loud radio during the strict holiday of Yom Kippur. But no record of a Jew apologizing for hurling stones at him and his little son. Your latest You Tube fixation lasts an hour. In those 60 minutes you and dad watch clips of near catastrophic airplane take offs and landings. Dad injects his engineering background into every scene in attempts to explain what went wrong.

A landscape architect from Argentina in lavish Oxxford suit over drank and lost his cell at one of the bars. It's 4 am and he wants to know how much you charge to Orange (16 miles into NJ). "What the meter says, plus double rate from the state line, and tunnel toll." He says never mind and begins to exit (as if you resemble a con artist). Wait, what did you expect to pay? "It's always $100." You guarantee the meter will total out cheaper and even let him call his phone with yours. 25 minutes later the bright red digits read $80.10 and he hands you 120, smiling and staggering out into a dusky October dawn.

Chip came for a ride in the cab last week, but it was too close to the 5 pm shift deadline. Instead of cruising in search of itinerant people to give him a feel for this magnanimous profession, we had to return over the Queensboro bridge to drop off the cab. Chip looks healthy even though he complained of Candida complications. He stuck to his ironclad diet in tupperware while we had veggie burgers and onion rings at the local diner. Speaking of the 5 pm shift cutoff: it sometimes calls for maneuverings and negotiations to maximize time, space, and monetary efficiencies. For example, it's 3:30 pm and a mom/son duo from the Satmar sect wish to go over the Billy bridge to prepare for the sabbath.

You can see inbound traffic backed up beyond the horizon, so it seems like the end of your shift by default. Who would've ever thought these last 90 minutes would see so much action though. You begin up Bedford Avenue towards Long Island City a little bummed out at having been booted from Manhattan so early on, yet too late. But then in the heart of hipster district a girl jumps in and requests Fort Greene. From there it seems best to use the Manhattan bridge, which nearly never sees a jam, and work your off-duty Queens bound again. On the corner of Tillary and Flatbush stand a crew of young Spaniard tourists awaiting a lift back into the island of money. And then another instant turnover further uptown that leaves you a 1/5 mile from base. What a chain of luck. An extra $45, all thanks to the hub at Williamsburg.

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.

ITINERANT IRREFUTABILITIES

Far away from ever being the victim of an existential crisis. That's you. The dawnielitic beings have arrived in a grease capsule to work on a vegetable farm in Virginia. If you could reclaim the freedom you once knew, you'd be there in a pulse throb. Farming is one of those dharmic human doings worth having your ignorance deplored about. But here you are in the city without a way out, for now. So into the taxicab we go for another hundred mile cacophony of scribbles on the street map of your life.

A pair of 'Ash the Berber' types, but Irish, tip selflessly for a smooth ride from the Bowery to West Fourteenth. A humorous old man travels crosstown to the diagnostic imaging place. One of his jokes: "...a cabdriver speeds up and runs a red light. speeds up again and runs another red. does it a third time. then approaching a green light, he outright sits on the brakes. why'd you stop here of all places? because you never know when there might be another cabdriver running the red light." Don't know about you, but that had me laughing hard. In enters another old man, but in a sharp suit and with no signs of decrepitness, he requests a ride up to Spanish Harlem. As you drop him off in front of the GoSo office, he gets awfully hubristic about his role in reducing recidivism among young men.

A wise young lady who reminds you of Daina Thomas just has to go a few blocks along E 72nd. Says she likes to interview cabbies and asks for your feelings over the credit card machines. She's collecting a rainbow of hackney responses for a letter she'll be writing the mayor. It's a tradition she has kept up ever since Mr. Dinkins himself actually wrote her back in 1990. You get political with your next passenger, a slick Egyptian buck, over the unethical behavior of most governments for the sake of monetary comfort and complacency.

One thing in particular is strongly agreed upon: "rather be homeless on the streets than to know someone died because of me." And the next fare is an Asian-California girl who just spent months touring the country to organize rallies for the Hillary campaign and is a bit bummed about it being over. And then a Jersey couple whose family is visiting from India try real hard to negotiate a flat rate to Niagara Falls and back, which is impossible to do in a dozen hours, and they wouldn't want to embark at 4:30 am anyhow. But there's no getting through to them.

An engineer who just returned from erecting a skyscraper in Dubai catches a ride from the Flower District to his one night crib while boasting the fact that Antarctica is the only place he hasn't been. It could have been a fascinating chat, but instead you drown in his vainglorious hypnotism. You yell something at someone through the window just to break up the stale monotony of his voice. You head back downtown vacant and available until an elder Italian Jew and his alert little granddaughter step in, bound for the salute-to-Israel parade. He tells his tale of driving a retired 1970s NYC Caprice yellow cab through 24,000 miles of Latin America and beyond.

Next in is a modest guy who looks like the helicopter pilot on Airwolf, the 1980s TV series that was among a handful of afternoon anesthetics your mom was clever enough not to let you watch too much of when you'd come home from school. He said he'd look up the resemblance on You Tube. Side note: If a Benz or BMW driver gets angry when you cut him off with your yellow cab, tell them "hey, I've got to earn my swanky beamer too. Ya know?" (ya right).

To get home and hear your sister recalling her great day at the summer internship makes each grueling shift worthwhile. You accidently hooked her up with this spot while being the random yellow cab that stopped when the fashion wizard's business partner hailed his hand up high a few weeks ago. It's going to look so good on her resume.

Synchronicities happen often enough to keep you ceaselessly humble, but only if you're outside the mental bubble enough to intercept them. I leave you with 2 outstanding photographs a Viennese friend took while riding in the cab.

livelihoods

I've got a new cell#. Ask me for it! Free front seat on-duty taxi tour of n.Y.c still available. Call to book a ride any day (but Sat.) btw 5 am and 16:00. Notify one hour prior to arriving at Union Square for pick up by Gandhi statue.

Another reminder if you're a New Yorker:

Tomorrow (Mar 15) from 9 to midnight at Sultana's on N.4/Bedford in W burg

you can dance to Tunisian + Moroccan music for free (and live Sephardic band).

Some highlights from the yellow cab:

#1. An oddball in his early 20s uses my services to go hunt for the glossy black land rover that his boss left parked in front of a bus stop, across from a see and be seen bar the night before. We circle around thrice and even check the side streets until I convince him that it's probably been towed to the NYPD pound. He slides a debit card that his boss gave him to pay for the fare and punches in a tip on the back seat touch screen. Total: $107 (for 12 minutes of pecunious ballyhoo for easter egg reconnaissance via taxi). The kid explains that his boss is perpetually wasteful and so he wants to safeguard some wealth under the wings of a worker. Finally something makes up for the hundreds of non tippers and various traffic/parking fines I've accumulated.

#2. While inching along 9th Avenue in the lower 40s, and catching 2 to 3 lights per block through a dawdling impasse, my eyes follow this mail carrier who methodically stops in front of each passing pedestrian and toots a little bicycle squish horn that is attached to his push cart, smiles wide and says 'how's by you today'. And in between, when he's got the sidewalk to himself, he wails away on that bugle like a 3rd world megaphone in an open air market. Not one person manages to hold back a grin, nod, chuckle, or hoedown.

#3. A couple of spunky mid aged suits absorbed in chatter the entire trip from TriBeCa to the Theater District speak in amalgamated tongues except twice when they caught my attention:

A) "That's so Bear Stearns. That is so, like, kitchen sink. Totally man."

B) "You're asking ME if that's being too greedy?"

C) I wish I had an iTalk so I could let you listen to how opinionated many passengers were about Mr. Spitzer this week. And I didn't even ask for any. It's how they broke the ice with me. Since I don't care so much for the details concerning that, I won't recall how folks reacted.

pS: THE DATE ON THAT PICTURE IS INCORRECT.

Gimme 22 minutes, I'll give you the world.

Before I go into tales of cabdriving, I'd like to invite my dearest New Yorkers on a bicycle adventure this Saturday (5th). It's my only day off. A friend and I plan to pedal through Flushing Meadows Park, stop by the Queens art museum, ride over the GW/Bayonne bridges for great views of NYC from NJ, and board the SI ferry back into town. I have an extra bike. Get in touch.

This past Friday I drove the PM shift for the first time. Just wanted to get a taste. No plans to make it a habit cause my body gets better rest at night. First fare a Dutch couple I mistook for Scandinavians. They taught me the correct pronunciation of Brooklyn (Breukelen) and swapped spots with a traditional Texan family en route to a sybaritic restaurant on the UES. The aging macho father sits up front, annoyed at his newly married daughter's back seat inquiries: "Dad, do you want to visit the cigar bar after dinner? But first we have to find out if blue jeans are allowed." They're in for a disappointment. Soon the roles are a switched again, with a sumptuous, semi-elder French mossback couple entering and uttering a single word: "Peninsula". Nightly rates at that place and the size of my tip are like night and day. I guess its exact address should have been in my rote memorization, along with 40,000 other locations. Or perhaps I should have gone to taxi school in London, not Queens Plaza. I'll remember places I can relate to. So, no, saying "it's by abercrombie & fitch" doesn't clarify anything. I swear it's so much more fun, less time consuming, more spiritually rewarding, and just as lucrative to take two working class women to the nearest subway station from their alphabet city housing project. After that it's on to some intoxicated dude duo that stumbles out of a busy club and politely request Penn Station. All trip long, one deplores the other for having made out with someone who had an ugly face. "Yeah, but the rest of her body was nice." Blah bla bl b. Time to go back to NJ, boys! Then at around midnight this pre-adolescent was operating his remote control taxicab right out in the middle of a heavily trafficked strip along St. Marks Place in the East Village. From the safety of the sidewalk this kid navigates the little toy car back to the curb , narrowly avoiding it getting crushed.

Final fare of the night was by far the best. At 3:39 am an old Polish lady headed home to Maspeth (Queens) stood at the corner of 6 Av and 28th. Her coworkers from the largest department store in the world had just treated her to a few drinks. She had her head poked through the partition the entire ride as she chatted unscrupulously with me, comparing her miserable 75 hour workweek with mine. Laughing ferociously at the mutual list we assembled of similarities between customers at Macy's and typical taxi passengers. Wish I had a grandmother like that.

On Thursday my friend Cassandra, an upbeat schoolteacher from Florida, rode along in the cab with me and had a great time sightseeing New York as we delivered people all over town. She had considered riding one of those double decker bus tours, but discovered this was much better for plenty of reasons. Around two dozen acquaintances have taken me up on my "on duty taxi copilot" offer since last winter. Don't wait too long. I might be retiring from the taxicab profession as early as early this autumn. Outside of hacking, my life has revolved around trying to deplete resources in the kitchen so they don't rot in this apartment that is devoid of all its residents for nearly three weeks, except for the one solitary cabbie who stayed in town. Also, I'm serious about memorizing the lyrics for that song "They want EFX" by DAS EFX, to use as performance art in social situations where the air needs slicing, like bread. Ever heard that song. So intricate.